Eutychus and His Kin: January 2, 1961

SILENTIUM

Retinium has not been added to eyewash as I once proposed, but the added ingredient specialists have just come up with silentium. This remarkable additive is compounded with cough syrup to muzzle the sufferer’s bark. I am engaged in a consumer’s research project to determine whether silentium stops coughing altogether, or enables one to cough silently, after the fashion of a genteel sneeze.

Many other applications suggest themselves. What effect does silentium have on squealing automobile tires? Can silentium be prescribed for infant formulas? Will high-octane silentium make mufflers obsolete? Is there a market for silentium lipstick? What about candy bars with silentium for free distribution to neighborhood children? “Silentium in the Sunday School” is a promising topic for a master’s degree in religious education.

Since silence is golden, its dollar value has soared of late. If the developers of silentium appreciate this, they may revolutionize television with commercials of profound silence, presenting scenes of gentle showers to suggest the quiet of the nasal drip when silentium reigns.

Silence seems so desirable in the din of our lives that it may require an effort to remember that silence in itself is neither good nor bad. Carlyle once wrote, “Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.”

In the Bible, silence appears more often as a judgment than as a blessing. A wasted land has the silence of the grave; the enemies of God are silenced by his wrath. Afflicted saints cry that God should not be silent. The Bible puts too much emphasis on the word of God to make silence the supreme blessing. The climax of worship is not to be dumb with awe but to cry hallelujah. As God awakes to judgment all flesh is silent before him, but Zion sings to the Lord who comes to dwell in her midst (Zech. 2:10–13).

As a recent magazine article put it, clams are not my dish. There are too many silent saints these days. They have clammed up the pearl of great price in a hard shell of silence. The apostles, in a situation where stoical silence was a golden virtue found a more excellent way. They sang praise in the stocks at midnight.

I have suggested to Pastor Peterson that he trade in those SILENCE! signs on the church stairway for new ones: PRAY! SING!

Silentium may quiet coughs during the sermon, but many dour saints need a shot of Amenium.

EUTYCHUS

LETTERSFROMMISSOURI

“A Letter to Missouri” (Nov. 21 issue) does not appear to most of us loyal Missourians to merit the space you gave it.

Actually, “A Letter to Missouri” is what it almost purports to be, a rehash of views recently circulated to the clergy of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod by William M. Oesch, dozent of the theological school of Lutheran Free Churches at Oberursel, Germany. Dr. Oesch’s observations are more penetrating than those of your correspondent, frankly representing, as they do, the traditional views of a hitherto extremely static church, which itself is beginning to wonder whether it has not almost totally neglected its mission to the indifferent and unbelieving. This misgiving came to the Missouri Synod three or four decades ago and resulted in a mission outreach for Christ which is somewhat perplexing and puzzling to our orthodox Lutheran brethren across the seas.

Has your correspondent considered the fact that he may have completely misunderstood the theological professors he castigates? I know for a fact that no theological professor of our church has ever denied the resurrection of the body, but one did point out that Platonic ideas regarding immortality of the soul detract from the glory of this New Testament doctrine. I have no knowledge of one of our five thousand pastors who supposedly advocated “modal monarchism” (usually called “modalistic monarchianism” in our histories of dogma). Could he have been misunderstood, too?

The theory, termed smartly in this imposing “letter” the Lex Missouriensis, that numbers are our prime interest or objective, has practically no currency in the Missouri Synod. We publish statistics, of course, and try to keep them as accurately as we can. But we do not put much stock in numbers, and are somewhat embarrassed by the fact that for each of the last fifteen years the Missouri Synod has contributed the largest number of new members to the Lutheran total in America. We still continue to instruct our new members in the Christian faith as we understand it before admitting them to the privilege of membership, and to educate our children in the verities of the Scriptures with a system of Lutheran elementary schools which, I am not ashamed to say, is constantly growing in size and effectiveness.

We are aware of the fact that “error is not static.” We are also aware of the fact that truth is not static when it is God’s truth as revealed in the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit of God does His work when the Word of God is laid on the hearts of hearers, whether in our congregations or in the listenerships of our extensive radio and television programs. We do not believe that reading a “popular magazine” will necessarily “distract us from the Greek New Testament” or that television will necessarily “beguile us from Pieper’s Dogmatics.” We do believe in bringing the Word of God, as we find it in the Greek New Testament and as it is formulated in Pieper’s Dogmatics, to bear upon the fermenting secularism and frequently fluid Christendom of this age.

We preach Christ, the Savior atoning for sin, the Righteousness of God for a world lost in its own unrighteousness and work-righteousness—Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. We find Christ only in the authoritative Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, which we accept from cover to cover as verbally inspired. If there are serious discussions within our church body regarding the nature of the Word of God, they are a sign that the Word is taken seriously among us rather than indifferently, with the purpose not of discarding it or rendering it ineffective, but of keeping it as the two-edged sword of the Spirit it really is.

Your correspondent drops deep dark hints about “unionism” and “clamor for church union with those who do not hold our historic confessional position.” What is he referring to? The talks now going on between leaders of the Missouri Synod and the National Lutheran Council regarding the theological basis for limited cooperation (without altar and pulpit fellowship) or for refusal of such cooperation? If there is any “clamor” in the Missouri Synod for “church union,” it is muffled to the point where it is inaudible. “Church union,” pray, with whom? As far as I know, no doctrinal talks to that end are going on with anybody. For a Missourian, no matter how “liberal” he can be made out to be, doctrinal agreement is an indispensable sine qua non to “church union.”

Serious discussions are going on regarding the nature and extent of “doctrinal agreement” required for Lutheran cooperation and Lutheran union. Is this bad? Or is it the mark of a church that must continually ask itself, “What does God’s Word have to say to us?”

OSWALD C. J. HOFFMAN

Director

Dept, of Public Relations

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

New York, N. Y.

A real service, not only to the Missouri Synod but to all Christendom, for it brought into the open a subject which has long been overdue for a healthy airing.…

It occurs to me that many of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S one hundred and seventy-five thousand readers would like to have for themselves a copy of Dr. William Oesch’s profound study of the “Present State of American Lutheranism of the Synodical Conference.” It can be had by sending one dollar to the author’s American address: 1638 Main St., Highland, Ill.

B. W. TEIGEN

President

Bethany Lutheran College

Mankato, Minn.

You paint in broad indistinct strokes. These broad strokes leave you and your denomination all white while you paint all others in opposites in one sweep of the brush.

F. C. ST. JOHN

First Methodist Church

Middlefield, Ohio

Pastor Schulze correctly states that certain individuals (and they are few in number!) have been “accused” of some of these heresies. However, there is a difference between accusation and fact.

K. L. FRERKING

University Lutheran Chapel

Columbus, Ohio

I would think others, as for instance, J. Pelikan or M. Marty, could speak if not “for” Missouri at least “as” Missourians in good standing!

J. T. KEEKLEY

St. Timothy Lutheran Church

Hyde Park, N. Y.

As an answer to Pastor Schulze’s statement on truth and union, I wish to say that Lutherans of all synods did accept and always have accepted the Book of Concord.

J. W. VON SCHMELING

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Langenburg, Saskatchewan

It is my observation that the leaders of our church are fully aware of these developments and are doing something about them.

H. F. SCHWEIGERT

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and School

Minneapolis, Minn.

One would hope that those who see “Missouri” as David to Jonathan, or Aaron to Moses in the Lutheran family of America, rather than Samson to the Philistines, may be free to search for clearer ways to speak the Gospel to the ears of listening brethren rather than shout it in the sleep of strangers.

DONALD H. LARSEN

St. Andrew-Redeemer Lutheran Church

Detroit, Mich.

By what stretch of editorial right do you presume to print such opinion?

A. KARL BOEHMKE

Lutheran Church of The Shepherd King Birmingham, Mich.

My deepest appreciation for publishing Brother Schulze’s “A Letter to Missouri.” You have the courage our Lutheran Witness lost some twenty odd years ago.

LUTHER P. J. STEINER

Redeemer Lutheran Church

Perris, Calif.

It is my appraisal that if we continue the practice of following first of all Missourism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, the next generation clergymen will not find time to turn to Pieper’s Dogmatics nor to be branch office managers but will be fighting to find a place in which to gather a few faithful to proclaim to them the word of God—in short, the church will again be faced with a catacomb existence within a hostile world because the ministers of the 60’s were more interested in their own “ism” than being “of Christ.”

ROBERT L. BILL

Wray, Colo.

This so interested me, from the standpoint of a concerned Missouri Synod layman, that I couldn’t help but send you a note a appreciation for publishing it.…

THEODORE SMITHEY

Taylor, Mich.

MISSIONARY ACHIEVEMENT

A few miles from where the United Church of Canada General Council was held in Alberta (Oct. 24 issue) is one of the greatest examples of union to spread the Gospel … “The Prairie Bible Institute.”

The United Church may be great as far as wealth and numbers go, but they are very, very small as far as missionary achievement is concerned.… It is quite possible that a former Methodist Church of Bloor Street, Toronto, whose [Missionary] Pastor is the well-known Oswald J. Smith, is doing more so-called foreign missionary work than the whole United Church of Canada.

MALCOLM PELLY

Smith Sound, Newfoundland

CALL FOR PROTEST

I’ve just seen a film of the San Francisco student riots against the un-American Activities Committee.

… A wave of Red student riots is generating in this country. For opposition, it would be more than all the billies in the world if there were a wave of heaven-anointed Christian Open Air Protest meetings.

SAMUEL WOLFE

Santa Barbara, Calif.

JERUSALEM HEIGHTS

Dr. Hughes’ thought-provoking article (Oct. 24 issue).… says “… excepting in the Temple on Mount Zion.”

When I was in Jerusalem last summer I visited the former site of the Temple and it was on Mount Moriah, about three-fifths of a mile northeast of Mount Zion. Today it contains the Moslem structure, the Dome of the Rock.…

LESTER C. HARLOW

Alexandria, Va.

CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

You should put a halt to the emphasis on “high class” and degrees in your magazine and face up to reality.

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).

These men, who were before of old ordained, have crept in unawares into the churches, National Council of Churches, National Education Association, labor unions, Farmers Union, and other “slightly tinged” organizations and … are causing the trouble in America, in Europe, and in the rest of the world.

There would be no need to establish new Christian universities and colleges. The universities and colleges would once again become Christian, and the public schools would become purified again, if these men were purged from the N.E.A., churches, etc.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Chinook, Mont.

JACOB H. RITTERBUSH

Let’s take a long hard look at the dangers … of a Christian university … and then plan a strong careful campaign to meet them, rather than retreat.

HELEN R. COATES

San Diego, Calif.

BIBLE TRANSLATION

Dr. Steele’s standards [for translation are] “unduly rigid” (Sept. 26 issue).… A “word for word transfer” of the text would violate every principle of good translation in the secular field; surely such a principle goes far beyond what those of us who accept verbal inspiration would ever demand of a translation of God’s inspired Word.

LESLIE R. KEYLOCK

Dept. of Foreign Languages

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

MENNONITE DOCTRINE

It is unfortunate and regrettable that Mr. Bonebrake should have brought the Mennonite Church into his false assertion that since the Lord is already here we do not look for His coming again (Eutychus, Sept. 26 issue).

In the official statement of our church appears these words, “We believe in the personal and imminent coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as the blessed hope of the believers.”

ARCHIE KAUFFMAN

The Mennonite Church Lebanon, Ore.

FROM THE SENATE

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is a must in the understanding of our times.

FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS

Chaplain

United States Senate

Washington, D. C.

You may be interested in a comment I rather frequently hear these days, that it is now necessary to read CHRISTIANITY TODAY, even though grudgingly.

WILLIS E. ELLIOTT

Office of Evangelism

The United Church of Christ

Cleveland, Ohio

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