Eutychus and His Kin: November 10, 1961

Ongoing Ashram

Dear Eutychus,

India at last! Here you understand what a population explosion means. Many of the roads are splendid, but such traffic! If you dislike passing trucks, wait till you try passing an ox-cart whose driver knows no vehicle code. It gives one a new experience of involvement.

Our little caravan is making famous progress, however. The jeep has held up well while hauling our Cosmic trailer, and our battered Olds is mobile again after a long delay when the universal broke down. The three of us from Oikos house entertain guests almost constantly; we are conducting our own rambling ashram.

It has been a voyage of liberation. What horizons open when one gets beyond Bultmann! I am so indebted to Frank Sanatana who joined our party a week ago. He studied in California under a most stimulating professor of religion, and can gain immediate rapport with Hindus.

You know, I had actually wished to be a delegate to the New Delhi conference, especially to be a mouthpiece for the younger men in our church, but now I’m grateful that the ecclesiastical cabal chose the familiar pillars instead. My change of attitude began when I tried to explain to some Hindus the ecumenical symbol I had painted on the side of our trailer. They didn’t know Greek, and I had difficulty interpreting the term oikoumene. They didn’t recognize the boat in the symbol, either. When I told them the story of the ark, they first thought I meant it literally. Then they wanted to know what the flood meant as a symbol. It seemed to them that the saving of eight souls was not very ecumenical.

Sanatana finally came to my rescue. He reminded them of the Hindu myth of Manu who survived the flood in a boat tied to a divine fish. Such myths all express the human dream of salvation, he said. In the mythical depths all religions are one. Any god becomes an idol if he requires a loyalty oath. All creeds are relative understandings of myth; true religion understands that no religion is true.

The Hindus were most enthusiastic. They had never met a Christian who had gone so far beyond the historical Jesus. We painted over the symbol on our trailer, except for the wavy lines. They provide a perfect symbol for that open, fluid, cosmythology which must engulf the partial perspective of every parochial ecumenism. At last I feel open to outer space.

ALBERT IVY

P.S. The universal went out again. Three “mechanics” have tampered with it, but no one in this village knows anything about automotive design.

A. Iv.

Amplification Assured

It would be hoped that the splendid article “Tax Churches on Business Profits?” (Oct. 13 issue) will be made available to every member of the United States Congress, and that ministers receiving your magazine might share their copies of this article with members of the various state legislators.

FREDERICK F. JENKINS

The Presbyterian Church

Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.

• The essay is condensed and reprinted with credit to CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the November issue of Reader’s Digest.—ED.

Thank you for publishing the article …; the issue seems seldom to be discussed. For churchmen to seek ways of helping their church institutions circumvent tax laws in ways which would be illegal if not done by such institutions seems morally doubtful at best.…

Let’s get about the Master’s business, and not make it our business to seek first the treasure of special discounts and tax rebates.

JAY V. GROVES

Chairman, Dept. of Economics

West Virginia Wesleyan College

Buchannon, W. Va.

Divisions On Devotions

In his article on the Christian devotional life (Sept. 25 issue), taking “neo-orthodoxy” to task for failing to produce “a positive attitude in the devotional realm,” John W. Montgomery seriously mistakes a passage in my Basic Christian Ethics.

That was a book on ethics, after all; and in it, of course, I stressed the way in which Christians are theodidacti “taught of God” in moral matters. The passage itself, incidentally does not fail to emphasize faith, humility, obedience, and all other possible or actual relations we have to God, and not only our relations to man or morality. And, of course, I hold that we are theodidacti “taught of God”—to pray.… He who runs while he reads should have known that my statement that “the Christian church is not a community of prayer but a community of memory” simply asserts that the church is not a community of prayer rooted in nothing but the natural religious aspirations of the human soul.

Montgomery also cites Karl Barth on The Humanity of God, and makes no mention of his writings on prayer, or of what he says at great length on the love and praise of God in Church Dogmatics. The devotional life is a common and central concern of all Christians, of whatever theological persuasion.

R. PAUL RAMSBY

Dept. of Christian Ethics

Princeton University

Princeton, N. J.

Any uncommitted reader of Ramsey’s Basic Christian Ethics, which is deeply in debt to the Lundensian school of Motif-forschung, will see that it points up the central devotional weakness of such agape-motif thinking, namely, that when Christian love is defined as Nygren defines it, it can be exercised properly only by God (toward man), and by man (toward other men, not toward God, who obviously lacks nothing and is the source of all good). Thus the biblical emphasis on loving God goes by the board, and we become uncomfortable if the God-relation is thought of in any terms other than faith or trust, and the church becomes a group of theodidacti rather than “lovers of God.” Heaven knows, I see the danger of concentrating on man’s love toward God (this can swiftly turn into anthropocentric religion and the Gospel thereby be terribly obscured), but we don’t solve the problem à la Ramsey by agapizing God and running away from the clear scriptural injunction to establish a love and prayer-love relation with him.

As for my use of Barth’s The Humanityof God, and no mention of his other works: I thought that this was being the most fair to Barth, since The Humanity of God is his recently-published corrective to the hyper-transcendence emphasis in his earlier writings. No one denies that Barth is personally a deeply devotional man; the issue is whether the essential thrust of his theology really contributes to or detracts from the biblical conception of devotion.

I think it detracts, and the paucity of really great neo-orthodox devotional works, hymns, etc., is pretty good reason to question the devotional value of neo-orthodoxy. Basically, the neo-orthodox thinks of himself as a theodidactus and grinds out vast and prolix works of systematic theology and ethics—and devotional concerns are really not very germane to his basic interests.

JOHN W. MONTGOMERY

Waterloo University College

Waterloo, Ontario

The kind of devotional life urged by Dr. John Montgomery … seems to me to be unrealistic and self-centered. Too much devotional life has centered on one’s personal relation to God without a similar emphasis on practicing one’s faith in love towards the world.…

The real devoted “saints” are not those who bury themselves in their morbidness, but who go out into the world as He who said, “I have come not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

JOHN E. ELIASON

Greensboro, N. C.

The list of 100 select devotional books seems to me to be particularly outstanding.

DONALD T. KAUFFMAN

Managing Ed.

Fleming H. Revell Co.

Westwood, N. J.

In making your selections, were the writings of Dr. F. J. Huegel considered? His Wondrous Cross and Prayer’s Deeper Secrets are among my favorites.

CATHERINE E. BOUTERSE

Richmond, Va.

The Newsstand Criterion

David Kucharsky’s article, “Relevancy in Religious Journalism,” and its appended bibliography (Sept. 25 issue), I read with interest and appreciation. I am moved to comment on the third paragraph which said in part “that not a single religious periodical has enough popular appeal to be available on the average U.S. newsstand.”

Two disparate examples of religious journalism do appear on newsstands in southern New England, The Catholic Digest as a magazine and The Christian Science Monitor as a newspaper. Regionalism may contribute to this. Roman Catholicism is numerically strong in urban southern New England from Boston to the New York state line. The Mother Church of Christian Science is in Boston, where the Monitor is published. But is this the only explanation?

The Catholic Digest, similar in format to The Reader’s Digest, is sometimes quoted in the secular press. May it not be conceded that the material quoted has some merit in editorial opinion? And may it not be conceded that The Christian Science Monitor has won a distinguished reputation by its editorial policy, ethical standards, and journalistic competence?…

I am really concurring with Kucharsky. When religious journalism produces something which the secular world is willing to call good, it commands attention.

STANDISH MCINTOSH

Trinity Episcopal Church

Lime Rock, Conn.

I am most pleased to see this attention of an important magazine like CHRISTIANITY TODAY to the field of religious journalism and appreciate what has been done. I called the attention of my religious writing class to the material.…

In general I agree with the points you made, especially about the inferior character of the Protestant press, and I hope you will stick to your views on this.… We have a religious journalism program here … and in our small way are making a little impact.

ROLAND E. WOLSELEY

Chairman, Magazine Dept.

School of Journalism

Syracuse University

Syracuse, N. Y.

Deluge And Debate

If you have read our hook, The Genesis Flood (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961), you know that we have attempted a serious, carefully-documented investigation of the Deluge from the standpoint of the biblical record and its scientific implications. You must also realize that the review of this book by Donald C. Boardman of Wheaton College (Sept. 11 issue) presents a highly biased and misleading picture of the book’s content and significance.

While endorsing the right of a reviewer to write critically about a book he is reviewing, we maintain that it also should be his responsibility to convey a true picture of its character. This is especially true on an issue so important and so controversial as that of the relationship of the current scientific theories of uniformitarianism and evolution to the biblical doctrine of origins.

Except for the first paragraph, Boardman’s lengthy review could just as well have been written by one who had never heard of Genesis. He ignores the demonstration of the first four chapters that the Bible teaches a geographically universal and geologically significant Flood. One can only conclude that for him the biblical evidence is irrelevant. Furthermore, he ignores the documented evidence of the inadequacies and contradictions of evolutionary uniformitarianism, as presented in the last three chapters. And finally, he ignores the significance of the Edenic Curse for paleontology, as discussed in Appendix I.

He accuses us of quoting from men who disagree with our viewpoint, while using their quotations to support it. However, we made it quite clear that this was the actual situation; in fact, it is a universally-accepted principle of effective argumentation that the strongest support for a position, if valid, can be obtained from the perhaps unintended admissions of its opponents. We made a careful attempt not to quote out of context, and have given full documentation in every case for anyone to check if he wishes.…

The bulk of Boardman s criticism is directed at two very minor points, treated very briefly in the last chapter. Even if his objections to these points were valid (which we do not admit), they would not invalidate the weight of the evidence accumulated otherwise. This technique of ignoring the main line of argument, while searching for minor flaws, has become standard with evolutionary and uniformist writers. This fact led us to plead at several points in the book (e.g., p. xxi, note 3) against just this possible reaction on the part of the reader.

Finally, Boardman quotes seriously out of context the writer of our foreword. Therefore, we append the following excerpt from the foreword, taken from the portion immediately following that quoted by Boardman: “Nevertheless the authors have made a strong case and this volume offers a serious challenge to the uniformitarian position. They have in no way distorted this position, but have opposed it in a courteous, fair and scholarly manner. I would suggest that the skeptical reader, in like fashion, before he dismisses the biblical-literal view point of this book as unworthy of notice, should at least give it a careful reading and evaluation. He will find that the essential differences between biblical catastrophism and evolutionary uniformitarianism are not over the factual data of geology but over the interpretations of those data. The interpretation preferred will depend largely upon the background and presuppositions of the individual student.”

JOHN C. WHITCOMB, JR.

Professor of Old Testament

Grace Theological Seminary

Winona Lake, Ind.

HENRY M. MORRIS

Professor of Civil Engineering

Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Blacksburg, Va.

Holding Firm At Verdun

My appreciation for the article “The Holy Bible: ‘Verdun’ of Triumphant Christianity” (Aug. 28 issue).… As disturbing as it is to have men like Oxnam and Pike denying the very fundamentals of the Faith, … one could earnestly wish that their beliefs were confined to their two denominations.

Dr. Smith is indubitably correct in that a “return to, a full confidence in, and a loving obedience to the Holy Scriptures” is our only hope. This is not bibliolatry; … it is the logical confidence that all belief must be rooted in God’s infallible Word.… The Saving Jesus is known to us first only through the Bible. May God help us hold true to that which has pointed us to him.

GENE L. JEFFRIES

Harmony Heights Baptist Church

Joplin, Mo.

“Modern science … is today, for the most part, totally indifferent to the Christian faith.” This statement is certainly based on a lack of contact with many great scientists.… It has been my good fortune to have done graduate work in four great universities of this country and one foreign country, and I surely would say that I have discovered some great Christian souls among my teachers and other great scientists …

ROBERT E. MOHLER

McPherson, Kan.

Commentary On Pulpit

Dr. Carl Henry’s brief credo (Sept. 11 issue) leaves me with an uneasy feeling.… Surely many modem theatre productions and paperback editions speak more to the needs of men and women today than do many pulpits across the land. A life “attuned to glory” must be a life willingly submerged in the culture of our day seeking points of contact between Christian faith and daily living.

GEORGE BONNELL

Union Church of Bay Ridge

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Beautify And/Or Beatify

In reference to the article on the … beautification of women (Sept. 11 issue) … it seems nonconformity to the present day prevalence of provocative mode of dress and camouflage of bodily appearance makes a woman an oddity in the eyes of the world.…

Proverbs 31:30 tells us, “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

MRS. L. RAYMOND JONES

Swayzee, Ind.

Return To Geneva

Your article “Has Evangelism Become ‘Offbeat’?” (Sept. 11 issue) is typical of a lot of shallow thinking among evangelical Presbyterians (I’m one!) on this subject.… If a Reformed writer wants to grapple with this problem, he must first grapple with the doctrine of infant baptism, then speak historically of evangelists in the Reformed tradition.

Why not begin with William Farel, the apostle of Geneva? J. T. McNeill’s description of him as the “red-bearded hot gospeller” should whet our appetites.

R. N. CASWELL

Newtonabbey, Northern Ireland

I do not believe that Mr. Manning’s questionnaire presents the whole picture of Presbyterian evangelism.… In regard to the city scene, the … church is seriously rethinking its evangelism.…

The book: God’s Colony in Man’s World, written by a Presbyterian minister, George Webber, … is far from being “offbeat”!

RALPH G. PFIESTER

McCormick Theological Seminary

Chicago, Ill.

Challenging Limitations

I regret that your editorial on Professor Koch’s advocacy of premarital sexual intercourse, “No Academic License to Pervert Moral Standards” (July 31 issue), muddies the waters of discussion.… Your simplicity overlooks two basic and important considerations. In the first place, Koch’s own plea contains self-imposed limitations …; he suggests sexual intercourse only if it is engaged in by mature persons, only if it has no social consequence, and only if it violates neither of the parties’ moral code. This reduces the possible participants to a handful, if that many! Obviously Koch’s recommendation can and will be exploited irresponsibly and immature sexual intercourse accompanied by social consequences and guilt feelings will continue to be practiced. But on the basis of his initial letter to The Daily Illini, Koch should not be called upon to bear the blame for the sexual behavior of students who conveniently choose to overlook the built-in and very significant qualifications of his position. For speeches and articles since his dismissal, however, Koch must perhaps bear more blame, inasmuch as he himself seems to have often overlooked those initial reservations. But the university cannot build its case on the post-dismissal Koch.

The second consideration which your simplicity ignores has to do with the current public and responsible discussion about such topics as legalizing euthanasia, private homosexuality, etc.…

DURRETT WAGNER

Kendall College

Evanston, Ill.

Escape To Hell?

Greetings from an unabashedly “natural man” at whom Dr. Van Til sneers theologically in his article on original sin (Sept. 11 issue).… It is an attack on those who … do not agree with him.

If, as Dr. Van Til implies, God has loaded the dice of our existence against us before we are born, … then this position posits a god whom I frankly cannot worship or love.

Under such circumstances (to be blunt) one can only hope that there is a hell, after all, in which one may find salvation from such a god.

JESSE J. ROBERSON

Brooks Memorial Methodist Church

Phoenix, Ariz.

A Relative At Court

May I express a bit of disappointment over the recent exposition of the book of Esther (Aug. 28 issue)? Professor Verhoef did not emphasize the book’s illustrative value. I could not quite call it typical but simply illustrative—and illustrative value is not to be overlooked.

Esther is God’s kindergarten course on imputation which gives the mental furniture we need to comprehend the principles of representation. It shows the value of having a relative at court who is qualified to be a mediator.

WINN T. BARR

First Baptist Church

London, Ky.

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