Eutychus and His Kin: September 11, 1961

FALL PROGRAM

Programmed Progress begins at Clover-leaf Church this fall. The new pastor procured the package plan from Programmed Progress Press. Hugh Whipple, an insurance salesman, is one member of the board who is enthusiastic. He says it is the first system that brings programmed learning to the churches. I thought most Sunday schools had programmed learning, but Hugh tells me that it has just been invented. It has something to do with teaching machines. After the Program Training Center is operating in the former Sunday school auditorium, there will be an open house for church leaders.

Pastor Peterson surprised me with his interest. Programmed teaching, he insisted, demands sharp, clear questions. “It’s exactly the approach that produced the catechism!”

I found him less enthusiastic about the time-saving features of the program. “The trouble with time-saving devices is that the time we save may be our own!”

That sounded a bit epigrammatic: sure enough, he was at work on a sermon. The space-nap of Cosmonaut Titov was his launching pad. I could only think of the relaxed bravery of a man who could sleep while traveling at 18,000 miles an hour. But, to the pastor, Titov is a symbol for our age.

“What do we do with the time we save? We lose it. A man will break turnpike speed limits to go to a party where everyone kills four or five hours. We’re all asleep in orbit.”

The pastor, of course, was preaching on “Redeeming the Time.” I anticipated his stress on Christ who redeems the time of our lives; he was eloquent in treating the opportunities that God gives in the lives of His children.

Our lives are programmed better than we know. To redeem the time demands more than activity. For Paul, as for his Redeemer, the first program was prayer.

EUTYCHUS

ALCOHOLISM

Just a brief note to express my deep appreciation to Jasper A. Huffman for the courage, wisdom and basic integrity to tell the truth and expose alcoholism for what it actually is and does (July 17 issue).

I believe this is the most wonderfully straightforward statement on the fallacy that alcoholism is a disease or illness and … not a moral issue, that I have ever read.

ARTHUR KENDALL

First Methodist Church

Aransas Pass, Tex.

If alcohol is the cause of alcoholism, then guns, knives, clubs, etc. are the cause of murder, money is the cause of robbery, and womanhood is the cause of adultery. How much better to see alcoholism as being the tragic fruit of a misguided quest. Defeated persons always will seek escape from life’s problems. They find in drink a temporary respite. They do not realize that the cave in which they have taken refuge from the storm is in reality a lion’s mouth. However, condemnation—such as Dr. Huffman proposes—will never win these people away from their persuasive, though false, friend.

ARTHUR O. ACKENBOM,

Chaplain

The Methodist Home for the Aged

Topeka, Kan.

When we are able to understand why Mr. A. can control his intake of alcoholic beverage and drink socially all of his life and Mr. B. from the same cultural pattern with generally the same background goes out of control and develops alcoholism, then we will understand cause.…

H. LEONARD BOCHE

Exec. Counselor

Family Service

St. Paul, Minn.

It is the refusal of the church to accept the alcoholic as sick person, condemning him as a sinner, that turns him from the church. The alcoholic individual is in most instances a highly neurotic person. His use of alcohol is not the cause of his illness, it is merely the outward symbol of it.… Since the church memberships are filled with other neurotics as any observant pastor can testify, why must we in unrelenting hostility continue to damn the poor alcoholic while proclaiming our love for other addicted neurotics: the compulsive eater, the gossip monger, the sex addict seeking to establish his manhood, the psychopathic liar, and all the rest who make up our church rolls?

ALBAN RICHEY

Beaufort, N. C.

Being a 1960 graduate of the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, I must agree that the approach endeavors to be both scientific and objective, but I must disagree with the statement that the moral aspect appears to be ignored. My experience was one in which considerable time and energy was spent on this very aspect.…

The work of the National Council on Alcoholism and its affiliated community committees on alcoholism is a tremendously forward-moving factor on the scene today in which many of the churches are actively participating. To note the effectiveness of this sort of program we need look only to the public figures, and I think especially of those in the entertainment industry, who have recently spoken out in alarm concerning drinking problems.

GEORGE W. CONKLIN

Cashmere, Wash.

For 35 years I have worked with alcoholics. For 10 years I have been executive director of the only rehabilitation center for alcoholics in this state. I would agree that drinking is a moral matter. But the physical, mental, or spiritual change which takes place in approximately one out of eight drinkers to cause them to react compulsively to alcohol is the condition known as alcoholism. It should not be confused with drinking alcohol. About 20 percent of our patients … drank compulsively after their first drink of beer, wine, or whiskey. Others began to drink compulsively after weeks, months, or years of social or so-called normal drinking. One recent patient did not “go out of control” until after 30 years of social drinking.…

There is no cure. There are literally millions of case records which show that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.… We speak of “arresting” alcoholism, but actually we mean that the drinking of alcohol can be arrested. The illness, whatever its cause, which results in compulsive reaction to alcohol, continues to worsen whether the alcoholic drinks or not. Yet, so long as he is completely abstinent, he can live a normal, useful life.

The reaction of the alcoholic to alcohol is by no means limited to beverage alcohol. Many of our patients come for help after a drinking bout which was triggered by fruit cake with wine in it, by kosher dill pickles (2 per cent alcohol), by … patent medicines containing alcohol, by cough syrup, etc.

MAXIE C. COLLINS

Exec. Director

Fairview, Inc.

Ridgeway, S. C.

People will make use of the process of fermentation which the Creator built into his world. Why he did this I do not know but I do not question his wisdom. The Bible said God did this “to make glad the heart of man.” …

I am a total abstainer, not because I think my friends who are moderate drinkers are sinners but because I think the best policy with regard to alcoholic beverages is to leave them alone. I advise my young people that by abstaining from alcoholic beverages they can be sure they will never become alcoholics.

ARTHUR T. CLARK

Fair Haven, N. Y.

The cure lies … in the co-operation of the doctor, the informed minister, and dry alcoholics working as a team to bring the wet alcoholic to a true encounter with the love and acceptance and forgiveness of the living Christ so that he will be motivated to resign as general manager of the universe.

JACK WOODARD

All Saints’ Episcopal Church

Galena Park, Tex.

The answer to the problem of alcoholism lies in a cleansing of the nature of man, by the second work of grace. This removes the desire to drink and truly gives the individual something (Someone) better than booze.

O. JOE OLSON

Director

Information Service

Church of the Nazarene

Kansas City, Mo.

If we would appeal to magazines not to accept liquor advertising, if we would tell TV and radio that we will not tune in programs so sponsored, we could control the situation for advertising is their life.

JAY L. CLOW

The Community Church

New Carlisle, Ind.

For 43 years I served five Cincinnati Methodist churches as pastor; I retired in 1956.… Since retiring I have given my full time distributing temperance tracts and papers and have read hundreds of temperance articles and sermons.… Mr. Huffman’s article is the greatest that I have ever read in 50 years.…

I. G. ARMBRUST

Cincinnati, Ohio

A PRAYER AND A WISH

I congratulate you and the author on the outstanding article “Listen, People, Listen!” (July 17 issue). May God help all of us to be willing to proclaim the Gospel!

You are to be commended for the scholastic contents of your articles and editorials. You are making a great contribution to the ecumenical movement of Christendom. A universal understanding is always needed and you are in a position to give this understanding to all of us in the Christian movement.

ARTHUR C. FULBRIGHT

St. Paul’s Methodist Church

Thayer, Mo.

WITHHOLD YOUR DIMES!

I … hasten to correct a statement in the article … “Facing Stewardship Problems.” … Mr. Salstrand refers to “The Joint Department of Stewardship and Benevolence, 297 Fourth Avenue, New York 10,” and “a Stewardship Bibliography, price 10 cents.” The correct name of the Department is The Department of Stewardship and Benevolence; the correct address is 475 Riverside Drive, New York 27, N. Y.; and the Department no longer produces the Stewardship Bibliography.

M. D. BLACKBURN

Assoc. Exec. Director

Dept. of Stewardship and Benevolence

National Council of Churches

New York, N. Y.

PRESBYTERIANISM RAMPANT

Your list of 100 select books for a basic church library is commendable and useful, but I cannot understand why all churches should include the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (Aug. 28 issue).…

GABRIEL COURIER

New York, N. Y.

• The listing was compressed for space reasons and appeared inaccurately. Our intention was to list the historic Anglican Book of Common Prayer or, as an alternate, The Book of Common Worship of the local church’s denominational affiliation if any.

—ED.

OPEN DOOR IN QUEBEC

Speaking of teachers, there is a great need for good teachers here in Quebec, and the door is open for Christian teachers in French and English. All correspondence should be addressed to [me].

DONALD SWITZER

Box 264

Ayer’s Cliff, Que.

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