Eutychus and His Kin: September 25, 1961

DROP THAT NAME

Larry Silverwood addressed our business luncheon group on the art of dropping names. Names make more than news, he claimed. They make friends and money too. But a name won’t produce for you unless you drop it.

In the course of his talk, he worked in the name of every man in the room and quoted from Benjamin Franklin, Robert G. Lee, Julius Caesar, Jack Paar, Joe Stalin, Confucious, Paul Tillich, Gene Tunney, Will Rogers, President Kennedy, Moses, Casey Stengel, Mahatma Gandhi, William Gladstone, and Grandma Moses.

To gain such facility, you must begin by remembering names. Since use strengthens memory, an easy rule is to use at least one name in every sentence. Don’t say, “Is your report ready? It’s due in the main office.”

Say, “Jack, Joe wants your report, so I said to Mary, Jim’s the man to see Jack! Right, Jack?”

This method leads to more name-calling every day. In itself it won’t build up your image, though. For that you need big names. They’re yours for the picking. All you need is a pocketbook of quotations. Speeches should use a quotation from a famous person in every other sentence. People will be convinced even if they don’t know what you are talking about. Fill-in speeches are now available; they are compiled from quotations with a few blanks added where you can write in your commercial.

It’s better to use live names if you have met any famous people. TV can help here: “When I saw Senator B. B. Fuddle the other day, he said.…”

I asked Larry about ecclesiastical name-dropping. “Eutychus,” he said, “only the other day Bishop Smith was telling me that names make sermons. John Jones isn’t going to listen to what God says, but if you can quote Einstein, you’ve got him. The Bishop has been preaching from the genealogies in Numbers to crowd in more names.

“You want to be careful of brand-names,” he added. “If you quote something from John Calvin, add a balancing quote from John Wesley or Arminius. But, above all, keep working in the names of parishioners—in favorable contexts, of course.”

I explained that I wasn’t asking for myself; I can’t wait to pass this along to Pastor Peterson. As Khrushchev says, this will bury him!

EUTYCHUS

THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN

May I commend your British editors for a job well done, reporting “the spiritual condition of British churches” (July 31 issue).

We in the United States should learn from our brethren in Britain and “set our course anew, by way of the Cross of Christ to the home of the soul of all mankind.”

C. LYNN WHITE

Harlan Christian

Harlan, Ky.

The impression I have got so far is that the same dangers menace our religion there as in Britain, although the operation of the time-lag makes it less evident.

I only want to make one point. With much of what Canon Colquhoun has written I am bound to agree. But what he seems to fail to say is that one major reason for the ineffectiveness of the Church is an intellectual one. In a community in which so much emphasis is laid upon training in the various branches of science, much of what the clergy say and do must seem irrelevant and archaic. What your contributors seem to miss out is that the Christian movement is not only to save the bad people, but the good as well.…

Nobody knows better than I do how dangerous it may be to be over-intellectual; but ideas have a way of working down in society from the top, and I have always maintained with old Professor Burkitt that if the majority of the Fellows of Trinity College reject Christianity, it is going to have awkward repercussions not only among undergraduates but in the parishes of Cambridge city, where the college savants live.

A. C. BOUQUET

Trinity College

Cambridge, England

It seems to me that almost the same thing could be said about much of the religious climate in America.… The talents of our leaders ought to be going into spiritual program instead of promotion. And if the church were spiritually healthy we wouldn’t have to dope it up with all the various medicines of promotion.

C. W. FRANKE

Beth Eden E. U. B. Church

Rockford, Ill.

I am a Britisher presently resident and ministering in the United States.… I question [Mr. Colquhoun’s] conclusion that material prosperity is one of the main causes of a drift away from religion in Britain. Here in America we are much more materially prosperous than our English cousins, and yet despite apparent shallowness, there is still a great religious surge through the nation.

DAVID HOOD

Trinity Baptist

Wheat Ridge, Col.

Kindly send me some extra copies of this last issue …, the magnificent survey of the condition of the Christian Church in Great Britain. No religious journal in England would even dare attempt such a comprehensive presentation.

WILBUR M. SMITH

Prof. of English Bible

Fuller Seminary.

Pasadena, Calif.

THE CHRISTIAN IN ISRAEL

Permit me to comment briefly on “The Christian Witness in Israel” and your report “Jewish Mobs Stone New Church in Jerusalem” (July 31 issue). As you clearly point out, the law of Israel provides for complete freedom of worship and conscience, and police authorities in Israel are required by law to protect these rights on the part of members of every community. Israel’s population is comprised of Jews, Christians and Moslems, and there have been no instances of any difficulty or public feeling against the exercise of rights of conscience and worship.

The recent incident did not arise out of the practice of freedom of worship, but as the result of a very particular type of missionary activity. The Church of Christ has been set up in a strictly Jewish Orthodox quarter of Jerusalem. The question of proselytization must always be one of delicacy and tact, at least insofar as small children are concerned, whose parents, like American parents, might consider themselves entitled to be consulted on any efforts to instill in their children religious doctrine or beliefs. The Church of Christ minister concerned openly accepted upon himself, at the joint meeting on July 13 to which you referred, to cease trying to attract children to his church. In this context, the comment of the local police captain may be more clearly understood. I do not know whether the comment as reported is correct, nor would I venture to support or reject it. But a complete understanding was reached at that meeting and Israel’s police are continuing to take any steps necessary to extend such protection as the church in question might require. It is to be hoped that this will be facilitated by the exercise of suitable tact on the part of the missionaries concerned and the creation of a better relationship with the surrounding Orthodox Jewish population.…

E. Z’EV SUFOTT

First Secretary

Embassy of Israel

Washington, D. C.

The attack on the little church … reminded me vividly of the ordeal which we of The American European Bethel Mission went through some • years ago when an Orthodox Rabbi, a so-called “Rebbe,” with a group of his followers, called “Chasidim,” savagely attacked our orphanage in Haifa, breaking in through some of the doors of our building in an attempt to take out the children from the home. The police were notified by a neighbor, the French Consulate, who came and dispersed the attackers, and the leader, the “Rebbe,” was sentenced to jail by the magistrate in Haifa. Thereafter we were not further molested. The local press advised the public not to countenance or use such disgraceful methods.

Recently, however, the so-called “Anti-Missionary League” threatened reprisals against those who have children in our orphanage in Haifa, but the League was advised by the Minister of Education to use persuasion, not violence, in attempting to gain their objectives. That wise step was very greatly appreciated by us. However, the method of persuasion is being carried out, much to our regret, not without threatening, which already has affected some underprivileged children who have been taken out of our children’s home where they had the best of care—care which their guardians could not find elsewhere.

We did not dream that in the state of Israel we would have to meet with such problems as we encountered in Europe, mainly in Russia, 63 years ago, when those of us who were Hebrew Christians were denied the privilege of calling ourselves “Christians.” Now we meet with difficulties for calling ourselves “Hebrews” because of our faith in the promised Jewish Saviour, according to the holy Scriptures.

LEON ROSENBERG

Founder and General Director

The American-European Bethel Mission

Los Angeles, Calif.

PENTECOSTALISM

Let me be the first to congratulate you on the fine article (May We Pentecostals Speak?) by the Rev. Jack J. Chinn (July 17 issue).

JAMES C. KINCAID

Pentecostal Church of God Tabernacle

Ann Arbor, Mich.

After being in college for four years under “second blessing” schools, teaching one year in a Pentecostal school and six years of meditation, I would like to answer.… To be scriptural, Acts 2:4 says the Holy Spirit came “like a rush of a mighty wind” and “there appeared to them tongues as of fire.” I don’t see these in evidence today.…

Can you imagine, asking for a gift???

Acts 1:8 is very good, but Acts 5:32 is, also in the Bible. I see too much loose emotionalism and body contact, and not enough obeying for me to want to be a Pentecostal.

I myself have not found good contextual expository Bible preaching in the Pentecostal movement.

I reject their immature approach to solving man’s problems. You can’t overcome the sinfulness of sin at a simple crisis at an altar. The altar must be the man’s life.…

I don’t see how little dictators over their own personal flock can glorify Christ who is our leader. The Pentecostals fit into the first four chapters of I Corinthians perfectly. “I am of Roberts, Allen, Osborn, etc.” …

The Gospel of John tells us that the Holy Spirit will glorify Christ. I hear people say, “I got the Holy Spirit.” I don’t know what they have but the Bible is clear that they don’t have God!

Dare we make the moving of the Holy Spirit irrational fits in a moment of musical built-up emotionalism? Put quiet meditating on the Bible and sweet personal devotions into the personal life, then the mass meetings will be under the control of the Holy Spirit and God will be honored. Very few Pentecostals are Christians away from the mass meeting.… My blessing goes to the ones that are solid Christians, but the majority … need the advice of 1 Corinthians 13:11—“Grow up.”

EDWIN VRELL

Columbia, S. C.

Scriptural warrant for “speaking with tongues” as the “initial” evidence … of the baptism of the Holy Spirit … is sadly lacking. Pentecostals are embarassingly confined to three Scriptures in the Book of Acts as the burden of their proof.… A God who is not willing that any should perish has not left the secret of winning the lost to the sectarian interpretation of three brief passages.… Where in Scripture are spiritual gifts equated with either spiritual progress or spiritual power?

When modern Pentecostals argue for “speaking with tongues” as the initial evidence they are refusing to recognize the Holy Spirit’s movement in any other body but their own. The doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is plainly stated in 1 Corinthians 12:13. It is the same baptism as that of Matthew 3:11 and Acts 1:5. It is the blessed experience of all truly born-again believers. All of us have been made to drink into one Spirit as fulfillment of our Lord’s promise in John 7:37–39.

WILLIAM A. SPRINGSTEAD

Empire Baptist Church

Empire, Ore.

Nowhere in Scripture is the Christian told to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit! Also, speaking with tongues is not the great sign of the Spirit’s indwelling. Paul informs the carnal and sectarian Corinthian Christians that they were baptized with the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) in spite of their low spiritual condition. It is clear then that the baptism work of the Spirit is … not one of service, testimony or tongues, but to be made members of that wondrous unity, the body of Christ. Paul writes to the mature Ephesian believers that they should be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) which will evidence itself with the teaching of Scripture that immediately follows (Eph. 5:19, 20). Nowhere in Ephesians 5 and 6 is the baptism of the Spirit brought in to show that this is what is needed for the Spirit-filled life. They were already said to be “sealed” when they believed (Eph. 1:13) and were members of one body (2:22).

Finally, the fruit of the Spirit-filled life is given in several places so we might know who is and who is not filled with the Holy Spirit—Galatians 5:22–26; Ephesians 5:9, etc. Again, nowhere in these Scriptures are dreams, visions, ability to heal, tongues, or any other supernatural experiences mentioned as the evidence of the filling and fruit of the Holy Spirit.

RICHARD A. RAVEN

Washington, D. C.

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