Eutychus and His Kin: March 13, 1962

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In the last issue I wrote about writing, and to the distress of a friendly schoolmarm I expressed sentiments disloyal to Arm Movement. I hereby recant, on the ground that any movement that increases legibility strengthens democracy. To prove my sincerity I have founded a new right wing arm movement for writers of the Right. This new movement is to be known as the Society for Conservative Research in the Art of Writing Legibly (SCRAWL).

In order to investigate subversive tendencies in penmanship one of our first objectives is to analyze the writing of a wide selection of representative Americans. I have classified the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock’s well-known hand is a clear expression of the power of positive writing. So many others signed in a clear and elegant script that one is forced to conclude that good writing and patriotism are correlated. It is also rather obvious that none of the signers used a ball-point pen.

Of course I am particularly interested in theological calligraphy. It should prove much simpler to evaluate leading theoologians through their writing than through their writings. Renowned theologians may participate in this survey by writing a page or two to SCRAWL, in care of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. (This is the first time this offer has been made. To my knowledge, no article heretofore printed was originally submitted as a handwriting sample.)

From a full collection of scholarly autographa we propose to investigate the slant a man’s views give to his writing. Not long ago a leading evangelical editor suggested that certain temperaments are congenial to Calvinism and others to Arminianism. Does Presbyterian penmanship establish this thesis beyond reasonable doubt?

Dialectical script is particularly requested for analysis. Are horizontal and vertical strokes accentuated? A telling point.

Act now to support SCRAWL before handwriting becomes obsolete. Write, don’t print, “For depth analysis I prefer a blotter to a couch because.…” Please write plainly in black ink on white paper without concealing your slant. This will serve to simplify labeling you in our files.

Your pen pal,

EUTYCHUS

Music And The Evangelical

“Music in Christian Education” (Feb. 16 issue) certainly deserves warm praise as well as wide distribution. Our conservative evangelical contemporaries in the field of sacred music would do well to note that many of us wish to worship, not be entertained through our church music!

When one realizes that most orthodox Christian teenagers are exposed to and/or participate in superior sacred music in the public school systems in vivid contrast with our evangelical churches, something is radically wrong. Again, “The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.”

One cannot help but be disillusioned and disgusted when the Gospel is presented in night club “spotlight-and-gestures” style. Others who manage to achieve some sort of religious orgasm while singing from the keyboard need to be reminded that they are in church, not Greenwich Village.…

LEWIS P. BIRD

Grace Bible Church

Elmhurst, Ill.

Art And The Evangelical

Principally the creative process in art is a religious experience, whether it takes form as music, painting, sculpture, or poetry, in which the artist, especially when he is conscious of this—which only a truly Christian artist can be—is a “prophet” through which the Creator shows or speaks that which cannot be defined or described by mere words, but through the media described above.… We note the necessity of a definitive Christ-honoring witness in these fields, and … the practical impossibility for the serious Christian artist to engage in that to which he feels called, because of unacceptance by the evangelical “public” and the lack of an educational institution which deals adequately with the subject.

To insure a steady income many artists so burdened go into some sort of related work, such as commercial art, and so forth. However, and I know from experience, the compromise involved is too great a sacrifice.

Others find themselves totally unrelated work, but here are other aspects which make it practically impossible to devote time seriously to worthwhile creative work.… We do not know a solution to the problem apart from the kind of university you wrote about in CHRISTIANITY TODAY some time ago, which could support such a program.

The problem seems to be more acute in the visual arts than in music and even literature.

I am mainly speaking in terms of pure artistic accomplishment, yet even in the more applied forms, such as the printed page, illustration and such, but especially the monumental techniques (mural painting, mosaic, graffito, relief, sculpture, in cooperation with architecture) how little serious important work is currently being done, and what a waste of talents to the “world” which could be used more effectively for the glory of our Saviour.

HANK ZANDBERGER

Sansalito, Calif.

In Quest Of An Angel

Several times in recent issues I have read a plea for more evangelical writing, to compete with the secular and liberal literature of the day.…

Why has no one pointed out the reason that there is a shortage of such writing …? Why is most of our fiction coming from “ ‘Praise the Lord!’ exclaimed Mary fondly, as Ned went forward during the singing of the seventh invitation” type of writers?…

Writing, to be of quality, demands a fierce exclusion of other activities. The professional writer of the world is willing to pay this price.… He knows the public will exonorate his aberrations. He will abandon a wife, or several wives; will live on gin and crackers and slave at it. The result, a Lawrence Durrell or an Ernest Hemingway. But the evangelical writer, however willing he may be to labor, must also maintain a decent home life, be a father and a husband and a pillar of the community. He must earn a living to do all this, consuming time.

The only way I know out of the dilemma is for the evangelical writer to have money enough to support his family while he takes a leave of absence to do the writing. Alas, evangelicalism is almost synonymous with poverty in my experience.… The luxurious pastorates are in the hands of the liberals.…

There are sponsors at hand to help the writer of the world make his beginning. James Jones camped in the notorious boarding house for writers of his type, was supported and fed until he broke out into print. Houghton-Mifflin gives scholarships (in conjunction with Esquire magazine) to the types of writer they wish to develop. The evangelical writer has no help. Hence he works away his life, with the three or four significant novels or studies he might make waiting until his retirement, when it may be too late. Meanwhile the evangelical writers are represented by the descendants of Grace Livingston Hill (at best).

Why do not some of the fine evangelical businessmen sponsor some kind of fund which might alleviate this problem?

CARROLL R. STEGALL, JR.

Westminister Presbyterian Church

Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

On Matters Anglican

J. D. Douglas’ discussion of Anglicanism and the ecumenical movements in “Current Religious Thought” (Feb. 2 issue) reveals once more the basic misunderstanding, apparently almost universal among Protestant writers, of the position of the Anglican communion.…

Insofar as any change in the doctrine of the ministry and sacraments is concerned, the significance of the open letter to the archbishops by 32 Church of England clergy is exactly zero.…

The Episcopal Evangelical Fellowship has been saying the same thing in print for years, and with just about as much effect.

Regardless of the size of the group which is speaking, … its opinions cannot effect the doctrine of the Church. This was fixed by the interpretations of Holy Scripture in the tradition and General Councils of the Church during its first seven centuries, and only another General Council could change it.…

ROBERT V. LANCASTER

Trinity Church

Lancaster, N. Y.

I regret that the excellent articles demonstrating concern for the Gospel Faith in CHRISTIANITY TODAY are not always balanced by contributor’s regard for Christian Order.…

Mr. Douglas appears to draw comfort from his discovery that Scottish Episcopalians amount to only one per cent of Scotland’s population. I wonder if he would care to prove anything from the fact that evangelicals in Spain and Portugal comprise an even smaller ratio. The Anglican laity do not disguise their distress that our interdenominational-minded elements seem perfectly delighted to destroy Anglican unity to achieve their undefined ends.

EDMUND W. OLIFIERS, JR.

St. Boniface’s Church

Lindenhurst, N. Y.

The comment by Dr. Hughes (Jan. 19 issue) on my recent article “Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics” was timely and brought out the differences which exist despite our agreement on other matters. In two particulars, however, his statement about the Anglo-Catholic position is in need of refinement lest there be confusion with Roman theology. In saying … “The sacrament of Holy Communion is a sacrifice —the sacrifice of the Cross offered or reenacted through the minister in his priestly office” he has stated the Roman doctrine of the reimmolation of Christ in every mass. This is not the Anglo-Catholic position. Anglo-Catholics hold the Eucharist to be a continual pleading of the one sufficient sacrifice on Calvary, and not a reenactment thereof. Also, in saying … “To partake of it [the consecrated wafer] is to feed upon Christ in a literal as well as in a spiritual sense” the impression is given that Anglo-Catholics hold the Roman dogma of Transubstantiation. Such is not the case. The presence is held to be purely spiritual rather than carnal, but real none the less. Spiritually feeding on Christ is literally feeding on him, but is not the same by any means as the eating of dead flesh as the Romans claim to do. Dr. Hughes says that Anglicans would be powerful indeed if they “were united in loyalty to the worship and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer.” It is the contention of Anglo-Catholics that their theological position is both implicit and explicit in the whole of all Anglican Prayer Books. The purpose of this letter is to let our Evangelical brethren know what Anglo-Catholics believe, to the end that there be better understanding among us and less suspicion of Romish tendencies.

FRANCIS W. READ

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church

Inverness, Calif.

Dr. Hughes’ article left a profound impression upon me. How grand it is to read where someone has written just what one wants said and in such competent fashion!

JEAN STONE

Blessed Trinity Society

Van Nuys, Calif.

The Missionary Call

I … would like to comment on the excellent report (News, Jan. 19 issue) of the “Urbana” Convention.

The reporter states, “At least one inexcusable letdown did occur, however, when a student asked a panel of eight recognized missionary leaders to define a ‘missionary call.’ For ten minutes … the panel talked around the question; none attempted a clear-cut answer.”

I feel this is not only inexcusable. It could be, in many a student’s life, a little less than tragic. I speak as a missionary.… As a young person, I myself was greatly concerned because I did not feel the urgency of some divine mystic call to a foreign land.…

I think we must distinguish between a call and direction. I would attempt it in this way: A call is what you are to be. Direction is where you are to go. In Acts 13:2 the Holy Spirit said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

We note that call is not to a geographic location but to a work.… God has given to every member of the body of Christ a gift of the Spirit. That gift determines his call. That gift enables him to fulfill his calling.…

My call does not change, but my direction often does. If the gift … given me is that of teaching, that gift can be used equally in Africa, China or America. I first seek from God to understand my gift and then check with him for direction as to where that gift is to be used.…

DICK HILLIS

General Director

Overseas Crusades, Inc.

Palo Alto, Calif.

One Kind Of Evolution

In your January 5 issue (“An Anchor for the Lonely Crowd”), … you imply that belief in evolution has influenced Western man to believe that he has no father save “a biological process.” It has not worked that way with me. I have a far greater proof of the reality and greatness of the God of the Bible … because I accept the evolutionary process of creation.… God the creator of these laws of nature must be far greater than these laws, unspeakably greater than any traditional fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible says He is.…

A. M. WATTS

Chester, Vt.

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