Eutychus and His Kin: November 9, 1962

Gift Catalog

Pastor Peterson is sometimes a little bizarre. He has never brought a dog into his pulpit, but then he has never had a dog. He did once pull a lily out of Mrs. Husted’s pulpit floral arrangement to illustrate a glory greater than the Easter finery of his flock. Last Sunday he waved a colorful Christmas gift catalog as he introduced his sermon. Then he proceeded to read some of the gift descriptions—unusual gifts for people who have everything. For $2,495 you could send a two-man submarine to a deserving nephew. It is a 15-foot fiberglass craft with two speeds forward. On a more limited budget, you could buy the boss two solid silver tacks bearing his initials for $1.98. Very few of America’s executives have this equipment. For your secretary there is the world’s largest eraser, about half a pound of pink rubber in one king-sized chunk, bearing the inscription, “I never make big misteaks.”

I began to grow uneasy. There was no doubt that the catalog he had was one that I had received last month. Would he go on to describe such novelties as “nudie” ice cubes, bourbon toothpaste, and “instant sex” spray, the strictly imaginary aphrodisiac?

Happily, he concluded his introduction with a final allusion to primitive paintings which can be obtained on commission from a chimpanzee artist for only $9.98, complete with engraved metal plaque and documentary photos of Pablo the chimp at work in his studio.

I felt relieved but dubious. What could the good pastor say now to retrieve the congregation’s imagination from Pablo and pink rubber?

He declared that he had a gift catalog for a Laodicean church, a rich church that lacked nothing. For suburban Christians who have everything the pastor presented the catalog of the gifts of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.…

I suppose the attention of some Laodiceans wandered. Silver thumbtacks are more curious if not more rare than Christian meekness. But without full-color photography the pastor presented a glowing picture of the gifts of the Spirit for Christians who have everything, but are wretched, poor, blind, and naked.

Several young people told the pastor later that they wanted such spiritual gifts, and only one woman asked to see the first gift catalog.

To Educators, A Challenge

I am in accord with Harold N. Englund’s challenging “Writing Is a Ministry” (Sept. 28 issue), but the basic problem still lies unsolved. Where can a concerned student find training in such areas? What evangelical college or seminary offers advanced programs in biblical, theological, historical, and practical studies, and in addition offers literature, journalism, politics, economics, international affairs, or sociology? I know a few with meager offerings along this line, but their existence is only a constant reminder of the pathetic neglect of this type of training within evangelical Christendom. You have challenged editors, foundations and ministers: how about doing the same to college and seminary boards and faculties?

Azusa Friends Church

Azusa, Calif.

I was specially delighted with the section subtitled “Thoroughness and Accuracy.”

From 40 years experience in the newspaper business I know well that one of the major criticisms leveled at both clergymen and writers on religion … is that they are not careful to insure that their “facts” are adequate and accurate. Rightly or wrongly, the discovery of such inadequacy or inaccuracy tends to discredit the conclusions based on these alleged “facts.”

... I am not one of those who hold the belief that the (secular) press for the most part is opposed to Christianity.… I recognize, however, that many newspaper writers tend to distrust certain religious leaders—as they distrust certain politicians, labor leaders, business executives and promoters—and the distrust is usually based on some personal experience.

The Apostle Paul counseled the first-century Christians to “provide things honest in the sight of all men”.…

Crusade News Bureau

Minneapolis, Minn.

Bureau Chief

In surveying religious magazines, I feel that they are not so open to working journalists (which is what I am), or craftsmen plus, as they are to clergymen and professors or teachers. Some even resort to ghost writers.

What we need are more Holy Ghost writers.…

San Marino, Calif.

You Can Please Some …

The August 31 issue was even richer than usual. Of special interest to me were your very discerning article on “The Second Coming—Millennial Views,” Dr. Addison Leitch’s extremely penetrating and pithy report of his European trip, and Dr. R. G. Tuttle’s unusual summary presentation of the “Ten Essential Life Principles.”

Excellent also, as always, were your book reviews. They are a real boon to us busy pastors, who are generally hard-put to decide what to read in our all-too-brief study hours.…

Webster Presbyterian Church

Webster, Tex.

The few times I have had an opportunity to browse through your periodical … I was greatly impressed with its sincerity and broad-mindedness.

However, the article by Addison H. Leitch was just about the most narrow, the most prejudiced bit of reporting that I have read in a long time.

Christianity has indeed a long way to go as long as articles such as this one keep getting published.

Havertown, Pa.

Re the article by William R. Arnett entitled “The Second Coming—Millennial Views”: according to Ironside (Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement, p. 23) this teaching [of the “secret rapture”] was originated at a Powerscourt Conference by John M. Darby, one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, and marked a sharp break with historic premillennialism. The full teaching involves futurism and the “gap theory” which began with the Counter-Reformation views of the Spanish Jesuit Ribera, published about 1590. For about 240 years, Protestantism rejected such views altogether, until they were apparently picked up and actively promoted by Darby. They have had a place in the evangelical wing of Protestantism only since about 1832. Now we have the amazing paradox of evangelicals actively promoting what was originally a Counter-Reformation interpretation by a Roman Catholic Jesuit.

Carmel Valley, Calif.

Thank you for the superb article on the Second Coming. Arnett is to be commended for his concise review of the doctrine, with the millennial views which relate to it. The article is biblically and creedally interested, clearly and sanely presented, evangelistic, and fair to the various evangelical theories—it being enough that he simply listed the denial views.…

The one minor matter which I somewhat question … is that in the New Testament “it is mentioned” [the Second Coming] approximately “eight times as much as Christ’s first coming.” Some 318 verses, it is stated, are on the Second Coming. One-eighth of this would make about forty verses on the first coming.

But, in spite of this, I consider it to be by far the finest brief treatment I have read on Christ’s return.

Associate Professor of Theology

Nazarene Theological Seminary

Kansas City, Mo.

The Keswick Movement

Too bad Britain’s J. D. Douglas’ prejudice toward the God-raised-up Keswick movement and message (News, Aug. 31 issue) should be allowed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY to so distort the truth. I trust my fellow subscribers … know that this 87-year-old work is heartily endorsed by Dr. Wilbur M. Smith, Dr. Alan Red-path, Dr. Stephen Barabas, and the late Dr. Barnhouse, together with thousands across the years who have been released from the bondage of self and sin into the liberty and victory of the Spirit-filled life. Keswick in England, Canada, and the United States has had a profound influence for righteousness in the Christian Church. Please refer your readers to these volumes on it: Keswick’s Authentic Voice (Zondervan); So Great Salvation and The Message of Keswick (Marshall, Morgan and Scott).

North Presbyterian

Pittsburgh, Pa.

You can always tell how entirely sanctified some people are by marking their reaction to any criticism of Keswick.

Manchester, England

I would like to say that it is hardly a correct description of England’s grand Keswick Convention.…

My first impression of the meetings in the great tent was the conscious presence of God.… I once heard the saintly Bishop Moule preach in St. John’s Episcopal Church one Sunday morning and the congregation was spellbound, not with oratory, but they were listening to a message from God. To use the common phrase, you could have heard a pin drop. Keswick was then and still is, in my opinion, composed of the very finest and sanest Christian people from every part of the British Isles.

Watertown, N. Y.

• Careful reading of the Keswick report will disclose only two criticisms of the movement: (1) the myth of a unique “Keswick message” as such, a point made in a quotation from remarks of a chaplain; (2) the predilection for intensively devotional hymns to the exclusion of other hymns.—ED.

Sda And Wcc

I note what the writer has to say about the Seventh-day Adventists remaining outside of the World Council of Churches (News, Aug. 31 issue), and it is very true, but there are many other denominations which do not unite with the WCC. However, we do have membership on one of their special committees.…

There is one way in which we do try to cooperate with other church groups that is not understood by many. I refer to the fact that our ministers are encouraged to and do join local ministerial association groups and work with them. This is encouraged by an occasional suggestion from the editor of our magazine Ministry, and I believe this is as it should be. Although I am now retired, for many years during my active ministry I not only tried to work with and cooperate with local ministerial associations, but had the honor of serving as chairman in some instances, and as secretary in other localities.…

Arlington, Calif.

Macedonian Call

The last sentence in the second paragraph of the first column (p. 16) in the article … entitled “The Missionary Situation in Europe” (July 20 issue), needs correcting. This sentence reads: “But in response the churches of North America sent only about 50 missionaries to Europe before World War II.” … The records of the Eastern European Mission show that we supported a total of 56 American missionaries in Europe between 1927, when this mission was founded, and 1939, when World War II began.… The total number of American missionaries ministering in Europe in prewar days likely was about 125.

President

Eastern European Mission

Pasadena, Calif.

The Pastor’S Sunday

Thank you for your timely editorial in the July 6 issue, “Sunday Union Meetings Pose Dilemma For Protestant Workers.” I cannot help but wonder if some of our Protestant denominations do what is just right in this regard when they set up meetings on Sunday afternoons and evenings making it impossible for pastors … to get back into their pulpits for the evening services.

Editor

The Sunday Guardian

Newark, N. J.

Prince Of Preachers

Dr. Andrew W. Blackwood in his article “Expository Preaching: Preparing for a Year of Pulpit Joy” (June 8 issue) states, inter alia, “Spurgeon’s Autobiography (four large volumes) shows that he toiled over his sermons, and that he spent a full day or more every week perfecting the form of the message that went into print.”

It should be pointed out, of course, that the time spent on preparing the message for the press followed the preaching of the sermon.… (After delivery the selected sermons were set up in type from the shorthand reporter’s notes and only then submitted to him … for necessary amendment.) Spurgeon urged his students to write out their sermons from time to time in order to cultivate orderly habits, and made it quite clear that he derived from the correcting of his sermons for the press the same benefit that writing out sermons prior to delivery would accrue to them.

He “toiled over his sermons” to the extent that he had frequent difficulty in selecting his text or topic. Once that had been given to him the rest was easy.

On page 207 of the first volume of the Autobiography he says, “I am always sure to have the most happy day when I get a good text in the morning from my Master. When I have had to preach two or three sermons in a day, I have asked Him for the morning subject, and preached from it; and I have asked Him for the afternoon’s topic or the evening’s portion, and preached from it, after meditation on it for my own soul’s comfort,—not in the professional style of a regular sermon-maker, but feasting upon it myself. Such simple food has done the people far more good than if I had been a week in manufacturing a sermon, for it has come warm from the heart just after it had been received into my soul; and therefore it has been well spoken, because well known, well tasted, and well felt.”

On page 42 of the third volume of the same work will be found the following: “I … very seldom know, twenty-four hours beforehand, the subject of any sermon I am going to preach. I have never been able to acquire the habit of elaborate preparation. I usually begin my sermonizing for the Sabbath-day on Saturday evening. I cannot think long upon any one subject; and I always feel that, if I do not see through it quickly, I shall not be likely to see through it at all, so I give it up and try another.”

I think Spurgeon conveyed to his students in his famous Lectures a very graphic idea of his secret as a sermon-maker. “If a man would speak without any immediate study, he must usually study much.” His mind was so saturated with Scripture and with illuminating thoughts thereon, that his sermons came relatively easily.

The modern preacher cannot do better than study Spurgeon’s methods. He should bear in mind, however, that Spurgeon had an abnormally sensitive mind and retentive memory; that he could skim his eyes over a page of a book and then repeat the content almost word-for-word without a mistake; that he died at a comparatively early ago from a mysterious complaint, which, as he himself says, was called “ ‘gout’ for want of a better word,” and that this disease affected his head.

There will never be another Spurgeon, but, happily, Spurgeon’s God is still the inspiration of the true servant of the Lord today, able and willing to speak through frail mortals the Word of Life.

Kenilworth, Cape Province, S. Africa

In Massachusetts

In “A Layman and His Faith” (June 22 issue) the statement is made: “At no time have the major evangelical denominations recognized these churches (Universalist-Unitarian) as a part of the Protestant tradition, nor has either of them been admitted to membership in cooperative church groups.”

I think that in Massachusetts you will find that Dr. Dana McLean Greeley was president of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. Also you will find that the Universalist-Unitarian churches are admitted to full membership in their State Council of Churches—as they are in several local councils.…

First Congregational Church

Adams, Mass.

A Different Incarnation

The Rev. T. Paul Verghese, news associate secretary of the WCC, in his references to what he considers to be the tyrannical disruptive force of being called a Com-symp, borders, in my opinion, upon blasphemy when he calls Christ “the master fellow-traveller.” If Communism were only another economic or political system his statement might go unchallenged, but since it is the incarnation of atheistic materialism at its worst, Mr. Verghese reflects no credit on God’s Son, himself, or the WCC.

Cobden, Ont.

A Case Of Identity

Re “The Pastor and the Psychopath” by Stuart Bergsma (June 8 issue): It appears to me that Mr. Bergsma has … brought under the aegis of evangelical Christianity one of the most pernicious doctrines of so-called liberalism, i.e., that we must look upon the abominable, the fornicators, the drunkards, etc., more as sick persons than as sinners.…

Staten Island, N. Y.

Call For Poetic Seer

Upon reading of the death of America’s rebel-troubadour of conventional punctuation, e. e. cummings, I began to survey, at random, the poetic scene in 20th-century America. With the passing of Cummings, America lost again another potential seer into the unseen world of spiritual realities. No one would dispute his poetic talent, but few Americans, especially among the bourgeois, will reread his verses for a better glimpse into the spiritual world. Cummings, a New England recluse, had small concern for the Scriptures, and he shut the door of his Joy Farm paradise to all but a select few. The son of a minister, Cummings drew from the external world around him for his source of inspiration. His own fertile imagination was his well of memory. He will be remembered as a prophet of stylistic rebellion and a champion [against] social abuses, but not as a seer who set before the American people the mind of God.

In the world of literary scholarship, it is disturbing to me to find so few who seek poetic inspiration in the Scriptures. The famous Miltonic call for the aid of the Holy Spirit—instead of invoking the pagan muses—is all too lacking among the men of letters. Has the source of all truth in inspiration gone dry, or have poets forgotten how to obtain divine guidance? Poets, representing the American intelligentsia, have, for the most part, continued to look inward and not upward for poetic inspiration and subject matter. The early Romantics of the 19th century looked outward to nature, and became obsessed with the beauty of creation. But 20th-century American poets (Robert Frost is the last of the Romantics)—especially the “literary” ones—have dwelt upon their own personal conflict, and from this media of highly individualized and introspective research have produced verse which has for its subject matter the turmoil of man’s struggling spirit (often with touches of perversion) apart from God’s grace. The tools of poetry (rhyme and meter) have been dissolved into a rugged, often unintelligible, prosaic verse which dies the moment after it is voiced. Is this to be American verse in the 20th century?

A poet is first of all a seer or prophet, and he has the noble task of picturing in meaningful language the acute needs of his people. A poet stands between God and man as a sensitive interpreter of the inner reality of things both sacred and profane. Cummings pictured for us clearly the profane, i. e., the social issues in America, and can be praised for his perception into the dry boredom of conventions without purpose. He pointed with acid satire to the false gods of materialism and status-seeking before which America bows, but he offered no predictions of hope, nor did he suggest an upward look for salvation. What of America’s spiritual needs?

We need in America today a poet with the literary talent of C. S. Lewis who can reveal and penetrate spiritual truth. We need a poet who can touch the American heart, and make it bleed with the blood of repentance. A poet who can heal the sin-sick with the cleansing flow from Calvary.

I ask for a poetic seer who will become a rebel for the sake of the Gospel, and who will find his inspiration in the Scriptures under the Holy Spirit’s direction. Who will pray with the Psalmist: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”

Georgetown, Mass.

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