Eutychus and His Kin: June 9, 1967

Dear Members Of The Old Breed:

Bearded Harvey Cox waxes enthusiastic in Harvard Today about the “New Breed” of churchmen who, he claims, have changed the cartoon stereotype of an American clergyman from a pompous bore to an active proponent of social change.

Reluctant though I am to differ with such a widely heralded pop prophet, I must say that the New Breed is about as new as a retreaded tire. Scrape off the outer layers of soft, synthetic theology imbedded with steely bits of revolutionary fervor and you find the weakened old casing of a fuzzy-headed social gospeler. I hate to think of the blow-out that will result for the church and the nation if their movement increases its momentum and heats up under increased pressure.

For the past five years New Breed tactics have been a limp imitation of those of the New Left. After the avant-garde glamorized coffeehouses, New Breed churchmen created their own brand of coffeehouses. They even found their own poetry-spouting Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the person of the stool-sitting, jazz-accompanied reciter of hip prayers, Father Malcolm Boyd. As Johnnies-come-lately to the civil-rights and anti-Viet Nam policy protests, they soon became master practitioners of the march. And now, following the Greenwich Village—Haight Ashbury-Dupont Circle syndrome, they have developed their own “Happenings.”

New Breed churchmen at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington staged a four-day Happening last month. The first two evenings people saw and discussed the films Sundays and Cybele and The Red Balloon. On Saturday afternoon, gaily dressed moderns assembled for a “Be-In” to “celebrate life.” As the hi-fi reverberated with the Supremes’ rendition of “The Happening,” the mods painted cardboard boxes fuschia, orange, chartreuse, and periwinkle and decorated them with such stale slogans as “Make Love, Not War,” “Draft Beer,” “Keep the Faith,” and “War Is Ugly.” The whole affair ended Sunday with a colorful march around the block at which time message-laden balloons were sent aloft. Aside from providing a jolly good time for all, I’m not sure what the event accomplished. But it did show how hard the New Breed will work to emulate the pace-setting hippies.

A week later, the New Breed at Washington’s National Cathedral topped even St. Stephen’s. They staged a rock and roll festival with nineteen—count ’em—nineteen ear-shattering bands. Mini-skirted teeny boppers danced before the altar. The recessional was “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

At the rate the New Breed is going, it shouldn’t be long until they bring on the go-go girls. Ho hum.

Bored by the New Breed, EUTYCHUS III

Protestant Church Schools

It was encouraging to see in your pages a direct affirmation of the viability and vigor of both the idea and practice of the Protestant day school (“Will Protestant Church Schools Become a Third Force?,” May 12). Writers Buchanan and Brown are indeed right that “there is no indication that the movement will be short-lived or inconsequential. On the contrary, we see it as a growing movement.”

We represent a Protestant day school system which is not mentioned in the article but which, like Lutheran and Adventist schools, has been around for some time. It has been in existence for over seventy-five years and presently enrolls over 62,000 students in 282 schools. These are concentrated largely in the Northern and Midwestern states, but the system does embrace schools from coast to coast.

These schools are parental rather than parochial: they are operated by groups of parents, largely of Reformed and Calvinistic persuasion, and are served by the National Union of Christian Schools (865 Twenty-eighth St., S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49508). A growing number of teaching materials and publications are produced for the use of those who wish to make the Christian day school “become a powerful [third] force in the American educational picture.”

DONALD OPPEWAL

Chairman, Public Opinion Comm.

National Union of Christian Schools

Grand Rapids, Mich.

As I read the article, one question kept nagging me. Could one of the subtleties underlying this movement be another attempt on the part of white Protestants to avoid confrontation with the reality and necessity of racial inclusiveness in the public schools? If this be so, the church school is an immorality the Church cannot espouse.

L. CARROLL YINGLING, JR.

Saint Mark’s Church

Baltimore, Md.

I wonder what would happen to many of these private schools if a Negro child, qualified and money in hand, showed up asking for the blessings of a Christian education.

WILLIAM H. ANDERSON, JR.

Virginia Union University

Richmond, Va.

It would be interesting to know the source of the statistics. The Board of Parish Education for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod provides a very reliable set each year. For the school year 1966–67 they list 4,300 Protestant-schools with 477,000 pupils. (The article claims 5,700 schools.) They also report over 13,000 Catholic schools. (The article reports 10,000.) If the Protestant-school enrollment continues to grow at 4 per cent per year and the Catholic schools lose enrollment at 1 per cent per year, in ten years we will have Protestant enrollment of 750,000 compared to Catholic enrollment of 5,000,000. How can it be said, “If these trends continue, Protestant schools will match Roman Catholic schools in ten years”?…

A second concern arises from the fact that three-fourths of the quotations used are made by Christian school men in the deep South. The growth of Christian schools is a national phenomenon, not just a regional reaction. The NACS has member schools in thirty-eight states. This geographical distribution should be emphasized.…

We regret that the article made no mention of the proposal that freedom in American education would be very effectively served by some form of tax credit for parents sending children to private schools. This proposal, which is resisted strenuously by treasury and administration officials, would provide parents who relieve the public-school rolls of the expense of educating their children with an income-tax credit for each child each year that these children were enrolled in private schools. Thus we would maximize parental freedom and minimize governmental bookkeeping (as well as regulation).

The forces opposed to Protestant schools as a “third force” in the American educational picture are powerful. The humanistic loyalties of American educators; the secular impact of unprecedented government expenditures; and the widespread assumption by denominational leaders and local pastors that Christian America does not need private Christian schools are all well-entrenched obstacles.

JOHN F. BLANCHARD, JR.

Executive Director

National Association of Christian Schools

Wheaton, Ill.

The Suspicious Specialist

I found the article “Is a Read Sermon a Dead Sermon?” to be of special interest … because of its authorship. I find it somewhat surprising that you would turn to a historian for practical advice on sermon delivery. On the other hand, my surprise should be tempered by my observation of current attitudes and practices prevalent in many seminary circles today. Normally, the various disciplines listed in seminary curricula are represented by academic specialists trained for their particular department. Thus, ideally, a Ph.D. degree in Old Testament studies would be a proper credential for teaching Old Testament, and a man who has specialized in language studies would be considered first for a language department.

The system appears to break down when it comes to speech training, however, and a brief survey of homiletics departments would seem to confirm the fact that the Church still looks with suspicion upon the specialist in speech and fears his sophistic influence upon young preachers. Some seminaries have “progressed” to the point where they allow a speech specialist to share in homiletical training, but he is mainly confined to advice and criticism related to sermon delivery. Homiletics appears to be of such a sacred nature that it can be entrusted to anyone save the rhetorician. Just where preaching differs in principle from any other kind of oral communication is a vague question which escapes logical consideration. While the content of preaching is sacred and the source of its effectiveness lies in the power of the Holy Spirit, the concepts used in communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the very same as those used in other fields.

LORIN H. SODERWALL

Chairman, Speech Department

Azusa Pacific College

Azusa, Calif.

Dandelion-Digging

Wherever I reside, it seems that two things are unavoidable: dandelions in the lawn and CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the mailbox.

Perhaps your publication is well named, for it reflects the reactionary conservative, malinformed, backwardyearning spirit that is easy to find among Christians today.…

If I get the dandelions out of my lawn will you get CHRISTIANITY TODAY out of my mailbox?

EDWARD B. GREVATT

Emanuel United Church of Christ

Rochester, N. Y.

Saved By Suppression?

I am sorry that you are going to kill the discussion on baptism (“The Conflict Over Baptism,” April 14). It promised to be lively. The two essays were certainly not adequate, and the letters you published were insipid.

Of course since the Baptists are stuck with the idea that baptize means to sink the ship they stand upon a flimsy argument. I suppose you do have to cater to them.…

You can save the Baptists from the embarrassment of seeing their position destroyed if you wish. But you will do it not on the basis of the facts and reason and Scripture, but only by the suppression of the truth.

I trust that you will get enough mail on this subject to lead you to open the magazine to an open exchange of views, rather than the present “O, so gentle Evangelical” touch.

JAMES MILLER

Montclair Community Church

Denver, Colo.

It Hits A Basic Error

Thanks to Dr. Mikolaski for “Ecumenism and the Gift of the Spirit” (April 28). It strikes at a basic error to which the Church of Christ must give earnest heed. In this altogether too short examination, it is refreshing to read an argument that is biblically documented. There can be no doubt that the relationship between personal saving faith in Christ and the receiving of the Holy Spirit is scripturally undeniable. The Holy Spirit is certainly not hierarchically transmitted.

We welcome this brief, well-reasoned, scripturally orientated presentation. Give us more of them!

STUART E. MURRAY

Principal

United Baptist Bible Training School

Moncton, New Brunswick

I looked forward to reading [it] because ecumenism, as I have known it, is praying, working, talking together with men of all Christian faiths.

Since the Holy Spirit is poured forth upon all, it seemed to me that the title was indicative of a significant piece. I was stunned, however, by what the author called his main point, namely, “Whether bestowal of the Spirit can be confined to the action of episcopally sanctioned persons.” What Christian of sound mind could ever believe that the action of the Holy Spirit could even be confined to the action of episcopally sanctioned persons”? Surely not the Catholic Church, as is inferred. In its theology of the Holy Spirit, it teaches that, while the Spirit is particularly active in prayer, the reading of the Scriptures, and in any sacramental encounter with Christ, He sanctifies a person in every one of his conscious moments when there is faith and love.

MORTON A. HILL, S. J.

Church of St. Ignatius Loyola

New York, N. Y.

I consider myself open-minded and willing to listen to all views.… Having been a student of Dr. Mikolaski … I know his basic theological orientation; therefore I am not surprised at his unsympathetic attitude toward the Consultation on Church Union.… I do believe that he should better inform himself concerning COCU before he starts criticizing. In the first place, the only church in the group he called “successionist” that is involved in COCU is the Episcopal Church, and he failed to call it by name but referred to its counterpart, the Anglican church. With a minimum of reading, Dr. Mikolaski would find that one of the underlying assumptions of all the churches that are involved in COCU is that there is a chance that they may be wrong in some of their dogmatic beliefs. It is true that in a united church some of the members and maybe even some of the clergy may have the idea that the Spirit is given through the church, but that will not be made a test of fellowship. What church can claim that all its members believe the same thing concerning every doctrine?… It takes very little effort and no Christianity to criticize, but it takes real effort and real Christianity to swallow your prejudices and cooperate with your brothers in Christ.

RILEY W. SANSON, JR.

United Church of Christ

Lyons, Tex.

The author failed to avoid many of the pitfalls he accuses others of having fallen into. For instance, in opposing his own evangelical position to the “Catholics and Orthodox,” in each instance he blurs the pneumatology of the two church bodies, as if they were not distinct, even contrasting entities.…

It is the inadequacy of both Roman Catholic and Protestant ecclesiology that both need an external authority outside of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church as an ultimate appeal and criterion for truth, whether that authority be pope or Scripture. It is not Scripture that the Orthodox contrast to church tradition, obviously; rather, it is to a naïve assumption that Scripture will be interpreted uniformly outside of the Church, which is at the same time the place where the Holy Spirit abides. Witness the scattered “churches” of Western Protestantism, professing a unity in Scripture.

There can be no “private judgment” so naively proposed by the author, because it is precisely the witness of the Spirit that disallows it. The leader of the church assembly speaks with authority only when he expresses the truth of the faith in accord with the Gospels, and with the tradition as always witnessed by the Church; if that leader has a “private judgment” to contrast to the divine truth of the Church, it is the duty of the body of the Church, or any single member of that group, to expose such error, and that error will be manifest by the Holy Spirit that lives and dwells in the Church.

VLADIMIR BERZONSKY

Parma, Ohio

Who Or What Was Meant?

Your editorial on “The Spirit of Pentecost” (April 14) was well written. However, your remarks on subjectivity and excessive enthusiasm as characteristic of many Pentecostal-like movements, without your really calling names and making it clear just what you were trying to say, make it impossible to know who or what you meant by subjectivity or excessive enthusiasm.…

I am of the personal opinion that the Pentecostal-like movements are living closer to the Pentecostal Spirit of Acts 2 than the rest of the church world. Their services are open for examination by all, and I believe you will see as a result of this Pentecostal experience working in the lives of believers … Dynamic Vitality, Divine Illumination, Renewal, and Divine Liberation. However, it will never come about without Divine Subjectivity.

C. L. HARBIN

Church of God

Huntsville, Ala.

More I.A.C.S.

We would like to have you channel the enclosed dollar for the proposed Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, and it is our prayer that this may soon be a reality. In this day in which secularism is advancing on every hand, there is a pressing need for more institutions where Christianity is emphasized on the highest intellectual level for the glory of God.

VERNON G. BIGELOW, JR.

Things to Come Mission

Ozamis City, Philippines

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