Eutychus and His Kin: September 15, 1967

Dear Citizens Of Secular City:

Like a jeweled empress enthroned on majestic hills between mighty ocean and sparkling bay, San Francisco has long reigned as the Queen of Culture in the West. A closer look at her during a recent visit to old stamping grounds there revealed, however, that she is fast losing her regal qualities and beginning to resemble a bawdy madame. As a boisterous hostess for hippies, chippies, and spooks, she now provides a haven for more weirdos than the magic kookdom of Los Angeles ever entertained.

Naturally I visited Haight-Ashbury hiptown. Wading through six congested city blocks of long straggly hair, outlandish but fashionably filthy togs, colorful free-flowing posters, and shop after tourist shop stocked with incense from India and huaraches from Mexico, I realized that the forlorn hippies had something to tell us. As I decoded it, their message was that the way to uninhibited joy can be found through a life of uninvolved non-conformity, spent in squalor, subjected to the hazards of dangerous drugs, bolstered by a philosophy of love leading each night to a different bed partner, and devoted to the unfettered pursuit of True Art. The grim daily existence of the Flower Children showed, however, that their way of life was no bed of petunias.

While the hippies overran Hashbury, the chippies blanketed the Tenderloin district. In three blocks no less than twenty trollops pathetically peddled their wares with no apparent interference from cruising patrolmen. The attention of passersby was diverted from the scarlet lassies’ beguiling propositional attempts only when bewigged, tight-skirted gay boys swished past. One of the girls cordially received your writer’s Christian witness but afterward continued her hooking. She had heard it before and had no desire to quit her $100 a night profession.

My reference to spooks pertains to San Francisco’s Anton Szandor La Vey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan, and the witches and wizards that follow him in practicing the diabolical Black Arts. In my visit with the Irreverend Mr. La Vey, I learned of his unusual relationship with the late actress Jayne Mansfield. But let me tell you about that next issue. (How’s that for a teaser?)

Sophisticated San Francisco—front-runner in suicide and alcoholism rates, pioneer of the topless bore, and mecca for sensualists and occultists—seems to be gaily opening her Golden Gate to the decadence that threatens to engulf us all.

With eyes open wide in a wide open city, EUTYCHUS III

Lost?

Most of Mr. Lytle’s criticism of the United Presbyterian Church (“They Are Taking My Church Away From Me,” Aug. 18) could also be applied to the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., to which I belong. However, I feel he makes two fundamental errors of which all of us are guilty at times:

The UPUSA or any other church is not “my”, “his,” or “their” church; it is Christ’s church.

The lay commissioner (as well as the clergy) should not first represent members of his church, but rather Christ.

If teaching and ruling elders at all levels attempted to look first to Christ, as King and Head of the Church, for leadership and guidance, we would be less likely to find ourselves in opposition to one another.

RODNEY BONCK, JR.

Williamsburg, Va.

After reading Mr. Lytle’s lament I can only say he needs to do more homework on the Confession of 1967 itself and then take another look at his own faith. The implications of what he says are that loyalty to the Bible ranks over loyalty to Christ.

HOWARD J. HANSEN

Bradford Woods Community Church

Bradford Woods, Pa.

The article makes a number of allegations without adequate analysis or substantiation.… Most pastors, I believe, would like to see more regular attendance and interest upon the part of elders in their churches. Why is it that so few elders want to get involved? Why is it that when a presbytery acknowledges the elders’ plea and schedules presbytery meetings on Saturdays, or in the evening, the elders cannot attend anyway?

Other allegations include that of a united “establishment,” which becomes his “straw man”; the assumption that converted man has power in his society, to change society’s ways; the assumption that individual action is the way, the method of the Bible. I believe that a case could be made of examples in the Bible of corporate pressure exerted by the people of God to bring about change, or at least to focus attention upon needs.…

He seems to find the Confession of 1967 as a whole statement of faith while it actually only is concerned with one doctrine, i.e., reconciliation.…

The church called United Presbyterian did hope for a concise statement arising out of the 1958 union, and C’67 is not. There are those, and they seem to be dominant right now, who are concerned only with social action or “mission” (so called) as the whole gospel without the telling of the Good News. There are those bent on material gain without a concern for spirituality.…

Mr. Lytle makes a diagnosis of sickness but offers no cure. This, I fear, is the greatest sickness within the United Presbyterian Church today. We can oppose, but we cannot affirm, and this, ultimately, is the Devil’s triumph.…

Let us begin to work and pray for some positive cures. Let us realize that the Gospel is both corporate and individual, and that to emphasize one or the other is defeating. Let us get on with both mission and evangelism, both helping and saving, both deed and word.

DONALD R. HYER

First Presbyterian Church

Arkport, N. Y.

And Found

The panel discussion, “Is Sunday School A Lost Cause?” (Aug. 18), touched on a subject which has been of great concern to me for a number of years. I sincerely hope that any pastor reading it will pass it on to those responsible for the Sunday school of his church.

I have taught in a Sunday school for sixteen years, and problems brought out in the panel discussion are not new to me.… I have some suggestions: prayerful study, not less than eight hours a week.… Learn how to study the Bible.… Build a library to enhance your lesson material. Visit in the homes of your pupils. Continue to learn to teach. If these things are done, I will guarantee that you will go to your class ready, willing, and eager to teach—and discuss.

J. JACKSON

Charleston, W. Va.

I hear more pep talks on Sunday-school advancement than on any other subject with the exception of the doctrine of holiness. Although I have lived in five church districts, none of my pastors has ever attended a Sunday school class with any degree of regularity.…

If the clergy consider the Sunday school class not worthy of their presence, then our denominational headquarters should put less emphasis on Sunday-school enrollment.

ARTHUR R. KNIGHT

Independence, Mo.

The panel meant a great deal to me. Something has happened in the field of Sunday school. Even more will have to happen. I do not mean that we must be radical in our changes, but we must present Jesus in ways different from the way we presented him and the Gospel even a quarter century ago.

L. H. RANEY

General Director

Christian Education

Department

Baptist Missionary

Association of

Texas

Lancaster, Tex.

The Flowering Left

Thanks for printing “An Analysis of the New Left: A Gospel of Nihilism,” by J. Edgar Hoover (Aug. 18). I must thoroughly object, however, to the indiscriminate lumping together of those who oppose the American effort in Viet Nam, civil disobedience, draft-resisters, law-breakers, and those who desecrate the American flag.

CHARLES L. AMMONS

Pastor

Marvin Methodist Circuit

Berryville, Va.

J. Edgar Hoover has just reversed that old phrase: “The state exists for man; man does not exist for the state.” We are now to condemn any man who seeks freedom from the agony of shaving in the morning as well as those who like to strum on a guitar or write. I have the feeling that Mr. Hoover would dictate to the young the questions they may ask, and these questions would include, “Communists are less than human?” and “Change (i.e., revolution) is evil, isn’t it?”

GEORGE H. MARTIN

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

If Mr. Hoover is correct in his analysis of the New Left as a mood, it most assuredly affects many more people than are on the rolls of Students for a Democratic Society and the other groups. Why not permit another writer, having a different vantage point than Mr. Hoover’s, to expand on the paragraph beginning, “What does all this mean?”

RICHARD S. SCHLIEPSIEK

St. Louis, Mo.

Mr. Hoover’s strident platitudes and caricatures hardly get to the real problems and valid prophecies of this growing movement. God moves in mysterious ways, and he may be saying much to us through this movement without our having to endorse or join it.

DAVE STEFFENSON

Campus Minister

First Methodist

Church and Wesley Foundation

Laramie, Wyo.

Lutheran Resolution

Your report on the convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (News, Aug. 18) reads: “The delegates rejected a bid to require members to accept literal interpretations of such biblical matters as the six-day creation.”

Wherever you may have gotten this information, it was wrong. The resolution adopted reads as follows:

WHEREAS, Scripture teaches and the Lutheran Confessions affirm that God by the almighty power of His Word created all things in six days by a series of creative acts …

Resolved, That the Synod reaffirm its faith in the united testimony of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions on the aforementioned teachings; and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod reject and condemn all those world views, philosophical theories, exegetical interpretations, and other hypotheses which pervert these biblical teachings and thus obscure the Gospel.

I would like to add that I am an interested reader of your periodical and find it stimulating, even where I cannot agree.

FREDERIC E. SCHUMANN

Pastor and Editor

The Pittsburgh Lutheran

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Politics In Church

After reading “Passing the Plate to Washington” (Aug. 18), I concluded that Ian Henderson, author of Power Without Glory: A Study in Ecumenical Politics, reviewed by J. D. Douglas in the same issue, had a supportable point after all.

Among other statements in David E. Kucharsky’s article which might serve as fodder for Henderson’s thesis in Power Without Glory, is this one: “For a long time, Protestant leaders stood up to Roman Catholic demands for public money. More recently, however, their resistance has dwindled in the spirit of ecumenicity.”

Sometimes it may take the “doctrinally radical” to show us the error of our ways.

KURT C. HARTMANN

Editor

The Southern Lutheran

LaVernia, Tex.

Editorial Penetration

I find myself being more estranged as time passes from the National Council of Churches’ viewpoint on the Viet Nam situation as well as in several other of its political-social preachments; I hope its basic policies will change as I find so much good in its over-all position. On the other hand I thought your editorial (Aug. 18), “Are Churchmen Failing Servicemen in Viet Nam?,” excellent and a penetrating analysis of some of the rather naive preachments of NCC leaders who take a unilateral position on world politics.

PAUL L. KITLEY

Bridgeport Community Church

Bridgeport, Mich.

Denouncing The Defense

The vicar of Cambridge University’s main church, Canon Hugh Montefiore, should have been tarred and feathered and run out of town for his ugly and evil remark (“Defending Homosexuality,” News, Aug. 18). The Archbishop of Canterbury should have had this done to him also for having nothing better to say on the subject than he did.

Jesus Christ our Lord loved his fellow man—this meant he loved every man, woman, and child in the world, not the stupid, ugly meaning thought up by Canon Montefiore.…

There are some things too ugly to ever repeat, and Canon Montefiore’s remark is one of them.

I bet you won’t print this letter!

EDNA M. JOLLY

Clarksville, Tenn.

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