Eutychus and His Kin: March 14, 1969

Stop Rapidly, Go Soothingly

An English police chief has pointed out that traffic offenders are not now treated so severely as when Sennacherib was king of Assyria. That resourceful monarch placed no-parking signs along the processional way to Nineveh, with the inscription: “Royal road, let no man lessen it.” Offending charioteers were slain and impaled on a stake in front of their own dwellings.

The Japanese, a remarkable people whose prime ministers have views on wife-beating, bring their own politeness to the same vexed problem. Spurning archaic references to a postilion struck by lightning, they offer today’s travelers a traffic manual, claiming to be in English, which should be required reading in these United States. “At the rise of a hand from a policeman,” it says, “stop rapidly. Do not pass him or otherwise disrespect him.” (Chicagoans may find this helpful.) “When a passenger of the foot hove in sight, tootle the horn trumpet … with vigor and express by word of mouth the warning, ‘Hi, Hi.’ Beware of the wandering horse that he shall not take fright as you pass him. Go soothingly by, or stop by the roadside till he pass away.… Doesn’t that do your heart good, bringing as it does courtesy into an area where it is not normally found?

It’s odd how the secular boys often get these things more in perspective than those who profess to speak the truth in love when neither truth nor love is easily discernible. The poet Dryden had strong views on the subject. “I won’t say that the zeal of God’s house has eaten him up,” he remarked of a certain bishop, “but it has taken away a large part of his good manners and civility.” By contrast there was the character in Sheridan’s The Rivals who awarded the ultimate accolade: “He is the very pineapple of politeness.” I could think of worse epitaphs.

Discourtesy seems, alas, a necessary adjunct to a certain sort of evangelical endeavor. A medical friend once told me feelingly how the main street of his small town used to empty in the most astonishing way at the appearance on the scene of the local pastor’s spouse, a lady of impeccable life and insufferable zeal. My friend cited with relish a remark made to him by a fellow citizen who had not been spry enough to elude Mrs. Pastor in proselytizing mood. “Oh dear, Doctor,” she sighed, “I do so much hate being worked amongst.”

I hazard the guess that Sennacherib of Assyria would have known just how to deal with such lesseners of the royal road.

Archaeology And Silence

Kudos to Edwin Yamauchi for his carefully documented study of erstwhile externally unconfirmed biblical historical statements (Feb. 14). He has reminded us again how fragmentary is the archaeological evidence that we possess and how unscientific is the tactic of argumentum a silentio that we often use. Material of this type needs to be called to the attention of both lay and professional students of the Bible.

Let’s have more of the same.

Associate Professor

Bethel Theological Seminary

St. Paul, Minn.

Student On Students

Your editorial “The Student Revolution” (Feb. 14) was both inaccurate and misleading.… Your conclusion that “the student war is being fought by a small minority of irrational revolutionists” is wrong on several accounts: (1) Surveys of student leaders active in protest movements show them to be more “intellectually oriented” than the mass of students. (2) These leaders have the sympathy if not active support of a large number of students (witness the large turnout of students protesting on the Madison campus). (3) The plethora of articles about student unrest point to two central social issues—violence abroad and racism at home—and two campus issues—educational irrelevance and autocratic administration—as the causes Of student unrest. You fail to mention any of these issues.

Aside from your failure to present the issues we students face on campus, the most distressing aspect of your editorial is the nature of your response to a social and educational issue. You speak of students as “threat” and of the danger of concessions but nothing of ways of creative change within the system to meet legitimate demands. I suspect the reason students act is because those of us in the evangelical church are silent or reactionary in the face of social injustice and educational dehumanization.

Eugene, Ore.

It was a disappointment to have you overstate a case, in however small a way, in order to prove a point. I refer to the opening paragraph of “The Student Revolution”.…

Not “buildings” [at Swarthmore] but part of one floor of one building was occupied, surely a significant difference to those involved. Nor does the word “violence” apply to the demonstration at Swarthmore. A letter signed by the chairman of the board of managers and by the acting president includes this sentence: “The occupation had disrupted the work of the Admissions Office but no violence was involved and no records were disturbed or property damaged.”

One need not condone campus demonstrations in order to want accurate reporting about them.

Drexel Hill, Pa.

Rational Stand

I do thank you for printing Dr. Elton Trueblood’s fine article “Rational Christianity” (Feb. 14). In my own modest publications I have long been struggling to maintain just this vital stand, but one often seems to be swimming against the tide. It is encouraging to find oneself in company with a first-rate authority.

Associate Professor of

Church History

Candler School of Theology

Emory University

Atlanta, Ga.

On A First Issue

I have received my first issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Feb. 14).… Your theological “bias” is troublesome and foreign to me.… I am, nevertheless, open and receptive, and wish to follow Truth wherever “it goes”; and your pages do contain rays of truth. I must reject, however, your editorial regarding anti-Semitism.

Here you state that “God has had a special hand upon the Jews.… In some sense they continue to be his special people.” You are, as my high-school students are wont to tell me, “way off base.” … If anti-Semitism is repugnant, and I believe that it is, this repugnance is based upon the principle of equality before God of all men and women.

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Publishing Prayers

Thank you very much for publishing the 1969 Protestant Inaugural prayers (Feb. 14). Now, how about publishing the prayers of the other clergy who participated in the Inaugural ceremonies? This would be most appropriate and in keeping with the religious spirit of today. The Inaugural prayer of Archbishop Iakovos is particularly worthy of publication. I believe that it was the most moving and profound of all the prayers offered, and it avoided the temptations of lobbying God, preaching in prayer, and over-praiseworthy phrases of the other prayers.

The Methodist Church

Berkeley Springs, W.Va.

The Religious Pulse

“What Is the Gospel?” by L. Nelson Bell (Feb. 14) came to my desk at the right time. I was looking for something such as this for my next sermon.

I like your magazine because you give us the truth, the latest in religious review. You are like the M.D. who holds the pulse, counting the heartbeat of the religious world.

Fillmore, Calif.

Absolving Absolution

Julius Mantey’s article, “What of Priestly Absolution?” (Jan. 31), shows a good understanding of the New Testament which, unfortunately, does not carry over to the knowledge of the Catholic (whether Roman, Anglican, Orthodox, or other) teaching about sacramental or priestly absolution.

This doctrine in fact corresponds directly to Dr. Mantey’s exegesis of John 20:23 (and the Matthaean passages fall into line with this), for the priestly absolution is an authoritative declaration of God’s forgiveness of sins under those circumstances (i. e. repentance and faith) where the Scriptures assure us that this forgiveness is available. That the absolution is only this, and not an attempt to “determine the policies of heaven,” is made clear by the form of the declaration, which limits the authority of the Church (and her priestly representative) to those “sinners who truly repent and believe in Him.” Further, should there be some doubt as to the penitent’s actual faith or repentance the priest is directed to make this condition explicit in counseling or, with more serious doubts, to delay absolution.…

There is one relevant passage which is passed over in the article: Second Corinthians 2:5–11 describes an incident where Paul calls upon the Church to restore a sinner to their fellowship, adding that he (Paul) forgives this sinner “in the presence of Christ,” which at least suggests that the Apostle is talking about something which resembles absolution as we know it today.…

The article is quite right in holding that a doctrine of priestly absolution in which such a formula either (a) replaces or (b) forces the divine forgiveness of sins is indefensible. The author errs, however, in assuming that sacramental absolution claims to do either of these, or anything other than declare and make present God’s remission of sins as mediated by the one, “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice” of Jesus Christ.

(THE REV.) WM. D. LORING

Jamaica, N. Y.

Timely Confrontation

I am especially grateful for the very timely and well-written editorial on “A Better Way to Confront Poverty?” (Jan. 31). I thought it was excellently stated and greatly needed in this hour.

Royal Haven Baptist Church

Dallas, Tex.

I am in wholehearted agreement with the thrust of the editorial, but the statement, “High taxation necessitated by welfare statism is one factor contributing to inflation,” is not accurate. It would be more accurate to say that “high spending associated with welfare statism.…” It is a well-accepted economic reality that high taxation is a deflationary tool in the hands of the government.

West Lafayette, Ind.

Wrong Song

CHRISTIANITY TODAY for November 8 has just arrived here. I have read with great astonishment the protesting letter of Eugene L. Smith in which he lists Rev. C. S. Song, principal of Taiwan Theological College of the Presbyterian Church of Formosa, among churchmen he calls “conservative evangelicals.” Song is well-known here as a universalist who disbelieves in hell and eternal punishment, and believes all will be saved.

Taipei, Taiwan

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