Eutychus and His Kin: September 26, 1969

Attacking The Idyll

When younger I seldom looked at the Apocrypha. In some perverse way my defensive testimony to the authority of the Bible seemed to require the codicil that it would be disloyal to peruse something that didn’t quite make the canon (though Pilgrim’s Progress was naturally required reading). To my great benefit I got over this adolescent whimsey.

Anyway, last week I renewed acquaintance with Ecclesiasticus 38:24. “The wisdom of a learned man,” it says, “cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath little business shall become wise.” I got to mulling it over, for that morning my usually reliable newspaper reported that a law had been passed in a New Jersey township, prohibiting loitering by anyone under the age of eighteen. The parents of delinquents were to be liable to thirty days in jail, a fine of $200, or both. Authority’s definition of loitering in this case was: “Anyone who shall remain idle in one location, and shall include the conception of spending time spent idly loafing, or walking about aimlessly and shall also include the colloquial term ‘hanging around.’ ”

That somewhat self-conscious command of the vernacular should not be permitted to divert attention from the fact that here essentially is a confession of guilt that does the city seniors credit. I know very well what’s at the back of it. Part of my own youth was spent near a wharf, and culture was early instilled into me through singing such ditties as,

We’re dockworkers’ children

Sitting on the dockyard wall,

Watching our fathers

Doing no work at all;

And when we grow older

We’ll be dockworkers too.

Our N. J. friends have grasped very well the truth of Samuel Johnson’s word that “every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.” Not for them any nonsense about the serviceability of the standers and waiters, or the motionless staring that made life tolerable for one Irish poet with all the traditional irresponsibility of his race. As for that culpable lore about T. Sawyer and H. Finn … why, these children shall win their Master of Activity degree before their eighteenth birthday, on which date the city will presumably present them with the much coveted License to Loiter diploma.

“He that hath little business shall become wise”? The Apocrypha might after all be the right place for a statement like that, for after eighteen years of masterly activity the habit might become so ingrained that the N. J. dockworkers’ union will have a real crisis on its hands.

EUTYCHUS IV

Youth’S Better Way

Jan J. Van Capelleveen’s article “A Theology for Today’s Youth” (Aug. 22) can help to answer the pressing questions which bother our young men and women today, in that it brings the light of truth upon the fallacies of the modern-day (or are they so new?) ideologies to which some of them are turning in lieu of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Surely these young people are searching for a better way; they hunger for answers; they are sick and tired of the inhumanity of man to man, the cruelty, the sickness they find in this world, but no one has presented to them the true Gospel of love, the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour in all its truth and glorious beauty, and so they go on hungering and searching. Oh, would that God would give us a new heart and new understanding and a burning concern for these young people.…

One has the feeling that the author has this understanding and concern for our young people, and it is such men who, I believe, can and must analyze and bridge the so-called generation gap, which is indeed a shameful blot upon our record.

Mesilla, N. M.

I became engrossed in the article until I read the two concluding paragraphs. His statements of youth’s problems and their inability to cope with them were beautifully done; but his solutions were the same garbage that evangelicals are throwing out to bait young people into Christianity. The solution of “the new heaven and new earth” is a trick to make young people uphold the status quo until they are dead. This solution does not stimulate a young person’s thinking to find workable answers to his world’s needs.

And I was especially disappointed with the last paragraph. Not only does he tell the young person to wait for a better world in the New Kingdom, but he gives nebulous instruction as to how one lives in the present. If constructive avenues, such as social, psychological, and political improvements, do not bring men closer to God, how does one reveal God’s way of life so that men will accept it, improve by it, and better his world because of it?

Chula Vista, Calif.

Jan J. Van Capelleveen’s “Theology for Today’s Youth” is at once a praiseworthy attempt and a dismal failure. He does well to tease Christians “who will not hear of changing their preaching.” And his analysis of youth’s consciousness of corporate sin is at least partially correct.

But the writer errs seriously when he identifies youth’s rebellion and idealism as escapism. Like most distant observers of the contemporary youth movement, Van Capelleveen sees only its reaction against and fails to recognize its positive movement toward. This shortsightedness fosters the belief that changing the language of the Christian message will make it more palatable and so attract youth to it once again.

But what we are rejecting is not the language but the concept. For all his “enlightenment,” Van Capelleveen has no new God to offer. “What is needed more than ever is the biblical message that God comes into this world to change it by redeeming it unto himself.” Indeed! This is precisely the message that has so screwed up the Christian world. This God still invades my privacy uninvited. This arrogant God still puffs himself up as something better than the rest of us. This God is still a capitalist who thinks he can buy back (redeem) human souls as though they were property in hock. This God still demands that we “accept our part,” a phrase that sounds remarkably like “keep his place”.…

If Christians want a change in language that also reveals a God appropriate to the contemporary world, let them change “God is” to “we must do.” God is certainly not dead. He is alive and well in Cuba inspiring St. Eldridge Cleaver to write a new Apocalypse.

Kent, Ohio

Sunday Wonder

With considerable concern I read your editorial “The First Amendment and Christian Principle” (Aug. 22). You heartily commended Robert Kenneth Dewey in his legal bid to avoid working on Sundays.…

It would be of considerable interest to learn if Dewey is such a strict legalist that he—as well as you, Mr. Editor—does not dine in a restaurant on Sunday, drop into a grocery store for a bottle of milk, or drive into a service station for gas. I just wondered.

Seattle, Wash.

Contrary To Youthexpo

It is difficult to comprehend how such a short news article, “Is Detroit Any Place for Nice White Kids?” (Aug. 22), can be full of so many blatant errors.…

First of all, YOUTHEXPO was not for Lutheran youth only, but was open to all. Participants would not have been “bombarded with exhibitions,” but given an array of worship and life experiences from which they might choose according to personal needs and interests. Your examples were obviously slanted, considering the information which was made available to your writer. The statement that “fear of the city” was the number-one reason is true, but the quotation ascribed to the Illinois Synod Youth Committee, that “fear of the city is legitimate,” is not true and is totally alien to the spirit of their intent in sharing concerns with us.

Again, YOUTHEXPO’s most serious snag did not come from the Association of Black Lutheran Churchmen but, as I indicated to your writer pointedly and repeatedly, from arch-conservatives whose confusion over the purpose, aspirations, and content of YOUTHEXPO was akin to your own. The ABLC was not “irate over [my] failure to contact them,” but was doing its best to say to us that it could guarantee no safeguard for our youth. (Who could? The point is that the city rife with pain is exactly where the healing presence of Christ should be through his people—that’s why we chose Detroit. It would have been much easier—and more “acceptable”—to “retreat” to a Bible campground somewhere.) The YOUTHEXPO cabinet had a black member long before discussions even began with the ABLC.…

It may be valid to make the judgment you have … that “YOUTHEXPO ignored the signs.” At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would submit that our Lord “ignored the signs” leading to his end as well. We did proceed, to be sure, hoping beyond hope that the rightist swing which presently is in the process of finishing our country had not penetrated our churches to the point which the demise of YOUTHEXPO—and similar signs of the times—demonstrates it has.

A prime purpose in YOUTHEXPO was to better understanding and love between peoples in Christ; your article has tended to the contrary.

(THE REV.) CLAIR B. HOIFJELD

Commission on Youth Ministry

Lutheran Church in America

Philadelphia, Pa.

Happiness Out Of The Pulpit

I do not approve of women preachers (“Reverend Ladies: Collars and Curls,” News, Aug. 22) as I would not want a woman president of the United States either.… Women can teach in the Sunday schools and their church schools, as well as public life. Women also can use their political vote for good moral men in Congress. Our country needs good moral, spiritual women to guide and teach truth.… Women can achieve much happiness this way.… Men are more capable in some things.

Mukwonago, Wis.

The Grammar Of Hand-Clapping

As much as I appreciate your news coverage of “East Asia Pentecostals” (Aug. 22), I wonder why the derogatory remarks, or adjectives, always apply to the Pentecostals: “… the hand-clapping, hallelujah-shouting Pentecostals are enthusiastically expanding their missionary activity.”

You must be consistent! Why not:

“… the water-dunking, tobaccosmoking Baptists”;

“… the hand-wringing, new morality Presbyterians”;

“… the bead-counting, superstitious Catholics.”

Some rule of grammar always adds descriptive adjectives to editorial comment about Pentecostals.…

Aren’t hand-clapping and hallelujahs better than the fearful uncertainty that emanates from far too many Protestant pulpits?… Pentecostals pray, they shout, and they give because they are prompted by a vital personal Christian experience.…

When I think how much God has blessed the faith and sacrifice of the humble Pentecostal people, how much God continues to bless them, why, I can’t help but—clap my hands and shout hallelujah!

Northeast Assembly of God

Philadelphia, Pa.

Food For Faith

I do so appreciate the sound doctrine and scriptural authority which permeate the articles and editorials in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

In the August 1 issue “The One True Religion,” “Does the Gospel Make Sense?,” and, as always, “A Layman and His Faith,” with L. Nelson Bell’s moral integrity and marvelous insight shining through, especially nourished my faith.…

Since I’m not a theologian, a biblical scholar, or a learned layman, it is very reassuring to find in your pages those who are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ or apologetic about their own faith, and who express their convictions in such a valid and convincing way.

Carl Junction, Mo.

Perplexities And Happy Letters

Many times I have thought of writing you about your commonest intellectual sin. The article “The One True Religion” (Aug. 1) is typical of your pieces on problems that perplex twentieth-century Christians. You simply restate the traditional Christian position and don’t bother to face the problems it creates. Now, this brings in a lot of happy letters from Christians who are just concerned with being told over and over that they are right and have been all along.

But what about those of us who are looking for answers to the religious and philosophical perplexities some of these old doctrines present? We already know the doctrines are part of our faith. But, believing Christianity to be the one true religion, we wonder how we’re supposed to account for the millions of people in history who never heard the Gospel. We wonder about people of other faiths who appear to have a genuine relationship with God and exhibit more Christ-like charity than most Christians. To expect you to give final solutions for age-old problems would be too much, but it’s disturbing to see you give the appearance of tackling them and, as a result, give Christians false security and self-satisfaction and leave some of us more confused than ever.

APO San Francisco, Calif.

Discussing Missouri

I would like to offer a few comments on Mr. Chandler’s news report (Aug. 1) on the recent convention of our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.… The impression is given that after a long day of discussions on the fellowship issue, the vote was taken. There had been “hours of discussion” on Friday, a day of open hearings, but that was five days earlier. There had been only some fifteen minutes of speaking from the floor on the question when a delegate moved the question to bring it to a vote.

Many felt that not nearly enough time was given for discussion on the floor on this important matter. I counted eighty-four people at the microphones when the question was moved, and at another point on another day, there were over 100 waiting to speak to the motion. (The article stated that sixty-five were waiting to speak.) The synod is badly split on this issue, even now, and this passed resolution does not change this. In my opinion, it would not have passed at all but for the “politicking” by our “hierarchy,” … and others who used all sorts of methods to push the fellowship resolution.…

I wish Mr. Chandler had mentioned the fine resolutions that the convention passed reaffirming the historic doctrinal position of the synod. One of these resolutions in no uncertain terms reaffirmed the “historicity and historicalness” of Jesus, together with his virgin birth, perfect life, atoning death, physical resurrection, and ascension. Not many—if any—other major church bodies could or would pass such a resolution in our day. We also refused to go along with an open-end offering for social purposes together with the ALC and LCA, showing that our involvement with them is not as close as some people think, and showing that we still believe that the churches’ main work is spiritual, not material or social.

Trinity Lutheran Church

Bend, Ore.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.