Eutychus and His Kin: November 6, 1970

TOLL OF THE MOUNTAINS

A 48-year-old West German accountant got a nasty shock when he returned this year from his mountain-climbing vacation. The boss claimed that his subordinate was so tired after his outdoor exertions that he was unable to concentrate on his work, and the employee was ordered to give back his holiday pay. He appealed. The ministry of labor not only upheld the penalty but warned workers who go back to work tired from their holiday that they might even have to forgo another week’s pay. A ministry spokesman specifically cautioned that anyone who “acted the strong man” to impress others during his vacation and injured himself in so doing would also be in trouble. The official succinctly declared: “The holiday exists so that workers and employes can draw new strength for the job.”

I recommend this eminently sensible ruling to the religious denomination that has set up a committee to inquire into the alarming incidence of coronaries among its pastors. I hope the committee will call for evidence from the wives of those clergy who double as college teachers, and those seminary professors who take on summer pastorates and write books in their spare time. It’s not so much that many return tired from vacation, but that they don’t understand what a vacation means. The many wives who go holidaying with their husbands’ work can perhaps echo Cowper’s descent into doggerel:

John Gilpin’s spouse said to her dear—

Though wedded we have been

These twice ten tedious years, yet we

No holiday have seen.

It might give a new masculine dimension to that old sermon on Martha and Mary.

I’m talking just as much to myself here, for this year on vacation I took with me a particularly demanding work project. I fulfilled the minimum obligation to those around me, and actually found myself one Saturday afternoon murmuring agreement with Logan Pearsall Smith’s “Thank heavens! The sun has gone in, and I don’t have to go out and enjoy it.”

I was in no danger of having to give back my holiday pay; I earned every penny of it. And yet, and yet … That West German had breathed the mountain air, had seen great sights, and much more than I had given himself the chance to reassess life’s perspectives and perhaps discover that “the wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure.” It might incidentally be illuminating to inquire into the incidence of coronaries among mountaineers.

HOLDING POWER

I was seriously considering not to renew my subscription to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, first, because I am a layman and not always able to follow the theological discussion, and secondly, because I am busy. However, when I read “Not by White Might Nor by Black Power” (Oct. 9), I decided to renew.

The Philadelphia Tribune

Philadelphia, Pa.

SUPERIOR ANSWER?

I disliked the article “COCU: A Critique” (Oct. 9 and 23). I disliked the attitude of superiority. Having been in an “evangelical” church for fourteen years, I am well acquainted with the conservative-versus-liberal ax which is ground so much of the time. It is not that I don’t agree with the truth of the conservative position. I’m just tired of the argument. Could it be that “evangelicals” have many doubts about themselves as Christians and so find it necessary to be continually defending themselves? I myself am suffocating from this controversy and would welcome some fresh air in the Church. It is getting harder and harder to hear the voice of Christ today. COCU is a very tentative future plan with which I am not concerned.

Hightstown, N. J.

Thank you for your many insights into the issues of today from a Christian perspective. We must answer COCU.

Westfield, N. J.

The COCU arrangement is designed to give more power and glory to its leaders, and shove aside the personal relationships that Christ established. If those jokers honestly wanted to have one big church, they’d join the Roman Catholics and work within it for universal churchmanship. Since they don’t, their premises falter, and their intentions become evident.

Plantation, Fla.

NOT TRIUMPH BUT DESPAIR

It is very hard to accept David Kucharsky’s evidence (“Will Saints Go Marching Out?,” Sept. 25) that “though it had its shaky moments, the Ottawa congress emerged as a signal triumph for the biblical cause.” He even goes so far as to suggest that “it may have ushered in a new era of cooperation among Canadian evangelicals.” Events have already disproved this thesis. The fissure between the Ottawa position and the historic position adopted and tenaciously held by many evangelicals who could not go along with this congress runs very deep. First casualty may well be the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which in recent years has been showing amazing strength. We must wait and see. But there is little of optimism around. The prevailing mood is one of silent despair.…

The usual, rather shoddy criticisms of churches as being “in-drags” rather than “places of outreach” captured (as they were no doubt intended to do) the attention of the secular press. But the diagnosis is false and the statement simply untrue in literally thousands of cases.…

We thank God for men like Dr. Henry, Leighton Ford, Ken Hamilton, Mariano DiGangi (whose herculean work behind the scenes and on the platform apparently did not merit Mr. Kucharsky’s notice) and others like them whose commitment to the true evangelical position is unquestioned. We regret that they found themselves placed in an equivocal position from which many who love them dearly had to dissociate themselves.

Knox Presbyterian Church

Toronto, Ont.

SLIGHTLY SALARIED

You may have a gremlin at work on your staff. If the salary of the president of the Methodist Publishing House were only $5,000 (Oct. 9, p. 52), I think he might be complaining, rather than being criticized, as reported.

Washington, D. C.

• That gremlin grabbed the lion’s share. The correct figure is $55,000.

—ED.

DISTURBING ANALYSIS

In spite of giving helpful insight into a number of pertinent questions, Mrs. Clouse’s article “Psychological Origins of Stability in the Christian Faith” (Sept. 25) is somewhat disturbing. It appears to treat faith in Christ as if it were in the same category as other human belief and thus capable of analysis by a psychologist, rather than the divine miracle of saving faith produced by the Holy Spirit in accordance with God’s grace.

Boulder, Colo.

Mrs. Clouse gives some very fine advice in training children to take the Christian stand for themselves. That is what all Christian parents want. But it should be more clearly stated that the parents take Jesus Christ as Lord in everything.

That will be shown most clearly by having a time for family prayers every day.

Springfield, Mo.

NO RESISTANCE

“Post- and Pre-Christianity,” “The Word and the Videotape” (Sept. 25)—how relevant can you get? And quotations from all our favorite writers: Lewis, Blamires, even the Book of Common Prayer (we are Anglicans). How can we resist? We capitulate, and our subscription is enclosed. You are not only brilliant and doctrinally faithful, but literate. What more encomiums do you need?

Sherwood, Ore.

ADVICE FOR EVANGELICALS

Addison Leitch’s … call (Current Religous Thought, Sept. 25) for evangelicals to produce “new and clear statements” on alternatives to the “new theologies” rather than indulge themselves in “carping criticism” is a praiseworthy suggestion that speaks for itself. Can we hope that the editors and contributors to CHRISTIANITY TODAY themselves will pay some attention to it?

Professor Leitch’s reading (?) of Karl Barth, on the other hand is misleading and open to criticism on two counts: (1) It fails to account for the fundamental distinction drawn in the Church Dogmatics between the hermeneutical categories of myth on the one hand and Saga and legend on the other. Barth saw no conflict between the categories of saga and legend and the revelation witnessed to in the Bible, but he emphatically rejected the notion of myth as a valid tool of biblical interpretation.… (2) The second criticism concerns Professor Leitch’s observation that “for Barth the Word of God has being and completion finally and only in the experience of the one at the receiving end,” and that in Barth, “the center of emphasis shifts from the Scriptures to the living experience of a believer”.… Indeed, for Barth the experience of the Word of God: “really involves collapse and death on man’s part” (CD, p. 254).… Finally, the charge that in Barth “the center of emphasis shifts from the Scripture to the living experience of the believer” can only be viewed in disbelief since the whole massive effort of the Church Dogmatics was undertaken in order to observe this very trend, epitomized in what Barth referred to as the Schleiermacher-Ritschl-Herrmann line of theology. If evangelicals believe that Barth failed in this effort then why not expose this failure by showing the inherent weaknesses of his thought and method rather than by rumor and innuendo, which itself is a form of “carping criticism”?

Union United Methodist Church

Trenton, N. J.

I agree with Dr. Leitch that we need more than “mere carping criticism,” but heaven spare us any more “statements by evangelicals”! What we need instead is a great deal more life style by evangelicals that is in accord with Christ’s statements. Could it be because there has been such a credibility gap between our statements as evangelicals and our actual behavior, such an unrighteous acceptance of the fact that our inner lives and attitudes are so contrary to what Jesus taught, that we now find ourselves in the position of having little left to say with any effectiveness or authority? It seems to me that is really the way it is.

Granada Hills, Calif.

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