Eutychus and His Kin: February 12, 1971

PEANUT-BUTTER ANGST

We were all sitting around in a sensitivity group recently not getting anywhere very fast when a Methodist minister made some innocuous comment about there being “many opinions on the subject.”

Suddenly one of his laymen exploded. “You’re the wishy-washiest person I know. It’s never yea or nay with you. It’s always maybe or sometimes. You’re a towering pillar of Jello.”

We were all momentarily stunned. Most of us expected the minister to mount a counterattack. But to our surprise, he just looked at the floor. After a moment of heavy silence he began to speak, almost inaudibly. “You’re right,” he said. “I just can’t make decisions any more on things that involve others. And I know where it began.”

We all instinctively moved our chairs closer to him as he told this story:

“It happened about two years ago. We were working late in the church office putting out the newsletter. I had finished my part of the work, and the two secretaries-were collating the pages. Since it was getting late, I offered to go get sandwiches for everyone.

“A warning signal about the female mind should have gone off in my head when the first girl said, ‘Get me anything that looks good to you.’

“The second girl said, ‘I brought a sandwich with me, so just get me something that will go good with peanut butter.’

“At the sandwich shop I ordered two roast-beef sandwiches, fulfilling my instructions about what looked good to me. Then I told Sam, the owner, to give me a side order of something to go with a peanut-butter sandwich.

“He gave me a suspicious look and said, ‘I don’t serve peanut butter.’

“ ‘I know you don’t,’ I replied. ‘Just give me an order of whatever you’d choose to go with a peanut-butter sandwich.’

“ ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I ain’t your mother. I ain’t even your nursemaid. I got bagels, cheese cake, candy bars, pickles, cole slaw, fried onion rings, kippered herring, and cheese balls. Just tell me what you want and I’ll fix you up.’

“On the phone I tried to sound humorous and nonchalant as I said, ‘Look I can’t make this big decision by myself. What do you want to go with your peanut-butter sandwich?’

“ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘get me an order of potato salad.’

“I just stood there a minute, mind boggled. If I had thought a hundred years I would not have come up with potato salad.

“Can it be, I thought, that all these years in the church I’ve been making decisions on behalf of others assuming everyone is essentially like me when they may be peanut-butter and potato-salad eaters?

“Since then I haven’t been able to make a single meaningful decision that involves others,” he sadly concluded.

The moral of this story may be that the unity of the human race ends at the dinner table. Or it may be something much more profound. If it is, please let me know.

THANKFUL FOR THE POET

Thank you for the delightful discussion of Henry Vaughan, “The Poetry of Henry Vaughan” (Jan. 1). I enjoyed it very much, and look forward to more articles on Christian literary figures. How about one for C. S. Lewis?

Hightstown, N.J.

MORE RESEARCH NEEDED

I appreciated the article “The Problems and Prospects of Evangelical Radio” (Jan. 1). It is unfortunate that Mr. Wineke didn’t do a little more research before writing the article. Those of us deeply concerned about the future of “evangelistic” radio have long ago learned that we don’t get too many answers among our NRB brethren. We are all too “hung up” on listener support. And our fellow evangelical listeners have not been willing to pay for newer, more contemporary ventures in broadcasting. We have however, found other brethren in the WACC (World Association for Christian Communications) who have adopted a different pattern.…

Mr. Wineke might be surprised to hear how many good solidly “evangelical” broadcasts are presently being released outside the NRB label. I believe that CHRISTIANITY TODAY should, in the near future, have a feature article about ways in which we can use radio today for evangelism.

Director

Faith and Life Radio and Television

General Conference Mennonite Church

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Might I add my “Amen” to William R. Wineke’s article on evangelical radio. While religious and evangelical radio stations may render good service to the initiated, my experience in personal and “street” evangelism with the younger set indicates that infiltration of secular stations is the better method for proclaiming Christ. Despite the competition of TV and other entertainment media, most young people in a given locality are dedicated listeners to two or three popular stations. Thus the Edwin Hawkins Singers’s recording of “O Happy Day,” which was the “number one” record on both soul and rock stations for several weeks in 1969, did more to open people to conversation about the possibility of “Jesus washing my sins away” than anything (or even everything) broadcast on the local religious stations (one of which is indeed evangelical in perspective). While million-selling records might be hard to come up with, perhaps five-or ten-minute “spots” could be purchased on these stations, or a Sunday-afternoon hour of good contemporary Christian music á la Hawkins Singers, Larry Norman, and others, along with good between-records commentary on Christ and modern culture. We also have the wonderful example of Joel Nederhood on the “Back to God Hour,” where every Sunday morning, without any money-begging, he presents a clear, concise, faithful, and relevant message of our Lord, on the top rock station in the San Francisco Bay Area (KFRC).

Berkeley, Calif.

CLEARING UP INTERPRETATIONS

I am not sensitive to adverse criticism of my published work and can myself dish out the same in reviewing the work of others. However, readers of Robert Guelich’s review of A Survey of the New Testament (Jan. 1) would conclude that I had advocated the purpose of Mark to be evangelistic, the delay of the bridegroom in the parable of the ten virgins to stem from haggling over the dowry, and the statement, “He shall be called a Nazarene,” to relate to the Messianic Branch in Isaiah vis-à-vis a derivation of “Nazareth” from the Hebrew word for “branch”—all with some dogmatism and no attention to other possibilities. As a matter of fact, in the first two instances other interpretations are entertained, and in the third instance the explanation is put only in terms of probability. The derivation of “hate thy enemy” from rabbinical teaching is a manuscript error which Guelich’s remark happily brings to my attention: the reference should be to Essene teaching.

Professor of Biblical Studies

Westmont College

Santa Barbara, Calif.

JUST ADVOCACY?

I am frankly puzzled by Vernon C. Grounds’s [article] “Bombs or Bibles? Get Ready for Revolution!” (Jan. 15), characterizing my views in the book Movement and Revolution as “open advocacy of revolution.” The purpose of the book, and this is clearly stated at a number of points, is to encourage careful reflection of the traditional “just war” doctrine as it may apply to revolutionary action. Anyone who reads Movement and Revolution with care will, I believe, recognize it as an essentially conservative approach to the growing revolutionary consciousness in America and the world. Sympathetic criticism it may be; advocacy, open or otherwise, it is not.

Church of St. John the Evangelist

Brooklyn, N.Y.

The article seemed to me quite apropos to the times. Within three pages Dr. Grounds has done an admirable job of stating the problem, relating the proper role of the Church, and ending with a note of hope—that a Wesleyan-type revival is what is needed.

While we cannot condone the methods or many of the aims of the godless revolutionaries, I feel that the record of the evangelical churches in recognizing problems now coming to light has not been something of which they can be proud.

Editor

The Sabbath Sentinel

Fairview, Okla.

Shades of perpetual pride! Indeed, bombs or Bible. Get ready for revolution? Yes. Even agreed—Vernon Grounds—Christ’s way, not Peter’s. But with Christ, it must be all the way, not half-way. And I contend that until we abandon spiritual myopia for the laser beam of the Gospel, we will not be adequately armed to wage the war as Christ’s revolutionaries or to properly define the role of the Church. Only by adopting the whole armor of God shall we be able to withstand the counterforces and stem the tide of evil. For when we, in Christ’s army, are willing to let go our enemy—pride—and subjugate our wills to the chief commander, we shall see twentieth-century Belshazzers with trembling knees and crumbling kingdoms.

Okeene, Okla.

PERUSING SATIRE

I was greatly impressed by the advance in scholarship which was represented by Gordon H. Clark’s article. However, your editors failed to note the mathematical error which crept in: On page 13 Clark says that Jesus spoke of “productivity up to 100 per cent.” Now of course this error almost certainly crept in through the activity of some dull-minded copyist, for it is well known that Clark originally wrote in an accurate way, that increase of an hundredfold is “productivity up to 10,000 per cent.” The next sentence but one, too, has incorporated the anti-agricultural bias of the copyist/redactor.

All of this brings me to a major addition to the thesis of Clark. Supporting Jesus’ gospel of food is his emphasis on organic agriculture. Only two points need to be made in this regard. (1) When “tares” were sown in the wheat field, the compassion of the Master would not allow them to be rooted out. He realized the symbolic relationship of the two kinds of plant; and he did not wish to have the balance in nature disturbed. (2) The Lucan parable about the fig tree in the vineyard (Luke 13:6–9) shows the proper method of “spring that tree.” Hand work and organic fertilizer are necessary ingredients.

It is fortunate that in this decade the exciting advance has been made by Clark. In future years we will all remember that we saw it first in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Associate Professor of New Testament

Greenville College

Greenville, Ill.

Many thanks to Professor Gordon H. Clark for his masterful piece of satire, “A New Discovery in the Quest of the Historical Jesus” (Jan. 15). If he could have placed the article in one of the liberal theological journals under an assumed name, it would have been sadly amusing to follow the inevitable spate of “copycat” articles in other journals, a write-up in Time’s “Religion” section, courses in leading seminaries on “pastoral guidance in planning the family menu” and “epicurean influence on liturgical forms and formulas,” and reports of experimental worship experiences in fasting or gluttony in various churches.

The Presbyterian Churches of Eleanor, Pliny, and Winfield

Winfield, W. Va.

I find Gordon Clark’s [article] to be imposing and superfluous in verbiage, but attenuated in spirit, especially Holy Spirit. In his article, he makes frequent reference to Jesus. One thing I’ve not been able to determine: Is Dr. Clark for or against him?

President

Berean Christian College

Wichita, Kans.

DOUBLE TALK ON BJU

Your editorial “BJU and the IRS” (Jan. 15) is … doubletalk on the matter of racism. While you … do not agree with “racial discrmination” as practiced by Bob Jones University, you do accept their racial bias [by agreeing] that “blacks are not … harmed by being refused admission to BJU.” Bob Jones could hardly ask for more.

Knollwood Church of the Nazarene

Dayton, Ohio

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