Eutychus and His Kin: March 3, 1972

PLANE TALK

The other night I was sitting in an airport lounge awaiting the arrival of my traveling companion. It had been raining for hours, and the rain was still coming down in sheets against the plate-glass window of the lounge.

I was just settling into my own thoughts when a red-faced drunk in rumpled clothes staggered in and asked a question of one of the baggage-handlers. Apparently not liking the answer, he shook his head and made his unsteady way toward me.

He stopped immediately in front of my seat, weaving back and forth on his feet. I prepared myself for a plea for financial assistance, but instead he asked, “Can you tell me where gate twenty is?”

I noticed he was clutching an airline ticket. Trying to be helpful I said, “Go through the door over there into the main terminal and you’ll see signs pointing to the different gates.”

“It don’t work that way,” he said with a frown, turning away abruptly with a swaying stagger toward the young woman sitting next to me.

“Where is gate twenty?” he demanded in a louder and more belligerent tone. Startled out of her magazine reading, the girl began to repeat the directions I had given. “Go through that door into the terminal and I think it’s to the …”

“Grwaf!” said our inquisitor, flinging his hands toward us in a gesture of disgust. And with that he made his way purposefully but unsteadily through the exit into the pouring rain.

“I hope he makes it,” I said to the girl next to me. I was surprised to hear a burst of laughter from behind me, where other travelers had been observing the encounter.

There was some discussion among us about the strange behavior of this fellow who rejected all attempts to direct him in the way he should go.

My companion soon arrived, and we completed our arrangements and boarded our appointed flight.

I felt a little frustrated as I thought again about the fellow in the airport, wondering if he was still standing in the rain and dark holding a perfectly good airline ticket that wasn’t going to take him anywhere.

Perhaps that’s the way God feels sometimes about us.

CHURCH VS. STATE

May I offer congratulations on your statements concerning church and government in the editorial “From Servant to Advocate” (Feb. 4). Our government has enough problems to deal with today without having to become a part of a church-government struggle. Yet many people feel that things could be much better if the Church applied pressure and got help from the government at all levels.…

The Catholic Church seems to feel that the federal, state, and local governments owe something to them and that this is another means to get what they feel they have coming. One cannot help but wonder if the motivation behind this agency is for the good of the “poor and oppressed Americans” or if this is just another step toward getting more direct help from the governments to benefit the Catholic Church. I should point out that the Catholic Church is not the only church involved in this type of lobby, but the editorial points directly to this newly created agency of the Catholic Church.

Especially good, I thought, were your comments regarding the Church and [how] its proper action could relate to handling the problems at the grass-roots level without recourse to the government, if it were properly sensitized. More churches need to be aware of the people and problems around them and within their own groups. If the proper motivation is used and the situations are handled properly as they arise, then many conflicts and problems could be avoided. I feel you are to be commended on your comments in this type of editorial and for your encouragement to all churches in their dealing with these problems. Our churches need to be concerned with the spiritual revelations as you have stated and let the government deal with their “side of the coin.”

Minister of Education and Youth

First Baptist Church

Lee’s Summit, Mo.

TWOFOLD SIGNIFICANCE

As an Englishman working in America I would like to express my very great gratification at your understanding and sympathetic editorial on the significance and value of our monarchy (“Britain’s Big Secret,” Jan. 21). We feel that it makes for public spirit and good government to have the symbolical head of state, to whom loyalty is due, separated from the office of chief executive in the government, because the latter is bound to be a figure of political controversy. However, our good fortune is a thing which it is virtually impossible to share, for it is hard to imagine a new monarchy coming into existence in the modern equalitarian world! History has made each nation what it is, and one has one good thing in its heritage, and another another. The Queen also has another important significance. Because she is the head of the earthly polity of the national church, her office also symbolizes our national recognition of the Christian religion. It will be realized that there is complete religious liberty in Britain. The national Churches of England and Scotland are not paid for by the state, nor is their preaching in any way controlled by the government. However, the nation does corporately recognize the Christian faith as the national religion. The value of this is seen in the sad circumstance that if a nation ceases to be “one nation under God” and sets up as a purely secular society, it inevitably slips into the national patronage of unbelief and materialism.

Professor of Church History

Candler School of Theology

Emory University

Atlanta, Ga.

GOING FARTHER

When you say in your editorial “Accord on the Eucharist” (Jan. 21) that “Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others have a stake in the proceedings,” I wonder if you realize that the Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogue has gone farther than the Roman Catholic / Anglican formulated statement to which you refer.

On 15 December 1967 the U. S. National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs published an extensive document entitled “The Eucharist as Sacrifice” in which the objective, real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is affirmed in concord.

Then in 1970 the same dialogue group published a further document entitled “Eucharist and Ministry” in which the Roman theologians call for the recognition of the validity of Lutheran ordination, stating:

We have found serious defects in the arguments customarily used against the validity of the eucharistic Ministry of the Lutheran churches. In fact, we see no persuasive reason to deny the possibility of the Roman Catholic Church recognizing the validity of this Ministry. Accordingly we ask the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church whether the ecumenical urgency flowing from Christ’s will for unity may not dictate that the Roman Catholic Church recognize the validity of the Lutheran ministry and, correspondingly, the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharistic celebrations of the Lutheran churches.

Hope Lutheran Church

Mojave, Calif.

While you raise the tradition-bound questions of the how and the why of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, Lutherans will rejoice over the recent Roman Catholic-Anglican statement on Holy Communion. On the one hand this statement avoids any reference to a sacrificial offering up of Christ to God in the mass but rather stresses the grace of God and the once-for-all atoning value of Christ’s death and resurrection. The statement also points out that an encounter with Christ in the sacrament is life-giving only when met with faith. This seems to be an answer to concerns which evangelical Christians have been expressing for centuries.

On the other hand the statement expresses the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. This is a means of grace. Through the sacrament the life of the crucified and risen Christ is transmitted to the Church. Christ’s body and blood are given in order that, receiving them, believers may be united in communion with Christ.

As an evangelical Christian and confessing Lutheran who is interested in true ecumenicity I would urge fellow Protestants to demonstrate more heartfelt joy over this statement. If in evaluating the statement it is necessary to remember the statements of such great reformers as Calvin and Zwingli, it might be well to hear again the words of another great reformer, Martin Luther, who said, “The benefits of this sacrament are pointed out by the words, ‘given and shed for you for the remission of sins.’ These words assure us that in the sacrament we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.”

For evangelical Christians who pride themselves on a high view of biblical authority, here is an opportunity to come to grips with the teaching of Paul on the Eucharist in First Corinthians 10 and 11. “Christ is real,” we keep saying. Then let him be really present when the Church gathers for spiritual refreshment at the Lord’s table.

Courtenay, British Columbia

A SMALLER REQUIREMENT

Your January 21 issue carried an article by Russell Chandler entitled “Christian Paperbacks: Potent Evangelism.” In the article Mr. Chandler refers to our paperback ministry, and we are grateful for the recognition.

However … Chandler says of Hearthstone that “$1,000 to $5,000 investment is required for initial inventory”.… This is a misleading statement. Any distributor can enter the Hearthstone program with as little as $15 and no inventory. The fact that some … people who want to handle an area for us do invest $1,000 to $5,000 in inventory to cover their areas, is not the same as a required initial inventory for distributors, as your article implies.

President

Hearthstone Publications, Inc.

Williamsport, Pa.

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