Eutychus and His Kin: March 31, 1972

POLITICAL SCIENCE REVISITED

“Dad, what are taxes?”

It was my eight-year-old speaking. I’m continually amazed at the topics they broach in the third grade these days. However, I felt I could field this one splendidly.

“Taxes,” I answered confidently, “is the name for the money we give to the government …”

“Who is the government?”

“You know, the President and our senators and the governor—those who make our laws and run our country.”

“That’s what I thought. What do they do with the money?”

“Well, some of it is used to pay the President and the others. Some of it is used to build new highways and schools and to pay teachers—things like that.”

“Do you pay taxes?”

“You’d better believe it!” I responded with feeling.

“Do you pay the President’s salary?”

“Well, part of it.”

There was a thoughtful pause while this information was worked over.

“Is that why you give your money—so we can pay the President and things?”

“Well, sort of,” I hedged.

“How do you know how much to give?”

“Oh, the government tells you how much to give.”

“What if it’s more than you make?”

“They don’t do that. You tell the government how much you make and they tell you how much you have to give.”

He frowned as his normal eight-year-old independence began to surface. “If they told me how much to give, I wouldn’t do it. What would they do if you didn’t give?”

“They’d put you in jail.”

Eyes wide now. “Can they do that? Can they really put you in jail?”

“Yes, indeed. There are lots of people in jail right now for not paying their taxes.”

“I’d go to another country!”

“Well, that’s all right, but if you want to live in this country you have to help support it.”

Another thoughtful pause.

“Is that why people give—because they don’t want to go to jail?”

“Yes, I guess a lot do …”

“Is that why you give—so you won’t go to jail?”

“Well, that’s not all. God tells us to obey the government in things like this.”

“Where did he say that?”

“In the Bible. I’ll show it to you later.”

“If they couldn’t put you in jail, would you still give?”

“Probably not …”

“You mean you do what God says because they’d put you in jail if you didn’t?”

“Well …”

“Wow!”

STRIKING A BALANCE

Let me express my appreciation for the excellent and well balanced article by Richard Lovelace (“The Seminary as a Source of Renewal,” Jan. 21); he certainly marshalled well the continuing debate which is often heard in lay circles of the problem of balancing learning with piety. That the two must be brought together in synthesis and wholeness in the life of the educator is without question. His article merits reading and discussion on the part of any Christian educator.

One small point to be made: it seems to me that there’s a bit of a half-truth in his statement, “It is too much to expect that all seminary teachers are called to be pastors.” Though he indicates that he has in mind for the most part the concept of pastor in terms of a resident parish ministry along with or prior to his seminary teaching responsibilities, nevertheless the union of the office “pastor-teacher” in Ephesians 4:11 suggests a dual responsibility of one office. Hence, it may well be urged that all seminary professors worthy of their calling evidence a pastoral concern both for their students as well as their lecture material. Fortunately, from my own perspective, it was my privilege to attend Gordon Seminary in the 1950s to discover that this blending of concerns was evidenced by many of the faculty there.

Eastern Regional Director

Christian Medical Society

Havertown, Pa.

AN IVORY EDIFICE

Nolan Harmon’s article, “Church and State—A Relation in Equity” (Feb. 4), is a strange edifice erected upon a foundation of fundamental errors.

He is correct in pointing out that application of the church-state separation principle is not always easy. But to use these difficulties as justification for abandoning principle is quite the same as saying that we should abandon democracy, Christianity, and Judaism because the great ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Judeo-Christian ethic have never been fully lived up to. Harmon seems to be saying that since we cannot be angels, then we must and should be devils. This is absurd.

Since the First Amendment was adopted and the states planted the separation principle in their constitutions, we have steadily moved toward full compliance with the principle, with murmuring only from those who have never understood or appreciated the great improvements Americans have made over Old World ways of dealing with religious freedom. Who … today could really oppose compliance with ideals expressed by the Supreme Court in the 1947 Everson and subsequent rulings?

The “Establishment of Religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will, or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax, in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups, and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a “wall of separation between Church and State.”

Harmon’s equation of public-school religious neutrality with atheism is preposterous. The courts, common sense, and the nature of our pluralistic society all require that our public schools be respectfully neutral with regard to the rich variety of religious views and traditions represented by our children and teachers. This neutrality is a respectful neutrality and certainly allows individual children the free exercise of whatever religion they have, and it allows the schools to teach, neutrally and objectively, about religion in social studies, language-arts courses, and elsewhere in the curriculum. Atheism cannot possibly be equated with a wholesome and democratic neutrality, as any perceptive teacher or clergyman has no difficulty in recognizing. Ivory-tower theologians would do well to maintain a closer contact with the real world.

Beltsville, Md.

Turn back the clock a few centuries. In many countries of the Old World the Catholic Church had put the most, if not all, into the life of the nation. The majority asserted its “rights.” Christianity, as defined by the church in power, must not be shaken or disturbed by any heretical teaching. There were no minority rights or even privileges.

Those who sought freedom in the wilderness world brought with them—sad to say—the same antipathy towards anything heretical. Roger Williams found refuge from the Puritan “refugees” with the Indians of Rhode Island. Each colony had its majorities and minorities. Intolerance was the heritage deeply engraved in the conscience of the freedom-loving colonials. It must have been the hand of God which directed the framers of our Constitution to erect the wall of separation between church and state.

If that wall is so twisted as to become serpentine (of or like a serpent) what assurance do we have that equity would prevail in judicial decisions? The very fact that many of the Supreme Court decisions have been on a 5–4 basis shows how men may differ in their judgment. With no restraining rule, or even a serpentine rule, to guide, equity would be ministered according to the thinking of the judge. Who would say that the judges of early New England did not consider themselves equitable in their decisions, or that the judges in the Inquisition did not have a clear conscience? What of a modern state such as Syria where a Mohammedan majority makes no concessions to a minority religion?

Yucaipa, Calif.

There is one primary difference between church and state. The church gets all of its resources, ultimately, by voluntary means. The government, in contrast, takes all of its resources by force. The first gains its growth money in love, or perhaps fear of future alternatives, but the latter takes what it wants without recourse of its victims, breeding hate and economic destruction.

Government is merely a bad substitute for church. It takes over when men refuse to abide by moral structures, and then it cannot be stopped, because it uses force to take its resources. It grows until the church must fade, because there are not enough resources for both. It grows until it destroys the economy on which it fastens, and both die, and are replaced, again and again. Government essentially is evil, and from evil root no good can grow. But evil men within it refuse to admit that stricture, so long as, hiding behind the bodies of the children, the old, the poor, the sick, and weary, they can aggrandize their own positions by pretending to help those in need, after they are first rewarded heavily by themselves for their services.

Plantation, Fla

For me, the article only served to add further confusion to a subject on which many people in this country, particularly those in public office, need more enlightenment. He seems quite willing to dispense with “Thomas Jefferson’s strict wall of separation between religion and government” on the premise that it “is more of a constitutional abstraction than a political reality.” The fact that such a position could be honestly taken by a former bishop of the Methodist Church came, to me, as quite a shock.

The “wall of separation” has served us well for nearly two centuries, for under its protection we have enjoyed a degree of religious liberty beyond that found in almost any other country. Moreover, under its influence, all of our churches have flourished, including the Roman Catholic Church, which has for nearly a century been trying to tear that wall down. The Roman church has actually grown and prospered much more in this country than in any of the several countries, in both the Old and New Worlds, in which it has enjoyed the privileged status of establishment.

The reason why we are having church-state problems today is that, in recent years, we have allowed the “wall” to be partially chipped away; and we shall never really solve them until, first, the “wall” is restored to serve its intended purpose, and secondly, our elected public servants learn to honor it. Poll after poll and referendum after referendum have established the incontrovertible fact that the large majority of the American people want church and state to remain completely separate, in full agreement with the intent of the framers of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and in agreement with the many decisions handed down over the years by our state and federal supreme courts.…

The framers of the Constitution, well aware of the evils of clericism prevalent in many other countries, gave us a unique and workable constitution that, among other things, guarantees to every citizen full and complete religious liberty. Under its protection, we have the right to live under a system of government that disallows entanglement between the functions of state and those of any and all churches; we have the right to worship, or not to worship, as we please; and, last but not least, we have the right not to be taxed to support the activities of any or all religious groups. Our religious liberty is our most precious freedom; and so it was disheartening, to say the least, to learn that a prominent Methodist Church leader is unwilling to protect the “wall of separation” that makes it all possible.

Wading River, N. Y.

FOIBLES AND ERRORS

Concerning Dr. Wirt’s unspecified complaints against unnamed church magazines (“A New Note in Christian Journalism,” Feb. 4): If “playing up the foibles of church people” is a sin, I assume the Holy Spirit erred grievously when he inspired, for example, the account of David’s murderous dalliance with Bathsheba in Second Samuel 11.

Time-Life News Service

New York, N. Y.

JUDICIOUS SERIES

I should like to add my congratulations to the many [Dr. Armerding] must already have received upon the “Bibliography for Christians” that [has been appearing] in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. It is a most timely, helpful, and judicious compilation.… There is just one omission I have noted that draws from its overall comprehensiveness: in citing works on Esther (Jan. 21, 1972, issue), the author has overlooked our Anchor Bible translation of Esther (April, 1971) by Dr. Carey A. Moore.… Again, let me thank you for an otherwise most profitable series of articles.

Editor, Anchor Bible

Doubleday and Company, Inc.

New York, N. Y.

CATCHING THE SPIRIT

Thank you for the strong, positive statement you gave with regard to the American Baptist Convention and especially with regard to the nomination of Robert C. Campbell for the post of general secretary (News, “Baptists, More or Less,” Feb. 18). You have correctly caught the spirit of encouragement that is among us now. Thank you for saying so.

Executive Director

Division of Communication

American Baptist Convention

Valley Forge, Pa.

PACIFIST OR PASSIVIST?

I wish to call your attention to an error in your February 18 issue. In the caption under the cartoon ((“What If …,” Eutychus and His Kin) you have misspelled one word. The word you spell “pacifist” should be spelled “passivist.”

A pacifist is an active peace-maker, opposing war and violence. Your magazine reaches enough people that you should be better informed and give better information. You should know what the American Friends and the Fellowship of Reconciliation are doing, nationally and internationally. They are pacifists, active peace-makers. You don’t make peace with guns.

I don’t believe you would knowingly distort the ideal of Christian pacifism. You know what Jesus said about the peace-makers.

St. Louis, Mo.

AN EVANGELICAL CHECKLIST?

I asked our … son how he enjoyed the Christmas subscription to CHRISTIANITY TODAY which we had sent him. His response took me by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. He had reacted negatively as I had to your editorial “Nixon, China, and Religious Freedom” (Feb. 4) and marveled at the naïveté of your editorial wish that Nixon would consider the most basic and profitable item on his agenda to be a discussion of religious liberty in China, and even Russia, where the Chinese Communists have minimal influence today!

We both noted that you also urged our President to share with Mao and Chou the fact that young people in the West “who only months ago had been looking to other secular messiahs are now turning their eyes to Jesus.” Do you actually imagine that the ruler of one of the kingdoms of the world would say that to another leader? You even advise our President to urge Mao and Chou to “recognize that it is only a matter of time until Christianity rises again in China—with or without their help—if it is not already doing so!!” (The exclamation points are mine.)

It is the duty of informed, concerned Christians to pray, work, and give that God in his perfect sovereign plan will build his Church and promote his Kingdom in the great “Middle Kingdom,” the land of China. But helpful hints to President Nixon as though he were God’s emissary only serve to make my favorite Christian periodical sound ludicrous.

If you are expecting our government to espouse the furthering of the spread of the Good News, please note what a national news magazine with a twenty-two page spread on the China trip reports—almost with embarrassment: “And, fanciful as it sounds, harassed U. S. officials admit that some missionaries have been inquiring about the chances of reopening their outposts on the mainland.” God’s work can be wrought in high government circles because God is God, not because your usually fine magazine tries to arm our President with a little evangelical checklist.

(Mrs.) VIRGINIA MALWITZ

Union, N. J.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

I wonder what would have happened if you had personally shown the drunk the way to gate 20 (Eutychus and His Kin, “Plane Talk,” Mar. 3)! Maybe you could have put a tract in his pocket, or even have been so radical to try to reason with him about Christ. The irony of your article is that even in print you failed to see your opportunity.

Deerfield, Ill.

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