Eutychus and His Kin: May 26, 1972

THE WORRYING KIND

So do not start worrying: “Where will my food come from, or my drink? or my clothes?” (Matthew 6:31, TEV).

When I read this admonition by Jesus, I feel very good. These are not the kinds of things that fill my worrying hours.

I leave to others worry about such mundane, uninspired things as the provision of daily bread or the paying of the orthodontist’s bill.

Others can also assume the burden of worrying about the more cosmic concerns. I am untroubled by the size of the national debt; and I have yet to lose a wink of sleep over the fact that the earth is slowing down and will be uninhabitable in umpteen million years.

My own concerns are far more esoteric and existential. For example I am presently troubled by:

—a leak around the tailgate of my station wagon (don’t they make anything right any more?),

—the invasion of clover into my front lawn (I put weed killer on it—what more can I do?),

—a faulty toilet valve (and the house is only five years old),

—a pending loss claim with my insurance company (25 per cent depreciation in one year? Ridiculous!),

—a speaking engagement in August (will they boo?),

—a malfunctioning shutter on the family movie camera (it cost $95 twenty years ago),

—finishing this column, which is already overdue (what do the editors know of the trauma?).

My concern over these problems is not a passing thing. It’s absolutely tenacious.

Some months ago I lost a fountain pen. It was one that I hardly ever used, so it wasn’t the need of it but the loss of it that bothered me (to quote George MacDonald).

First I searched the nooks and crannies of my office. Then I searched through all my coats, moving on to the shirts in the clothes hamper.

Then it occurred to me that my wife (notorious for picking up things I leave around the house) might have appropriated it. A search of her dresser and the kitchen drawers, however, produced nothing.

The active worrying about the pen stretched out over about three weeks. But I still have not completely given up. Perhaps it fell out of my pocket when I was pulling up clover in the front yard and even now awaits discovery under the leaves of grass. I must remember when I get home.…

The Apostle Peter had the answer to this condition. “Throw all your worries on him,” he wrote, “for he cares for you.”

I’m convinced that these are the very kinds of worries we should throw on Jesus so we can get on with the more important concerns of his kingdom.

PROS AND CONS

In view of the fact that it was my privilege to serve as the assistant to the president of Princeton Seminary during the last several years of Dr. John A. Mackay’s tenure as president, I was delighted to read his brief article entitled “Thoughts on Christian Unity” (April 14). The article represents a condensing of the opinions that Dr. Mackay has held about Christian unity for a decade. Certainly, if any of your readers want to become intelligible concerning the pros and cons of this long debate, this brief article is a must. I am deeply grateful that his incisive mind and great Christian spirit will still help to lead the Christian world in thought and in action. Surely the time has come for the Church to get on with its primary mission, which is to win the world for Christ, and not be so concerned about structure.

Union Presbyterian Church

Carney’s Point, N. J.

The lead articles in your April 14 issue, “Zaire’s Super Church” and “Thoughts on Christian Unity,” deal with attempts by men to join together what God has put asunder. By pressing for ecclesiastical union, COCU and the Church of Christ in Zaire are endeavoring to reverse a God-inspired process. That is the development in the Christian family of numerous genera and species (communions and denominations), each possessing distinctive spiritual characteristics.… And speaking as a Presbyterian, I believe that we need Pentecostals, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Jesus people, and even crossbreeds such as Pentecostal-Catholics in the family, for there are many who could identify with such people who could not identify with a dour Calvinist.…

Paul describes [Christian] unity in terms of one body whose members, eyes, ears, head, and feet, each have their individual role to perform. The trouble with those COCU types is, they want to be the thumb—under which the rest of us will be kept.

Langley, British Columbia

ON CHANGING THE WORLD

Who do you think is happy? The stupid sob-sister? The drunk? The plane officials? (Eutychus and His Kin, “More Plane Talk,” April 14). Certainly not me; and I doubt if you are. I know that such situations do arise.… But you can’t change the world, or one inebriated member of it, if that individual does not want to be changed. Still “the wages of sin is death,” even though that death be a wet skin, as in this case. Let him get soaked! And that for all sob-sisters, of either sex.

Columbus, Ohio

Moralizing with a drunk would be futile. In fact, handing out tracts and advice does more harm than good. Since Christian ethics evidently carries no weight with you, let me rephrase my comments:

He is one of God’s children, and as a human being I’m expected to show a little compassion. Therefore as a decent human being I would have—

1. Refrained from laughing at his predicament.

2. Refrained from sitting on my “?” and would have gotten up and escorted him to the proper gate.

3. Kept my fat mouth shut about the incident—at least editorially.

Waltham, Minn.

A POLITICAL PULPIT?

The uneven quality of your magazine was never better illustrated than by the juxtaposition of Thomas Howard’s perceptive article with J. Edgar Hoover’s political polemic (April 28).

The absurdity of a man not noted for his Christian example attempting to define the mission of the Church was exceeded only by the fatuous belief of this arch-conservative that he was qualified to define radical ethics.

I had thought that your magazine was religious in nature; it now seems you are also to serve as a pulpit for political rhetoric. You would do well, if so, to strike a better balance. J. Edgar’s hatchet job may have purported to be a dispassionate rendering of radical morality, but it was inaccurate, biased, selective, and viciously distortive. You give poor service to your subscribers, and offense to many of your less right-wing readers, by spreading such falsehood unrebutted. To editorially commend Hoover’s diatribe, while condemning James Moore’s much milder piece, is adding insult to the injury.

If you would be a missionary to “the unevangelized tribes of twentieth-century America” (the White Man’s Burden lives! Is this the burden you meant, Howard?), learning something of the “counterculture” is indeed a prerequisite. I doubt you realize how far you have yet to go to reach that point. To reject as a radical cliché the phrase “the Kent and Jackson State massacres” is letting your sentimentality run amok. Massacres they were in fact, as the analysis of none other than Hoover’s Bureau has shown—or was that superficial also? If you fail to see why Schaeffer, for all his readability, is less pertinent to the counterculture than Marcuse, for all the muddiness of his prose, then you are not even aware of the issues, for Marcuse addresses them as Schaeffer does not.

There is a small but fashionable movement among Christians who call themselves conservatives—perhaps an unfortunate choice of words—to inspect the beliefs and activity of radical proponents. To condemn them as propagandists, while you masquerade your conservative political philosophy under the cleaner banner of Christianity, is a hypocrisy worthy of the match. Oakland, Calif.

I wish to protest in the strongest terms the lead editorial, “Culture and Counterculture,” in the April 28 issue. Your critical comments on James R. Moore’s article in the same number were inappropriate and misdirected, since Moore sought to give a bibliographic introduction to the New Left and counterculture, not to provide an apologetic for those views. You took it otherwise, however, and responded to Moore’s article as though it were a blanket commendation rather than a bibliographic overview.

The result was the most negative editorial evaluation of an article I have ever read. If the editorial staff of CHRISTIANITY TODAY had such serious reservations about the content of Mr. Moore’s article, one wonders why they published it in the first place.

If I read Mr. Moore and his colleagues of the Post-American correctly, they hold that the radical critique of American society is valid but that its standards are relative and its power waning precisely because it lacks firm biblical foundations and alternatives. These the “prophetic Christians” seek to supply. This and other pertinent information would surface, I’m sure, if CHRISTIANITY TODAY would permit these “prophetic Christians” to air their views in an article expressly designed for that purpose. I fervently hope such an article will appear in the near future.

Graduate Assistant

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield. Ill.

Christianity Today is certainly one of the outstanding periodicals in the field of religion. I have gained much useful information and insights from it. All magazines benefit from constructive criticism, and I believe such criticism is warranted in respect to the contribution by James R. Moore. This tendentious appeal for sympathy with radical left causes is inappropriate in a journal of the stature of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Aside from its sophomoric quality, the “bibliography” is actually a selected list of some of the most inflammatory writings that could be assembled to bolster the cause of the far left. To cite but one example—and there are many others—The Movement Toward a New America is a self-proclaimed “revolution kit” replete with an incredible series of crude statements.…

I submit that, although you have recognized the shortcomings of the Moore piece to some extent, you have shown no justification for inclusion of this guide to anarchy in a religious publication.

Washington, D. C.

INTEREST IN ACCURACY

I would like to call to your attention an error in “Quebec: Breaking the Ice” (News, April 14). The “Crossroads” program will not be the first gospel program to appear on French television in the province. Gaston Jolin, a Christian Brethren evangelist, has been broadcasting on French television in Quebec since 1965. This outreach was featured in a cover story in Interest magazine March, 1965.

Interest

Wheaton, Ill. Editor

HEAT, BUT NO LIGHT

Your unnamed professorial source (“Missouri Synod Furor: Lutheran Showdown,” April 14) issued a statement with loaded words which add heat rather than light.

It is true that, in reverence to the sacred Scriptures, the majority of theologians at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, employ the best tools available.… Lutherans cherish the Word and the freedom of the Gospel too much to be constricted by theological obscurantism. At least one of the five professors who do not share the majority view has consistently taken a position more akin to a Reformed fundamentalistic stance than to Lutheranism. Jacob Preus, having come out of a sectarian background, appears to agree with that position and therefore, hardly belongs in a body dedicated to the conservation of Lutheran confessional principles.

Lutheran Services

Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, N. Y.

The author of the article was, from the very first sentence, obviously doing a bit of subjective reporting.

Clifton Lutheran Church

Marblehead, Mass.

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