Eutychus and His Kin: September 27, 1974

America’S Classical Heritage

During July and August, a group proclaiming “Christ is the answer” received official permits to set up a tent and hold meetings on the Mall in Washington, D. C. A quick-witted government clerk and fourth-year law student, Fred S. Souk, has brought suit in U. S. District Court attempting to ban such Christian propaganda from public park land. For the moment, Manus J. Fish, director of National Capital Parks, is claiming that the permits were justified in view of the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and religion. As Souk cannily points out, however, allowing Christians to assemble and speak on public property constitutes a government advancement of religion and entanglement in religious affairs.

Although his name might suggest Arabic, not classical, antecedents (Arabic souk or suq, market), Souk has put in his debt all those who cherish America’s classical heritage by rising up to defend that heritage against the encroachments of those impertinent Christian enthusiasts. Anyone contemplating the Mall, which stretches serenely from the neo-Grecian temple portals of the Lincoln Memorial past the monumental Egyptian eminence of the Washington Monument to the opulent Roman expanse of the Capitol, will see that any Christian elements on those grounds must immediately clash, and can hardly be construed as other than a direct, wanton, and provocative attack on America’s classical heritage.

The continuing burrowing activity of Christians all over America bodes fair to undermine America’s unique and sacred Graeco-Roman classical tradition. If religious ideas that can only be classified as of foreign (i.e. Judaeo-Christian) origin are not checked, they may soon begin to influence American political leaders. Anyone looking at the noble if somewhat bulky Grecian colonnades of our public buildings, beholding the august Senate in sagacious deliberation, or reading the Olympian (fr. Greece, not Washington) decisions of the exalted “Justices” of the Supreme Court, will recognize the tremendous debt this nation owes to Greece and Rome and their great intellectual and political leaders, such as Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, Cicero, Caesar, Nero, and P. Clodius Pulcher.

What if the foreign-born emperor Constantine the Great forcibly introduced Judaeo-Christian ideas into the politcal life of the Roman Empire (at that time combined with the Greek)? What if his equally religious successors Theodosius and Justinian even reformed Roman Law according to Christian principles? That is behind us now. The establishment of a republic in the new world broke with such religious entanglements, and brought America back to the traditional, classical heritage of Livy, Sallust, Caligula, and Crassus. What a sad commentary on America today that it should take a Souk to alert us to the fact that our proud classical heritage is again in danger of Christian contamination, and that not even the soil between Lincoln’s temple and Washington’s obelisk is safe from it.

EUTYCHUS VI

Hymns For Children

I was delighted to discover the issue of July 5 on Sunday-school operation. The authors chose to give only passing attention to hymnody in the Sunday school and Vacation Bible School, but happily the articles on Watts lent emphasis to this important area of instruction. The scant attention which hymnody for children frequently receives suggests the opinion that hymns can do neither much good nor much harm in child training. One denomination in its ’74 VBS output included in the hymn material only one selection, tune and text, from its current hymnal. How this church hopes to perpetuate its hymnody among children and youth is not quite clear. It can hardly be in the interest of Christian education to confront children during the Sunday service with a formidable hymnal containing for the most part unfamiliar tunes and texts. In the absence of enough trained teachers, we might follow the example of black Sunday schools and inaugurate a liberal program of hymnody, with due attention to the doctrinal, musical, and literary worth of the material.

M. J. BANGERT

Lutheran Music and Mission Camps, Inc.

Milwaukee, Wis.

No Rebuke

In Edward Plowman’s news article “The View From Lausanne” (Aug. 16) there is an inaccuracy that needs to be corrected. Plowman states that “at one impromptu meeting of about 100 Latins, Escobar spoke critically of missionary relationships in Latin America, and he was promptly rebuked by a dozen leaders who said they not only rejected the idea of a moratorium but also would welcome all the missionaries they could get.”

I was present in several impromptu meetings of Latin Americans and I did not see Plowman at any of them, so I imagine the inaccuracy comes from whoever his informant was. The meeting at which relations between national leaders and missionaries were discussed was chaired by my colleague Rene Padilla, and there were several of those present who insisted on a discussion of that controversial issue. I spoke only once and it was to ask instead that we consider the congress itself, as several others present wanted. So I was not myself rebuked by any of the brethren present there.

Moreover, those who know my ministry in Latin America and in North America, could testify that in relation to missions, my position could be summarized as follows: “The alternative to ‘ugly American’ type of missions is not the end of missions, but rather the development of better missions that would operate on a biblical basis.” That was expressed in my paper and in my response at Lausanne.… I deplore the multiplication of agencies that have not considered or learned the lessons that missiologists have been writing and talking about since 1948 and the bitter “China lesson.” I pray that God will raise everywhere missionaries according to the standards that his Word sets.

SAMUEL ESCOBAR

Generall Director

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship

Toronto, Ont.

Animal Protection

Many thanks for “A Message to Polluters From the Bible” by Martin LaBar (July 26). Especially appreciated is mention of the increase of endangered species of animals from 78 to 101 between 1967 and 1970 alone and of two in danger of extinction, the alligator and bald eagle. Actually, over more years, the total is of many, many more.… Let us have a few more articles … concerning our need to protect our God-created animal friends and helpers, who cannot plead for themselves.

VIRGINIA W. SARGENT

President

Animal Protective Association

Garrett Park, Md.

Malcolm Muggeridge’S Mind

I have enjoyed CHRISTIANITY TODAY for many years, but especial thanks for printing Malcolm Muggeridge’s “Living Through an Apocalypse” (Aug. 16). American Christianity needs almost desperately to hear and respond to this scintillating and serious mind.

BILL ANDERSON

First Baptist Church

Euless, Tex.

Thank you for publishing Malcolm Muggeridge’s address.… I hope it is read by every seminary student and every clergyman who has ever grappled with what his ministry is about.… Muggeridge’s witness to the person of Jesus Christ as the ultimate deciding factor in all men and women in all cultures is what we Christians are about.

HARALD K. HAUGAN

Associate Rector

All Saints Episcopal Church

Jacksonville, Fla.

Widening The Spotlight

While I am in agreement with your August 30 editorial, “Fifteen Turbulent Years,” other aspects of that mess remain to be dealt with. Your focus was on the politicians, the war, and an appeal for Ford to use Christians to help clean up the mess.

1. Many of the persons involved in Watergate and Viet Nam conceived themselves to be real soldiers in the cause of Christ and a Christian nation. What responsibility have the Christian Church and its communicators to sensitize all of us who name the name of Jesus as Lord? We do not want our consciences to become inured or deceived by the wedding of political, economic, and religious loyalties.

2. Why do we focus on the politicians who were purchased by huge campaign contributions and let the corporations and their officers go? When will we begin to get an accounting in this area, too?

3. And what about the cheating endemic in our society on a lot of other levels and in many kinds of relationships? Are we ready to expose it and give it up too? Many of us Christians are unaware of the slippery ground on which we stand, even as the White House was.

We have our work cut out for us and focusing our attention too narrowly may miss some of the most important areas needing attention. May God continue to lead you in using your spotlight.

BOYD NELSON

Elkhart, Ind.

A Model Change

After your critically appreciative editorial, “Bultmann at 90: Still a Long Shadow” (Aug. 16), I find I must change my feeling about your editorial policy. I expect to call the attention of my biblical theology classes to the model you have given for evaluation of writers with whom you have fundamental disagreements. Thank you!

JACOB J. ENZ

Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew

Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries

Elkhart, Ind.

I would like to add one more item to your list of Rudolf Bultmann’s “positive contributions” to contemporary theology. One of the things I have most appreciated about Bultmann, especially in his sermons but also in his more systematic writings, is his emphasis on the fact that the Word of God in the Gospel demands a response of the whole person, a crucial decision which changes one’s life, rather than merely an intellectual assent. Indeed, I believe the phrase “the hour of decision” was used by Bultmann long before it was discovered by our more “conservative” brethren. I pray we can all affirm the “invitation” given by Bultmann at the conclusion of his December 19, 1939, sermon at Marburg (published in This World and the Beyond):

Let us rightly understand this summons to decision, let us obey the call to discipleship. Which of us can tell how much longer he will have to hear the Word?

DAVID R. PLUMB

Union Congregational Church

Friona, Tex.

Public Confession

If, indeed, Gerald Ford is a true Christian who has experienced regeneration by the Holy Spirit (“The New President: Prayer and a Quiet Faith,” Aug. 30), then he is no less responsible to share that living faith than any of the rest of us who are in the body of Christ. One’s faith in Christ should be personal, must be personal, but that does not mean it is to be kept private. Any unregenerate person can use familiar religious words such as “God,” “prayer,” and “faith”.… If President Ford is a “believer,” he should consider it his highest privilege to unashamedly confess Jesus Christ as the center of his personal faith.

MRS. STEPHEN E. JORDAN

Tulsa, Okla.

Inhuman Persons?

Eutychus’s short and ostensibly well-reasoned article on the use of the ending-person vs. -man or -woman (Aug. 16) seems to me an example of the doubletalk he deplores. How can “person” have inhuman associations? As opposed to animal, vegetable, mineral?

Surely it occurs to you that the tradition of having masculine endings in the professions arises from the fact that in the past the professions only related to masculine persons, but happily this tradition is no longer with us.

Personally, I think the male who signs himself chairperson shows a degree of sensitivity toward his female and beleaguered compatriots, rather than being provocative at best and hastening the police state at worst.

Arlington, Va.

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