Eutychus and His Kin: January 4, 1980

The Cold Facts

If the price of fuel oil keeps going up, 1980 will probably be known as “The Year of the Chilled.” Local churches are really feeling the pinch, because they have to keep the heat on all week in order to function on Sundays and on Wednesday evenings. Temperatures are rising everywhere except in the boiler room.

Pneumo-Thermatic Ministries can help you with your problem. The following suggestions are but a few of the practical ideas we have in our newest booklet, Happiness Is a Warm Sanctuary.

1. Avoid all references to temperature in the public meetings. “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” will have to go. So will all songs that mention “oil,” “fire,” and allied words. The pastor must never talk about “lukewarm Christians.” The old joke about “God’s frozen people” is verboten.

2. Hold as many candlelight services as possible. One church has a candlelight testimony meeting called “That Was the Wick that Was.” There are many ways by which we can let our lights shine, and maybe turn up the heat as well.

3. Add temperature-raising activities to the regular services. The old practice of shaking hands and greeting one another is good for an extra six degrees on the thermometer. Dig out some of the old gospel choruses with motions. Their message may not be inspiring, but the janitor and trustees will thank you.

4. Never use bulletin covers that in any way suggest winter, ice, snow, or anything else frigid. Our Pneumo-Thermatic artist has developed a series of designs that should help raise the temperature. The “great preachers” series is especially good. If you pastor a very conservative church, use the bulletin with Harry Emerson Fosdick on it, and watch the temperature go up.

5. Use only those people as ushers who have very warm hands. That first handshake helps to determine how the worshiper will feel.

6. Order Pneumo-Thermatic hymnal covers, which are actually cleverly disguised hot-water bottles.

7. Call a pastor who has relatives in the oil business.

Happiness Is a Warm Sanctuary will be sent to you on receipt of $5.50, provided we can defrost the printing press and get the ice out of the binding machine. Be patient—if winter comes, can misery be far behind?

EUTYCHUS X

Accurate and Insightful

Congratulations and thanks for your accurate and insightful critique of Marshall Frady’s incredibly untruthful biography of Billy Graham (“The Graham Image: A Parable of America’s Blindness?” Nov. 16). You performed a great service to this country by exposing Frady’s great disservice.

TRACY ADAMS

Reseda, Calif.

Although I can understand your concern about Frady’s volume on Billy Graham, I do not share that concern. Putting aside your arguments regarding Frady’s lack of proper chronology and misquotes of sources due to a memory “lisp,” it is remarkable that Frady did not come up with some more condemning material than he did. For example, if the BGEA would have mishandled or misappropriated any funds, Frady would have said so. I read the book to see if any rumors were founded. Because Frady did not substantiate the rumors regarding funds, I drew a more positive conclusion about the BGEA than I had anticipated when I first bought the book.

My point is that Frady’s volume has value. It points out to me that Christians should not expect men like Billy Graham to do our work for us while we merely sit back passively as do-nothing spectators.

BOB MATHESON

Swift Current, Sask.

Strategic

Roland Miller’s article “Renaissance of the Muslim Spirit” (Nov. 16) was naturally first reading. It was a strategic article, though it is already outdated. Hopefully the promised subsequent articles will reflect the current events in Iran.

TERRELL JENKINS

San Rafael, Calif.

Catholic Putdown

As a Catholic layperson, I find great reward in reading CHRISTIANITY TODAY and congratulate you on a fine magazine.

However, at a time when Christians need a unity of love to combat the forces of evil, your editorial on Pope John Paul II (“Society’s Yearnings Surface,” Nov. 16) calls me to question your constant putting-down of Catholic Christianity and the Pope especially. Somehow your attitude always seems to be, “Well, sure, they do lots of good, but they have it just a little backward. Aren’t we quite superior? A pat on the back for us and thank God we’re not them.”

I suggest that you call for a loving acceptance for the firm beliefs of others, respect for their struggle to know God, and compassionate discussion of differences. This will surely help us to be “blessed peacemakers” rather than anything that hints of belittlement and snideness, which can only promote anger and discord.

MRS. LINDA WEIRATHER

Billings, Mont.

Despite your editorial, the Pope is not just a moralist. He came among us as a true evangelist. I’m surprised that you seem to have missed his uncompromising witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

REV. GERARD F. BUGGE, C.S.S.R.

Holy Redeemer College

Washington, D.C.

Unsatisfactory Stand

Although I agreed with the thrust of the editorial “Beyond Personal Piety” (Nov. 16), I found your middle of the road stand (or is it three quarters?) to be less than satisfactory. You stated, “We are not advocating absolute rejection of all abortions.…” Under what circumstances do you advocate abortion?

The theoretical possibility that one might have to take the unborn child’s life to save the mother’s is essentially medically nonexistent today. However, given such a situation the Christian physician would never kill one to save the other, but would do all he or she could do to save the lives of both. This is not abortion. All effort in this case is directed toward saving human life and none toward ending it.

Christians, of all people, must recognize that every abortion ends a human life; this is not altered by arguments regarding the situation or circumstances involved.

MICHAEL REID JACKSON

University of Washington Medical School

Seattle, Wash.

May I offer an alternate reason for Christians’ seeming lack of concern about the abortion issue? Some of us are not only concerned about the evil of abortion, we are also concerned about the simplistic solutions that come from so many churches. We are concerned enough about the inadequacy of these solutions to avoid identifying with them.

The historic Christian church penetrated a heathen world with acts and institutions of mercy. If churches today were really serious about combating the evil of abortion in the name of Christ, they would spend less time lobbying and more time establishing homes for unwed mothers, and going to the aid of harried wives to whom one more child would be too much.

We live in an age of quick solutions. But quick solutions are not always right solutions. The church must struggle honestly with the full complexity of the issue. We must not only abhor sin, but also believe in the dignity of all human beings.

MARY MCPHERSON

Philadelphia, Pa.

Objectionable Bias

I found a most objectionable bias in your November 2 editorial on “The Indispensable Christian College.” It is quite true that the Christian church in this country will need Christian scholarship to sort out ethical and cultural issues, and Christian young people with a variety of training to serve in world evangelism. But I emphatically deny that such Christian scholarship or students are limited to Christian colleges, or even that the majority is to be found in Christian colleges. The task of integrating faith and learning is one which all of us face, and I have not noticed that the faculty at Christian colleges are notably more, or less, successful at this task than those at secular universities.

I have nothing against Christian colleges, and I believe they serve a useful function. But I do wish that CHRISTIANITY TODAY could someday view secular universities, perhaps in parallel to our secular civil government, as God-ordained institutions that offer significant opportunities for Christians.

ROBERT B. GRIFFITHS

Professor of Physics

Carnegie-Mellon University

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Splendid Reporting

For some time I have been thinking of writing you concerning your splendid reporting of religious news. I was a newspaper reporter before I entered the ministry, a writer of church school lessons, and later an editor of church school publications. You are more conservative in theological outlook than I, but I appreciate your excellent reporting.

First of all, I know your editorial bias. You make that clear. And I find that much of the content is inspiring and helpful, even when I do not agree. I must admit that in recent years I find that you are either growing closer to my point of view or that I am influenced by you! Anyway, I am stimulated.

I read your news columns carefully because I find here the most unbiased reporting of any nondenominational religious publication. Even in the days when I served on the National Council of Churches, I would come home from meetings and find your reporting most accurate. It was never slanted to a point of view. It was fair and objective, and it continues to be so.

REV. FRANK A. SETTLE

Johnson City, Tenn.

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