Author Phillip Keller has a good thing going with his vocational studies of the Bible—A Shepherd Looks at the Twenty-third Psalm and A Gardener Looks at the Fruit of the Spirit. His publishers have not explained why he keeps changing occupations. My guess is that he refuses to pay his union dues.
But the series is creating problems for other publishers. My editor friend at Parchment Publishing complained: “Now everybody thinks his job qualifies him to write about the Bible! Look at this stack of rejected manuscripts—read the titles!”
I obeyed and read: A Statistician Looks at the Book of Numbers; An Ecologist Examines the Great Tribulation; Footnotes to John 13 from a Christian Podiatrist; A Divorce Lawyer Expounds Hosea. The worst of the lot was A Pig Farmer Raps with the Prodigal Son.
But the publishers are not the only ones upset with Keller’s series. More than one seminary professor is at his wits’, end. I interviewed Dr. Knute Freylinghaus, professor of theology at the Free Seminary in Akron, Ohio.
“Keller’s approach is wrecking all our principles of hermeneutics,” he explained. “Our students think they must literally live the passage before they can understand it. I dread to think of what will happen when they start to preach on the Ten Commandments!” Freylinghaus is developing a new school of existential hermeneutics which he has tentatively called “existential hermeneutics”; and he is hoping that some European theological school will take note and grant him an honorary degree.
But worst hit by the occupational approach are the preachers and Sunday school teachers. “No matter what I preach about,” said a pastor friend, “somebody in the congregation knows more about it than I do. Mike Lumpke is an auto mechanic, and he challenged my sermon about the Holy Spirit pictured as oil. When I preached on the parable of the leaven, half the women in the congregation asked for equal time. My sermon about Elijah on Mount Carmel drew fire from Al Dunning and most of his volunteer fire department.”
Where will it all end? “Probably in chaos,” one of my editor friends predicts. “Our house has letters from over 50 convicts, all of whom want to write about Paul’s prison epistles. One of them tried to get special treatment because he was a Christian before he went to prison.”
Yes, Keller has a good thing going. I’m getting on the bandwagon. Maybe my next title will be An Investor Looks at the Parable of the Talents.
EUTYCHUS X
Faith, Not Works
After reading Edward Plowman’s article “The Shaking Up of Adventism” (Feb. 8), I became concerned that non-Adventists might have received an improper impression of how Ellen White viewed the “investigative judgment.” Plowman refers to “the investigative judgment aspect wherein Christ is determining who is saved and who is not, largely on the basis of works.”
A casual reading of Ellen White’s writings might give this impression, but a careful study of statements in The Great Controversy will reveal the opposite. “All who have truly repented of sin and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven: as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ” (Great Controversy, p. 483; see also pp. 422 and 486). These statements show that repentance and faith are the keys to who will be cleared in the investigative judgment. Those who have not repented will not be absolved.
Let’s be careful to read statements in their context. After all, who would say that Revelation 20:13 or 22:12 (“to every man as his work shall be”) promote righteousness by works?
LARRY C. COTTAM
Seventh-day Adventist Pastor
New London. Minn.
Color Me Pessimist
Kudos to you and Ralph Covell for the excellent cover article on China (“The Church and China: Building New Barriers?” Jan. 25). Even missiologists are often seemingly ignorant of how the missionary legacy affects present policies in the People’s Republic of China. The future of the church in China for the rest of this century is the church in China, a church refined by fire as few others.
It offends our Western sensibilities to ponder that we may have little to offer that church, which has been largely ignored until recently by evangelicals who assumed the Holy Spirit left China circa 1950. Color me pessimist about Western involvement in the church in China.
FRED DONNER
China Researcher
Summer Institute of Linguistics
Dallas, Tex.
Thanks for the fine, sensitive articles by Ralph Covell and Tim Stafford in your January 15 issue. Covell’s acceptance of the charge of past imperialism in China and Stafford’s wariness lest missionaries be imperialistic in Kenya today are bracing. Each asks us to be sensitive to culture and social problems, to overcome narrowness and privatism. These are the sorts of thinkers we need to guide us—not only overseas, but here too. Lord!
ALFRED KRASS
Associate Editor
The Other Side
Philadelphia, Pa.
Deathly Prose
I have just finished reading “Preplanning Funerals: A Pastor’s Initiative,” by Roslyn Katz (Minister’s Workshop, Jan. 25). I had hoped that it would explain all of the issues of this subject, but it did not.
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The article was written by someone who has traditionally been anti-funeral homes and directors. Her story made it appear that funeral directors were against preplanning—they are not even mentioned in the article.
No funeral director I know would discourage anyone from preplanning their funeral. And no funeral director would object to the assistance of the clergy in that process. All of the questions Ms. Katz poses in her article are asked by funeral directors during a preplanning conference.
I am disappointed that CHRISTIANITY TODAY did not tell both sides of the issue and at least make it clear that the funeral director is available.
CHARLES H. DYKEMAN
Dykeman Funeral Service
Waterloo, Iowa
Bravo
Bravo, John Warwick Montgomery, for your stance for life (“Abortion: Courting Serious Judgment,” Current Religious Thought, Jan. 25). I experience deep disappointment, grief, and anger at the number of Christians who, due to fear, willful ignorance of the situation, lack of biblical principles concerning life, or just plain laziness, refuse to stand in opposition to our nation’s yearly slaughter of the innocent unborn.
Yet entire denominations have joined with our U.S. Supreme Court in support of a woman’s “right to choose,” that is, the “right” to choose death for millions of children. As Montgomery aptly stated, they “do so at their peril.”
KENNETH D. THOMAS
Secretary
Presbyterians Pro-Life
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