Eutychus and His Kin: April 24, 1981

Crisis Intervention: Coffee And Cake

The other day I completed one of those self-analysis surveys in a psychology magazine, and I discovered I was going through a mid-life crisis. I casually mentioned it to my wife and she replied, “I didn’t even know you were in mid-life.” So much for domestic sympathy.

“Why not throw the magazine into the trash can?” I asked myself. Then I answered myself: “Won’t do any good. I would just go looking for it, only to discover it had been burned, and then I would feel worse. Imagine having my mid-life crisis go up in smoke!”

No, the only manly thing to do was to take myself by the nape of the neck, shake myself soundly, and face my crisis honestly. I did this two or three times, and spent the rest of the morning lying under a deep-heat, infrared lamp. Next time I will shake myself from some other part of my anatomy.

Finally my spouse got the message. “So you’re going through a crisis! So what? Being in the ministry is one crisis after another anyway. First it was getting into seminary. (How did you get in, by the way?) Then it was paying for seminary. Then it was getting a church. Then it was staying in a church. So, what’s one more little crisis. You’ll live.”

Alas, she did not understand. This was a mid-life crisis, totally unlike any other crisis in a man’s life. I could never again be in this same crisis, and it had taken me many years to get there. I had to savor it and make the most of it. It would be tragic to come this far and not enjoy my own crisis.

I sat in my favorite rocking chair and pondered the mysteries of mid-life. I wished Gary Collins or Jay Adams were there to assure me that everything would be all right. I was wondering if anybody really understood.

About midway through my mid-life meditation, I smelled fresh coffee being brewed, and I heard a voice call. “Care for a cup of coffee? Mrs. Johnson brought us one of her famous Swedish coffee cakes.” Somebody did understand! A cup of coffee, a loaf of coffee cake, and thou!

Some crises are easier to get over than others.

EUTYCHUS X

“A Cup Of Cold Water”

I say “Yes, and amen!” to your editorial of March 13, “Public Aid and the Churches’ Duties.” Of course, there are those who may try to take advantage of the church’s generosity. And we don’t want to equate the church with a religious welfare agency. Despite the pitfalls, the church should be encouraged to care for the needy, especially those of the “household of faith.”

Case in point: our little church (less than 100 members) has managed to distribute several thousand dollars in the last few years through a special “prosperity fund.” We also collect for weekly food baskets.

Offering the Living Water and “a cup of cold water” is not an either/or proposition. It is both/and!

RICK A. SANDERS

Cantonment, Fla.

Too Favorable

In the article on the retirement of The Way’s leader and founder, Victor Paul Wierwille [News, March 13], you devoted nearly 11 column inches to almost praising the accomplishments of The Way and only 3 to a very inadequate refutation of The Way’s doctrines.

I have dedicated my life to researching and preaching against such groups and I can honestly say that this article is much too positive in their favor. This group is most definitely a cult. Their teachings are outright blasphemous, not mere “deviations” as your article puts it.

TIM BRIGGS

Lexington, Ky.

Is That All?

How you, Eutychus [March 13], underestimate the pill-swallowing abilities of us Americans. Only seven million aspirin tablets a year?

DAVID OLSON

Monrovia, Calif.

Delighted And Bewildered

The article on Dr. Henry was excellent [“The Concerns and Considerations …” March 13]. He should be interviewed like that once a year. He always seems to have a broad and balanced perspective which he articulates clearly, forthrightly, and sensitively. The only thing that could have improved the interview was his own definition of “evangelical” for the record.

MARK D. DATTOLI

Elmhurst, Ill.

Carl Henry’s usually flawless research broke down significantly in his references to Moral Majority. Henry says we claim a “block of 30 million votes.” We have never claimed that, nor have we claimed we were solely responsible for the outcome of last November’s elections. We have never promoted a “Christian litmus test.” Other groups have, but not Moral Majority, which is political, not religious in its make-up. Since we do not endorse candidates, we had nothing to say in the national office concerning Abscam congressmen or those caught in homosexual acts.

CAL THOMAS

Vice President, Communications

Moral Majority

Lynchburg, Va.

Was the interview with Henry written for us ordinary laymen or for overeducated, abstruse thinkers with a string of Ph.D.’s after their names? For example, in response to the question “What religious trends do you consider most important?” some of his answers were: “The continuing deterioration of older liberal theology and its evident drift toward secular humanism”; and “The vulnerability to attack and negation of conventional ethics wedded to naturalistic metaphysics.”

There’s no excuse for a religious leader writing for the average Christian in such a confusing, excessively profound style. I’m just a plain, blunt man, as are most of your readers, who were probably as bewildered as I was after reading his views.

GEORGE COOKLIS

Corry, Pa.

Children Of The Light?

The idea that puberty might be postponed by sleeping in total darkness sounds just about as preposterous as the notions that sexual drive can be cooled by cold showers or that nocturnal emissions can be prevented by not sleeping between flannel sheets [“ ‘Premature’ Puberty: Advice to Parents” March 13]. But stranger things have been true, though they deserve documentation. So, could Donald Joy please identify the research behind and source of such a theory to establish its credibility before parents frighten their little kids by turning out their Mickey Mouse night lights or chase them away from the comforting glow of the fire (where they’ve slept for milleniums) or shield them from moonbeams.

DAVE JACKSON

Evanston, Ill.

Find full documentation on “light” in “Trust Your Body Rhythms,” by Gay Gaer Luce (Psychology Today, April 1975, pp. 52–53)—Eds.

Growing Up

Christians have too readily assumed the sequence of education, emancipation, and then marriage. Now Koteskey [“Growing Up Too Late, Too Soon,” March 13] and Joy have challenged this sequence with sober observations that should strike a responsive chord in those not too far removed from their own adolescence. To those who respond, “Let them take cold showers,” it should be pointed out that the scriptural way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13) from lust is 1 Corinthians 7:9, and that this verse is not restricted to college graduates over 21.

Besides the generally wise course of giving children real work and responsibilities, two modern fallacies need to be confronted if our biologically mature children are to be ready for “early marriage” The first is that the meaning of life is found between the bedsheets. The second, which is more broadly applicable, is that love is emotional rather than volitional, and that if the feelings pass then the will is powerless to carry on.

Parents and the church should consciously seize the many opportunities offered by cinema, television, and literature, and use them to label these assumptions for the folly they are. With the stars out of their eyes and room made for serious commitment, there should be no reason why today’s late teens cannot form perfectly sound marriages with fellow believers.

ROGER W. BENNETT

Bloomington, Ind.

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that adolescence as we experience it in our culture is a rather recent phenomenon. My thinking is that it has the effect of extending childhood far beyond historical norms. I was not sure that we recognized that as a society and as Christians. The insight has become my personal guiding concept in developing relationships with the youth of my congregation and now my own children entering their teen years.

I was certain that my ideas were not original, but until now I have never read anything on the subject. It appeared there was nothing available. Apparently that is no longer the case. I would appreciate very much the opportunity to keep in touch with what I hope will be a growing literature on the subject.

REV. KEITH MATTSON

First Baptist Church

Chisholm, Minn.

Fraud Exposed

Recently my attention was called to the March 13 issue which included an excellent exposé of a virulent, slanderous anti-Catholic publication [“Jack Chick’s Anti-Catholic Alberto Comic Book Is Exposed as Fraud”]. It is unfortunate that there are men who will stoop to such lies in an attempt to defame the Catholic church.

There was a statement in Alberto which is an exceptionally blatant lie. It seems that Chick stated that [Saint Ignatius] Loyola, the founder of the Catholic Jesuit Society was, … a member of the Adumbrados, or the Illuminati …” Had Chick investigated, he should have learned that Loyola died some 200 years before the founding of the infamous Illuminati.

ANTONIO N. PAOLANTONIO

Reseda, Calif.

As a former Catholic priest and now director of Mission to Catholics International, which specializes in effective Roman Catholic evangelism, I read with interest the report concerning “Alberto.”

It is my conviction that faith doesn’t come from sensational stories, but by the hearing of God’s Word (Rom. 10:17). Both Alberto and Double Cross lack solid Bible meat and are somewhat inaccurate regarding Catholic teaching.

“Alberto” has deliberately avoided fellowship and communication with at least three ministries to Catholics. Of the pastors we have contacted, all have reservations about the magazines concerning his life.

The Catholic hierarchy categorically denies that “Alberto” was ever ordained a Catholic priest. It would be impossible to cover up all evidence of such facts. A lot of people. Catholics and non-Catholics, have been hurt by this bogus priest.

BARTHOLOMEW F. BREWER

San Diego, Calif.

I am very disappointed to read your hatchet job on Jack Chick. Chick is certainly not perfect. I have been concerned that he has become overly preoccupied with the evils of Catholicism of late, but your article gives the appearance that the Church of the Inquistion has no faults and Mr. Chick has no good points.

STEVE BYAS

Sapulpa, Okla.

Thank you very much for your report on Alberto Rivera. The Mechanicsburg Ministerium made a statement last December concerning a local bookstore selling the Chick materials. The bookstore still sells the materials and does not believe the articles that present him as a fake. It is sad that some in the name of Christianity believe this kind of material.

I know that the hate letters will start. I have a collection, because I was quoted in several newspapers speaking against the publications.

REV. CHARLES D. HILLER

First United Methodist Church

Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Appeal For Discernment

Kuhn’s article, “Out-of-Body Experiences: Misplaced Euphoria” [March 13], disturbed me a great deal for two reasons. First, he said that “all who take the Christian message seriously should be interested in the phenomenon of death, including no doubt, researches into out-of-body experiences of those resuscitated after clinical death.” Studies in this field often are nothing more than research into the occult. To suggest that all should be interested in such research is ill advised, as very few are prepared to deal with the vast implications. These studies can be likened to the field of parapsychology, which is basically a pseudoscience researching the realm of the occult.

Second, before they attribute more credibility to their findings than is due, the readers should be aware that some scholars believe Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Raymond Moody are involved in the occult. They are not exactly unbiased in their conclusions.

Christians need to be aware of the growing research into the realm of the occult that is being done in the name of science. The impact has been so dramatic that even religious writers are now proclaiming the merits of such work to the extent of recommending that one’s ESP abilities be developed.

DON ROGERS

Huntingdon Valley, Pa.

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