Eutychus and His Kin: September 3, 1982

How To

I have found some interesting books in the public library: How to Be Awake and Alive, How to Be Your Own Best Friend, How to Avoid Probate, How to Eat a Fortune Cookie, How to Prune Almost Everything, and How to Count Sheep Without Falling Asleep.

How-to books have a better chance of getting on the best-seller list than any other type of book—except true confessions. There is a “how to” for every imaginable, and even some unimaginable, forms of human activity. Authors of how-to books don’t first have to have accomplished something successfully. The author of How to Become a Millionaire may not be a millionaire, though the sale of the book may make him one.

One gets the impression that very little can be accomplished today without the help of a good how-to book. Were he living today, Noah would need How to Build an Ark and one called How to Handle Refuse at Sea. Jonah would need How to Make a Fish Sick.

Writing a how-to book poses some problems. One is finding something people don’t already know how to do. Another is finding something ten other authors haven’t already written about—which becomes increasingly difficult. A preferred approach is to take something most people are basically able to do, and by clever marketing imply that for years they’ve been doing it wrong. The secret of selling a how-to book is to create a high degree of anxiety in the potential buyer. The most successful way to do this is by carrying personal testimonies on the cover:

“I thought our home was safe until I read your book …”

“I never realized I was poisoning my family …”

“We thought we had a good marriage, but reading your book has changed that.”

“After reading your book I lost ten ugly pounds” (he had his gall bladder removed).

With the proper personal testimonials, plus an endorsment from a Christian movie star, a how-to book will be well on its way to becoming a bestseller. Just don’t overload it with too many diagrams. One author was sued by a reader who followed his diagrams with disastrous results.

With the exception of movie stars, few people today are writing autobiographies. But it may be that in each of us there is a how-to book just beneath the surface, waiting to be written. Mine is going to be called How to Write a Book. Send your name and address and $25 to me now for the prepublication offer.

EUTYCHUS XI

Eminent Domain?

Perhaps in their passion to bring a Catholic Evelyn Waugh out of his orthodox Protestant closet, the Bach-elders in “Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited” [July 16] overlooked the theological development of grace in the Roman Catholic faith long before the Reformers. It was defended by Augustine and taught by Thomas Aquinas. May not the orthodox Protestant view agree with Catholic theology on this point, rather than exercise eminent domain? There is more than one meaning in, “We have seen the enemy, and he is us.”

REV. STEVEN MCCLASKEY

Church of Christ the King

Alpine, Calif.

The Bachelders’ review reminded me of those nineteenth-century racists who “discovered” that Christ was really Aryan because they “knew” what Semites were like, so Christ had to be an Aryan.

We are told that Brideshead can’t be a Catholic novel because it is about the workings of grace and we all “know” that Catholicism is a matter of “works.” Actually, Brideshead is a strictly Thomistic novel. I’m glad to see that so much of the old Catholic tradition survives in Protestantism, but just because Calvin may have echoed Aquinas doesn’t make Aquinas (or, for that matter, Augustine) a Protestant.

DON SCHENK

Allentown, Pa.

Extra-terrestial Theology

Tom Mulder, the reviewer of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial [July 16] must have a pretty shallow understanding of both motion pictures and theology. He sees E.T. as a type of “messiah,” and the restoration of the wilted flowers and the healing of the cut as forms of miracles. Could not both have been equally well interpreted as capacities of a more highly developed form of life so often displayed in science-fiction movies? Would not an equally proper interpretation of Elliot’s “I’ll remember you all my life” simply be that he would remember the reality of E.T. in the face of a doubting world that would regard him as a looney? Was the rainbow really intended by Spielberg as an allusion to a Christian symbol? And was the beer scene a justification of sin or an acknowledgement of it?

The point is quite simple. When are we going to let the world of fantasy and pretend exist without insisting that it make a social or theological comment?

REV. JOHN L. SCHMIDT

Trinity Lutheran Church

Norman, Okla.

Church or State?

The basic issue involved in “Tuition Tax Credit in Debate and Rebuttal” [July 16] is whether education is a function of the church or of the state.

When Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” the only schools for people to whom he spoke were those controlled by the synagogues. Caesar controlled the army and the government, but the education of children belonged to God, as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4–9.

Similarly, when our Constitution was adopted, there were no public schools, but only private, mostly church schools. Insistence on constitutional separation of church and state could only mean the abolition of public education and the control of schools by the churches. The state has usurped an essential function of the church.

HENRY F. WILLIAMS

Cincinnati, Ohio

Soviet Repercussions

The passing of several weeks since Billy Graham’s return from the Soviet Union has done nothing to alleviate my personal hurt and disappointment about the whole episode [“Graham in Moscow: What Did He Really Say?” June 18].

Since then, Soviet reaction has begun, repercussions of which will resound for years. The Soviet press has begun to build up Graham as the man who dared to tell the American public the truth [that there is] no religious persecution in the Soviet Union.

The views of ordinary believers—that is, those not represented at the peace conference or hand-picked to hear the sermon in the Moscow Baptist Church—have also begun to filter through. A recent visitor, who is one of the world’s best informed commentators on Soviet religious life, did not find a single believer who was not numbed and shocked by Graham’s apparent lack of sensitivity to the persecuted.

The attempt by defenders of Graham’s conduct to reduce the whole affair to one of misrepresentation by the Western press is unworthy. The views of Russian Christians being received here at Keston College have not been filtered through a single Western correspondent. What the suffering church waited to hear in vain was one unequivocal sentence of support.

MICHAEL BOURDEAUX

Keston College

Keston, Kent, England

You are right in seeking to help us learn the lesson that “evangelicals dare not trust the secular news media’s coverage of religious news.” It is my observation from this and other events that the news media—and sadly not always just secular news media—make the events say whatever their bias leads them to want the event to say. Truth and accuracy don’t seem to be primary criteria.

REV. MILTON L. WOOD

Gorham Baptist Church

Jackson, Mich.

Let’s Simplify

Regarding “Making Space for the Two-Paycheck Family” [June 18], the article focused on the alleviation of the symptom—two paychecks—rather than focusing on the problem of why there are two paychecks. Qualities we are commanded to develop—compassion, outreach to the poor, hospitality (to strangers)—many times are squelched by the second full-time job. Kingdom living is not necessarily middle or upper class living. Let’s try to simplify, not accommodate.

MICHAEL SERVER

Palmetto, Ga.

Taking Stands

I greatly appreciate the fine job Tom Minnery did on “Should Christians Get Tough?” [June 18]. I commend you and your staff for taking stands on the important issues we are facing today. In this way we will have a more informed Christian community in which the light of the gospel can be carried forth.

JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Manassas, Va.

Letters are welcome. Only a selection can be published. Since all are subject to condensation, those of 100 to 150 words are preferred. Address letters to Eutychus and His Kin, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60187.

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