Eutychus and His Kin: January 7, 1983

Charisphobia

You can tell a man’s level of maturity by observing the things he fears. The bogeymen are always there, but they change from year to year as we grow older. But along with these changing bogeymen are others whose terror lessens or increases with time.

At 4 we fear the barber, at 8 the dentist, at 16 the driving examiner, at 24 the loan officer. How odd that in the sociology of the church one can determine a Christian’s level of maturity by marking what he fears. To the non-Christian, the bogeyman who constantly terrorizes secularia is the lay evangelist from the local church. Once converted, the new Christian fears the nominating committee, which is trying to annihilate his clock and calendar with churchianity. To the year-old Christian, there is a desperate fear of the church pledge campaign.

Then our fears grow larger: if we are moderate evangelists we fear zealots. If we are zealots we fear moderates, lest their lukewarm affection for Christ canker our own lives. If we are charismatic, we fear the cerebral and cold proclamation of the “straights.” If we are “straights” we fear the fever of the smiling charismatics. To nonemotionalists, charismatics appear as the archbogeymen of biblical exegesis: they lurk on the perimeter of our prayer meetings and threaten to pounce upon the church with glossolalia blazing from both barrels.

To avoid being suspected of charismatic fever, noncharismatics always pray with distinct diction. If they wave at a fellow Christian they are careful to raise only one hand at a time, they embrace no fellow Christian unless there has been a death in the family, and they smile only when they are in the car on the way home.

Ah, how the fear marks our immaturity. We cannot help but quail before the unseen specter—that on some balmy night it will happen to us. We will put on our Praise IV album and open our Bible to the Psalms. Then, as the music fills the dark room, some unseen force will descend upon us and we will become what we have always feared—an honest-to-goodnes, second-blessed, hand-raising, hugging, and nonepiscopal charismatic.

Perhaps our fears are needless. Charismatics may be ordinary people as capable of conversation as other Christians. Perhaps they are ordinary believers trying to make life a meaningful pilgrimage. It may be possible to greet them just by saying “hello”—not “who is your cell group leader?”

It is said that Bavarians who feared werewolves set traps nightly in the Black Forest. They were always amazed when they caught only good Lutherans. No longer afraid, they gave up trapping their fears. Growing older, they quit fearing either werewolves or Lutherans: the former did not exist and the latter only read their German New Testaments when the moon was full.

Perhaps when we are fully mature in Christ we will no longer suspect our brethren of being bogeymen but brothers who have found their own way of celebrating Christ. Perhaps then there will be no one who names the name of Christ who is not instantly our brother—and all our phobias will be gone. After all, “perfect love casts out fear!”

EUTYCHUS

Sorry!

When my letter [Nov. 26] was condensed, an error was made that destroys its meaning. I had written: “But the Bible does not teach that a human being has or possesses a soul or spirit, but rather that a human being is a body/soul/spirit unity.” The emphasized words were omitted in the published version.

RICHARD H. BUBE

Stanford, Calif.

Hang In There!

I am a long-time subscriber, partly because you keep me informed, and partly because you keep me angry.

HAL H. EATON

Mouth of Wilson, Va.

Corrections

I wish to express my appreciation for an informative and balanced news article concerning PUMA’S eighth annual World Mission Conference and some of the organization’s goals and objectives [“Missions Interest Grows Among United Presbyterians,” Nov. 12].

I would like to make two corrections First, the director of the UPCMS is Dr. Frank Satterberg. Second, there is a misleading implication in one section of the article regarding PUMA’S attitude toward national leadership in Third World churches, PUMA is not opposed to such, but in fact encourages it. As evidence, I submit that 7 of this year’s more than 60 speakers were Third World national leaders and another 8 were either immigrants who have become leaders of mission enterprises in America, or were of U.S. minority ethnic origin.

NEIL ELSHEIMER

Presbyterians United for Mission

Advance

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Impossible

May I ask, respectfully but earnestly, why in your editorial, “A Christian Education Worthy of the Name” [Nov. 12], you ask Christian colleges to do something which cannot be done?

I lament with you the unhappy situation in which evangelical colleges fail to give students more than a rare and tantalizing taste of what it might be like to approach every discipline in the light of an integral, biblical world view. At the same time, I think it might be more to the point to ask them to look squarely at the presuppositions in the light of which they are working than to ask them to pull together two things that are never separate.

ALBERT E. GREENE, JR.

Alta Vista College

Medina, Wash.

Refined?

Just what is being refined in the Refiner’s Fire column? Could it be the fine art of seeking the praise of men? What is its purpose, besides celebrating every culturist idol under the humanist sun?

JOHN CLIFTON

New York, N.Y.

Commendations

Walter Elwell [“Putting God Back into Theology,” Nov. 12] is to be commended for his clarity of thought and expression regarding the crucial error of much of modern theology: the loss of transcendence. His conclusions remind us of the need for a constantly biblical proclamation of the “… high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.…”

REV. BRUCE E. FELT

Augusta Baptist Church

Augusta, Maine

Chart Misinterpretation

I would like to correct a possible misinterpretation of the chart accompanying “Christian Colleges: Some Will Not Survive” [Nov. 12]. Although no doubt accurate mathematically for 1979–80, a year during which enrollment at King College suffered a sharp temporary decline, our subsequent dramatic, if not miraculous, increase in enrollment to an all-time high of 434 students (383 FTE) this fall, has sadly not been matched by the large increase in endowment that would have been necessary to retain the $10,560 per student figure mentioned in the article.

JOHN STROTHER GAINES

King College

Bristol, Tennessee

Biblical Illusions Or Vulgarity?

Daniel Pawley’s article, “Updike’s Rich Rabbit: Suffocating in Sin” [Nov. 12] appears to give tacit encouragement to CT readers to read John Updike’s Rabbit Is Rich in order to discover the spiritual truths and biblical illusions that Updike has supposedly woven into his book. What they will discover is a book loaded with gutter vulgarity and minutely explicit sex.

HI LAKE

Rochester, Minn.

This article offered an incisive treatment of a significant book. Updike still possesses a facile genius for portraying American life without God in all its shades of “angst.”

REV. MICHAEL A. ROGERS

Church of the Savior

Williamsville, N.Y.

Compromise Or Fight?

I find it unfortunate that Mr. Clapp [“The Police Lock a Baptist Church,” Nov. 12] must add his part to a common misconception regarding those who would bear the title “fundamentalist.” To imply they “relish a fight” is to stretch the truth a bit, I’m afraid. Should the alternative to fighting be compromise of our biblical convictions or constitutional freedoms, then fight we shall, and to the end.

BYRON D. HARVEY

Chattanooga, Tenn.

We Nebraskans are an independent breed. We want to run our own lives without outside interference. Many Christian schools have been operating in Nebraska for years with no qualms about complying with state educational standards.

To those well-meaning but misguided souls who have compared Sileven’s stand with that of Luther at Worms: Sileven has as much in common with the great Reformer as the sparrow does with the soaring golden eagle.

REV. EDWARD A. JOHNSON

Messiah Lutheran Church

Broadwater, Neb.

Trinity Lutheran Church

Dalton, Neb.

Bias Showing

I am writing to say that I was disappointed in your article “Norman Lear’s Lobbying Style Troubles Some Supporters” [Nov. 12]. The words “extravagant,” “cantankerous puberty,” “emotional,” “hyperbole,” “histrionics,” “broad brush,” “isolated,” “avoided,” and “ostensibly political,” can all indicate your bias.

Falwell and Robertson have called for the ending of public education. Many of us in People for the American Way have debated the fundamentalists and been refused additional opportunities many times. We see some humor in Cal Thomas’s statement about the Jews since Norman Lear is about. 100 percent Jewish.

CHARLES V. BERGSTROM

Lutheran Council in the USA

Washington, D.C.

Tradition

It is nice that we can now add Clark Pinnock’s caution to Catholic theologians [“Tradition Can Keep Theologians on Track,” Oct. 22], We can pray that he is right when he writes, “An alliance between the more classical Catholics and Protestants appears to be shaping up to meet this new development.”

JUAN FELIPE CONNEALLY, S.J.

Loyola High School

Los Angeles, Calif.

Profoundly Dismayed

Your publication of “The Christian Connection” [Nov. 12] has left me profoundly dismayed. Whitehead’s encouragement to the church to adopt for its own the litigious spirit of our society, to sue the “secular humanists” until we get our way, and his sweeping endorsement of “Christian” political interest groups do not readily commend themselves to this Christian’s conscience.

Equally disconcerting is Whitehead’s subtle suggestion that God must bless such political and legal activities insofar as “his plan ends in victory for the church, not defeat.” While recognizing Whitehead’s status as a member of the legal profession, his tacit approval of exploiting the legal system for “Christian” ends is not in harmony with either the letter or the spirit of Scripture.

ALAN E. VERSAW

Denver, Colo.

With Whitehead, I confess and firmly believe that Christ is Lord of all life. But that does not mean that the institutional church, on either the local or denominational level, should go beyond prophetic preaching to organizing political action. In some traditions, Christians have learned to set up Christian schools, that is, schools that are Christian but are not under church authority. It’s high time we learned to establish Christian citizens’ organizations, free from the control of the institutional church, but standing unabashedly under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Strong Christian (but nonchurch) organizations can be powerful illustrations to the secularists that the separation of church and state does not mean the separation of religion and life.

JOYCE RIBBENS CAMPBELL

Sioux Center, Iowa

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