Eutychus and His Kin: February 15, 1985

Lottery Stewardship

There are those who say playing the lottery is gambling. I prefer to view it as an investment. True, it’s a high-risk investment. But look at the potential yield: for a meager couple of bucks, the return could be 3, 4, 10, 40 million dollars! How can people who claim to be good stewards ignore these possibilities?

Sometimes I spend entire afternoons dreaming of what I could do with $40 million. The first thing I’d do, of course, is help the poor people of the world. That being done, I’d put in the new swimming pool—right next to the tennis court. And, of course, lottery winners have to have at least one new car. (And we’re not talkin’ Chevette here, either.)

Wouldn’t it be nice? Dinner out every night. Candlelight, soft music, menus—the kind without prices—printed in French. Weekdays on the golf course and weekends in the Bahamas. It wouldn’t be long before I’d forget the old life. It doesn’t take much to forget a ’72 Ford Maverick that’s falling apart (but we had some great times in that old car …).

Anyway, no more mowing the lawn or washing dishes. No more going to cheap theaters to see movies that were popular five months ago. Oh, there might be a few drawbacks. We’d probably have to take on a whole new bunch of friends; trade in our mutt, Fred, for a poodle named Fifi. But it would be nice.

No more boring Friday evenings singing around the piano. No more playing Trivial Pursuit till midnight, then discussing the logical merits of predestination till 3 A.M. No more sitting around a campfire trading puns till we cried with laughter. No more quiet evenings at home when all we needed was a bowl of popcorn, a liter of generic cola, and each other. No more winter mornings when the sight of a bright cardinal at the bird feeder was worth—well, $40 million.

EUTYCHUS

A Beautiful Cover

Thank you, Tim Botts, for the beautiful calligraphy adorning a wondrous text on the front page of the December 14 issue.

W. A. SAUNDERS

Ann Arbor, Mich.

To me it seems contradictory to publish a magazine with the title CHRISTIANITY TODAY and to quote on the cover a version that strips the Lord of his deity: “he appeared in a body.” The Authorized Bible reads: “God was manifest in the flesh.”

REV. KENNETH CODNER

Gove, Kans.

The Virgin Birth

Concerning “The Miracle of Christmas” [Editorial, Dec. 14], the Virgin Birth is truly a miracle to us. To God it was the only way! Satan got into the earth illegally, and the only way Jesus could come that would satisfy God’s rules was legally through birth of a woman.

MRS. HUGH GIBBONS

El Paso, Tex.

I found your reflections on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception to be a bit confusing. It seems to me that the teaching of the church on the Immaculate Conception addresses the question of the relationship between nature and grace, not the matter of human sexuality.

CAROL A. DWORKOWSKI

(no address given)

Hurray For Yancey!

Hurray! for Philip Yancey and his wonderful article “Living with Money” [Dec. 14]. My own journey with money paralleled Yancey’s: from unthinking acceptance of capitalism, American style, to a simple lifestyle.

DAN MCGERR

Chicago, Ill.

I started reading Yancey’s article with anticipation and ended up appalled, not only at its length, but at its complete poverty of ideas—not one new one that I could detect. His frequent use of the word “ungrace” (no Scripture reference given) was probably the low point of this soliloquy. If he wants to talk the matter over with his wife some week, that’s fine, but I object strenuously to using time set aside for reading in this fashion.

REV. JOSEPH H. GROTEPAN

Unicol, Tenn.

For the first time, I understand why giving stuff away is such giddy fun for me, why I wallow in guilt over the items I choose to keep, and why I feel persecuted when accused of not appreciating the value of a dollar. Especially helpful were Yancey’s admission that his struggle is permanent; his acknowledgement that economic specifics are confusing when based on Jesus’ experiences; and his assertion that giving money away disarms it of its hold on us.

SUZANNE WERKEMA

Whitehall, Mich.

It is unfortunate that Yancey’s experience with a simple lifestyle turned sour. He gave two reasons for abdicating such a position: (1) it led him into a kind of guilt-laden bondage, and (2) if everyone did it, the economics of Third World countries would be disrupted.

It appears to me Yancey found it pressing him into a form of bondage because he seemed to take upon himself the burden of remedying the whole world’s problems of poverty and injustice. But Scripture emphasizes that each of us render to God an acceptable account of personal stewardship.

As to the second point, I see no reason to believe that commitment to a simple lifestyle will ever affect so large a number of people that it will disrupt nations’ economies. Jesus taught that his kingdom people will always be a minority.

LEVI KEIDEL

Columbia Bible Institute

Clearbrook, B.C., Canada

As an investment/tax adviser, Certified Public Accountant, and marketer of securities, I’m continually reminded that the God of the American people is financial security, conspicuous consumption, and greed. This article was painful reading because Yancey rightfully hung a guilt trip on me for helping others to accumulate unneeded wealth. His writing reinforced a feeling I’ve had for some time—that I’m at the turning point where I either change occupations or physically perish from increasingly acute mental depression about the evil I’m practicing on others.

ANONYMOUS

God And Politics

Rodney Clapp’s thought-provoking article [“The God and Politics Debate,” Dec. 14] ended with the devasting point “that sheer convenience and our rampant hedonism motivate the vast majority of abortions.” However, questions arise from two other abortion-related concerns which did receive media coverage. Why are those who are ardently prolife on abortion so fervently antilife on the question of the deaths that would result from nuclear holocaust? And why are the crusaders for the life of the fetus not also crusading to protect children from poverty and malnutrition before and after birth? Some might say that these are questions of means and not ends, but I am saddened by sloganeering that can be paraphrased as, “We had to destroy the planet to save it,” and, “Let them eat trickle-down economics.” It is not surprising that the media finds little compassion displayed in the rhetoric of single-issue politics.

DARRELL J. HARTWICK

Brighton, Mass.

Day’S Christian Charity

Dorothy Day’s “Room for Christ” [Dec. 14] is a sensitive Christmas meditation. However, it perpetuates what I regard as a distortion of the teaching of Christ on Christian charity. She gets it right in the final sentence, but wrong in the body of the article. Jesus did say, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40, NIV). But not all men are Christ’s brothers. To say they are is to repeat the liberal fallacy about the universal Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.

REV. RUSS OGDEN

Grace Brethren Church

Lanham, Md.

I am afraid Dorothy Day has done what so many modern theological writers have done. The implication is that we do not so much confront or meet God in church as we see him out in the streets and hospitals and prisons. But there is no place in the Bible where God is equated with people. He is God, and as God is never identical with people; he identifies with people. Biblically speaking, it is blasphemous to equate God or Christ with a people, a society, or any part thereof.

REV. MARTIN R. GREUNKE

Trinity Lutheran Church

San Bernadino, Calif.

Truth About Growth

Thank you for publishing the article “No-growth Guilt” [Dec. 14]. Evangelical churches need to be willing to admit that these circumstances are real in many of their churches. We personally know the reality of the truth revealed by Mr. Swank. If it is true that the truth sets us free, then it must also be true that truth does not always come in positive, sugar-coated packages.

REV. REGINALD ALFORD

Flora, Ind.

Swank again raises the fog so prevalent in our churches, and that is that no growth is acceptable. When God has called us to be faithful witnesses, he will bring the increase. I think the article does real disservice to the cause of Christ.

LARRY D. MCCRACKEN

Conservative Baptist Association of Oregon

Salem, Oreg.

A Reduction Of Faith?

In “Kierkegaard’s Leap or Schaeffer’s Step?” [Dec. 14], Harold O. J. Brown writes that although a step requires some courage, a step of faith must recognize foundational “good and sufficient reasons” prior to commitment. Is not this itself a leap, and does not it presume that human rationality is somehow exempt from the Curse? For Schaeffer the truth of faith rests on reasoned, well-structured propositions. For Kierkegaard truth is supra-propositional, and Christian faith a commitment to a reality that is more, not less, than that which we can articulate.

With respect for the late Dr. Schaeffer, I wonder if it is not his apologetic that may lead to despair, by its reduction of faith to the propositional content of analytic thought. As for me, I ask with Kierkegaard: “Why do we have our philosophers, if not to make supernatural things trivial and commonplace?”

JEFF WELLS

Toronto, Ont., Canada

Although we sympathetically appreciate Kierkegaard’s motivation to protest the shallow belief of his day, we cannot close our eyes to other serious difficulties in his views. There is, indeed, an irreconcilable gap between Kierkegaard’s “leap” and Schaeffer’s Christian “step” of courageous, confident faith. We simply cannot accept Kierkegaard’s view of faith as either epistemologically sound or scripturally based.

JOHN Y. MAY

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Letters are welcome; only a selection can be published. All are subject to condensation, and those of 100 to 150 words are preferred. Write to Eutychus and His Kin, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

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