Eutychus and His Kin: March 15, 1985

Auntie Nicene’s Zoo

Church history has always had an image problem. Only professional antiquarians could get excited about councils, creeds, and the Nicene fathers. But no longer. Once again, through the miracle of creative marketing, dry bones live!

The same folks who made old-fashioned calisthenics trendy, even Christian, by putting them to bouncy music—the same advertising aces who made pedantics profitable by calling it trivia—have now focused their genius on faceless names from the past.

Now we know that church history’s dilemma was a packaging problem. The brochure just arrived for the new, lush, plush retreat center. It’s—Auntie Nicene’s Ecclesiastical Zoo.

“See the seven seals of Revelation splash with Augustine the Hippo, while Polycarp and the martin, Luther, munch their diet of worms. On shore, you can feed the orthoducks and the just-hatched neo-orthoducks. But beware of the giant snapping Tertullian.

“Don’t miss Irenaeus the Lyon and the hives of Maccabees.

“Pets are also for sale, including dogmatics from Dalmatia, Saint Bernards from Clairvaux, and Persian long-hair catechisms, all guaranteed free of here-ticks.

“So escape the hard Knox of ministry and enjoy sleeping in our hotbeds of controversy. Each morning will be a Great Awakening. Make your reservations now by writing our zookeeper, Noah, and his wife, Joan of Ark. But if you don’t Cotton to this idea, it doesn’t Mather.”

Who says church history won’t sell?

EUTYCHUS

That Evangelical Agenda

Thank you for your editorial “Beyond 1984: An Evangelical Agenda” [Jan. 18]. Your fourth priority states “… a verifiable reduction of armaments looking to outlaw nuclear weapons would be a better and safer way to reduce international tensions.… This is a path most Christians and all lovers of mankind could agree on. We need to set this forth earnestly as an immediate goal of highest priority toward which all evangelicals should work.”

I wish you were correct that most of us were with you. However, as I try to interpret the voice of evangelicals, I hear the same solutions for peace that I hear coming from Washington, D.C., and especially President Reagan.

DR. EDWARD C. HOOK

Sayre, Pa.

Your expression of opposition to “unilateral disarmament” was disheartening. This is a straw man that has become a golden calf to many conservative Christians. Millions of us demand an immediate end to the manufacture and deployment of homicidal and suicidal nuclear devices, since we already have enough to destroy all of us many times over. Our return to dealing with the Russian nation in humble and prayerful compassion will pave the way to bilateral disarmament and possible return to sanity.

REV. HARVEY LESTER SPERRY

Greenwood, S.C.

I would like to disagree with the list of priorities Kenneth Kantzer has suggested for evangelicals. Instead of making evangelism the first priority, should there not be two coequal priorities of the restoration of a Christlike life of Christian maturity among our church leaders and members, and of evangelism? In our evangelistic zeal we tragically tend to forget the goal of our evangelism: redeemed lives conformed to that of Jesus Christ.

DALE HAWTHORNE

Stow, Ohio

Our highest priority should be to galvanize Christians into a political force to eliminate all traces of liberalism, Satanism, porno, abortion, anti-Americanism, and the like. The second priority is to outlaw divorce; and to allow women to stay home and be homemakers and mothers. The third priority is to make sure America remains militarily strong in the face of satanic Russia. Finally, seek peace, but not as a stupid nation, and not the “peace” the Communists want us to seek, but peace that comes with removal of the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, the doors of the cells of Communist prisons all over the world, and the destruction, first, of all Russian weapons. Then we should talk peace.

RAY KNAUERHAZE

Laguna Niguel, Calif.

The best way to prove the insignificance of Christianity is to take Christian evangelism off television. What other philosophy of life, what other important idea, does not receive frequent television exposure? The conventional wisdom is: “If it’s not on TV, it’s not important.”

SHARON LOWE

Horton, Kan.

The editorial contained an internal inconsistency. One cannot be strongly for religious liberty and at the same time favor use of public funds to support religious schools through tuition tax credits or vouchers. And one cannot be for full religious liberty and freedom of conscience while at the same time favoring government imposition of a personhood-at-conception theology on all women and government’s denial of a woman’s right to be a moral agent.

EDD DOERR

Silver Spring, Md.

I can respect Kantzer’s opinion that abortion is not the number one priority in his list of priorities. That’s an opinion to which he is entitled and is responsible to the Lord for. Compromise that disregards the Word of God is not Christian. Yes, let us as Christians work at saving the lives of the unborn. If we can save one, let’s do it. But we cannot save one by agreeing to allow the murder of another.

MICHAEL D. PASARELLA

San Diego, Calif.

Should Falwell Have Sued?

I am disappointed with your January 18 article concerning Jerry Falwell’s lawsuit [News]. I am not condoning publisher Larry Flynt’s actions, but according to 1 Corinthians 6:1–8, it plainly states what Christians are required to do concerning a dispute. I must think Mr. Falwell has not read that or he does not follow all God’s commands. I have always had my doubts about his commitment to a true Christian life; now I know.

LINDA GIRAL

Williamsport, Pa.

Current Film: No Escape From Evil

Paul Leggett is very much on line with “The Movie as Prophet” [Jan. 18]. The real phenomenon an Adolf Hitler represents in any historial setting cannot be accounted for simply by looking at his unique skills as a politician or statesman. The essential ingredient must have been the vulnerability of Germany.

Leggett could have gone further in his analysis of how current films in our country are producing a mindset which parallels that in Germany. There never has been a time when horror films or ghost stories didn’t entertain, amuse, or frighten us. However, man was always portrayed as being able to do something about evil. There were always victors and heroes. Not anymore. Films from the last two decades have begun to take on a frightening shift from an evil for which there is a remedy to one from which there is no remedy. Think of Jaws, The Exorcist, Friday the Thirteenth, Halloween, and others that portray relentless evil that cannot be conquered.

We truly are becoming a hopeless society in search of a salvation we don’t really believe exists. Problems can’t be solved, only postponed—and even God can’t do anything about it!

JAMES ALLEN WALTERS

Petal, Miss.

Enrichment In Suffering

I was moved by the interview with Thomas Elkins [“A Legacy of Life,” Jan. 18]. But I was also grieved by the doctor’s example of when an abortion should be allowed: the anencephalic child. I have carried two anencephalic children full term, having gone through the agony of birth only to face the agony of death almost immediately. I can empathize with that woman’s sufferings because I’ve been where she was. But is our suffering any greater than that of a mother who watches her child destroy his brain by drug abuse or a child made a “vegetable” by a severe auto accident? Should women have the right to murder their children to lessen their own personal suffering? My life has been enriched, my walk with the Lord deepened, by my babies’ brief tenure on this earth.

VEDRA D. CRAWFORD

Guatemala City, Guatemala

I am convinced that efforts to save premature and defective babies are misdirected and probably contrary to the law of reproductive redundance that is the basis for survival of every species. Humankind’s reproductive capacity allowed it to survive disease, starvation, and predation that killed its excess numbers. Now health measures, vaccines, and improved agriculture mean most born in the West survive, yet we retain the same capacity to reproduce as when infant mortality destroyed 50 percent or more of those conceived.

PROF. T. H. MILBY

University of Oklahoma

Norman, Okla.

Those Evangelical Greeks

Concerning “Evangelicals in Greece Fight Laws that Restrict Minority Religions” [Jan. 18], bravo to the Greek Orthodox bishops, who watch the integrity of the Orthodox Christian faith—the faith of the apostles—one of whom was Saint Paul, who established the church in Greece. Shame on the Hellenic Missionary Union who deviously seek to bring scandal to the Christian church through their proselytizing in a nation that has been in the apostolic Christian faith from the times of the apostles, and in whose language the Scriptures were written.

FR. POLYCARP RAMEASM, ARCHIMANDRITE

Dormition of the Theotokos

Oakmont, Pa.

The Purpose Of Education

I was truly impressed by “The Student’s Calling” by Leland Ryken [Jan. 18]. It may be one of the most significant articles concerning college education ever written for our times. I would like permission to copy it to distribute to students who could benefit from it.

One additional item from a biblical perspective is 1 Timothy 1:5: “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” That is the purpose of a Christian education.

GARY S. KARWOSKI

Garland, Tex.

Singular Or Plural?

From your editoral page: “In recent years our nation, and probably our planet, have been moving in a conservative direction. The academic world and the elite do not know this yet, and the public media are just beginning to recognize it.…”

1. “Nation” is a singular noun, therefore it requires a singular verb (has).

2. Media is a singular noun requiring a singular verb.

MRS. FOREST J. NOWELL

Seattle, Wash.

Oops! In the first instance, we goofed. But in the second, we didn’t: media is still the plural of medium—which many people forget in today’s generic use of the term to describe our many contemporary communications conduits.

—Eds.

Letters are welcome; only a selection can be published. All are subject to condensation, and brevity is preferred. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

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