Letters

An Incisive Report

Thank you for your cover story on the broadcasters [“Surviving the Slump,” Feb. 3]. Randy Frame and his colleagues are to be commended for a most incisive report—fair, complete, and balanced. It is encouraging to note that the leading magazine for evangelicals has not shied away from investigative reporting for the good of the church’s integrity.

It does no good to hide our heads in the sand when it comes to our own evangelistic thrusts via the media. Judgment starts at the house of God. So does redemption if we are to carry on with our heads held high.

Rev. J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Church of the Nazarene

Walpole, Mass.

In reading my umpteenth article about the fall of religious broadcasters, I am struck by the blithe lack of blame assumed by the contemporary church. Today’s churches, to compromise with contemporary mores, have embraced happily the religious movements that emphasize the ego and encourage physical contact. Unfortunately, these movements attract exactly the people who should flee from them. But when the inevitable occurs, we suddenly become very prim and wash our hands of the fallen.

Christianity used to stress raising cultural levels, since moral levels rose with them. Perhaps we need to provide more example and less precept.

Gertrude V. Martinez

Ft. Collins, Colo.

Use Persuasion, Not Force

With respect to Charles Colson’s “Abortion Clinic Obsolescence” [Feb. 3], let’s face it: the advent of RU 486 makes no difference. We could not and we cannot force a woman to bear her child. We cannot force calcium supplements down her throat. We cannot take away her gin and tonic—or her cocaine. We cannot make her purchase prenatal care, especially if she can’t afford a pediatrician for the children she already has.

Yes, the effort to persuade is more difficult and expensive than the effort to force. But Colson would have more allies.

Elizabeth W. Hodges

Decatur, Ga.

Although I strongly believe personally that the fetus has, from the time of conception, the God-given right to life regardless of the religious beliefs of the mother, I suggest we recognize that idealism is not always practical in a world where we temporarily have evil to contend with in an otherwise good world.

Michael Sherer

Tualatin, Oreg.

Is Our Gospel All-Sufficient?

Thank you for Terry Muck’s challenging editorial “Salt Substitutes” [Feb. 3]. His analysis brought good perspective to the current increase of spiritual counterfeits. But at one point I fear our problem goes deeper than he realizes when he says, “We preach, teach, and counsel based on an all-sufficient gospel.” I wish we did. But part of the reason more Americans don’t see the completeness of the gospel is that so many evangelicals don’t see the completeness of it. The “all-sufficient gospel” of Christ has been modified to the “very-good-when-supplemented gospel” of evangelicalism.

How much of our counseling comes from secular psychology rather than an all-sufficient gospel? How much evangelism strategy comes from sociological analysis? How much of our teaching comes from the latest fads and theories? We still mouth the claim of Christ’s all-sufficiency, but we lack living and preaching a simple trust and obedience to an all-sufficient Savior.

Pastor Dave Coles

Koinonia Church

Potsdam, N.Y.

In fighting Satanism, Muck states, “We need to reveal confidently the relevance of our faith.” I agree. God tells us to pray for wisdom; doing so, we open ourselves up to living Christianity his way. But most churches and preachers today are indoctrinated in interpreting the Bible’s teaching humanistically. God gave us instructions, but the Christian community has grown soft in living these. Because of this, many are going astray because they are more in tune with their own thinking than the Lord’s. Not until Christians start putting the word of the Bible into play as God states it, will individuals know true peace as followers of Christ and quit going astray.

Phyllis Taulman

Gallatin, Tenn.

More than 200 years ago John Wesley wrote that one should “beware of men who pretend to show you the way to heaven, and know it not themselves.” Those spiritual leaders who do not have a personal saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ are patently unqualified to introduce him to others.

Mary T. Golden

Lancaster, Ohio

Equating Firearms Safety With Safe Sex

I cannot speak for the others who read Harold Smith’s editorial “Why ‘Safe’ Is Not Enough” [Feb. 3], but I am not convinced that a teacher passing out firearms safety manuals to students can be equated with the morally offensive act of a teacher passing out condoms. I have not seen a copy of the NRA coloring book, but if the rest of the book is like the portion described by Smith, then the NRA is to be commended.

It is quite a different matter when a teacher passes out condoms to his students, for his very actions give instructions of a permissive nature. He is saying: These are intended for your use. In fact, condoms cannot perform their safety function unless you use them during sexual activity. But engagement in sexual activity requires a decision, which involves the moral judgment of whether sexual activity is right or wrong.

When a blasting cap or a firearm is found, there is neither a decision involved about using them, nor a value judgment. That has been achieved through the prohibition—do not touch. The well-being of the individual is preserved by the nonuse of firearms. On the other hand, the welfare of the individual is preserved when he uses a condom, even though that decision for sexual activity is detrimental to his well-being. In a word, coloring books do not replace condoms, despite Smith’s claim. It is clear that the actions of the superintendent of the Christian academy were not inappropriate, much less relativistic.

David Godeske

Evansville, Ind.

As a thinking American, I do not wholly agree with the NRA, and I certainly do not agree with your opinion. This editorial was very offensive. Yes, I am a member of the NRA, and I am a law-abiding citizen. Our country was founded by men and women who believed in the sanctity of life and religious freedom. Need I remind you that they used firearms to make their point? Instead of slamming the NRA’s good intentions, we should be thankful there is an institution attempting to teach (children) how to avoid the dangers and abuses of guns. Guns are a tool—granted, a potentially dangerous tool. Comparing a tool and its use to sex is ridiculous!

Mark Lockhart

St. Louis, Mo.

It seems to me the NRA coloring book comes close to the same exhortation as does the appeal for abstinence. We certainly wouldn’t advise the child to wrap the discovered weapon in Saran Wrap and carry the gun to an adult. Neither is wrapping AIDS, various V.D.S, or unwanted pregnancies in a condom really the “safe way” to deal with this problem.

Leave the gun alone! This message is for the unskilled and untaught in the use of firearms. It does not include those with a legitimate right to possess the weapon. Leave the sex alone, until marriage. This message does not include those with the legitimate right of marriage. Following this type of instruction would weld “safe” and “moral” together in an unbreakable union. If that is gotten across, then the “child” will still be among the living. And morality can only be taught to a living student.

Rev. George A. Riffle

Spirit Lake, Idaho

Many good Christians own and use guns for other than police or military work. I have owned a gun since I was five years old. I bought a gun for my children when they were quite young. I did it to teach them respect for guns and what guns can do. I also did it to teach them the joys of target practice and hunting.

For you to place teaching gun safety to children on the same level as teaching them about condoms reveals gross ignorance. A prime consideration in any gun safety is never under any circumstances point a gun at another human being. The NRA constantly upholds that practice. (By the way, I am not a member.) The point of your editorial is right on target; the method you use to get there is deplorable.

Chuck Cerling

Tawas City, Mich.

Excellence Via Breakdown?

Kenneth Kantzer glorifies doing better—even if you get A’s and are driving yourself at what may well be capacity [“Militant Against Mediocrity,” Feb. 3]. It may be more American than Christian. Either he has never driven himself past “practical” capacity and learned the possibility of being counterproductive, or he has such an iron constitution it somehow hasn’t broken down yet. If he had ever driven himself into a nervous breakdown trying to reach the “highest he is capable of,” he would see that Christ’s “yoke is easy and his burden is light.” Christ wants us to have some leisure and to smell the roses as we tread this vale of sorrows. I learned that the hard way by a nervous breakdown.

My advice is: yes, excel, but take time to be human and humane. How do you know what is “second best” and “first best” anyway? All Jesus asks is for us to trust, love, and obey.

Laurence A. Davis

Wichita, Kan.

Israelis And Arabs

I appreciated Elwood McQuaid’s balanced review of my book Land of Promise, Land of Strife [Books, Feb. 3], but I want to correct a couple of his misapprehensions that seem to recur in any discussion about Israelis and Arabs. He and others have constantly challenged my statement that there have been more Arab victims of Israeli violence than vice versa, but the facts are sadly on my side—ask the State Department. There is an explanation: Israel officially practices mass retaliation in which, for instance, an Arab tossing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli bus that kills two or three generally results in an Israeli air raid on a PLO camp that kills 15 or 20. The 350 Palestinian deaths and the mere dozen Israeli deaths in the ongoing Palestinian uprising is another grim affirmation of my statement.

Another misapprehension is that somehow I don’t like Israelis. In my view, my book was more fundamentally critical of Arabs than of Jews. I said that Israelis are brash, but behind that behavior is genuineness and candor, and that Arabs are courteous, but behind that charm is often duplicity. McQuaid and others chose only to quote the first half of those conclusions. Perhaps they should read what the Old Testament prophets had to say about the behavior of the Israelites.

Wesley G. Pippert

Rockville, Md.

Yancey’S Gift

“Dachau—and a Pastoral Call” [Jan. 13] by Philip Yancey was absolutely exquisite! Once again I was touched by the simple, powerful gift Yancey has to communicate!

As a sometimes tired, weary, and frustrated pastor in the city of Oakland, I found myself encouraged by this article to listen a bit more carefully, and to be loving even when I am really feeling at the end of all my resources after a hectic day. Yancey’s sensitive retelling of this conversation with his “gentle and wise pastor-counselor” has etched itself in my soul and caused me once again to shake my head at the enormous gift we have within ourselves either to motivate and encourage for good, or by all indifference, impatience, or weariness allow evil and destructiveness to take root and grow.

Rev. Robin Williams

Sequoyah Community Church

Oakland, Calif.

Evangelical Fantasies?

Terry Muck’s comments on the Billy Graham meeting in Buffalo [“God and Man in Buffalo,” Jan. 13] offer a good example of what a recent letter to the editor complained about: the tendency of evangelicals to lapse into exaggeration and fantasy. Muck tells of the “thrill” he felt when more than 1,000 persons responded to the invitation. He believed he was seeing more than 1,000 persons “change their lives, making a decision to live in a whole new way … driving a stake in the ground, declaring that from this moment on, they will go a whole new direction.”

Now Muck, who most of the time comes across as level-headed and objective, knows very well that his above words were appropriate for nowhere near 1,000 people. Many of us would say there were only a handful, and for most of them the change was not especially miraculous, being the result of predisposing factors in their past and the conduct of the mass meeting.

It seems to me evangelicals of the revivalist tradition show a fixated propensity to exaggerate the significance of what goes on in revival meetings and blind themselves to the light that psychology brings to the subject. I think they should consider the possibility that much of what they call the work of the Holy Spirit is better understood as manipulation of people’s subconscious. They might also find that psychology has something to say about their fixation and propensity for exaggeration.

Walfred Erickson

Bellevue, Wash.

Thank you for the “humanism” article. I want to respect these people for the value they try to give to people, and yet I find so many of my Christian brothers just bashing them. You managed to combine respect with disagreement, and your article crystalized for me some fresh thought on the subject. Of course there will be times when the battle lines will be drawn and we will need to raise our voices. But I would prefer to do that with both understanding and respect.

Ronald B. Gifford

First Alliance Church

Lexington, Ky.

Second-Degree Sanctification?

There seems to be a new concept appearing on the horizon—a mere image of second-degree separation, only this goes into the positive zone. Shall we call it second-degree sanctification? Simply put, some evangelicals think that love for Arab Christian brethren means approval of all their political interests [“Whither Israel,” News, Jan. 13], in particular the PLO. Do evangelical Christians really think that affirming Arab Christians as brothers in Christ could truly mean an acceptance of this proven—though presently disavowing—terrorist group?

If this reasoning is accepted, then should not Jewish believers in Christ living in Israel also bring these same evangelicals to adopt a pro-Israel stand? Rather, the issues will not allow a second-degree sanctification for either side. Should we not have a biblical commitment to support God’s Word and his program for Israel even if we are Arab Christians? This support does not justify any politically foolish move by the Israelis, but, then again, Israeli foolishness does not nullify God’s program for his people and land.

Also, your interview of Mubarak Awad [in the same issue] was most revealing. He calls himself a “Christian,” and yet for political advantage will “change his religion” though “not his faith or belief.” Does he think the rabbis are so foolish to convert him without asking of his belief or faith? Or is the truth that “religion” is only important to him as long as it has political advantage, and that “faith and beliefs” make little impact on such issues as honesty in Christian witnessing?

Whether it be Awad or the PLO, we seem more interested in words of faith than realizing that faith without works is dead.

Sam Nadler

Chosen People Ministries

New York, N.Y.

Letters are welcome. Brevity is preferred, and all are subject to condensation. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

Applause (Applause)

Our congregation has survived all the major, conventional battles: infant baptism versus adult baptism; social action versus evangelism; liturgy versus spontaneity; pretrib versus posttrib versus all manner of tribs. Through careful compromise—the old give and take—we’ve maintained our unity. But recently we faced a question that tested our body to its limits: Should we or should we not applaud in church?

The issue arose about three months ago when a visitor—a clapper—attended our church, which at that time was unanimously nonclapper. When Alice Mickle finished her rendition of yet another Sandi Patti tune (with accompaniment tape), the visitor broke into applause. The rest of the congregation sat in stunned silence. The visitor never returned. But the debate began.

The traditionalists argued that applause makes too much noise and might put us on a slippery slope to lifting hands—and who knows what else. But others argued, “What about the psalm that says, ‘Clap your hands, all ye people’?”

I offered what I thought was a brilliant compromise: one-handed applause. Clapping with one hand makes absolutely no noise, thus satisfying the traditionalist. On the other hand (so to speak), it would allow the proclapping contingent to express appreciation during worship.

We tried it last week. After a guest soloist finished her song, she looked up to see an entire congregation waving their hands back and forth in front of, their faces. She fainted.

Maybe the idea needs some refinement.

EUTYCHUS

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