 We always experience a vicarious thrill when we read of a difficult and successful rescue operation—of men in an open boat at sea, of miners trapped deep underground, of a mountain climber dangling by a rope, or a child in a well. How much greater the thrill and thanksgiving on the part of the rescued ones themselves, those who had felt the nearness of death.The greatest rescue operation of the ages began on the first Christmas so long ago. Its real significance has been obscured by man-made interpretations and by the secularization and commercialization of a world ignorant of or indifferent to the event.The first advent must be seen in terms of God’s love and man’s predicament. This was not a gesture of sentiment. It was not a demonstration of humanitarian concern. It was an actual rescue, God’s intervention in human history to save a sinning and lost humanity.This intervention must be seen in its totality. True, at Christmas we celebrate the human birthday of the Son of God; but this was only one phase of the amazing act of divine love. As Jesus grew to manhood, he demonstrated his complete humanity, and at the same time his miraculous and supernatural powers testified of his deity. Later came his atoning death on the cross and his resurrection, followed by his ascension and his promise to return. All these aspects should be recognized in our celebration of Christmas.God’s loving provision for the redemption of man is like a many-faceted gem. We find that Christmas means much more to us as we consider it in all its amazing detail.First, we might say that there is involved an act of interposition. God, in the person of his Son, interposed himself between the penitent sinner and judgment. I have a friend who, while traveling the Burma Road in World War II, was next to a buddy who inadvertently dropped a hand grenade from his pack. As it hit the ground, the pin was knocked out. All around, men leaped away from the danger. But the one from whose pack it had fallen threw himself over the grenade, giving his life to save the lives of his buddies. Christ’s act of coming between our souls and certain judgment is expressed in a well-known hymn: “He to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood.”The divine rescue operation also involves reclamation. Most of us have seen the results of projects in which land is brought back into profitable use, or in which derelicts whose usefulness seemed over are reclaimed and restored. Jesus did just that for people, reclaiming them, restoring them to the place for which they were created, before sin had its devastating effect.At the very heart of our Lord’s invasion of time is his work of redemption. Sold out to sin and dominated by Satan, man in trying to reform himself at best falls far short of the mark. Only God’s Son himself could truly redeem him. The price of our redemption was Christ’s own shed blood. No, the “blood atonement” is not the only facet of the atonement; but without it there is no redemption.Then there is the strangely glorious facet of imputation. The Apostle Paul states this truth repeatedly in the fourth chapter of Romans. Even as Abraham’s faith in God was imputed to him as righteousness, so through our faith in God’s Son his righteousness is imputed to us. He no longer sees us as sinners; we are wearing the cloak of Christ’s righteousness. The Chinese character for “righteousness” is the character that means “lamb” set above the character for the personal pronoun “me”—a marvelous illustration of the fact that when God looks upon a person who believes in his Son he sees, not sin, but the righteousness of Christ!There is also the facet of sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrifices were symbolic of the coming Saviour. The Prophet Isaiah uses this concept of our Lord’s sacrifice: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not-his mouth” (Isa. 53:7). John the Baptist exclaimed when he saw Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”! (John 1:29). Some twenty-seven times in the Book of the Revelation the figure of the Christ triumphant is that of the Lamb.Permeating every aspect of our Lord’s intervention in time and human history is love—God’s love for the world, so great that it caused him to give his Son; Christ’s love, which made him a willing sacrifice.The Christmas story leads to the idea of resuscitation. Those who work with victims of drowning, electric shock, or other accidents that cause breathing to cease and the heart to stop beating sometimes come to the point when they know that further efforts are futile, that the victim is dead. Christ came into the world to resuscitate those who are spiritually dead—dead and separated from God by sin. Paul speaks of “the God in whom [Abraham] believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). “Yield yourselves to God,” he writes, “as men who have been brought from death to life …” (6:13b); and again, “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ …” (Eph. 2:4, 5). Life from death! Little wonder that the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest!”Finally, this work of grace on man’s behalf includes illumination, in which the eyes of the spiritually blind are opened and they turn from darkness to light; freedom, release from the power of Satan; forgiveness for our sins, the things that have offended and grieved God; and cancellation, so that in God’s sight it is as though we had never sinned.Christmas brought to us a revelation of God as he really is. We read of Christ: “He is the image of the invisible God.… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.… In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 1:15, 19; 2:9).Christmas is the start of the most thrilling rescue story of all time. And for all who accept God’s gracious offer of rescue, “there is therefore now no condemnation.… For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do …” (Rom. 8:1, 3).This is the reason for a truly “Merry Christmas”! |
The Orthodox Church Timothy (Kallistos) Ware |
This is a modern classic about the history, doctrine, and sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Its updated version is a carefully nuanced book that is written for the general reader. An Oxford scholar, Ware is likely the most distinguished and knowledgeable living authority on the Orthodox Church.
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 God Rest Ye Merry, Gentle Readers:The bells of Christmas are ringing as Salvation Army lassies again appear on downtown sidewalks. But for many of them the traditional red noses and frostbitten toes are a thing of Christmas past. Instead of shivering in the cold as they jingle bells beside their kettles, many lassies now sit in heated cubicles and serve as Chrismas disc jockeys, playing the Top Ten carols for weary shoppers.This affluent holiday scene reminds me that I should inform you of my annual gift list for religious friends. Once again my liberality is boundless.William Sloane Coffin, Jr.—An “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster and a personal letter of greeting from Lt. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey.Father James Kavanaugh—The new book, The Celibate Condition and Sex, to burn in the fireplace of his honeymoon bungalow.King/Bishop Homer Tomlinson—Another world to conquer.Ethel Waters—A contract to give singing lessons to that self-conscious sparrow in her favorite song.Carl McIntire—A ham radio set for dispensing the baloney he includes in attacks on non-conciliar (i.e., non-ACCC) Christians.Joe Pyne—A pinch of salt for the biggest bag of religious nuts ever fed to the public.Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay)—A commission as Muslim chaplain to our Black Muslim fighting men wherever they are stationed in the inner city.Roger Garaudy—The chair of Christian-Marxist theology at a union seminary.Father James Groppi—A tube of Tanfastic to help make him a more acceptable protest leader of black-power mongers.Arthur Ford—A spirited trip to the nether regions with Jayne Mansfield rather than “Fletcher” as his guide.Harvey Cox—A case of napalm for use in securing “violence-justified” goals.From a heart overflowing with Christmas cheer, may I, in this year of hip, express the wish that your yule will be cool and that your only hangup will be your Christmas stocking.See you Christmas belles under the mistletoe,EUTYCHUS IIITHE BIBLE ISSUEThanks for the article by John Warwick Montgomery on inerrancy (“The Relevance of Scripture for Current Theology,” Nov. 10). I know many evangelicals want to discard this word because of all the controversy which surrounds it and because of many misunderstandings. But I am convinced it would be a mistake. The Roman Catholic Church with all of its new developments still uses the term regularly in order to bring out the absolute truthfulness and reliability of Scripture. The same concern was expressed by our church, the Missouri Synod, just recently when on two occasions in its last convention it reaffirmed its belief in Scripture’s inerrancy. This reaffirmation was made unanimously and resoundingly. We as a church really meant it.ROBERT PREUSProfessor of Systematic TheologyConcordia SeminarySt. Louis, Mo.I read the article with abhorrence.…I do not entertain the anti-super-naturalistic view that either the demonology or eschatology (both being “faith and morals” questions) of Jesus was mistaken. Nor do I insist that his own view of cosmology was mistaken; but I do insist that both the Bible and Jesus make use of a cosmology that is an accommodation to the pre-scientific minds of the people of that time.All of the fundamentalist attempts (though I once made them myself) to show the Bible as inerrant in matters of science are both unfounded scripturally and contradicted de facto. I personally am sick of the deceit of fundamentalist leaders with regard to this issue. For the shepherds (I exempt the sheep) it is not just a question of scholarship, but of sin.PAUL H. SEELYPhiladelphia, Pa.The articles on the fundamentalists defense of the Bible (Nov. 10) posed under the pretense of weighty scholarship. The actual problems of the authenticity and relevance of the Bible are not considered or discussed at all.…When will any of the evangelical writers … begin to discuss the real problems in the use and acceptance and relevancy of the Bible to the contemporary problems of life? Those problems are ancient enough to have destroyed previous civilizations, although they may seem to be the latest of new problems never faced before. And the revealed truth of God has long been given to mankind, even though it has frequently needed much obscurantism removed from it. The Bible is a good standard by which to discover that truth, but the seeker for truth must submit himself to the Spirit of God if he expects to find the truth and to understand the truth and to apply the truth to his life.THOMAS D. HERSEYThe Methodist ChurchesFairview, Wesley Chapel, and Moravia, IowaThe articles of David P. Scaer (“Christ or the Bible?”) and Don Neiswender (“Scripture and Culture in the Early Church”) (Nov. 10) most significantly complemented one another. The emphasis of Neiswender that “the Church … was unwilling to receive truth from outside” the Scriptures even though it recognized the fact that S“Christian dogma … must be proclaimed in a way that is relevant to the existing philosophical climate if it is to get a hearing” needs greater emphasis in the Church today. While many critics of the Bible are busy dividing the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history or the Lord of the Scriptures (as Scaer points out), the unbelievers of this world are busy using Christian “modes of expression and thought” to win many of the world’s theological students for non-Christian beliefs. The praise of the Scriptures by those who proclaim its fallibility is a most deceptive reverse of early Christian theology and methodology. It is true that modern criticism meets unbelief on the latter’s own ground. However, it most frequently goes without its God-given battle array, namely, the Christ of Scripture, the material principle, and the Scriptures of Christ, the formal principle. The oversubjectivity of modern theological thought has only succeeded in convincing many sons of the Church to replace the armor of God with man’s true costume of total depravity. Even though Neiswender’s call “for many an Origen to reply” to today’s world may justifiably make one feel uneasy (since Origen’s theology can hardly be considered Christian in the sense of true Protestantism), the plea for Christians to meet modern man on his own ground, yet with the message of “special revelation,” cannot be stated too often.PHILLIP B. GIESSLERAmbler, Pa.OF DRINK AND DOPEThank you for your editorials on alcohol and marijuana (Nov. 10). The title of John Wesley’s pamphlet on antinomianism [is appropriate]: “A Blow at the Root, or Christ Stabb’d in the House of His Friends.”RICHARD NOBLEFirst Methodist ChurchMarinette, Wis.I’m sure those who work in narcotics education would like to see “A Misleading Statement on Marijuana” printed or given equal time in the national news media, as much damage has been done by Mr. Goddard.JAMES F. LANDRUMScottsbluff County Youth Advisory Committee,Juvenile CourtScottsbluff, Neb.I object to your criticism of Alcohol Problems: A Report to the Nation (“A Wet ‘Solution’ to the Alcohol Problem”).The problem of alcoholism in America is caused by the fact that people drink to get drunk, disregarding any taste of wine, etc.…My son, born and raised in the United States, drinking wine at home with meals, was shocked in college to find other boys drinking anything just to get drunk. In the service as “Officer of the Day” (Navy), he wrote that he was “getting sick of playing nursemaid to the drunks” (fellow cadets). And he told me that they all had never before had access to alcohol at home.“Legal restrictions” are of no help. No law ever prevented its transgression. Neither the Ten nor any civil or international one!HORST RINNEHartville, Mo.I wish to compliment you on the strong stand you took in favor of true temperance.…It is most heartening to discover present-day spiritual leaders who still call drunkenness “sin,” instead of “sickness,” and believe that “the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only sure cure for alcoholism and every other sin.”Would to God that more of today’s spiritual leaders pointed slaves of debasing habits to Christ for deliverance, instead of to man-conceived schemes of rehabilitation that are proving so woefully inadequate to heal the sin-sick soul.NATHANIEL KRUMTakoma Park, Md.FOOD FOR THOUGHTThe editorial, “The Specter of World Hunger” (Nov. 10), well brings out—in a low pressure way—the shortcomings of the liberals, of the conservatives, and of the rest of us.HENRY FRANKLIN HILLSan Antonio, Tex.SWIFT’S KICKCongratulations to Professor Miller for a thought-provoking article on Swift’s vision of man (“The Comic-Tragic Vision of Jonathan Swift,” Nov. 10). The great satirist of Gulliver’s Travels and Tale of a Tub has long called for analysis from a Christian perspective.For the sake of completeness, however, it would have been wise to discuss the aspect of Swift’s writing which is most difficult to reconcile with his role as a sincere Christian clergyman. I refer to his obvious desire to shock and disgust the reader with crude allusions to certain biological functions. I find it difficult to reconcile what has been referred to by some as “Swift’s excremental vision” with the noble comic-tragic vision described in Professor Miller’s article.CALVIN L. MYRBOProfessor of EnglishWisconsin State UniversityPlatteville, Wis.UNRIVALED PREACHINGRe: “A Plea for Expository Preaching” (The Minister’s Workshop, Nov. 10).… It has pleased God through the thing preached to sanctify those that love him, to conform them to the image of his Son.… What a lamentation, then, if, along with possible clerical fluency, the sermon is simply a spread of trashy and starvation stuff, instead of a diet of real nutriment! As to the luckless flocks, Milton struck it when he wrote in “Lycidas,” “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”In general, preaching is not composed of certain pious commonplaces wrapped in a pleasing or catchy form. It is not merely telling an audience what they already know. If it were that, there is perhaps no office or function that would require less strain of intellect, less labor of preparation. But it is sometimes nobler. The sermon is meant to be arrestive, illuminative. It is meant to instruct men, to lead them into ever-enlarging views of truth that evoke richer life, truths that enclose the Gospel in its magnitude and majesty. It is meant to transform by the renewing of the mind.…Here is where the expository sermon takes its imperial place, a sermon that exacts penetrative study, a sermon that burrows into the Holy Oracles for hidden treasure. For genuine worth it has no rival.JOHN F. PALMPort Charlotte, Fla.For the past forty years I have been puzzled by one characteristic of the usual sermon.… We enter the church building for our religious service. The sanctuary is adorned … to put us in the proper frame of mind for worship. Religious symbols meet our eyes. Music is being played to evoke an emotional response. We sing a hymn. There is prayer, Scripture reading, and often special choir music.Then, when we have carefully been brought to a peak and are ready to respond to a discourse concerning the Deity—the preacher arises and makes a crack about baseball. Or it might be about football, motoring or television, but it is guaranteed to put us back to where we were on Saturday night.…The opening sentence follows the pattern of the commercial that comes in the middle of a baseball or football game. But let us be logical. The situation is different. During the break for the commercial, the audience tunes out mentally and heads for the refrigerator. Their minds must be caught and held.… The preacher’s congregation is not in front of the refrigerator with their mouths full of fried chicken. They are seated in pews where they can’t get away without violating the mores of two thousand years. Instead of being let down for the commercial, they have been built up for the sermon.So please, preacher, spare us the letdown. If you’ve just gotta make that crack about baseball, save it for when the congregation is getting restless. Or, better still, forget it, and when the congregation is getting restless, announce the closing hymn.JEAN M. JACKSONCroswell, Mich.BORDER’S LEGAL LINESI object to the Israel tourism advertisement (Nov. 10). That an ad of this sort should appear in the New York Times is quite understandable, given their Zionist sympathies. But I am vexed and disappointed that it should appear in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.There should be hesitation to run such an ad if for no other reason than that the information given is factually incorrect and misleading. Jericho, Bethlehem, and old Jerusalem are not in Israel. They are in the part of Jordan now under military occupation by the Israelis. And that is quite a different thing. The status of these cities has not been legally settled by the parties concerned, to say the least.RICHARD P. AULIENew Haven, Conn.CLEVER, BUT …Russell Chandler’s handling of “A Medium-Sized Faith” (Oct. 27) shows him to exhibit a very “medium-sized faith” himself. I must say the use of the word “medium” is very clever, but very self-righteous.…Your magazine thus joins the lukewarm “liberals” in watering down the very best message of the New Testament, which is the fact that the soul lives—you reject some of the best evidence being found and proven. The message of eternal life in the New Testament has more relevance now than ever.…As for faith healing, your handling of this great truth of the New Testament is equally unchristian. Just because a few bungle the idea or attempt to misuse it does not undercut the great fact and truth of its working. Some of the grandest discoveries made in our time show the power of spiritual healing, not only of souls but also of bodies. When you find persons healed through prayer in your own congregation, you know it works!If the “conservatives” and “liberals” both throw out all reference to healing and the faith in prayer—for both are psychic—then what do you have left in your New Testament? Just the margins of the pages?ROBERT VINSON GILDNERImmanuel Methodist ChurchDes Moines, IowaThe flippant style of the report leaves one with the impression that this is a little disconcerting but rather harmless matter. Anyone who would “ridicule” spiritism and spiritualism and would leave an utterance like “The demonic is always very close” unchallenged, has no idea of the background of spiritism. The tremendous world-wide increase in occultism and superstition is based, in part, on its religious aspect, offering man an ersatz for genuine Christian discipleship. At the same time it is a fog-screen and a maneuver of diversion used by the enemy of God. In any case he is the winner, succeeding in his masterful disappearing act, or, if discovered, displaying himself as a harmless, impotent, and ridiculous Popanz—until credulous man discovers the crushing grip from which there is no escape. Isn’t it the Christian’s duty to tear the mask off his face, instead of laughing merrily at his masquerade?YOLANDA N. ENTZKoblenz, GermanyAVERTING AMBIGUITYYour very brief news report (“Protestant Panorama,” Oct. 27) about Professor Harold Dekker and the Christian Reformed Church … could be interpreted to suggest: (1) that Dekker denies that only some people are saved and, further, that he denies that those who are saved are the objects of divine election and special effectual grace; (2) that the Christian Reformed Church and its synod, by being “mild,” are about to scuttle the biblical and classical Reformed teaching on those two matters. In both cases, the opposite is true.No doubt, the synod’s reprimand was “mild” precisely because, adhering to the classical Reformed position in these matters, it was impressed to a considerable extent with Dekker’s judgment that “the doctrine of limited atonement as commonly understood and observed in the Christian Reformed Church impairs the principle of the universal love of God.” (I have underlined a significant part of his position omitted in your quotation.) That is to say, the synod apparently recognized that more needs to be said than what has been “commonly understood” in the church on these matters, and believed also that discussions of the crucial and difficult matters raised by Dekker ought to go on—provided such discussions are not left “abstract and ambiguous.”N. H. BEVERSLUISAda, Mich.GUESS AGAIN!I have greatly enjoyed your column, Eutychus III, and have smiled and winced as he exposed us in a little bit of the truth. If it is not too early to venture a guess, I would suggest that his name is Thomas Howard.CARL E. ABRAHAMSEN, JR.Millington Baptist ChurchMillington, N. J.“Eutychus I” was a delight.“Eutychus II” was so-so.“Eutychus III” is crude, vulgar, and cruel.VINCENT REES BROWNERectorGrace Church, EpiscopalRidgway, Pa. |
The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture John McGuckin |
This book is designed for the informed layperson or scholar. It is by far the most critically engaged Orthodox response to 21st-century life and thought. It provides a reasoned response to contemporary trends in Catholic and Protestant theology and moral issues, as well as an honest appraisal of the failures of Orthodox Church life today. The author supports the ordination of women to the priesthood and challenges the contemporary Orthodox Church on the basis of its patristic and biblical sources. Whether or not one agrees with all his positions, one simply cannot neglect this tour de force from one of the most competent authorities on the history of Orthodoxy.
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This is a rare book in that it attempts to familiarize readers with all of the Orthodox Churches, not just those that accepted the Council of Chalcedon.
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 God Rest Ye Merry, Gentle Readers:The bells of Christmas are ringing as Salvation Army lassies again appear on downtown sidewalks. But for many of them the traditional red noses and frostbitten toes are a thing of Christmas past. Instead of shivering in the cold as they jingle bells beside their kettles, many lassies now sit in heated cubicles and serve as Chrismas disc jockeys, playing the Top Ten carols for weary shoppers.This affluent holiday scene reminds me that I should inform you of my annual gift list for religious friends. Once again my liberality is boundless.William Sloane Coffin, Jr.—An “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster and a personal letter of greeting from Lt. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey.Father James Kavanaugh—The new book, The Celibate Condition and Sex, to burn in the fireplace of his honeymoon bungalow.King/Bishop Homer Tomlinson—Another world to conquer.Ethel Waters—A contract to give singing lessons to that self-conscious sparrow in her favorite song.Carl McIntire—A ham radio set for dispensing the baloney he includes in attacks on non-conciliar (i.e., non-ACCC) Christians.Joe Pyne—A pinch of salt for the biggest bag of religious nuts ever fed to the public.Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay)—A commission as Muslim chaplain to our Black Muslim fighting men wherever they are stationed in the inner city.Roger Garaudy—The chair of Christian-Marxist theology at a union seminary.Father James Groppi—A tube of Tanfastic to help make him a more acceptable protest leader of black-power mongers.Arthur Ford—A spirited trip to the nether regions with Jayne Mansfield rather than “Fletcher” as his guide.Harvey Cox—A case of napalm for use in securing “violence-justified” goals.From a heart overflowing with Christmas cheer, may I, in this year of hip, express the wish that your yule will be cool and that your only hangup will be your Christmas stocking.See you Christmas belles under the mistletoe,EUTYCHUS IIITHE BIBLE ISSUEThanks for the article by John Warwick Montgomery on inerrancy (“The Relevance of Scripture for Current Theology,” Nov. 10). I know many evangelicals want to discard this word because of all the controversy which surrounds it and because of many misunderstandings. But I am convinced it would be a mistake. The Roman Catholic Church with all of its new developments still uses the term regularly in order to bring out the absolute truthfulness and reliability of Scripture. The same concern was expressed by our church, the Missouri Synod, just recently when on two occasions in its last convention it reaffirmed its belief in Scripture’s inerrancy. This reaffirmation was made unanimously and resoundingly. We as a church really meant it.ROBERT PREUSProfessor of Systematic TheologyConcordia SeminarySt. Louis, Mo.I read the article with abhorrence.…I do not entertain the anti-super-naturalistic view that either the demonology or eschatology (both being “faith and morals” questions) of Jesus was mistaken. Nor do I insist that his own view of cosmology was mistaken; but I do insist that both the Bible and Jesus make use of a cosmology that is an accommodation to the pre-scientific minds of the people of that time.All of the fundamentalist attempts (though I once made them myself) to show the Bible as inerrant in matters of science are both unfounded scripturally and contradicted de facto. I personally am sick of the deceit of fundamentalist leaders with regard to this issue. For the shepherds (I exempt the sheep) it is not just a question of scholarship, but of sin.PAUL H. SEELYPhiladelphia, Pa.The articles on the fundamentalists defense of the Bible (Nov. 10) posed under the pretense of weighty scholarship. The actual problems of the authenticity and relevance of the Bible are not considered or discussed at all.…When will any of the evangelical writers … begin to discuss the real problems in the use and acceptance and relevancy of the Bible to the contemporary problems of life? Those problems are ancient enough to have destroyed previous civilizations, although they may seem to be the latest of new problems never faced before. And the revealed truth of God has long been given to mankind, even though it has frequently needed much obscurantism removed from it. The Bible is a good standard by which to discover that truth, but the seeker for truth must submit himself to the Spirit of God if he expects to find the truth and to understand the truth and to apply the truth to his life.THOMAS D. HERSEYThe Methodist ChurchesFairview, Wesley Chapel, and Moravia, IowaThe articles of David P. Scaer (“Christ or the Bible?”) and Don Neiswender (“Scripture and Culture in the Early Church”) (Nov. 10) most significantly complemented one another. The emphasis of Neiswender that “the Church … was unwilling to receive truth from outside” the Scriptures even though it recognized the fact that S“Christian dogma … must be proclaimed in a way that is relevant to the existing philosophical climate if it is to get a hearing” needs greater emphasis in the Church today. While many critics of the Bible are busy dividing the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history or the Lord of the Scriptures (as Scaer points out), the unbelievers of this world are busy using Christian “modes of expression and thought” to win many of the world’s theological students for non-Christian beliefs. The praise of the Scriptures by those who proclaim its fallibility is a most deceptive reverse of early Christian theology and methodology. It is true that modern criticism meets unbelief on the latter’s own ground. However, it most frequently goes without its God-given battle array, namely, the Christ of Scripture, the material principle, and the Scriptures of Christ, the formal principle. The oversubjectivity of modern theological thought has only succeeded in convincing many sons of the Church to replace the armor of God with man’s true costume of total depravity. Even though Neiswender’s call “for many an Origen to reply” to today’s world may justifiably make one feel uneasy (since Origen’s theology can hardly be considered Christian in the sense of true Protestantism), the plea for Christians to meet modern man on his own ground, yet with the message of “special revelation,” cannot be stated too often.PHILLIP B. GIESSLERAmbler, Pa.OF DRINK AND DOPEThank you for your editorials on alcohol and marijuana (Nov. 10). The title of John Wesley’s pamphlet on antinomianism [is appropriate]: “A Blow at the Root, or Christ Stabb’d in the House of His Friends.”RICHARD NOBLEFirst Methodist ChurchMarinette, Wis.I’m sure those who work in narcotics education would like to see “A Misleading Statement on Marijuana” printed or given equal time in the national news media, as much damage has been done by Mr. Goddard.JAMES F. LANDRUMScottsbluff County Youth Advisory Committee,Juvenile CourtScottsbluff, Neb.I object to your criticism of Alcohol Problems: A Report to the Nation (“A Wet ‘Solution’ to the Alcohol Problem”).The problem of alcoholism in America is caused by the fact that people drink to get drunk, disregarding any taste of wine, etc.…My son, born and raised in the United States, drinking wine at home with meals, was shocked in college to find other boys drinking anything just to get drunk. In the service as “Officer of the Day” (Navy), he wrote that he was “getting sick of playing nursemaid to the drunks” (fellow cadets). And he told me that they all had never before had access to alcohol at home.“Legal restrictions” are of no help. No law ever prevented its transgression. Neither the Ten nor any civil or international one!HORST RINNEHartville, Mo.I wish to compliment you on the strong stand you took in favor of true temperance.…It is most heartening to discover present-day spiritual leaders who still call drunkenness “sin,” instead of “sickness,” and believe that “the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only sure cure for alcoholism and every other sin.”Would to God that more of today’s spiritual leaders pointed slaves of debasing habits to Christ for deliverance, instead of to man-conceived schemes of rehabilitation that are proving so woefully inadequate to heal the sin-sick soul.NATHANIEL KRUMTakoma Park, Md.FOOD FOR THOUGHTThe editorial, “The Specter of World Hunger” (Nov. 10), well brings out—in a low pressure way—the shortcomings of the liberals, of the conservatives, and of the rest of us.HENRY FRANKLIN HILLSan Antonio, Tex.SWIFT’S KICKCongratulations to Professor Miller for a thought-provoking article on Swift’s vision of man (“The Comic-Tragic Vision of Jonathan Swift,” Nov. 10). The great satirist of Gulliver’s Travels and Tale of a Tub has long called for analysis from a Christian perspective.For the sake of completeness, however, it would have been wise to discuss the aspect of Swift’s writing which is most difficult to reconcile with his role as a sincere Christian clergyman. I refer to his obvious desire to shock and disgust the reader with crude allusions to certain biological functions. I find it difficult to reconcile what has been referred to by some as “Swift’s excremental vision” with the noble comic-tragic vision described in Professor Miller’s article.CALVIN L. MYRBOProfessor of EnglishWisconsin State UniversityPlatteville, Wis.UNRIVALED PREACHINGRe: “A Plea for Expository Preaching” (The Minister’s Workshop, Nov. 10).… It has pleased God through the thing preached to sanctify those that love him, to conform them to the image of his Son.… What a lamentation, then, if, along with possible clerical fluency, the sermon is simply a spread of trashy and starvation stuff, instead of a diet of real nutriment! As to the luckless flocks, Milton struck it when he wrote in “Lycidas,” “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”In general, preaching is not composed of certain pious commonplaces wrapped in a pleasing or catchy form. It is not merely telling an audience what they already know. If it were that, there is perhaps no office or function that would require less strain of intellect, less labor of preparation. But it is sometimes nobler. The sermon is meant to be arrestive, illuminative. It is meant to instruct men, to lead them into ever-enlarging views of truth that evoke richer life, truths that enclose the Gospel in its magnitude and majesty. It is meant to transform by the renewing of the mind.…Here is where the expository sermon takes its imperial place, a sermon that exacts penetrative study, a sermon that burrows into the Holy Oracles for hidden treasure. For genuine worth it has no rival.JOHN F. PALMPort Charlotte, Fla.For the past forty years I have been puzzled by one characteristic of the usual sermon.… We enter the church building for our religious service. The sanctuary is adorned … to put us in the proper frame of mind for worship. Religious symbols meet our eyes. Music is being played to evoke an emotional response. We sing a hymn. There is prayer, Scripture reading, and often special choir music.Then, when we have carefully been brought to a peak and are ready to respond to a discourse concerning the Deity—the preacher arises and makes a crack about baseball. Or it might be about football, motoring or television, but it is guaranteed to put us back to where we were on Saturday night.…The opening sentence follows the pattern of the commercial that comes in the middle of a baseball or football game. But let us be logical. The situation is different. During the break for the commercial, the audience tunes out mentally and heads for the refrigerator. Their minds must be caught and held.… The preacher’s congregation is not in front of the refrigerator with their mouths full of fried chicken. They are seated in pews where they can’t get away without violating the mores of two thousand years. Instead of being let down for the commercial, they have been built up for the sermon.So please, preacher, spare us the letdown. If you’ve just gotta make that crack about baseball, save it for when the congregation is getting restless. Or, better still, forget it, and when the congregation is getting restless, announce the closing hymn.JEAN M. JACKSONCroswell, Mich.BORDER’S LEGAL LINESI object to the Israel tourism advertisement (Nov. 10). That an ad of this sort should appear in the New York Times is quite understandable, given their Zionist sympathies. But I am vexed and disappointed that it should appear in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.There should be hesitation to run such an ad if for no other reason than that the information given is factually incorrect and misleading. Jericho, Bethlehem, and old Jerusalem are not in Israel. They are in the part of Jordan now under military occupation by the Israelis. And that is quite a different thing. The status of these cities has not been legally settled by the parties concerned, to say the least.RICHARD P. AULIENew Haven, Conn.CLEVER, BUT …Russell Chandler’s handling of “A Medium-Sized Faith” (Oct. 27) shows him to exhibit a very “medium-sized faith” himself. I must say the use of the word “medium” is very clever, but very self-righteous.…Your magazine thus joins the lukewarm “liberals” in watering down the very best message of the New Testament, which is the fact that the soul lives—you reject some of the best evidence being found and proven. The message of eternal life in the New Testament has more relevance now than ever.…As for faith healing, your handling of this great truth of the New Testament is equally unchristian. Just because a few bungle the idea or attempt to misuse it does not undercut the great fact and truth of its working. Some of the grandest discoveries made in our time show the power of spiritual healing, not only of souls but also of bodies. When you find persons healed through prayer in your own congregation, you know it works!If the “conservatives” and “liberals” both throw out all reference to healing and the faith in prayer—for both are psychic—then what do you have left in your New Testament? Just the margins of the pages?ROBERT VINSON GILDNERImmanuel Methodist ChurchDes Moines, IowaThe flippant style of the report leaves one with the impression that this is a little disconcerting but rather harmless matter. Anyone who would “ridicule” spiritism and spiritualism and would leave an utterance like “The demonic is always very close” unchallenged, has no idea of the background of spiritism. The tremendous world-wide increase in occultism and superstition is based, in part, on its religious aspect, offering man an ersatz for genuine Christian discipleship. At the same time it is a fog-screen and a maneuver of diversion used by the enemy of God. In any case he is the winner, succeeding in his masterful disappearing act, or, if discovered, displaying himself as a harmless, impotent, and ridiculous Popanz—until credulous man discovers the crushing grip from which there is no escape. Isn’t it the Christian’s duty to tear the mask off his face, instead of laughing merrily at his masquerade?YOLANDA N. ENTZKoblenz, GermanyAVERTING AMBIGUITYYour very brief news report (“Protestant Panorama,” Oct. 27) about Professor Harold Dekker and the Christian Reformed Church … could be interpreted to suggest: (1) that Dekker denies that only some people are saved and, further, that he denies that those who are saved are the objects of divine election and special effectual grace; (2) that the Christian Reformed Church and its synod, by being “mild,” are about to scuttle the biblical and classical Reformed teaching on those two matters. In both cases, the opposite is true.No doubt, the synod’s reprimand was “mild” precisely because, adhering to the classical Reformed position in these matters, it was impressed to a considerable extent with Dekker’s judgment that “the doctrine of limited atonement as commonly understood and observed in the Christian Reformed Church impairs the principle of the universal love of God.” (I have underlined a significant part of his position omitted in your quotation.) That is to say, the synod apparently recognized that more needs to be said than what has been “commonly understood” in the church on these matters, and believed also that discussions of the crucial and difficult matters raised by Dekker ought to go on—provided such discussions are not left “abstract and ambiguous.”N. H. BEVERSLUISAda, Mich.GUESS AGAIN!I have greatly enjoyed your column, Eutychus III, and have smiled and winced as he exposed us in a little bit of the truth. If it is not too early to venture a guess, I would suggest that his name is Thomas Howard.CARL E. ABRAHAMSEN, JR.Millington Baptist ChurchMillington, N. J.“Eutychus I” was a delight.“Eutychus II” was so-so.“Eutychus III” is crude, vulgar, and cruel.VINCENT REES BROWNERectorGrace Church, EpiscopalRidgway, Pa. |
Macarius of Jerusalem: Letter to the Armenians, A.D. 335 Translated by Abraham Terian |
This is the oldest surviving writing pertaining to the Armenian Orthodox Church, and one of a handful of surviving documents that illuminate baptismal and eucharistic practices in the early centuries of the Christian church—practices that are still used today.
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 The fallen spirits bone up on contemporary theological trends.The Devil was perched on a hot crag reading a book, with smoke curling gently about his face as if he were in Marlborough Country. Nearby sat Spitfire, one of his underlings.“You have found a good—pardon me, sir!—a bad book?” asked Spitfire.Satan lowered the volume and looked thoughtfully off into the smoky distance. “Little brother,” he said, “there’s something going on in the earth today. God, they are saying, is meaningless to the modern mind. You can’t talk sense about him in these times of advanced psychology and physics. Those who hold with Dietrich Bonhoeffer have decided that the traditional God has expired; he has gone the way of Nebo and Bel. The Bultmannians try to define God existentially, through much demythologizing of the Word. Harvey Cox of Harvard insists man must forget the very Name of God and try to break through to him in modern secularization.”Satan lifted the book he had been reading. “We also have ‘process theology,’ as expressed here in A Christian Natural Theology, by the late Alfred North Whitehead. Here we have a different slant on Deity. God has not grown up yet! He’s still attending school. He hasn’t matured.” Satan chuckled. “Why worry over whether mankind will ever attain maturity, when the Creator has the same problem?”“Ha!” said Spitfire. “Har!”Satan shrugged. “The Creator of Christian truth who transcends all and by divine fiat ordered life out of nothingness; who ruled the cosmos outside creation; who bears such attributes as Omnipotent, Omniscient, Almighty, and Eternal—he has had his funeral. He rests among the once lively gods who frolicked on Mount Olympus.”“That,” said Spitfire, grinning a twisted grin, “should make it clear to people why you haven’t been done in! It should clear up the mystery of sin. They won’t have to worry now over why an all-powerful God couldn’t get rid of evil—it simply was just too much for him!”Satan nodded. “To be sure, he is valiantly trying to overcome evil. Perhaps we can presume that countless eons hence he will have achieved his purpose—if that man, who is helping him toward victory, doesn’t come over on my side in too big a way!”“So God is growing!” cried Spitfire.“God is ‘becoming’ something, little brother. We may take it for granted he will eventually grow up. Which, of course, provokes a question in my mind. When he reaches maturity, will he become unchanging, like the God of classical Christian theology? But that, I suppose, the process theologians will hold as a future problem; meanwhile God is progressing nicely, getting more and more capable of handling the universal situation he has got himself into. What will happen when God comes to perfection? That’s a far-off problem. One mustn’t be too inquisitive, you know, else he will find himself right back where his fathers were who couldn’t explain why an all-powerful God couldn’t get rid of evil!”“Ha!” shouted Spitfire. “Har!”“They have the satisfaction of feeling, when they flunk at some point, that the Almighty—I beg your pardon!—the Creator is also going by trial and error. This should be quite comforting, especially to those whose pride has made it so difficult for them to submit to a sovereign Being. God is less awesome as a big struggling Brother than as an omnipotent Father. They won’t feel so much like humbling themselves in the Presence, nor feel so wicked when they fail to measure up to the old standards taught by the old-timers. The fact is, man can be pretty irreverent and not feel very guilt-stricken; and he can rid himself of old judgment fears. Since God is having his own trouble with things, surely he wouldn’t want to judge men who have missed the mark. A God wouldn’t want to invent a judgment that he might have to face!”“Hmmm,” said Spitfire. “Growing up with God. Nobody’s perfect—they’ve been saying that since Adam. How meaningful that is in this process theology! Not even the Lord can measure up!”“Consider, little brother, what this does for me! The old idea that I was foredoomed to destruction is out. I still have a chance! Spit, what if I should grow faster than God? As of now, I have perhaps more people on my side than he has; if I can help them on to sinful perfection, perhaps my old dream of taking over creation might be realized!”“Heil!” cried Spit. “Hooray!”Satan smiled a crooked smile and spat on a hot rock, and the spittle sizzled weirdly. “Maybe the believers better hope nothing happens to stunt God’s development—or they that hold with him will have had it! Wonder how they’d like seeing me take over, sending the bad ones to heaven and the good ones to hell?”Spit almost collapsed with glee. The Devil said, “But man is funny. The Buddhists smile en route to Nirvana and the existentialists smile en route to nihilism. The process theologians will carry their heads high, even if the Maker finds the going rough. Should he slip somewhere and lose the war—well, it will have been a magnificent try!”“However things turn out,” Satan continued, “even if neither God nor the believers ever reach perfection, it will have been nice suffering for his cause. They will get to bear the cross and deny themselves, to walk the narrow way, to resist evil, and perhaps to die for their Maker. That should mean something. Shouldn’t it?”“Shouldn’t it?” screamed Spit, quaking with laughter.Satan sat with his crooked smile on his face, with smoke curling gently about it as if he were in Marlborough Country. Then he went back to his book, still grinning his crooked grin.—THE REV. LON WOODRUM, Hastings, Michigan. |
Formation and Struggles: The Birth of the Church to A.D. 200 Veselin Kesich |
This book focuses on the early beginnings of the Orthodox Church in the second century, one of the most pivotal periods in Orthodox history. It is written for the general reader and deals with central issues of Orthodox identity such as the beginnings of Christianity, the formation of the Bible, the rise of bishops, and the position of the Roman church in the second century.
Bradley Nassif, professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park University, Chicago
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History & Biography magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History & Biography.
