Epistolics Anonymous
To the Editor:
Can you tell me, please, whether it is proper to launch an ICBM rocket with a bottle of champagne? Having flunked physics, I am somewhat unsure of myself in this atomic age. It would be great fun for an inveterate non-alcoholic to contribute some verbal pop and fizz to the launching of your new magazine, but I don’t know whether it would be appropriate.
I’m a little over-awed. Your magazine, you say, is “designed for worldwide impact.” Looking at your streamlined brochure and the impressive list of editors and contributors I can well believe it. The jet take-off of your first issue is going to be something to see!
But sir, you need a Pseudonymous Letter Writer, for which position I herewith make application. I can hear you muttering, “The pseudonymous, while not synonymous with the anonymous, is equally pusillanimous…” I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. Where would American literature be without Mark Twain? Besides, as that great master of pseudonymity, Soren Kierkegaard, has explained, using a pseudonym may show too much courage rather than too little! My nom de plume suggests not a personality but a picture. Easy slumber under sound gospel preaching was fatal for Eutychus. The Christian church of our generation has not been crowded to his precarious perch, but it has been no less perilously asleep in comfortable pews.
The resemblance to Eutychus does not end there. Eutychus prostrate on the pavement is more appropriate than we know as a symbol of Christendom today. To tap sleeping Eutychus on the shoulder, to embrace dead Eutychus in love, faith, and hope is your task.
Believe me, my heart is with you. Evangelical Christianity … never were those words more significant than in this time when many who falsely or foolishly claim the noun would assure us, in the name of unity, that the adjective is unnecessary—either meaningless or sectarian.
But if we are to contend for the truth in love, humbling humor is good medicine. When men take a cause seriously enough, there is always great danger that they will take themselves too seriously. If we see ourselves as others see us, we may discover why everyone is laughing!
May your cause prosper, your letters-to-the-editor department flourish, and may I remain (this is a threat and a promise)
your humble scribe,Eutychus
• So that the Editor will be assured of at least one letter fortnightly, Christianity Today welcomes Eutychus the volunteer. Except in the case of Eutychus, whose identity is already established (d. Acts 20:9), communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. The title “Eutychus and His Kin” is employed for letters to the Editor because Eutychus is an apostolic symbol for one made drowsy under the long exhortation of others, or providentially awakened to new opportunities. —ED.
At this Time of Day
To the Editor:
I am venturing to ask whether your heading “The Conflict of the Gospel with Paganism” … will regularly appear in the journal? If it does so, presumably in accordance with editorial policy, I respectfully submit that the title is ill-chosen. The science of Comparative Religion itself would, I should have thought, have precluded approaches of that kind, at this time of day, to highly complex religious phenomena.
Prof. G. K. Brown, Ph.D., D. Litt.University of ManitobaWinnipeg, Canada
Blubbered mouthful
To the Editor:
Your propaganda letter is to hand. It reminds me of another blubbered mouthful: “what America needs is a good five cent cigar.” A good five cent cigar would do as much good for the politico-economic situation in the U.S. as your proposed … Christianity Today will do for the kingdom of God. … The world doesn’t need another religious magazine. … As I look at the lined-up intellectual power and the display of gifted personalities which you propose to plow into a sterile paper I pray that God may frustrate the plan.…
H. D. HammerMontevideo, Uruguay
Christianity yesterday
To the Editor:
If you have a Christianity Today that differs from the Christianity of the Apostles of the first century, followed by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, A.D. 30, I have no use for it.
Frances Lincoln CookEugene, Ore.
Approval of trend
To the Editor:
Have read your sample of the coming publication Christianity Today with a great deal of interest and approval of the trend of thought behind the movement.…
Mansel B. GreenSouth Haven, Mich.
Wings of Christian growth
To the Editor:
From 1941 to 1945 I was fighting as millions of others to preserve freedom … Over Germany and Tokyo I prayed many times … for the safety of myself, my crew and squadron. I came through … unharmed, and have always felt there was some real reason and purpose for my returning when so many finer men did not.
I have found that purpose now, … since I have now accepted Christ as my Saviour and for the first time have found peace. … I realize today … that Christ is the only salvation for myself, this nation and the entire world. I continuously pray and read my Bible for continued guidance … Mediums such as Christianity Today will help us all grow in … Christian understanding.
Lt. Col. Robert K. Morgan,USAF (Reserve)Black Mountain, N.C.
• Colonel Morgan piloted the famous “Memphis Belle” which started the round of land-based bombings of Tokyo. Oddly, the pilot who led the bombing attack on Pearl Harbor, Captain Fuchida, is now also a Christian, active in evangelistic work in Japan. —ED.
