SELF-SERVICE SCHOOL?
Will Johnson came upon the test paper quite by accident. His eighth grader had left her stack of school books, gym equipment, notes, purse, and miscellaneous effects on the back seat of the car, and when he stopped suddenly to avoid crushing her bike in the driveway, the pile cascaded to the floor. The red pencil marks caught his eye as he was collecting the debris in a basket.
The test covered a unit on personal adjustment. Pamela had not done well on it. Was it best to study: (a) on the floor in front of the TV, (b) on the kitchen table while mother prepared dinner, or (c) in a quiet place with good lighting. Incredibly, Pam had chosen (b).
What should a student do about a course he does not like? Pam had lettered briefly, “drop it.”
Only one question received full credit. “What are your social needs?” Pam answered, “Acceptance, affection, achievement.” Each was defined; achievement meant, “doing something better than others.”
In the interview between father and daughter which soon followed, Pam explained that she had goofed deliberately. Writing the test, she said, had given her a wonderful sense of achievement. Even her teacher had overlooked the advantages of study in the kitchen, for example. What could better satisfy Pam’s hunger for acceptance, affection, and a little food before dinner? It didn’t interfere with achievement in anything but math, and a remarkable combination of low interest and low aptitude made it clear that math was not an area of achievement for Pam. Her advisor had admitted as much. Why should it interfere with her delightful kitchen adjustment?
Her father’s response furnished Pam with a vigorous social experience of authoritarian parental control. She now studies in her room. At the PTA, Mr. Johnson’s account of the incident led to spirited debate about the “social needs” approach to education. At the end, the discussion became theological, as Pastor Peterson urged self-sacrifice instead of self-service. He had seen too often what the quest for satisfaction of personal needs could do to marriages!
EVANGELICAL RESURGENCE
Your “Resurgence of Evangelical Christianity” (Mar. 30 issue) is thrilling!… Your magazine is like wheat amid the chaff of liberalism, like a rock amid the sand dunes of neo-orthodoxy, and like the sun amid changing moons of non-biblical scholars.
Northern Baptist Theological Seminary
Chicago, Ill.
“Evangelical Christianity” in your article turns out to be revivalism and biblicism, both of which have a weak theology. The Roman church has pre-empted the word “catholic” and now fundamentalism usurps the word “evangelical.” In both instances Lutherans protest.
Hamma Divinity School of Wittenberg College
Springfield, Ohio
Timely article … I am only one voice—but at least one—and I am happy to lift it in protest against the path down which we are being led by our wretched standards of music, which have been taken from American culture rather than Christian culture … I join you in heart in your fine stand.
New York, N. Y.
EVEN MACHIAVELLI
In regard to your March 30 editorial …, there are many things that Tillich says that are good. Even I, a simple pastor, readily admit that there are good emphases, relevant correctives, and spiritual stimulus in the vast majority of theologians. Although we might differ radically, no man in his personal intellectual humility would say that, for example, Aquinas, or Nietzsche, or even Machiavelli were totally devoid of constructive elements for every man.
Paterson, N. J.
In his Systematic Theology, vol. I, p. 205, Tillich writes, “God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him.” My understanding of Tillich is that he means that the verb “exists” cannot properly be used to predicate the God whose “being” is beyond our conceptions of existence. Rather than denying the existence of God, I believe Tillich is pointing to his transcendence.
Pierce Memorial Presbyterian Church
Farmingdale, N. J.
It is good to see some publication that has the courage to tell the truth about Prof. Tillich, who does not present the Truth. He has done and is doing great harm to Christianity …
Wilmington, Del.
Your words about Paul Tillich … were very good.
The First Baptist Church
Marissa, Ill.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Your editorial, “The Dangers of Social Engineering” (Mar. 2 issue), calls attention to a grave danger to political and religious freedom. However, it was inadequate on two points. First, the discussion of the theory is far too short. Second, you completely omitted all examination of actual legislative proposals to commit the “ideologically unsound” to mental institutions. It would be a service if you could have this written up.
Butler University
Indianapolis, Ind.
• Some modern “social revisionists” are now so bold as to consider as candidates for mental institutions all who do not hold quasi-collectivistic social theories and who cherish the Christian religion in its biblical form. Mental health is being associated with enthusiasm for compulsory legislation that dissolves voluntarism, while those who have doubts about economic programs that weaken free enterprise traditions are regarded as mentally ill. Dr. H. A. Overstreet, in his The Great Enterprise—Relating Ourselves to Our World, asserts that people who angrily oppose “… public housing, the TVA, financial and technical aid to backward countries, organized labor, and the preaching of social rather than salvational religion … may appear normal … but they are, we now recognize, well along the road to mental illness.” We would tremble indeed to have this “progressive philosophy” dominate expanding government intrusion into “mental health” activities. It is characteristic of dictator states to brand as neurosis whatever is inconvenient to their totalitarian schemes.—ED.
The [editorial] entitled “Have We Passed the Summit?” falls into the familiar pit of identifying the Reformation with the preaching of “The Christian Gospel” as purely theological, and contrasts it in the following article with “The Dangers of Social Engineering.” One wonders if … the fact that the religion of the local prince became the religion of all the people in his province is this “liberating power” we are told about; if the persecution and rejection of the Anabaptists, done in the name of this theology, was any better than the possible results of Dr. A. H. Overstreet’s analysis of the symptoms of mental illness? Have the editors forgotten the theocracy of Calvin at Geneva with its complete theological, social, and political structure? Is it possible they do not know that our founding fathers (to whom we popularly and oratorically attribute our separation of church and state) tried to set up a similar theocracy in Massachusetts and for many years supported the church with tax money and decided many theological points in the legislature, allowing no one to vote who was not a church member—that is, a member of the right church?
First Congregational Christian
Muncie, Ind.
Having seen and used a splendid reprint from your magazine in my campaign against this mental health racket, namely, “Do Humanists Exploit Our Tensions?”, I am wondering if you will have any reprints of “The Dangers of Social Engineering” in your current issue.…
Petersburg, Va.
THE FAITH AND THE ETHIC
As a subscriber and occasional contributor to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I am constrained to voice protest against an attitude which has found expression repeatedly in the pages of your magazine for the last six months. It is that of elevating total abstinence in reference to fermented beverages to the status of a principle for the Christian. The latest example of this is in the issue which has just come to my hand (Feb. 2) in which tolerance “about the use of alcohol” is placed in the same category as tolerance about “delinquency,” “divorce,” “wickedness in high places,” “immorality,” “crime,” and “godlessness” (p. 3). The implication must be that “the use of alcohol” is to be condemned along with these other moral evils. I cannot stress too much the pernicious wrong of this attitude and I shall give my reasons for this judgment.
No sensitive Christian can but condemn and deplore drunkenness and the evils which follow in its wake, whether it be the drunkenness of the occasional inebriate or that of the alcoholic. Every sensitive Christian surely knows the pang of grief that pierces his soul when he sees a drunken person. And there is no disposition on my part to defend many of the methods of the liquor traffic. CHRISTIANITY TODAY has sufficiently exposed the disastrous consequences of some of these methods. Why then such severe judgment upon the attitude referred to above? It is precisely because it is aimed at the heart of the Christian faith and the biblical ethic.
Roland H. Bainton (July 7 issue) has shown admirably by appeal to Luke 7:33–35 that Jesus came drinking wine and that this must have been the fermented beverage denoted by that name (p. 5). It is impossible to adopt any other interpretation. This is the heart of the issue. We dare not impugn the integrity of our Lord nor the relevance to us of his example. It is futile to appeal to the changed conditions under which we live to get away from the relevance to us of our Lord’s example in this particular. Our Lord is the supreme example of virtue and the only example of perfect virtue. If we deny the abiding relevance here, where are we to land? Subtly, though the proponents are often unaware of what they are doing, the tendency, not to speak of the attempt, to elevate total abstinence to the position of principle and to invest it with the sanction of necessary virtue is a direct assault upon our Lord’s integrity and upon the relevance of his example. That is why it is aimed at the heart of our faith. And it is aimed at the heart of the biblical ethic, too. It lies at the center of all ethical discrimination that we may never condemn the use because of the abuse.
Perhaps, Mr. Editor, you will permit one word more. How distorted has become the appeal to the weak brother! Into this distortion even Bainton falls (cf. p. 6 in the article cited above). The “weak brother” of Paul’s teaching (cf. Rom. 14) is not the person who “either for physical or psychological reasons” is “in danger of the Lost Weekend” but the person who on religious grounds is a total abstainer. How strange is the exegetical casuistry to which Scripture is subjected!
Westminster Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
The diatribe of Baptist Editor C. R. Daley in your issue of December 22 just arrived here is typical of intemperate extremists masquerading as temperance advocates. As Fr. Mangrum points out in the same issue of your paper, the historic Church knows of no such compulsory restriction, and this includes the vast majority of Christians. It is high time that those who stand for true temperance spoke out against the fanatical type of teetotalers who are driving people from religion by their intransigent attitude.
All Saints Rectory
Gordonvale, Queensland, Australia
GEOGRAPHICAL YEAR NEEDED
Perhaps it is a good thing that your editor is so unfamiliar with gambling centers. But still, New Mexico should not be blamed for the open and legalized gambling in Nevada (March 16 issue, p. 21). You have the wrong Las Vegas!
Grace Lutheran Church
Bishop, Calif.
I agree that gambling should be opposed.… However, I am a proud ex-son of New Mexico.… Recommend a trip to the nice little city of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Leonia, N. J.
The theology of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is good, but the geography is bad!
Fuller Seminary
Pasadena, Calif.
FRUIT OF CYNICISM
I am glad you have come out with strong protests against the cynical play, “The Third Commandment,” recently presented over NBC’s Kaleidoscope series (Mar. 2 issue.) Upon seeing it advertised, I made a special effort to watch the play, and sat in stunned amazement at the blasphemy of it. Not only was there blasphemy against God, but the insinuation that evangelists are obtaining wealth through commercialized revivalism revealed the attitude of author Hecht. Knowing of so many fine evangelists who have been forced to leave the field of evangelism because of inadequate support by the churches, I was especially shocked at this false portrayal.
Los Angeles Baptist City Mission Society
Los Angeles, Calif.
