On Recognizing The Enemy
In a recent Sunday-afternoon football game the halfback carrying the ball was tripped by a member of the opposing team. He jumped to his feet, slammed the ball on the ground, and headed for the offending tackle with blood in his eye. He was restrained by the referee. Later in the game he was tripped by a member of his own team. He rose and calmly, if glumly, walked back to the huddle.
General George Patton, if we are to believe the movie script writers, had such an intense feeling of rivalry for Britain’s Field Marshall Montgomery that he took unnecessary risks with his men to reach an objective before “Monty.”
Recently a fellow Christian made some uncomplimentary remarks to me about Pat Boone, apparently offended by his Mr. Clean image.
These items have led me to formulate the Beelzebub Principle: A person’s ability to recognize his enemy is in inverse proportion to the importance of that recognition.
It’s comparatively easy for a football player to recognize the enemy since football really isn’t important.
For a General Patton, it’s somewhat harder to recognize who the enemy is because war is important.
It’s virtually impossible for Christians to perceive their enemy because the matter is of supreme importance.
Sophisticated Christians, let me assure you that Pat Boone is not the enemy. Bob Jones, let me assure you that CHRISTIANITY TODAY is not the enemy. Evangelical friends, let me assure you that the Pope is not the enemy.
Even those who seem to be working against God are not really the enemy. Scripture holds out the possibility that these folks may desert to Jesus’ side just as we did.
The enemy, dear friends, is the prince of darkness grim, the prince of this world, the first murderer, the father of lies, who masquerades as an angel of light. And his cleverest victory is the successful promulgation of the Beelzebub Principle.
Now try to keep that straight in the future, will you?
EUTYCHUS V
TO CLIP AND CONSIDER
Thanks for using Nancy G. Westerfield’s [poem] “Placed by the Gideons” in the November 24 issue. Interesting topic to write on; interesting images; a poem to clip out and think on further. Greenville College ELVA MCALLASTER Greenville, Ill.
Professor of English
I really enjoy reading those poetry selections that you choose for printing. Modern and moving. So good to see Christian poetry updated and with it.
Jermyn, Pa.
D. CARVALHO
BREAKING OUT LIKE MEASLES
I am writing to you today to tell you that the article “Whither Episcopalians?” (Nov. 10) is not only repugnant to me as an evangelical Episcopalian but also far from the truth.… Please be assured that there are a great many clergy and bishops who take seriously their ordination vow of teaching nothing as necessary to eternal salvation but that which can be reasoned and concluded from Holy Scripture. Indeed, all of us clergy of the Episcopal Church, in signing the Oath of Conformity, have stated flatly that we believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to BE the Word of God—period. It is quite true, of course, that there are many other clergy and bishops who are not loyal to the profession of their faith at the time of their ordination, and who do give the impression of providing a “dealer’s choice” in what is to be believed as necessary to salvation and what is to be regarded as man’s word. But I cannot see how you can, in any sense of Christian charity, let alone journalistic responsibility, condemn the whole before the gaze of the American evangelical reading public for a situation affecting only a part of the Episcopal Church (however large a part at that!). And I cannot see how you can fail to acknowledge that the religion of Jesus Christ, especially as he can be known through his holy Word, is breaking out like measles all over the Episcopal Church!
Certainly the recent Episcopal Conference on Evangelism in Louisville was … a resounding affirmation … that the evangelical way in the Episcopal Church is vital, that the Word of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in particular, is being honored in our tradition together with the Holy, Gospel Sacraments, without fear of the “consequences.”
BRUCE E. LEBARRON
Christ Episcopal Church
Bethany, Conn.
Let me assure Mr. Wagner and others who share his concern, that John MacQuarrie is not authoritative or even representative in current Anglican thinking. The students at Virginia Seminary laugh at MacQuarrie’s ideas. Lest Mr. Wagner’s article convey a serious misconception, never has any one theologian spoken for the Anglican church, with the possible exceptions of Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker. I would encourage Mr. Wagner to ponder this when in his admiration for the Reformed tradition he shows a tendency to absolutize man’s theology. The Lord be praised for John Stott, and also for John Calvin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine. However, only Scripture is infallible; no theologian or tradition can provide an inerrant key to the understanding of Scripture. Similarly, no one party within the church can claim to be the church. I would consider myself to be an evangelical, but I would certainly not want to equate that label with God’s elect. I encourage fellow evangelicals in the Episcopal church to be more sensitive to the working of the Holy Spirit in Christians who also wear a Catholic or Pentecostal label.
Alexandria, Va.
ERNEST CURTIN
APOLITICAL PRECAUTIONS
I was disappointed to read your news story “Backing Their Man” by Barrie Doyle (Oct. 27).… The story implies that the Wheaton College Student Government initially favored Senator McGovern and invited only him, but that the president of the college overruled this invitation until President Nixon was also invited.
This was not the case. In fact, both Student Government and President Armerding took every precaution to be apolitical. Invitations were sent to both major candidates on the same day, and when McGovern offered to speak during Spiritual Emphasis Week, the students suggested that he come on another day. You may also be interested to know that President Nixon did send a representative to our campus. He was the Honorable Frank Sanders, undersecretary of the Navy.
W. E. WHITTINGTON
Student Body President
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Ill.
LIVING WITH THE PROBLEMS
Professor Yamauchi (Eutychus and His Kin, Nov. 10) has correctly raised some serious difficulties in dating Genesis Man just after 4000 B.C. I am myself very puzzled by the cave paintings in Spain and France. In her Prehistory Jacquetta Hawkes calls them “the most improbable event in human history.”
I am not troubled by the development of agriculture and towns. The building of elaborate nests is instinctive to birds. Bees have complex cities. The female hunting wasp (Hymenoptera Pompilidae) makes a mud receptacle, fills it with live insects, which she anesthetizes, and then lays one egg in the opening so that her offspring will have fresh meat. The skills of dolphins and bats are in some respects far superior to ours. These instinctive skills are all printed into the genetic code of each species. My point is that according to the Bible the only instinctive skill that differentiates Genesis Man from all other animals is the ability to worship and converse with God. The fact that so-called Stone Age tribespeople have degenerated in their worship of God is irrelevant. Missionaries will soon show that they too can worship God as we do.
I admitted that the intermediate periods after the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Early Dynastic Sumerian do not at present yield evidence of a cataclysm, but on the other hand written sources for this period are to my mind incredibly scanty.
Professor Yamauchi’s solution involved ditching “the traditional doctrine that Adam was the physical progenitor of mankind” (his words). I prefer to live with the problems. Leakey’s recent discovery in Kenya of a normal shaped human skull believed to be 2.5 million years old shows how quickly the certainties of evolutionary theory can be shattered.
Millbrook, Ont.
ROBERT BROW
KEEPING ABREAST
Just a note as a member of the secular press to say how much I appreciate the news section of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The issue of November 10 struck me as particularly interesting, and made me realize how helpful your efforts are to us in keeping abreast of developments among evangelical Christians. Keep up the good work.
The New York Times
EDWARD FISKE
New York, N. Y.
Religion Editor
STINGING HUMANS
I have appreciated the “What If …” cartoons, although perhaps sometimes the subtle points escape me. But the November 10 presentation of Aholiab is a real winner. So contemporary, so human, so stingingly human! Every issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is an inspiration for me.
Ronan, Mont.
WALTER H. ARP
It’s a great Christian publication. But that cartoon: juvenile humor, unfunny, a mockery rather than fun, a burlesque, tasteless, irritating, pointless, misses the mark, puerile, unworthy of the tone you create in the rest of the magazine. Berkeley, Calif.
BENJAMIN HARRIS
BEST BOOKS
In “Palestine/Israel” (Nov. 10) Faith L. Winger has provided concerned Christians with the best practical list of books I’ve yet seen on the Middle East.… The only real problem … is inherent in the limitations of American publishing and bookselling on the subject. So many of the best books are from foreign presses and difficult to obtain in our country.… A partial remedy for this problem has been provided by Americans for Middle East Understanding (475 Riverside Drive, New York, N. Y. 10027), which has imported … foreign titles which, as a non-profit organization, it sells at cost. It also sells at wholesale price many of the U. S. publications suggested by Miss Winger and distributes, free, Bradley Watkins’s essay, “Is the Modern State, Israel, a Fulfillment of Prophecy?,” which she mentions.
THE REVEREND L. HUMPHREY WALZ
Synod of New York
United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.
Syracuse, N. Y.
Having read extensively on the Middle East, both ancient and current history, I am delighted to have the bibliography presented by Miss Winger. I do think, however, that history from the Arab point of view is not as well represented in the bibliography as is that of the Israeli. May I suggest a few books that appear to me instructive additions to the list:
1. The Phoenix Land: The Civilization of Syria and Lebanon, by Robin Fedden, George Braziller, 1965.
2. The Arab Awakening, by George Antonius, Khayats, (Beirut, Lebanon).
3. What Price Israel, by Alfred Lilienthal, Regnery, 1953, and There Goes the Middle East, by Alfred Lilienthal, Devin-Adair, 1957.
4. Suez: The Twice Fought War, by Kennett Love, McGraw-Hill, 1969.
5. The Arabs, by Anthony Nutting, Potter, 1964, and The Other Side of the Coin, also by Nutting.
6. The Middle East in World Affairs, by George Lenczowski, Cornell, 1962. Sun City, Ariz. MCKINNIE L. PHELPS
AFTER FIVE YEARS
Concerning “Missouri Synod’s Troubled Campus” (Nov. 24): As a recent (six months ago) full-time student of five years at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, I feel that I need to disagree with President Tietjen’s statement that “it has not been their [students’] experience that the faculty is in basic conflict with Christian teaching. Quite the contrary. They’ve found a bold affirmation of the faith.” For five years I sat in classes at Concordia Seminary and listened to professor after professor allowing for beliefs that slowly but surely erode the Christian’s Church’s most precious gospel message. I am not speaking only of the biblical evidence concerning the six-day creation, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the historicity of Jonah, or the authenticity of the Red Sea crossing. What I am speaking of is the allowing of diverse and contradictory beliefs in the areas of the existence of angels and demons, the biological virgin birth of Christ, the miracles which the Bible clearly ascribes to the earthly Jesus, and the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I am convinced that many students as well as many in the field do not realize that the historical-critical method as demanded at the seminary, even with so-called Lutheran presuppositions, allows for the denial of all of the above plus much more.… If LCMS members continue to support this new kind of neo-liberal Christian belief system and do not support what President Preus has initiated, then in a few years’ time the conservative voice will not only no longer be heard; it will not even be tolerated.
Trinity Lutheran Church
TOM BAKER
Sturgis, Mich.
ONLY TYPEWRITERS
An inaccuracy appeared in “Federal Aid to Religion” (Nov. 10). The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada did not receive from CIDA $1,400,000, but rather $2,500. This was obtained under approval of the Kenya Educational Department for typewriters to enable us to initiate a typing course in one of our girls’ secondary schools. The only other dealing we have had with CIDA was to approve the seconding of one of our secondary-school teachers in Kenya to CIDA for a post which they wished to fill.
C. W. LYNN
Executive Director
Overseas Missions Department
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Toronto, Ont.
• We erred. The figures CIDA gave us included funds from private sources as well as government grants.—ED.
The whole tone of the news story would make Christians feel that their governments were carrying a large share of the cost of Christian missions. In the case of Overseas Missionary Fellowship, the statement is not true. They did not receive any money from CIDA.
Barrie, Ont.
MRS. A. S. MORROW
SINGING IN CRUSADES
We greatly appreciated your news story, “Singing in Our Church” (Nov. 10), about the Ethel Waters dinner. One correction: While we did show a short film on the life of Ethel Waters, the title of that film was not Time to Run. Time to Run is the latest dramatic production of World Wide Pictures and will not be premiered until late January in Memphis. Following that, it will be shown in hundreds of commercial theaters across the nation.
Lest anyone think Billy Graham is now starting a church, it should be noted also that the inscription on the gift to Ethel Waters from the Billy Graham team recorded her fifteen years of singing in “our Crusades,” not (as the article said) “our church.”
World Wide Pictures
BILL BROWN
Burbank, Calif.
President
TO IGNORE OR TO TRADUCE
Your news story “Bishops Aye Women” (Nov. 24) is so slovenly that it is insulting to all members of the Episcopal Church.
The debate was not over women in the ministry; women are full ministers of the Episcopal Church, in the only order that the New Testament shows to have been open to women in apostolic days—the diaconate. The bishops were discussing the possibility of women being ordained to the episcopate and priesthood. The vote was 74 yea to 61 no, with 5 abstentions.
I speak as one of the bishops, and an enthusiastic supporter of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, when I tell you that it would be better to ignore us than to traduce us.
THE RIGHT REVEREND STANLEY ATKINS
The Diocese of Eau Claire
Eau Claire, Wisc.
SPAWNING GROUNDS
Those of us working with Clear Light Productions were very appreciative of the thoughtful, encouraging review of our multimedia show, CRY 3 (News, “CRY 3: Journey From Plastic City,” Nov. 24).
One correction worth mentioning, however, is that the missionary organization you print as Africa Evangelism is actually African Enterprise. This group of people operating out of South Africa and East Africa provided the spawning grounds for not only our production of CRY 3 but also another similar production, headed by Eric Miller (in conjunction with Inter-Varsity), called Twentyonehundred. Both CRY 3 and Twentyonehundred have seen tremendous impact among young people over the last two years. We have already received booking requests for CRY 3 as a result of your review—which proves your readership is definitely an involved one!
DON ANDRESON
Clear Light Productions, Inc.
President Newton, Mass.
• Sorry. (But a Clear Light Staffer gave us the wrong name!)—ED.
