O Lord!
This is your almost-humble servant, Eutychus X, coming to you with a problem. Lord, it is getting harder and harder to obey your Word because of the energy crisis.
Consider, for example, your promise about giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty pilgrim.
I was in a restaurant the other day and I asked the waitress for a glass of water. “This will help me and also give her a blessing,” I said to myself with much satisfaction. When she put the glass of water on the table, she also handed me a printed card encased in plastic. It was entitled “Energy and a Glass of Water.” It read as follows:
“A simple glass of water is important in the energy crisis. By asking for this glass of water, you may have set back the President’s energy program by several days. It takes energy to pipe the water in. It also takes a lot of energy to make ice cubes. After you have drunk the water, we must use up even more energy to wash and rinse the glass. We hope you will remember this the next time you ask for a glass of water. It is possible to go for days without drinking any water.”
O Lord, your almost-humble servant began to feel guilty. In fact, I was unable to drink that water. Yet, I could not send it back to the kitchen for that would be a greater waste, and the waitress would have had to use additional energy. What could I do?
Then I remembered your servant David, how he poured out the water that his brave men brought from Bethlehem’s well. I could not pour out the water on the floor, so I walked across the restaurant and knelt before a planter, carefully pouring the water into the soil. Though several people snickered, and one lady said something about “Druids worshiping bushes,” I persisted in my sacrificial act. It removed my guilt, but I was still thirsty.
O Lord, what do you suggest I do in these trying days?
Your almost-humble servant,
EUTYCHUS X
“Jumping Ship”
The charge that “The Major Denominations Are Jumping Ship” [Sept. 18], is not only seriously overstated but inexcusably lacking in that it does not present the total picture of what is happening in missions today. It obviously omits some facts that I am certain Dr. Lindsell knows and understands.
Most of the major American sending boards have fewer missionaries than they did 20 years ago. But the reason is related to the style of mission such boards have employed. They have concentrated upon developing indigenous leadership. They have founded institutions for educating persons who can witness in their own culture. To adequately evaluate and report the mission ministries of these major denominations, one must also report the number of indigenous churches, pastors, and institutions that have already emerged from their witness and are now not only not receiving American missionary personnel (or at least fewer), but who have themselves become sending churches.
Reaching the unreached will “be the major task of those who once were unreached but now have been reached and must therefore assume responsibility for their own people.” Some missiologists are now saying that. Many major denominations have been saying that for years—not because they lack missionaries but because they believe it is the way mission should be conducted. The total missionary programs of most major denominations are truly international ventures with overseas nationals serving on their headquarter staffs, support money going to non-American missionaries, and a amazing cross-national and cross-cultural sending and receiving taking place.
The truth is that the major denominations are not “jumping ship,” but rather are launching newer and better missionary “vessels”!
RAYMOND P. JENNINGS
Educational Ministries
American Baptist Churches
Valley Forge, Pa.
Inaccurate And Unbalanced Portrayal
Kent Hill’s account of the Siberian Seven [“After Three Long Years: Glimmers of Movement in ‘Siberian Seven’ Impasse,” Sept. 18], fails to give an accurate and balanced portrayal of a complex problem and advocates unwise action. I, too, was involved in the translation and publication of early documents by the Seven. Christians in the West should act with extreme caution in this matter.
While I pity these devout Siberians, I regretfully cannot defend their fanatic religious expression. They are not simply Pentecostals, as that designation is commonly understood. They are very different from the three or four million Soviet evangelicals who, despite difficulties, are able to find a way of living as Christians within the society where God has placed them. Unfortunately, Western attention to the Seven, to the extent that it is couched in terms of evangelical solidarity, aggravates the conditions of life for the biblical Christians.
As Western belligerence toward the Soviets has intensified in the past two years, the repression of Soviet evangelicals has correspondingly increased. Identification with the Siberians is, in my opinion, a particularly unwise course for evangelicals to follow. The particular issue with the Seven is that they totally refuse to submit to the government God has ordained for them. Moreover, if they are consistent, they will refuse subjection to any government, wherever they may live. When Western Christians identify with the Siberians, they confirm the slander of the Soviet Communists who portray evangelicals as traitors and pariahs.
PAUL D. STEEVES
Stetson University
DeLand, Fla.
Total Abstinence?
No one should disagree that alcoholism has reached epidemic proportions, but I cannot agree that abstinence is “in our society the only truly responsible position” [“A Sickness Too Common to Cure?” Sept. 18].
First, alcoholism is not the real problem, but a symptom of spiritual disintegration, which is the problem.
Second, to shame Christians into abstinence by invoking 1 Corinthians 8:13 invites hypocrisy and forgets that a brother might stumble on an abstinence ethic not taught in Scripture.
Third, I believe studies have demonstrated that churches that preach abstinence or have a tradition of abstinence produce among their adherents who imbibe a higher proportion of problem drinkers than those that don’t.
Fourth, the fruit of the vine is a gift from a gracious God. It can be misused, but so can higher education, sex, and a host of other things.
REV. MICHAEL T. VAHLE
Trinity Lutheran Church
Cantonment, Fla.
Your editorial is courageous, perceptive, scholarly, and sensitive.
Has any evangelical organization taken the lead in organizing a committee of concern? The problem is too big for any individual or organization.
I think you may have started something—and I’m glad!
WARREN W. WIERSBE
“Back to the Bible” Broadcast
Lincoln, Nebr.
Inerrancy Arena
The editor’s call for unity [“Rhetoric About Inerrancy,” Sept. 4], based on the alleged “conversion” of Jack Rogers, is premature. Let’s let Rogers rewrite his own view. And let us not forget that he is only one person in a broad drift toward Berkouwer’s deviant view.
NORMAN L. GEISLER
Dallas Theological Seminary
Dallas, Texas
The editorial report and comment on the Toronto conference on inerrancy was encouraging. I suspect, however, that the reconciliation between inerrantists and their critics may not be as deep as could be wished. Essentially the same problems are likely to arise again, for something that troubles inerrantists very deeply was apparently not dealt with.
Until the proper role of human judgment is clarified, and until we have more agreement about what it means to say that God speaks or reveals something, disputes over inerrancy are unlikely to be resolved in a satisfactory way: they grow out of those other, and deeper, differences.
GEORGE I. MAVRODES
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Inaccurate Report
CT’s report on the Australian parochiaid court ruling [News, Sept. 4] was inaccurate. The case was decided by the High Court, the equivalent of our Supreme Court. The High Court ruled that the “no establishment” clause in the Australian Constitution not be interpreted as comprehensively as the similar clause in the U.S. Constitution. Six of the seven justices on the Australian High Court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that the Australian “no establishment” clause was patterned by its authors after the U.S. clause and means more or less what the U.S. Supreme Court has rather consistently held the U.S. clause to mean.
EDD DOERR
Americans United for
Separation of Church and State
Silver Spring, Md.
Tabloid Format?
Your coverage entitled, “Unmasking Jerry Falwell and His Moral Majority” [Sept. 4], made me wonder if you are preparing to go to a tabloid format. I think this issue would sell well at the supermarket.
JOHN W. PEREBOOM
Carmi, Ill.
We are delighted with the extensive and provocative coverage of Jerry Falwell and deeply appreciate your timely review of The Fundamentalist Phenomenon. We are most grateful.
EVY HERR ANDERSON
Doubleday and Company Incorporated
New York, N.Y.
It was a misrepresentation to write that I had been “twice” invited to see Falwell but did not go. The fact is that I wrote a personal letter to Dr. Falwell which he did not answer. I then contacted Cal Thomas, vice-president of communications for Moral Majority, a number of times during the writing of my manuscript. I sent him the first draft, which he read and returned with a number of suggestions, most of which I followed. Cal suggested several times that I visit Lynchburg and see the work firsthand, but never extended a specific invitation.
It was reported that I would change my approach to Moral Majority had I waited six months to write the book. The implication is that I would be more supportive of Moral Majority. I made it clear to CT that the change would be in the opposite direction. I would be more critical of Falwell’s argument that God’s role for America is to bring spiritual renewal to the world. He confuses America with the church.
The point is that despite Falwell’s insistence that Moral Majority “Americanism” is separate from the church, it is in fact a movement largely among the fundamentalist churches and represents a fundamentalist political ideology. Consequently, it alters the fundamental nature and mission of the church away from evangelism, education, worship, and fellowship. Instead, Falwellian fundamentalism tends to turn local churches into political power bases, special agents of capitalist economics, champions of liberty, moral legislators, defenders of messianic Americanism, and advocates of militarism.
ROBERT WEBBER
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Ill.
