Remarkably Fresh
Philip Yancey’s “Sin” [Mar. 6] did it again. With remarkable freshness he plows through theological conventionalities regarding the purpose of divine law, finds the coherent thread of both OT and NT, and shares his own self-authenticating experience that affirms his biblical conclusion: God’s laws are primarily descriptive, not prescriptive.
HERBERT E. DOUGLASS
Weimar Institute
Weimar, Calif.
May I respectfully correct a misconception of a Hebrew verbal construction in Yancy’s otherwise fine treatment? The Hebrew in the Ten Commandments is doing far more than merely “giving a description of what a holy people will look like.” A more accurate statement would have been: “The Hebrew in the Ten Commandments is giving strong divine commands as to what a holy people must and must not do.”
DR. KENNETH L. BAKER
Capital Bible Seminary
Lanham, Md.
Yancey has egregiously offended all George MacDonald lovers by prematurely dating his death! Had he died in 1858, many great works would never have been written. MacDonald died at Ashtead, Surrey, in 1905.
JAY PIERSON
Kensington, Md.
Medical ethics: A complex issue
I was delighted with the two articles on medical ethics in your March 6 issue [“Life-defying Acts,” by Ed Larson and Beth Spring, and “The Inevitability of Death,” by Rob Roy MacGregor]. I share the concern expressed by the authors that the evangelical voice has been notably absent from discussions about decisions to limit treatment. The two articles presented a reasoned and balanced view of a complex issue.
ROBERT D. ORR, M.D.
Brattleboro, Vt.
I was surprised that the eventual determining factor in the sustain-life controversy was never seriously discussed: stewardship of resources. How many lives of children of the world could be saved with the money spent to sustain life for one day in a highly technical, critical care center?
REV. JAMES T. CHRISTY
Church of the Nazarene
Greeley, Colo.
Putting families first
I commend you for the courage to include in your March 6 issue the “Speaking Out” article “Home-grown Kids Need a Full-time Mom,” when the majority is opposed to its views. A full-time “mom” is the most honorable of occupations for women. Money, prestige, and selfish gain are poor substitutes for the satisfaction of putting our families first.
P. FREDRICK FOGLE
Tallahassee, Fla.
Attitudes such as those portrayed in the article keep the church from being all that it could be. Working full-time for a Christian organization and trying to support a family on the salary I receive would be impossible. My wife gets more money from a public school (twice the pay for three-quarters the time) that I receive after seven years of employment in the same location. Perhaps those of us who are skilled, yet underpaid and male, should break the mold of tradition and stay home to be full-time dads!
BILL LEWIS
Seattle, Wash.
Unfortunately, the groundwork for a “career” mother is emphasized even in our best and largest seminaries, where the spouse is encouraged to place her child in the readily available child-care center and acquire a “job” to support her husband through seminary (will women seminarians please excuse my bias?). How, then, can a Christian community respond to the needs of a two-parent, one-income family when its very leaders have been taught otherwise by example and by implication?
LARRY A. RILEY
Ft. Worth, Tex.
Blaming Eve
I read with interest your review of George Gilder’s Men and Marriage [Mar. 6]. The review seems to imply that civilizing the sexual barbarians is women’s work. This viewpoint puts us right back to the garden and Adam’s original sin, doesn’t it? “She offered me the fruit and I ate it!” Isn’t it time that men took responsibility for their own liberation from sexual barbarism and acted accordingly, instead of putting the blame on Eve?
V. GIVENS
Cedar Park, Tex.
Iron sharpeners
Thank you for your March 20 CT Institute discussion of universalism. From Nicole to Kantzer it was a fitting example of “As iron sharpens iron.…”
JOHN KUTSKO
Whitesboro, N.Y.
Regarding universalism et al. [Mar. 20]: What a testimony to the authenticity of the original sin—hubris! Who are we to “understand” what God is doing in his dealings with man? A pox on theologians! May they spend eternity with each other!
ELIZABETH CROZIER
Indiana University
Indianapolis, Ind.
“Fire, Then Nothing” by Clark Pinnock is the most refreshing thing I have read in evangelical writing for some time. The answer given by David Wells is the typical theodicy of those who believe God did not say exactly what he meant to say.
REV. HARRY J. BOWERS
Antioch Christian Church
Asheville, N.C.
I was somewhat disappointed in Pinnock’s interpretation of the “fire” of “God’s judgment [which] consumes the lost.” David Wells and Roger Nicole came through positively, biblically, hermeneutically correct (from my perspective), and theologically sound!
R. M. BAERG
Saskatoon, Sask., Canada
I would note that a fairly basic point seems to have been overlooked in the flurry of Scripture citations supporting the views examined: in the final analysis, it is God’s decision. When the Lord Christ sits in judgment at the right hand of the Father, He will be deciding—not one of our pet systems of thought.
REV. FR. CHRISTOPHER W. FITZPATRICK
Airport Chaplaincy
Seattle, Wash.
Tithe Reform
Unlike the Undersecretary for Paperwork Design and Proliferation at the IRS, the church has always kept its requirements simple: a straight 10 percent off the top. In the past you no doubt simply divided your income in tenths and wrote checks to your favorite church and mission boards.
But perhaps church officials should consider engaging in some “Tithe Reform.” After all, in our culture the importance of any financial transaction is directly proportional to the number of sheets of paper it takes to process it.
The new T-4, Estimated Tithe Declaration Forms, could work like this: On line 1 write down the amount of your regular paycheck. On line 2, enter the number of times you go to church each year. (If you are Baptist or Catholic, you have the greatest opportunities here.) Multiply the number on line 2 by 3.056. Enter the result on line 3. On line 4 enter your age when you first professed Christ. On line 5, enter your pastor’s salary. (This can be found on the mimeographed budget distributed at your church’s annual meeting—which is always held on the day of the Super Bowl.) Compare line 5 with line 1. Feel guilty. Subtract line 5 from line 1. Take a deep breath and ignore the result. Multiply the amount on line 1 by.10 and enter it on line 6. Throw in a few extra bucks to make you feel better about the minister’s salary. And write that check.
EUTYCHUS
God’s communications
Special thanks for Terry Muck’s editorial, “God and Oral” [Mar. 20]. No matter how badly we may garble the message, we must always affirm God as the loving Father who teaches and communicates with his children. The fact that God speaks to us does not, by itself, guarantee that we grasp the full dimensions of the teaching or even that we will always correctly understand the message. And this reality is true not only for Oral Roberts, but for every one of us.
RICHARD J. FOSTER
Friends University
Wichita, Kan.
CT is spreading the confusion. Does Terry Muck believe God is adding to the recognized books of the canon of Scripture? I believe it confuses hearers in the Christian community to have our religious leaders loosely using phrases like “God said” and “God told me.” Most often our use of such phrases is meant to refer to our personal guidance by God, not the authoritative word of inspired Scripture.
REV. DAVID SCHUTJER
Portland, Oreg.
I was scandalized by Terry Muck’s endorsement that God gives extra-biblical revelation to Oral Roberts or anyone else. Should we all buy loose-leaf Bibles to store these revelations? Or would Bibles with spare white pages in the back be sufficient?
WARREN CULWELL
Dallas, Tex.
Sin and compassion
Thanks for Ben Patterson’s editorial on the Christian response to AIDS [Mar. 20]. Sin is sin—and condemned and dealt with by God. But the Christian’s response to a sinner (all of us) is best demonstrated by Jesus. I don’t recall his presence at too many floggings or executions during his walk on earth. In fact, he said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” The Christian response to suffering is compassion. Period.
MRS. BARB WHEELER
Tripoli, Iowa
The issue is not whether AIDS is God’s judgment; it is rather, how we should respond if it is (Luke 13).
RICHARD NATHAN
Columbus, Ohio
If we think of AIDS as God’s punishment for homosexuality, then botulism must be his punishment for poor hygiene, the common cold his punishment for rudely sneezing in one another’s face, etc.
ROBERTA BALDWIN
Mulberry Grove, Ill.
Whose voice?
Your “news analysis” on Christian Voice [Nov. 7, 1986] by Beth Spring was totally inaccurate in regard to comments made about my magazine, the Candidates Biblical Scoreboard. These injurious inaccuracies might not have occurred had your writer taken time to telephone me for an interview.
The Candidates Biblical Scoreboard is not Christian Voice’s publication as cited in the article, but a sole proprietorship owned by me and my wife. I founded the publication in 1980 and have published it in election years. Its production, including editorial content, is developed solely by me and a staff of nearly 100 people. The publication, promotion, marketing, and distribution were the sole responsibility of my news publishing organization, Biblical News Service (BNS).
Spring was right in indicating that millions of Biblical Scoreboards were distributed—but not by Christian Voice as stated. BNS distributed the Scoreboard while CV distributed Scorecards.
Spring attacks the Biblical Scoreboard as not being “nonpartisan and nonsectarian.” Editorial partisan preference was not shown to Republicans or Democrats; this was very obvious in our California edition.
Scoreboard has always been nonsectarian, and never directly or indirectly influenced or controlled by any denomination or religious group. Articles are written in a news magazine format, and we have gained wide respectability for the quality of our research and writing. We often sell reprint rights to other publications, and have been quoted as an authoritative news source by the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and others.
The worst implication clearly left by your article is that Scoreboard is either a Unification Church-Sun Myung Moon publication, or supported or tainted by a Moon connection. Scoreboard has never had a Moon connection, nor has any Moon organization or individual had any direct or indirect influence on it.
I can confirm that among my 30,000 bulk customers, Moon organizations such as CAUSA have purchased quantities of Scoreboard: we have a policy of selling to anyone who pays their bills.
In summary, your “News Analysis” on Christian Voice was not objective; rather, it was misleading. It was highly opinionated and should have been classified as an opinion piece. For it to be news analysis, an editor should have deleted the writer’s editorializing and established some objective balance to the feature. Calling the article “news analysis” caused CT readers to believe that what they read was totally factual. This led many to draw untrue conclusions about Biblical Scoreboard, causing injury to the reputation of my publication.
I hope this letter will set the record straight regarding the Candidates Biblical Scoreboard.
DAVID W. BALSIGER
Founder-Publisher, Biblical Scoreboard
Costa Mesa, Calif.
We are pleased to make the above details of the ownership of the Candidates Biblical Scoreboard clear to readers.—Eds.
