Dear Jazz Buffs:
Those of you who abhor the thought of an LSD trip as a route to spiritual reality but still like to be “sent” religiously should have attended a recent jazz vespers service at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan. As an upbeat example of sacral secularity, it was the swingin’est!
Direct from the hazy spotlight of the Half-Note Club came jazz vocalist Carmen McRae with the Norman Simmons Trio to make a joyful noise. And did she sing! Interspersing her songs between versicles, Bible readings, prayers, and a sermonette, the sultry songstress, her inch-long false eyelashes aflutter, gave out with melodies well suited to touch the religious depths of any new theologian.
Her performance (six popular numbers, one carol, all in jazz tempo) included Jule Styne’s hit song, “People.” I hadn’t been blessed in quite the same way since I heard Barbra Streisand sing this show-stopper in Funny Girl. Other high spots were “Make Someone Happy” and “My Ship.” But the climax came as Miss McRae applied her delicate vocal shadings to the title tune from Alfie, the latest five-star film tribute to adultery. Unfortunately, I was unable to follow the pastor’s suggestion that we attend Miss McRae’s closing at the Half-Note later that evening.
The service was conducted by genial John G. Gensel, the church’s pastor to the jazz community. His success in communicating with the hippies was evident when at the final bow Miss McRae paid him the ultimate accolade: “You’re somethin’ else.”
I wouldn’t mind being a pastor to jazz people. Trouble is, I’m not sure I could even reach Guy Lombardo. Maybe Lawrence Welk is more my type.
With syncopation, EUTYCHUS III
Reader Feedback
“Listen, Clergymen!” (Dec. 23) said the truth, but only half of it. Telling part of the truth is often worse than a lie!
The distinguished laymen who expressed their views in the article are obviously members of churches with ministers of more “liberal” persuasion. The article completely ignored the large number of small evangelical, “conservative,” and fundamentalist churches which are part of the Church as much as the other larger and more fashionable ones. These churches represent the other side of the coin, which is as sad as the first one because of lack of social concern and a failure to recognize the implications of the message of the Gospel in mid-twentieth century.…
If the Church is to fulfill her mission, i.e., evangelize all the nations and teach them to observe all that her Lord commanded her (Matt. 28:19, 20), she must first obey all that he commanded and preach the whole Gospel—all its aspects and implications.
S. D. DANIELOPOULOS
Dept. of Physics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, N. C.
The sampling is too limited. You probably got the comments you were looking for.
WILLIAM HAUB
First Methodist
Washington, Mo.
I seem to sense a plea for a return to pure unadulterated New Testament Christianity. These men are trying to say the same thing that Christ prayed for in John 17.… Christianity can be united by a complete return to the pattern of Christianity as the New Testament writers knew it.
FRANK L. SELLERS
San Antonio, Tex.
It probably was not your intent to take an extreme position in the social gospel vs. spiritual Gospel issue. In times past you and your writers have espoused many causes which are more social than spiritual. You have lamented the loss of freedom for peoples in North Viet Nam and China, the hunger and ignorance in Asia and Africa, and other unfortunate situations, and have praised straight-thinking Christians who have tried to do something about them.
Yet the impression one receives from the lead article and some supporting material is that the Church should keep out of all work which is not strictly spiritual—spreading the Word.
Surely we know Christ wanted us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and comfort the brokenhearted, as well as search the Scriptures. Let it not be thought that CHRISTIANITY TODAY represents those who close their eyes to the world, speak and preach the Word to each other, and then do not practice what they preach.
RONALD J. P. PRIGGEE
Franklin Park, Ill.
If Christian social action calls for legislation in such areas as outlawing pornography or racial discrimination, we should realize its limitations. We cannot change human nature by laws, but we may try to change human behavior.
WILLIAM H. KOENIG
First Baptist Church
Mountain Home, Idaho
Waiting to hear the laymen speak, I heard only the echo of the voice of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, which is rapidly becoming Christianity Yesterday.
GUY H. MCIVER
First United Presbyterian
Crestline, Ohio
As one who observed the Church from the outside for fifteen years, and now for twenty on the inside, I feel I have some qualification to endorse what [a writer] in the December 23 issue summarized: “Laymen are also prodding the churches to decide whether they ought to recover the biblical exhortation to discipline members who fall away.”
Right here is where the great problem lies today. There is a lot of talk today about the Church being the Church in action, in this or that. But how can you expect the Church to be the Church, when it is not even a Church?! For more than a year now I have had a message started: “The World Out of the Church, and the Church in the World.”
EARL D. SWANSON
Fremont Covenant
Essex, Iowa
The only problem I have with the accumulation of wealth is that I have not been able to do it. Still, I seriously doubt that being “successful in the business world” in any way qualifies a man to be heard in the church.
FREDERICK C. PETRI
Philadelphia, Pa.
Where did you ever find those lay clowns you quoted in “Listen, Clergymen!”? What a neat way to contain Christianity in the glorious Neanderthal tradition. Their thoughts were certainly pre-Jesus and maybe even pre-God.
GERALD F. HARRIS
First Methodist
Auburn, N.Y.
Berkeley Baptist Replies
As president of the student body at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School, I feel compelled to respond to “Ferment at Berkeley’s Baptist Seminary” (News, Dec. 23).…
Mr. Plowman’s article implies that the students are puppets in the hands of the administration.… In an interview with Mr. Plowman I made it quite clear that the student involvement in the issues at BBDS is student-initiated and student-promoted.…
Next, I feel that I must correct a misquotation that Mr. Plowman attributes to me when he places these words in my mouth: “Most of us students are with Dr. Arnott on theology”.… [He] must be referring to the student statement issued in September to which 80 per cent of the student body affixed their signatures. This letter supports Dr. Arnott’s leadership of the school and is not designed to support any individual’s theological position.…
Mr. Plowman’s reference to a “student leader” who “lit a pipe at the communion table” is the third disturbing aspect of his article.… Although smoking is now allowed on campus, I have not found it an “utterly revolting” exploitation of freedom. As a participant in the communion service referred to, I know that no student leader lit his pipe at the communion table.
Those of us committed to the direction of the Divinity School are indignant about additional references in the article to “a wholesale abandonment of the Christian faith at the seminary” and “arrogance and condescension toward Jesus Christ” on the part of the 1965 senior class. These totally unfounded and personally damaging statements cause us grave concern. Our faculty and administration are totally committed to preparing men for Christian service in a complex world. Their commitment and concern for the student with a well-grounded theology and faith is unquestionable. The academic freedom that I experience is part of my Baptist tradition, and one of the many reasons I remain dedicated to BBDS.
BRUCE MORGAN
President
Associated Students
Berkeley Baptist Divinity School
Berkeley, Calif.
I have been an ordained ABC minister for many years, but the news in regard to Berkeley Baptist Divinity School didn’t surprise me, as I have watched the trend there for twenty or twenty-five years.
MERRILL C. SKAUG
Victor, Mont.
Matchsticks Over Niagara
Many thanks for John Gerstner’s “New Light on the Confession of 1967” (Dec. 9). As always, his remarks are perceptive and provocative. I agree with him in evaluating the crucial third vow (“under the continuing instruction and guidance of the confessions of this Church”) as ambiguous. It falls far short of meaningful subscription to whatever is catholic, evangelical, and reformed in the Book of Confessions.
I do feel, however, that Dr. Gerstner is building a bridge of matchsticks over Niagara when he suggests that real creedal subscription was implicit in the confessional proposal and that the 1966 General Assembly so understood that third vow. Whatever the animus imponendi of the last assembly, we must go by what is written in the document itself. Insurance companies do not pay claims on the basis of what even the most sincere salesman might have meant, but on what the policy actually says.
MARIANO DI GANGI
Tenth Presbyterian
Philadelphia, Pa.
Comparison of the thesis of Gerstner’s recent article on the Confession of 1967 with the thesis of his earlier article on the same subject (Dec 3, 1965) betrays a drastic and, to me, incomprehensible switch in position.… For some unclear reason the “new” Gerstner seems to feel now that the men whom once he suspicioned must be given every benefit of doubt and their ambiguous statements interpreted in the best possible light no matter how “vague” they may be.…
The leopard’s spots remain to be seen by any who will trouble to look.
FRANCIS R. STEELE
Home Secretary
North Africa Mission
Upper Darby, Pa.
Mr. Gerstner has devised a most ingenious sophistry for imagining that the UPUSA Church is about to be more evangelical and reformed than ever before. Not even the wildest optimist had expected the Book of Confessions to accomplish this.…
Not only am I surprised that a man of Mr. Gerstner’s ability would publish such theological doubletalk, but also that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would publish a statement so obviously calling evil good.
WALTER J. CHANTRY
Grace Baptist
Carlisle, Pa.
Dr. Gerstner promotes a false impression of the meaning of the sentence: “The new life takes shape in a community in which men know that God accepts them and loves them in spite of what they are.” He labels this alleged universalism as a “grievous heresy”.… He has violated the normal procedure of consulting the context in interpreting any piece of literature. His comments on this point are not “New Light on the Confession of 1967,” but prejudiced heat. His accusation of “grievous heresy” is a “grievous mistake.”
ARDEN L. SNYDER
Dir. of Christian Education
Calvary Presbyterian
South Pasadena, Calif.
In spite of efforts like Gerstner’s, the newer view will replace the older, so that not only will the neo-orthodox view become confessionally acceptable; it will also become the current view of our Church.
GEORGE C. FULLER
Sixth Avenue Presbyterian
Birmingham, Ala.
Freudian Foibles
Re: “Freudian Woodrow Wilson” (Dec. 23): Concise, clear, curtly controversial. Congratulations.
JULES H. MASSERMAN
Professor and Co-Chairman
Division of Psychiatry
Northwestern University
Chicago, Ill.
Right Wing Loudmouths
Your news story “NCC on the Beach: An Opening to the Right” (Dec. 23) did not resemble any truth, order, or decency. I would like to have you understand: We liberals, who believe in God, and walk closer to him than you right-wing loudmouths, have always been for evangelism. The word evangelismhas been so degraded by you boys that we are almost unable to define it well. Anything that resembles the use of this degraded term seems to be hidden, and you boys hid it, you hid it from God, because you were afraid we might get the seats of honor in heaven. I thought James and John found out about such honor seats.
BURR MORRIS
First Presbyterian
McCamey, Tex.
For The Record
I was quite distressed in reading “Half of a TV Debate” (News, Dec. 23) to find that Mr. Gaydos, doubtless given a false impression by Mr. Joe Pyne or one of his staff, has indicated that I had agreed to debate with Dr. McIntire and then withdrew ten days before the taping date.…
The actual fact is that I was never scheduled and hence did not withdraw. Mr. Pyne or his staff had made no contact with me at all in connection with Dr. McIntire’s appearance on November 30.… I would like the matter clear that I at no time had been approached as to this November 30 show.
JAMES A. PIKE
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Pop Music And Reality
Charles W. Keysor, in “What Is Pop Music Really Saying?” (Dec. 23), is surely correct in seeing much of the world of contemporary popular music as portraying a philosophy of life which can only be constitutive of a dreamland existence.” Anyone operating within the valuational framework of such a credo is bound to be frustrated by the real world.
But there is a noteworthy segment of popular music which makes a significant effort to face the absurdities and shallowness of the dreamlanders and to see for what they are the despair, futility, meaningless, and other incongruities of such a position. The early Bob Dylan did this reasonably well. Simon and Garfunkel are currently doing it much better.… It seems very likely to me that the most fruitful clues to “where the action really is—or should be—in our apologetics these days” are to be found in the type of songs currently written by Paul Simon rather than in the ancient froth of “I Believe.” I think Mr. Keysor would agree with this.
ALLEN HARDER
Bloomington, Ind.
I have nothing but contempt for a great deal of the so-called “music?” produced today. Whence came the “theological vacuum” which helped to produce it? Do some of the answers lie in the article, “Listen, Clergymen!”? Is the vacuum in the pulpit?
“But eventually the honeymoon ends.” Then, “Eros wears mighty thin at age fifty.” I am more in love with the wonderful woman I married thirty-four years ago than the day we wed. As for Eros, may I suggest a doctor versed in geriatrics. I’m fifty-seven! I don’t need one.
J. JACKSON
Charleston, W. Va.
So many of the popular songs of the day reflect the condition of man, such as “These Boots Are Made for Walking” and the eerie, haunting sound of “Sounds of Silence.”
Since so many of today’s youth live off the airwaves of today’s disc jockeys, maybe the Church ought to use this medium to communicate with the younger generation. Senator Dirksen may not be so far out in making a record album (that is now in the top ten).
DAVE FREES
Assoc. Pastor
St. Paul’s Evangelical United Brethren
Canton, Ohio
The Jew And The Gospel
“How to Approach the Jew with the Gospel,” by Jacob Gartenhaus (Dec. 9), is excellent. If such a paper was not presented on this vital subject at the Berlin congress, please see that such is read at the next one! Let me suggest that you devote an entire issue to this topic: it is evident that Dr. Gartenhaus’s article could profitably have been lengthened.
GEORGE S. LAUDERDALE
Atlanta, Ga.
It is surely ironic that the issue of your magazine which falls on the second day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah (Dec. 9) should carry an article, “How to Approach the Jew with the Gospel.” While I am sure that the date of publication was not chosen deliberately, the juxtaposition of a festival commemorating an ancient, defeated attempt to obliterate Judaism through imperialist decrees and a mercenary army, and a contemporary effort to accomplish the same goal by pleading with Jews to “search the Scriptures,” is a fulsome commentary on the tragic aspects of the Jewish-Christian encounter.
I will not deal with the distortions and misrepresentations with which the article abounds. In this post-Auschwitz era, that there should still be those who hopefully look forward to the disappearance of Judaism and the Jewish people, is sad indeed.
RABBI SOLOMON S. BERNARDS
Director
Dept. of Interreligious Cooperation
Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith
New York, N. Y.
Warmed-Over Sermon
My complaint is against your failure to give proper credit to a sermon. “The Dangerous Christ” (Dec. 9) is stated to have been contributed by … M. Jackson White, of Virginia. I have a 1948 publication of Paul Rees’ Things Unshakable,in which a sermon, “The World’s Danger,” appears to be almost word-for-word the same as White’s homily.… Thanks for publishing the sermon, however. I thought it was a good one when I first read it back in 1949, and I like it even better today, “warmed over” by a fellow Baptist.
BERNARD TRAVAILLE
First Baptist
La Crescenta, Calif.
I had the feeling I had read it before. A search through my library revealed that I had.
WALTER MUELLER
St. Mark’s Reformed Episcopal
Jenkintown, Pa.
I had no recollection at all of the source after eighteen years. After reading the letter I went back and found the book referred to and am sure that I got my outline from Dr. Rees.
It was about that time that I first heard Dr. Rees at Winona Lake and was so blessed by his preaching that I bought and read with profit a number of his books.
M. JACKSON WHITE
First Baptist Church of Clarendon
Arlington, Va.
“Is” Should Be “Was”
The word “is” should be “was” relating to Congressman Jerry Pettis as a vice-president of the Seventh-day Adventists’ Loma Linda University (“First Adventist in Congress,” Dec. 9).
HERBERT FORD
Public Information Officer
Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
Glendale, Calif.
You [say] that he is a pacifist.… Mr. Pettis is a Seventh-day Adventist, as you have mentioned, and Seventh-day Adventists are not, have never been, and probably never intend to be pacifists. We believe that we should serve our nation as Christians of all nations should. We believe that this is imposed upon us through God’s setting up of the nations as is clearly recorded in Romans 13:1–6. However, in serving our country we, of course, reserve the right as all Christians do to serve God first. In serving God we do not believe that we should take human life and, therefore, request to serve as noncombatants, that is, not bearing arms, which position is fundamentally different from that of the pacifist.
We leave into the hands of the government the decisions as to whether there shall be war or peace. We request at the same time that we should be enabled as a church to determine how we should serve our God.
CLARK SMITH
Director
National Service Organization of Seventh-day Adventists
Washington, D. C.
