Jesus And Junk
“A dollar bill with Jesus’ picture on it? You must be kidding.”
“No, honest. It’s called the ‘Jesus dollar,’ and it’s to remind people that ‘In God We Trust.’ ”
“What does it look like?”
“A regular bill. Except that instead of Lincoln, it has Sallman’s head of Christ.” “Weird. Is it worth a dollar?”
“You pay 29 cents for it.”
“Can you spend it?”
“Of course not.”
“Not even in a Christian bookstore? Or the offering at church?”
“It’s a witnessing tool.”
“Like, leave it instead of a tip?”
“Maybe leave it with a tip.”
“I bet that waitresses jump up and down for joy when they find a dollar they can’t spend on top of a dime they can.”
“It also says ‘U R Loved’ and ‘U R 4 Given’ on it.”
“Wild. And what’s the signature, in place of—let’s see—Azie Taylor Morton, whoever she is.”
“B. A. Freeman.”
“You know, a friend of mine says that what goes over with Christians is Jesus and junk. But this thing makes Jesus look like junk. I can see an Elvis dollar, even a Jimmy dollar—”
“Half-size.”
“Right. But not a Jesus dollar.”
“In place of the great seal of the United States, it has the one-way finger.”
“Did you ever think that’s only one finger removed from an obscenity?” “Today lots of things are.”
EUTYCHUS VIII
Exquisite Pain
I would be remiss if I didn’t write to thank CHRISTIANITY TODAY for bringing to its readers Philip Yancey’s exquisite article, “Pain: The Tool of the Wounded Surgeon” (March 24). I smiled and wept as I experienced its truth, insight, pain, beauty, understanding, joy, reality, promise, and hope. It made the wisdom, plan, and love of God for us in this realm and in the one to come a little less past finding out.
CATHARINE SCOTT
Old Saybrook, Conn.
When I read Philip Yancey’s well-written article I felt a tinge of regret that I have elected to let my subscription expire this year. But then I read Dr. Daniel Hinthorn’s editorial “When Does Life Begin?” and began to feel that my decision was justified. I certainly hope that Dr. Hinthorn’s understanding of medicine is better than his understanding of theology and biblical interpretation. Finally, after reading John Warwick Montgomery’s attack on Helmut Thielicke (Current Religious Thought), I knew I had made the right decision. Montgomery will wear out a lot of his toyland axes trying to chop down that giant Sequoia!
KEN FRERKING
Campus Lutheran Church
Columbia, Mo.
Congratulations and appreciation to Philip Yancey and to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I have read, marked, and shared with my congregation some of the insights drawn from [his article]. Part of my ministry is in the area of hospital chaplaincy. There we are continually exposed to the “why” of pain, its relation to God’s will for a life, and so forth. This contribution is a real help to me in this complex issue.
BILL STOLBERG
Bethel Evangelical Methodist Church
Ridgefield, Wash.
How to Win Subscribers
I wish to comment briefly on three particularly fine articles, which have appeared in recent issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
“Sex and Homosexuality” by Bennett Sims (February 24) is a splendid tract on the issue. Although I think that the bishop falls short in his practical applications of the church’s response to homosexuality, he nevertheless exhibits a keen, closely-reasoned biblical analysis of the problem.
“God’s Chosen People,” a book review by Richard Pierard (March 24) is another illuminating piece. Although Pierard comes down (perhaps unnecessarily) hard on the book The Light and the Glory, he nevertheless dissects errors in the book’s theology in the finest tradition of a master carver. One can only stand in awe of his ability to cut up what at first appears to be a fine fowl of a book.
“Were the Puritans Right About Sex?” by Leland Ryken (April 7) delivers a tremendous barrage of body blows to a commonly accepted viewpoint. He has marshalled such impressive evidence that detractors will have a hard time answering him.
This is the kind of writing that will command respect, if not agreement, by everyone to both the right and left of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s position—and which should serve to pick up a few new subscribers as well.
RON BOYDSTON
Glen Ellyn, Ill.
What Did Jesus Look Like?
On my desk is a copy of your March 24 issue. As I gaze at the cover, I no longer find the desire to look inside. The cover picture of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, may be a classic in today’s art, but to me it stops short of blasphemy. I doubt that William Blake knew the revolutionary Jesus. It is hard to believe that people could put their total faith and trust in someone who is here portrayed as a pale, anemic, nambypamby, with golden hair flowing girlishly over his shoulders.… To me, this picture does not exemplify my Jesus.
RICK BAKER
Park Hills Baptist Church
Austin, Tex.
Radio and The NCC
In your March 10 editorial “Broadcasting: Room to Grow” you commend the proposed change in purchase time policy which the Communications Commission is bringing to the National Council of Churches Governing Board this May. The editorial characterizing our position was accurate as far as it went. However, it left out the most important element. We support “the right of any religious organization to purchase time from stations and networks,” but this time should be “beyond participation in the representative programming of the religious community.”
Our basic emphasis remains the same: that all radio and television stations have an obligation to serve the total community to which they are licensed, and that this means stations are obligated to provide sustaining (free) time for programs representing the religious diversity of the community. We even believe that “stations and networks have a responsibility to provide free as a public service station personnel, production time, and promotion, as well as adequate air time for these programs.” We most certainly are supporting the right of any religious organization to purchase time above and beyond, but we feel this should not free stations from their primary responsibility to operate in the public interest with respect to the religious life of the community in which they are licensed to serve.
WILLIAM F. FORE
Assistant General Secretary for Communication
National Council of Churches
New York, N.Y.
No Bolt
I was astounded to read the suggestion that those persons who signed the original Chicago document of November 1977, concerning the ordination of self-affirming homosexuals will, and I quote, “bolt the denomination if the 650-plus delegates at this year’s General Assembly adopt the Task Force recommendations” (News, “United Presbyterians Bracing for Battle,” Feb. 10).
May I set this matter straight by stating unequivocally that as a Moderatorial Candidate, nothing could be further from my mind. Nor was there anything said at the November meeting to indicate that any of those present would “bolt the denomination,” or even entertain the thought of generating a split within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. for whatever reason. To the contrary, we will use our best endeavors to be a force for reconciliation in the spirit of the language of both the majority and minority reports that “those who in conscience have difficulty accepting the decisions of this General Assembly because of homosexuality should express that conscience by continued dialogue within the church.” This, I feel you must agree, hardly suggests “bolting the denomination.”
VAHE H. SIMONIAN
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Pasadena, Calif.
More From Young People
Thank you so much for printing “Song of the Lyre” and “John Bunyan’s Christian at 300” (Feb. 24). It is heartwarming to know there are such talented Christian young people in our colleges.… Please print more from such young people, so we can pray for them and look forward to their becoming Christian apologists.
ELIZABETH C. PAYNE
Lexington, Va.
Calvinism On Trial
When I turned to your Book Review section in the February 10 edition, I was pleased to see a review of Edward Hinson’s Introduction to Puritan Theology. What I found, however, was not a review, but a philippic against Calvinistic theology. While I am unashamedly a Calvinist, I would have been equally disappointed to read such a “review” from a Calvinist of such a work as Grace Unlimited. Surely, this is a poor excuse for journalism. The reviewer gives a total of four paragraphs to the contents of the book, while he takes aim in the remaining material (the overwhelming bulk of material) at the Calvinistic doctrine of the Atonement, and Dr. John Owen in particular. It is evident that Grider has not taken time to read Owen himself, and one wonders what Dr. Owen’s response might have been. “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Finally, as respects Grider’s sentiments expressed in the final paragraph, I would only say that such negativism is unfortunate. He who cuts himself off so curtly from the Puritans cuts himself off from one of the richest quarters of theological and devotional literature available from the Anglo-American perspective.
THOMAS N. SMITH
First Baptist Church, Tanglewood Community
Sand Springs, Okla.
Doomsday, Good and Bad
I am as dissatisfied with Gary Wilburn’s criticism of Hal Lindsey’s book and movie “The Late Great Planet Earth” (Refiner’s Fire, “The Doomsday Chic,” Jan. 27), as I am of the movie itself. It seems to me that all the hub-bub about biblical prophecy in our day has the intended effect of moving the listener either to futurism (dispensationalism), or its opposite pole, the historical (reformed) view. As if no other positions are tenable. I for one believe the reemergence of Israel as a nation, after more than two millenia of time, is positive evidence that we live in the days of the fulfillment of all the Bible prophecies. It matters not that this is doomsday thinking. If it is right, it must be said.
Lindsey is to be supported in his overall view of a possible catastrophic end to world civilization culminating in Armaggedon, in our time. Where Hal Lindsey goes astray is his treatment of the specifics of Bible prophecies. I refer to his habitual statement of theory as proven biblical fact. A case example would be his view that a Jewish temple must be built on the site of the Dome of the Rock, even if it takes an earthquake to clear the way. Theory yes; biblical fact, no. Worse yet is his explanations of Revelation 9:16. That this passage presents a picture of 200,000,000 red Chinese invading the Mideast is not biblical fact. It is not even good theory. It is in my estimation finely ground, exquisitely textured baloney.
GENE GANO
Greenwich, Conn.
Who Leads The Arts?
I appreciated your Refiner’s Fire column on “The Rolling Stones: The Darker Side of Rock” (Feb. 24). It spoke clearly of the Stones’s contribution to adolescent rebellion in the sixties. Aside from a few errors, like the widely circulated one about a man being killed at one of their concerts while they sang “Sympathy for the Devil” (Meredith Hunter was stabbed by Hell’s Angels at the Stones’s December 6, 1969, concert at Altamont during the song “Under My Thumb”), the article was factual and informative.
Perhaps, though, this article should have been written a few years ago. The Stones haven’t been a force in music since 1970, just around the time that Altamont destroyed the Woodstock myth and brought the Haight-Ashbury dream to a grinding halt. And in the eight years since then, much has happened. Besides the pseudo-Christian songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Let It Be” there has been a new rash of darker music. Perhaps an examination of more recent musical assaults is in order, especially now that the term “born again” has become ubiquitous in celebrity magazines and the media has pronounced this “the year of the evangelical.” Black Oak Arkansas is a popular band whose leader claims to be a “Christian” but he prances around bare-chested on stage singing sex-laced anthems. The group, Kiss, features members in Halloween makeup with names like Vampire who breathes fire and spits blood in front of sell-out crowds of prepubescent followers. And what about all the new nihilistic “punk rock” groups like The Dead Boys, The Damned, and Johnny Rotten and The Sex Pistols. These groups claim to believe in absolutely nothing. The buttons and t-shirts which sell at their concerts say, “I’m vacant … and I don’t care.” These groups are much more influential than the arthritic Rolling Stones.
I’m as concerned about music and its effect on young people as any parent or pastor. Perhaps what is really wrong with most media art forms today is not that Satan “owns” them, but that we Christians long ago lost hold of our leadership in the arts, and they have not yet been reclaimed for use in glorifying their rightful creator, God.
LARRY NORMAN
Street Level Artists Agency
Hollywood, Calif.
How to Handle The Word
Thank you for your editorial on the importance of reading the Scriptures in public services (“Public Reading of the Word,” March 10).
Visiting a liturgical church as exchange preacher last year, I was impressed with the practice that church had of reading three Scriptural passages in every worship service: an Old Testament Scripture, a psalm, and a New Testament Scripture.
I returned to my church to begin a practice of reading at least an Old Testament Scripture and a New Testament Scripture in every worship service. The practice has been well received.
We who hold high views with regards to the Scriptures need to demonstrate our beliefs by our practice as well as our professions. Some of us who claim the highest regard for the Word are guilty of handling it most carelessly and indifferently.
ROSS R. CRIBBIS
Columbus Avenue Church of the Nazarene
Anderson, Ind.
