Eutychus and His Kin: August 29, 1960

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Sue is away at camp and her correspondence has piled up in the family mail basket. The urge to communicate becomes strong during the summer dispersion of the teen tribes. Sue receives an average of four letters a day, and I notice that her own writing efforts have reduced her telephone time encouragingly. There is a delightful prospect that she will recruit a fresh platoon of correspondents at camp.

No doubt if these epistles were accessible to me I should find a wealth of suggestion for my own fortnightly letter. Indeed, the barest glance at one postcard that fell from the pile led to this column. The card was written in green ink in a precise backhand, and vigorously punctuated with exclamation points drawn in outline.

I had observed long ago that young women find exclamation points particularly congenial, and I began to reflect on the psychology of punctuation. Letters, of course, do not tell the whole story. In the same mail was a card from Charles, who never fails to write his mother from camp because this is required as a meal-ticket for dinner on the second day. Charles’ note was innocent of any punctuation whatever, although an exclamation point might have been appropriate after the statement that they had thrown the counselor into the lake. Punctuation appears to be deeper than the conventions of the style-book.

There are crisp individuals whose sign is the period. Often they are married to flighty, confused types, whose lives and speech are a wild succession of afterthoughts, qualifications, exceptions, and other interruptions, which careen along breathlessly in an endless rush of commas (when they do not stop for parentheses), or break down altogether into dots.… And who has not encountered the persistent rising inflection which betrays the question-marked man?

We may resent people who are in a perpetual comma, and tire of the endless series of the punctuational colonial, but unpunctuated life would be no less dull than confusing. Consider the rich punctuation of Scripture. The fervent rapids of a Pauline sentence cascading down a steep slope of thought, filled with whirlpools of unfinished movement … the great questions and the sublime answers of John’s gospel … the measured semicolons that mark the poetic parallels of Isaiah.…

But not least in Scripture is the exclamation point of praise. When we lose that we have lost worship and life! Preachers should learn from Paul the punctuation of doxologies. Even teen-agers might listen then!

EUTYCHUS

ACIDS OF MODERNITY

Gittings’ “A Letter to Ministering Brethren” (July 4 issue) graciously shares with us an unusual spiritual experience.… The acids of modernity have eaten deeply into a once healthy church.… The world task of the church is to speak the Word and let it do its own work. Time spent working out some type of syncretistic religion would be better spent understanding the needs of non-Christian peoples and in presenting the Gospel of Christ to them. Nationalism may be forcing us to reshape our procedures, but there is no need to attempt to reshape the Gospel.

W. L. THOMPSON

Christian Missionary Fellowship

Aurora, Ill.

I am one of those Gittings attacks in his “Letter.” I do not know whether everyone will be saved or not. I do not know whether there is a hell either. One thing I do know is, if there is there will be a special corner for those who spend their time attacking their fellow Christians in the Church who disagree with them theologically.… I am quite sure that the shepherd instinct of men like Paul Tillich and Nathaniel Micklem does more to point men to Christ and the Kingdom of God than the naked hatred of a neurotic like Gittings.

W. E. HINES

First Congregational

Texarkana, Ark.-Tex.

The Gittings “Letter” is one of the finest things I have read for some time. His attitude and concern should be displayed by more of us here on the “home” field.

RODERICK E. HURON

First Christian Church

Canton, Ohio

The Gittings Letter from West Pakistan ranks with the letters to the seven churches. The lukewarm “common dishonesty” of ministers who maintain membership in churches characterized by doctrines they no longer accept is but a symptom of the decay of the Church itself.

For the most part our numbers-conscious churches have been so intent on keeping a “relaxed, unstilted fellowship with other human beings” that we have indeed removed the offense from the Gospel. If we fearlessly preached the Gospel Sunday after Sunday our pews would grow more and more empty until we finally came to the hard core of those who are willing to follow Christ to the cross as the unavoidable cost of discipleship.

… We who see real but not extra-biblical merit in the Confessions are hard pressed to make our point: the Confessions were never meant to intellectualize the faith, and so give rise to the danger of equating faith with assent to definitive doctrines. But they were meant it be affirmations of faith called for in the light of … the abuses in theology in the time in which they were written.

RAYMOND A. PETREA

St. James Evangelical Lutheran

Brunswick, Ga.

SEX AND SOROKIN

It is good to see your publication (July 4 issue) presenting a confrontation of contemporary sex expression in America with the Gospel. The Church has been greatly remiss in its silence and blindness. But I was disturbed that such an extreme rightist as Pitirim Sorokin … completely oblivious to the dangers of population explosion … was chosen for an unbiased searching for a Christian message on sex.… With all due respect to the learned gentlemen who composed the panel on “Sex in Christian Perspective” their remarks are as uninspired as though they were sharing favorite recipes.… Thanks for the try.

ROBERT W. WOOD

First Congregational Church

Spring Valley, N. Y.

Dr. Sorokin claims Hegel coined “Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht”.…

The author is the German poet Friedrich Schiller.

T. W. BAULDER

Zion American Lutheran Church

Eureka, S. D.

BRUNNER ON COMMUNISM

The article by Emil Brunner (Apr. 25 issue) is a major landmark in the ever growing struggle for freedom. I am sure that it will have great impact among our churches in the United States.…

HERBERT A. PHILBRICK

Rye Beach, N. H.

The article is being prepared for insertion in the Congressional Record.…

DONALD L. JACKSON

Congress of the United States

House of Representatives

Washington, D. C.

• The article has since appeared in the Congressional Record for June 28, 1960, pp. A5619, A5620. CHRISTIANITY TODAY reprints are also available at five cents each or $2.50 per hundred.

—ED.

ON UNIVERSALISM

With respect to “universalism,” you employ it generally as a diversionary channel through which you can send to oblivion any idea that might entail consideration of God as the Saviour of all men. Because this associates “universalism” with obscurantism, I eschew the term, and substitute therefore the appellative Christusaviorism—from Christ, the universal Savior.… For anyone who can discern that the Scriptures depict God as infinite in every respect, nothing less than universal regeneration can possibly serve as a measure of His will and power to turn the blasphemy of men into the mighty chorus of praise that His majesty demands.

F. S. DONN

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

STEWARDSHIP AND STAMPS

If there is a pauper-sized fund anywhere to be found, in the church, it is hiding in the gingham apron pocket of the Ladies Missionary Society. Our tithes do the great work of Christ, but the small leftovers that find their way into the Ladies Missionary basket have their job to do, also. If we do not want it to be a potluck job we have to put our thinking-chef-caps on and come up with a new recipe.

Recently some ladies in our missionary aid did just that. We do not claim the originality of the idea, only its ingenuity. Hoarding every penny of our prayed-for monies for the spreading of the Gospel, and [desiring] … a silver tea set which would be perfect for fellowships, we searched for a new solution.

Someone suggested trade stamps and the idea spread like virus. We brought them in: red, blue, green, any kind. If they were the wrong kind our resourceful committee exchanged them with other stamp collectors. Frequent announcements were made as to our progress and here and there a pep talk to remind us of our goal.

Today, it was on display, smug and shiny, reminding us that we didn’t have to use one cent of the Lord’s money. Why, it’s almost too beautiful to soil with the pouring of tea.

ROMAYNE ALLEN

Detroit, Mich.

WHAT THEY DIDN’T TEACH

After a second reading, the full impact of … “Spiritual Training of the Pastor” (July 18 issue) came upon me. So obvious it is that one wonders why it has not dawned on those responsible for teaching the future ministers of the Church.… Those who trained me were conscientious, dedicated and sincere men, earnestly attempting to train students for the ministry. Yet such disciplines as personal prayer and group fellowship were not insisted upon.

… I’m wondering why … the author … left out the … discipline which was most prominently used by our Lord—… that of field training.

THOMAS D. HERSEY

Methodist Church

Popejoy, Iowa

I owe much to my own seminary instructors. They taught me many things, but they did not teach me how to grow spiritually. The basic purpose of any seminary should be to train its students to lay hold of the great verities of our Christian faith in such a way that they become living realities in their lives, rather than intellectual concepts.

ROLAND J. BROWN

Clarendon Hills, Ill.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Heartiest congratulations on articles by Malik and Schaeffer in June 20 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

RALPH W. SOCKMAN

Christ Church (Methodist)

New York, N. Y.

Because of your fair coverage of the Methodist General Conference (May 23 issue) and your more usable articles recently you may renew my subscription.

EARL E. JOSTEN

First Methodist

Coon Rapids, Iowa

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