This is to thank you for the timely articles and your excellent editorial on the Virgin Birth of Christ (Dec. 7 issue). The reading of this issue brings a thought to focus. The attitude of Christian faith is not primarily to philosophize either that God had to act in this way in order to become incarnate, or that he could as well have acted in another way. The first of these propositions is to put in question the power of him with whom all things are possible; the second questions his infinite wisdom, as though, in some way, we know better than he does which method will best conserve all the interests involved.
Rather faith’s true attitude is to accept the reality of what God has done, and starting with the actuality of the Virgin Birth, to seek the manifold meanings God has in it for us. For one thing, the Virgin Birth calls us to anchor in the mighty acts of God for our salvation rather than to worship a human hero. With the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Session and the Return, the days of his flesh are a temporal episode in the life of God, the Eternal Son. They open to us, in the Cross, the Father’s arms and the counsels of his peace. Without them we are left only with sympathy for a helpless babe and a pathetic sufferer. The Apostles’ Creed rests faith upon God in Christ; the naturalistic Jesus is an example which men subjectivize as they see fit.
The issue … leaves me with mingled feelings. The one good article is the one on “Browning’s ‘Christmas Eve.’ ” That is a gem.… The remainder of the paper is just not good.… In reality you have four articles on the Virgin Birth. That does not appear to me to be good editorial policy unless you are hunting for a fight.… But does any one accept Christ at the end of an argument?…
KARL QUIMBY
Public Relations Asst.
American Bible Society
New York, N. Y.
In regard to Dr. Rule’s article, “Born of the Virgin Mary,” I don’t believe I have ever seen a more honest and forthright statement of the subject.… In regard to this idea that the Virgin Birth is not referred to in the Epistles, it is probably true that it is not set forth clearly enough to have apologetic value, but between us as Christians I don’t know how we can understand such passages as Philippians 2 or Hebrews 1 without believing that the Virgin Birth is in the belief of the author and the recipients of the letter.
JAMES CORRY
The Presbyterian Churches
Middlepoint, Ohio
If Luke had meant to give Mary’s genealogy, he would surely have said so.
I. N. BECKSTEAD
Ottawa, Ont.
What we properly call the Incarnation of the Son of God, without the fact of the Virgin Birth, becomes the Divine Entanglement in a fallen world. I do not like to say that a belief in the Virgin Birth is essential to salvation; for the word “salvation” is open to many interpretations. But I do say that an acceptance of the historicity of the Virgin Birth is essential to the integrity of the Christian faith.
F. HASTINGS SMYTH
Superior
Oratory of Saint Mary and Saint Michael
Society of the Catholic Commonwealth
Gloucester, Mass.
I would indeed, claim that the belief in the Virgin Birth is “essential” in the fullest meaning of the word, if one expects to enter into the eternal kingdom at last. The … fact is, the Bible declares that he was born of a virgin, and anyone who denies this, according to the Bible, is a liar—therefore, the Bible declares: “All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).
H. W. CAVENDER
St. Paul’s Evangelical Church
North Tazewell, Va.
Both [Rule and Carnell] … are inclined to accept the doctrine for sentimental, traditional, or “for-righteousness-sake” reasons; but neither offers any assurance of some reasonable basis of the doctrine being essential for a positive support for spiritual experience.
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THOMAS D. HERSEY
Popejoy, Iowa
Prof. Carnell … states that the mode of Christ’s birth forms no part of the “one act of righteousness” by which Christ reconciled God to the world. Luther states in a Christmas sermon on Luke 2:1–14: “Christ was our Savior not only on the cross at Calvary but even in the manger at Bethlehem.” Christ was the Savior from his very birth.
ROBERT E. BREGE
Concordia Lutheran Church
Springfield, Ill.
You are more interested in the sinlessness of Christ than Christ was. He was a man, born of woman, born of a sinful parent. Whatever we contract from our parents at birth, Christ contracted from his. He was … as prone to evil as any of us. Whether or not he yielded to it is another question.… Once you slip him out of our orbit, he is no longer worthy of our attention.… I think he did not [sin].
DONALD C. KUNTZ
The Presbyterian Church of Glenview
Glenview, Ill.
Is not the idea underlying the doctrine of the Virgin Birth the conviction that a true incarnation of God had to be as miraculous in the beginning (birth) as in the end (resurrection), and the one miracle (resurrection) necessarily implies the other (Virgin Birth)?
CLINTON M. CHERRY
First Methodist Church, Roxborough
Philadelphia, Pa.
It seems to me that in an effort to quieten the issue, we ministers have … [de-emphasized] the importance of the issue.… Being a member of the Disciples brotherhood (Christian Church) I can see the need … [for] such an article to get into the hands of all our ministers.
BOB MOOREHEAD
Waukomis, Okla.
To me the Virgin Birth is just as reasonable as the creation of Adam and … just as necessary.…
C. F. HUGHES
Union City, Ga.
METHODIST ANNIVERSARY
This … page about The Methodist Church’s 175th aniversary (Dec. 7 issue) … is indeed fine coverage and your treatment is excellent.
O. B. FANNING
Commission of Public Relations and Methodist Information
Washington, D. C.
The facts are proper but the concluding interpretive “whitewash” is purely presumptive. Anyone who knows anything at all knows the Methodists are the largest most liberal denomination in our country. Its schools, its literature, its missionary work and the vast majority of its pastors hold nothing resembling a biblical position.
VERNON C. LYONS
Ashburn Baptist Church
Chicago, Ill.
ECUMENISM OR EXCLUSIVISM
You imply that the organizational life of the ecumenical movement advocates a party line which excludes the National Sunday School Association (Editorials, Dec. 7 issue).… The NSSA and its local manifestations are advocates of a form of Christian orthodoxy which is propositional rather than creatively renewed.… The ecumenical movement accepts the creative action of God in history and in the tradition of the Christian Faith.… It cannot countenance a biblicism which rejects the living confrontation of God’s Truth in history.
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RICHARD E. WENTZ
Mercersburg, Pa.
For two years I served as secretary of a council in a foreign land and often found their chief concern was that the “right bodies” hold the right to speak rather than that the Spirit is allowed to speak through his body, the church.
P. EDGAR WILLIAMS
First Church of God
Chicago, Ill.
I am a minister in the Friends Church.… I have discovered those who are always talking about peace are the less spiritual people. I believe in the peace that comes from the Prince of Peace.… Keep up the good work in your stand against evil even though it be in the Council of Churches.
LEWIS H. MAY
Carthage, Ind.
The WCC may not be God’s agent of redemption but I have seen no evidence that the IFCA is either. Redemption comes to individuals in many different churches wherever and whenever the good news of God is proclaimed. God seems to ignore the affiliation and goes about his work of seeking and saving lost men.
KENNETH HENNIX
Deer Creek-Goodfield Baptist Church
Deer Creek, Ill.
It is my firm opinion that the organization of … [councils] of churches, … which are primarily for the purpose of influencing legislation might be considered as a confession of failure on the part of individual churches and clergymen in the voluntary area in which the love of Christ is the predominant motivating vehicle, rather than force of government.
W. H. EVERETT
Houston, Tex.
PAPACY AND POLITICS
In your editorial entitled “President and Pope in Personal Diplomacy” (Dec. 7 issue), you quote frank statements from Protestant sources when we were purer and more virile in our convictions. These sources call the papacy, “Antichrist, the man of sin and the son of perdition”; “the very antichrist,” etc. But our brainwashed Protestantism of today would never dare to utter such phrases as did the clear thinking, courageous men who forged our faith for us. We are inclined to take American Catholicism as the norm of Catholicity, forgetting that it has been greatly influenced by the very Protestantism that it professes to scorn. It is in Spain and Colombia that Romanism is seen as it really is. In Mexico the priests call American Catholicism “una religion bastarda,” a phrase which needs no translation.
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Apparently American Protestantism is being lulled to sleep by the peaceful purring of the American hierarchy. But listen to its statements: “The time is ripe for a momentous Catholic effort in the U.S.… Protestantism—especially American Protestantism—is so doctrinally decayed as to be incapable of offering any serious opposition.… Except for isolated ‘fundamentalists’—and these are pretty thoroughly discredited and without intellectual leadership—Catholicism would cut through Protestantism as through so much butter” (Theodore Maynard, The Story of American Catholicism, p. 613, Macmillan, 1941, with ecclesiastical sanctions).
HENRY F. BROWN
Watsonville, Calif.
In connection with editorial remarks on the President’s current personal diplomacy, while it is, alas, true that in past centuries the Vatican has not always been inhabited papally by a human being whose personal life has shown him to be a man of God, I submit that present and immediately past incumbents of the papal throne were and are men of such saintly lives and such palpable piety that it ill becomes us Protestants of lesser devotional caliber to drag out an ancient document like the Westminster Confession with the apparent object of fanning the fires of religious strife and denominational antagonism. There is far too much of this in the world already. Personally, although I am a life-time non-Catholic—as our Roman friends like to call us—I would find it a privilege and an honor to kiss the ring of John XXIII should he extend to me the courtesy of an interview, and if such were the act that protocol prescribed.
DOUGLAS B. CALDERWOOD
First Presbyterian Church
San Diego, Calif.
I think it would be altogether proper … that a magazine like CHRISTIANITY TODAY … warn the Protestant public what has happened where Catholicism has gone to work to brainwash the Protestants. Let us be on the alert before it is too late. We can become propaganda dopes. But on the other hand, we [can] certainly remain factual without becoming religious baiters.
FRED A. ELZE
Bethel Lutheran
Sutherland, Iowa
PORTRAIT OF A PROBLEM
Your brief editorial on Bible reading in the public schools (Oct. 26 issue) raises a most difficult problem.… May I raise a few questions.
1. When we speak of our traditions is it correct to assume that public Christian education is traditional in America? 2. Can you blame an unbeliever when he objects most strenuously to a book which says that he will be lost forever if he does not accept the Christ? 3. If this central truth is omitted from Bible reading what kind of a Bible have you left? Can you base a true morality upon such Bible reading? 4. If you are a believer, do you want the Bible read to your children by an unbeliever? 5. Can Christian parents be satisfied with anything less than a real Christian school which the state cannot and may not supply?
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RALPH J. BOS
Willmar Christian Reformed Church
Willmar, Minn.
PREOCCUPIED PEDDLING
You have performed a splendid service in printing “Higher Critics and Forbidden Fruit” by Cyrus H. Gordon (Nov. 23 issue). That article brings out clearly and forcefully the fragility (nay, non-entity, since non-being is so in vogue these days as a conversation piece) of what has run current so many decades as the final word in biblical scholarship. It brings out not less clearly and forcefully the reason for the success and popularity of the critical views: namely, that so many who are spreading these views have never studied and known what they are peddling and will never be brought to do so.
JOHN LUDLUM
The Community Church on Hudson Avenue
Englewood, N.J.
I am surprised and shocked that today an outmoded modernism is taught in literature that comes from church publishing houses, from the pulpit and, sad to say, in church school periodicals. There ought to be a strong protest; but unfortunately many godly parents do not know what is offered to their children, throwing doubt on … the Scriptures.
WILLIAM A. REVIS
Charlottesville, Va.
ENLARGING THE CANON
Now that the language of the Bible has been brought up to date, when will some inspired man of God bring the Bible itself up to date? In addition to the Bible being God’s written revelation to man, it is also man’s search for God and truth and light and life. Therefore, is it not time that we have another Acts of the Apostles from the time the last book of the Bible was written up to the present? Surely man’s search did not end 1800 years ago.
G. H. EVERLY
Chelten Avenue Methodist Church
Philadelphia, Pa.
ADENAUER’S RELIGION
Concerning the report about Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s message to the “Munich Kirchentag Rally” (News, Aug. 31 issue) …, my opinion is: … Protestants …, especially the Lutherans, [should not] pay attention to Adenauer’s words.… Adenauer … is a devout Roman Catholic.… Eastern Germany is a land with an absolute Lutheran majority. Adenauer refuses to discuss the reunification of divided Germany with the Russian government not because of political wisdom and principles as to the problem of Communism, but because of his attitude as a Roman Catholic against Lutheranism. He rather will wait until the persecution of the Lutherans by the Communists in Eastern Germany will decimate the spiritual strength of the people.… Adenauer’s intention is to make Germany a Catholic State.… Adenauer refuses to recognize … the right of West Berlin for representatives in the German Bundestag in Bonn … because this would increase the number of Lutheran representatives.… Berlin is a territory with an absolute Lutheran majority.… When after the last election he appointed the members of his new cabinet, twelve of the new ministers were Catholics, and only six were Lutherans, although the majority of Adenauer’s party are members of the Lutheran Church. The Lutherans rebelled against those appointments by Adenauer.…
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According to an old law, the German government had to give a certain percentage of the collected federal taxes to the Lutheran Church in order to secure the salaries of its ministers. In lands where the Lutherans were in the majority, the State administration was the patron of each individual congregation. This meant that the administration was obliged to care for repair and maintaining of the church, the parsonage, and the school buildings. This made the Lutheran Church of Germany able to use the offerings of its members for support of churches and missions in other countries.… (The Lutheran Church in Austria—with a 93% Catholic population—would have diminished a long time ago without support from the German Lutheran Church.) … Hitler declared those old laws as not valid.… He also cancelled an agreement with Rome, which permitted the pope to get more money from Germany than the government usually allowed taken to foreign countries. When after World War II Adenauer became chancellor of West Germany, he declared that the cancellation of the agreement with Rome was illegal and must be restored. But he was not willing to restore the privileges of the Lutheran Churches. Dr. Heinemann, a Lutheran, was the first minister of interior affairs in Adenauer’s first cabinet. When he opposed Adenauer’s declaration and demanded equal rights for the Lutherans, he was ousted by Adenauer.…
Adenauer is Rome’s servant, willing to carry out certain tasks in connection with the continuing Counter Reformation.
RUDOLPH FLACHBARTH
St. Mark Lutheran Church
Duquesne, Pa.
PROPHECY OF LENIN
There is one thing our government and Russia is surely agreed on and that’s pushing for socialism. Looks like both are running a race on this and we are ahead. Russia still has to use force to make their people accept socialism while Americans beg for socialism. Lenin was right once. When he said that American capitalists would finance their own destruction, he must have known about what the big tax-exempt foundations would do.…
EWING E. CLEMONS
Tracy, Calif.
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