This poem is fresh from Pastor Peterson’s study. I told him that it had only one thing in common with the verse of T. S. Eliot: the need for footnotes. An “Areopagite” is a member of the council that met on Mars’ Hill, the Areopagus. Kat’ exochen is Greek for par excellence; here it means he graduated summa cum laude. “Anastasia” is the Greek word for resurrection made into a proper name. According to the pastor, Acts 17:18 suggests that the Greeks thought Paul was preaching two foreign deities, Jesus and “Resurrection.”
EUTYCHUS
FROM FIELDS ABROAD
Your magazine will have its place in helping to mold the religious thought of our new Republic. We do not have complete religious freedom but we do have a lot of guaranteed freedom, if we use it. No one can change his religion without his parent’s or guardian’s consent until he is over 21 years of age. The greatest restriction at present is the fanaticism of the villagers and their leaders.…
T. M. HUTCHESON
American Academy
Larnaca, Cyprus
I … find help in the suggestions it offers.
ROBERT E. ANDERSON
Beirut, Lebanon
We always hope and pray for the growth of this magazine.
SARE ISAAC
Myitkyina, Burma
We increased in worship, since we have read your CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
LABWE HTINGNAN
Myitkyina, Burma
I am writing this at a youth conference—about 100 miles from my home. We are having good times with these youth and Sunday School leaders. Here is one of the questions asked last night: “You tell us we should use illustrations to get across the truth to the young, but I have not got a single picture, leave alone other equipment. What ways would you suggest I could use to get the Bible truths across to the children?” This is not the exception to the rule here. It is the rule. How we would value supplies of flannel-graphs, pictures of the right kind, children’s simple lesson books which we can translate into other languages, simple daily readings for families, etc. Things which may seem trivial in the States are regarded as very essential in this young country. The prayers and fellowship of the American Evangelical Christians will be of tremendous value to us all in these times of upheavals—and staggering spiritual needs.
It is one magazine that I … keep on file here in my office.… I share it with my two co-pastors here in Bethel Temple, and they, too, enjoy reading it.
ALFRED CAWSTON
Bethel Temple
Manila, Philippines
Have derived help and blessing.… I often enjoy the excellent poetry.
HELEN KORNFIELD
Grace Christian High School
Manila, Philippines
Especially appreciate your coverage of events which concern every evangelical Christian.
HERBERT KRETZMANN
Manila, Philippines
As I visit evangelical student groups in countries throughout the Far East (Korea to Malaya) … and as I seek to strengthen the fellowship between the different groups … it has been helpful to get the wider perspective which comes through reading CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
DAVID H. ADENEY
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
Hong Kong
I must admit that there is very little time left in each day for me to do real constructive thinking on the basis of the articles in your magazine. I suppose I’m not too much different than other missionaries.…
HUGH AUW
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
You are demonstrating by your periodical that there is a wealth of serious and responsible theological scholarship available in the evangelical Christian community.
LEONARD SWEETMAN, JR.
Christian Reformed Mission
Tokyo, Japan
High value … for me and my service in every relation.
TRISTAN BOETTCHER
Herford, Germany
When I was in Moscow … last spring I saw CHRISTIANITY TODAY on one of the desks in the office of the Baptist Union.
EARL S. POYSTI
Buchen, Odenwald, Germany
Being appointed to conduct divine services at a mission festival … I and the audience shall benefit by the accumulated inspiration from your publication.…
The modern German rationalism prepared the way for Hitler, and any detraction from the word of God will automatically prepare the way for other aberrations also. Watchmen are needed on the walls of Zion and instruments for sounding the signals. Here it seems … CHRISTIANITY TODAY has [its] … task. And the signals must be plain though profound.
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SIVERT NESDAL
Loen, Nordfjord, Norway
FROM LAODICEA, NO SAINTS
In your article on the drop in seminary enrollments (News, Jan. 16 issue) you quoted Dr. Charles L. Taylor, executive director of the American Association of Theological Schools, as saying that one reason for the decline in seminaries is the growth of Bible schools which offer a “short cut” to ordination. Then, in seeming support of this allegation, you added in parentheses the fact that this year the member schools of the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges have a seven per cent increase in enrollment over 1959–60.
The juxtaposition of the allegation with the growth of enrollments in Bible colleges is extremely unfortunate, for there are no known facts to establish a relationship between the drop in seminary enrollments and the growth of Bible schools.… It is the denominations that maintain standards for ordination, not Bible schools, and those standards in terms of formal preparation have not been lowered.
… Because Bible colleges are undergraduate institutions, they are profiting along with colleges generally from the increased birth rate of the 40’s.… Another reason for their growth is that most Bible institutes and Bible colleges are operated and in turn serve dynamic evangelical bodies, many of whom are identified with the “Third Force” rather than with the conventional denominations. There is no stultifying liberalism among them nor their schools.…
As for short cuts to ordination, there has been very substantial upgrading in quality and length of Bible college programs in the past two or three decades. A growing number of Bible colleges require five years of work beyond high school for their pastoral training programs. This includes two years of liberal arts and three years of theology.…
At the risk of being considered presumptuous, I should like to make a few comments on the drop in seminary enrollments.…
The one critical admission requirement of AATS is that no more than 15 per cent of students may be admitted from other than regionally accredited colleges and universities.… This 15 per cent limit excludes all but a few Bible college graduates even though they may be prepared for seminary by sound general education and a conditioning of heart and mind for theological studies.…
The test of the life of a church is in the number of its young people who dedicate themselves fully to the service of Christ. A Laodicean church gives birth neither to saints nor to soldiers of the Cross. The answer to a dearth of ministerial candidates is revival.
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S. A. WITMER
Executive Director
Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges
Fort Wayne, Ind.
Since when do the “appeal of science careers,” “weak recruitment programs,” “competition from industry,” etc., influence men who are called of God to preach the Gospel? The truth of the matter is that such men so influenced, have never received the call to preach the Gospel. They will be better off, as far as the furtherance of the work of Christ is concerned, in some other field.
JACK B. BACHER
Calvary Bible Church
Berne, Ind.
In the second semester which has just begun, our total enrollment for the year has risen to 333. This compares to 318 for the final count for the previous year and represents an increase in enrollment of about 5 per cent. The figure you quoted was … of course the first semester enrollment.
JOHN F. WALVOORD
Dallas Theological Seminary Pres.
Dallas, Tex.
MORAL RE-ARMAMENT
In the interest of freedom of speech, press and religion, please publish the following:
“Preamble to the Articles of Incorporation of Moral Re-Armament in the United States”:
“Riches, reputation or rest have been for none of us the motives of association. Our learning has been the truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit. Our security has been the riches of God in Christ Jesus. Our unity as a world-wide family has been in the leadership of the Holy Spirit and our love for one another. Our joy comes in our common battle for a change of heart to restore God to leadership. Our aim has been the establishment of God’s Kingdom here on earth in the hearts and wills of men and women everywhere, the building of a hate-free, fear-free, greed-free world. Our reward has been in the fulfillment of God’s Will.”
ROBERT W. YOUNG
North Presbyterian Church
Pittsburgh, Pa.
MRA “salesmanship” publicizes policies in terms of divine guidance and direction. On the other hand, any attempt to discover how these policies are determined and financed on the human level, and how their agents are appointed or dismissed, is met with evasion and equivocation. In one breath we are told that the Oxford Group or MRA is a registered company with the names of its officers duly filed; in the next we are told that it is not an “organization” and that no one can join it, resign from it, or be dismissed by it. Nevertheless it admits that it receives financial support from sources which it declines to disclose.
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GWILYM O. GRIFFITH
Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, England
PAUL, A PLAGIARIST??
I am sending you herewith a copy of a book of which I am the author, One Fold and One Shepherd. It is my answer to the superficial and erroneous statement about “Mormonism” (December 19 issue). (“The Lord, in his wisdom, directed that the fourth-century Middle-American religious history, the Book of Mormon, be written on imperishable material—gold. The record was to be hidden from the world for many centuries. The hiding and the secrecy were the very essence of the strategic plan of God for teaching the atomic-age world to believe.… It is the only revelation ever given to man concerning tangible things—in it the Lord revealed names of cities and nations.… The cities are now being found” [pp. 340, 350].)
THOMAS STUART FERGUSON
Oakland, Calif.
Dr. Hugh Nibley, head of Department of Religion, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, under whom I took a course entitled: “The Critics of the Book of Mormon,” a man with a Ph.D. in ancient history from U. of California, said in class to me: “Who knows but that Paul plagiarized the Golden Plates?” This statement was in reply to one I asked: “How do you account for the precise wording in Moroni 8:45 f., of the King James Version as found in 1 Corinthians 13:4 f.?”
C. SUMTER LOGAN
Trinity Presbyterian Church
Ogden, Utah
I refer to William Waide’s brief note (Jan. 30 issue) that in India Seventh-day Adventists reported other Christian converts as their converts. This statement sounds a bit ridiculous to one who has been a missionary in India. If Waide knew the process which one must go through to become a Seventh-day Adventist, he would see how utterly foolish is such a statement.
E. A. CRANE
Sturgis, Mich.
DILEMMA DIFFUSED
The “dilemma of the deep south layman” (Jan. 16 issue) has been far more acute and far more painful than any that has been faced by the clergy thereabouts. And the lack of a positive teaching and preaching clergy has only served to intensify the many pains of daily living with these problems.
BELDEN MENKUS
Nashville, Tenn.
The principles and faith of the founders of America are to be found more clearly in the South—and to some extent the Southwest—than elsewhere in the country.
F. H. JOHNSON
Dayton, Ohio
The name “Southern Baptist” implies doctrinal conviction.… The name no longer has anything to do with territory or Deep South sentiments (on segregation or anything else).
PAUL O. CHEEK
Calvary Baptist Church
Merced, Calif.
The Catholics have 34 churches for colored here in Lafayette diocese and 20 missions while the Protestants oppose efforts to evangelize the Negro.
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AARON A. BOEKER
American Sunday-School Union
Elton, La.
CRUSADE AGAINST CANCER
Once upon a time a scientist came to the conclusion that the use of hymnbooks caused cancer. He brought his theory to a convention of scientists. A group worked on the project for two years and came to the unanimous conclusion that the correlation between those who used hymnbooks and those who were afflicted with cancer was more than coincidental. Whether it was the peculiar paper used in hymnals, the arrangement of the notes, the lack of syncopation, the dark bindings, or the surroundings in which they were produced, the conclusion was inescapable: there was a direct connection between hymnals and cancer. An independent study by British researchers came to the identical conclusions.…
Of course, the publishers of hymnals insisted that there was nothing to this. They ridiculed its scientific pretensions and set up their own investigating committee, which, not remarkably, came to the conclusion that there was no connection between hymnals and cancer. But even the newspapers in which they advertised lavishly and the magazines which they subsidized were unable to omit all news of the mounting incidence of those with cancer who were shown to have bought, used, or handled hymnbooks.
A crusade against hymnals was quickly organized, with four five-star generals, six ranking industrialists, two labor leaders, four college presidents, and eighteen bishops as leaders, along with a committee of a thousand prominent educators, rabbis, priests, ministers, and congressmen. The committee urged a national campaign to eradicate hymnals. Bills were promptly introduced in both houses of Congress to forbid the use of hymnals, while one measure proposed to classify it as a subversive activity. The committee on un-American activities promptly called witnesses to see if hymnals were not really produced by Russians or fellow travelers. Medical associations warned patients to have nothing to do with hymnbooks.
“We do not sell cancer here” was the sign displayed by church bookstores which refused to stock hymnbooks any longer. Over three hundred colleges announced that the use of hymnals on their campuses were forbidden. More than 4,321 students were expelled for using hymnbooks secretly or keeping them in their rooms. It was made part of administrative policy that any professor who kept a hymnbook would be regarded as incapable of teaching in a college devoted to Christian character of American institutions. Libraries were forbidden to carry any magazines with advertisements of hymnals and newspapers which ventured to defend hymnals were picketed at the newsstands.
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Thousands of relatives of people who had died from cancer filed suits against the hymnbook publishers for deliberate poisoning. A nationwide petition with a million signatures listed those who declared that they would never again use a hymnbook. Synods, assemblies, conventions, and classes resolved that no hymnal should ever darken any door of theirs, and one enthusiastic Methodist conference urged that no man be ordained who would not pledge himself to never handle a hymnbook. The FBI exposed a conspiracy to bootleg hymnbooks in from Guatemala, and a former publisher of hymnbooks had to be protected by state police in Richmond. The president of the nation gave a nationwide telecast warning against any sympathy for the sellers of hymnbooks. A national interfaith conference resolved that “hymnbooks must go the way of slavery and polygamy into the limbo of forgotten practices.” The Apostolic Angels, Inc., pointed out that they had never allowed the use of hymnals in their services, and that there was not a verse in the 1611 Bible to sanction such a practice. And a new translator pointed out that the word translated “sin” in the old version should read “The wages of hymnbooks is death.” Hymnbook became an unmentionable word, and teachers urged little children never even to think it. Women who used hymnals were accused of poisoning their babies, and a death penalty was proposed for anyone who offered a girl a hymnal. Farmers were paid by the government not to raise anything that could be used in hymnals, and some country churches excommunicated all who refused to take this money.
The Attorney General noted that the use of hymnbooks was a violation of the 14th amendment in that it denied due process of law, and ordered all federal district attorneys to enforce the statute by filing suits. The governor of South Carolina called out the Southern Secession Sentinels to prevent the destruction of the large hymnbook factory in his state, but federal tear gas promptly dissolved the insurrection. A new amendment to the constitution was hurriedly ratified in special sessions of 46 legislatures, and it was proposed that the United Nations follow suit. There will be no more cancer from hymnals, solemnly proclaimed the American delegation.
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… But it wasn’t hymnbooks that the scientists decided caused cancer.
CHARLES G. HAMILTON
Booneville, Miss.
WANTED: ONE COMPASS
Thank you for a little detailed reporting (News, Feb. 13 issue) on the relation of events in the Congo to missions; newspapers have generally ignored this aspect of the situation. Unfortunately, though, you got directions badly mixed in attributing recent chaos to the western sections and saying that the east was stable with no interruption of mission work.
WILLIAM E. WELMERS
Professor of African Languages
University of California at Los Angeles
Los Angeles, Calif.
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