FOR TIME OR ETERNITY
Last Saturday morning my wife was teaching a communicants class at church and I was left to my own devices.
I wandered into the local donut shop, unable to resist the memory of their rum buns. (It is interesting that the only two stores in our community open twenty-four hours a day are a chain drugstore and the donut shop. The possible connections between the two are multiple; I leave the matter to your imagination.)
The rum bun and coffee were served promptly. This “bun” isn’t what usually comes to your mind when you hear the term. It is a great misshapen glob of pastry shot through with raisins. The immensity of it brings to mind the hungry people of the world who could make a meal out of it.
I was so busy attacking the raisiny glob that I did not at first notice the young man in a work jacket dropping coins in the juke box immediately behind me. But I did notice when the machine started its first selection. I jumped, thinking a riot had broken out.
What followed was a high-decibel, tearful pledge of eternal love sung by someone of indeterminate sex suffering from blocked sinuses and a catch in his or her voice.
The gist of the thing was that the singer was going to be someone’s for all eternity. Just how this remarkable feat of longevity was to be accomplished was not detailed in the song.
Driving home from the donut shop I switched on the car radio in time to hear another vocalist declare his willingness to sell his soul without regret for the love of his love.
The selling of one’s soul is a transaction that usually occurs without the full realization of what one is doing. To do it willfully in the cause of something as unstable as romantic love has to be a great miscalculation.
Now, I’m not so unsophisticated that I think anyone takes these songs as literal truth. And I’m willing to give the authors full room for poetic license—though I suspect that’s stretching definitions somewhat.
Still, there is a tendency in our society to exalt romantic or erotic love to the level of near worship. Some of the unconditional promises of eternal love made in contemporary songs should be addressed only to God himself.
If you want to see erotic love pictured at its best, go to the Song of Solomon. It’s full of fondlings and visual enjoyment of physical beauty far richer and more meaningful than any modern songs or novels have given.
Physical love is seen as having a high value—
Many waters cannot quench love
neither can floods drown it
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house
it would be utterly scorned
—but not as having ultimate value.
Human commitments are time-bound things. It is for good reason, I think, that the marriage vows once included, “… till death us do part.”
LOSING AT OUR OWN GAME
Recently you carried a rather good article on the Protestant ethic (Footnotes, “The Christian Work Ethic,” Jan. 7). At various times you have had others which implicitly dealt with this topic or bewailed the passing of the Protestant ethic to some extent.
We must remember that the Protestant ethic at its inception was revolutionary in the socio-economic world as much as in the spiritual realm. That is, the socio-economic goals of a whole new class’s upward mobility tied in with the revival of ancient moral and spiritual fundamentals. Now Communist China brings forth the same values of sexual sublimation for the goals of advancing society and (although they won’t do this) bringing up new middle classes from the lower (as did our original Protestant ethic). From the viewpoint of Christian morality we are about to be beaten at our own game with Marxist secular and class salvation as the motivating force without any other-worldly pretensions. From the viewpoint of a competing power and of the competition between socialist and capitalist systems, the United States is up against serious long-range competition for these same reasons. This will be especially borne out as something similar catches on in other underdeveloped countries—whether the label is Communist or is Socialist Nationalism.
State University, Ark.
A SOCIAL FOSSIL OF WISDOM
I was very disappointed with “Using the Amish?” (Jan. 7). I have worked for several years with the National Committee for the Religious Freedom of the Amish, and this was the first time we found parents willing to have their case taken through to decide the constitutional issue. The traditional resistance of Amish/Anabaptist people to court procedures should not blind us to the fact that totalitarian (Tsarist and Soviet Russia) and pre-totalitarian (State of Wisconsin) governmental action should be challenged where basic rights are respected.
The Amish vs. Department of Public Instruction battle points up in the sharpest fashion the question of religious liberty, and signalizes the fundamental conflict between Christian counterculture and the spirit of the times.… By what right, except statist theory, can anyone argue that a group of bureaucrats is more fitting to govern the welfare of children than the parents?
When we helped write the constitution of the Bonn Republic after the war, the Germans were keen to have included in their bill of rights das Elternrecht. Their experience with Nazism and Communism made them wise. The only reason this was never included in our Bill of Rights is that at that time everyone took it for granted: there is also nothing in the bill guaranteeing the sanctity of marriage. Today, with the slide toward police-state measures and totalitarian mind-set, the Departments of Public Instruction are the most serious challenge to Christian and libertarian values in the entire society (not excepting the “military/industrial complex” some people like to talk about). Kenneth Keniston and others have shown how the consolidation process, plus a faulty doctrine of man (my addition), has developed a youth subculture alienated from our entire tradition to date.
The Amish may be a social fossil, but they are devoted to wisdom. They are far more to be trusted than the doctrinaire politicians who control the public-school systems. But even if the Amish weren’t Christians, even if the public-school politicians hadn’t replaced culture and education with the powerconscious drive of a mechanics’ closed shop, we would still have the question of whether America still respects and practices liberty or has now gone over to a monolithic statism.
Your reference to Bill Ball is unworthy of a Christian journal. I have known and worked with him for years, and I don’t know a finer layman nor one more devoted to fairness to persons of different conscience and church. I wish that the old Protestant bigotry, so carefully cultivated by the “Americans United” ideologues, could vanish from the earth along with the secularist ideology of the American Jewish Congress!
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pa.
Because the attorney retained by the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom was a noted Catholic, your editorial writer apparently gained the impression that it really was a maneuver to undermine the public schools. This impression needs to be corrected since 90 per cent of the membership of our committee [happen to be] Protestants, including such leading stalwarts of public education as Professor John Swomley.
Also, your editorial states that the Amish “in Pennsylvania have started their own secondary schools and have adjusted to the state’s educational requirements without resorting to special legal considerations.” The fact is that these schools meet only three hours per week to receive reports on vocational activities—a concession the state gave after lengthy litigation by friends of the Amish.
We are only trying to get for the Amish in Wisconsin what you approve of in Pennsylvania, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with our position, six to one.
Chairman
National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom
Livonia, Mich.
SERVING THE FAMILY UNIT
According to your news report (“Impersonal Giving,” Jan. 7), the director of the WCC’s commission on interchurch aid has described as “cruel and un-Christian” agencies which arrange sponsorship of needy children overseas because such sponsorship “contributes to dividing families.” He also urged people to “give their money to local churches that will pass it on to national or world councils of churches for equitable distribution to family units.”
Two comments: First, if a child has a family (many do not), no assistance is ever given apart from family relationships. That would be completely irresponsible. In fact, all World Vision sponsorship funds are channeled to institutions which serve the child and family—orphanages, daycare centers, schools, hospitals, and so on. Sponsorship funds keep children healthy and alive and, if possible, in the family unit, which is enhanced by the help given.
Second, I would be very interested to know of any national or world council programs which provide help for family units, and whether or not designated funds by churches or individuals for such programs would be honored. If such programs exist, it would also be interesting to know what qualifies these groups to make the most equitable distribution of the funds.
President
World Vision International
Monrovia, Calif.
REALLY RADICAL
You reported controversies about the Christian Labour Association of Canada and two related agencies (the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship and the Institute for Christian Studies) (News, “Radical Departure,” Jan. 7). A minister believes the organizations are “radical” and “want to change the world before men’s hearts” while a labor-union president charges the CLAC is a “right-wing reactionary association”! Are they “radical” or “reactionary”? Are they liberal or conservative, left or right?
It seems that the CLAC et al. cannot be put into any of the neat contemporary categories. And they don’t wish to be. All three organizations confess the need for men to come to repentance in Christ, and rely on the infallible Scriptures for their authority. Their uniqueness stems mainly from their application of the Gospel to public as well as private areas of life. When Christians begin taking distinctively Christian stands on economic, political, or theoretical points, they are indeed radical Christians—in the sense of trying to be Christian at the root (Latin radix) of every endeavor.
Toronto, Ont.
SUBMISSION, NOT REVOLUTION
I would like to commend you for the recent article concerning the church in East Germany (“Christianity in East Germany Today,” Jan. 21). This insight into the lives of believers in a totalitarian country was encouraging to me.
Of especial interest was the final paragraph referring to the criticism of Western Christians toward believers in Communist lands. I find nowhere in Scripture instructions to rise up in revolution. Neither do I find instructions to change the institutions of the world to conform to Christian standards. Rather, I find God’s Word to clearly proclaim that believers are to live lives of submission to the Lordship of Christ. Paul lived under one of the most oppressive regimes in the history of man. He never called for revolt or change of the system.… I thank God for the faithful witness of believers under difficult circumstances wherever they may be. May we pray for them rather than criticize them.
Plainview Baptist Church
Bogalusa, La.
NEW LISTING
You report a loss of membership in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of nearly 40,000 between 1970 and 1971 (News, “Religion in Transit,” Jan. 21) with no explanation of the cause. Since (and prior to) 1968, there has been a steady loss reported in the Year Book of this denomination, due to the fact that 1,024,734 “Disciples of Christ” now prefer listing in the Directory of the Ministry of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ.
Cincinnati, Ohio
