Letters to the Editor - October to December 2005

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For all letters responding to the October 2 "Stolen Sermons" issue, click here.

RESPONSE TO DECEMBER 25 ISSUE

RESPONSE TO DECEMBER 18 ISSUE

 RESPONSE TO DECEMBER 11 ISSUE

Is It Just a Fad?
(posted 12-12-05)
I just read your December 11 issue on coaching. I thought it was interesting that the subject is finally trickling down into the church. As I read the articles, I was struck by the thought, “Is it just a fad?”

READERS' REACTIONS TO DECEMBER 4 ISSUE

Thankful for Female Preachers
(posted 12-14-05)
Bob Strimboulis raises interesting questions in his letter “Surprised There Are Female Chaplains” (see below). First, he questions “are we not the brotherhood against the ordination of females?” Not exactly, “we” are a brotherhood of independent churches whose individual policies and beliefs are outlined by that congregation. Consequently, “we” aren’t for (or against) anything officially.

Surprised There Are Female Chaplains
(posted 12-8-05)
Brother, I was surprised to find the testimony of a female chaplain. Are not we who are of the brotherhood against the ordination of females? There aren’t any female preachers amongst us, are there?
—Bob Strimboulis
Trout Run, Pennsylvania

Many Chaplaincy Opportunities at Prisons
(posted 12-1-05)
Thank you for highlighting the chaplaincy in your December 4 issue. Though often an unheralded ministry, chaplaincy certainly touches many lives in unique ways, not often seen in located “church” ministry.

Other religions, from Islam to Wicca, have found a foothold in the prisons. New Testament Christianity needs a faithful witness behind the razor wire and bars as well.
—Blair Yager
Chesapeake, Virginia

Another Type of Chaplaincy
(posted 11-30-05)
I appreciated your issue (December 4) that dealt with chaplains, both in the U.S. and abroad. I serve in a unique atmosphere myself. My full-time calling is youth pastor in Marion, Iowa, but I also serve on a volunteer basis as a track chaplain in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the different types of chaplaincy and the needs of each particular group that is ministered to. I encourage you to research and share with your readers how organizations such as Motor Racing Outreach are ministering to those in various types of racing communities and reaching the lost, and how they can get involved and help serve in these areas of ministry.
—Rob Lee
Cedar Rapids, Iowa

READERS' REACTIONS TO NOVEMBER 27 ISSUE

Occasionally Something Gets Through
(posted 12-29-05)
CHRISTIAN STANDARD is truly a ministry worthy of support and the writers and staff do a great job producing the nearly flawless publication each week, but occasionally something gets through. Just a comment about items excerpted from other sources and published in “Seen & Heard” or elsewhere in the Christian Standard. In the November 27 issue, a citation says that the average debt for seminary graduates in 2001 was $25,018. However, it also states that the percentage of those borrowing over $20,000 was only 33 percent. How can the average be over $25,000 when 67 percent borrowed less than $20,000?  Do not trust the original publisher to have gotten it right.
—Mark A. McClanahan
Atlanta, Georgia

A Puzzling Clause
(posted 11-23-05)
The article by Kent E. Fillinger in the November 27 issue (“Ministerial Pay—What Besides Pay?”) was both timely and excellent—except for one rather baffling clause regarding sabbatical and study breaks. Mr. Fillinger writes, “For senior ministers especially, it is normal to have an additional one to four weeks of time away every year to prepare spiritually, emotionally, and physically for the upcoming ministry season.”

READERS' REACTIONS TO NOVEMBER 20 ISSUE

'Is Grace Really Law After All?'
(posted 11-21-05)
“Based on Law” by Donald A. Nash in the CHRISTIAN STANDARD for November 20 suggests that we’re under law, just not the law of Moses. Many eagerly call us to obey the commandments given by Jesus Christ. It is to be hoped that we all are eager to do whatever we understand Jesus wants us to do and that we are equally eager to avoid what he wants us to not do. But if we’re under a code of law, what a favor would be done for us by someone who would spell out exactly what the code says. What specifically must we do? What must we not do? Where do we find the New Covenant’s book of Leviticus? Is grace really law after all? Or are we saved by grace through faith by keeping laws? Isn’t that what the article is saying?
—Ray Downen
Joplin Missouri

'Freed from the Clutches of Law'
(posted 11-15-05)
“Missing on Flannelgraph” by Charlie Crowe (November 20) beautifully captured the spirit of grace lacking in those who are obsessed with law and terrified of freedom in Christ. The Old Testament law was an object lesson that vividly showed its adherents (as well as us today) the dire consequences of being lawbreakers before a holy God and our need for a Savior. This was God’s ingenious plan and purpose for the law (Galatians 3:23-25). And as is so richly illustrated in this article, the Old Testament still holds invaluable lessons for New Testament believers living under grace.

The most joyful, fulfilled, and effective Christians I know are those who have embraced God’s grace and have been freed from the clutches of law as the focus of their Christian lives and as a means of being in right relationship with God. By his grace may we all escape, no matter how well-meaning, those who would cause us to desert “the one who called [us] by the grace of Christ and [would turn us] to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6).
—Brian J. Waldrop
Mount Healthy, Ohio

READERS' REACTIONS TO NOVEMBER 13 ISSUE

'An Incredible Reminder" 
(posted 11-16-05)
Alan Ahlgrim’s article “Dealing with Distractions” (November 13) was an incredible reminder and encouragement to me to keep the main thing the main thing. Hopefully this article will help me avoid another session with my senior minister on “How to Say No!”
—James Fruits
Centralia, Illinois

'A Laser-Light of Truth'
(posted 11-11-05)
Leroy Lawson’s Communion meditation “Just Another Primate?” (November 13) was a laser-light of truth piercing the darkened thinking of our muddleheaded culture. Thank God for thinking men like brother Lawson who are so adept at getting to the point in eight short paragraphs. Let an ape try to do that! His final line, “But let our God-breathed souls be released and we can take our seats at the Lord’s table, where places are reserved for his friends. Not his pets,” is a jewel. Thanks Leroy and CHRISTIAN STANDARD.
—Steve Jones
Oviedo, Florida

READERS' REACTIONS TO NOVEMBER 6 ISSUE

Series Provided Wonderful Explanation
(posted 11-8-05)
The three articles (by Clint Gill, October 23, 30, and Nov. 6) written on the Declaration and Address principles of the church being essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one were a wonderful explanation of a subject most Restoration Movement/4C churchgoers just do, but don't really think about. What God wants, what God intends, and what God demands of his followers is unity of purpose by him, in him, for him.
—Alan Kirkpatrick
Via e-mail

A Strict Constructionist
(posted 11-03-05)
I breathed a sigh of relief as I finished part three of Clint Gill’s series “The Church Is One” (November 6). I was relieved by what brother Gill did not write. An often repeated non sequitur in similar series on unity is that church people need not agree on “everything” in order to have it. That’s fair enough. But then the writer will go on to state that among the “things” we need not agree on is baptism. In my opinion, that doesn’t necessarily follow. Thank you, Clint Gill, for reminding us that the church is “constitutionally” one and for being a strict constitutional constructionist.
—Steve Jones
Oviedo, Florida

Struck By the Contrast
(posted 10-12-05)
I just read Howard Brammer’s 2005 NACC President’s Message, “Journey to the Presence” (October 16).

READERS' REACTIONS TO OCTOBER 9 ISSUE

'Propesied in Great Detail'
(posted 2-23-06)
“Is This the End of the Worship Fad?” by Ken Read, in the October 9 CHRISTIAN STANDARD. Good material. As a noninstrumentalist I have been thrown into schizophrenia by all of the hype about music and worship. The discord sets in when I read the Bible and discover that ekklesia is synagogue which means school of the Bible. Romans 14 defines some of those personal diversities which are not subject to dialog or dispuations. Paul then jumps right into Romans 15 and defines away what most of both “wings” do as they do worship. We know that the synagogue that existed as “the church in the wilderness” was for instructions only and loud instruments and “loud rejoicing” (the Alarm or Triumph over Judas would try on Jesus) was forbidden. The Bible and contemporanous literature proves that music is a bypass into the emotions and actually creates spiritual anxiety which is the laded burden Jesus died to remove. You are describing the spiritual exhaustion that sets in when the “worship leader” tells them that the feeling is spiritual. People long to rest and the ekklesia defines speaking that which is written using one mind and one mouth as a way to edify or educate, glorify God and keep the peace. In the Greek literature “speaking in the ekklesia” is defined as “a whisper or conversational tone.” Well, that gets the preacher in trouble. Music has a place but is always seen in the literature as abrading as the word psallo demands. I hope you put the pressure on everyone and probably the so called a cappellas (the popes castratos) are more destructive having honed complex harmony to a nerve-shattering edge. I have collected perhaps the best set of documents beginning with Babylonian tablets and Nimrod at the Towers of Babylon knew that you could hurt people with sound. As an electronics engineer with a career in acoustics I know that if osha wasn’t afraid of religion most churches would be in trouble for physical and emotional abuse. It is a historical fact that not even singing was added as an act of worship until the year 373 when they also began to compose their own “scripture” for singing. What you are seeing is prophesied in great detail.
—Kenneth Sublett
Hohenwald, Tennessee

Our Most Powerful Service Each Year
(posted 10-28-05)
Thanks to Ken Read for his article (“Is This the End of the Worship Fad?” October 9) on the future of our “assemblies” (which has become synonymous with “worship”). Our congregation would be described by most as contemporary. However, our most powerful service each year is the Good Friday service. As people walk into a dark auditorium they face a candle-lit platform and the cross. The ritual of the service rivals most “high” church experiences. Scriptures are read; prayers are prepared; Communion is a sacred moment. There is definitely a place in this gen-X minister’s heart for the ancient-future style that Ken predicts.
—Matt Johnson
Levittown, Pennsylvania