The Unpardonable Sin (February Issue)

Richard Venema’s article “The Unpardonable Sin” was uncommonly good . It was clear and easily understood. It was to the point and logical. It was well written and Biblical. After reading the article, the reader has a good grasp of a problem. Well done.

An informed reader,

Glenn Palmer

8145 Lion Ave.

Norfolk, VA 23518

Discrimination In Reading

Dear Editor: I too share Dr. Gerda Bos‘ concern that English teachers should not provoke needless conflict in a Christian school community by assigning students reading material which offends the supporting community of the school the teacher serves (“Discrimination in Reading” Outlook. Jan. 1981). Dr. Bos’ article, however, adds fuel to a very dangerous fire, for it misrepresents the real problems English teachers face in choosing reading material for their teaching.

First of all, while the article implies that English teachers should have no difficulty in finding inoffensive material to meet all of their educational objectives, that is, in fact, not true. Certain objectives, such as—in our own case—the illustrating of our national literary tradition, almost force the Canadian English . teacher to choose between a number of so-called offensive alternatives. That the British Columbia Ministry of Education Committee on Controversial Issues has sat for two years on the choice of a Canadian novel for English II, and to my knowledge has not yet reached a decision, should illustrate the problem. When an authority, such as Dr. Bos, suggests that there is no need for such struggle because all offensive literature may be easily avoided, she encourages parents to suspect teachers who may be honest enough in their attempt to be true both to the educational goals they must meet and the trust of their community. Such teachers’ difficulties are severe enough. They do not need outside authorities to cast doubt on their professional integrity.

Secondly, the article implies at several points that those teachers who might have caused offense in school communities are either mistaken about their job or lazy. They are mistaken because English teachers are not to teach social problems, politics or abnormal psychology. They are lazy because they do not devote themselves to grammar and composition and because they choose to teach the sensational and topical literature of the present rather than do the work to enable students to enjoy the sterner demands of the literature of the past.

Now, I know many English teachers. With many of them, I do not agree. I think that many of them are moving in counterproductive directions, and I’m sure many of them feel the same about me. Still, there is not a one of them of whom the article’s implied picture of the offense–causing English teacher is in any measure correct. It appears to me that Dr. Bos is applying an image she has of the Catcher in the Rye fiascoes of the late sixties and early seventies to the very different climate of 1981. Those English teachers I know who might ever find themselves in a controversy, however small, are hard-working, are as concerned with writing as with literature, and are dedicated to high standards of literary taste. It is, in fact, those whose demands are low and whose taste is compromised by a willingness to accept the sensational and frivolous found even in the school textbooks of recent years who also seldom seem to stir controversy of this nature.

When this issue surfaces in any discussion, parents tend to point fingers at teachers and teachers tend to point fingers at parents. Such bickering is of little value. The article The Outlook should have printed in this issue would have called both parents and teachers to talking and in their talking to respecting each the integrity and sincerity of the other. The Christian community should be a community of healing. I challenge The Outlook to print an article on the same topic by an author aware of the intricacies of the issue and one whose first desire is just such building of the body of Christ.

Sincerely, Lloyd Den Boer

8250 –13th Ave.

Burnaby, B.C.

Time for Catechism (September Issue)

Dear Rev. DeJong:

I have often agreed wit h your assessment of certain doctrinal matters (the need for a strict view of propositional truth, for example). My agreement stems from the fact that I, too, mean by my writing and teaching to put forth and defend our solidly confessional Reformed faith. I was therefore surprised and heartily displeased to note the treatment Beyond Doubt receives at your hands in the September Outlook. Let me make three comments.

First, you criticize my quoting from the United Presbyterian Confession of 1967. Do you think that any of the quoted items is false or contrary to Scripture? I do not. And I suspect from your silence about any specific statements that you do not either.

No doubt you really want to object to the practice of quoting from C ’67 at all—even if the quoted statements are true. You think, perhaps, that this practice implies a general acceptance of a confession that is too liberal.

Second, you criticize a “questioning approach” that leads to a course “characterized by all kinds of subjective opinions.” This approach, you say, “ministers questions” but fails in conveying “God’s answers.”

This charge is unjust. For one thing, you do not acknowledge that Beyond Doubt, as the author’s preface states, is an empirical approach to the same material (God, revelation, Christ, salvation) that is addressed confessionally in the first year adult course,  A Place to Stand. For another, as you do grant in part, there is a perfectly good way of using a “questioning approach” in church education—namely when one raises questions about doctrines not in the sense of raising doubts about them, but in the sense of bringing them up for examination. That is what the Heidelberg Catechism does, for example. And that is what Beyond Doubt tries to do no less.

In that connection , let me call to your attention, third, that answers are provided for the questions raised in B.D., either in the meditations themselves or else in the large accompanying answer book. These answers come from the Bible; else they come from our confessions or from Reformed theology. I say what I think only in the same sense that all of us do who preach, i.e., in the sense of applying what Scripture and creed have to say. Obviously, then, when I say in the Preface that course leaders may “use what they can, and let the rest go,” I do not mean what Scripture says or what the confessions say. I rather mean to refer to my choice of questions, to their relevance, to the way they are framed, to the use of this Scripture instead of that, and to those places where I make judgments and applications.

I hope these comments may correct any misimpressions left either by Beyond Doubt or by your criticism of it.

Cordially in Christ,

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Calvin Theological Seminary

 

Editor’s Response:

I welcome Professor Plantinga’s expression of agreement in our concern for the Bible’s propositional revelation and for the validity of our church creeds.

His observations about quotations from a document not necessarily implying agreement with the whole of it is a valid point. But doesn’t placing the Confession of ’67 at the head of so many articles in the place regularly given to ur churches’ official creeds, in our catechism series of books, imply some kind of recognition of it as an authentic Reformed creed? If it does, such a recognition of the Confession of ’67 would seem debatable.

As to the “questioning” approach to teaching, used as a teaching method to provoke thought and understanding it can be excellent. But, if it becomes a controlling approach or a guide to the whole theological curriculum, displacing, in effect, the recognition of our established creeds as authoritative statements of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” it can be and has become in many present-day churches, completely devastating. Questions can provoke thought. Questions that do not lead to clear and certain answers can increase confusion.

I’m glad to see Professor Plantinga in this letter acknowledge the limitations on dealing with doctrine “in the interrogative mood.”

I wrote to urge the exercise of care in preparing and choosing catechism materials that can help us in teaching our Divinely revealed faith.