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Show #30, page 3 And from Joan ••••• hello there. And first and foremost, my deepest and most heartfelt thanks as Treasurer to the many kind friends who have remembered us so generously throughout the year and at this Christmas. In spite of inflation we're still able to carry on. God bless you all. A week's confinement to bed battling a slight attack of pneumonia gives one a little extra time for thinking, and I have been turning over in my mind this problem of a priest for St Mary of the Moonlight. A recent letter from an old friend - a Presbyterian lady who has spent some time in Navajoland - brought it to a head, because she told us how pained she was at hearing excuses for shunning the more remote areas of the mission field expr~ssed by clergymen of her own denomination. And they were similar to those we have heard from some Episcopal clergymen. There seem to be four or five main reasons, or fears. Noney: they want to be where they can look for preferment and salary increases so their pensions will be higher. Wives: fear of isolation and different climatic conditions. Children: fear of schools where "Anglos" are in the minority. And fear of cultural and linguistic difficulties. All very reasonable in the case of non-Christians, but from Christians ••••• ? One wonders, and one looks for the causes of all the anxieties expressed. And they're not hard to find. We are, quite simply, seeing the results of over a hundred years' calculated attack on the basic tenets of the church, and the diabolically successful efforts to "demythologize" the Bible. In the seminaries and from the pulpits the nauseating mess is ground out - the ersatz spiritual food that has rendered the real tough meat of the Gospel almost inedible. This is an "aside", but I must recommend to you a first-class expos~ of the pretensions of modern theology and biblical criticism in an essay on the subject by C. S. Lewis - himself no mean SCholar, and a true prophet by the most exacting standards - in CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS (Eerdmans). Speaking of biblical critics such as Bultmann and Tillich, he writes: "These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of the old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern-seed and can't see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight." !! And, as an example of modern theology at its worst, we have the famous Dr Joseph (Situation Ethics) Fletcher triumphantly stating, as long ago as Nay 1975, that the "absolute notions" he argued against are gene-* • rally "dead as a doornail" in the United States! So much for Christian ethics ••• thank _ you Dr Fletcher and companions! *. So - modernists have in all too many cases succeeded in undermining belief - in the church and in the creeds ~ and in practically wiping out faith (the words are by no means synonymous). Faith - the absolute trust and reliance on God to take care of all our needs; the absolute trust and reliance on the promises of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as memorized, cherished, preached, and finally written down by the authors of the four Gospels. With-out absolute faith, how ~ these unhappy clergymen, with wives and families, respond to God's call, ''Whom shall I send'?" with anything but, "Here am I, send me -BUT only after I'm satisfied that my job requirements are met and that I'll get all the percs coming to me. " Please join us in praying for all the clergymen who have been left stranded by these satanically inspired modern theologians and biblical "critics" so they have only themselves to rely on •••• and in praising God for the action of Our Lord the Holy Spirit III leading many back to the Word of Life in our precious Bible, where so many people are discovering the reality of Jesus Our Lord in a new and living way! And maybe among them there is one who will step out in faith and say, "Lord, here am 1. Send me." period. Fa ther Liebler said it nearly ·40 years' ago. Can no one else say so? , As a perfect example of absolute faith, let me once again share with you l\1. L. Haskins' l-10rdS, quoted by the late King George VI in a Christmas broadcast to his people in wartime England - suffering from blackouts, bombings I fires, and shortages of everything: ~ AND I SAID TO THE lVIAN WHO STOOD AT THE GATE OF THE YEAR: GIVE HE A *r:'I/'f\ ~. .. ' . LIGHT THAT I HAY TREAD SAFELY INTO THE UNKlWWN! ft)~·U • AND HE REPLIED: GO OUT INTO ' THE DARKNESS AND :PUT THINE HAND INTO THE . I • . u ' HAND OF GOD. THAT SHALL BE TO THEE BETTER THAN LIGHT AND SAli'ER THAN A KNOWN WAY. . ... ¥ay the blessing of the Holy Child be upon each and every one of you this Christmastide, and. may Our Lady of Perfect Faith pray for us all! Love •••• J oan |