Unless otherwise noted, the comments are the editor’s.
* ” . . . MY NIGERIAN DIARY”
“The 50 copies that we had ordered disappeared very fast, and people have ordered more copies, so we are considering a larger offset edition.” So writes Pastor Norbert Reim regarding his wife Celeste’s book which is being reviewed in this issue. Pastor Reim adds: “We are awkwardly between editions now, and do not know just what the price or availability date for the new edition will be.”
I join with our reviewer, Pastor David Koenig, in his enthusiastic recommendation of the book. I don’t have my own copy, but saw one at the home of another pastor. The book was such interesting reading it was hard to put it down.
The initial photocopy edition sold for $8.00, plus postage. Pastor Reim says the hope is that the new edition will be printed in sufficient volume so that they can match or improve on that price. The Spokesman and/or your pastor will pass along ordering details as they become known.
“Retired” Pastor Reim still serves Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, a CLC mission outreach effort in Albuquerque, New Mexico, making periodic trips by plane to serve the congregation. He and Celeste reside in Sun City, Arizona. They are members at Holy Cross, Phoenix.
With the permission of the Reims, we intend to print one or more excerpts from the “Diary” in the coming months.
* LENGTHY SERVICE
CLC Statistician, Harvey Callies, generally adds some color commentary to the otherwise bare annual statistics he compiles and mails out each spring, calling attention to year-by-year attendance or membership trends. In the report we received in April, Mr. Callies had gone back to the year 1960, the first year synodical statistics were kept. He made this interesting observation:
“In looking at the Pastors and Teachers listed, we find the following still active among us today: 14 pastors — Egbert Albrecht, Leland Grams, Elton Hallauer, Clifford Kuehne, Richard Kuehne, David Lau, John Lau, Bertram J. Naumann, Paul F. Nolting, Gordon Radtke, Norbert Reim, Rollin Reim, Jonathan Schaller, and L. W. Schierenbeck. Then also 4 teachers — Leroy Greening, Gerhardt Mueller, Robert Rehm, and Alvin Sieg. . . .”
To this observation the statistician attached these good words: “Please, when next you see one of these men, greet them and thank our God for their lengthy service in His Kingdom!” We second the motion.
We add that though indeed still active in 1997, not all of these men continue to serve publicly under divine call as they were in 1960. In addition, there are some currently serving in the CLC teaching or preaching corps who either were in college or seminary at the time, or had not yet joined the synod.
*’APE-WOMAN’ STATUE MISLEADS PUBLIC: ANATOMY PROFESSOR (From Creation Ex Nihilo magazine, Vol. 19, No. 1, December 1996-February 1997. Reprinted with permission.)
The St. Louis zoo in Missouri, USA, has a $17.9 million exhibition majoring on evolution, which includes a statue, purportedly a reconstruction of the famous australopithecine part-skeleton “Lucy,” showing remarkably human-looking feet.
Associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the nearby Washington University, Dr. David Menton (interviewed in Creation magazine, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 16-19) says that these feet are not based on the fossil facts.
The usual artistic license in reconstructing the fleshly features of “ape-men” from bones allows evolutinary bias enormous free rein. However artists do not usually misrepresent the bones. This statue’s feet and hands are simply wrong and mislead the public.
Menton cites evolutionary sources which show that creatures in this species had hands and feet which were ‘not at all like human hands and feet; rather, they have long curved fingers and toes’–even more so than apes today that live mostly in the trees.
Canadian school teacher David Buckna has weighed in on the debate by posting an Internet challenge to this ‘misleading’ statue. He says that if people visiting this exhibition were to see an accurate replica of Lucy in the trees, with features typical of tree-dwelling primates, it would make them question the whole notion of human evolution; Lucy would be seen as just some sort of extinct ape.
Dr. Menton, who first complained about it in 1989, says, ‘I think the zoo owes it to all the people who helped pay for that exhibit to give (Lucy) an honest presentation.’
Bruce Carr, the zoo’s director of education, has no plans to alter the exhibit. ‘We cannot be updating every exhibit based on every new piece of evidence,’ he says. ‘What we look at is the overall exhibit and the impression it creates. We think that the overall impression this exhibit creates is correct.’ Dr. Menton points out that if Lucy’s feet were accurately shown, it would be obvious they could never fit into the famous Laetoli fossil footprints. These are ‘exhibit A’ for evolutionary belief in upright walking by Lucy’s kind, whereas in fact they are identical to bare-foot humans.
Professor Betsy Schumann, evolutionist expert at Menton’s university, admits that the statue’s feet ‘probably are not accurate’, but when asked whether the statue should be changed, she says, ‘Absolutely not’.
In other words, it doesn’t matter if people get indoctrinated into evolution by wrong evidence, because ‘evolution is a fact’. Christians need to realize that we are facing a full-scale religio-cultural war!
Deceptive museum displays contribute to the world-wide push to replace the Christian worldview with that of evolutionary naturalism (‘everything made itself–we are answerable to nobody’). Sadly, many millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money support such museum displays.
Based on information From Dr. David Menton and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 22, 1996.
* EDITING THE EDITOR
Here, in part, is what was written lately to the Sleepy Eye {Minn.} clergy by the editor of the local weekly newspaper: “. . . Isn’t it time we focused on what is right within our respective churches and denominations rather than what is wrong with everyone else? . . . If your columns cannot send the message the Lord would send, then I will file it where it belongs, in the trash! I will also edit out any negative references to any other religion or denomination.”
Via the grape vine I have learned that I am one of the area clergy whose articles may have prompted such a comment (not the only one — another Sleepy Eye pastor {conservative Baptist} recently shook the local community with an article titled: “The Bible Forbids Women Pastors”). An article critical of the theology of Billy Graham (see the Sept. ’96 Spokesman) was originally submitted to the Sleepy Eye paper. It didn’t appear there.
An editor will acknowledge times when articles need editing. However, when a local newspaper editor (who happens to belong to the ELCA) promises to edit out of religious columns anything he perceives as “negative references to any other religion or denomination,” a prophet of the Lord must needs reevaluate his participation in such a forum.
What, according to the Sleepy Eye newspaper editor, is the “message the Lord would send”? In the letter referred to above it was put this way: “As our Lord was dying on the cross between two sinners . . . He did not ask if the sinner was Catholic or Lutheran, Islamic or Jewish. Rather, without condition, Jesus simply promised: ‘today you will be with me in paradise.'”
What is being said, in effect, is that the object of faith is secondary; all that matters is faith’s sincerity. Such an idea, popular and widespread as it is, hardly comes from the Bible. In fact, the idea clashes with clear Bible teaching, such as: “Nor is there salvation in any other (name than Jesus Christ), for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts. 4:12).
More could be said, but we let the matter rest. This pastor/editor has asked to be excused from further participation in the pastor’s column of the local paper.