4-18-74 (?)

 

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LEO PETERS
728 PLYMOUTH RB., S. B.
GRAND RAPIDS 8, MICHIGAN

4-18-74

REFRENCE HARRIS TRUST & SAVINGS BANK
CHICAGO, ILL

TO: EDITOR OF THE BANNER

The following is submitted for publication in VOICES:

If you are deeply concerned about the future of our Church, then read again the editorials in the April 5th BANNER.

There you will see two influential teachers of our Church, both with the learned title of "Doctor", engaged in a derisively cynical, and brazenly audacious, attempt to sell our Church a sinful bag of goods.

The two Doctors are: Calvin Professor Wolterstorff and Banner Editor De Koster. They affectionately address each other as Nick and Les.

Their "bag of goods" is: a church-state relationship whereby the corporate Church directs all the affairs of the corporate State (from City Hall to Washington, D.C. It is "sinful" because both Scripture and history prove that such a relationship is precisely what I've called it: sinful, i.e., fatally destructive of the spirit and Body of Christ (the church).

It is "brazenly audacious" because Les and Nick use our official Church-Editor's office to peddle their purely personal (i.e., without any Biblical support) "bag of goods" to our Bible-responsible Church. They don't submit even a token reference to: "thus saith The Word"!

It is "derisively cynical" because Nick tells Les that our ecclesiasties" (ministers) can't "forthrightly" sell this bag because they have to worry about their jobs". I had trouble believing my eyes when I read that. Would any of you retain your membership in our Church, for even one minute, if you believed, with...

LEO PETERS
700 PLYMOUTH RD., S.E.
GRAND RAPIDS 8, MICHIGAN

page 3.

Reference:
HARRIS TRUST & SAVINGS BANK
CHICAGO, ILL

not as mouthpieces for the words of Les or Nick.

3. Les and Nick are more concerned what "the world" thinks, than what Christ (the head of the Church) thinks about our Church. To wit:

a) They say "the world" treats our Church with "unaffected, disinterested, and slightly amused" scorn because it has not "spoken forthrightly on the social injustices of (our) day". So what? They say nothing about why Jesus remained silent on the much greater social injustices of his day.

b) They dishonor our entire Church by using "the world" as a lever to prod our ministers into preaching the Les & Nick brand of social politics. That means they must also dishonor Jesus for his failure to preach against the terrible socio-political system of his day.

c) Les and Nick forget that Jesus refused to bend the knee before the scorn of the world. So they can blithely ask our ministers to do what Jesus refused to do.

4. Les and Nick could sell our ministers anything thoroughly and solidly referenced on the Word of God. To date, they haven't tried that approach. They think our ministers should buy their "sinful bag" simply because they (influential Doctors) say our ministers should. Jesus had special names for such "influential" men.

We all may well ask: How did Les and Nick get a license to use our most influential office (Editor of The Banner) to promote their purely private, non-Biblical, socio-political bag of goods, to a Church that still obeys only the Word of God?

Italics mine.

[Signature]
Leo Peters