Monday, Nov. 15, 1954
The New Evangelist
Sir:
As a three-times-a-week churchgoer (Presbyterian) and a religious magazine editor, I'm so well inundated with religious topics that it takes a really outstanding report like yours on Baptist Billy Graham [TIME, Oct. 25] to bring forth a comment. It was splendid.
LLOYD HAMILL Los Angeles
Sir:
The blurb about Evangelist Graham is
another glaring example of the freedom of
the press. A cover picture and five pages of
nonsensical gush on an egotistical faker . . . TIME is becoming a pain in the neck.
STEPHEN FAIRCHILD
Fort Atkinson, Wis.
Sir:
Why doesn't someone get Billy Graham and Liberace teamed up together? . . .
HENRY WINDHAM Boise, Idaho
Sir:
Having personally embraced what Billy Graham preaches, I thank you for your reverent treatment of such a great man of God . . .
ARAM PHILIBOSIAN Denver
Sir:
The religious trumpeteering of Hollywoodish Billy Graham is a horrible contrast to the simple teachings of the Man of Galilee. Does anyone really know what Graham is saving us from or for?
BILL STALNAKER Houston
Sir:
I am not a religious person, and I'm afraid it has been a long time since I darkened the door of a church, but thank you, TIME, for recognizing that just because Billy Graham is a salesman, it doesn't mean he is insincere. And thank you too, for recognizing that beneath our outward veneer most of us are longing for something.
WESLEY MILLER Jersey City
Sir:
. . . Whatever the smug intellectuals think about Billy Graham it is clearly a fact that he indeed is inspired by and sustained by God . . .
R. SWAIN Los Angeles
Sir:
Thanks for that wonderful story . . . Billy Graham's converts are practical evidence that Christ is the hope of the world. We may not agree with [Graham] or recommend his methods, but as Christians, or non-Christians, we must admire the results . . .
JUNE Bos
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Sir:
. . . The stereotype for evangelists cannot be ascribed to this man. His sincerity and consecration are beyond reproach . . .
PHIL ESTY Athens, Ga.
Sir:
... I feel that Jesus would approve more wholeheartedly the selfless service to humanity of such a man as Dr. Albert Schweitzer . . . than He would Billy's personable brand of high-powered evangelism.
HENRY LASH Los Angeles
Eve & the Artists
Sir:
For your Billy Graham cover, I think Artist Chaliapin slipped on his Biblical background . . . "And the Lord said unto the Serpent . . . Upon thy belly shall thou go . . ." Your cover shows the serpent minus its legs, tempting Eve . . .
ABE MURRAY Ottawa, Ont.
P: I Reader Murray's herpetology is just as impressive as his exegesis: the serpent was cursed after the temptation but Chaliapin, in the tradition of most artists, chose to show the serpent the only way Adam's children have ever seen it.--ED.
Sir:
Re Chaliapin's background: For comparison, would you care to show your readers The Temptation of Eve by Michelangelo in the Sistine ceiling? . . .
VICTOR DI SUVERO
San Francisco
Stringfellow's Confession
Sir:
In the Oct. 25 issue of TIME you had two success stories. One was about Billy Graham, the other was about Douglas R. Stringfellow. Stringfellow's success rested on his claim to be a war hero. When the truth overtook his claim, his success was turned into tragedy. Graham's success is supported by his claim of being an instrument of the supernatural, or in his own words, "You can't explain me if you leave out the supernatural. I am but a tool of God." Graham's claim is far more fantastic than Stringfellow's. One wonders what the honest-to-goodness truth about his claim would do to his success.
(THE REV.) JOHN B. ISOM
First Unitarian Church Wichita, Kans.
Sir:
Re the Stringfellow incident. At first my reaction was as most people's--one of scorn and ridicule, another hoax unveiled, punish the beast . . . Yet . . . here was a person in this day and age admitting in a spirit of repentance that he was wrong . . . What a refreshing reversal of form to the common pattern of our day . . . True, Doug Stringfellow didn't capture the German physicist . . . but to me he remains a hero--he has captured a lost chord that is so essential to the creation of a constructive society . . . WILLIAM C. McCALMONT Bellflower, Calif.
How to Gowerize
Sir:
What a shame that your Oct. 25 review of The Complete Plain Words points out that Sir Ernest Gower's book became available from "Her Majesty's Stationery Office." So it did, but it also became available at the same time to American readers [as Plain Words], and can . . . easily be obtained here.
ALFRED KNOPF JR. Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York City
Friend of the Court
Sir:
Your writing off of the life of Justice Robert Jackson in your Oct. 18 issue is unfortunate in its conclusions: 1) that the Nuernberg trials were pretty farcical; 2) that Jackson never succeeded in expressing what he stood for. You reason that because Communist judges sat, and Communists have committed atrocities, that this invalidates the trials. Let me tell you that there is ample authority in the laws of any of the countries which sat to deal with murderers. That administration of justice in Russia is not all that could be desired does not invalidate the decision of the whole . . .
G. D. AUSTRIAN Ithaca, N.Y.
Sir:
... It would have been very satisfying to hang Stalin alongside Streicher, but it is a well-known principle of law that you don't let one murderer go free because another murderer is out of your power. And though it is obviously desirable to have judges of good character, I have never heard that the crimes of a judge invalidate the proceedings of his court . . . Justice Jackson's position had at least the virtue of recognizing that where crimes are committed, law and morality have a responsibility to discharge . . . ROBERT WARSHOW Associate Editor Commentary New York City
Hollywood Caliph
SIR:
RE THE NOV. I REVIEW "THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA" : IN THE NAME OF ALLAH THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL, O GREAT AND ALL-SEEING SPLENDID TIME, I WILL AGREE TO SEND YOU FORTHWITH A DANCING GIRL FROM ISPAHAN IF YOU CAN PROVE ONE SET USED IN "HAJJI BABA" WAS NOT DESIGNED AND BUILT ESPECIALLY FOR THIS LUSCIOUS PERSIAN CINEMASCOPE.
WALTER WANGER HOLLYWOOD
P: O.K. Can she type?--ED.
The Most Hated?
Sir:
It seems incomprehensible that TIME, Oct. 25 could refer to Daniel Malan as "the most hated man in [South] Africa, etc." I refute this flagrant untruth. He has . . . been elected to power repeatedly. After all, the people could have chosen an arrogant Englishman, but they didn't . . .
T. TROUWER Chilliwack, B.C.
Sir:
Being a South African, I was very disappointed in your article . . . Why you should adopt this biased and unjustified attitude towards a man and a political party striving to preserve "white" civilization on a dark continent is beyond comprehension . . . The role of the white man in South Africa is that of a Christian guardian to the black people, who are, on the whole, a backward and unambitious race . . .
OWEN J. STUBBS Guelph, Ont.
P: TIME weighed the feelings of the "backward and unambitious" nine-tenths of South Africa's population, who never got the chance to vote for Malan.--ED.
Bread, Stones & Toynbee (Contd.)
Sir:
Thanks for the Oct. 18 review of Arnold J. Toynbee's monumental A Study of History . . . TIME quotes Toynbee as saying that if to be a Christian is to believe that Christianity "possesses a monopoly of the Divine Light . . . then I am not entitled to call myself a Christian." It would seem apparent that Mr. Toynbee truly sees that "spiritual progress will incidentally bring mundane progress in its train."
BEATRICE P. WYNN Covina Highlands, Calif.
New Directions
Sir:
Your articles about Riesman, Brando and Toynbee have illuminated one of the cancers which is destroying our American society--this cancer being the psychological norm. We are afraid to be different since we might be called neurotic or "crazy." We are afraid to live according to our Judeo-Christian-Buddhist principles since such an infinitesimal number live in this way. I hope your articles have restored sight to the blind . . .
DAVID LURIE Northfield, Minn.
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