Post: Readers Respond

Thanks for the Summer issue. I always look forward to and enjoy receiving [Pietisten]. Also, thanks for the letter welcoming me to Pennsylvania. Chet Nelson, Port Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Thanks again for another year of a unique periodical. I especially enjoyed Paul Sonnack’s article in the most recent issue.

Enclosed please find my renewal and a little something extra for that Mac. Blessings. Chuck Wahlstrom, Lakebay, Washington.

I appreciated the article by Paul Sonnack “Pietism and the Modern Church.” My grandfather, Albert Olson, was a Hauge Lutheran pastor which made this article very real to me. Having been baptized a Hauge, in the Covenant for fifty years, and now an Episcopalian, I have observed a stress on having a personal relationship with Christ along with the Word and Sacrament. Monroe Olson, Sarasota, Florida.

Your summer issue of Pietisten was the best issue that I’ve read. I especially liked the Bach article, the India Report, Extensive Grace, and of course, the fine story on [the Managing Editor’s] son’s wedding. Duffy was also a very poignant article. It reminded me of a cat named Blackie that I loved dearly when I was a teenager.

Congratulations again on this superb publication. Happy Days and God’s continuous blessings to all involved in Pietisten. Robert Florin, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

To the Editor: As a two time reader of the A.N. Wilson book on Jesus, I would like to nominate the following paragraph (p. 252, hardback) as Wilson’s best word on his subject:

The truth is, that Jesus remains too disturbing a figure ever to be left to himself. Christianity in all its multifarious manifestations, Orthodox and heterodox, has been a repeated attempt to make sense of him, to cut him down to size. The extent to which no saying or story of Jesus can, in fact, be taken to its logical conclusion without being contradicted by some other saying or fact is perhaps less a symptom of how imperfectly the Gospels record him than how oblique and how terrifying a figure he actually was in history. Terrifying, because he really does undermine everything . . . .

We can accept some Church version of Jesus, or if it makes more appeal to us, we can accept a “heretic” version; or we can make one up by ourselves. A patient and conscientious reading of the Gospels will always destroy any explanation which we devise. If it makes sense, it is wrong. That is the only reliable rule-of-thumb which we can use when testing the innumerable interpretations of Jesus’s being and his place in human history.

The Lake Swanzey Theological Association had a wonderful time with Wilson’s book over Labor Day. G. Timothy Johnson, Wayland, Massachusetts.

Greetings. Of all the folks mentioned on the most recent Pietisten masthead, you [Nels Elde, Associate Editor] seemed the most likely to be on the Net, given the editor’s note on the last page. Is there going to be a Pietisten Web site (I actually asked Phil this in a letter a while ago, when I renewed, but until now I thought I was just being humorous)? Barring that, perhaps the editors ought to include their e-mail addresses. Best wishes. Owen Youngman, Chicago, Illinois (via the Internet).

Pietisten’s e-mail address is pietist@mtn.org. Look for a Pietisten Homepage in the near future. — Ed.

. . . do I detect rancor in the ranks of the pietistic? I note T. Tredway’s carping letter and his astonishing challenge of the credentials of the poetry and navigation editor. Have you fallen from grace on account of your, in his view, “seduction?” (I wondered if that comment about lack of scientific standards was meant to apply to the reading of poetry as well as to navigation . . .)

Well, I liked the editor’s reply . . . and his wife’s spirited defense. But who is this distinguished alumna whose snookered company you now join, am I supposed to be in on this? Puzzled Reader

I enjoy Pietisten very much as it reaches down into my roots. I just translated a couple of pages from a History of the Mission Society in Jönköping. It talks of Prosten [Priest] Strand—pastor and later Bishop of Habo church [on the west side of Lake Vannern]. He was a member of the first Board of the Mission Society and was a brother of my great-grandfather, Mr. Jonson, who lived with my grandparents (the Claus August Youngquists) in North Park—first where Old Main stands and later across the street.

Keep up the good work. Let me know when my subscription is up. Kenneth Strom, Denver, Colorado.

I loved [Max Carlson’s] drawing of Jesus on water skis—I often describe the state in which I am in water skiing terms. . . . Please tell him for me that I am his fan and that, with his permission, I am going to copy his opera article for my students. Harriet Rosenberg, Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.