CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE Salt'Sea Talks New York, N.Y. To the Editors: You have done an important public service in publishing the excellent article by Professor John Logue on "The Salt Talks and the...
...Or will Christianity remain a haven for those who want the comfort of a commitment to the loving Jesus without the discomfort of a commitment to help and share with their fellowman, a platitude to justify selfinterest, with love distorted into the self-righteous duty to save the world for our own personal salvation, becoming a force for evil rather than good...
...The endless, specious arguments between pro- and anti-abortionists serve, merely to solidify these positions, while obscuring the one approach on which the majority could agree—cooperative efforts to reduce the need for aibortions...
...Can Christianity find a broader criterion for morality that will bring goodness closer to the loving that frees others from selfconcern to love in their turn, as Jesus did...
...ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT Close Calls Wausau, Wise...
...By exercising his freedom to choose, man becomes responsible for good and evil and can never be free of this responsibility to live the childlike existence of Eden...
...The people are demanding it...
...A state senator said to me several months ago with regard to capital punishment, "We do not know if it is a deterrent or not, but we have to do something...
...In an era in which good and evil are both hidden behind public relations platitudes and emotional appeals to self-righteous rationalizing, we long for a less complicated world in which good and evil $% as easily identifiable as the good says in white and the bad guys in black in Star Wars...
...Thus, in our outrage at violence, we collaborate with it and encourage it...
...We want to be rescued, taken into a world of beuty with a minimum of self-sacribe by a mysterious force we intui|Py respond to as good, enabling us triumph over the experts and auThrities who tell us what we should is while relieving us of all responsibeuty for good and evil without the intellectual effort required to distinguish good from evil...
...I expect that this kind of desperation and frustration lies at the base of much popular and legislative support of executions...
...to the Editors: Your Jan...
...Can Christian love become the impetus for a sharing, cooperating world...
...marilyn kramer ______Death on Demand_______ Raleigh, N.C...
...If more publications would undertake to break the conspiracy of silence that has befogged the Law of the Sea conference perhaps a "real common heritage treaty" could emerge...
...We do not know how many murders are motivated by a desire to destroy themselves, but there have been studies which document increases in homicide rates before and after highly publicized executions...
...Having followed the issues involved in the Law of the Sea conference since Ambassador Pardo first showed me his proposal before his famous speech in 1967, I can testify that Professor Logue is not overestimating the importance of those issues...
...To the Editors: The article by Sister Lois Spear in the November 25 issue underscores one of the frequently neglected arguments against the death penalty, namely, that it most probably induces some persons to murder...
...Father Greeley should have asked whether Christian theology and liturgy will be able to make Christians aware of the awesome mystery and paradox of this gift and give us the sense of direction, purpose, and humility to discern and follow goodness without creating a crutch, a fantasy, escapism, that allows us to avoid responsibility for good and evil...
...We want to blame evil on an outside force...
...To the Editors: You have done an important public service in publishing the excellent article by Professor John Logue on "The Salt Talks and the Salt Water Talks" [Feb...
...In the face of incidents like this, it is hard to see how proponents of the death penalty can continue to believe that it is effective as a deterrent...
...Cooperative efforts on hunger and poverty are encouraging, but certainly Christianity is failing to meet this challenge in the abortion issue...
...But it is very late indeed...
...Shortly after the publication of her article, Daniel Webster, one of the inmates of North Carolina's death row, took his own life with a razor blade, dramatically illustrating his own suicidal drive [News & Views, Dec...
...But, we cannot discharge this responsibility without the knowledge of good and evil, and the traditionalists' claim to this knowledge is being seriously challenged by those who clearly see the evil in the unloving consequences of what the traditionalists call good...
...6 editorial, "Too Close Encounters" overlooked the significance of the emotional appeal Star Wars and Close Encounters had for some viewers...
...COLLINS KILBURN Director of Social Ministries North Carolina Council of Churches 159...
...but when good gave man the cato love and the freedom to choose to love or not to love, man 131 lost forever the fairy tale land of Eden...
Vol. 105 • March 1978 • No. 5
