1958. Ignorant Intelligentsia. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. 4–5. Jul 4
Ignorant Intelligentsia
The other night I was watching a TV show. Three persons were
presented, each claiming to be a certain individual. This night each of them claimed
to be a man who had spent sixteen years in prison for a murder he had not committed.
During this time he had begun to study for the ministry; and when the real murderer
was discovered, the innocent man was released and became a Presbyterian minister.
The rules of the show are that the one person must tell the truth but that the two
fakes need not tell the truth. A panel of four distinguished people question the
three and try to decide which claimant is telling the truth.
One of the panel members addressed a question to number one:
Does the Presbyterian church have communion? Number one said, No. The panel member
then asked the same question of number three, and received the same answer. After
several minutes of other questions by all the members of the panel, they voted as
to which one was the innocent man who was now a Presbyterian minister.
Since it is to the financial advantage of the three to appear
to be the true party, for the more wrong votes on the panel the more money they
all get, the two fakes will try to give correct answers so far as they know them.
Obviously therefore numbers one and three did not know enough about Presbyterians
to say that they have communion services. This is rather deep ignorance, but no
doubt it is quite easy to find on the streets of New York many men who know just
about nothing of Presbyterianism or Protestantism as a whole.
But there is something more amazing. The panel members are supposed
to be extremely intelligent. They are chosen for their brilliance and wide experience.
And yet three of the four panelists did not vote for number two. The three voted
for either number one or number three, both of whom had said that Presbyterians
have no communion service.
Ignorant intelligensia. Pagan America. Ineffective preaching
of the gospel.
— G.H.C.
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