WHERE'S THE BAR?
The latest issue of RW arrived in my mail yesterday. I always look forward to receiving it. It is an excellent publication and serves an important function in the Reformed church world.
I notice a shift that seems to have taken place in the last few issues. The color code on the outside edge of the magazine has been missing. What happened to it? Did it get left off inadvertently or is this omission by design?
Since this is a quarterly, I would urge that the color code be restored. The quarterly feature allows the issues to be easily identified according to the Christian year. I have all the issues on my shelf and can easily pick out the season I wish to review by the code—without conducting a time-consuming search.
Keep up the good work, and make it even better than it has been recently by restoring the color code!
Al Hoksbergen
Spring Lake, Michigan
FIRST ROUTLEY, NOW RW
RW has been such a great encouragement. It's the only magazine I read from cover to cover every time it comes. Your commitment to excellence in worship really shines out. In particular, I found the article by John Haines ("Music Is the Rub," RW 35:32) to speak to the heart of the issues we are dealing with. I used to read a lot of Dr. Routley, but now I look to RW for leadership. Keep up the good work.
John Bennetch
McLean, VA
REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTIONS
Thank you for your sharing with us Abraham Kuyper's "reflections on kneeling" (RW 38:40) It seems to me—in this regard, as well as in his view of society—Kuyper may have shared somewhat the same view as did English John Henry Newman: a rather romantic harking back to the late medieval past, instead of to the early Christian world (as mentioned by James F. White, RW 38).
The Eastern Church today preserves the posture of standing for public prayer. In Roman and Anglican churches today, standing to receive the Sacrament appears to be increasingly common. In Presbytery meetings we stood to pray. At Princeton Seminary chapel services, Hungarian Bela Vasady always stood in prayer before seating himself in the pew.
Maybe kneeling in public worship was encouraged by medieval authorities to help inculcate an attitude of subservience. I cannot see my Scottish forebears kneeling in public. In an audience with President Clinton, would we kneel, or would we stand with our hats off?
Richard W. Hudelson
Holland MI