Letter to the Editor

A New Community 

H. Harold Hartzler 
Retired Professor, 
Mankato State University 
5950 W. Missouri #166 Glendale, AZ 85301

From: PSCF 42 (December 1990): 272.

The autobiographical statement by Robert John Russell in the September 1990 issue of Perspectives was superb. His statement concerning his central beliefs about God is one of the best I have ever read. I wish to quote from the last sentence about his beliefs in God.  

I believe in a God whose spirit abides with us as counselor, comforter and teacher, who reveals the truth of all that we know and discover, who nourishes our soul with forgiveness, our minds with knowledge, our hearts with wisdom, our bodies with food, shelter and clothing, and who walks with us through the terror of death and dying into life everlasting. 

Yet he admits that he struggles with the meaning of these core beliefs. He states that unless we are prepared to have our views falsified, we cannot claim that they grasp something deeply true about reality. 

I know something of the terror of death, having lost my wife a little over a year ago and more recently having experienced the death of my brother-in-law. The entire article by Russell states quite explicitly the over-all working of the ASA as we have struggled with problems relating science and faith over a period of 50 years. 

Russell says that we are moving toward a new community. He further states that science has brought both greater knowledge and more staggering moral and spiritual challenges to our age than any other system of thought in human history. Could it be true that we are only just now beginning a long road ahead? Russell feels that to be the case.