Letters to the editor

Earlier Perkins students work for civil rights, too
Chuck Merrill is to be congratulated on his 2005 Martin Luther King Award, but the event he describes doesn’t go without precedent (“Image of Martin Luther King leads us toward justice,” Jan. 13).
I arrived at Perkins School of Theology on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas in September 1954. I was no sooner settled into my room when Cecil Williams and Negail Riley told us white seminarians about a march on the Melba theater. The march was to be an attempt to desegregate Dallas theaters.
We gathered at the theater a couple of hours before opening with our picket signs. A large crowd had gathered, with a large police presence. The event was totally nonviolent. It seemed as if we had made our point.
The next day the half dozen white seminarians, along with the black seminarians, were called to the dean of students’ office. Each of us was told that what we had done was a disgrace to the Perkins name and to the school and that if we ever did anything like that again, we would be expelled.
This reaction has affected by feelings toward Perkins as my alma mater.
I’m thankful Chuck Merrill didn’t have this experience, but perhaps it laid some precedent for those who followed us.
David A. “Tony” Brantley
San Antonio

Christians must believe Bible to live victoriously
Dan Adams said that he didn’t commit himself unconditionally to any book, including the Bible, and that the Bible “represents a human search for the holy and transcendent” (“Bible represents human search for holy, transcendent,” Dec. 23).
In Psalm 43 King David requests two things from God. David wanted God to give him his word (truth) and an ability to understand it (light).
I believe that those saved by Christ must come to the point where we trust God totally to live victoriously in this life and the next. The Bible is the source of tangible truth.
Reliance on self or self-perspective will come up short every time. God’s word is infallible and trustworthy. It is the source of God’s personal promises to believers. To deny it is to deprive self.
Nancy Burdine
San Antonio

I’m inclined to think Bible doesn’t tell infallible truth
I read J. David Trawick’s comments in “Until we agree on Bible, we’ll remain house divided” (Dec. 9).
I suspect the difference between my belief about the Bible and his is that I don’t believe God wrote the Bible.
I don’t know how you choose between these two views. Whatever we choose could be wrong.
In Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich says, “Biblical research in Protestantism has shown … the impossibility of considering the Bible as containing infallible truth of faith.”
Maybe Tillich is very wrong, and Mr. Trawick is very right. But I’m inclined to believe Tillich is right.
James J. Billings
Las Cruces, N.M.