1921

I visited Mrs. S. today. She is suffering from cancer and will not live long. Her young grandson E. came home from high school just as I was leaving. He had a question for me. The Jewish boys at school told him Jesus was a bastard and Joseph was not his father. He also reported that they accused him of having two Gods instead of one. That dissolution of the Trinity into a dualism by high school boys interested me. Even boys seem to sense that if orthodox trinitarianism makes for polytheism it really suggests two gods rather than three. I chided E. for remembering so poorly what he had learned in the preparatory class and for being so irregular in church school where these problems are discussed. I went over some of the ideas on the humanity and the uniqueness of Jesus which we had discussed in the class.

Meanwhile I wished that I could talk to him alone without interference from grandma, who naïvely added her own theological mustard to the dish. It is no easy task to build up the faith of one generation and not destroy the supports of the religion of the other. But fortunately the old lady didn’t get what I was driving at and so didn’t interfere very seriously. She was thankful to me for straightening the young man out on his theology and seemed to think that I had settled all his difficulties by my few words. “Ich habe ihm gesagt, wart bis der Pastor kommt. Der wird dir alles erklaeren.” It isn’t a bad idea to find someone who has such confidence in you.