Here’s some news from the Lone Star State. The Longhorn band is refusing to play “The Eyes of Texas.” It seems the song’s author, John Sinclair, writing in 1903, used a phrase UT’s president William Prather often said to the students, “the eyes of Texas are upon you,” meaning the people of Texas were expecting great things of the students. But—and here’s the bugaboo—the phrase was adapted from one Prather recalled Washington and Lee College president Robert E. Lee using, “the eyes of the south are upon you.” Hence, the objection.
Now for something completely different. A digression, as it were.
Way back when I graduated from seminary you couldn’t consider your study of a New Testament passage done (or started, perhaps) until you had consulted Kittel? For the innocent, I refer to the eight volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament that explored the background and use of every significant Greek word in the New Testament—and there were a lot. I even asked Pat to buy the set for me, one volume at a time, birthday, then Christmas, then anniversary. I made it to three volumes when I decided I could head to the West Texas State library to use their set—and enjoy a greater variety of gifts, gifts that didn’t tax our budget quite as much. No doubt there’s been a lot of preaching made to sound deep because of Kittel’s editorial efforts. Anyway, maybe I wasn’t paying attention when this was discussed in my classes, but I’ve discovered Gerhard Kittel was a flaming Nazi. (He had a really nasty opinion of Jews.) I can’t imagine our seminaries making a bonfire of the volumes, though I’m sure there are online resources to compete with the big blue books. More important, I’m encouraged to believe that someday the truly valuable work of some pastors and educators will be remembered when their political follies are long forgotten. Just a thought.
