Page 6309 – Christianity Today (2024)

Eugene Peaco*ck

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The Methodist Church is engaged in a mammoth campaign to raise money for the support of its more than 100 colleges and universities. Something of the scale of the campaign is revealed by the goal of 5 million dollars set for Methodists in the one state of Alabama. The breakdown of this goal to local levels is suggested in the goal of $36,000-plus assigned to the one church served by the writer. The immense denominational machinery of Methodism with its customary efficiency is rapidly transmuting the goals into quotas, and pastors and laymen are busily engaged in securing pledges to assure the quotas.

The justification for this campaign for funds for colleges and universities related to the church is found in the phrase Christian higher education. Like most other private institutions, Methodist church-related institutions of higher education have been caught in the squeeze between inflation and increased enrollment. Substantial increases in financial resources are essential if these institutions are to provide for growing student bodies and maintain high academic qualifications.

The same economic facts of life that affect the educational institutions also affect the local church. There are problems of post-war inflation, enlarged budgets, and new building programs to accommodate growing memberships. It is understandable, therefore, that many Methodists are closely scrutinizing the word Christian in the phrase “Christian higher education.” Taking their cue from John Wesley, founder of Methodism, the Methodists have entered more extensively into the field of higher education than any other Protestant denomination. They have done so because they believe that Christian education incorporates something distinctively valuable, something necessarily lacking in secular higher education whether public or private.

More and more church members, however, have developed an uneasy suspicion that this distinctive element in church-related institutions of higher education is much less obvious than they wish. They question the soundness of their investment in the field of higher education in colleges and universities which, if their suspicion is justified, simply reproduce or duplicate the kind of higher education available in secular educational institutions.

COLLEGE AND CHURCH

This raises anew the question, What is an institution of Christian higher education? What is the obligation of such an institution to the church whose name and sponsorship the institution claims? The president of one church-related college told the writer that his duty, as he sees it, is to administer the highest quality academic program his college can provide. He went on to say that the academic program should include elementary courses in the Bible and in religious education but that the obligation to the church did not extend beyond that point. He was firm in his insistence that the college should not be an evangelistic agency or engage in social crusades.

To the writer such circ*mscription as this cannot be regarded as a satisfactory description of any Christian community. Certainly, the educational function is primary to any institution of higher education. But a church-related college which professes to be engaged in Christian higher education, implies a Christian community devoted primarily to education. This primary purpose, however, cannot exclude other basic characteristics of a Christian community without seriously damaging the community or even destroying its distinctive character. While the Christian institution of higher education must properly keep its educational purpose foremost, it must not exclude or minimize its involvement with the Christian faith and the Christian tradition and their basic components and concerns.

The Christian community, whatever its central concern, will also be concerned with the Christian faith and its correct interpretation through the biblical revelation and sound doctrine. The Christian community will be concerned with the Christian ethic and its implications for the individual and society. The Christian community will be concerned for the human soul and its relationship to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. These basic concerns are minimum delineations of any Christian community irrespective of the special purpose for which it may be formed.

FAITH AND FREEDOM

It has been argued, and is argued still, that no educational institution can commit itself to such a posture as that indicated above without imposing restrictions on academic freedom and encroaching on the academic integrity of the institution. This argument assumes that an educational institution can be operated without a basic commitment which envelops it within a faith-context. It is obvious that a pluralistic society cannot permit its publicly-supported educational institutions to commit themselves to sectarian religious posture. It is fallacious to assume, however, that some kind of commitment can be avoided. The secularistic assumptions which lie behind the public educational institutions comprise as definite a commitment to a world-view as does the word Christian in the term “Christian higher education.” The choice is not between commitment and no commitment. The choice is whether the commitment shall be made to this or that world-view. The church-related institution by its very nature is committed to a Christian world view.

This commitment on the part of the church-related college does not entail limitations on academic freedom or integrity, but it does entail the acceptance of the total responsibility of a Christian community. It does require, for instance, that the leadership both in administration and faculty shall be of persons committed to the Christian faith and life. While there may be no Christian physics or chemistry, there are Christian professors of physics and chemistry. Any educational process extends far beyond the classroom and the laboratory into the realm of human relations. It is in this extended area that the church-related college finds its distinction and this is a distinction which cannot be maintained unless the leadership of the community is unashamedly Christian.

In the scramble for academically-qualified faculty personnel, this factor tends to be neglected. A faculty member in a church-related college acknowledged during religious emphasis week that, although he had taught in this college for several years, he was a man without a faith. On the same campus more than one student in private interviews stated that they had lost their faith since coming to the college and had found no one to guide them toward new faith. When I cited these cases to one administrator in a church-related college and also reported some instances where, to my knowledge, certain young men had been influenced to abandon their call to the ministry, he evaded the issue by saying that all the students had been exposed to family and local church influences for at least 18 years before coming to college, and he added positively that the college is an educational, not an evangelistic, institution. Such a reply simply evades the total responsibility of a Christian community.

Similar issues arise when one reviews the relationship between church-related college and the sponsoring institution. Admittedly, denominational support for church-related colleges has often been something less than generous, although this situation is now steadily improving. Nevertheless, the college that goes under the banner of a Christian denomination and appeals for support to the members of the denomination on the basis that it is “your Christian college” incurs obligations to the sponsoring denomination. Among these obligations is due regard for the theological and ethical posture of the denomination. That this obligation is frequently ignored or glossed over is a fact well known to those acquainted with the church-related college. A case in point is that of a church-related college that severely reprimanded five male students, three of them candidates for full-time service in the sponsoring denomination, for attending interracial meetings, and threatened the students with expulsion in the event they attended other such meetings or engaged in interracial activities. Their action was in harmony with the stated position of the denomination on interracial affairs and likewise of its general board of education.

TIME FOR EXAMINATION

We are not suggesting a spate of witch hunts and heresy trials on the campuses of church-related colleges. Church and college alike usually come off badly when such actions are prosecuted. We are suggesting rather that the churches and the church-related colleges make forthright and frank evaluations of their mutual responsibilities to each other and that the church-related institution of higher education explore fully the implication, in terms of the Christian community, of the word Christian in the designation “Christian higher education.” If this is to be interpreted, as seems to be the case in a number of instances, as meaning liberal education of a high academic quality with a rather casual bow in the direction of the church, then the church-related college can hardly justify its appeal for support on the basis of its distinction as a Christian institution, for this may describe some publicly-supported institutions and any number of private, non-church-related institutions. The only real reason for the existence of the church-related college is its distinctively Christian character. In these times of resurgent paganism, the need for Christian higher education assumes new and urgent proportion. Let church and college draw closer to each other to assure that this need will not go unmet.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

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Wilbur M. Smith

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During the First World War, the fortress of Verdun was fiercely attacked by the Germans, and for two years they threw division after division of troops against this pivotal defense of the Allies. A million soldiers lost their lives, but the fortress held, and the brave French resistance gave rise to the motto, “They shall not pass.” So long as Verdun remained unconquered by the Germans, there was hope for the Allied cause, and, finally, the assurance of ultimate victory.

No one questions the fact that the Christian faith during the last 50 years has been under more terrific attack than at any time since the cessation of persecution in the early centuries. As Archbishop Garbett said in his notable work, In An Age of Revolution, “The advances made in scientific knowledge, the results of Biblical criticism, and the mental and spiritual disturbance caused by the wars, have shaken the traditional beliefs and customs.… There is more open and aggressive atheism than at any other period of human history. In Russia, in Germany, in France, and in many of the central European and Balkan nations, Christianity is treated either with hatred or contempt. Far more general is the attitude of almost complete indifference to religion and ignorance of its nature. Except for occasions such as baptisms, marriages, and funerals, the ordinary man has little contact with the church or its ministers.”

Though one confesses this with grief, all men—whether Christians or pagans, believers or scoffers—must recognize that the Christian faith is counting for less and less with the passing of each successive decade. I am referring here to conditions in general. We must not see world conditions through the spectacles of some local, evangelically-active area, such as Southern California, or perhaps the church life of the Twin Cities. Maritain has said, “It is not Europe alone, it is the world, it is the whole world which must now resolve the problem of civilization” (The Twilight of Civilization, 1944, p. 64). Attacks upon the Christian faith are being projected from almost every major area of life, even from the area of ecclesiasticism.

THE COMMUNIST THREAT

First, we must reckon with this hideous monster that has arisen in our century to threaten the liberties of man and challenge the whole free world, namely, communism. I know that people grow weary of hearing this word, but we must face the facts. Communism is not simply anti-Christian, it is anti-God. It is atheistic and vigorously so. The Soviet Encyclopedia goes so far as to say that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. There are 200,000,000 people today in the Union of Soviet Republics. There are 630,000,000 people in Communist China. This makes a total of 830,000,000 people who are consistently exposed to anti-God propaganda. Yet this virus of communism is in the vitals of all nations, more or less. It is vigorously being propagated in Japan. It is blatantly arrogant in our own country. Some of its principles infiltrate many of our textbooks. We are now on the verge of a great student exchange movement, when thousands of our college students will be studying in Russia, and thousands of Russian students will be studying in this country. The day is not far off when we are going to be challenged with the atheism of these Communistic nations more directly than most people today dream.

SCIENCE AND AGNOSTICISM

In the second place, modern science—fascinating, indispensable, exciting in its discoveries, and more and more dominating every department of life—is today, for the most part, totally indifferent to the Christian faith. I believe one is safe in saying that not 10 per cent of the outstanding scientists of our nation are Trinitarians today. I have not yet shaken off the sense of shock which recently came to me in reading a new volume titled Science Ponders Religion, edited by the distinguished astronomer of Harvard University, Professor Harlow Shapley. Eighteen well-known scientists of our country, some now in the prime of life, almost all of them with distinguished careers in teaching in our larger colleges and universities, attempt in this book to set forth their conceptions of religion. Let us remember these men are not purposely attacking Christianity. They are not writing from Moscow, but from the United States. And yet not one of these scientists confesses that he believes in a personal, sovereign, omnipotent God, nor does one of them confess to any sure hope of personal life after death. Not only is their own position agnostic, but they frankly say they represent a true cross-section of what scientists today think about religion, and I am quite sure that in this they are correct. As Dr. Leslie Newbigin has said, “The typical and dominant scientific man of the West is to a large extent alienated from the Christian tradition. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the fact that at the moment when the scientific culture, which was formed within the Western Christian tradition, has achieved world-wide expansion and dominance, its unity with the supernatural faith in which it was begotten has disintegrated” (“Summons to Christian Mission Today” in the International Review of Missions, Apr., 1959, p. 178).

PHILOSOPHICAL UNBELIEF

Modern philosophy is more outspoken than science in its antagonism to the Christian faith. A recent volume by the German scholar Dr. I. M. Bochenski, Contemporary European Philosophy, reinforces the impression that the philosophers who have exercised the greatest influence over the world of thought since the dawn of this century are all atheists, with possibly one exception, Whitehead, and he was by no means a Trinitarian. In this volume, the modern philosophers are introduced by a chapter on Bertrand Russell. This is followed by one on the Italian, Benedetto Croce, emphatically atheistic. Next follows John Dewey, who exercised such a pernicious influence over modern American education, and who once wrote that the greatest hindrance to the progress of modern man was his belief in the supernatural. Then there is a chapter on Martin Heidegger, of whom a contemporary professor of philosophy has recently said, “He regards the atheism of Nietzsche and Marx as a salutary attempt to purge us of idols.” And last comes Jean-Paul Sartre, the most vigorous atheistic philosopher of our day. It is not necessary to add that in the realm of psychology the most profoundly influential in this department has been Freud, who scoffed at the very idea of the existence of a personal God.

In 1951, The New York Times had a remarkable article on the 100 greatest books of the preceding century. Careful study of these authors, however, would reveal that not more than eight of them could be called Christian, and they were not among the most influential. More than half were deliberately and vigorously antagonistic to Christian principles.

UNBELIEF WITHIN THE CHURCH

Moreover, while unbelief multiplies on every hand, in Christian as well as Muslim countries, the Church itself is being tragically weakened by betrayal from within. Two most recent illustrations of this will suffice.

Probably during the last 30 years, the outstanding single ecclesiastic in The Methodist Church has been Bishop G. Bromley, who retired from the active bishopric only last year. He has been chairman (1939–44) of the Division of Educational Institutions for the Board of Education of The Methodist Church; from 1940 to 1948, in the same great denomination, he was chairman of the Commission on Public Relations and Methodist Information; while for eight years, 1944–52, he was president of its Division of Foreign Missions. For many years, he was chairman of the Methodist Commission on Chaplains. Bishop Oxnam also was on the Board of Trustees of numerous educational institutions and was the president of the Board of Trustees of Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D. C. He was a professor in the University of Southern California, and also in the Boston University School of Theology, and president of DePauw University for eight years. He has been a bishop in The Methodist Church since 1936 and has served as president of the Council of Bishops. In addition to the highest possible offices in his own denomination, he was president of the Federal Council of Churches from 1944 to 1946, and president of the World Council of Churches, 1948–1954. In his book, Testament of Faith (Boston, 1958), he not only ridicules the idea of the Virgin Birth and scoffs at biblical inspiration, but he emphatically repudiates even such a truth as the atoning work of Jesus Christ our Lord. “I have never been able to carry the idea of justice to the place where someone else can vicariously pay for what I have done in order to clean the slate” (p. 38). “They argue that God sent His own Son who died upon the cross and in so doing, satisfies God’s sense of legislative justice. It simply does not make sense to me. It is rather an offense. It offends my moral sense” (p. 41). “Must God have a sacrifice, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as the Book says? No, no, I cannot think of it this way” (p. 42). And what is the bishop going to do with his sins? He tells us, “I cannot see forgiveness as predicted upon the act of someone else. It is my sin. I must atone” (p. 144).

More recently, Bishop James A. Pike of the Protestant Episcopal Church, bishop of the Diocese of California, in an article in The Christian Century (Dec. 21, 1960) says of the Virgin Birth: “I am inclined to believe it is a myth.” On the work of the Holy Spirit, he says: “I no longer regard grace or the work of the Holy Spirit as limited explicitly to the Christian revelation.” Of the Bible, he says, “It came along as a sort of Reader’s Digest anthology.” But it is on the great doctrine of the Trinity that he most blatantly reveals his unbelief. “Take the Trinity—a doctrinal formulation which I did not question ten years ago.… I can’t see its permanent value.… I see nothing in the Bible, as critically viewed, which supports this particularly weak and unintelligible philosophical organization of the nature of God.” “In other words I believe totally in that which the formula is seeking to express; my belief is in God, not in men’s formulae about Him.” Like Bishop Oxnam, Bishop Pike has been active in educational work.

The terrible significance of these denials of basic Christian truths is the more ominous in that the respective churches of these ecclesiastical leaders are so silent about it all. I do not know of one official organization in the whole of Methodism, or any group of ecclesiastical leaders within that church, that has had the courage (or even the desire) to speak out publicly and forcefully against such repudiations of the faith. Some Episcopal clergymen have recently declared publicly their full support of Bishop Pike. If bishops may deny the Faith, then certainly the clergy have the same privilege. Indeed, for the sake of harmony, why may not the day soon be upon us in which the bishop will urge his clergy to stand with him in his opposition to biblically-revealed truth? And, if those who are the ordained teachers and preachers of the Holy Scriptures no longer believe in the divine origin and absolute authority of the Word of God, surely the laity need not believe, and unless some other more wholesome influences are at work in their hearts and minds, they most certainly will not believe.

The emphasis on myth, which has so powerfully gripped theologians on both sides of the Atlantic and has penetrated into many pulpits of the continent, of course destroys confidence in and even need for the actuality of New Testament events which the Church has always considered undeniably historic. Modern man is not going to come under any conviction of his need of salvation through Jesus Christ if he can reduce the crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension to mythological nomenclature.

Some denominations, by their own authorized and widely-distributed Sunday school literature, and study-books assigned for teaching in church organizations, are sowing seeds of doubt as to the truthfulness of many supernatural events in the Gospels. I have before me one on the Gospel of John which, in referring to the raising of Lazarus, says that this record may have four different interpretations, of which the view that it was an historical event is dismissed as the least valid! Other than that, it might be taken as just a piece of fiction, or a misinterpretation, or a parable. Young people, mastering the laws of chemistry, biology, and physics, are not going to find the gospel of Christ powerfully appealing to them if they are being taught that what the New Testament sets forth is to be considered as superstition, or as spiritual truths couched in historical form but all the while decidedly unacceptable as history.

The Bible is the Verdun of the Christian Church. Unless there is a definite reversal of the more powerful currents in modern thought, the Christian Church may have to contend with a condition of universal repudiation of the pre-ëminence and authority of the Scriptures, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and his salvation, and of belief in the eternal, omnipotent, sovereign God.

THE BIBLICAL WARNING

Yet, such a situation as this, of fierce antagonisms against our faith, need not take us wholly by surprise if we are careful students of the Word of God. The Apostle Paul said that Satan, the god of this world, has blinded the minds of men (2 Cor. 4:7). Our Lord warned us again and again that there would come, with particular power at the end of the age, false prophets, false Christs, and false teachers (Matt. 24:11, 24; 2 Pet. 2:1). In fact, so the New Testament tells us, it is Satan who has deceived the whole world (Rev. 12:9; 20:3, 8, 10). Our Lord said that though he spoke the truth and was the Truth, Satan was a liar and the father of lies (see John 8:40–46; 15:26; 16:7, 13). There is the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error, and these two must ever be in conflict. Indeed, said the Apostle Paul, at the end of this age men would turn from sound doctrine and follow those who preached flattering and false gospels (2 Tim. 4:1–4).

Now we might well ask ourselves the question: Well, what of it? What if faith in the Bible does go? What it believing Christ to be the Son of God and the Saviour of men is to be, for the most part, erased from the convictions of humanity—what difference does it make?

First of all, let men lose confidence in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures and we lose any satisfying knowledge of the true and living God. No religion in this world or philosophy or science dare talk to us with evidence about a God of love, and a God of holiness, except that religion which is built upon the Bible. Our Lord said those who have seen him have seen the Father also. I remember when the atomic bomb was first exploded. Dr. Compton said, “Now we know there is a God.” What nuclear fission has to do with a knowledge of God, I wouldn’t know, but in all the years since none of these physicists, to the best of my knowledge, are echoing Dr. Compton’s words.

Secondly, without faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, men will not have and cannot have a Saviour from sin who can make men walk in the liberty of the children of God, who is able to reconcile men unto God, and who can deliver them from the wrath to come. How foolish did so great a man as Emerson appear when more than 100 years ago he talked about looking for a new great Saviour from the West! The tragedy today is that most men don’t even believe that we need a Saviour; they think we need nobody but ourselves. Indeed with the loss of the living conviction of a sovereign and holy God, and of life after death, the sense of the very need of a Saviour disappears too.

Thirdly, without Jesus Christ, no man has any adequate reason for real hope for the future. Our Bible talks about the day when God is going to make this an earth of righteousness, when sin will be judged, when the supernatural enemies of mankind will forever be put away, when the dead in Christ shall be raised, shall be in the presence of God and possessed with eternal life. These are the things that will go if Christ goes. It has always been true, it is true today, and it will forever be true, that men without Christ are without hope in this world (Eph. 2:12).

Is it not also true that if the Christian faith goes, along with the highest ethical principles ever known on earth, even those restraints that still exist, which tend to make men decent, honest, and truthful, will be removed, and we are already as lawless in thought and deed as we dare to be? Even such an atheist as Bertrand Russell would testify to this. In his lectures at Columbia University, which were published under the title The Impact of Science on Society, he apologetically confesses that the only hope for the world is in what is called Christian love. These are his words: “The things that it (our age) must avoid and that have brought it to the brink of catastrophe are cruelty, envy, greed, competitiveness, search for irrational subjective certainty, and what Freudians call the death wish. The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it, for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean—please forgive me for mentioning it—is love, Christian love, or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an impressive necessity for intellectual honesty. If you feel this, you have all that anybody should need in the way of religion. Although you may find happiness, you will never know the deep despair of those whose life is aimless and void of purpose; for there is always something that you can do to diminish the awful sum of human misery” (pp. 59 f.) And from what source does “Christian love” derive? It comes from faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, and is revealed fully and truly only in the Holy Scriptures.

In saying that full confidence in the divine origin of the Bible and faith in the Word of God are being erased in our desperately critical and convulsive mid-twentieth century life is not to say, however, that the Word of God is itself in danger of being extinguished. The all-powerful and eternal God himself has said, “I watch over my word to perform it” (Jer. 1:12). The Lord Jesus said that though “heaven and earth will pass away … my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). I believe that! Peter was right that “the grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:24, 25). Even when the beast and the false prophet bring together that great federation of demon-possessed kings at the end of this age to go out and wage war against the Lamb, we are told that it is God himself who “has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled” (Rev. 17:17).

THE HOPE FOR REVERSAL

What will bring about any reverse in this alarmingly growing mood of unbelief and denial? There is only one hope, so far as you and I know, and that is in a return to, a full confidence in, and a loving obedience to, the Holy Scriptures. Philosophy is not going to bring us to God—it never has. All the marvelous discoveries of nature are not leading us into a deeper reverence for God, and most of those engaged in these necessary enterprises do not even give God a thought. We talk about the coming of a new society for a new world, but if the next 50 years show the same graphs as the last 50, then we will have greater periods of destruction, a higher crime rate, more violence and racial hatred than the world has ever known. Who can judge and control the human heart but God alone? Certainly, no legislation of any government can bring us to God. And most of all, what is in the heart of men by unaided human nature is not going to give us a knowledge of God. The heart is desperately wicked. I shudder when I see posters on the bulletin boards of some churches that read “God is the best that is in you.” Our Lord said, “I have told you the truth.” And then He asked the sad question, “If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?” (John 8:45, 46).

At the dawn of human history, Satan’s first words to unfallen man were, “Yea, hath God said?” And our first parents, finally concluding that God had not said what they thought they heard, or at least, that what God said was not true, turned their backs on a righteous Creator and led the human race into a subservience to the father of all lies. Even Eve, within a few hours, confessed how tragic was her decision when she acknowledged that the serpent had deceived her. Satan is asking this more loudly, with greater sarcasm than ever in human history, and is appealing to the growing pride of man in his “yea, hath God said?” The answer man gives to that question will determine the destiny of his soul, and the answer that this age gives to that question today will determine more than anything else whether we will continue to rush into one great final overwhelming disaster, or whether there will remain still a time of grace and an opportunity for lost men to be saved, for men dead in trespasses and sins to be possessed with eternal life, and for those who are without hope to cry out, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3).

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Paul S. Rees

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Two weeks after the concluding meeting of the Tokyo Christian Crusade I was on the north coast of Ireland. Almost immediately I was asked if I would give some account of the crusade because, as the inquirer put it, “so many Christians in Ulster were praying for it and for those who participated in it.” The raising up of a massive witness for Christ in the world’s largest city had obviously evoked, at least within Christian circles, a kind of planetary interest.

1. The Tokyo Crusade was peripherally different, yet fundamentally the same as mass evangelism generally. An effort of this size in a non-Christian culture was probably without parallel. Certainly no series of meetings in the days of Sunday, Chapman, Torrey, or “Gypsy” Smith could match, for verve or variety, the musical program that was offered nightly for four weeks in the vast municipal “Gymnasium” where the crowds were gathered. Distinctive, too, was the sight of two men, not one, standing at the pulpit to “preach the Word.” Each night the message of Dr. Bob Pierce, World Vision’s president and the crusade’s evangelist, was transmitted to the listeners through the voice of a highly gifted translator, the Rev. Ross Kida.

These differences aside, however, the crusade was basically like many another effort in which the attempt is honestly made to give the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ the maximum of simultaneous impact on large numbers of people.

2.The Tokyo Crusade was progressively, if somewhat slowly, impressive in attendance, yet remarkably effective from the start. Newsweek’s reporter, firing off a dispatch near the middle of the first week, spoke of “dwindling crowds.” He should have been present on all of the week-ends and during the whole of the concluding week. He should have seen the 9,000-capacity auditorium jammed “to the rafters,” with hundreds more unable to gain admission. What was notable, however, was the spontaneous, unpressured response that people made to the Gospel appeal from the very first night. More than a hundred stepped out the first night, 157 the third night, 179 the fourth night, and on it went night by night until more than 9,000 had remained for the counseling after-meetings. Somewhat less than half of these were prepared to make an open profession of faith. The follow-up ministry now going forward will, of course, include the other half, described in the crusade records as those “who want to know more about Christ.” Approximately half of those who went to the counseling room as inquirers were without affiliation with any Christian church.

3.The Tokyo Crusade was criticized, yet mostly for the wrong reasons. The Communists were hostile, as was to be expected, and for reasons whose fallaciousness was equally to be expected. Some of the missionary groups were critical (in varying degrees), principally because their own “separatist” views seemed to be contradicted by, for example, the commingling of leaders of the “Evangelical Confederation” with leaders of the “United Church of Christ.” Some younger Japanese pastors were critical because they were convinced that any effort of this kind, heavily weighed with funds and personnel from the West, was misguided and would, in the end, be more harmful than otherwise to the future of the Church in their country. More searching in import would be an inquiry into how the bi-national, bi-lingual features of an enterprise such as this might be significantly reduced, thus heightening the impression that this is in fact the voice of the indigenous Church calling people to Christ. Dr. Pierce was not unaware of this need and World Vision accepts it as a growing concern.

4. The Tokyo Crusade was visibly intensive, yet unobtrusively comprehensive. Holding the spotlight of attention was the “Gymnasium” where every night for a month the thousands assembled and the well-publicized meetings were conducted. Not so colorful by any means, indeed not even known by many people in the city, were the day-time ministries that gave the crusade its wider, if quieter, range, its thrust in depth. Three areas of activity were cultivated: (1) the student community (Tokyo has more than a quarter of a million university students), (2) the business and professional community, and (3) the pastors and church leaders. Scores of meetings, large and small, were held among the students. Luncheons and private interviews were used by Christian laymen from the United States as a means both of fellowship and of witness with Japanese men in the trades and professions. Pastors of Tokyo met in “seminars” for four hours each week during three of the four weeks; during a fourth week, for four hours a day on four successive days, they were joined by pastors from all over the nation. Average attendance by the Tokyo group was 450, while registration for the “All Japan Week” exceeded 1600.

Enough of statistics! Say what we will, they are bare bones. The flesh and breath of the crusade elude all mathematics. Their calculus is of God. Was a meaningful unity of Christian enterprise, enthusiasm, and evangelism achieved by the churches? Was the mass testimony symbolized by the packed auditorium a heartening, even galvanizing, thing to the Christians who are so overwhelmingly outnumbered by the non-Christians? Was the training of thousands of lay workers—both men and women—for witness and counseling a solid accomplishment with long-range possibilities for God? Have the incoming of new members and the responsibility for follow-up left significant encouragement and challenge with the churches? Has the conviction that laymen, dedicated, Spirit-filled, and disciplined, are the cutting edge of the Church’s evangelism begun to grip the soul of the Church?

If, even moderately, a yes-answer can be given to these queries, as we believe it can, then we have indeed a suitable underlying for the summing up given at the crusade’s finish by the chairman of the Executive Committee: “an event without precedent in the one hundred years of Japanese Protestantism.”

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The Church In England—After The Puritans

Worship and Theology in England: From Watts and Wesley to Maurice. 1690–1850, by Horton Davies (Princeton University Press, 1961, 355 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Philip E. Hughes, British Editorial Associate of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and now engaged in research on Calvin’s thought.

Those who delight in a book well written and finely produced will take pleasure in this volume. Dr. Horton Davies gives us a fascinating and widely-ranging study of 160 years which witnessed the fragmentation of English religion, the flowering of the Evangelical Revival, and the commencement of the Oxford Movement. The present work is in some measure a continuation of his earlier book. The Worship of the English Puritans, published in 1948 and now out of print. It is in the region of nonconformity that he is most reliable as a guide. Yet for one who has been nurtured in nonconformity he has some surprising blind-spots.

It is extraordinary to observe the complacency with which many Free Churchmen today fall into ways of Anglo-Catholic thought and expression which would have been abhorred by their spiritual forbears. To describe, for example, the celebration of Holy Communion in the Church of England as the “priest offering the daily sacrifice” is unwarranted by anything in the Book of Common Prayer as is also the frequent misuse of the word “altar” for the Holy Table. To employ the terms “Protestant” and “Catholic” as though they were antithetical to each other may be popular but shows little regard for either history or the teaching of the New Testament. And why should Gothic churches be considered “more characteristically Anglican” than the Reformed architecture of Christopher Wren? Again, it is a somewhat superficial estimate which maintains that “it is hardly too much to say that the restoration of reverence to English worship is the unpayable debt that the Church of England owes to the Oxford Movement and to the Anglo-Catholics who succeeded to its mantle.” True reverence in worship accompanies a proper apprehension of the sovereign majesty of Almighty God as Creator, Redeemer, and Judge, such as we find in the Reformers of the sixteenth century, the Puritans of the seventeenth century, and those who follow seriously in their steps. Anglo-Catholic worship is too often marred by ritualistic fussiness and incomprehensibility to be intelligently reverent.

One who is unaware of Dr. Davies’ ecclesiastical pedigree might, in fact, at times suspect him of being a High Churchman, for he is critical of Evangelicalism (which of course is open to criticism) in a way that he is not of Anglo-Catholicism, and indeed regards the Oxford Movement as having made good the defects of Evangelicalism. One cannot help wondering whether his conviction that “while Protestantism’s strength is to be found in theology, preaching, and ethics, its worship requires the supplementation of the Catholic tradition,” is not characteristic of much current “ecumentality,” which seems to presuppose that all schools of worship and theology, however diverse, have their own distinctive “insights” to contribute to the common pool.

One is startled to find Richard Baxter described categorically as an Arminian!—to read the adjectives “risqué” and “erotic” applied to George Whitefield’s preaching—and to be advised that there is an “unequal conflict between consistent Calvinism and Christian charity”! Typical of Dr. Davies’ penchant for neat oversimplification are his assertions that “in Whitefield there was more heat than light; in Wesley more light than heat,” and that “as a liturgical criterion Scripture was primary for the Baptists and secondary for the Quakers: the Holy Spirit was secondary for the Baptists and primary for the Quakers.”

Despite the criticisms which have been offered, this is no lightweight work. We are given a clear picture of the baneful effects of deistic latitudinarianism (tellingly described by Dr. Davies as a “decorous desert of the soul”): “The dry husks of decency, deism for dilettanti, and such philosophical fudge were a sorry substitute for the strong meat of the gospel.” Attention is rightly given to the covenant nature of the sacrament of baptism; indeed, the covenant is assessed as “the muscle and sinew” of Calvinistic ecclesiology. The author fittingly points out that it is “erroneous to suppose that the Evangelicals, in appreciating the pulpit, depreciated the Sacrament.”

The concluding chapter is devoted to a valuable study of certain aspects of F. D. Maurice’s thought. Maurice is a figure the full impact of whose influence has been felt only in recent decades. This is apparent, for instance, in the depreciation, so fashionable nowadays, of so-called “propositional” theology, in contrast to the concept of truth as subjective and communal—with a consequent disparagement of the doctrinal affirmations of Scripture, creeds, and confessions. Maurice’s contribution, too, to the development of a theology of the Incarnation, Alexandrian in temper, and leading to a universalistic concept of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man—which became so characteristic of the liberal social “gospel”—was not negligible. As Dr. Davies remarks, it was largely due to him that the Tractarians, “who might otherwise have been lost in antiquarianism and ‘ritualism,’” took up “the responsibility for a juster Christian social order.” Reformed Christians will approve Maurice’s censure of the ritualists’ doctrine of the localized presence of Christ in the Eucharist: “Their attempt to bring Christ back to the altar seems to me the most flagrant denial of the Ascension, and therefore of the whole faith of Christendom.”

A deficiency in discrimination makes this book less than great. But it is not deficient in the charm of its style and the range of its research, and intending readers may be assured that they will derive real pleasure and instruction from the study of its pages.

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

The Tractarians

Victorian Miniature, by Owen Chadwick (Hodders, 1961, 189 pp., 25s.) and The Mind of the Oxford Movement, by Owen Chadwick (A. & C. Black, 1961, 239 pp., 21s.), are reviewed by Gervase E. Duffield, London Manager of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The Master of Selwyn College and Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge has given us two admirable volumes on the nineteenth century. Writing with delightful charm, Dr. Chadwick unravels from the extant diaries of the squire and the parson, both Evangelicals, the story of life in a little Norfolk village. This is no book merely for antiquarians, for its portrait is typical of an English parish in the last century. The squire and the parson are the two powers in the village, and the parson’s independent means make him free financially from the squire. The tensions, which the villagers feel, appear when the parson objects to the dances the squire holds. The latter thinks this narrow, but it poses a problem for the squire’s servants and family, some of whom follow the parson’s lead in spiritual matters. Despite the impetuous outbursts of his wife against the lord of the manor, the parson wins in the end and even the squire himself follows the rest of his family in turning to him for spiritual help. Not only does the ministry of the Gospel triumph in the story of the book, but we are shown a delicately-painted picture of English village life.

The second work is an anthology from Oxford Movement writers with an introductory essay. The men of this Movement—or Tractarians, as they are sometimes called—had a vast influence. It extended far beyond the shores of Britain, and is still being felt in many churches.

Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine had its effect on Roman Catholic thought. The High Church movement throughout the Anglican communion is well known, and draws its inspiration from Tractarian theology. The hymns of Keble and Newman are sung in many truly Protestant churches, and some recent Free Church publications reveal Tractarian strains. It may sound surprising to think that Free Churchmen are attracted to the Oxford Movement, but the reviewer knew a group of Baptist ministerial students who regularly frequented a Tractarian centre of worship until restrained by the College Principal. Their motives were not entirely ecumenical enthusiasm either!

The Evangelical is inclined to blame this Movement for any ritualism or Popery in sight, but a more balanced assessment is required. The early Tractarians protested against the coldness of eighteenth-century rationalism and its dead Latitudinarianism. They deplored the exaltation of reason over faith (p. 73). They felt the warmth of worship, and it was natural they should be attracted by poetry, often of the mystical type. Unlike the Evangelicals, they did not look to the rediscovery of biblical theology at the Reformation, but they turned to antiquity. They were also caught up in the Romantic movement and influenced by novelists like Sir Walter Scott and his idealized picture of the chivalrous mediaeval knight. Newman denied a slavish imitation of the Fathers (p. 124), but the era of these ancient worthies was the golden age for the Tractarians. We find William Palmer, a don at Worcester College, Oxford, explaining that tradition was only “confirmatory of the true meaning of Scripture” (p. 131). Nevertheless the Tractarian gaze at the patristic writers and the Middle Ages was largely one of uncritical admiration.

The first two sections of the anthology are titled Faith and The Authority of The Church. The third on Sanctification is the longest, and in it Dr. Chadwick underlines the concern of these men for a deep piety.

Pusey’s view of the disciplined life of prayer puts most of us to shame as we read it. Keble’s “Sun of my Soul” and Newman’s “Lead Kindly Light” are fine hymns reflecting this piety, despite the irony of the latter. The early Tractarians were of far greater stature than their successors. They thought ritualistic trappings were minor matters, and Pusey is found warning Ward not to take too much notice of these secondary points. Again, Pusey was horrified at the rationalism of German theologians, and hence his famous commentary on Daniel, which displays not only his devotional insight but contains the leading remark that Daniel sorts out believers and unbelievers. His reference was to the radical German approach to the hook, but it was not obscurantism. John Keble, writing of God’s revelation and current theological systems, averred, “A fragment of the true Temple is worth all the palaces of modern philosophical theology” (p. 121). This is a timely warning against relativism and the fashion, cutrent now as then, for running after the latest theological craze. Tractarians stood firm on the Bible as God’s Word until the controversy between Canon Liddon and Charles Gore marked the parting of the ways. Liddon was the true heir and he would have none of Gore’s kenotic Christology and compromised High Church Liberalism.

Dr. Chadwick has sketched out with admirable fairness the leading characters of the Movement, and within his self-imposed limits the selection of quotations is judicious, though often I found I wanted the context to see how the argument developed. (Perhaps it is the function of an anthology to send us to the full originals?)

Yet two questions stand out. Does Professor Chadwick glide too smoothly over the divergent developments within Anglicanism? I think so. And arising out of this, he does not ask the key question as to whether Tractarianism can fit within the framework of constitutionally-established historic Reformation Anglicanism. After all, the discovery of the Fathers was not the achievement of the Oxford Movement or the seventeenth-century divines. The Reformers read and valued them. What greater patristic scholars have there been than Bishop Jewel, Cranmer or Hooker? But the Reformers tested the Fathers against the Bible, whereas Pusey and others were not similarly critical. They idolized the Fathers too much, and followed them without discrimination. Secondly, Dr. Chadwick admits he left out selections from Tractarian polemics. This is readily understandable in the current theological climate of hostility to strong dogmatic pronouncements, but does it result in a balanced historical impression? The nonspecialist reader could be misled, though there are odd hints, even in Dr. Chadwick’s extracts, of a Tractarian theology divergent from the main stream of historic Anglicanism. Pusey on the Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper is not the biblical note of Cranmer and the Prayer Book. Newman’s interpretation of Catholicity with its stress on the sacraments and the place of the bishop differs from the Reformers who showed that Rome had narrowed the meaning of “Catholic,” and that true catholicity was adherence to apostolic doctrine. The emphasis on a line of bishops has bedevilled ecumenical progress ever since. This idea was new to the Church of England, and the undesirable alien is still resident.

The Oxford Movement was a mixture. It fostered, as the Evangelical revival had done, a warmth of devotion, though the types of worship were very different. It stood firm on the Bible, and shunned the doctrinal compromise, now so fashionable. Newman wrote (pp. 144 f.): “If the Church would be vigorous and influential, it must be decided and plain-spoken in its doctrine.… To attempt comprehensions of opinion, amiable as the motive frequently is, is to mistake arrangements of words, which have no existence except on paper, for habits which are realities; and ingenious generalizations of discordant sentiments for that practical agreement which alone can lead to cooperation.”

Its followers soon acquired a dislike for the Reformation. Newman saw where this trend was leading, and after the failure of the casuistic Tract 90 where he tried with passionate, if misguided, sincerity’ to show he could sign the 39 Articles, he went to Rome. Perhaps he was the Movement’s truest son?

At any rate the Movement which he led explains the enormous rift in twentieth-century Anglicanism where diametrically-opposed views coexist in the same church. It is doubtful if harmony can ever reign again unless drastic action is taken; for Newman and a convinced Evangelical like Bishop J. C. Ryle would agree that compromise is not honoring to God. Divine revelation cannot thus he mauled by man without insult to the Creator.

GERVASE E. DUFFIELD

Liberal Catholicism

Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholic Thought, by James Carpenter, (Faith Press, 1960, 307 pp., 30s.), is reviewed by James Atkinson, Lecturer, Hull University, England.

Right up to his death in 1932, Charles Gore was the most influential mind in the Church of England. Nurtured in the Tractarian tradition, he sought, on the basis of an Incarnational theology, to provoke his contemporary world to set the Catholic Faith into its right relation to the intellectual, moral, and social problems of the day. Gore had the background which seems to characterize most Anglican theologians: he took the essential Reformation doctrines seriously with their emphasis on Scripture, the Fathers, reason, conscience, and authority; he had a high doctrine of the Church and the importance of the Church as a worshiping community; he had also that noncommittal insularity from Continental theology.

He has been rather neglected in recent years, perhaps largely because of the dominance of philosophical positivism since the days when he sought to justify his liberal Catholicism. Now that signs of a return to metaphysical thinking are clearly visible, Gore might experience some fresh study. This book by an American, James Carpenter, is certainly a first-class examination and assessment of Gore. It reveals close knowledge of Gore’s work. The footnotes and references to contemporary opinion are always interesting and informed, and not seldom quite valuable and original. He deals with Gore’s idea of Catholicism, the centrality of the prophetic thinking to his own philosophy of religion, the historicity of Christianity, his idea of authority, his doctrine of the Incarnation and Redemption, and the Church and its mission to society.

Bishop Gore, as Mr. Carpenter shows, was not an academic theologian as such, but wrote theology to his contemporary situation for the thoughtful and interested layman. Of special interest in the ecumenical situation today are his views on the Bible, on authority, and the sense in which the Church of England claims to be both Catholic and Protestant.

Gore believed that there was nothing “distinctive” about the Church of England, for at the Reformation she did not commit herself to Lutheran, Calvinist, or Romanist positions. She claimed to maintain the ancient faith in conjunction with the Reformation appeal to Scripture, sound reason and learning, and tradition. It was in this sense that Gore identified Anglicanism with liberal Catholicism. He was closer here to the Reformation and the genius of Anglicanism than we give him credit for. As an example of this soundness in basic principles, it must be remembered to Gore’s credit that of all his contemporaries he alone understood the 1914–1918 war as an expression of the judgment of God on a godless society.

He had no use at all for foolish talk about an infallible Church, but thought in terms of her indefectibility in the sense that truth shall never desert the Church as a whole. (This was Luther’s view precisely.) He faults Rome for making her tradition as of equal authority to Scripture, or even to that of the early Church, and thereby making Rome herself the tradition. (Cullmann makes this very point in his work.) Tradition is valid as an interpretation of Scripture but can never add to Scripture. It was a happy word of Gore when he thought we should not be wiser than what is written. Gore was right to trace the foundation of the Church to Israel and not to Christ. There is a constant evangelical refrain throughout Gore, and his close association of justification by faith to the life of the Church, both in the early Church as well as today, is certainly very wholesome. Unlike many high churchmen he was never afraid of evangelical language and ideas.

Evangelicals need to understand the high church outlook, and this outlook is at its best in men like Gore rather than in the successors of the Tractarians. Oliver Quick, in comparing Catholicism with Protestantism, once likened Catholicism to the meat and Protestantism to the salt, and regretted that history had too often separated them. Anglicanism may well serve in the mercies of God to keep these together, or even bring them together. But our vigilance will be needed, I imagine, not so much to see that the meat is provided but to see that the salt never gets left out.

The book has an excellent bibliography. The index suffers in that it is almost exclusively of names and without subject matter. That is a deficiency, particularly in a book of this sort which may well take on the nature of a standard text. The writer betrays no trace of his own theological position. Be that as it may, it is a sound work and clearly written, and certainly supplies a need.

JAMES ATKINSON

Barth On Creation, Part 3

Church Dogmatics, Vol. III: The Doctrine of Creation (Part 3), by Karl Barth (T. & T. Clark, 1961, 544 pp., 50s.), is reviewed by Colin Brown, Tutor, Tyndale Hall, Bristol, England.

Like the Enigma Variations of Sir Edward Elgar, the theology of the post-1930 Barth consists of a series of variations on an original theme. God has taken man-kind into partnership with himself. This partnership (which is what Barth has in mind when he uses the term covenant) has its basis in the union of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. Its scope is universal, because the humanity of Christ represents all humanity. And its significance is decisive for the being of Creator and creature alike. For while the whole of creation was wrought with the covenant in view, God would not be without the Incarnation which commits him to be the covenant-partner of man. In this volume Barth offers three variations on the covenant theme: providence, evil and angels.

Barth has no time for flirtation with notions which equate providence with an optimistic view of the world derived from experience. Any such view is sub-Christian in method in that it interprets the Word of God by experience instead of experience by the Word of God. And it is sub-Christian in content in that it puts asunder two things which God has joined together, namely, God’s sovereign direction and preservation of the world on the one hand and the salvation of mankind in Christ on the other. To Barth’s way of thinking the former hinges on the latter. Otherwise, we miss the point of the covenant and fail to see how all reality centers around Jesus Christ.

Survey Of The Bible

The Unfolding Message of the Bible, by G. Campbell Morgan (Revell, 1961, 416 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Robert Strong, Minister, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Montgomery, Alabama.

This is hitherto unpublished material from the hand of the great British preacher and expositor who was known as well in America as in his native country. The method is to treat each book in the Bible by a short essay on introduction and central theme. The unity of the Bible is constantly emphasized. The work has value principally for laymen interested in Bible survey.

ROBERT STRONG

Challenge To Chaos

Baker’s Textual and Topical Filing System, by Neal Punt (Baker Book House, 1960, $19.95), is reviewed by Cary N. Weisiger, III, Pastor of the Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh.

There is no perfect system for indexing a minister’s sermonic resources. Some ministers are severely methodical and enjoy keeping neat files and records with cross references. Some find anything beyond the simplest methods tedious and depend heavily on review and memory. Some never try to organize their material.

Baker now offers a handsome and rugged volume of about 500 gilt-edged pages. An excellent guide accompanies the volume, and there are adequate introductory instructions printed in the book itself.

The basic system is as simple and comprehensive as this reviewer has ever seen. It consists of three sections: a textual, a topical, and a reference index. Space is given to every verse of the Bible, many of which will never be preached upon, and to a large list of topics, some of which will receive scant attention in comparison with others. This is the problem of comprehensiveness. Also, there is no provision for a chronological filing of sermons and texts.

The system incorporated here, however, could be the salvation of many ministers whose present methods are without form and void.

CARY N. WEISIGER, III

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FORGERY?

Summer is the time for painting. Not the house; you can imagine how giddy I become on a second-story window sill. (And I am not the only one. My assistant in the last attempt to paint our expanded bungalow was a Korean student who insisted on hanging from the underside of the ladder. He sustained only a dislocated wrist when he fell, and went on to a doctorate and a professional chair in the Land of Morning Calm.)

No, summer is the time for landscape painting in pastels, water colors, caseins, and oils. I am an amateur collector of art materials, with the fixed purpose of becoming an amateur painter some summer. It is also my custom to collect scenic postcards, since I have found it easier to bring the mountain to my equipment than to drag my equipment to the mountain. Naturally I also collect reproductions of masterpieces, with due appreciation for the spadework of those who have gone before.

With this thumb-nail sketch in view, you can picture my horror at seeing Time’s recent photograph of Madame Utrillo in the act of burning 30 beautiful paintings. The wanton destruction of that much canvas is incredible. But these were painted in oil with such skill that they had passed for the work of Utrillo himself.

On my living room wall is a 7” × 10” reproduction of a street scene by Utrillo. How eagerly would I have substituted one of those real fake Utrillos that was fed to the flames! Things were different in the old days. Any faker who could paint like a master was welcomed in his school and worked a 50-hour week helping to mass-produce masterpieces. Why should our age of imitations become so severe with forgeries? Time even suggested that some of the fakes might have been forged by Utrillo himself.

I cornered Pastor Peterson on the subject at the door after church. A statement in his sermon gave me a wide opening: “Every genuine Christian is an imitation-Christ.” He had to admit that all life and art is imitation; in fact he agreed readily. “We are made in the likeness of God,” he said. “Only the Creator is original.”

But he made a sharp distinction between imitations and forgeries. “The apostle Paul asked to be imitated, but signed his greetings against the forgery of false apostles. There is all the difference between the imitation of Christ and Antichrist.”

The pastor is right. I’m starting to paint now; I’m copying my Utrillo.

EUTYCHUS

THE AMERICAN DREAM

I want to thank you for printing “The American Dream” by Peter Marshall (June 19 issue). This is indeed a classic on true Americanism, and should be read by every thinking man who realizes his stake in the future of this great country.

R. E. MOHLER

Retired Prof. of Biology

McPherson College

McPherson, Kans.

The sermon … is so challenging that I have reread it several times, and I would like to … mail it to each member of our congregation.

ARTHUR L. HERRIES

St. Paul’s Union Church

Chicago, Ill.

I “dream” of the day when I might preach with such intellectual power and fervor as was evident in that masterpiece. It was both timely and inspiring as was also your symposium, “Dream, Drift, and Destiny.”

THERON R. COOPER

Sand Lake Baptist Church

Averill Park, N. Y.

The issue … is as biased as anything I have read by way of “propaganda.” It is obviously a “rightist” argument and that is all right except that it is done in the name of Christ, and that makes it subject to the spirit and intent of Christ.

PAUL T. DAHLSTROM

The First Congregational Church

Alexandria, Minn.

The editorials headed under “Dream, Drift, and Destiny” contained all the painful truths for which the prophets of old were hated and slain. But the very fact that these theses were published in North America encourages us to believe that a healthy trace of our fathers’ intent is still manifested. The “falling away” from the spirit of our progenitors is as evident among the lesser “reform groups,” as it is within the ranks of the masses. Splinter bodies abound throughout our land, using diverse methods to corrupt the faith once delivered to the saints.

H. GOERTSON

Vancouver, British Columbia

WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE SAID

In “Marx on ‘Union with Christ’” (June 19 issue) you wrote, “The Red Russian” by Leopold Schwarzchild.… It should be “The Red Prussian”.…

C. M. JANKOWSKY

Bensenville, Ill.

CALL FOR ACTION—NOW!

Kennedy has pledged no public funds for parochial schools, but his party, working to the contrary, is breaking his campaign pledge in the aid to education bill now shaping up in congress.

Protestants, strong in the United States, almost to a man oppose this slow erosion of constitutional separation of church and state, but effective leadership, often lacking, is needed to galvanize this sentiment and bring it forcibly to bear upon congress.

Toward this objective, therefore, a Protestant council should immediately be set up in Washington, D. C. to keep the local churches informed and to rally them in restricting the aid to education bill to public schools only. Luther’s type of brief and trenchant statement should be the way this council communicates and leads.

This council can be composed of the president, or official head, of each of the following groups: National Holiness Association, National Council of Churches, National Association of Evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, Nazarenes, Assembly of God, Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Salvation Army, Christian Scientists, Methodists, Unitarians, Southern Baptist Convention, Quakers, and all other Protestant groups.

American Protestantism is immensely strong, richly variegated and diverse, and if ever it realizes its strength, and is led by the right leadership, Rome will be set back in this country for its malefactions to break down our constitutional way of life.

A Protestant council, with emergency powers, should be set up promptly in Washington, D. C., and it should go to work, straight through the hot summer months, with activity and zeal.

Otherwise, if the present unconstitutional aid to education bill is passed, Protestants have no one but themselves to blame.

Let our purpose be: public funds for public schools only.

HENRY RATLIFF

First Methodist Church

Great Barrington, Mass.

As a Canadian it would be impertinent of me to comment on the current controversy in the U.S.A. over public funds for sectarian schools.

There might however be some guidance to those who are concerned over the issue in the bitter experiences of Ontario in this matter. The law allows grants for both public and separate schools, for building, salaries, etc., from the department of education. From small beginnings, through political manipulation, the claims of the separate Roman Catholic schools have grown to the point where in some areas the very existence of public schools is endangered.

The Roman Catholics will use the public schools (where any minister or priest may go in to give religious instruction to his own group at arranged hours) until it suits their purpose to withdraw leaving the … debt of the building and its upkeep upon the shoulders of the non-Roman section of the community.

It is apparently too late to do much about it here, but the lesson is plain—give the Roman Catholic church an inch and it will soon claim a mile.

R. KEITH EARLS

Cobden, Ont.

MANCHESTER RELAYS

June 19 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY states: “Decision reported 10,000 landline relays (closed-circuit audio transmissions) of the evangelist’s messages. The British Evangelical Alliance … said there were 1,440.” … Decision Magazine never said 10,000 landline relays.”

GEORGE M. WILSON

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

Minneapolis, Minn.

• Decision (February, 1961) reported “telephone relay centers for carrying Crusade messages direct to 10,000 local church meetings.” CHRISTIANITY TODAY and some others understood from this that 10,000 relay centers were envisaged. Decision’s figure represents actual relays multiplied by the number of evenings they were in use.—ED.

SUBSEQUENT TO NEW BIRTH

[Re] the article “Pentecostal Meeting Makes Holy Land History” (May 22 issue): … Speaking with tongues is the initial, physical evidence, not the heart and soul, of the Pentecostal experience. It should be part of the believer’s subsequent Spirit-filled life.

As a whole, we have never considered that a person’s basic Christian experience is not legitimate apart from speaking with other tongues. We have always emphasized that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience subsequent to the new birth.

J. W. JEPSON

Pentecostal Bible College

Pentecostal Church of God in America

Ashland, Ore.

The article … was definitely appreciated.… Various denominations are now experiencing a definite Pentecost, not just the Assemblies of God. At a recent meeting, there were present James Brown, Presbyterian; Roy Allebach, Mennonite; Rabbi Jack Robins; Keith Ruegsegger, Baptist; The Finn Twins, Roman Catholics; Harold Bredesen, Dutch Reformed; Dennis J. Bennett, Episcopalian … and others, all spirit-filled with the evidence of “other tongues.”

FLOYD GARRETT

Chappell, Neb.

INIQUITIES IGNORED

Acres of newsprint are wasted in tilting at the iniquities of so-called theologians. I am not sure who bothers to read their works, but to the ordinary Christian they are merely irrelevant. The issue of April 24 reached an all-time low in taking seriously the mental meanderings of men who from the safety of their studies are trying to fight the missionary battle. Frankly I am far too busy fighting it on the ground out here to bother with all this vapourising. Why bother to take them seriously? The last word is with God, not with the professors.

KENNETH GREGORY

Holy Trinity Church

Karachi, Pakistan

DIVINE HEALING

It is no more intelligent to brand a minister as a “faith-healer” because he believes that Jesus Christ will heal than it is proper to address him who preaches that Jesus saves a “faith-saviour.” A correct term used to express this blessed truth is “divine healing.”

D. R. RAMSEY

Tuba City, Ariz.

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A Christian congregation meeting in a small stone church in Jerusalem was stoned repeatedly during the last three months.

Israeli police refused to give specific assurances of protection until the American ministers of the church moved services to a private home and the harassment drew worldwide attention.

There were no reports of injuries, but virtually every window in the church was broken. The stonings took place while services were in progress. Worshipers were showered with flying glass.

Hostilities were blamed on Orthodox Jewish fanatics. But some Israeli authorities intimated that the leaders of the church group had invited trouble by preaching the necessity of conversion from Judaism.

The congregation subjected to the attacks operates under the aegis of the Churches of Christ, most loosely knit of the major U. S. denominations. Its 1,800 completely autonomous congregations include a constituency of some 2 million. Churches of Christ have no coordinating administrative agencies or personnel, there being no organization beyond the local church. Beliefs are nonetheless quite uniformly conservative among the churches, most of which are in the South and West.

In addition to the congregation in Jerusalem, the Churches of Christ sponsor two others in Israel, one in Nazareth with about 45 Arab members and another in Eilabun, with 150 members.

They are led by the Rev. Ralph T. Henley, 40, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Rev. Ernest O. Stewart, 38, of Detroit.

Religious films have been shown in the churches from time to time, and the ministers were accused of using these to “lure” Jewish citizens.

They denied using candy to attract children into the church. Some Israelis even resent the distribution of food and clothing to children by Christian missionaries.

The Jerusalem church is still a small mission, with a maximum attendance of about 34, including Henley’s wife and six children.

The showdown came when Henley, at a Wednesday evening service July 5, decided he had had enough flying glass.

“The services will cease,” he said, “and they will not be resumed until such time as the police department gives us definite assurances of the safety of the worshipers.”

How Fanatics Harassed Congregation

Mob scenes around the little Christian church in Jerusalem which became the focal point of a virtual international incident began April 5.

On that day, and on every Wednesday and Sunday night thereafter, a noisy crowd gathered.

The first crowd, estimated to have included between 25 and 30 persons, blocked the front and rear gates to the compound and chanted: “Eichmann! Eichmann!”

With each service the crowds grew larger and noisier until April 19, when several persons began to hurl stones at the church.

The twice-weekly stone attacks persisted and most of the windows in the church eventually were broken.

The church is located in the so-called Greek colony in the Israeli sector of southern Jerusalem. The congregation is led by the Rev. Ralph T. Henley of Chattanooga and the Rev. Ernest O. Stewart of Detroit.

Henley was sent to Jerusalem about a year ago by the Central Church of Christ of Chattanooga with the support of other Churches of Christ.

He has indicated in communications to the supporting churches that about a half dozen Jews have been converted as a result of his and Stewart’s efforts.

Retorted Police Captain Michael Buchner: “What am I supposed to do, go down there and arrest a hundred people? Does he want to start a revolution? We have a man on patrol there at all times now. We will keep the gate cleared so that persons can go in and out without being hampered. If we see someone throw stones, he will be arrested.”

A meeting was subsequently arranged between Henley, Jerusalem District Commissioner S. B. Yeshaya, U. S. Consul General Eric Wendelin, and Buchner.

Yeshaya then gave assurance of police protection.

In the meantime, two children were charged with throwing stones and were scheduled to appear in a juvenile court. But Buchner repeated a suggestion that the missionaries were revolutionaries of a sort.

At the meeting Yeshaya reportedly stressed that many Christian groups, some with “a missionary trend,” had been active in Jerusalem for many years without serious difficulties, while the missionaries of the Churches of Christ had provoked the people in a mainly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood by their aggressive evangelistic methods.

The two American missionaries were said to have denied using “aggressive” methods and to have been content with holding “open house” for all comers, and providing films on New and Old Testament themes with commentaries in English and Hebrew.

Dr. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, lecturer in comparative religions at the Hebrew University and honorary secretary of the Israel Inter-faith Committee, echoed the charge that the Churches of Christ missionaries had engaged in “aggressive proselytizing activities.”

“While they have hardly succeeded in converting a single Jew,” he said, “their activities have been extremely harmful in poisoning interfaith relations at this juncture when Jews, Protestants, and Catholics do their utmost to improve the atmosphere.”

Earlier, Werblowsky visited Henley and Stewart, together with Dr. Maas Boertien of the Dutch Reformed Church, who is secretary of the United Christian Council for Israel. The meeting was fruitless, he said, adding:

“Since the Church of Christ refuses any co-operation with the United Christian Council, on the ground that its attitude toward the Jews is a ‘compromising’ one, the talk was the most frustrated one I have ever had with Christians.”

In America, Rabbi Arthur Gilbert of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, condemned those responsible for the stonings. In a letter to Werblowsky, Gilbert declared:

“Granted that this church has missionary aspirations I am sure you will agree with me that the stoning of a church is reprehensible and I certainly trust that important officials within Israel will condemn this outrage.”

Assessing Castro

Dr. John A. Mackay, Presbyterian elder statesman and lifelong student of Latin America, criticizes U. S. concepts of revolution and freedom which he says have raised basic theological as well as political questions in this nation’s dealings with Cuba.

Writing in the July 15 issue of Presbyterian Life, Mackay said his article was an attempt “to provide a perspective in which Cuba, its ruler Castro, and Cuban-American relations can be understood and pondered.”

He said the revolt of 1959 in Cuba marked the second social revolution in Latin American history and was not inspired by communism any more than the first such upheaval which began in Mexico in 1910 and continued through the thirties.

However, Mackay added, “subsequent reactions to it, especially in the United States, that stemmed largely from a misunderstanding of its true nature, and its deep rootage in the soul of the masses, have made the Cuban revolution more dependent upon Communists than ever should have been allowed to happen.”

The behavior of Castro, he said, can be interpreted as “an impassioned fanatical reaction to a sense of wounded honor,” particularly as this relates to Castro’s attitude toward the United States government.

Said Mackay, who for 20 years served as president of Princeton Theological Seminary: “His passionately sincere, though often unwise efforts to solve in Cuba the major social problem of Latin American countries, namely, to give food and land, health and education to the masses of the people were not sympathetically regarded by powerful economic interests, both Cuban and American.”

Mackay recalls that “Castro, during a visit to Washington, was not received in the State Department, but was visited in a hotel room. This unpardonable slight mortally wounded his Hispanic sense of honor. We know the rest: unhappy excesses on his side; ill-advised reprisals on ours, culminating in the ill-fated ‘invasion’ and the present perilous impasse.”

America, he added, broke off diplomatic relations, imposed an economic embargo, forbade American citizens to visit the island, rebuffed Cuban leaders when they suggested that differences between the two countries be negotiated, and sponsored the abortive invasion of Cuba.

“Each action was an unqualified blunder,” he asserted.

Mackay said the Cuban problem can only be set in true perspective by Western society’s rediscovery of St. Paul’s emphasis on the inseparable connection between work and true human dignity.

Protestant Panorama

• Officials of the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) accepted this month an invitation from the newly-constituted United Church of Christ to hold conversations looking toward a merger of the two denominations. The response was announced to delegates attending the United Church’s biennial synod in Philadelphia.

• Outcome of a referendum on an amendment to the Methodist constitution was in doubt at the close of the 1961 spring series of annual conferences. With returns in from 107 of 132 conferences, it was reported that the vote was running slightly behind the necessary two-thirds majority. The proposed amendment would make certain procedural changes in Methodist assemblies, including enlargement of the General Conference from a maximum of 900 to 1,400.

• The Oriental Missionary Society announced its withdrawal this month from the Korean National Christian Council. Indications were that it would soon be followed by Korea’s third largest denomination, the Korean Holiness Church, with which it is associated. The move stems from anxieties over the ecumenical movement.

• Publishers of The New English Bible announced on July 7 that its sales had passed 2,500,000. Printings now total 3,275,000. The Oxford and Cambridge university presses, which issued the new translation jointly, plan to put leather and other specially bound editions on the market this autumn.

• A 500-member Pentecostal congregation on the outskirts of Toronto plans to build an aluminum-domed church seating 3,500 persons and costing about $500,000. The new sanctuary of what is now known as the Lakeshore Gospel Temple will be known as the Queensway Cathedral and will be the largest non-Roman Catholic church in Canada.

• Christian literature “clearing houses” for Africa will be established at Yaounde and Kitwe and a Christian news service will be inaugurated, according to an announcement made at the All Africa Christian Literature and Audio-Visual Conference in Kitwe last month.

• Portuguese authorities have closed an Assemblies of God church near Lisbon on grounds that the church held its services in a building which was not licensed for that purpose, Missionary News Service reported this month. Observers were said to have attributed the action to the accusations that Protestant missionaries in Angola were aiding native insurgents against Portuguese authorities there.

• Acting to relieve a critical shortage of Bibles in Indonesia, the United Church of Christ in Japan and the Japan Bible Society announced this month that they plan to ship 10,000 Malayan-language Bibles for Christians in that country.

Lawmaker’s Plea

Warning that the United States is approaching the day when a young Castro could plunge the country into a Communist dictatorship, Republican Representative Walter Judd called on businessmen assembled in Miami Beach this month to rededicate their lives to Christ to make America more righteous.

In an address before the annual convention of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International, a Pentecostal group, the former Congregational missionary to China reminded some 1,000 delegates that it is righteousness, not power or wealth, “which exalteth a nation.”

Americans, said Judd, have been seeking peace and prosperity and forgetting the Bible which admonishes, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

He declared that “Communism will not take the world by Russian troops crossing borders. But Greeks will take Greece, Italians will take Italy, Frenchmen will take France, as Cubans took Cuba, and Americans will take the United States if communism succeeds!”

National Healing

Former Governor Theodore R. McKeldin of Maryland called on Americans this month to follow the advice given the Jews in Solomon’s day.

McKeldin, a prominent Methodist layman, cited 2 Chronicles 7:14 in an address before the Ocean City (New Jersey) Tabernacle Association:

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

He declared that Americans “have attained a height of earthy splendor that we had never reached before.” But, he added, “the Lord is not impressed, any more than he was impressed by the temple that Solomon’s hands had raised.”

In North Carolina, meanwhile, two church leaders are launching a prayer campaign using the same text as a basis. Ruling Elder J. W. Thomson of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and Dr. Paul L. Grier of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church seek to stimulate establishment of personal and group prayer covenants throughout the nation.

Upper Midwest Crusade

Billy Graham’s Upper Midwest Crusade was climaxed with an eight-day evangelistic series at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul which drew an aggregate of some 300,000 persons, 6,652 of whom recorded decisions for Christ.

The attendance was the largest for any single week of a Graham crusade in the United States. It included the 75,000 who turned out for the closing rally, which was the largest function of any kind ever held before the Minnesota State Fairgrounds Grandstand.

The previous week had seen Graham’s associate evangelists conduct 41 meetings in 10 cities of 4 states. These attracted an aggregate of 44,672, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reported.

The evangelist’s engagement in Minnesota followed on the heels of a highly successful two months in the United Kingdom, where he said he found evangelicalism steadily growing stronger. The British series closed with a rally in Glasgow attended by some 38,500 and another in Belfast where about 55,000 gathered.

Graham, following a checkup at the Mayo Clinic, hoped to get a few weeks’ rest at home before the scheduled opening of a four-week crusade in Philadelphia, Sunday, August 20.

In Canada, meanwhile, British evangelist Tom Rees concluded his four-month, 26,000-mile Mission to Canada.

Rees, a close friend of Graham and a noted Anglican layman, had the official support of the large denominations—Anglican, United Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Baptist Federation of Canada, and the Salvation Army.

He said was “appalled” at the almost complete absence of teen-agers and young adults from Canadian Protestant churches.

“All I seemed to see,” declared the 50-year-old Rees, “were gray bards and bald heads. At this rate the churches will be empty in 20 years.”

Church Court Complex

Chief concern at the July session of the National Assembly of the Church of England was the proposed revision of its ecclesiastical court system.

The assembly, first to convene under the newly-installed Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. A. M. Ramsey, considered proposals presented by an archbishops’ commission.

One of the main aims was drastic simplification. The present system, which provides for innumerable courts to a diocese, dates back to William the Conqueror in 1072. Until 1832 there were virtually no changes.

Most of the controversy on the floor of the assembly centered on matters of ritual and doctrine. As it now stands, the final appeal in cases of this type is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the reigning monarch’s supreme legal committee.

The new proposals would abolish the Privy Council as the final court of appeal in doctrinal cases, to be replaced by a court of three judges and two bishops.

Evangelicals have been worried by the way more and more power has been placed in the hands of bishops in recent years. During the assembly debate Major W. F. Batt, veteran justice of the peace, and Mr. P. H. Walker, a solicitor, both expressed concern at the new prominence of bishops. Batt asserted that bishops were too often interested parties, that they should therefore be kept out of the court cases, and that the cases should be decided by legal experts.

Another bone of contention was the episcopal veto. At the present time bishops have an absolute right of veto in ecclesiastical cases, and many believe that this is, as the British would say, “a scandal,” because a bishop would hardly allow prosecution in a ritual case.

It was noted that lay opinion as expressed in the floor debate was unanimously opposed to the veto’s retention.

Crime Surge

Serious crimes increased by 14 per cent in 1960 as compared with the previous year, according to tabulations released by the FBI last week.

The report revealed that lawlessness in the United States was up some 98 per cent over 1950, while the population increase during the decade was only 18 per cent.

Arrests of juveniles have more than doubled since 1950, while the population of youths aged 10 to 17 increased by less than one-half.

During 1960 a serious crime was committed every 15 seconds. There was a murder every 58 minutes, a forcible rape every 34 minutes, and an aggravated assault every 4 minutes.

For the past five years, said the FBI, the crime rate has been rising more than four times faster than the population.

Papal Encyclical

The social encyclical issued by Pope John XXIII this month will probably become the most widely-publicized document ever created by the Roman Catholic church.

“Never before in history has a papal pronouncement been so widely and promptly publicized,” said Religious News Service.

The monumental, 22,000-word encyclical was also described as the longest in papal history.

Known as Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher), the document was immediately made available in major modern languages, in addition to the official Latin.

It was ranked as one of the three great social documents of the Roman Catholic church along with the Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII and the Quadragesimo Anno of Pope Piux XI.

The Mater et Magistra was issued in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the encyclical which dealt with the condition of the working classes.

Pope John warned that a “fruitful and lasting peace” cannot be reached if there is too great a difference between the social and economic conditions of people.

Convention Circuit

At Grand Rapids, Michigan—The Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, meeting in annual session at Calvin College, declined to rejoin the National Association of Evangelicals. The action, by a decisive majority, marked the end of the latest in a series of attempts to have the denomination rejoin the NAE, from which it had withdrawn 10 years ago after 8 years of affiliation. The main reason expressed was that the NAE is “not an exclusively ecclesiastical organization.” The NAE had held its 1961 convention in Grand Rapids just two months before and had drawn a large share of its visitor attendance, as well as considerable participation, from the Christian Reformed community.

While declining a measure of ecumenical affiliation in this direction, the synod, however, pushed ahead with moves for eventual union with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and a sector of the Protestant Reformed denomination. Committees were authorized to plan for a working basis to effect organic merger, and communications were sent to the two groups for consideration.

Dr. John Kromminga was reappointed president of Calvin Seminary after the synod had cleared him of charges that he held erroneous views on the infallibility of Scripture. The charge had been brought by a senior faculty member two years ago when much of the synod’s time was devoted to discussion of scriptural inspiration and infallibility. Dr. Kromminga has been president since 1956.

A record budget of more than four million dollars was approved. Mexico was added to the denomination’s mission fields, and 10 new areas in the United States were added to the home missions program. A worldwide relief and service committee will be organized to coordinate fund raising and relief efforts of the denomination. P.D.V.

At Chicago—Christian Endeavorers, assembled in their 46th convention, honored Billy Graham as “a worthy example for youths, the greatest evangelist of modern times and the outstanding exponent of Christian service for Christ and his Church.”

Graham was presented with the ninth International Youth’s Distinguished Service Citation by the International Society of Christian Endeavor before some 4,000 delegates.

“Venture with Christ” has been chosen as the society’s theme for the next two years. Delegates resolved to “choose Christ whatever the cost” in every area of life.

At Fairport Harbor, Ohio—Delegates to the 72nd annual convention of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Suomi Synod) voted to apply for membership in the World Council of Churches. The action was approved by a vote of 138 to 47.

The synod will merge next year with the American Evangelical, Augustana, and United Lutheran churches in a new denomination to be called the Lutheran Church in America, and it was noted that all three of the other bodies hold membership in the World Council.

At Ely, Minnesota—Delegates to the 63rd annual convention of the 11,000-member National Evangelical Lutheran Church voted to merge with the 2,469,000-member Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. The vote was 112 to 49, barely the required two-thirds majority.

The merger will go into effect in two years if the Missouri Synod agrees to the NELC conditions and if there is no protest within six months from more than one-third of the NELC’s 66 congregations.

At Estes Park, Colorado—Protestant missionaries to Indian Americans showed themselves sharply divided on attitudes toward the peyote-using Native American Church in a workshop session of the six-day triennial conference of the National Fellowship of Indian Workers.

The controversial religious group, which now claims some 200,000 adherents among the nation’s estimated 600,000 Indians, evoked heated discussion among conference delegates.

“Not by any stretch of the imagination can you say a member of the Native American Church is a Christian,” declared the Rev. William Vogel, United Presbyterian missionary at the Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona, and director of the conference workshop on the peyote issue.

“Until a person accepts Jesus Christ as Divine Lord and Savior, he simply cannot be recognized as a Christian,” he said. “On the other hand, I would not oppose the Native American Church or attempt for one minute to suppress it. I consider that its members belong to another religion, even though that religion embraces some Christian ideas, and they have every right to do so.”

Vogel subsequently declared that a number of Protestant missionaries advocate strong opposition to the group which claims a mounting number of adherents every year. They fear alleged deleterious effects from the drug peyote a mescaline-bearing cactus which is consumed by worshipers during night-lone ceremonies, he said. No scientific evidence has been offered, the minister continued, to show that peyote is harmful or habit-forming, and its interstate shipments by mail as a sacrament is legal Arizona, alone among the states, bars its use and confiscates incoming shipments of peyote.

The Rev. Peter John Powell, Indian work director of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Chicago, disagreed with attempts to destroy the Native American Church, saying that Episcopalians and Roman Catholics have long held the philosophy of building on another culture rather than destroying it.

The conference was held under auspices of the National Council of Churches’ Division of Home Missions in whose department of Indian work the fellowship has offices.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rt. Rev. Albert Wilson, 84, Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford from 1929 until his retirement in 1950; in Southwold, England … the Rev. Yunus S. Sinha, 72, influential Methodist leader in India; in Bareilly, India.

Appointments: As principal of the Presbyterian College in Belfast, Ireland, Dr. R. J. Wilson … as minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, the Rev. Mariano DiGangi. DiGangi will succeed the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse … as interim president of King’s College, Dr. C. Hans Evans, minister of Coatesville (Pennsylvania) Presbyterian Church, which he will continue to serve.

Elections: As moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr. W. A. A. Park … as president of the Council of Evangelism of The Methodist Church, Dr. Kermit L. Long … as president of the Unit of the Brethren, the Rev. John Baletka.

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‘CROOKED SPEECH’

“Crooked speech” is a biblical term found in Proverbs 6:12 and amplified in many ways throughout the Scriptures.

The phrase denotes any deviation in language which is displeasing to God. Included are the “careless” or “useless” words of Matthew 12:36; the blasphemous words against God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the impious use of his Name because of which no man shall be found guiltless; the false witnessing of the Ninth Commandment: the lying words of those perverters of truth who have no part in heaven.

Crooked speech is a serious offense against God and so widespread in the world that we all stand guilty before the One from whom nothing can be hid.

Profanity

That profanity is so commonly heard is no reason for anyone to take it as an acceptable manner of speech. It should be opposed by vigorous protest as a sin against God and an affront to man.

It is not strange that for the unregenerate “devil,” “damn,” and “hell” are often a part of their language. They are speaking of their own master, their own condition, and their ultimate destination.

How often is profanity nothing more than the blustering of a bully. It shows to others the limitation of one’s vocabulary. It is conversation’s cesspool and an offense to those who are forced to hear it. Profanity is the crutch of conversational cripples and places those who use it in a category more offensive than those who are physically unclean or afflicted by a loathsome disease.

That profanity is used by so many who are unregenerate is to be expected. That some Christians indulge in it is a reflection on their spiritual judgment.

We live in a time when profanity is so universal that it arouses little comment and even less resentment. That this is, in part, an aftermath of two world wars is no excuse. That many women are also guilty in no way lessens its offensiveness or seriousness. In fact children now hear these “crooked words” from many sources, including their own homes. No wonder that profane language is commonplace!

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is the intrusion of profanity into the realm of sacrilege. It is speaking against that which is holy; being critical of that which no human should; attributing to Satan the works of the Holy Spirit; setting up one’s self as a judge against God.

Blasphemy is taking God’s name in vain. It is assuming prerogatives which belong to him alone. It is cursing where man himself stands in judgment. It is usually a direct attack on God and can place the blasphemer in direct jeopardy.

Gossip

Nowhere are “crooked words” heard more frequently than in the realm of gossip.

Gossip is usually a lie passed on surreptitiously either for the dubious pleasure of creating a sensation, or for the more overt intention of injuring the one who is subject to it.

Gossip is so common that those who do not indulge in it are rare. There is some strange fascination about passing on a juicy bit of scandal. How we love to take the mistake of an acquaintance and magnify and twist it so that we may have a fascinating conversation piece! And, how rarely does the gossip reflect the truth!

It is our observation that nowhere is gossip found to be more of a prevailing sin than in some Christian circles.

By it reputations are ruined, motives judged, friends separated, and Christian witness neutralized.

Criticism

Hand in hand with gossip is the critical spirit. Because someone does not act or react as we think they should we begin to criticize, and the step from this to gossip is so short and the end results so similar that Satan must chortle when he sees Christians fall into his trap.

Why should a Christian adopt for himself a standard of conduct with certain prohibitions (often unrelated to biblical truth) and then set himself up as a judge of those who live in a Christian freedom which their own consciences justify before God? There are good people who teach as doctrines things which are actually the commandments of men and they then become both judge and jury against those who are equally led in other ways by the Holy Spirit. This is not right and it very decidedly injures the witness of the Christian.

The first cousin of criticism is “backbiting,” a favorite game of those who forget that Christian love of the brethren is a definite command of the Lord.

How many ministers have had their usefulness in a certain congregation destroyed by the critical tongues of their parishioners!

How many Christians have suffered at the hands of fellow Christians who have undertaken to judge their actions without knowing the circ*mstances by which those actions were determined, or the Spirit-directed motivation behind that which they do!

The executive editor of one of our city papers, a friend of the writer, found his paper caught in the crossfire of two warring factions in the churches of his community. One day he asked the writer: “Why do Christians act like this. Dr.… seems to spend his time attacking Christian men doing far more in the kingdom of God than he has ever been able to accomplish.”

Little wonder that the apostle Paul, writing to the Galatian Christians, said: “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

Lying

The word “lie” is an ugly one. It has caused much violence and even hearing it used makes the righteous cringe.

But lying is widespread. It may be the calculated and premeditated perversion of the truth. Or it may be the implication of something we know to be the opposite of that implied.

The Bible tells us that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord and a canvass of the word in its Bible usage shows how seriously lying is regarded and how much under the judgment of God the liar stands.

Listed in the “seven things which God hates” are found, “a lying tongue,” “a false witness,” and “a man who sows discord among brothers.” Any consideration of the subject of “crooked words” brings us face to face with our own sinfulness in this matter.

It is to be expected that such misuse of speech will be found in the unregenerate world. At the moment our problem has to do with Christians. In this area we are woefully at fault and it requires that we confess the sins of our lips and like Isaiah of old ask that they be touched by a coal from the altar of God’s holiness that they may in turn be pleasing to Him.

L. NELSON BELL

The Editor

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First in a Series (Part I)

The predicament of evangelical Christian leaders in Israel at the moment promises little productive dialogue between Protestant orthodoxy and Judaism.

At the same time the climate for Christian activity in Israel is confessedly superior to that in some neighboring Arab lands where Moslem intolerance exerts many restrictions. Moreover, Christian missionaries in Israel—unlike the first apostles—do not today face the open hostility of Hebrew religious leaders. Those early disciples were arrested and jailed (Acts 4:3), threatened (4:21), prohibited from teaching about Jesus Christ by the high priest and the council (4:27 f.), in danger of life (5:33), beaten (5:40), and in the case of Stephen actually stoned to death (7:58) with the consent of the Jewish hierarchy. In this respect, the Christian missionary thrust in a predominantly Jewish environment today contrasts favorably with that of the first century.

Furthermore, the modern state of Israel in its 1948 proclamation of independence assures all citizens full equality without distinction of creed and ethnological background: “The State of Israel … will maintain complete equality of social and political rights for all its citizens, without distinction of creed, race, or sex. It will guarantee freedom of religion and conscience, of language, education, and culture. It will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.…” This legal climate has obviously been shaped by modern democratic ideals of human equality and liberty. Officially it promises more favorable treatment to missionary effort in Israel today than Christian leaders experienced from the Hebrew hierarchy in apostolic times when the Roman Empire bequeathed the settlement of religious differences in Palestine to Jewish authorities (before intolerant Gentile emperors themselves outlawed Christianity as an illicit religion).

It is astonishing, therefore, to count less than 50,000 Christians in the total Israeli population of over 2,100,000 (which includes 1,870,000 Jews and 16,000 Moslems). A further surprise is that the vast majority of these 50,000 Christians are Arabs; and that most are in the Greek Catholic (19,000), Greek Orthodox (17,500), Latin, or Roman Catholic (6,000) or Maronite (2,500) churches, while Protestants of many denominational affiliations number only about 1,500. In all Israel Christian Hebrews total between 250 and 300. Even though American diplomats and technicians sometimes augment the membership, Protestants are a small minority the equivalent of adherents of the Eastern rites (Armenian Gregorian, Coptic, and Abyssinian).

WHAT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY?

This Protestant minority, however, offers a significant test of Israeli intentions in respect to religious liberty. Israeli leaders might find special reason for a sympathetic attitude toward Protestant Christianity. For one thing Protestantism, unlike other forms of Christianity, does not aspire to reduce government to a temporal arm of the church. Protestants support religious freedom rather than mere religious tolerance. Moreover, evangelical Protestants hold devout views of the Old Testament, and resist destructive criticism of the Bible. And a great many Protestant evangelicals see not merely an accident of history but deep spiritual significance in the return of Israel to Palestine. Protestant workers to Israel, therefore, in recalling Jews to a devout hearing of the Law and the Prophets are eager to set the religious dialogue not in an anti-Judaic context but rather in the framework of “promise and fulfillment.”

It is clear, however, that Protestant witness in modern Israel is handicapped by more than just numerical weakness. Protestant workers and believers are becoming restless under evidences of the government’s restrictive policy. While Christian work among the Arabs is still largely unimpeded, many barriers hinder evangelization of the Jew. Protestant missionaries have faced this situation patiently for a dozen years; they have been sensitive both to the new country’s many urgent problems, and to their own numerical minority as well. More and more, however, the Christian community notes with disappointment how much religious freedom in Israel differs from that in the United States.

WORK AMONG THE ARABS

Although Christian workers know that freedom to evangelize the Arabs does not compensate for curtailed witness to the Hebrews, they are grateful for broader opportunities with this segment of the population. Of the 200,000 Israeli Arabs, some 50,000 are Christians (mainly Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox); Protestant Arabs number only about 1,000, located mainly in Nazareth, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Jaffa. Christian forces are free to provide religious education for Arabs. In fact, government agencies actively co-operate in this work in Galilee, where a large concentration of Christian Arabs is found. When education is in outside languages, however, difficulties arise. An education in English (or in French, as in Roman Catholic schools) is interpreted as preparation for life and service elsewhere than in Israel; for this reason pressures are brought for classroom use of either Hebrew or Arabic. Another problem is that Christian teachers, who come mainly from abroad, lack certificates from Hebrew University. And the government will not recognize a Christian-sponsored Hebrew school unless teacher salaries match those set by the Histadrut, or trade union. One Baptist school well illustrates the problems: it has switched from English to Hebrew and pays higher salaries; instead of Christians, however, it now has “sympathetic” non-Christians as teachers. Three or four other mission schools are planning this shift to education in Hebrew, but most mission schools are unprepared to make the change.

Although the government has asserted its power to regulate schools, it has not as yet done so, since the government wants no trouble with those countries where efforts such as education found their motivation. Furthermore, for some leaders the presence of mission schools in Israel represents the spirit of democracy at work in the nation.

The pressures on Christian education involve another consideration, namely, Israel’s tendency to view religious prerogatives in terms of established community groups. When a parochial school is established in a religious community (as by Roman Catholics), few problems arise. But to locate a mission school in a predominately Jewish area rouses opposition. Christian schools are tolerated if they were established prior to or during the U. N. mandate; no new schools are encouraged, however, (a few have been established subsequently) unless Christian teaching is excluded from the curriculum. Thus opportunities to provide Christian education for Jewish children are being lessened rather than increased.

A similar pattern relates to welfare work. Among such Protestant activities are a 100-bed hospital in Nazareth, an orphanage and clinic in Haifa, and a hospital in Jaffa. The government fully approves of Christian ministrations to the sick in Arab centers; if Christians did not establish hospitals, the government would need to supply and finance them. A few years ago, however, with no apparent reason but anti-missionary pressures, the government closed down a Protestant hospital in Tiberias that ministered mainly to Jews, and substituted state welfare services.

THE RESTRICTION OF VISAS

The government’s reluctance to grant visas to missionaries—sometimes even to medical workers—is definitely repressing and depressing Protestant missionary activity.

Many Christian workers concur that since Israel’s statehood her practice concerning visas clearly reveals certain prejudices:

1. The number of approved visas apparently aims to preserve the missionary quota at the same level which prevailed at the time of statehood. In defense of such restriction the argument is sometimes heard that at the time of partition, and as one of the conditions of statehood, the United Nations required Israel to “preserve” the religious status quo. In resisting this fixed quota system, Baptists (mainly Southern Baptists who work largely among the Arabs) have long emphasized not how many workers they have had but how many they need.

2. Missionaries from groups not already established at the time of statehood are discouraged both from entering and from remaining. Mennonites, for example, who entered after the new state was formed were told they had no right in Israel. And The Christian and Missionary Alliance group whose missionaries to Israel dropped from six to two sense the danger of total cancellation.

3. Periods of political tension are exploited as occasions to eliminate missionaries from new ventures or foreigners who do missionary work under other guises. Although they had already labored in Israel two years, six missionaries lost their visas during tensions with the United States over the Egyptian campaign. After the recent resignation of Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s government a new series of pressures and intolerances through the unrestrained Ministry of Interior has marked the caretaker government’s regime.

These pressures, however, have not greatly affected long-established works of the Church of England and Church of Scotland that minister in English and primarily to diplomatic and technical personnel. This emphasis on historically established quotas in a sense highlights the failure of Protestantism to venture a strong missionary program in Palestine before 1948. While many evangelical Protestants had expected the regathering of the Jews, they did not match prophetic expectation with missionary preparation and dedication. Even the Protestant missionaries now in Israel seem but tenuously related to this new land of intense nationalism. (See page 25 for report on stoning of Protestant church in Jerusalem.)

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The 350th anniversary of the publication of the Authorized or King James Version of the Bible is an opportune moment for taking stock of the spiritual situation in Great Britain. The greatness of Britain has been closely connected with the influence of the English Bible on her national life. Of this the British people and the British Commonwealth of nations is reminded at the coronation of each successive sovereign, when the Bible is presented to the new king (or queen) as “the most valuable thing that this world affords” and “the lively oracles of God.”

In a famous dictum, the historian John Richard Green described the English people as “the people of a book, and that book the Bible.” Referring to this description, Bishop Stephen Neill, in an article on “The Bible in English History” published in The Churchman (London), June, 1961, writes as follows: “It is hardly too much to say that in the sixteenth century the English language became the language of one book, and that book the Bible; and, since the language that men speak penetrates to the very recesses of their being, and influences thought and attitude and judgment in ways that are past reckoning, it is no exaggeration to maintain that the English Bible was, up till the end of the nineteenth century, one of the strongest creative forces that made and moulded the English way of life and the history of the English people.”

But having the Bible is not enough in itself. As a great evangelical bishop of last century, John Charles Ryle, wrote: “Just as man makes a bad use of his other mercies, so he does of the written Word. One sweeping charge may be brought against the whole of Christendom, and that charge is neglect and abuse of the Bible.… I have no doubt that there are more Bibles in great Britain at this moment than there were since the world began. We see Bibles in every bookseller’s shop, there are Bibles in almost every house in the land. But all this time I fear we are in danger of forgetting that to have the Bible is one thing, and to read it quite another.… Surely it is no light thing what you are doing with the Bible.” These words may be said to be even truer of Britain today than they were in Bishop Ryle’s time.

Nonetheless, the immediate availability of the Bible in one’s own language is an advantage not to be underrated. It constitutes, assuredly, a potential for judgment accumulating against those who through unconeern ignore its message. But it also constitutes a potential for salvation, ready through God’s grace to burst into a purifying blaze in the life of a nation. The situation in Britain today calls for purgation by the fire of God. It is a solemn and closely connected fact that, as Bishop Neill observes (in the same article), “for the first time since the Reformation the Bible is an unknown book to the majority of the people of England.”

The lesson of history is plain to see. The great spiritual revival of the sixteenth century, which is known as the Reformation, resulted from the rediscovery of the Bible as the Word of God—a rediscovery which led directly to the translation of the Bible into English and to the British nation becoming the people of the Book. And the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century, so far-reaching in its impact on the life of the nation, was a consequence of the nation-wide preaching by men like George Whitefield and John Wesley of the evangelical message of Holy Scripture which had fallen into disastrous neglect. That the present situation, alarming though it is (as the evidence set forth in this issue shows), is not beyond the point of reprieve is suggested by a consideration of the historical records, which lead one to conclude that Britain was in an even worse state of spiritual atrophy before both the Reformation and the Evangelical Revival than she is today.

All revival is, of course, the gracious work of the Holy Spirit; but that in no way absolves man from answerability to him who is his Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. In our Western world nothing is more desperately urgent than that we should learn the old lesson over again, that the recovery of spiritual and moral stature lies in getting back to the Bible as the Word of God, back to the only Saviour of mankind whom that Book proclaims, and back to the faith and worship enjoined by Christ through his Apostles.

But, it may be asked, can we really believe that God has a plan for nations? Again, the response of both Scripture and history is unanimous. The outstanding example is the divine choice of the nation of Israel and God’s integration of it into his redemptive purposes—purposes which were not frustrated by the sad fact that, despite all its privileges, only a fraction, a remnant, of the nation of Israel showed itself to be faithful to the requirements of the covenant which bound them to God. Although there is a certain unique aspect of the calling of Israel, their history nonetheless is a warning to every nation of the dire consequences of the abuse or contempt of blessings and privileges. In modern times Germany, the land of Martin Luther, supplied a dreadful example of this nemesis during the Nazi era, and a warning not least to Britain and the U.S.A. Ungodliness is the next step before inhumanity. “Them that honor me I will honor,” is a promise of God that still holds good. And God pleads not only with Israel but with any people that has departed from the old paths, “Return unto me, and I will return unto you.”

A nation is indeed a real entity, possessing a solidarity which God recognizes. There is such a thing as national life, national honor, national responsibility. But a nation is not a simple conglomerate. It is a complex organism compounded of a multiplicity of spheres and units of life. In the briefest analysis it may be broken down progressively into geographical communities, families, and individuals. Each individual is a member of a family and of a community as well as of the nation, and he cannot contract out of these widening spheres of involvement.

The Christian Church, too, is a nation—the nation of God’s people, redeemed, reborn, made members of the kingdom of Christ. It too comprises geographical communities, families, and individuals. As in the life of the nation, so in the life of the Church, individuals are the units of structure, though at the same time indissolubly linked with the wider solidarities. Individual believers, says the Apostle Peter, are the “living stones” of the edifice of Christ’s Church which, as Paul teaches, is “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.” And Christ himself is the chief cornerstone—that is, the measure of the Church’s stature, giving due position and alignment to every single believer built into the Ecclesia.

The redemption procured by Christ is appropriated, it is true, by individuals; but it embraces the widest solidarity of all, namely, the whole creation. The Gospel is addressed to the individual heart and conscience, but its effect is the building of the Church through God’s “adding to the church daily such as are to be saved.” The Christian receives the light of Christ in order that he, in the Church, may be the light of the world. He is placed within the Church, which means that he is no longer of the world. But he is still in the world, and the commission received from his Master is to go into all the world and to preach the Gospel to every creature.

The need for Great Britain today, and for every so-called Christian nation, is for the Church to recapture a sense of the imperative urgency of this dominical commission. There are indeed distinctions between ministry and laity, but there is no distinction where this commission is concerned. The distinction which assigns to the laity a role of passivity is a false distinction and a betrayal. Christ’s command is that every one of his followers should be an evangelist. What impact could we not expect on any nation where that command is obeyed by the members of his Church.

ANOTHER AMERICAN ASTRONAUT RIDES THE RIM OF OUTER SPACE

While millions watched by television, Virgil “Gus” Grissom became America’s second astronaut to probe suborbital space. Next on the agenda is a U.S. astronaut in outer space.

“Everything science does is productive,” remarked an impressed television commentator, without troubling to spell out what it produces. And indeed, nobody was prone to question the spectacular achievements of space science. But what “the space age” will produce is yet to be seen. In the first decades of our century even “progressive” clergymen looked to science to transform the world. But they had overlooked the frustrating detail that fallen man inhabits the earth. Things may go rather well in outer space too unless it becomes populated by sinful men. In that event, science may merely exchange one problem for another.

NO ACADEMIC LICENSE TO PERVERT MORAL STANDARDS

In March, 1960, the University of Illinois relieved Assistant Professor Leo Koch of his duties and terminated his contract at the end of the academic year. The Daily Illini had published his letter stating that for college students “there is no valid reason why sexual intercourse should not be condoned among those sufficiently mature to engage in it without social consequences and without violating their own codes of morality and ethics.”

The case has been carried to the courts by the American Civil Liberties Union and The Committee for Leo Koch. They contend that “no teacher should be dismissed on the ground that his views are ‘repugnant’ to a university administration.” They do not indicate on what grounds a professor is dismissable. Reduced to simple terms, it would seem that any professor, anywhere and anytime, can publicly advocate hom*osexuality, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and rape (if not mayhem and murder) with impugnity. Academic liberty, assuredly, is a necessary requisite for any campus immune to thought control. But liberty is hardly a license for academic perversion. Too many parents already are paying steep tuition charges for a diploma which depletes moral standards along the way. The administration of the University is to be commended for its courageous commitment to moral principle.

Oswald T. Allis

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Whatever else the statesmen and economists of today may report to us, they cannot say, “We have walked to and fro, through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest.” The earth is not sitting still; it is not at rest. Recent years have been marked by constant change, accompanied by turmoil and confusion. Many foundations have been destroyed; and the question is asked anxiously, What can the righteous do? What of the future?

As we look out on the world, we can hardly fail to see that the great problem which confronts us is that of authority and obedience. It faces us at every level: personal, domestic, social, religious. Is man an autonomous anarch? Or is he a responsible being; and if responsible, to whom?

The Bible has a simple but comprehensive answer to this question. Briefly stated it is this: Man was created by God and in the image of God; and the duty which God requires of man is “obedience to his revealed will.” The authority of God, implied in his Creatorship, has as its correlate the obedience of man; and God’s will is revealed in the Bible.

That this is so is the Bible’s constant claim. It is plainly set forth in the account of the creation of man. Five imperatives are at once laid upon man (Gen. 1:28); and three times the word “commanded” is used of God’s dealings with Adam and Eve. The story is briefly and simply told. God commanded; Adam and Eve disobeyed; the penalty or sanction attached to the command was invoked, and the guilty pair, under sentence of death, were driven forth from the presence of God.

The relationship established in Eden has been properly called the covenant of works. That it promised life as the reward of obedience is not immediately stated. But it is made abundantly clear elsewhere, notably in Deuteronomy (6:5; 10:12 f.; 30:15–20). The First Psalm is a poetical expounding of this covenant; and it has its counterpart in Romans 2:7–9. The penalty of disobedience is shown in the mournful cadence in Genesis 5, “and he died,” and in the terrible judgment of the Flood which destroyed “the old world of unrighteousness.” The consistent teaching of the Bible is that “the wages of sin is death.”

The covenant was made with Adam in a state of innocence; and almost his first recorded act was the breaking of it; and human history from that day to this is a tragic record of man’s failure to keep it. Consequently, in the plan and purpose of God, the covenant of works was immediately followed by the covenant of grace. This covenant is first set forth cryptically in the words of the protevangel (Gen. 3:15) which promised Eve ultimate triumph over the enemy of her race. In this covenant the emphasis is on faith. This is made clear in the wonderful words that are said of Abram: “And he believed in the LORD, and he accounted it to him for righteousness” (15:6), to which Paul appeals to show that Abraham was justified by faith and not by the works of the law. He also appeals to the words of the prophet, “the just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4). The New Testament abounds in statements which justify Luther’s challenge to Rome—“justification by faith alone.” John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Romans 2:8 are a few of them.

Since these two covenants are often contrasted rather sharply as works versus faith, it is important to remember that the basic requirement of both is exactly the same. They both require obedience to the revealed will of God. This is made especially clear in the life of Abraham. Abraham is Paul’s great example of salvation by faith. But no mere man was ever more severely tried and tested in the school of obedience (Gen. 22:18; 26:5). In the great faith chapter in Hebrews we read that when Abraham was called to go forth to the unknown country he “obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” This whole chapter should not be called “the faith chapter” but the chapter of “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:26). For of all its examples of faith it can be said, “They climbed the steep ascent of heaven through peril, toil, and pain.”

By the covenant of grace the Christian is not offered faith as an easy substitute for works of righteousness. It offers him an unmerited and unearned righteousness, the righteousness of Christ received by faith, which challenges him and demands that he walk worthy of his high calling, that he learn to say as Paul did, “the love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14). The fact that he is not under the law as a basis of works-salvation does not set before the Christian a lower standard than that of the Mosaic law, but a far higher one; and this for at least four reasons: (1) Being made free from the curse and bondage of the law as a covenant of works, he ceases to be a servant (slave) and becomes a son, a member of the household of God. (2) He has set before him the perfect pattern of obedience in the person and work of Christ. (3) He is given the strongest motive for loving and obedient service, gratitude to Him who died that he might live. (4) He has received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to illumine, sanctify, and energize him for the willing and obedient service of God. When Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment, “As I have loved you that ye also love one another,” he set them a standard of obedience that surpassed the commandment of the Law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Little wonder then that Paul answers the question, “Do we then make void the law through faith?” with the emphatic words, “God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” And the great Catechisms of Protestantism—Luther, Heidelberg, Westminster—devote much space to delineation of the meaning of the Decalogue as setting forth what Tyndale called “the obedience of the Christian man.”

Since then it is clear that the Gospel does not abrogate the moral law as a standard of life and conduct but raises it to a higher level both by example and precept, it is not surprising that various efforts have been made from New Testament times until now, by carnally-minded Christians—and none are wholly dead unto sin—to set aside the covenant of works as of obligation to the Christian, or to modify its demands. Space will permit only brief discussion of the most important of them.

Antinomianism. This heresy was met with already by Paul. Stating the antithesis between faith and works in the most absolute fashion, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Paul gave it the conclusive answer, “God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” The whole teaching of the New Testament is that justification has as its objective sanctification, redemption from all iniquity. A faith which does not bring forth fruit unto righteousness is not a living faith. The bandit who comes secretly to the priest for confession and absolution only that he may with a quieted conscience return to his life of thievery and violence is like the Jews of old who made the Temple “a den of robbers,” a refuge against the consequences of their evil deeds.

Perfectionism. This is the opposite extreme. It not merely recognizes the duty of man to do the will of God, but insists that he is able to do it. It has its familiar illustration in the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men and took pride in his good works. And the lesson of the parable is that all self-righteousness is an offence in the sight of God. This teaching must either lower the standard of obedience, or minimize the corruption of man and his consequent inability to obey God perfectly. This is illustrated most clearly in the doctrine of the church of Rome. It teaches that baptism removes the guilt and corruption of man’s nature and that prevenient grace is given him to enable him to do the will of God. The extreme form of this teaching is supererogation, that man can do not merely all that God requires but more, that by special acts of obedience (celibacy, poverty, austerity) he can lay up additional merit, which the Church can administer, for the benefit of sinful members of the body of Christ. This teaching makes the super righteousness of the saints (the few) the means of saving sinners (the many) from the torments of purgatory. It has no warrant in Scripture.

Perfectionism is taught in various forms in Christian churches today. It is biblical and sound when it recognizes and stresses the demands of Scripture for perfect obedience to the will of God. It is mistaken and dangerous when it fails to recognize that “no mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them, in thought, word, and deed.” The Apostle Paul confessed that he had not “already attained.” But he said, “I press to the mark to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Anyone who thinks he has attained deceives himself. Everyone who does not press toward the mark, fails to realize the obligation of his high calling.

Dispensationalism. This popular teaching is characterized by the dividing of biblical history into a series of distinct and contrasted dispensations. The most important are: promise, law, and grace. It teaches that the dispensation of promise was introduced by the Abrahamic covenant, the sole requirement of which was faith, that obedience was not required until at Sinai Israel “rashly accepted the law” (Scofield). The fallacy of this teaching can be shown in several ways. (1) Abraham’s faith was proved by his obedience when he was called upon to offer up Isaac (Gen. 22:1–18), and the blessings promised him and his seed were given “because thou hast obeyed my voice” (cf. 26:5). (2) Dispensationalists admit that the promise to Abraham was conditional when they tell us that to be or to remain in the land was a condition of blessing. (3) Refusal to accept the law at Sinai with its promise of blessing would have been an act of disobedience, which would have been dealt with as severely as was the refusal to go up to possess the land (Num. 14:26–38).

Barthianism. The primary emphasis in the crisis theology, of which Karl Barth is the most distinguished representative, is placed on the transcendence of God. This was the natural reaction to the immanentism of the old liberalism. It holds the separation between God and man to be utter and absolute. God must break through to man, if man is to know God redemptively. This breakthrough or “crisis” is an act of revelation and it is made in and through the Scriptures. But according to Barth the Bible is not a divine and infallible book but a very human and fallible book. It is not the Word of God: it contains it. It is only as God speaks through it to the human soul that the written word becomes God’s Word to the individual man; only if the word “finds” him is it God’s Word for him. Let us illustrate from the Decalogue. Suppose the command, Honor thy father and thy mother, does not “find” the adolescent of today, what power has Barthianism to require him to obey it? The great peril in Barthianism is its subjectivism. If man’s knowledge of God and His will comes only through the Bible, then only a fully dependable Bible can give man the clear and certain knowledge which he needs. But the Barthian must first decide for himself what the will of God for him is before he is under any obligation to accept it. Thus every man makes for himself his own “covenant of works” and does that which is right in his own eyes.

Existentialism. Like Barthianism, existentialism, despite its great popularity, is a relatively new teaching. It is traced back to Kierkegaard who in revolt against the spiritual coldness and lethargy of the Danish State Church, placed the emphasis on personal decision as against what has been aptly called the “spectator attitude” toward life.

This has developed into a tendency to reject the authority of all external standards and codes. It involves such familiar ideas as that of the sophists that “man is the measure of all things.” It may be atheistic or theistic.

An extreme form of it is found in the attempt of Bultmann to demythologize the Bible. Since the supernatural does not appeal to the “scientific” man of today, does not find him, it is treated as myth and eliminated, which means of course the denial and rejection of any divine authority or sanction in the Bible or elsewhere.

Centuries ago in a time of distress in Israel, a prophet of the Lord promised the people deliverance from Shishak. But he added these impressive words in the name of the Lord: “Nevertheless, they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries.” Freedom is a great word today, a word to conjure with. The Bible speaks in terms of service—service to God, servitude to man. It pictures the glory of the one, the misery of the other. Let us hope and pray that the trials through which men are passing today in their struggles for self-expression and for liberty, may lead them to submit themselves in loving obedience to Him of whom alone it can be said that His service is perfect freedom.

Bibliography: The Westminster Confession and Catechisms; H. Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants; general works on systematic theology, such as those of C. Hodge, A. A. Hodge, A. H. Strong. Of recent works: C. F. H. Henry, Christian Personal Ethics; Contemporary Evangelical Thought (ed. by the same); Scofield Reference Bible; O. T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church; A. Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ; monographs in the Modern Thinkers series: A. D. R. Polman, Barth; S. U. Zuidema, Kierkegaard; Sartre; H. Ridderbos, Bultmann.

Former Professor of Old Testament

History and Exegesis

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

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