Page 6251 – Christianity Today (2024)

The well-known maxim of G. E. Lessing, that the “accidental truths of history can never be the proof of the necessary truths of reason,” had a clearly negative bearing upon the total question of revelation. The obvious fact that Christianity rests upon events which occurred in time and space served to put it into sharp antithesis to any form of religion which claimed to rest upon, and to confine itself to, truths independent of historical facts. The rationalism of Lessing’s day has, of course, fallen into discredit; but the central fallacy of his argument has been retained by forms of thought which are not directly related to rationalism.

Forms of “Christian” thought which disallow the validity of the Christian revelation-claim are finding themselves involved in fresh ways with the question of the relevance of historical fact for their systems. These forms share with the rationalism of the eighteenth century a quest for integrity, no less than a desire for some form of “universality.” Total creedlessness has proved to be unsatisfactory, while reason itself has been subjected to the most rigid criticism. History itself has been treated with increasing caution, particularly at the point of the alleged possibility of completely objective history.

Movements in biblical criticism have sought, in varying degrees, to reduce the narratives of the biblical record to terms of a purely natural form of historical events. The success of these attempts has proved to be less spectacular than critics of fifty years ago would have dreamed. So long as the narratives were accorded historical integrity at all, they had a remarkable vitality, a remarkable ability to reassert themselves in the midst of critical denials.

It needs to be noted that historicism itself has not been called into question by much of critical scholarship, but only certain types of historicism. In general, the pages of historical narrative which deal with usual and “natural” events have occasioned little concern. It has been the historical documents which purport to tell of supernatural and “saving” events which have compelled many theologians to take a long and jaundiced look. In the light of this, Lessing’s dictum with reference to “accidental” or contingent “truths of history” calls forth the observation that it is not the contingent and the relational in history per se which is held to be irrelevant to religious truth, but rather certain kinds of contingent events.

It was when Christians began to emphasize the historical reality of events which lay so far outside of the commonly accepted pattern of the “natural” as to suggest that they issued from a special and unusual form of divine activity that the several advocates of modern forms of rationalism became concerned. In connection with the method of much of contemporary biblical interpretation, Otto A. Piper suggests that “a great deal of modern interpretation of the Gospels still follows the pattern of eighteenth century rationalism” (Theology Today, XIX, 3, 327).

This is another way of saying that modern scholars have assumed for themselves the ability to know a priori the quality of the necessary (and perhaps absolute) truths of religion, and thus to be able to sit in infallible judgment upon the “accidental” truths of biblical history. Methodologies at this point will vary. Lessing held Jesus to be a human being, but one who possessed the faculty of reason in a superlative measure. Thus his teaching was regarded by this eighteenth-century thinker as marking a new high level in man’s approximation of the truth. Events recorded in Scripture, however, which would seem to support a view of His supernatural origin or divine person were held to be simply irrelevant.

This same motif of irrelevancy is applied to the contingent events recorded in Holy Writ which seem beyond the usual operation of the world of nature by the interpretative school headed by Rudolph Bultmann. To this scholar and his followers. Modern Man becomes the measure for the thinkability of a given historically-recorded event. That which lies beyond the ken of his usual experience is then regarded as without meaning for him, and hence irrelevant for our time.

Yet another application of the principle of reason’s ability to decide the validity or non-validity of the contingent events of history which lie beyond the quality-scope of the usual and the natural is that of the “kerygma-type” of interpretation, by which it is held that it is only a message which can possibly be relevant for Modern Man. This message is held to be derivable from a historical reductionism, by which only existential factors are recognized as meaningful. Applied to the Christian faith, this frequently narrows the range of the possibly-relevant to one pivotal event in the career of the Church—usually the Incarnation or the Resurrection.

Yet another contemporary treatment of the contingent events described in the Four Gospels is that centering in the assertion that they contain, not history as it is usually understood, but Heilsgeschichte, or saving history. This motif is a modern construct, which in its pure form asserts that the application of the usual positive norm of time has no place in the interpretation of “holy history,” whose movement is upon a plane quite different from that of positive history.

A final attempt to deal with the relation of positive history to theology is taking shape in the form of a “commitment theology” which begins with a retreat from all forms of rational footing, including a reliance upon historical facts. It holds, then, that the final and unassailable ground upon which the Protestant must place his feet is that of an irrational commitment, an abdication of rational responsibility for content of religious faith. The only intellectual commitment which is relevant is a commitment to the methodology of criticism, which “hopes against hope” that this will take him beyond reason and beyond history to something ultimate. It is difficult to distinguish between this and historical nihilism.

Beware The Vices Of Preaching!

Let’s be difficult, preacher-brothers! Your tart, if paradoxical, rejoinder is, “That’s easy.” But perhaps we are not thinking of the same thing. What is harder than to catch ourselves in those pulpit vices that mar our preaching? “Be willing to ‘unlearn,’ and especially to cure yourself of noticeable faults,” urged Dr. James Black in The Mystery of Preaching.

Easy? One wonders if the man who says it has seriously tried.

Our inventory of these “noticeable faults” will be restricted to those that fall under the head of sermon delivery. Perhaps another time we can tackle those which are linked more particularly with the preacher’s personality or with the organization of the sermon.

Chief among the mischief-makers are, quite obviously, the Speech Culprits.

1. Poor volume control. Speaking too softly is an imposition on the courtesy of the hearers, while speaking too loudly is an affront to their dignity. The aim should be (assuming normal hearing) to make every person present hear every word uttered. Experienced speakers have found it helpful, when speaking to a large congregation in an assembly room to which they are unaccustomed, to fix attention on some person among those farthest away from the pulpit and so address him that he will hear without strain. The opposite of “too soft” is just plain “too loud.” “Scream no more” was John Wesley’s pithy, peremptory counsel to one of his younger preachers. Few preachers worth their salt can proclaim the Gospel without an elevation of voice, but this scarcely justifies a verbal version of assault and battery on the congregation. Noise is not to be equated with anointing. Unction yields to no exact measurement in decibels. One small but important point often overlooked: it is slightly maddening to a congregation when the preacher lets his voice drop low at the end of his sentences. The sentence-ending should be handled with change of pitch, not an extreme change of volume.

2. Slovenly enunciation. We in the United States are notorious for this defect of speech, and far too often our ministers rise little, if at all, above the prevailing cultural level. Let the preacher put himself to this test: “How do I actually pronounce the phrase ‘months and months’?” Most of us, most of the time, will be found saying it “munsenmunse,” all run together in an atrociously unarticulated mumble! My own experience, especially that which has come through conversation with the hard-of hearing, fully confirms James Black’s contention that “it is not loudness so much as good articulation that makes a speaker heard.” Needless to say, no one has any orchids to offer to the pedantic brother who has swung to the opposite extreme, and, like some telephone operators, pronounces “three” as if it were spelled “tha-ree” and “nine” as if it deserved an additional syllable, “nine-a.”

3. Faulty pitch and pace. Wesley, in a fascinating and perceptive passage, warns his younger ministers against getting stuck with a “tone” in their preaching. The several tones against which he inveighs include the “womanish, squeaking tone,” the “singing or canting tone,” the “high, swelling, theatrical tone,” and (who has not heard it?) “an odd, whimsical, whining tone.” The answer to all of this is, of course, the practice of modulation. The trained voice of the speaker, no less than that of the singer, is capable of organ-like control. It is difficult, I believe, to improve on this advice: speak naturally, with a variety of pitch and pace that will alike keep the voice of the preacher and the ears of the listeners from tiring. At all costs, shun a monotone.

Add now to the speech culprits the Gesture Goblins If pulpit gesturing is an art, it yields to no rule of thumb. I heard Billy Sunday and I heard George Truett. Those who have had a like experience will know how complete was the disparity between them at this point. Sunday could be dervish-like—wildly uninhibited. Truett was more often statuesque. The gesture to be avoided is the meaningless one, or the artificial one (borrowed from some other preacher), or the excessively theatrical one (“excessive” meaning that there is neither mood nor situation to justify the exorbitant piece of acting). Obviously, the purely “manneristic” movement of the hands should be guarded against carefully. Here the gowned brethren have an advantage over the ungowned: they are not seen nervously fingering a watch-chain or (more often in the old days of cutaways) sending their roving hands feelingly over their not infrequently ample abdomens. Let preachers remember that visible details have strange power over listeners. The hand can be friend or foe to sermonic effectiveness.

And, finally, a word about the Redundancy Snares. For example, it is pointless to say, “Let me illustrate this.” Proceed with the illustration. If it is worth shucks it will be seen for what it is. Don’t begin preaching with an apology. If you are ill prepared, trust God’s mercy to help you make the best of it. Let God and the people judge in the end how poor or peerless the sermon was. Rarely say, “And now in conclusion,” and never say it twice! It is that sort of guile that has incited some cynic to define an optimist as “a man who reaches for his hat when the preacher says, ‘Now in conclusion.’” Be a life-long student of economy with words. Wordiness is usually the sign of shallowness.

Prayer is indispensable to the making of a preacher. But so is the verbal pruning knife!

PAUL S. REES

He that hath sent me is with me; he hath not left me alone; I do always the things that are pleasing to him (John 8:29; read vv. 12–36).

In a brief phrase our Lord sets up the perfect ideal for a man’s life. He makes the stupendous claim that he himself has lived up to this ideal, and that he has done so because of his relation to the Father. So he sets up the loftiest ideal for any believer today: “I do always the things that are pleasing to God.” This ideal has much to do with four notes in the music of Jesus’ life.

I. Spirituality, a term that needs redemption from abuse. To our Lord spirituality means, not asceticism, but the sort of heart purity that ever sees God, and gladly responds to his holy will. If somewhat like him you have like purity of heart, you see God everywhere: in the flower that blooms, in the march of history, in the sorrows of men, above the darkness of the blackest cloud; and you know that he is on the field when he is most invisible.

II. Subjection, a contrasting note in the music of our Lord’s daily life. Many a would-be great man boasts: “I thank God I am my own master.” Because such men have ignored the Kingship of God, we have all the wreckage and ruin that blights our poor earth today. But as a believer when you next face a difficult dispensation of God’s dealing look him in the face and exclaim: “Hallelujah!”

III. Sympathy, when our Lord faces a crowd, or a person in distress. Why? Because he is right with God, right with men, one by one, and right with himself. In Christ-like sympathy lies the way to the settlement of every problem in this world. Ah, believe me, our sorrows are more felt up in heaven than here on earth. In Christ we behold the perfect sympathy of the One who ever did what was pleasing to God.

IV. Strength. We think of his weakness and frailty, but there never was anyone so mighty as our Lord. Hear him say: “I am King for I have faced the enemies of mankind—sin and sorrow, ignorance and death—and my foot is upon the neck of every evil. All authority is given unto me.”

Ah, my brother, here is the pattern for you. Here is the ideal. How can you fulfill it? Let the Apostle answer: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” If by the power of the Spirit Christ is in you, he will keep you ever aware of God’s nearness. From hour to hour he will take your will, blend it with his own, and then remove all that ever makes it hard to say, “God’s will be done.”—From The World’s Great Sermons, Funk & Wagnalls, 1908, X.

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour (Acts 5:30, 31a; read vv. 17–32).

The resurrection of Christ is a miracle, far beyond all the other Gospel miracles. What concerns us now is the meaning of this miracle. From the Bible the answer comes again and again: The resurrection of Christ is the creative act of God, a new revelation of his living power. From this resurrection fact spring three new hopes today.

I. A New Hope for the Believer, the hope of a resurrection to a new quality of life. This is what Paul kept preaching: “Do not hold the Resurrection far off, as a fact for some future hour when God shall call forth the dead. See in it a fact with power for today.” This lesson Paul learned on the Damascus road: the assurance of a risen life here and now. For this new life, Christ-created and Christ-governed, the world is looking today; it is life that comes to the believer through the Resurrection Gospel.

II. A New Hope for the Church. I need not describe what we see today at home and abroad: in Russia and elsewhere, chaos and dread. The hope for the Church still rests in God, and the power he has revealed in the Risen Christ. The faith that makes believers mighty is not an artificial creation of our own fancy; it is the response to the vision of God’s power in the resurrection of his Son.

Is anything too hard for such a Risen Lord? Is it beyond the power of the Church to meet victoriously any evil, however deeply entrenched? Power to engage in any crusade, no matter how stupendous? Is anything God wills beyond the resources of the Church for which he lives in Christ, raised from the dead and now exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour?

III. A New Hope for the World. Who can fitly describe the world as he beholds it today? In Russia and elsewhere moral confusion abounds, with many a cause for alarm. But why do we in the Church not look up to God? What does the Resurrection say to such a world as this? Does it not declare that in God there is power? Now that we seem to have reached the end of our resources, we are only at the beginning of our resources in him whom God raised from the dead and exalted to be a Prince and Saviour.

That is what we need today. He can save us only as we accept His rule. When Jacob Boehm, the Christian mystic, was dying, his ears were attuned to the harmonies of heaven. “Open the windows,” he whispered with his last breath, “and let in more of that music!” What music? That of the Easter hope.—From The Victory of God, London, 1921.

Let not your heart by troubled.… I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am, there ye may be also (John 14:1–3; read vv. 1–31).

The Introduction has to do with the most beloved chapter in God’s Book, and with the Saviour’s answers to our perennial question about what lies beyond.

I. The Confidence that Life Follows Death. Not a sunset, but a sunrise! Some day we are going to exchange the frail tents in which we live for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Heaven is a place, not a state of mind. Somewhere in God’s wonder world there is a place that Jesus calls the Father’s house, into which we are to go and see him, to be with him and with those whom we have loved and lost a while.

II. The Freedom from Earthly Shackles. Heaven is but another name for home. When death comes it is passing out of one room called “life” into a larger abiding place called “eternity,” which is the Father’s house. In it are many abiding places. In this life many of us keep moving from place to place, but yonder there is an abiding place. Our life here is marred by our shortcomings and choked ideals, frustrated ambitions and thwarted plans. There we shall be free from all the handicaps that characterize us here.

Yonder we shall catch up with reality, and be free from earthly shackles. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Here we learn that death releases us, and that the joy of creating and serving, of loving and lifting, goes on with us into the land that is fairer than day.

III. The Opportunity for a Wider Ministry. A life awaits us in which there shall be an unfolding of all our best powers and possibilities. Here we struggle for knowledge, purity, and happiness. There we shall know as we are known, be pure as He is pure, with contentment and satisfaction and blessedness, through seeing the King face to face, and being reunited with those we have loved and lost a while.

When the enraged people of France put to death Louis XVII, there was left a little boy who would have become Louis XVIII. Him they put in prison. As the lad grew older, evil companions would suggest some vicious thought or vulgar word. He would stand at full height and say: “No, I will not think that. I cannot say that. I was born to be a king!”

That is the thought I leave with you. You cannot spend your life on trivialities, on collecting material substance. You were born to be a king. If you listen softly Jesus will say: “Let not your heart be troubled.… In my Father’s house are many mansions.… I go to prepare a place for you.… I will come again and receive you unto myself.”—From The Mighty Saviour, Abingdon Press. 1952, pp. 141–54.

Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15:20).

Note that word “now”! Every Lord’s Day reminds us anew that the Cross was not the end of the Gospel, but soon led to a glorious beginning, for which we all thank God today, and shall do so evermore.

I. The Resurrection of Christ Vindicates the Cross to All Eternity. After the brutal show of sin on Calvary, holy men rested on their Sabbath Day. What else could they do but wait on their God? In a sense that agelong warfare of sin against God still goes on. But the Resurrection shows us once for all that the final victory rests with God.

II. The Resurrection Reveals the Suffering of the Cross as the Pathway to Glory. Here in this world is something vastly worse than suffering. This is the inability to see above the suffering, the refusal to see that anything glorious lies beyond. Beyond the darkness of Good Friday the dying Redeemer beheld the brightness of Easter Morn, and the remainder of the New Testament throbs with the same Christian hope. So do the church of Christ and the heart of every believer in Christ today.

III. The Resurrection Means that God’s Final Word Is a Word of Life. What we believe about the Cross and the Resurrection depends on what we believe about Christ. On the cross and in his resurrection glory Christ is our perfect, sinless Representative. Because he lives, we too shall live. We may now have a sense of being lost in a wilderness of hatred and fear. But we can follow Christ with confidence, because by faith we have seen beyond the blackness of Good Friday to the brightness of Easter Day.

Christ is risen! Hallelujah! Therefore we have no fear of committing ourselves to the darkness. By faith we can walk the way of the Cross because by faith we have seen beyond the Cross.—From Beneath the Cross of Jesus, Abingdon Press, c. 1961, pp. 82–92.

Lutheranism Is Still Luther

The Structure of Lutheranism, by Werner Elert, tr. by Walter A. Hansen (Concordia, 1962, 547 pp., $10.95), is reviewed by Robert Preus, Professor of Systematic Theology, Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

By the “structure” of Lutheranism Elert means its confessional dynamic as this developed through the epochs of history and influences man’s life. In this volume, therefore, the author seeks to describe Lutheranism not merely according to its confessions, but by its inner dynamic and spirit. This is an immense undertaking even for such a large volume as this: it requires a vast knowledge of all the literature and history of Lutheranism’s first 200 years and a critical sifting of the evidence to discover the true nature of Lutheranism. The author is eminently qualified for the task.

Perhaps it is not an oversimplification to say that for Elert the paradigm for the structure of Lutheranism is Luther. Where the Lutheran confessions and later Lutheran orthodoxy follow his theology, his concerns, his spirit, they are recognized with true appreciation; where they fail to reflect Luther, and even where they address themselves to areas beyond his concern, they are condemned with faint praise or frankly criticized. There is real merit in such a thesis as Elert propounds. Certainly the basic structure of Lutheranism can be traced to Luther’s insight into such crucial matters as sin, freedom of the will, and in particular the impact of the Gospel, and Elert offers magnificent discussions of these fundamental themes. But just as the Lutheran confessions were composed by more men than just Luther, so a description of the structure of Lutheranism is more than just a tracing of Luther’s theology and spirit as it pervades two centuries.

To this reviewer there are two particular merits in this profound study. First, Elert shows that the Gospel motif lies behind all the theology and activity of Lutheranism. Second, he clears up many points at which Lutheranism has been misunderstood or misrepresented. For instance, he demonstrates with copious evidence (against the allegations of G. Warneck and others) that Luther and all who followed were intensely interested in mission work among the heathen, and did everything possible to carry on such activity. This resulted directly from the impact of the Gospel which underlies Lutheranism.

On only one point does Elert disappoint us: he does not come to grips with Luther’s doctrine of the Word, which is fundamental to a full appreciation of the structure of Lutheranism. On the matter of biblical authority he drives a wedge between Luther and the theologians of the later orthodox period, calling the latter biblicists. In this he is simply mistaken. It is true, as Elert points out, that the later dogmaticians argued too much from external criteria for the authority of Scripture and indulged in apologetics which was too extravagant at times. But their doctrine of Scripture’s authority does not differ from Luther’s, and they were perfectly justified (against Elert’s criticism) in deriving the authority of Scripture from its origin as well as pragmatically from its effects (as Elert wishes to do).

The Structure of Lutheranism is a classic, without doubt the finest single treatment of the subject available. One who reads and digests this volume—and this involves real work—will be greatly rewarded: he will know what Lutheranism is.

ROBERT PREUS

Up The Preliminaries

The Word in Worship, by Thomas H. Keir (Oxford, 1962, 150 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Howard G. Hageman, Minister, North Reformed Church, Newark, New Jersey.

Dr. Keir’s book, based on his Warrack Lectures of 1960, is a welcome addition to the growing library of volumes on preaching. What makes it exceptionally valuable is that the author seeks to discuss preaching in its proper context, as part of the liturgy of the Church, seen from the Reformed point of view. Thus while the Scriptures and preaching are the major interest of the book, Dr. Keir does not forget the Church’s prayer, praise, and sacraments, all of which he properly sees as part of the ministry of the Word. That is a healthy Calvinistic emphasis. Too many soi-disant Calvinists detach preaching from its setting and play the worship of the Church down as a mere incidental preliminary; Dr. Keir restores it to the theological perspective which it must have in any Reformed view that wishes to claim the name of Calvin.

In this reviewer’s opinion the chapter on “The Song” is an especially valuable breaking of new ground, particularly when one considers the almost incredible things (both musically and theologically) that are uncritically accepted in Reformed worship. Dr. Keir attempts to give hymns their true Reformed liturgical function so that they do not become meaningless interludes chosen only because people like to sing them.

While the author’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper is a brief and incidental one, the point at which the subject is discussed is of some significance. The final chapter in the book is entitled “The Mouth-Piece.” It is as a development of a section (“Biblical Concreteness”) in this chapter that Dr. Keir discusses the relation between Word and Supper.

But most of the book is devoted to the question of preaching—and most of what the author says is both sound and stimulating. Dr. Keir has a great gift for memorable phrases, and his book bristles with them. “The real ages of great preaching have always been the ages of great hearing” (p. 5). “Loosening of the dogmatic structure always marks a weakness of the Church at the most vulnerable, because most characteristic, place in her economy” (p. 124). “On the hearer’s side the difference is between hearing a sermon and hearing the Word of God; between seeing forked lightning on a film, and being exposed to the whip and terror of the thing itself; between reading an article about life in the army and being handed your call-up papers …ˮ (p. 133).

The author is so obviously a preacher that it almost impossible for him to mention a scriptural text without pausing to point out its homiletical possibilities. Indeed, one sometimes thinks that the progress of thought is needlessly interrupted by these frequent homiletic excursions. Sometimes, however, the objection is a more serious one. Despite what he has to say about allegorical preaching and the use of an over-wrought typology, Dr. Keir is not always guiltless at this point himself. One is a little surprised, for example, to find him employing the well-worn allegorizing of 2 Samuel 18:8(p. 20) and a rather dubious application of 1 Kings 22:3, to mention but two examples. Surely there is enough to be preached in Dr. Keir’s understanding of the Word without making use of such questionable materials!

But this single blemish should not deter one from reading appreciatively one of the best books on the Reformed concept of preaching and worship to appear in recent years.

HOWARD G. HAGEMAN

The Evaluation Continues

Another Look at Seventh-day Adventism, by Norman F. Douty (Baker, 1962, 224 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, Vice President of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

The author of this book has rendered a valuable service in that he has brought under scrutiny some of the major views of Seventh-day Adventism which were at the heart of the Barnhouse-Martin explosion several years ago. He deals with such subjects as man, death, inspiration, the Sabbath, the investigative judgment, and everlasting punishment. Douty argues that Martin and Barnhouse were wrong in their analysis and were taken in by the statements given them by the Adventists. His attitude toward Questions on Doctrine is that the book fails to represent the historical views of this group in its early days.

Douty is able to make a strong case against Adventism from its own writings. But there is one important question which remains to be answered. Has Adventism really changed? Is there a new stance which is evangelical? Perhaps the best answer to this question is found in one historical development which Douty does not treat in detail, the so-called “Brinsmead Movement.” This movement strongly argues that historic Adventism has been sold down the river by the present leadership and calls for a return to the old teachings of the group.

Douty does establish that there are Adventist writings which teach the peccability of Jesus, the necessity for keeping the Sabbath in order to be saved, the inerrancy of Mrs. White’s teaching, and the incompleteness of Christ’s work because of the investigative-judgment sequence and Adventist eschatology. Unfortunately he himself falls into at least one serious error: he fails to distinguish Christ as one person in two natures. “Inasmuch as it is the personality that is the responsible agent in sinning, then, seeing that the personality of Christ is Divine, to say that He could have sinned is to say that Deity could have done so.” Douty had better reflect on the Monophysite and Monothelite controversies of the early church centuries.

This work is worth reading. Surely the author has been fair in his analysis and careful in seeking authoritative sources.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

★ Exositosy Preaching Without Notes, by Charles W. Koller (Baker, $2.50). A remedy for that ironical moment in the pulpit when the impassioned preacher must pause to see what comes next.

★ Triumphant in Trouble, by Paul S. Rees (Revell, $3). A sensitive but ringing proclamation of the promises, the peace, and the encouragement of the Christian Gospel.

★ He Speaks From the Cross, by John Sutherland Bonnell, J. Wallace Hamilton, Gerald Kennedy, Robert J. McCracken, J. B. Phillips, Paul Scherer, and Chad Walsh (Revell, $3). Seven essays on the seven words of the Cross by a cross section of prominent clergymen.

Cry For Freedom

The Inevitable Encounter, by Edward L. R. Elson (Eerdmans, 1962, 68 pp., $2.25), is reviewed by John R. Richardson, Minister, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

Believing that the Church itself is a challenging arena for evangelism and education, Dr. Elson presents nine topical sermons designed to meet this challenge. He maintains that it is not sadism to remind our generation of how our Christian forebears gave their lives that we might have the faith we now sometimes take so lightly. Only a costly discipleship, he insists, is adequate for our day.

In a day when our storehouse of freedom is being robbed, it is encouraging to are a champion of the principles of liberty at our national capital. Dr. Elson affirms that political freedom is the logical result of spiritual emancipation, and that only as men live under the higher sovereignty of God can they be trusted with their own destiny.

Dr. Elson speaks of the Reformed tradition, but his theology is not always “Reformed.” He says that Christ “never comes in until the door is opened on the inside” (p. 66). The experience of the brilliant young rabbi from Tarsus is a standing example of how the Lord in his sovereign grace is able to enter a closed door.

The themes discussed in this volume are of absorbing interest. They should stimulate the twentieth-century Christian to consider seriously the implications of the Gospel of Christ for his own life. Each sermon is graphic and marked by a positive accent.

JOHN R. RICHARDSON

Still Too Much

Karl Barth on God, by Sebastian A. Matczak (St. Paul Publications, 1962, 358 pp., $5.75), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

This Roman Catholic critique of ample title is characterized, not unnaturally, by repeated contrasts between Barth and Aquinas. Though the conclusion that they differ is sometimes superfluous or trivial, the author makes a telling point here and there.

For example, Barth holds that natural theology fails because it arrives at best at a Supreme Being and not at the Trinity. But God is the Trinity, and any other idea of God is idolatrous. Matczak replies: then the Old Testament must be discarded because it has no idea of the Trinity and especially no idea of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, if in heaven our knowledge of God will be more superior to our present knowledge than our present knowledge is to the idea of a Supreme Being, then our present knowledge of the Trinity is as useless as Barth thinks the idea of a Supreme Being is (pp. 73–77).

The author also attempts to defend the scholastic view of natural theology by the theory of analogy. The point is made that the theory of analogy is established after and not before the existence of God is proved. This is an interesting observation. Still, if existence is univocal in the proofs, as it must be for a valid implication, then the theory of analogy is destroyed in advance; whereas if existence is even later shown to be analogical, the proofs are then discovered to have been invalid (pp. 207, 208).

Throughout the author assumes the validity of the Thomistic proofs and the theory of abstraction and epistemology on which they are based. In addition to repeating scholastic themes of long standing he makes liberal use of the recent arguments of E. L. Mascall. But none of this (especially p. 251) is enough to convince a non-Aristotelian. In fact such a one, if a Reformed thinker, would be inclined to believe that Barth himself, for all his rejection of natural theology, still has too much, rather than too little, abstraction, empiricism, and analogy.

GORDON H. CLARK

In The Mirror Darkly

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin (Dial, 1963, 122 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Reviewing a book such as this is like dissecting a groan, or unnoting a musical composition. For the book is a bleeding of the heart, a groaning that has found a voice whose timbre comes from 400 years of being a man, yet something less, and the while knowing that one is more.

James Baldwin discovered in becoming a man that in the eyes of the majority he would never be one, that the doors of his future opened on nowhere.

But the book is more than a race’s anguish erupting into articulation. It is reflection, a perceptive and dignified analysis of the Negro’s lot of suffering in a white man’s land. It is a proud assertion against the odds of the centuries of a humanity denied, and still denied. Suppression of the Negro, says Baldwin, is the indispensable support for the white man’s proud myth about his superiority. Without it he could not sustain his otherwise insupportable self-estimate. The Negro is a mirror in which the white could see himself, but if he looked, says Baldwin, he could not tolerate what he saw. Looking in the mirror he would see darkly. White Americans will be saved only when they can accept the Negro as a mirror in which to see themselves, and by accepting themselves, save themselves from themselves. But the way of salvation is the same for both; the American Negro must learn to accept the white American. Without this double acceptance—the Negro’s acceptance of the white, and the white’s acceptance of himself—America is threatened, and chiefly by the white’s spiritual impotency.

Onetime-minister Baldwin’s solution is not Christian—nor yet un-Christian. It is law rather than gospel, a preparation of heathenism for Him who is the way. His analysis can teach the white much (and trouble him much, too) and the Christian even more—unless conscience be dead and all humanity drained off. But if so, then:

“God gave Noah the rainbow sign,

No more water, the fire next time.”

It is a mystery, says Baldwin, that the white should think the Negro wants his daughter. Not only does history suggest that desire ran in the other direction but, except for power, the white has nothing the Negro could want. Baldwin says he has seen nothing in the private or public life of the whites that would make a Negro want to be a white. Indeed, “the American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling.”

Unless America faces itself, it will have to face a bill “it is not prepared to pay.” The glorification of race “is precisely what the Nazis attempted. Their only originality lay in the means.…” Hope, for Baldwin, lies elsewhere: “We, the black and white, deeply need each other here if we are really … to achieve our identity.”

JAMES DAANE

About As Good As Can Be

Protestant-Catholic Marriage, by C. Stanley Lowell (Broadman, 1962, 135 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by W. E. Borne, Pastor, Foster Park Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois.

Writing in straight lines, Dr. Lowell travels the shortest distance between points. For clear, concise information on the involvements of a Protestant-Catholic marriage, this is about as good a book as can be produced.

The author takes his positions with forthright decisiveness, and if marshalling all pertinent facts accurately is an indication of scholarly work, this is a scholarly book. With hard statistics he spells out the religious fate of those who intermarry intending to maintain their previous religious affiliations, those who intermarry with one partner’s signing the antenuptial agreement (the text is included), and those who convert to one side or the other. The figures come from both Protestant and Catholic sources, and are not encouraging. Few people have any idea of the severity of the problems faced in a Protestant-Catholic marriage.

Against a background of fact and case history the author writes what is probably the most helpful chapter, one which delineates the counseling procedures before and after marriage. The available choices and their results are enumerated, together with the full implications of the Catholic attitude on birth control and abortion.

This is an excellent book. I know of nothing comparable in scope, conciseness, and clarity.

W. E. BORNE

A Chinese Square

God Who Redeems, by Eric H. Wahlstrom (Muhlenberg, 1962, 198 pp., $4), is reviewed by Robert P. Roth, Professor of Systematic Theology, Northwestern Lutheran Seminary, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The subtitle of this book, Perspectives in Biblical Theology, aptly describes the contents. This is not a complete or systematic treatment of biblical theology. Some subjects, such as the sacraments and preaching, are ignored altogether, but the subjects Dr. Wahlstrom has chosen to discuss have been treated with depth and originality. He examines the Bible as the record of the decisive acts of God. In both the Bible itself and the great events of salvation history, God is the dynamic and critical Person in the center of the stage.

Perhaps the book’s most original contribution is the suggestion that salvation history be schematized in the form of a Chinese square. Usually, following Cullmann, we think of biblical history as a linear progression with its beginning in Creation, ending in the Parousia, and midpoint in the event of Christ. Here Wahlstrom criticizes realized eschatology because it fails to recognize the decisive place of the future Parousia. Furthermore, the linear view of time fails to bring the past into redemptive significance with the present and the future. By describing a Chinese square with Adam and the Fall at the center and an outward progression through seven decisive events, Wahlstrom seeks to demonstrate that every successive event carries with it the past by creatively transforming it and projecting it forward by promise into the future. The seven decisive events are Eden, the Flood, Abraham’s covenant, the Exodus, the Exile, Christ, and the Parousia. The great virtue in this scheme is that it portrays the function of the Church to be not an end in itself but a suffering servant for the sake of the salvation of the world.

Seen from God’s side every event has judgment, redemption, and a promise. Seen from man’s side there is always repentance, faith, and hope. One might ask why Wahlstrom chose these seven as the decisive events in salvation history and left out others such as the establishment of the Kingdom and the building of the temple with its cultus. Surely kingship and sacrifice contain judgment, redemption, and promise in the pedagogy of God just as much as the seven chosen by Wahlstrom.

Apart from this minor amendment to his scheme it should be said that this book is one of those rare publications which have both clarity and depth. Its provocative and original thesis makes it rank with Hebert’s Throne of David and Cullmann’s Christ and Time.

ROBERT P. ROTH

A Thing Of Beauty

Our Living Bible, by Michael Avi-Yonah and Emil G. Kraeling (McGraw-Hill, 1962, 384 pp., $15), is reviewed by Frank Farrell, Assistant Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The luminous good looks of this tome superbly reflect the brilliance of the five-volume Illustrated World of the Bible Library, from which 400 full-color illustrations have been borrowed. These are accompanied by a simple, explanatory text; the resulting reconstruction of the life and culture of Bible times is a delight to behold, with photographs, drawings, and maps all playing a part in the vivid illumination.

Certain critical views and the inadequacies of some theological statements mar the work, but it seeks to avoid theology in directing its appeal to both Christians and Jews. Emphasis is upon biblical data which lends itself to helpful illustration. Pictured are tablets of primitive writing, and ancient scenes of ritual ceremonies, battles, and activities of daily life. The fruits of archaeology and epigraphy are here seen to splendid effect.

FRANK FARRELL

Book Briefs

The Autobiography of Jesus, edited by Frank C. Laubach (Harper & Row, 1962, 192 pp., $3, paper $1.50). Another modern attempt to rewrite Scripture, this time by relating the life of Jesus in the first person.

1000 Tips and Quips for Speakers and Toastmasters, by Herbert V. Prochnow (W. A. Wilde, 1962, 142 pp., $2.95). Clean, funny humor; a few of these quips and tips may save you in many an unfunny situation.

Man From Cyrene, by Frans Venter (Muhlenberg, 1962, 332 pp., $4.95). A South African novelist relates how Simon, strong man-of-the-soil from African Cyrene, long rejected, then finally accepted as Messiah the One for whom he carried a cross one day.

These are the Sacraments, by Fulton J. S (Hawthorn, 1962, 160 pp., $4.95). Sheen’s words and Yousuf Karsh’s photography dramatically present the meaning of Rome’s seven sacraments. A clear presentation for Protestants who want to know.

John Wilbur Chapman, by John C. Ramsay (Christopher, Boston, 1962, 230 pp., $3.95). His message, his methods, and the man himself, who was one of the outstanding evangelists of the last generation.

The Anatomy of Dirty Words, by Edward Sagarin (Lyle Stuart, 1962, 220 pp., $4.95). Vocabulary of filth under copyright. As scholarly, purposeful, and exciting as the usual public restroom literature.

The Best of the Sanctuary, by Charles M. Crowe (Abingdon, 1962, 112 pp., $2.25). One hundred brief devotional readings selected from the yearly issues of the author’s The Sanctuary.

The Person You Can Be, by Roy A. Burkhart (Harper & Row, 1962, 260 pp., $4.50). Author psychologizes a rather liberal theology to enable the reader to become the person he essentially is.

All the Promises of the Bible, by Herbert Lockyer (Zondervan, 1962, 610 pp., $6.95). Author begins by allowing Samuel Johnson and Webster’s dictionary to define the meaning of “promise” and then presents a prodigious amount of material with little organization and even less discernible purpose.

Living Letters (Tyndale House [Wheaton, Ill.], 1962, 338 pp., $3.50). A paraphrase (of all the New Testament epistles) which the jacket defines as a simple and accurate restatement of the biblical writers’ thoughts resulting in an “easier reading … of the mighty Word of God.”

The Mysterious Presence, by Edwin C. Munson (Fortress, 1963, 112 pp., $2.95). A Lutheran pastor shares his Communion sermonettes.

Islam, by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, Vol. VII of “Religious Perspectives,” ed. by Ruth Nanda Anshen (Harper & Row, 1962, 216 pp., $4.50). President of the General Assembly of the United Nations presents the religious perspective of Islam for war, peace, and social and political life.

Classics in Logic, ed. by Dagobert D. Runes (Philosophical Library, 1962, 818 pp., $10). Readings presenting various theories of knowledge gathered from the epistemologists of many schools and epochs.

The Royal Way of the Cross, by Ray Cecil Carter (Fortress, 1963, 98 pp., $2). Eight short essays that point out the issue of the Cross for every human being. Authentic Christian writing.

When You Are Asked About Faith and Life, ed. by Heinrich Giesen, tr. by Elmer Foelber (Fortress, 1963, 190 pp., $3.75). Forthright, substantial, clear answers to 168 questions; from the Lutheran perspective.

Mary Bunyan, by Sallie Rochester Ford (Bible Truth Depot, 1963, 488 pp., $3.75). A tale of religious persecution; available for the first time in 100 years.

Paperbacks

The Upper Room Disciplines 1963 (The Upper Room, 1962, 371 pp., $1). Less than rugged biblically, and with no visible support for the claim that these are devotions particularly for ministers, theological students, and church workers.

Rediscovering the Natural in Protestant Theology, by Karl T. Schmidt (Augsburg, 1962, 91 pp., $1.65). An attempt to get theology, which often sticks to the ceiling, down to the floor where life is lived. P. Ramsey, A. Nygren, D. Bonhoeffer, and others are drawn into a good theological conversation.

Alcoholism and the Alcoholic, by Maxie C. Collins (Fairview, Inc., Ridgeway, S.C., 1962, 159 pp., $2). One of the finest brief-yet-thorough discussions of the problem.

To Love Is to Grow, by Patricia and Christine White (Abingdon, 1962, 96 pp., $1.25). A relaxed, forthright discussion of sex, marriage, family living, from the Christian perspective.

Why I Am at the Seminary, edited by Thomas W. Wersell (Augustana, 1962, 160 pp., $2.50). Forty-one seminarians tell why they are in seminary. Could well serve purposes additional to the announced one of wooing more men into the ministry.

My Body Broken, by Melvin A. Hammarberg (Fortress, 1963, 138 pp., $1.75). Messages for Lent by a Lutheran minister; one for each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter.

Creeds of the Churches, edited by John H. Leith (Doubleday, 1963, 590 pp., $1.95). A valuable reference book whose value would be threefold greater if it did in fact contain “all the major theological affirmations of the Christian community.”

The Ship of Fools, by Sebastian Brant (Dover, 1962, 400 pp., $2). The original work of this title, whose author sought to maintain the status quo against the tides moving toward the Reformation. Translation of a 1509 work.

The Church—Local and Universal, by Leslie T. Lyall and Lesslie Newbigin, and Evangelicals and the World Council of Churches, by A. T. Houghton (World Dominion Press, 1962, 28 and 30 pp., 1s. 6d. and 1s.). Second and third of the series, “Things We Face Together”; written by authors of diverse position but of common concern for the Church.

The Sermon on the Mount, by Roger L. Shinn (United Church Press, 1962, 112 pp., $1.45). Short readings, with a long punch, on aspects of the Sermon on the Mount. First published in 1954.

Survey of the Training of the Ministry in the Middle East, by Douglas Webster (Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, 1962, 63 pp., $.75 or 3s. 6d.). A report of a survey of theological education in Iran, the Arabian-Persian Gulf, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, undertaken by a commission of the World Council of Churches.

I Write to You Fathers, by Melford S. Knutsen (Hayfield Publishing Co. [Hayfield, Minn.], 1962, 103 pp., $1.25). Direct, readable writing that speaks to the practical issues involved in being a father.

The Inspiration of the Scriptures, by A. W. Pink (Bible Truth Depot, 1962, 144 pp., $1.50). A popular defense of the Scriptures. First printed in 1917.

The Question of Bible reading in public schools is being argued before the United States Supreme Court this week for the first time in American history. The high court has agreed to hear arguments on two lower court decisions: a United States District Court (E.D. Pa.) decision holding Bible reading unconstitutional and a Maryland Court of Appeals decision declaring the opposite. A third case, in which Florida’s Supreme Court upheld Bible reading, is still on the United States Supreme Court’s docket awaiting action.

Until recently lawfulness of Bible reading in public schools depended solely upon the provisions of the various state constitutions and how state courts interpreted them. But in 1940 the United States Supreme Court decided that the guarantees of the First Amendment—that “Congress shall make no Law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”—apply to the state legislatures as well.

In 1958 the first Bible-reading case came into federal court. Edward and Sidney Schempp, Unitarians, charged that Pennsylvania violated both the establishment clause and the free-exercise clause in passing Section 1516 of the Public School Act, which provided that “at least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day.” In the Abington Senior High School, which the Schempps’ children attended, the procedure was to read the ten verses over the loudspeaker while the pupils remained seated at attention. Then the children stood, repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and saluted the flag.

Defendants contended that (1) because Bible reading promotes pupils’ morals, the Commonwealth has the right to incorporate Bible reading into the educational program without its becoming an establishment of religion, and that (2) plaintiffs’ freedom of religion does not go so far as to compel others to do without Bible-reading exercises.

The United States District Court found in the Schempps’ favor on both counts (Schempp v. School District of Abington Township, 177 F. Supp. 398). Circuit Judge Biggs, speaking for the three-man court, declared that the Bible’s “essential character” is “religious.” Daily reading of this book, he said, “buttressed with the authority of the State and, more importantly to children, backed with the authority of their teachers, can hardly do less than inculcate or promote the inculcation of various religious doctrines in childish minds.” Because the Bible is a Christian document, he concluded, the statute effects religious instruction and “aids and prefers the Christian religion.”

The fact that each person interprets the Bible for himself and arrives at different conclusions carries no weight, added the court; since the Bible is essentially religious, its religious quality cannot be disregarded by the listener. “Children cannot be expected to sift out the religious from the moral, historical or literary content,” asserted the court, especially if pupils must maintain a respectful mien more appropriate to a religious than to an educational setting.

Judge Biggs then stated why in his opinion the statute prohibited free exercise of religion. Bible reading is bound to indoctrinate children with a “religious sense,” he said, and therefore compulsory attendance interferes with the free exercise of religion by anyone who does not care for such indoctrination. Furthermore, he added, the statute encroaches on the rights of parents: “The right of the parent to teach his own faith to his child, or to teach him no religion at all is one of the foundations of our way of life and enjoys full constitutional protection.”

This decision defendants appealed to the United States Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed Act No. 700, which removed the direct penalty upon teachers for non-compliance and also added a provision permitting any student to absent himself from the opening exercise upon written request from his parent or guardian. In view of this development the Supreme Court nullified the judgment and remanded the case “for such further proceeding as may be appropriate.”

Shortly thereafter the District Court again declared the statute, as amended, unconstitutional. Establishment of religion was still present. Excusing some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, said the court, “does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the ceremony” because the law still requires the ceremony to be held “every school day in every school.”

While this case was being tried, a similar case arose in Maryland. It involved a rule of the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City which stated: “Each school, either collectively or in classes, shall be opened by the reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord’s Prayer. The Douay version may be used by those pupils who prefer it.… Any child shall be excused from participation in the opening exercises or from attending the opening exercises upon written request of his parent or guardian.” This rule, with the exception of the last sentence, had been in operation since 1905; the “excused” provision was added in 1960 after a protest by student William J. Murray III and his mother Madalyn E. Murray, both atheists. Despite this accommodation the Murrays petitioned that the school board be commanded to rescind the rule because it violated the establishment and free-exercise clauses of the First Amendment as well as the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This petition the Superior Court of Baltimore denied.

Subsequent appeal to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court, resulted in a 4–3 opinion in favor of the lower court’s judgment (Murray v. Curlett, 228 Maryland 239). In the eyes of the majority, the United States Supreme Court’s handling of the Schempp case appeared significant; its remand, said Court of Appeals Judge Horney, “at least indicated that the use of coercion or the lack of it may be the controlling factor in deciding whether or not a constitutional right has been denied.” Therefore the majority were not persuaded by the District Court’s ensuing opinion against Bible reading; they saw no compulsion under the rule and therefore found the opening exercise not unconstitutional.

As to William Murray’s complaint that absence from these opening exercises had damaged his relationship with other students, Judge Horney replied that equality of treatment guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment “cannot and does not provide protection from the embarrassment, the divisiveness or the psychological discontent arising out of non-conformance with the mores of the majority.”

In the opinion of the three dissenting judges, the earlier United States Supreme Court cases of Everson v. Board of Education (1947), McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), and McGowan v. Maryland (1961) spelled out a broad definition of “establishment of religion.” Concluded Chief Justice Brune, who wrote the dissenting opinion: The First Amendment does “not simply bar a congressional enactment establishing a church; it forbade all laws respecting an establishment of religion.” On the other points at issue Justice Brune’s language paralleled the District Court’s in the Pennsylvania case.

Case number three before the United States Supreme Court comes from Florida, where two legal actions challenge the constitutionality of Section 231.09 (2) of the state’s statutes. This section provides: “Bible Reading—Have, once every school day, readings in the presence of the pupils from the Holy Bible, ‘without sectarian comment.’” In Dade County, schools opened with reading of a verse from the Old or New Testament, saying of the pledge of allegiance, and recital of the Lord’s Prayer.

Interestingly, in these actions—one by an agnostic and the other by persons of Jewish and Unitarian persuasion—injunction is sought against not only Bible reading but every religious activity taking place on the school premises. Some include displaying religious symbols, holding Baccalaureate programs, and singing such “religious” songs as “White Christmas.” Plaintiffs rely on the freedom-of-religion guarantees of both the Florida and the United States Constitutions.

The trial court found some religious practices unconstitutional, others (including Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer) not. On appeal, this ruling (which invoked the 1952 United States Supreme Court decision in Zorach v. Clauson) the Florida Supreme Court upheld in every particular (Chamberlain v. Dade County Board, 142 So. 2d 21).

Speaking for the unanimous seven-man court, Judge Caldwell favored a narrower definition of “establishment of religion.” This phrase must be defined, he said, in accordance with the purpose and intent of the authors of the Constitution and consistent with “the practical facts of every day life.” By this test not every religious observance in public life need be abandoned. The concept of God, he declared, “has been and is so interwoven into every aspect of American institutions” that to attack it “is to threaten the very fiber of our existence as a nation.”

The judge then listed religious activities of the federal government, among them that it (1) provided Congressional chaplains who daily open legislative sessions with prayer, (2) commissioned Armed Forces chaplains, (3) approved opening exercises—which include Bible reading and Lord’s Prayer recitation—for the public schools of the District of Columbia, (4) required the President, Congressmen, and Supreme Court justices to subscribe to an oath which invokes the aid of Deity, (5) inscribed “In God We Trust” upon the currency, and (6) designed a national anthem which proclaims the Deity. In view of these, concluded Judge Caldwell, the First Amendment cannot favor a separation of the state from Christianity, but only a separation of the church from the state.

Noteworthy at this point are two rules of constitutional interpretation applied by the New Jersey Supreme Court in an important decision upholding Bible reading. It said that in order to arrive at a definition of a phrase such as “establishment of religion,” one must study it “in the light of the evil against which the remedy was enacted.” If this is done it becomes clear that Bible reading is not the evil feared, especially, said the court, in view of another rule applicable here: that a statute long in force without substantial challenge is not unconstitutional “unless its unconstitutionality is obvious” (Doremus v. Board of Education, 5 N.J. 435).

Judge Caldwell of Florida’s Supreme Court mentioned another applicable principle. He said: “The minority and the majority are both denied the privilege of disrupting the lives of others because of some hypersensitivity or fractious temperament.” Continuing in a somewhat bitter vein, he said the court was aware of the extent to which “the sophistries of agnosticism have gained credence,” that there is a trend toward preference of minorities over the majority, and that there is a drift “toward the requiring of the majority, which seem never to suffer psychological trauma, to yield up its cherished customs and rights.”

He made it plain that the Florida Supreme Court was in favor of safeguarding the principle of separation of church and state. Although defining the line would be a difficult task, he was certain that banishing the Bible would not benefit plaintiffs’ children. Rather, “erasing the influence of the best literature, music and art and gentler aspects of American life in general,” he averred, would create “an anti-religious attitude” in the schools and “substantially injure the well being of the majority of the school children.”

Then the judge made another telling point by noting that a Florida statute requires the teaching of the history, doctrines, objectives, and techniques of Communism. The result in the state’s schools is this: atheists are free to hear or not to hear the Bible read while all students must learn the substance of Communism (which, said Judge Caldwell, is “the antithesis of the Bible”). It might be added that Communism is as much a religion to its members as Christianity is to its members. Therefore one may reasonably ask: if Bible reading necessarily imbues a child with principles of Christianity, what are the possibilities of a child’s accepting principles of Communism from exposure thereto?

These three cases before the United States Supreme Court reveal the difficult task facing the nine justices, for they reflect the sharp division of opinion existing in the lower courts. They do not reflect, however, the weight in favor of Bible reading. Courts of 23 states have handed down opinions on this particular issue, of which 17 have upheld Bible reading (Colo., Fla., Ga., Iowa, Kan., Ky., Mass., Md., Me., Mich., Minn., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., Tenn., Tex.). Nebraska has upheld Bible reading only in part. In five states, decisions went against Bible reading (Ill., La., S.D., Wash., Wis.) on the ground that the state constitution did not permit it.

Furthermore, Bible reading is permitted in most of the other states, the question never having been brought before the courts. One recent survey revealed that some form of Bible-reading exercise exists in 41.74 per cent of the nation’s school systems.

Efforts to eliminate Bible reading and prayer in public schools are waged by a small but militant segment of the population. Their efforts face a formidable challenge. Those who favor such Bible reading and prayer emphasize that our forefathers believed in both the principle of religious liberty and the principle of opening public school with Bible reading and prayer. Is it right to appeal to the former principle as guaranteed in the First Amendment in order to eliminate the latter? Moreover, is not the elimination of Bible reading and prayer in public schools in the name of freedom of religion actually a suppression of religion?—WILLIAM G. REITZER of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S research staff.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL—A group of Congregational churches which refused to join a merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. They assert that their legal interests have been denied “without due process of law.” Meanwhile, legal action seeking to prevent the First Congregational Church of Sheridan, Wyoming, from becoming part of the merged United Church of Christ was dismissed by a state court.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—A Texas pastor is withdrawing his motion asking that Canadian messengers be seated at the annual sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Rev. Nolan M. Kennedy of Amarillo says his withdrawal is based on a desire “to remove every possible hindrance to the Baptist Jubilee Advance.”

A five-member committee of the Disciples of Christ flies to the Congo this month to assess the role of the missionary in the current political climate. The committee’s findings are expected to shape future policies of the Disciples’ United Christian Missionary Society.

A financial crisis in the American Lutheran Church drew 250 of the denomination’s fund-raising leaders to a three-day meeting in Minneapolis. The fund raisers drafted a program aimed at increasing church contributions by more than 25 per cent.

Some 10,000 persons signed “Rule of Life” cards pledging to deepen their spiritual activities during a month-long evangelistic campaign of the Episcopal South Florida Diocese.

A total of 286 of the 327 congregations of the Lutheran Free Church became a part of the American Lutheran Church when the denominations were officially merged on February 1. The other 41 LFC congregations stayed out of the merger and asked not to be certified with congregations joining the ALC.

The American Baptist Convention’s General Council adopted a resolution reaffirming support of church-state separation. A council spokesman said, however, that the resolution was not intended as a reply to an accusation by Dr. Stanley I. Stuber, an American Baptist minister who is executive director of the Missouri Council of Churches. Stuber had charged that some American Baptist institutions are violating church-state separation by accepting federal grants and loans.

MISCELLANY—At least 103 persons were killed when side walls and parts of the roof collapsed at the Roman Catholic Heart of Mary College in Biblian, Ecuador. Some 450 persons were gathered for a service in a second-floor chapel when the disaster occurred.

A resolution pledging efforts toward ultimate creation of a single Orthodox church in the United States was adopted in New York at a convocation of the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America.

Church World Service has set a goal of $16,846,140 this year in its annual “One Great Hour of Sharing” appeal.

Campus Crusade for Christ says it needs 200 new staff members to expand its ministry on international fronts.

A proposed “Charter of Religious Freedom” for all peoples was approved unanimously by the 14-member U. N. Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. The charter is being forwarded to the U. N. Commission on Human Rights, and, if approved there, to the General Assembly.

A delegation of 16 church leaders from the Soviet Union arrives this week and will be introduced as guest-observers at the National Council of Churches’ General Board meeting in Denver.

America, national Jesuit weekly, editorially applauded the student newspaper at City College of New York for discontinuing cigarette advertisem*nts. The magazine noted that most college papers are dependent upon “a product which, according to the evidence, contributes so greatly to the death of thousands every year.”

A proposal to make religious instruction a part of the public high school curriculum, first advanced by the Anglican Primate of Australia, Dr. Hugh Gough, was rejected by the New South Wales’ minister for education, T. J. Wetherell.

A dinner marking the 20th anniversary of the death of the immortal four chaplains of the U. S. S. Dorchester was held in Washington, D. C. Dr. Daniel A. Poling, father of one of the chaplains, noted that his son offered the “perfect prayer” before he sailed on what was to be his last mission: “Lord, make me adequate.”

PERSONALIA—Archbishop Josyf Slipyi, secretly released from a Siberian prison last Christmas after 18 years of confinement, arrived in Rome and was received by Pope John XXIII.

The Rev. A. Dudley Ward named general secretary of the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns succeeding Dr. Caradine R. Hooton, who will retire July 31.

The Rev. George E. Kempsell, Jr., rector of the Episcopal Church of St. James the Less of Scarsdale, New York, resigned last month because he had failed to secure “the unanimous support of the church wardens and vestry” in parish programs. Kempsell had attracted nationwide attention with attempts to combat racial discrimination.

The Rev. William Montgomery named moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Bishop Iakovos Vavanatsos, who resigned under pressure last year as Archbishop of Athens and Primate of the Orthodox Church in Greece, was reinstated as Metropolitan of Attica and Megaris, the post he had previously held. The charges against him were never disclosed publicly. He was subsequently cleared by a special ecclesiastical court.

The congregation of the First Christian Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, voted 299–98 to keep as its minister the Rev. Charles W. Strong, who was elected to the State Senate as a Republican last November.

Retired Marine Lieutenant General M. H. Silverthorn elected president of International Christian Leadership.

The Rev. Clifford Ray Pritchard, minister of the Highland, Kansas, Christian Church, named “1963 Rural Minister of the Year” by the Disciples of Christ.

The Rev. W. R. Woodell, who recently had both legs amputated, resolves “to continue my ministry as a pastor.” In a radio sermon preached from Arkansas Baptist Hospital, Little Rock, he said that “I never doubted the love and grace of the Lord Jesus.” The amputation was necessary because of a blood vessel and circulation affliction.

Larry Ward, former managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, resigned as vice president of World Vision to launch a new organization with photographer-artist Roy B. Wolfe. The new venture, to be known as Tell, will issue religious manuscripts and art and will handle public relations in behalf of Christian organizations.

WORTH QUOTING—“Every time you drop a dollar in the church collection you have to pay nine dollars out of another pocket to pay the cost of crime.”—C. D. De-Loach, assistant FBI director.

“It was a victory of sorts for freedom, but a victory for freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion.”—U. S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, reflecting on last year’s Supreme Court repudiation of the New York Board of Regents prayer.

Deaths

DR. ADOLPH KELLER, 91, vice president of the World Presbyterian Alliance; in Santa Monica, California.

DR. IVAN M. GOULD, 54, former executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches; in Merrick, New York.

REV. DOUGLAS M. BRANCH, 54, general secretary of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina; in a highway collision near Ahoskie, North Carolina.

J. KELLY SIMMONS, 58, editor of the California Southern Baptist; in Fresno.

DR. GEORGE MCCREADY PRICE, 92, Seventh-day Adventist author; in Loma Linda, California.

The cream of Washington officialdom turned out February 7 for the 11th annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast. For the first time, the program of the breakfast was carried on a national television network live from the Mayflower Hotel.

President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson led a long list of dignitaries who were on hand. Seated at the head table with Kennedy and Johnson were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Associate Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, House Speaker John W. McCormack, Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Anthony J. Celebreeze, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz, and Postmaster General J. Edward Day. The only members of the Kennedy cabinet who have yet to attend a prayer breakfast are Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

Evangelist Billy Graham, who had risen from a sickbed in Texas to attend the breakfast, compared the plight of the modern world with that of Damocles seated under a sword suspended by a single hair.

“The blade keeps swinging back and forth and the hair grows thinner and more frayed day by day,” he warned. “The nation stands at the crossroads where it must either choose God’s way or face destruction.”

“I challenge you,” Graham said, “to lead this nation back to the God of our our fathers and to look to him for deliverance.”

Graham was stricken with acute bronchitis and a mild case of pneumonia while fulfilling speaking engagements in Dallas. He was hospitalized for several days and doctors ordered him to bed immediately after the breakfast.

Kennedy, Johnson, and Graham crossed the hall to another banquet room and spoke briefly to the third annual Congressional Wives Breakfast. An aide said Graham almost collapsed when he got up to address the group. Principal speaker was Mrs. Colleen Townsend Evans, who gave up a promising movie career to marry a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Louis E. Evans, Jr.

Kennedy narrowly missed being showered with water when a glass was overturned on a balcony table directly over him. The water dripped down several feet away.

Kennedy himself pulled a faux pas at the ladies’ breakfast. It lent a humorous introduction to the remarks of the ailing Graham:

NEWS / A fortnightly report of developments in religion

GRAHAM PREPARES FOR LONG TOURS

When evangelist Billy Graham returned to his North Carolina home following the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, doctors diagnosed a secondary infection and Graham was forced to cancel all engagements for a month.

The evangelist was ordered to take a complete rest prior to an extensive tour of the Far East. He is due in Manila March 8.

Graham’s schedule calls for a crusade in the Philippines March 8–17, a three-day rally in Hong Kong March 22–24, meetings in Formosa March 17–28, and a campaign with Japanese Baptists March 29-April 10.

A month later the evangelist is to begin a series of rallies in France and West Germany.

Graham and his wife announced in February the engagement of their oldest daughter, Virginia (Gi-Gi), to Stephan Tchividjian, a medical student in Montreaux, Switzerland. Virginia, currently a freshman at Wheaton College, will continue her education in Switzerland following their marriage there this summer.

“Most of you were not aware that we almost had a national tragedy here a moment ago. The President happened to step on one of these modern ladies’ pocketbooks that are heavier than the average man’s suitcase.”

The breakfasts highlighted International Christian Leadership’s 19th annual Washington conference. ICL spokesmen said there were simultaneous prayer breakfasts in all 50 state capitals. Still other breakfasts featured mayors and municipal leaders in more than 100 cities. All were described as having tuned in the telecast from Washington.

Graham was introduced by Johnson, who observed that the evangelist “has carried the message of prayer and salvation to more people than any other living person.”

Kennedy declared that “we cannot depend solely on our material wealth, on our military might, or on our intellectual skill or physical courage to see us safely through the seas that we must sail in the months and years to come.”

“We need the faith,” said the President, “which has sustained and guided this nation for 175 long and short years. We are all builders of the future, and whether we build as public servants or private citizens, whether we build at the national or the local level, whether we build in foreign or domestic affairs, we know the truth of the ancient Psalm, ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.’”

The ICL conference sessions featured two members of the British Parliament who stressed that material and social betterment do not solve spiritual problems.

Sir Cyril W. Black, K. T., said that “we once generally accepted the propositions that (1) if we abolish poverty, we abolish crime; and (2) if we raise educational standards and opportunities, we shall raise moral and spiritual standards. But they have been disproved by experience, for in Great Britain crime has increased six-fold since 1900, and moral and spiritual standards have declined despite the spread of education and abolition of poverty.”

The Honorable John Cordle traced the development of the welfare state and said that “most of the social benefits are directly traceable to the work of Christian leaders and to the influence of the Christian church as a whole.”

“But the conditions we have produced by the application of Christian principles to our society,” he added, “seem to make it harder to win a hearing for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“Social betterment seems to have produced a materialistic outlook with a sense of wealth and comfort unknown to earlier generations,” said Cordle.

In essence, he added, “The Christian church in our country has done really a magnificent social job without producing a corresponding spiritual result. The social gospel of the last half century has proved inadequate to meet human needs, which go deeper than housing and pensions and education and health. Man’s deepest need is for God’s forgiveness, for God’s power in his life, and for the realization of the abiding presence of a living Saviour.”

The Fuller Presidency

In racing up the ladder of academic respectability, Fuller Theological Seminary knew the danger of losing balance. Last spring, when the University of Chicago tapped Professor (and former president) Edward John Carnell to represent the conservative Protestant view in a panel with theologian Karl Barth, Fuller had apparently reached a vantage point enjoyed by few evangelical seminaries. But some critics insisted it was a precarious perch. The president’s chair at the Pasadena, California, seminary had been without an on-campus occupant for ten out of fifteen years. How long could a seminary hold its stature without the steadying influence of a resident president?

Early in January, Fuller trustees decided they had procrastinated long enough. They had traveled thousands of miles interviewing prospects for the presidency. They had weighed dozens of factors. Their deliberations were climaxed at a grueling 12-hour meeting, an invitation was extended, and a telephone call on February 4 confirmed it: Fuller trustees had plucked a new star out of the evangelical sky in the person of Dr. David Allan Hubbard, 34, Old Testament scholar and one of Fuller’s own graduates.

Behind the buff-tinted walls of Fuller Seminary lies a success story paralleling the post-war resurgence of evangelical Christianity in America. The school had its roots in the mind of Dr. Charles E. Fuller, preacher on the widely heard Gospel radio program “The Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” Fuller’s father had left money for establishment of a Christian training school, and Fuller called on Dr. Harold John Ockenga, scholarly minister of Boston’s Park Street Church, to lay the academic groundwork. Four faculty members and 37 students were on hand for the first classes, held in the fall of 1947 at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, when zoning restrictions barred immediate use of a large estate on South Orange Grove Avenue, the city’s “millionaire row.”

Ockenga was first president, and from the outset Fuller trustees tried to persuade him to give up his Boston parish and move to California. The plea was renewed numerous times in subsequent years. Once he publicly announced, then retracted, a decision to come.

Ockenga served as president in absentia until 1954, when he was appointed chairman of the board of trustees and Professor Carnell, then 35 years old, became Fuller’s first full-time president. Three years later, the seminary won full accreditation from the American Association of Theological Schools. But the studious Carnell never could get enthusiastic about administrative burdens of the presidency. On the advice of doctors he resigned the office in 1959 to devote himself to study and teaching as a faculty member. Ockenga again resumed the responsibility of the presidency in 1961.

The school prospered consistently. Its campus now embraces a healthy parcel of real estate straddling palm-lined North Oakland Avenue. A new library building will be dedicated this year. Total student enrollment now stands at 286.

The latest presidential selection procedure at Fuller had the misfortune of getting somewhat entangled in a trustee debate over the seminary’s evangelically oriented ten-point statement of faith¹The first two points: (1) “There is one living and true God, infinite in glory, wisdom, holiness, justice, power, and love, one in His essence but eternally subsistent in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” (2) “The books which form the canon of the Old and New Testaments as originally given are plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part. These books constitute the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” which every faculty member is required to sign annually. At least one trustee said he wanted to see the statement “strengthened.” Most of the board, however, argued that any tampering might be misconstrued.

The trustees’ lack of theological orientation obviously intensified the debate. Only three of them are clergymen: Ockenga, Fuller, and evangelist Billy Graham. Most are business executives.

Edward L. Johnson, a San Marino financier who served as vice chairman of the 14-member board, resigned in December. Neither Johnson nor the seminary would disclose the nature of his dispute with the other members. He stressed, however, that it was not over the selection of Hubbard, but preceded it.

Hubbard, an ordained Conservative Baptist minister, was elected to the presidency unanimously. A vote of the 17 Fuller faculty members which named him a professor of Old Testament also was unanimous. In a sense, Hubbard’s appointment poses a test of the seminary’s stability, as two graduates assume the reins over their former professors (the other: Faculty Dean Daniel P. Fuller, Basel-educated son of the radio preacher).

Born in the San Francisco Bay area, the son of a minister, Hubbard took his college work at Westmont in Santa Barbara, California, and moved on to Fuller for bachelor and master of theology degrees. He was awarded the Ph.D. at St. Andrews University in Scotland in 1957, having financed his way by representing an electronics firm on the Continent. He returned to Westmont as a faculty member and in 1958 was named chairman of its division of biblical studies and philosophy.

Hubbard’s published work includes contributions to Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, The New Bible Dictionary, The Biblical Expositor, and The Wycliffe Commentary. He has served as guest preacher on “The Old Fashioned Revival Hour” and as visiting professor of Old Testament at Fuller.

Hubbard will take office in September, following a tour to the Holy Land with his wife. The couple has one child, an eight-year-old daughter.

“Our aim,” says Hubbard, “is to train men who will preach with courage, vision, and clarity the Gospel of Christ to a generation so desperately in need of a clear appreciation of its message of judgment and grace.”

The chief ministry of Fuller, as he sees it, is “to make both a positive and an enlightened presentation of the historic Christian faith.”

Hubbard maintains that the seminary ought to be characterized by “competence with consecration,” that it should gain insights from current theological tides but should subject these tides “to a radical judgment in light of the revelation given by God in the Holy Scriptures.”

“I am personally committed,” he says, “to bend every effort to see that the goals originally set by Dr. Ockenga and Dr. Fuller will be implemented.”

Lutheran Consensus

The National Lutheran Council, “cooperative agency of American Lutheranism in matters of common interest and responsibility,” ranged across a wide variety of common interests—as is its custom—in its 45th annual meeting in New York City.

The large number of reports received included a study document which supported “limited and specified use” of public tax funds for non-public colleges and universities but opposed such aid to parochial schools. The council did not formally adopt the report but transmitted it—without expressing judgment on its contents—to the two NLC participating church bodies, the American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America, for whatever use they may wish to make of it.

“Public tax support for church schools, even in limited and specified ways, would create great advantage for some religious groups over others at the elementary and secondary school levels,” the report said, “but would not necessarily have the same effect at the level of college education.”

Other reports included:

• Opposition to those who believe the ministry to military personnel should be completely manned and administered by civilians. (The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, not an NLC member, was named a supporter of this view.) Such a position, said the report, is “unacceptable to churches which take seriously the problems inherent in providing an adequate ministry for people who are called to guard our freedoms.”

• Announcement of the expected merger of the seven Lutheran bodies in Tanganyika into a united denomination to be known as “The Lutheran Church of Tanganyika.”

The council passed a resolution urging Congress to enact legislation to “adjust and correct” U.S. immigration policy. It called for the following revisions: providing for an allocation of immigration quotas from countries outside the Western Hemisphere on a basis which is more equitable and less discriminatory; facilitating the reunion of separated families; opening the way further for the immigration of persons with special skills.

In other action, the NLC reelected as president for a second one-year term Dr. Raymond M. Olson, of Minneapolis, stewardship director of the American Lutheran Church, and approved a budget of $2,313,342 for its work in 1963, consisting of $1,405,450 from the two participating member churches and $907,892 from Lutheran World Action, the council’s annual financial campaign for a worldwide interchurch aid and assistance program.

Several days before the council meeting, representatives of the three major branches of American Lutheranism gathered in Chicago for a two-day session at which subcommittees were appointed to conduct intensive study of specific areas of activity which might be included in a proposed new cooperative agency to succeed the NLC. Negotiations toward possible formation of a new association that would be devoted to common theological study and Christian service were authorized last year by the NLC’s two member churches (reduced from eight churches through mergers over the past two years) and the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Together they comprise 95 per cent of the 8,600,000 Lutherans in the United States and Canada.

The meeting was constituted as the “Inter-Lutheran Consultation,” and a concluding joint statement said that the group reviewed results of earlier theological discussions on Lutheran cooperation, “noting areas of agreement and also points which would need further examination by the proposed Division of Theological Studies, which would be an essential part of the new agency.” In common theological study, the proposed agency “is to seek theological consensus in a systematic and continuing way on the basis of the Scriptures and the witness of the Lutheran Confessions.”

An invitation to participate in the talks had been declined by the president of the Evangelical Lutheran (Norwegian) Synod, the Rev. Theodore A. Aaberg of Scarville, Iowa, thus following similar action by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The refusals were based on the position that joint worship and work without doctrinal agreement constitutes religious unionism. Mr. Aaberg said that he had studied the six essays presented at the group’s previous meetings and found “no real agreement between the Missouri and NLC representatives on the question of what constitutes ‘the doctrine of the Gospel.’”

Just before the consultation, it was announced that doctrinal discussions aimed at establishing pulpit and altar fellowship between the American Lutheran Church and the Missouri Synod had been temporarily suspended. Fear was expressed that the proposal for doctrinal talks at this time might be “disturbing” to plans for a successor organization to the NLC.

F.F.

Genesis On Tv

The biblical teaching that woman was taken out of man is a “beautiful device of Scripture,” Dr. Hagen Staack told his nationwide Sunday television audience. Staack, professor of religion at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, asserted that it would be “very wrong to say God created first the male.” “What good,” he asked, “is the male without the female?” Presumably Staack’s audience would think that the answer depends upon what God had in mind. The purpose of the “device,” according to Staack, is to prevent either the male or the female from claiming priority and superiority over the other, to teach that man’s humanity is constituted equally by both and that both are given the function of being deputies over God’s world. Because man has this function, the Bible calls him “the little god of this world.”

Staack conducts the course on the “Frontiers of Faith” telecast on behalf of Protestant denominations cooperating with the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. In the second of the 13-week NBC-TV series on Genesis, he discussed the question “Who Is Man?”

Man’s creation in the image of God was said to mean three things: man is a mirror of God, bears the impress of the divine seal, and is a spark of the divine. As something made out of dust “he is an animal”; he shares in the animal world, and being dust he must therefore die.

The divine creation of man did not at once produce man as we know him. Man through gradual development “because of the divine power that enters him” becomes man. “God’s own spark is in him.” We ought to accept the fact of evolution and not be afraid of it, declared Staack, for it does not exclude the idea of God as creator.

Staack asserted that the Genesis account speaks of God in the plural (Elohim), just as Christians today use trinitarian language to express the rich and incomprehensible majesty of God.

Man’s calling to be a deputy under God over God’s world was said to be illustrated in the Genesis report that Adam gave names to all animals and according to Staack, to plants. Although some Christians foolishly doubt it, man’s invasion of space is also a proper exercise of his calling, he added.

The disturbing thing about man, said Staack, is that he can at any time say “No” to God. “This is the chance God takes with us.”

J.D.

Methodist Concerns

Sectarian instruction and devotions in public schools cannot be “religiously constructive” and are therefore undesirable, according to a resolution adopted at the annual meeting of the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns. In this and other resolutions passed at the meeting, the board was said to be speaking only for itself and not for all Methodists.

Other resolutions: asked for destruction of chemical and bacteriological weapons and use of the production facilities for medical research; urged repeal of the Connally Amendment, a ban against military use of outer space, and inclusion of France and Communist China in Geneva disarmament talks. The board turned down a request by civil defense authorities to designate the Methodist Building in Washington as a fallout shelter. It approved construction of a new $4,000,000 National Methodist Center building in Washington.

Ecumenical Challenge

An official Protestant guest of the Second Vatican Council challenged the Roman Catholic hierarchy in America to live up to the ecumenical spirit of the council by declaring a moratorium on its campaign for federal aid to parochial schools.

Dr. Stanley I. Stuber, a Baptist who spent three weeks observing the council at work last fall, issued the challenge at the 15th annual National Conference on Church and State in Denver.

There is a discrepancy between what happened at the Vatican and what is happening in America, said Stuber, who is executive director of the Missouri Council of Churches.

“The Roman Catholic Church,” he declared, “must apply in action what it pleads in principle.”

Stuber was an official guest of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. He predicted in his address at the Denver conference, sponsored by Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, that the Second Vatican Council will “deal forthrightly” with Protestant-Catholic differences. He said the first session reflected a “remarkable spirit of … goodwill toward Protestants.”

“I therefore propose in the spirit of the Vatican Council that the American bishops of the Roman Catholic Church declare a moratorium on their campaign for Federal aid to parochial schools … and that they instruct local priests and groups of laity to do likewise.”

Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of POAU, told the conference that “clericalism is on the rise in the United States.” As an example of clericalism, he cited a public school in Antonito, Colorado, where 23 members of a Roman Catholic religious order were said to be serving as salaried teachers.

“The church that cannot survive on the tithe is dying,” Archer said. “A church that lives on the state is no longer a church.”

POAU presented “religious liberty citations” to the Rev. James E. Goff, Presbyterian missionary to Colombia who more than any other person has attracted world attention to persecution of Protestants there, and to Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, secretary of public affairs of National Association of Evangelicals.

Sodom And Gomorrah

Like Lot’s wife, 20th Century Fox should not have looked back toward Sodom. It would have been better had the cities of storied infamy remained interred in their ashes. For in spite of violence, torture, clashing battles, sex, and a latter-day humanistic idealism, the cities never come to life. Although shot through with political and moral intrigue, the film never becomes intriguing. It does little more than bore.

In the early part of the two-and-a-half-hour film much of the speech is so indistinct as to be unintelligible. This loss, however, does not long annoy, for the viewer soon learns that the plot is so obvious and inconsequential that it scarcely needs literary conveyance.

Any resemblance of the movie’s script to the biblical record is wholly incidental to creating box office. The plot is simple, yet sometimes confusing. Lot soon learns that the science of Sodom knows the value of salt for the human body living in a hot climate. From then on salt plays its role, without rendering the movie less insipid. Lot buys land from the queen of the two cities. While he is paying for it and making it habitable, the practice of his Hebrew religion involves him in the life of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he and his family are thoroughly and quite easily corrupted. His religious struggle against the wanton wiles of the cities is as phony as his daughter’s moral struggle for her virtue against the seduction of the queen’s brother. Decrying slavery and proclaiming human rights and dignity to the pagans of Sodom, Lot sounds like a latter-day Abolitionist, and his daughter sounds like the original Oklahoma girl who couldn’t say no: her religion of Jehovah withstands the assaults of a Sodomite lover’s charms for at least 30 seconds. The producers were apparently so eager to entice ticket buyers with human corruption that they didn’t take time to give the corruption, or the religious foil against which it is wrought out, any depth. As a result the film’s wickedness has little excitement, its moral struggles no tension. The movie demonstrates that where there is no profound moral sense, even human wickedness becomes dramatic trivia.

The biblical story’s considerable dramatic possibilities go wasted, and the movie is as phony as a mummy’s headache. One Sodomite speaks with a lovely, husky Italian brogue. Lot’s men, going to battle against armored horsem*n with shepherd’s staffs and wooden hay rakes, look like workers going to harvest. Yet Lot’s ingenuity is equal to the battle. He obtains two large reservoirs of oil(!), channels it under a covered ditch, puts the torch to it, and thrusts the enemy against a wall of fire. This, of course, would have been wholly successful had not the ingenious Lot left his reservoirs wholly unguarded. Victory is assured, however, when he opens his dam, looses the water, and flushes the enemy out of his life.

There is a measure of the usual kind of sensuality, and a hint of sodomy when the queen’s brother bites her finger, tastes blood, and says he no longer likes the taste.

Anouk Aimee as the queen gives one of the film’s few credible performances; Stewart Granger as Lot could have done a lot better had some moral and religious dimension been built into his role.

At the movie’s longed-for end, Lot’s wife-turned-salt looks like the product of a second-rate Egyptian embalmer. Divine judgment has entered, of course, to set the moral record straight—and in just the proper proportion. The judgment is not, as Time suggests, an insult to Jehovah. The wrath of God comes in proportions exactly equal to the moral-religious dimensions of the movie’s plot and in the size required to topple its sandbox mud cities.

Trade copy sent out to aid advertisers advises: “Stress the title, which suggests sin and wickedness to all readers of the Bible.” The public might well be advised by Solomon, who knew something about these things: “Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.”

J.D.

The 1963 Mardi Gras

The 1963 edition of the New Orleans Mardi Gras, climaxed this week, was set against the backdrop of a vice cleanup that had far-reaching political effects in the city.

The cleanup campaign was staged by Jim Garrison, a young lawyer who surprised everyone by being elected district attorney last spring. Garrison’s crusade was stopped short when criminal-court judges cut off his expense fund. He was subsequently convicted of criminal libel when he said the action raised “interesting questions about the racketeer influences on our eight vacation-minded judges.” The libel conviction meant a possible jail sentence.

Lust thrives in New Orleans all year long. The Mardi Gras celebration offers a final fling at revelry before Lent, somewhat like the sailor’s proverbial last night on shore. Balls and parades highlight the merriment, and alcoholic consumption rises sharply.

The New Orleans celebration dates back to 1827, when a group of young men who had witnessed pre-Lenten merriment in Paris returned to organize a procession of street maskers. The wearing of masks actually can be traced back much further—to the Roman Lupercalian feasts deplored by early Christian leaders. Present-day observances are privately sponsored by numerous carnival organizations that have sprung up through the years.

To what extent do church people participate? Roman Catholics are deeply involved, as are some Protestants, particularly those from groups less influenced by the Puritan stream of church history. Some church groups play the spectator role and rent a hotel room from which they can watch the pageantry.

City officials, wary of adverse publicity that might hurt the tourist trade, minimize the extent of law violations during Mardi Gras season.

“Many think of Mardi Gras as an outstanding example of sacrilege,” observes Dr. H. Leo Eddleman, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “But it has been so completely divorced from religious implications for most people that this is hardly correct.”

Eddleman adds that “perhaps this is history’s compensatory gesture to even things up: if the church has often borrowed from the world its methods of promotion, statistical criteria for success, materialism, and political methodology, in this case the world is borrowing from the church.”

The Unchanging Times

“Unless you see that paper sometimes, you can have no idea to what a point the Anglican party have arrived in their pilgrimage toward Rome. The gravity with which they discuss vestments, incense, etc., is amazing at this stage of the world.” This reference to the Church Times was made in 1866 by the wife of Bishop Colenso of Natal, when that newspaper was in its third year. This most widely read of Church of England weeklies (circulation 63,926), which has just passed its century, was founded to promote the views of the Tractarians, “who were then fighting a hard battle against fierce opposition (such practices as having two candles on the altar were considered popish).”

It has never believed in ignoring political affairs. Thus the initial issue on February 7, 1863, reports that General Grant had left Memphis for another attack on Vicksburg, and quotes the Emperor Napoleon III of France in these terms: “The oracle is gracious enough in all conscience, but unfathomably reticent.” On which the issue of February 8, 1963, comments: “The words might have been designed for the Emperor’s successor in Paris to-day.” Admitting itself strongly Confederate during the Civil War, the Church Times referred to a speech of Lincoln’s as “the rhapsody of a jester affecting to be devout, addressing the assembled Parliament in the whining accents in which a buffoon might caricature an illiterate Scripture-reader.” When the President was shot in April, 1865, the paper’s chief preoccupation seems to have been to ask “What was he doing in a theatre on Good Friday?”

Still owned by the Palmer family, the paper has had eight editors, the most recent being Roger Lewis Roberts, schoolmaster turned clergyman, appointed in 1960. He makes it clear that the principles of the Church Times remain unchanged from those of a century ago, viz. “those of the Church Catholic, as interpreted by the Church of England, and enunciated in no faint accents in the Book of Common Prayer.”

Still fiercely partisan, the paper is currently under attack by fellow Anglican Prism, a self—consciously iconoclastic stripling whose February issue churlishly suggests that “some of its [i.e. the Church Times’] editorial methods may be called in question amid the festivities.” More particularly, Prism charged its elder brother with stirring up a feud against Dr. Alec Vidler of Cambridge who had featured in a controversial TV discussion (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, December 21, 1962), and quoted approvingly a secular weekly which described the Church Times as having shown “a clean pair of heels in the venom stakes.”

In the latter’s centenary issue, greetings were published from a formidable number of ecclesiastical potentates, among whom was the editor of the Church of England Newspaper, whose message concluded: “Long may the Church Times keep steaming!”

J. D. D.

Courtesy Of Mammon

London’s Financial Times and the Primate of All-England formed an unlikely alliance on the occasion of the journal’s 75th birthday on February 11. In a supplement entitled “The Forces That Shape Our Lives,” Dr. Michael Ramsey contributed an article dealing with religious faith in a scientific age. He suggested that the science-religion conflict of the early 20th century had been “largely eased and removed by the recognition that religion does not require Biblical literalism, and that the sciences need not claim to give a total account of the meaning of man.” The result was, however, an uneasy truce, for the scientist often finds religious propositions “not so much untrue as meaningless and irrelevant.”

Referring to Marxism as a materialistic theory which gives God no place, the Archbishop said that in Western countries the rejection “takes the form of apathy without a distinctive non-religious philosophy of life,” leaving room for the survival of religious influences even where religious practices seem to have ceased altogether.

Hendrik Kraemer is cited as one who “has encouraged an emphasis upon the uniqueness of Christ in such a way as to treat other religions with uncompromising exclusiveness,” but despite his guarded language the Primate gives the impression that he does not go along with this view. He suggests that “many partial revelations of God have been known though Christianity is the crown and completion of them all.” He states that in Christian missions the necessity is for “those who combine the conviction of the finality of Christ with a reverent and sympathetic understanding of the spirit of other religions.”

Commenting on this, a member of the Church of England’s House of Laity expressed the view that the Archbishop’s “reverent and sympathetic understanding” did not noticeably extend at present to the evangelicals within his own church.

J. D. D.

Members of a prominent Protestant church and of a Jewish synagogue observed Brotherhood Week by visiting each other’s services; on Friday evening the Christians went to worship at the synagogue, and on Sunday morning the Jews came to worship at the church. This would seem to be a very worthy adventure in mutual understanding. When the Jews came to the Protestant church, however, they sang selected hymns which made no reference to Jesus the Christ; they heard a pastoral prayer that scrupulously avoided His name and mediation; they listened to a sermon which praised family religion with “Our Father Is God” as the foundation of American life. Jews and Christians were told of a universal brotherhood under one God who embraces us all as of the same “family of God.” The speaker said a great deal about the importance of religion for the sake of religion, but left it unclear which god or which religion he recommended. The anthem sung by the youth choir pinpointed the message of the services:

Millions of stars placed in the sky by one God!

Millions of men lift up their eyes to one God!

So many children calling to Him by many a different name;

One Father loving each the same.

Many the ways all of us pray to one God!

Many the paths winding their way to one God!

Walk with me, brother; there were no strangers after His work was done,

For your God and my God are One.

(One God, by Ervin Drake and James Shirl)

The tragedy of this kind of Brotherhood Week observance is that the Jews never got what would have encouraged genuine tolerance and understanding, namely, an insight into the unique worship and witness of the Christian faith. More tragic still is the way in which the Christian church surrenders the sense of its identity to the secular definition of brotherhood which short-circuits the Gospel and repudiates the only true fulfillment of brotherhood.

A prominent German theologian addressed the student body of an eastern school for girls. He asserted, among other things, that a Christian cannot be the brother of a Jew in the same way in which he can be the brother of another Christian. When a student later reported this statement to a professor, the professor scoffed: “That’s anti-Semitism, you know.”

Just what do Christians mean by brotherhood? What is the Apostle Paul’s message in Romans 8:14 ff.: “All who follow the leading of God’s Spirit are God’s own sons.… You have been adopted into the very family circle of God and you can say with a full heart, ‘Father, my Father.’ The Spirit himself endorses our inward conviction that we really are the children of God. Think what that means. If we are his children we share his treasures, and all that Christ claims as his will belong to all of us as well!” (Phillips). Again, Paul says of the Jews, “… It is not those born in the course of nature who are children of God; it is the children born through God’s promise who are reckoned as Abraham’s descendants” (Rom. 9:8, NEB). This is no Stoic conception of the brotherhood of creation with its implied fatherhood of an inferred creator. Rather Paul writes of a unique family into which we are adopted by the God whom we have come to know as Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Until our adoption through the advocacy of Jesus Christ (using the Pauline juristic metaphors), we are orphans of a humanity that has orphaned itself. Is not the New Testament symbol of the family of God with its understanding of man’s role as a son and brother reserved only for those who are reconciled to God through the Son?

And what is the meaning of Ephesians 2, which speaks of both Gentile and Jew reconciled to each other and to God by the sacrifice of the Cross, and thereby incorporated into God’s chosen community—“no longer outsiders or aliens, but fellow citizens with every other Christian”—belonging now to the “household of God”? Does not the brotherhood in this “family of God” completely transcend any brotherhood defined in national terms or even in terms of humanity, the common species?

Are there not different levels of brotherhood and family relatedness? In the order of creation, at the level of universal human reason, a brotherhood of humanity recognizes our common origin in a creator God. This brotherhood of creation, which centers in a shared humanity, differs greatly from the brotherhood in Christ, which centers in the reconciling love of God. While the former superficially ignores all the divisions of race, creed, and nationality, it overlooks primarily the sin which fractures the ideal of brotherhood. On the other hand Christian brotherhood, the family life of the Church, while it accepts these differences, honestly overcomes them in the bond of reconciling love given unto us in Christ and shared in our koinonia through the enabling work of the Holy Spirit. The exchange of worship services between the church and synagogue congregations promoted brotherhood on the first level of creation. If the church had exchanged services, let us say, with a Negro congregation of its own denomination, it would have witnessed to brotherhood on the second and far deeper level of redemption, a relationship of brother to brother in the “very family circle of God.”

Obviously the Christian does not confine his love only to those within the Christian church. His understanding of God’s love for all men and the divine provision in Christ to adopt “whosoever will” into the “family” lead him to love and reverence every orphan, and to seek justice for all. At the same time the Christian cannot surrender the scandalous uniqueness of the One who humbled himself by birth in a stable and who by a criminal’s execution gave the believer his new name, his new vocation, his new family.

This concept is no call to party pride and self-centered claims of superiority, no call to bigotry and inquisition. Rather it is a plea for a self-understanding that in Brotherhood Week will permit more genuine understanding by all concerned. We plead for a spirit of toleration willing to respect and discuss the basic distinctions between religions, and perhaps even between gods. We hope that the Church will be the Church, that by the power of the triune God through us it will present the offense of its Gospel to a worldly-wise culture.—LYCURGUS M. STARKEY, JR., Professor of Church History, Saint Paul School of Theology (Methodist), Kansas City, Missouri.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments this week on the issue of Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the public schools.

That public schools do not exist for the conduct of religious exercises is becoming increasingly clear. We do not, therefore, think that a Supreme Court decision along the lines of the earlier New York Regents prayer ruling—which prohibited government-approved or government-sponsored religious exercises—will stir as wide a demand for a Christian Amendment as happened a year ago. We cannot complain at one moment, with an eye on the proper use of public funds, that sectarian schools obviously create a worship atmosphere not possible in public schools, and contend at another moment, with an eye on spiritual imperatives, that public and parochial schools must preserve an identical atmosphere.

The public schoolroom in a republic dedicated to separation of church and state should be used for evangelistic purposes by neither Protestant, Catholic, nor Jew; by neither atheist nor theist; nor by the die-hard humanists who still propagate John Dewey’s outmoded philosophy.

But the public schools, if they take their academic mission seriously, do exist for the pursuit of the whole truth. And that pursuit includes an understanding both of the distinctive convictions that historically underlie Western culture and of the vision of life held by the colonists and the founding fathers. (See the editorial feature, “Bible Reading in the Public Schools,” pp. 31, 32, this issue, for a background report.)

Those who fear a trend toward secularism in our public institutions have every cause for alarm. If the Supreme Court rules against Bible reading under all circ*mstances in the public schools, or if it acts against Christian practices in a manner that again leaves in doubt the propriety of a narrow or broad interpretation of its own ruling, then we may well expect to see a great wave of public indignation. Citizens know that the American wall of separation between church and state is serpentine, but they recognize the hard reality and desirability of the wall. Therefore they look—and rightly so—to the Supreme Court not simply for a series of pragmatic adjustments to the changing temper of our times but for a clarification of controlling principles. In this respect the Supreme Court is very much on trial.

The Bible belongs in the public schools as well as in private schools as a sourcebook in the academic process—not indeed as the only required book, but surely as one of the great books.

Even corporate or cultic expressions that reflect convictions the founding fathers insisted upon in drafting the nation’s political document—such as affirmation of the divine Creator as the source of man’s inalienable rights—need not be challenged by the exclusion of religious acts of worship.

Where the Bible is removed from the classroom as an instrument of learning and the nation’s distinctive political philosophy is obscured and compromised, the citizenry may well ask whether atheistic and naturalistic forces may not be seeking to foist their partisan prejudices upon our national institutions. The course of recent modern history makes plain that where public institutions are not inspired by a confidence in transcendent justice and objective morality, such institutions do not long vacillate in the gray twilight zone where nothing is any longer clearly white or black; instead, public institutions detached from an anchor to the supernatural world glide quickly into the service of anti-Christ and promote widespread skepticism about everything sacred and holy.

What is really on trial in this hour is the spiritual conscience and commitment of every individual citizen. In the last analysis, no nation can thrive spiritually and morally nor long retain its feeling for social justice in the absence of voluntary personal dedication to holy priorities. Where such uncoerced dedication is lacking, particularly in the home, it is easy for parents troubled over the erosion of inherited values to seek an. institutionalizing of these values in order to protect and preserve them. But faith in the living God cannot be coerced by legislative action or by public education, and, moreover, ought not to be. The classroom dedicated to the whole truth has no right to suppress the teachings of Moses and Jesus, of Isaiah and Paul, in order to give one-sided advantage to the teachings of Darwin and Dewey. What the Supreme Court debate really constitutes, however, is a call to every American family to determine what convictions are of utmost priority, and to establish these in the life of the home. A spiritual witness that radiates to the community and to the nation from this intimate center will have greater transforming power—even in our public institutions—than any alternative devoid of this voluntary dedication.

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Spain, Soviet Russia, And Religious Freedom

In discussions of religious freedom, Spain and Russia figure prominently. In such context they are not set forth as champions, to say the least. Nonetheless, in the last few days both Moscow and Madrid have made news on a subject which is a sort of shadowland for both nations.

From Moscow: Izvestia (official government newspaper) carried an article written by Petr Kolonytsky, chief editor of the country’s main atheistic publication, a magazine called Science and Religion. Marking the forty-fifth anniversary of the decree on separation of church and state signed by Lenin, the article claimed that “real freedom of conscience” exists in Russia. As “proof” that no religious persecution is to be found in his country, Kolonytsky highlighted the fact that “no form in Russia asks about religious beliefs, and no one is obliged to report about going to church.” He charged that in “capitalistic countries” there is “no freedom to be an atheist,” but he offered no examples to support his thesis.

As if to punctuate the editor’s remarks, word came of the release of Ukrainian Archbishop Josyf Slipyi, Roman Catholic prelate who had been imprisoned by the Soviet Union for eighteen years.

From Madrid: Time reports that at a secret meeting in the Spanish capital, the nation’s Metropolitan Council—composed of fifteen ranking prelates, including four cardinals—approved in principle a “statute for non-Catholic religions” proposed by Spain’s Foreign Minister Fernando María Castiella y Maíz. Time describes it:

While still denying non-Catholics the right to proselytize, the proposed law will grant major Protestant churches juridical recognition as religious groups, allow them to run their own schools and seminaries, print and distribute their own translations of the Bible, operate hospitals and cemeteries. The proposed law even affirms the right of all Spaniards to hold every civic office but that of chief of state, who must be a Catholic.…

The bill is virtually certain to pass, a cheering development for Spain’s tiny Protestant minority (30,000). For as Time points out, while Spanish laws theoretically grant Protestants the right to the unhampered private exercise of their faith, their churches have no legal standing but “must operate as ‘foreign commercial firms.’ Missionaries have been fined and jailed for distributing the Bible, their churches shut for violations of obscure civil laws.” And the forthcoming law “may be nullified in practice by individual Catholic politicians.”

It is such treatment which can make a United States Protestant wonder at times whether he would be more at home in Roman Catholic Spain or in Communist Russia. The latter nation affords him more co-religionists. There are more than 550,000 Russian Baptists alone, and their churches are said to exert an influence over approximately four million people. (There are presumed to be some forty million Russian Orthodox Church members.) Not too long ago the Communist press printed 15,000 hymnbooks for Baptists, along with a few Bibles. It has printed Bibles for domestic use and for export.

Christian baptisms of adults and children in Russia are holding their own, if not increasing. But in contrast to the hopeful development in Spain, American churchmen who have visited Russia have reported a building up of pressure on the churches there, even though the results have seemingly been the reverse of those intended. Construction of new churches is almost never allowed. Publication of only a very small amount of religious materials is possible.

No formal religious training is permitted until the age of eighteen, and the number of seminaries is restricted. Nor may the church do any benevolence work.

But even if Protestants conclude they are better off in Catholic Spain than they are in Communist Russia, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with the fact that even a basis for comparison exists.

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Good Beginning For Fitness: Hike To A Church Service

Tongue in full cheek, Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy’s chubby White House news secretary, called off his promised fifty-mile hike under the President’s fitness program. Leaning heavily on the advice of many doctors, he confessed “My shape is not good,” and added, “I may be plucky, but I am not stupid.” Besides, he said, the long trek was superfluous since Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s fifty-mile hike had “amply demonstrated” the fitness of the entire Administration.

One could wish that the Administration would make the streets of Washington a fit place to walk. Not everyone can be accompanied by secret-service personnel. In recent months, neither congressmen, personnel of foreign embassies, nor their wives have found walking in the District of Columbia a safe exercise. In spite of mounting concern and more police surveillance, the rate of criminal assault on District streets was 17.4 per cent higher in January than for the same month last year. Why walk fifty miles to kill yourself when you can do half as well walking a few blocks around the White House or Capitol Hill at night?

The President’s stimulation of the finer arts has also reached far. The Commission on Religion and Arts of the American Unitarian Universalist Association recently urged that the dance, properly used, be accepted as a medium of religious expression. For this there is biblical support. But the physical, moral, and religious level of the average American being what it is, perhaps we had best begin at the bottom—like a good walk to church on Sunday. For, as Salinger suggested, exercise should be adjusted to fit the shape one is in.

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The Cuban Crisis And Pacifist Reaction

The Cuban crisis ushered in a new departure in the peace-war issue which must now be confronted by pacifist dialectic. So believes renowned pacifist A. J. Muste, who presents his response to the recent crisis in a paper, “Relation of Love and Power in the Contemporary Setting,” prepared for a Church Peace Mission seminar. For Muste, the “colossal Fact” of the crisis was that “the decision to use nuclear weapons, risk nuclear war, was taken.” He declares: “The phrase that we have to learn to ‘live with’ the cold war is often used. What we now have to ‘live with’ is the decision to use the nuclear arsenal in a concrete situation, for a certain political objective. Politically and morally this was done, though we were spared the physical execution of the decision.”

Numerous “Christian teachers,” says Muste, “who have presumably been able to maintain a foothold on the narrow and shaky ground that having an arsenal of nuclear weapons for deterrence is not the same as being committed to their use are now confronted with a new situation. We did commit ourselves, or the President committed us, to their use. At the very least, it seems to me, this now has to be said in clear and unequivocal terms and this policy has to be repudiated by all committed to non-use of nuclear weapons or another retreat of Christian forces will have taken place.”

So runs Muste’s “post-Cuban” challenge to those teachers whom he names “nuclear pacifists,” as distinguished from pacifists of the more conventional sort. “It is one thing,” he continues, “to possess nuclear weapons as part of a general pattern of international relations inherited from the past, these weapons presumably fulfilling the function of maintaining a balance of power or ‘terror’ which may forestall such crises as occurred over Soviet missiles in Cuba and facilitate negotiation about disarmament. Politically, it is quite a different matter for an Administration to map out a concrete policy in a specific situation which outlines a number of steps, specifically including resort to nuclear retaliation, and which makes the disposition of weapons and men (maximum alert) to carry out such a policy if the conflict takes a certain course. Obliteration bombing of cities is no longer in the realm of a general deterrent when armies are equipped to do so and set to drop the bombs on a given city if the weather is right and if by a certain date the city has not surrendered. Unless this distinction is recognized, nothing but the actual outbreak of nuclear war will lead churchmen and others to drop the argument that nuclear weapons serve a deterrent purpose, they exist to make sure they will not be used.”

In summing up his case, Muste urges restudy of a passage in Paul Tillich’s Interpretation of History, written in the aftermath of World War I. Said Tillich: “In every power there is an element of renunciation of power, and the power lives on this element.” Says Muste: “This is a truly astounding statement. The ancient prophetic and New Testament law of survival by self-sacrifice is here stated in philosophical terms as relevant for political science.”

Tillich cited the Church as obviously and supremely subject to this law, but then looked to the nation: “We must ask whether a people or a group which originally is not the church could renounce power and thus become the church.” His answer: “This possibility is not to be rejected fundamentally.”

Muste points out the relationship of this line of thought to Tillich’s concept of kairos—the time when the unexpected comes to fulfillment, when discontinuity prevails and history somehow transcends the already given. How could renunciation of power be achieved? Not with the help of state power, said Tillich. “A people can become the church only if in an unexpected historical moment, it is seized as a whole by the transcendental idea and for its sake renounces power.” He concludes: “Such an event would be one of the great turning points of history, it would perhaps create ‘mankind.’”

Muste hails this last as “one of the most profound statements about the meaning of history and the destiny of man to be found anywhere in literature.” He believes that “the churches, in so far as they are not utterly apostate, have no other dominant vocation today except to wait for ‘the coming of the Lord,’ i.e. to pray and study and work for that ‘historical moment’ in which a people is ‘seized as a whole by the transcendental idea and for its sake renounces power.’ Instead, this whole range of ideas,” complains Muste, “has virtually no place at all, as far as I can see, in the studies of Christian leaders and the teaching of the churches today. Perhaps we shall not be able to free ourselves from involvement in peripheral or trivial activities while pre-occupied with the death of mankind in a nuclear holocaust, until we dare face the necessity and possibility of creating mankind.”

Muste did not point out differences between his view of kairos and Tillich’s. For Tillich, kairos was always a particular moment in history. He had discerned one in the twenties in Germany, but it had passed and no longer existed in the forties. Muste’s view has been inclined more toward a perpetual possibility of entrance into the ideal future, into the new world. In 1939, 1941, and 1942 he proposed to the United States the purportedly saving, sacrificial act of unilateral disarmament. He saw a shrinking of the masses from war. His 1941 warning had a current ring: “Christian realism would lead us to renounce war preparation and war as obviously suicidal.…”

Muste’s vital concern for the future of the race is moving. And arguments of 1941 are now buttressed by the horror of nuclear weapons. For some who were not pacifists then, the quantitative growth in the destruction potential of current weaponry is so great as to create a qualitative difference which necessitates a switch to pacifism. Muste seeks still more converts by dramatizing what he apparently feels was a large step toward nuclear war in the United States’ handling of the Cuban crisis.

One may not discount the agony of personal decision, pacifist or non-pacifist, to be made in a nuclear age. Muste obviously is not optimistic concerning chances for unilateral disarmament by the United States. Cuba has not put to flight those who yet see the necessity of the deterrence afforded by atomic arms. To deny the necessity, they say, is to fly in the face of history. And in this, we think they are right; our arena of discourse and action is a sinful world. We say this even while realizing that we risk a Hiroshima as we turn away from the abject servitude of Buchenwald or Siberia.

The difficulty, the complexity of the dilemma is reflected in The Christian Century’s supporting the United States’ naval embargo against Cuba (Oct. 31, pp. 1311 f.) after having previously advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States (Aug. 3, 1960, pp. 891 f.). It is true that many pacifists retain a second policy, knowing their ideal is not to be acted upon anyway, although an “ethic of the second best” hardly rises to biblical heights or soars to Pauline nobility.

If we cannot identify Muste’s pacifist views with Christian realism, we certainly are unable to identify his eschatological hopes with biblical theology. We feel under no biblical compulsion to identify “the coming of the Lord” with “that ‘historical moment’ in which a people is ‘seized as a whole by the transcendental idea and for its sake renounces power.’” The expectation of a people or nation becoming a church through such a process would seem to find its roots more in elements of Gnosticism and Pelagianism than in the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith. This supposed means of “creating mankind” appears to overlook the basic necessity for individual regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

From here it looks like a fanciful hope for Utopia which spells bad politics and bad theology.

END

A Definition In Flux, A Concept Yet Needed

The Congressional Record has recorded remarks on “The Return of the Square” from a speech by Charles H. Brower, president of the advertising firm of Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborne, Inc. The evolution of the word “square” merits consideration. Some years ago, observes Mr. Brower, the word was one of the finest in the language. A square deal and a square meal were to be sought after. Once out of debt, you were square with the world and could look your fellowman square in the eye. To be admired was the man who stood foursquare for the right, as he saw the right.

Then the word was subjected to the Twist. Convicts contorted it first, to describe an inmate who would not conform to the convict code. From prisons, says Brower, it hit the marijuana circuit of the bopsters and hipsters:

Now everyone knows what a square is. He is the man who never learned to get away with wrongdoing. A Joe who volunteers when he doesn’t have to. A guy who gets his kicks from trying to do something better than anyone else can. A boob who gets so lost in his work that he has to be reminded to go home. A fellow who laughs with his belly instead of his upper lip. A slob who still gets choked up when the band plays “America the Beautiful.”

His tribe isn’t thriving too well in the current climate. He doesn’t fit too neatly into the current group of angle players, corner cutters, sharpshooters and goof-offs.… He’s burdened down with old-fashioned ideas of honesty, loyalty, courage and thrift. And he may already be on his way to extinction.

Brower reviews the squarish character of the exploits of such patriots as Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. Though he sees a swing back to old beliefs in ideals, devotion, and hard work, he yet recalls Arnold Toynbee’s somber observation that of twenty-one notable civilizations, nineteen perished not from external conquest but rather from the evaporation of belief within themselves.

This points us to the religious sphere. Discouraging it is to witness the popularity of the offbeat and the cynical pursuit of the exotic, extending from Zen Buddhism to the beat of pagan drums in nightclubs across the land. And the despair which so inevitably ensues.…

The old virtues are rooted in the love and righteousness manifested in Jesus Christ. Those who seek a way contrary to the way of love and righteousness seek not His way. Their future hope lies not in him but rather in selfish dreams. Nor can they exult with the Apostle John over his vision of “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” For indeed, “the city lieth foursquare.”

END

There hangs on a wall in our home a picture, simple, but with a tremendous story. Two lambs are resting peacefully on the ground; behind them is a large hand, and drooling and snarling behind that hand are several ferocious wolves. The lambs are lying in perfect peace, despite the danger, because the hand is restraining their enemies.

Most Christians respond to this portrayal of God’s protecting hand and rejoice that he still loves and cares for his own today.

At the same time there are many who would take advantage of the concept of God’s love without admitting that the love of God is but one facet of his being.

The stern words of John the Baptist to the Pharisees and Sadducees—the religious leaders of his day—carried deep meaning: “Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And this warning is not dated. The wrath of God is seen today and will be seen in the final judgment.

God’s wrath is not against the sinner because he is a sinner—all men are sinners. His wrath is again sin, against sin wherever it is found. Only in this light can we understand the implications of the Cross. Our Saviour’s death was not a sentimental example; it was an act of necessity. Only the death of the Son of God had in it the cleansing necessary—the power to deliver from the guilt and penalty of sin’s affront to a holy God.

In John 3:36 we read: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” In the light of this we have two choices: either John was mistaken, speaking from ignorance or from deliberate spite, or he was affirming a truth in which there is unspeakable comfort or warning of dire peril.

Even a superficial study of the word “wrath” as found in the Bible opens up a vista of awful judgment on unrepented or unforgiven sin.

Is our concept of God and his Son a travesty of the truth? God is love, but he is also a consuming fire. He is love, but he also exercises a holy wrath against which nothing can stand. The writer of the Proverbs tells us, “The expectation of the wicked is wrath,” and such it is today. The fact that many pulpits ignore this truth is something for which some will certainly be held responsible.

Years ago Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” brought literally thousands into the kingdom of God, for men were led to see themselves as God sees them and they cried out for forgiveness. What a far cry from most preaching today! Instead of being confronted by his sin and its consequences, the average sinner walks away from a sermon with the smug feeling that he is a pretty decent fellow and often with the delusion that he has done God an honor by being seen in church.

The Prophet Isaiah says: “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it” (Isa. 13:9).

It is useless to attribute this solely to the coming judgment on the Israel of that day. God continues to work in the same way, and this warning can well include America of 1963. For us the prayer of Habakkuk remains valid: “O Lord … in wrath remember mercy.”

The loving forgiveness of God is just as real as his wrath; his love and mercy are as available as his judgment is certain. The Apostle Paul had no illusions about the matter. In Romans 2:5 he says: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

Later in this same letter Paul says: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (5:9).

But today the idea of the “blood atonement” is considered passé by some. Only recently a prominent church leader spoke to a large group of women and in the course of his address warned them about emphasizing the blood of Christ, urging them to stress God’s love.

This incident brings to mind these words: “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy [common] thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:29). How can we ignore these words, or “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31), or “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29)?

Countless souls are being lulled into a false sense of security by those who ignore or deny the fact of God’s wrath against sin. His wrath is not anger as we sinners know anger, nor is it peevishness or arbitrariness. Rather it is a holy wrath by a holy God, a wrath directed against sin in every form, a wrath so great that the Son of God suffered death and separation from his Father to deliver those who believe from the wrath to come.

The Apostle Paul, speaking to Christians, says: “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).

In those solemn words of the last book of the Bible we read: “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together …”; then we find the peoples of the earth crying out to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Rev. 6:14 ff.).

Can the Gospel be properly preached other than against the backdrop of the wrath of God?

A prominent minister recently observed that all we need to do is tap sinners on the shoulder and tell them they are saved and that they should go out and live like Christians. What a travesty on the Gospel! What a failure to preach the whole counsel of God! What a caricature of the holiness of God! What a failure to understand the implications of the Cross!

When we truly picture the gentle Christ, the One who would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, we must face the other side, the day when the words of Paul will be fulfilled: “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:7–9).

Preacher, are you warning of the wrath to come? There is a bridge out down the road. Are you keeping quiet?

WhenCHRISTIANITY TODAY’S“Review of Current Religious Thought” was devoted recently (Oct. 12, 1962, issue) to the widespread speculations about universalism currently leavening some Protestant churches, the mails ran heavy with comment. A rejoinder by Professor Nels Ferré, and an overcomment by Professor Harold Kuhn, appear below.CHRISTIANITY TODAY’Ssermon contest on the theme of man’s final destiny attracted hundreds of entries from many lands. Results will be announced in the Fall of 1963.—ED.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has chosen to urge the writing of sermons against universalism. Dr. Kuhn singled out for mention my book, The Christian Understanding of God, presenting my position in a friendly spirit even while opposing it. I owe it to your sermon writers and to your readers, therefore, to present my position from the perspective and in the spirit in which it is held.

I do not hold a universalism based on a prediction from human knowledge in general nor from any soft view of God’s love. Rather, my thankfulness to God for his sovereign love and final victory, effectively realized and witnessed to by the Cross and the Resurrection, issues from the character of God as thus revealed. Secondly, it depends upon the deepest and strongest logic of the Bible: “… God … who will have all men to be saved …” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4) and “with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

Thirdly, the New Testament itself, the existential sourcebook (not the literal textbook) of Christian doctrine, contains three teachings on the subject:

1. In spite of linguistic problems of both Hebrew and Greek words and the cyclical view of time (ages of ages), I personally believe that eternal damnation is intended in some New Testament passages, even though parable scaffoldings must not be used in this way.

2. Annihilation is also there; the ungodly shall perish, as for instance Romans 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 1:18.

3. God’s final victory is also stated. “The grace of God has appeared salvation bringing to all men” (Titus 2:11, literal translation); “… God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10); “… by him to reconcile all things unto himself …” (Col. 1:20); “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32); “For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32, RSV). We simply have no right to meddle with the New Testament; all three teachings are undeniably there.

Only one position is finally consistent with God as agape. The other positions are there because preaching is existential. To preach to sinners that all will be saved will not reach them on their level of fear and hate of God. It will only secure them in their sin and self-sufficiency. Therefore, headed as they are away from God, they must be told: Repent or perish! It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You are going to hell, which means you are going to face the consequences of your disobedience and faithfulness, not only in this life, but especially on the other side of death. But hell is real without being eternal. Only God’s love never fails or never ends. God’s final victory involves his total work of redemption which is in eternity and not limited to our earthly time. My grounds for so believing are not merely biblical, for not even Jesus’ preaching to those who had died before the flood of Noah fills out the picture (1 Pet. 3:19, 20).

Two observations need to be made at this point. Luther rightly insisted that our job was not to draw the eternal picture for God but to preach grace to saints and wrath to sinners, leaving the final results in the hands of God. If universalism becomes a philosophy rather than the worship of God of sovereign love it sounds a false theological note. Secondly, doctrines are not pre-made but result from the creative confrontation of the truth of Christ with all problems that arise. Faith must remain faith, but a worthy faith.

A worthy faith can never minimize the seriousness of confronting God. God is completely holy because he is wholly agape. Therefore no one can be saved until he understands and accepts God as holy love. God’s suffering and victorious love for mankind are the only way to forgiveness and transformation of life and the finding of right relation to God.

But no worthy faith can ever attribute eternal hell to God, the sovereign Creator whom we meet in Christ as eternal and almighty love. Our freedom was made by him, and for it he is finally responsible. God who made us free knows how in eternity to control and how to win that freedom for repentance through both severity and love. Such is the fullest and highest possible faith in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To attribute eternal hell to God is literally blasphemy, the attributing of the worst to the best. From such blasphemy may God deliver everyone.

Abbot Professor of Christian Theology

Andover Newton Theological School

Professor Ferre has written with both his usual courtesy and his customary candor and clarity, and in that spirit I would submit this as something of a footnote to his presentation.

The points in his statement which are crucial are two. First, he suggests that the New Testament explicitly teaches three views upon the subject of the final state of those who appear to depart this life impenitent, views which are held to be mutually irreconcilable. Second, he suggests that the New Testament must be regarded as an “existential sourcebook” rather than a “literal textbook” for Christian doctrine.

Few will question that the New Testament does teach the eternal loss of the finally impenitent, in terms of a punishment which has no end but which presumably consists of a ceaseless cycle of recurring sin-and-consequences. It may be questioned, however, whether annihilation of the finally impenitent is taught in a manner which is indisputably clear. There is something to be said for the view that “eternal death” and “eternal destruction” may not be inconsistent with the position that the eternal death of the soul consists of its definitive and final severance from its Source, so that such a teaching as that “the ungodly shall perish” may be correctly understood in the sense indicated by the German term Zugrundegehen, without the implication of utter annihilation.

Certainly no one will deny that the New Testament teaches that the benefits of the self-immolation of our Lord are available to all men, so that God is, without question, potentially the Saviour of all, the extent of the realization of this being qualified by the words “specially of those that believe.” The classic passage in Colossians with reference to the final reconstitution of all things may or may not imply necessarily the final redemption of each individual in God’s creative plan. The emphasis in the context is upon the breadth of the scope of the final recapitulation of all in Christ, as also in Ephesians 1:10; in other words, these passages indicate the extension of the ultimate regathering of all in Christ, without any absolutely necessary implication at the point of the inclusion of every individual unit in the cosmos. If we may deduce anything relevant here from “the book of nature,” it is that God seems to accomplish many of his purposes at the price of significant and sometimes tragic loss.

It follows that there is at least something to be said for the view that the New Testament statements germane to this question cannot be said univocally to present three positions which are intrinsically irreconcilable. If a radically analytical method may deduce the latter view, certainly a harmonistic type of interpretation points in another direction.

With reference to the statement that the New Testament is an “existential sourcebook” rather than a “literal textbook” for things Christian, it needs to be asked, first, whether this is a proper extension of the use of the term “existential.” Certainly the New Testament does emphasize some of the themes which are usually designated by the term, such as the primacy of the individual over the general and collective, the emphasis upon “authentic” existence as distinguished from a mere existence upon the basis of received and unreflected principles, the emphasis upon participation and commitment as against the mood of detachment, the frank recognition of the elements of tragedy and poignancy in human life, the stress upon the essential homelessness of the human spirit in this present world, and the relevance of the personalized consideration of death, among others.

The “existential” tenet which needs to be called into question here is that of “truth as subjectivity,” which, it seems to this writer, underlies Dr. Ferré’s usage in his statement. He seems to suggest that the New Testament presents three “existential” views which would be, if taken rationally and systematically, mutually irreconcilable. The purpose of this would be, presumably, to produce a sense of perplexity, in which the sophisticated reader, having been subjected to this process of irony, would then turn to discover some principle outside the three views, in terms of which a working approximation of them would be derived.

The question arises at once whether this method is legitimate. It assumes out of hand that the Scriptures are not Revelation, but perhaps the “witness of faith to revelation.” This throws the individual back upon his own judgment, so that he must assess the biblical witness in the light of extra-biblical principles. Thus it is left to the individual to ascertain from the existential situation (here it is a revelatory situation), what are the basic motif and the basic thrust of the teaching. This writer wonders whether this is, factually, the modus operandi of Revelation. He questions also whether this be not an appeal either to the irrational or to a process by which fallible judgments are tested by our own fallible judgments.

No one will deny that agape is deeply characteristic of God as he reveals himself to us. What may be questioned here, however, is whether this agape can legitimately be regarded as a final and definitive category, which supersedes and displaces such categories as divine sovereignty and divine freedom. This writer is inclined to call into question Dr. Ferré’s contention that we are in a position to set aside statements of Scriptures which in themselves seem to be definitive, on the basis of our subjective judgment at the point of that which agape may require. If this writer understands Dr. Ferré correctly, he understands him to believe that in the interpretation of Scripture, the synthetic and harmonistic must be abandoned, and in their place must be substituted the analytic and the existential. Also, he feels that Dr. Ferré has committed the fallacy of putting the part for the whole—or in other words, has applied a limited category to a field which requires the vigorous application of other categories equally typical of the divine nature. A final observation is this: an ethical question is involved if we assume that for the purpose of preaching, God has permitted to be advanced teachings which are contradictory and not factually correct. Does this square with the integrity of the Divine Being? Does Dr. Ferré not, in the name of an “existential” mode of interpretation, place a question mark upon the sincerity of the divine initiative in publishing the Good News?

Professor of Philosophy of Religion

Asbury Theological Seminary

Elderly Ladies at the Funeral of a Contemporary

In hushed solemnity they enter the small sanctuary.

Hatted, gloved, decorous they sit, listening to the muted organ tones.

Much too familiar the unnatural ritual has become—

This pantomime they play before the mysterious unknown.

“She looks so natural,” they say of her, flower-decked and still,

Who only yesterday shared their homely tasks and cares.

Natural? Why—her fingers never ceased their busyness for others.

Her brow—not smooth, as now—was often furrowed by her deep concern.

They listen approvingly to the minister’s florid words.

They watch the undertakers, unctuous smiles in place, resume their work.

They hear the organist begin to play judiciously-chosen music, not too sentimental—

And they—like actresses in a grisly drama—leave the church, their mutual question unspoken.

LOURINE WHITE