The regrouping of Christendom in the twentieth centurn had a sorry as well as splendid aspect. Its positive side is an awareness that the unity of the Church is part of the Gospel the Church proclaims (as the Apostles’ Creed takes note) and that the Church’s unity of heart reflects the unity of the Godhead to the world (John 17:3).
On the negative side stands an increasing tendency to emphasize institutional unity in order to “impress the world.” Churches are told that Christian division (sometimes meaning schism, sometimes denominations, sometimes major branches of the faith) is a scandal which keeps the world from Christ.
But churchmen who locate the scandal in the disunity of the Church are, we think, attempting a pious version of the Twist. For to taper the scandal of the Gospel to the fragmenting of believers simply misidentifies the scandal. The real offense is the Redeemer’s atonement for man’s sins, the divine verdict that man apart from the saving grace of God is a doomed sinner—in a word, the preaching of the Cross. It was so in the apostolic age; it is so today. The world isn’t going to be brought to Christ by shimmying the scandal.
When the Church starts echoing the world’s rationalization of its rejection of Christ, the world will also stop listening to the Church. Evangelists like Billy Graham speak more directly to the world’s existential predicament than ecumenists whose message is merger for the sake of an impression on the world, if not “merger for the sake of merger.” The plea for togetherness to impress the world suggests an actress who has had her day stepping on stage at intermission to plead for a better hearing during the last act. Even if the performer pulls herself together for some herculean effort, such histrionics will restore neither prestige nor power. The regenerate Church of Jesus Christ knows that the Gospel proclamation alone can expose the sinner’s shame and offer him the option of grace. “I, if I be lifted up,” said Jesus, “will draw all men unto me.” Other devices may draw me too, but no other message will draw men to Christ. The scandal of Christian disunity lies less in institutional division than in the loss of the great truths of the faith.
The cliché that love unites but doctrine divides limps at every turn. Love itself requires intelligible definition if it is to be meaningful. Liberal Protestant spokesmen in international affairs once equated love with pacifism; liberal Protestant economists equated love with socialism; and liberal Protestant churchmen now equate love with ecumenism.
It is supremely true that love is a distinctive hallmark of the Church of Jesus Christ. But love requires criteria and direction. “If ye love me,” said Jesus, “you will obey my commands.… Anyone who loves me will heed what I say” (John 14:15, 23, NEB). The true Church of Jesus Christ is no more able to dissociate herself from the teaching and commands of her Lord than from his person and work. For the Church under orders it follows necessarily that doctrine unites and love divides, as well as that love unites and doctrine divides. “They met constantly to hear the apostles teach, and to share the common life, to break bread, and to pray” (Acts 2:42, NEB). The apostolic church confronted the apostate world by its devotion to truth, righteousness and love—all under the lordship of the Risen Christ.
‘The Minister’S Workshop’ Offers Practical Help With Sermons
What John A. Broadus did for the ministry of a previous generation, Andrew W. Blackwood has done for our own. In the next issue, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will inaugurate The Minister’s Workshop, a monthly feature that deals with practical problems of the pulpit. It will present a series of essays by this distinguished Princeton professor of homiletics (1930–1935) and for many years (1936–1956) head of its practical department.
Dr. Blackwood’s essays will alternate with those of Dr. Paul S. Rees, known around the world for his personal ministry to pastors and missionaries and also for his many published sermons. Before coming to World Vision as Vice-President, Dr. Rees was minister of First Covenant Church of Minneapolis.
Besides contributing his essay, Dr. Blackwood each month will select and abridge a worthy sermon of the expository-topical type. He will also suggest useful sermon outlines. What some ministers consider a lack in Broadus, Dr. Blackwood will offset by his practical and skillful discussion of how to prepare a sermon or series of messages. Both as a seminary student and later as a seminary professor, this problem was his primary concern. While other professors guided students in learning what to preach, Dr. Blackwood’s special task and strength was teaching them how to preach. This burden, in fact, was one of the reasons he wrote The Preparation of Sermons. Since 1959 this book has sold more than 43,500 copies and promises to surpass the sales record of Broadus’s Preparation and Delivery of Sermons.
The Minister’s Workshop is another special service of CHRISTIANITY TODAY to the Protestant ministry. Look for it in the first issue of every month!
Challenge Of The Gospel Will Meet Student Influx At Fort Lauderdale
America has been shocked, and rightly so, by the riotous and immoral conduct of 35–40,000 college students who now descend annually on Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during the weeks of their Spring vacation. Spurred on by an irresponsible motion picture and encouraged by the reports of similar “good times” in previous years, the 1961 influx rioted on beaches and streets, resisted policemen and caused considerable damage to the property of Fort Lauderdale’s residents. In the reaction which followed a number of local leaders turned to the church for assistance, and near the end of the vacation Billy Graham appeared to challenge the students with the claims of Jesus Christ. Now spring has come again, and the community faces the prospect of another violent episode. Significantly enough, however, a number of the ministers of Fort Lauderdale have been planning for the trouble and have extended an invitation to the staff and students of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship to help in the monumental task of confronting these students with the Gospel. Recognizing the opportunities which this strange but challenging situation presents and the urgency of the task, it is incumbent upon Christians to support this work in prayer.
Space And Index Problems Limit Library Periodical Collections
Most public and university libraries are prone to limit their periodical collections to publications indexed in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. By so doing, librarians claim to put their limited space to optimum use, since periodicals thus indexed are valuable for research long after current copies have been removed to the stacks. This position is certainly understandable.
Somewhat harder to understand, however, is the position forced on Reader’s Guide by circumstance. As the only generally accepted periodical index, it takes the field as a virtual monopoly. New periodicals are added and others dropped at reviewing time “on the basis of suggestions received from the subscribers and from specialists in the subject fields,” according to Edwin B. Colburn, Chief of Indexing Services of the H. W. Wilson Company, a New York firm which publishes the index.
This policy tends to limit the choice, since libraries make up the great majority of the “subscribers,” and they tend to limit their selections to indexed publications if limited by space shortage. Few libraries are free from this limitation. In turn, Reader’s Guide accepts its suggestions from the libraries, who want their current crop of periodicals to remain indexed, for obvious reasons. This creates nothing short of a “vicious circle.”
Three Roman Catholic periodicals (America, Commonweal, and Catholic World) are currently represented in the index. The only Protestant journal represented is the liberal Christian Century. Few would deny the Century this strategic position; but numerous churchmen, liberal and conservative alike, feel that it should not stand alone as representing the entire scope of Protestant Christianity.
In the interest of balanced Protestant representation in the nation’s libraries, Reader’s Guide would do well to give more weight to the second point in their selection policy, and receive suggestions “from specialists in the subject fields.”
Missionary Relationships And The National Churches
The most acute problem facing missionary boards and missionaries on the field today centers in Church-Mission relationships.
That missionary endeavors of the last two centuries have resulted in national churches is a cause for rejoicing and gives evidence of the effectiveness of missionary effort.
But to what degree shall the missionary become an integral part of the national church? In what way can he continue as a missionary to those yet unreached without infringing on the responsibilities of the indigenous church? In what way can funds from abroad be used without becoming a subsidy for the local church? In what way can the legitimate aspirations of national church leaders be protected from becoming a claim for support from abroad rather than a recognition of fiscal responsibility at home?
These are serious problems, for the efficacy of future missionary effort hangs in the balance, as well as the integrity of the national churches.
The affirmation of the Apostle Paul that “the love of money is the root of all evil” has become strangely and ironically relevant in Christian missions policy today. The missionary’s use of money as a source of personal power is a great hindrance to the realization of his ultimate goals. For the national church to look to the sending churches for financial support is equally dangerous.
The solutions to these problems vary in different times and places. Precipitate decisions and unrealistic “solutions” can complicate rather than alleviate the difficulties. Mission boards, missionaries, and the national churches need much grace and the prayers of the whole Church of Christ. National churches must be truly indigenous, with full autonomy and responsibility for self-government, self-propagation, and self-support. It will be disastrous for them if they emerge as subsidized islands of missionary aid. That they shall themselves see this danger is imperative.
Public School Dilemma: To Pray Or Not To Pray
Early in April constitutionality of opening prayer exercises in public schools will be argued before the Supreme Court. Specifically involved is a New York case in which the state courts upheld the “Regents Prayer” (cf. CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Jan. 5, p. 31).
Recital of daily prayer is widespread in our public elementary and secondary schools, being either expressly permitted or required in 24 states and prevalent in the others. Religious Education (May-June, 1961) reports some form of home-room devotional exercise in over 50 per cent of the nation’s public school systems.
From time to time such prayers have been challenged in state courts, usually by individual parents. In last year’s New York case the trial court noted that 10 states have upheld use of prayers while seven have not, chiefly on the ground that child participation should not be compulsory. Actually, most schools make it possible for children from non-sympathetic families to be excused from these prayers.
At issue is whether these prayers violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. To hold they violate the First, said Chief judge Desmond of the Court of Appeals, would he “in defiance of all American history” and “destroy a part of the essential foundation of the American governmental structure.” Appellate Division Justice Beldock declared that to consider reference to Almighty God acceptable and desirable in all other phases of public life but not in public schools stretches the principle of separation of church and state “far beyond its breaking point.”
Other than constitutional questions surround the matter of opening prayers as well. In some instances recital is of the Lord’s Prayer; in other instances, as in the New York Regents’ approved prayer, the God invoked is neither Trinitarian nor Christological. Prayer not offered in Jesus’ name, of course, has no pledge of an answer (cf. John 15:16). And even when offered in Christ’s name prayer is an empty formality if what is taught subsequently disregards or contradicts his teachings, neglects or disrespects his glory. In too many places God the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, let alone the Saviour and Sanctifier, has been so much removed from the content of the curriculum that an opening prayer to him is a glaring anachronism and contradiction.
Ought school prayers therefore to be omitted? Before the passage of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, our forefathers deemed it wise and good to have their children collectively invoke God’s blessings. In fact, early hornbooks show that the Lord’s Prayer was taught along with the alphabet. Ought not we of this generation continue the practice of recognizing the spiritual—especially in view of our current pressure to out-educate and outstrip the Soviets? Or shall we rely only on appropriations of money? Considered from another standpoint, ought not a nation of 100 million believers in Christ betimes collectively and publicly call upon their God? Is not the beginning of school sessions (as the opening of Congress) one of these? Ought we to discontinue this practice simply because some parents may be offended? As trial judge Bernard S. Meyer has observed, “Religious difference is one of the facts of life” with which school children are daily confronted by absences for religious holy days, differences in clothing, diverse dietary habits, and other dissimilarities.
The rationale of public school prayers was well stated by New York Superintendent Spencer in a May 13, 1839, decision: “Both parties have rights; the one to bring up their children in the practice of publicly thanking their Creator for his protection, and invoking His blessing; the other of declining in behalf of their children.… These rights are reciprocal, and should be protected equally; and neither should interfere with the other.
New Teen-Age Idol Combines Devout Faith, Scientific Skill
America presents many faces to its own citizens and to the world. Some suggest the “ugly American,” some the image of violence and crime, some the mask of materialism hiding an absence of soul. But for the moment at least the finest image of America is Colonel John H. Glenn, America’s first man in orbit.
He is honored the world around for what he did. In a world where it can no longer be said that what goes up must come down, Glenn went up and came down. In a country where men of his age are almost too old to hire, Glenn did what few young men are physically and mentally able to do. In a time when patriotism and love of country are almost lost virtues, Glenn risked his life for the flag, the sight of which he says gives him a strange feeling inside.
But Glenn is honored even more for what he is: humble, unabashedly Christian, devout and faithful church member, and a man seemingly without nerves. He has a fine sense of humor, and his reaction to his achievement reveals a fine sense of proportion. He knows the size of his accomplishment, the multiple team effort which made it possible, and how short the time before a fellow American will do something even greater. He honors God, loves his country, and is motivated by a deep sense of patriotism, uncommon in the cynical generation to which he belongs.
Glenn projects a fine image of America to the world, but more importantly, to the youth of America.
Youth must have its heroes. America’s youth in recent years have had more than enough who were made of no finer stuff than common clay. It is fine and wholesome and good for the youth of America that its present hero does not lack those spiritual dimensions and moral qualities so absent in its rock n roll idols, its black leather jacketed punks, and its sweating, crooning sex-symbols.
We may thank God for what the rider of Friendship #7 did, but most of all we may thank God for what he is: a credit to his country, and a wholesome image for the esteem and respect of America’s youth. Today none of them need feel that only sissies fear God and go to church.
A Voice In The Wilderness Of Modern Life And Despair
Appearances to the contrary, Christians see the world in terms of creation and redemption. They thank God for life, sing of the world as their Father’s world, and know that existence is essentially good.
Most non-Christians see life as checkered by shade and sunshine. Existence for them is neither essentially good or bad, but a bit of both.
Some perceptive non-Christians take a long, hard look at life, and see human existence as something essentially evil. For them existence is a disease, and death is redemption. Life is hell, and death is salvation.
Tennessee Williams belongs to the latter group. He is classified by Time magazine as the greatest U.S. playwright since O’Neill, and barring one, the greatest alive today.
What has thrust Williams from obscurity to those heights where he is the wealthiest of playwrights and the recipient of such accolades of distinction? Not his courage. A cosmic dread tears at his deepest being. He confesses, “I am a definition of hysteria.” He holds prominence for his ability to articulate his view of unredeemed existence; across the footlights he sends the dark side of existence and his own terror and anguish at what he sees. His audiences are large, for what distinguishes him from millions of his contemporaries is merely his descriptive ability sympathetically to convey what he sees and dreads. He simply puts into language what others see and dread but cannot express. For this he has won two Pulitzer prizes and three awards from the New York Drama Critics Circle.
For those who cannot unspell the subtleties of his “Sweet Bird of Youth,” “Streetcar,” “Suddenly last Summer,” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Williams speaks in simpler prose. “There is a horror in things,” says Tennessee, “a horror at the heart of the meaninglessness of existence.… Life has meaning if you’re bucking for heaven. But if heaven is a fantasy, we are in this jungle with whatever we can work out for ourselves. It seems the cards are stacked against us. The only victory is how we take it.”
How does Tennessee himself take it? With deep tenderness and sympathy for his contemporaries for whom, as for himself, to exist is to be damned. And, according to Time, Williams takes it with considerable daily dosages of bourbon, pep-up pills, quiet-down pills, and put-me-to-sleep pills.
Tennessee speaks for the lonely who like himself see existence unredeemed, a disease for which there is no cure, save death. He has no message for the masses; he simply expresses their feeling that there is no hope. He speaks the loneliness of the lonely, and therefore his plays are highly biographical, and essentially monologues. Indeed, Time declares that his latest peer in creating monologues is William Shakespeare.
Williams gives powerful expression to a mood that is distinctively and characteristically the mood of the twentieth century: despair of existence. Existence is in essence evil, and therefore something that is not redeemable. Christianity is deemed irrelevant, not because it is untrue, but because there is nothing for it to redeem. Existence is not sick, as Christianity declares, and must needs be made whole. Existence is itself sickness, and death is redemption.
The Church must recognize that this mood of Williams is the mood of millions. To them she must proclaim with a sensitivity and sympathy that we are not alone, for God has entered our broken existence to make it whole. And since God is with us, the cards are not stacked against us. To those knowing only despair, she must proclaim Him that is the Way out of our “jungle” to a heaven that is no fantasy.
