Light Out Of Darkness
Since the darkness of Friday, November 22, when a great leader, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was struck down, our nation has lived and thought more deeply than in many years. Into the soul of a favored and self-indulgent society the iron of affliction entered. A people that has permitted itself to be torn by political and racial strife found unity in sorrow and strength in tragedy. A society far down the road to secularism turned in its hour of need to the God of its fathers.
In the words of the Chief Justice, “It has been said that the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn. But surely we can learn if we have the will to do so.”
There is no more profound truth in Scripture than that God, who is over the whole of history, is able to bring light out of darkness and so to teach his people. From the beginning, when “darkness was upon the face of the deep … and God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light,” the living God has been bringing light out of darkness. Out of the fall of man, he brought the light of the protevangel with its promise of the Messiah; out of the deluge, he brought the rainbow. So also from Israel’s Egyptian bondage, he brought the passover deliverance; and when, in the Roman Empire, his people “walked in darkness,” he brought them “a great light,” even he who “still shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out” (John 1:5, Phillips). And, following the most tragic hours in history, when “there was darkness over the whole land” and he who is “the light of the world” was put to death on the Cross, he “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” thus making the greatest of crimes the greatest of blessings. Moreover, the Bible tells us that despite ultimate human failure, history will end in the triumph of Christ and that in the holy city “there shall be no night there.”
This truth, affirmed by both history and revelation, speaks to our need in a time of transition. Christian people, of whose heritage it is part, need to rest upon this truth and share it with their neighbors. Their duty is to be what they are called to be—“the salt of the earth”—and to “let their light shine before men.” This they must do by learning from the Lord of history, who is able to make even “the wrath of man to praise him.”
What, then, are some lessons that may be learned from the recent ordeal? Just as only the larger perspective of the years will assign the late President, whose great ability, courageous stand for civil rights, commitment to peace, and deep devotion to America have been justly extolled, his final place in history, so with the effect of recent events. Yet even now, certain lessons are coming into focus. As we consider some of them, let us ask whether we are clearsighted enough to see that this is a nation “under God” not because of our merits but through the heritage of our forefathers, and that only by grace has it been the recipient of his loving favor. Then let us remember that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” and that out of darkness he still brings forth light.
Already the sense of confession and humiliation in the spirit of Daniel’s great prayer (Dan. 9:3–19) has been evident. Self-righteousness has been pierced by recognition that the spirit of lawlessness and extremism we have too easily tolerated was not unrelated to the tragedy. Now it is acknowledged that unconcern and neutrality that leave hate and fanaticism unrebuked are not blameless.
Yet confession is not by itself sufficient. We who have too long tolerated intolerance cannot afford the luxury of self-recrimination. Repentance with its about-face attitude must follow confession. The continuing lesson to be learned is a difficult and delicate one. At the heart of democracy is the freedom to dissent. Without opposition, democracy may slip into a kind of one-party government, if not worse.
Therefore, the reaction against hate and intolerance must not take the easy path of stifling loyal dissent that expresses conviction. The call is rather to responsibility. Now that the mask has been torn from the hideous features of fanaticism, we need to learn the lesson of the dissidence of maturity. This means learning how to disagree firmly, reasonably, and in love. The cost is not cheap. It includes the self-control of not being swept along with popular prejudice; it also requires the moral courage to speak up for conviction when the crowd abuses its liberty. And who more than Christians, who have the teaching and example of their Lord and the exhortation of the Apostle, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold” (Rom. 12:2, Phillips), are fitted to learn the dissidence of maturity?
This maturity also involves the ability to see that major problems generally stem from complex causes. And essential to it is the realization that prejudice and intolerance, even when there is a beam rather than a mote in another’s eye, are never dispelled apart from humble acknowledgment of whatever beam there may be in one’s own eye. Surely learning how to disagree through growth in the dissidence of maturity will help illuminate our way.
Another shaft of light in the darkness has been the innate sense of decency and decorum manifest in a mourning America. Cancellation of sports events, closing of places of amusement, drastic revision of television and radio programs—these point to the great doctrine of common grace. Too often have evangelicals, who believe that only the regenerate are spiritually the children of God and members one of another in Christ, forgotten the equally biblical truth that all men are by creation God’s children. The milk of human kindness is found in non-Christians as well as Christians; in his sovereignty God sheds his common grace upon the unsaved as well as upon the saved.
Light has also shone through the deeply religious mood of the nation and its leadership. Paradoxically, the people, despite the tides of secularism that have been running so strongly toward the disinheritance of the tradition of religion in national life, turned to religion in their days of bereavement. And a new President sought the daily prayers of his fellow citizens.
Again, one notes the prospect of renewed understanding of the scriptural obligation to respect the constituted authority that derives from the God whose word teaches us to pay “respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” (Rom. 13:7, RSV).
After the seeds of hate and disrespect for authority bore fruit in the violent death of a postman on a country roadside, of a Medgar Evers at his home, and of four little girls in Sunday school, the lesson was too soon forgotten. Now, through a supreme act of lawlessness and also through such responses to that act as the unthinking applause of schoolchildren whose parents have so spoken the language of scorn for authority as to pass it on to their offspring—now we know once more what hate really is. And in the very depth of this new knowledge there is the hope, reinforced and ennobled by the late President’s widow, who brought to tragedy the clear light of selfless dignity, that the lesson may finally have penetrated the superficiality of our day.
In a national mood of self-criticism and contrition, good things are said and good resolutions made. Liberals speak of the need of matching liberty with discipline, conservatives admit the dangers of right-wing extremism, television looks critically at its preoccupation with violence, and it becomes popular to decry prejudice of all kinds. But the demons of hatred and intolerance, of self-righteousness and self-indulgence, are not exorcised by words alone or merely by transient emotion. Their removal requires concerted effort. As President Johnson said in his moving Thanksgiving Day address, “Let all who speak, let all who teach, and all who preach and publish, and all who broadcast, and all who read and listen, let them reflect upon their responsibilities to bind our wounds, to heal our sores, to make our society whole for the tests ahead of us.”
Whether we have really learned from the God of history, who “sits at the roaring loom of events,” will be determined only by the transformation of unity in sorrow into unity in respect for law and authority, and by the substitution of tolerance for prejudice and love for hate.
For us Christians this is a time of special and humbling responsibility. Ours is a faith of inextinguishable optimism. Believing in the Lord at whose coming the angels rejoiced yet who was born to die that men might live eternally, we know that our Lord conquered death and that he will have the ultimate victory. In biblical realism we know that Scripture teaches neither national nor world conversion. Yet we may never underestimate the outreach of God’s grace, knowing his promise to heal the nation that repents and returns to him. Understanding that salvation cannot be earned by keeping the law—not even the law of love Christ himself taught—we yet cannot refuse the claim of that law upon our own lives. We are obligated to follow in the steps of our Lord, not to be redeemed but because he has redeemed us. And only as we follow him, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, shall we be what he means us to be at a time when light is so greatly needed.
As It Would Look From The Wall
During the last days of November the American people had a singular opportunity to see what a wall of absolute separation of government and religion would be like in actual practice. What a cold and bleak thing it would have been if no religious act or sentiment could have come from men in high places of government!
In the academic halls of debate aloof from the actualities of life, the proponents of absolute separation of government and religion achieve a persuasiveness more doctrinaire than real. Had all religious expression been prohibited, how remote the government would have been from the deep grief of the Kennedy family, and how far from the hearts and feelings of the American people.
It is easy to theorize oneself out of existence. A heady reflection can propose positions that are credible only in the cool realms of abstractionism. Hegel was a worthy opponent in debate; yet a single fragment of existence could fell his system, as Kierkegaard annoyingly demonstrated when he pointed out that Hegel denied his system every time he reached for his handkerchief to cover a sneeze.
Had the proponents of absolute separation chosen to urge their interpretation of the First Amendment upon the American people while the late President lay dying in a Dallas hosiptal, they would have found an unsympathetic audience. Had they insisted that religion must be wholly excluded from government at the time President Johnson assumed the awful responsibilities of his office and on television requested Americans to pray God to sustain him, they would have put their position to the test where America lives. This is a question, not of sentiment, but of testing a theory in the realm where its supporters propose to make it operative.
Raise the question where Americans actually live and few would agree that a prayer in Congress, or a congressional appeal for prayer for a dying President, is something that the Constitution forbids.
Forty-five minutes on the afternoon of November 22 shattered the theory that the American people want every religious dimension shut off from government by an absolute wall of separation. When they respond out of the actualities of their national life, they do not believe that the Constitution requires absolute separation for the protection of the rights of those who believe there is no God.
It is rarely recognized that only atheists and those who deny the efficacy of prayer can urge an absolute separation of government and religion. He who believes that God hears and answers prayer, by his very prayer invites the Almighty to enter the area of government.
Christ Comes Twice
It will still be Advent when this year-end issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY appears. And this season relates to a future certainty as well as to a past event. It looks back to the stupendous miracle of the incarnation of him who is the light of the world, inextinguishable amid all the darkness of human failure and sin. But it also looks forward to the return of this same Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem that he might die and be raised to save us from our sins and give us life everlasting. For just as the Bible tells of his First Coming, so it promises his Second Coming.
In the Book of Common Prayer, a devotional classic belonging to the broad heritage of English-speaking Christians, this Collect with its recognition of the two Comings is used throughout Advent: “Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.”
To forget the Second Advent, as many do, or, while acknowledging it, to dissipate its reality by spiritualizing the plain promises of His coming or by adopting some extreme kind of “realized eschatology,” is to be deprived of what the New Testament calls “the blessed [literally, ‘happy’] hope.” The deprivation is serious, especially in this apocalyptic age when Christians so greatly need the assurance of the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ. Yet honesty requires the admission that there are many who, while holding orthodox views of the Second Advent, do not really know it as the comfort and incentive it should be for every Christian. Granted that there are diverse interpretations of the Scriptures dealing with the Lord’s return—and such differences ought never to hinder Christian fellowship—still there are few doctrines about which there is more widespread ignorance than this one.
While some have fallen into such unbiblical errors as setting the date of His coming and while certain cults have distorted the doctrine of the Second Advent almost beyond recognition, it is well to remember that the misuse of a truth never invalidates that truth. Nor is this the only doctrine that has been distorted; church history records countless heresies about other great truths of the faith. To lose one’s grip on “the promise of his coming” or to be disinterested in it is to miss one of the great biblical sources of comfort, hope, and urgency for service.
Some years ago Bertrand Russell wrote an essay for The Atlantic Monthly (March, 1951) on the future of mankind. In it he predicted that before this century ends, “unless something unforeseeable occurs, one of three possibilities will have been realized … 1. The end of human life, perhaps of all life on our planet. 2. A reversion to barbarism after a catastrophic diminution of the population of the globe. 3. A unification of the world under a single government.…” But what for Lord Russell is “something unforeseeable” is a certainty for the Christian who believes in the Second Coming.
The ultimate key to human history is not in the hands of men with their nuclear weapons but in the pierced hands of the Prince of Peace. For the man of the world, Christ is indeed the unknown and unforeseeable factor. But everyone who believes the promises spoken by our Lord and the teaching of the prophets and the apostles should know that history is not circular but that with Jesus Christ crucified and risen as its midpoint it is moving on to the Parousia and the culmination of all things in Him. He knows on the authority of the Word that the same Lord who saved him is coming back, that in His presence there will be the inexpressible comfort of reunion with those who “sleep in Jesus,” that he must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that this whole world order is to be judged, that Christ who is King of kings and Lord of lords will defeat Satan, and that in Christ the Kingdom will be fully realized. Differences of interpretation in these things, yes; but about the fact that history will come to its close in and through Christ there is no biblical ground for disagreement.
The Second Advent with its teaching of the end of this world order is repugnant to the modern mind. If, as C. S. Lewis puts it in “The World’s Last Night,” we live under the possibility that “the curtain may be rung down at any moment” on human history, then the pride of man is indeed shattered. But in a time when the destructive capacity of man has so dangerously outrun his moral control and when the prospect of lunar voyages and interplanetary travel contributes to the arrogant self-confidence of a generation that cannot live peacefully on this planet, the Second Advent has much to say. A society that, like those in the Lord’s parable, “will not have this man to reign over us,” and that as a consequence of this rejection is casting aside all moral restraints, almost inevitably falls into the Promethean spirit of challenging the Almighty himself. Even now what Communism is saying about the Lord and his Anointed sounds like a paraphrase of these words from the Second Psalm: “Let us break their bands asunder and cast their cords from us.” And let us remember that the secularism pervading our nation is little more than an indirect form of the same denial of God and his Christ.
Whenever a great doctrine of Scripture is overlooked or ignored, the Church suffers and its witness is weakened. Ours is a society that needs to hear not only the good news of the First Advent but also the certainty of the Second Advent. It needs to know that Scripture gives no assurance that God will put up with human sin and rebellion forever. It is part of the obligation of the Church to tell men and women that God has a plan for the world and that this plan culminates in Christ. Moreover, Christians themselves need to be taught the truth of their Lord’s return, because believing it leads to purity of life. As the beloved disciple said, “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2, 3, RSV). Not only so, but as our Lord said in the parable of the talent and in other of his teachings, the expectation of his coming brings urgency to service. Over and over he declared that he will come back. The time of his return is unknown, although the fact is sure. And today, as never before, “the fields are white unto the harvest.” Therein lies the urgency of the Second Advent. Very much remains to be done for him who is coming.
When Britain was about to grant independence to India, the viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, had a certain kind of calendar printed. One of the news photographs made in his office showed the calendar, which read at the time the picture was taken: “4 August. 11 more days left to prepare for the transfer of power.” In this way the viceroy reminded himself and the other servants of the crown of the coming transfer of power, when the subcontinent would pass from British to native rule. But the world is waiting for a vastly greater transfer of power, when the Son whose right it is to reign shall come and take the power and reign forever and ever.
No human calendar marks the time until he comes; only he with whom “one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” knows the day and the hour when the Son of man will return. But in the meantime there is work to be done in the name of Christ, there is the Gospel that is “a savour of life unto life and death unto death” to be proclaimed, there is life to be lived in accord with the will of the Lord and to his glory—and there is all this to be done in the expectation of his coming. Two Advents, and the second demands proclamation as well as the first!
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, who died at his home in England on November 22, will be remembered as the most effective Christian apologist of the twentieth century. A great scholar of English literature, he spent his life at Oxford, where he served for thirty years as a fellow and tutor of Magdalene College, of which he was at one time vice-president, and at Cambridge, where, since 1954, he was professor of medieval and Renaissance English. His scholarly achievements were of the very first rank; but it is upon his many religious books, familiar to multitudes who knew nothing of his university work, that his greater fame rests. (See News, page 27.)
Having moved in young manhood from atheism to orthodox Christianity, Professor Lewis had the outstanding merit of holding the reader’s interest while at the same time making crystal clear the great truths of the faith. This he did in a style of exemplary precision and impeccable taste. In his expository works, such as Mere Christianity and Miracles, and also in his allegories and novels, such as The Screwtape Letters, Out of the Silent Planet, and his children’s books, he wrote about Christian theology with the wonderful combination of transparent thought, vivid imagination, and penetrating wit that was his special gift. Himself an Anglican, his influence reaches far beyond the confines of that communion, and his books are read and will continue to be read by Christians of all persuasions.
As an apologist, C. S. Lewis was extra-biblical though not un-biblical. This was not a weakness but one of his strengths. By the sheer fascination of his logic and imagination he opened the minds of many who would not read the Bible to the great doctrines it contains and thus brought them to Scripture. Many Christians who have themselves been enlightened by reading him have learned to use his writings as a first step toward interesting skeptical or indifferent friends in the faith.
The death of C. S. Lewis is a major loss to the international Christian community. His books, which in paperback alone are approaching a circulation of one million, will continue to point many to the Lord whose joy was the dominant factor in his life and work.
Prayer And Protest
In his first address to the nation, President Lyndon B. Johnson expressed his dependence on Almighty God and requested the people of America to beseech God to help him in the execution of his new and high office. In so doing the President echoed what was to be the closing remark of the late President Kennedy’s speech that he did not live to make in Dallas: “Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
Christians were impressed by the humility of their new President and by his expressed need of their prayers and the help of Almighty God. When the occupant of the most powerful office in the world publicly acknowledges such reliance upon the One who is higher than he, the Christian heart is touched. Yet how often, when the sincere emotion of the moment is past, Christians forget in daily life to invoke the blessings of God upon those who rule over them. Too many churches rarely remember their government in congregational prayer. It is not only reassuring for Christians to hear the President of the United States ask their prayers; it is their duty to pray for him. Paul enjoins that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men,” and he singles out and specifically mentions “kings and all that are in high place” (1 Tim. 2:1, 2, ARV). The purpose of such prayer is “that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity,” a state devoutly to be desired in our troublous times, when the patterns of our national and social life are threatened almost daily. Paul adds the reason such prayer should be offered: “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Christians who find it difficult to pray and even to make “thanksgivings” for presidents and administrations that they dislike or that are of another political party, should remember that when Paul thus exhorted Timothy, both lived under the tyranny of Nero.
American churches often pray little for their government because they lack a sense of solidarity with the nation, a sense of being America. Doubtless, immigrant origins help to account for this. But we do well to remember that such men as John Huss, Martin Luther, and Ulrich Zwingli were not only great churchmen but also great patriots. Many evangelical churches need to gain or to regain a sense of belonging to the country. Such a sense of identification will make praying for their presidents and congressmen, their governors and mayors an easier and more natural thing.
Not a little embittered criticism and hateful denunciation of the federal government has come from Christian sources. To protest and express critical evaluations of government is the right of every citizen. If, however, it is to be done responsibly, it must be done not out of a spirit of detachment but out of a sense of solidarity, a deep feeling that this is my government.
Christians too may exercise their right to criticize their President, his leadership and policies, their congressmen and courts; but they must do it in a mood that does not exclude the possibility of praying for what they criticize. Unless they can make “supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings” for the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, they cannot render such criticisms as are “good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.” He who “will have all men to be saved” will not tolerate critics who self-righteously detach themselves from the institutions and political personages they denounce. It is a shame of America, and a greater one of the Church, that some Christians criticize in a spirit that cannot intercede and that has no will to save. Unless Christians learn to pray for what they protest, they will not protest in a manner that becomes their high calling and promotes the country’s good. Like the ancient prophets, they must learn to denounce with tears in their eyes.
Let Christians of every political and religious affiliation respond to Paul’s exhortation and to President Johnson’s request.
Crucial Events In Venezuela
Nowhere in this hemisphere have Communists been more vicious than in Venezuela. They have destroyed millions of dollars in property and have terrorized that country’s 7,000,000 citizens. They have also stooped to the worst kind of tactics in an attempt to establish a significant Red beachhead on the South American continent.
It is gratifying, therefore, to see the courage exhibited by the Venezuelans in going to the polls on December 1. They went knowing that violations of the compulsory voting laws could bring fines and other penalties. But they went, too, in face of threats of death made by terrorists against those who voted.
It was reported that under these conditions an amazing proportion of nine out of ten qualified voters participated in the election. Their presidential choice was Raul Leoni, chief lieutenant of the present incumbent, Romulo Betancourt, who was debarred by Venezuela’s constitution from running for a second five-year term. The free world looks to President-elect Leoni to pursue a tough line against the Castro-supported terrorist organization which calls itself the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN).
The heartening results of the election and the release of U. S. Army Colonel James K. Chenault could mean the dawn of a new day not only for Venezuela but perhaps for all the South American continent. The Venezuelan people have been victims of revolutions and corrupt dictatorships for many decades. If Mr. Betancourt is able to stay in office until the inauguration of Mr. Leoni in March, he will become the country’s first popularly elected chief executive to serve a full term.
But the road ahead will not be easy. Communists probably will not relent. Improvement in economic conditions will not come quickly, considering the reluctance of foreign tourists, tradesmen, and investors to subject life and property to the risk of FALN violence. Venezuela needs sympathy and help.
