A British teen-ager, the daughter of a delegate, uttered the obvious sequel to the prayer theme, “Come, Creator Spirit,” of the nineteenth General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
The delegate quoted from her letter: “I hope He came.”
Had the Spirit come? The host city of Frankfurt am Main was not visibly shaken during the eleven-day proceedings, but some felt that there were indeed moments when it was clear that all present were responding to a presence, not merely to a spoken word.
One such time was marked by the storm of applause that greeted the first reading of a committee report on Roman Catholicism. “First we express gratitude for the ‘new climate’ and rejoice with our Roman Catholic brethren in the signs of renewal in that church.” It was not merely these precisely spoken, yet warm words of the committee chairman, Dr. Ermanno Rostan, moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy, that sparked this response. It was rather a feeling on the part of many that in our time God’s Spirit is breathing new life into his whole Church through the sudden and unexpected opening of doors long closed. Bitterness had been purged out of Dr. Rostan, and he ably defended the report. Adoption was by an overwhelming majority.
Another high moment came at the adoption of a recommendation concerning racial questions. Two delegates from South African churches had urged an amendment for words of the report that they felt could be misused in their country to encourage violence. They won rather unexpected support from Dr. Wilhelm Niesel,1Niesel, reportedly a staunchly conservative theologian, is known chiefly for his studies on Calvin. moderator of the Reformierter Bund of Germany, who had just been elected to a six-year term as president of the alliance. Among those arguing against the amendment was Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. The vote was more than 90 per cent against the proposed change.
The final text declared that the “exclusion of any person, on grounds of race, color or nationality, from any congregation or part of the life of the Church contradicts the very nature of the Church.”
That statement added that “Christians are called to protest, in the light of God’s Word, not only in words but in action and to participate in responsible efforts toward the establishment of racial justice and equality. In that involvement they will ask for the personal guidance of the Holy Spirit and count on the advice and support of the Church. Now as violence and revolutionary action are spreading, it is of primary importance for the Church to be prepared through serious study of the Holy Scripture and of the political situation to help its members face responsibility under the guidance of Jesus Christ, Lord of Peace, such hard problems as civil disobedience of violent action. In any case, Christians participating in the struggle for racial justice will remember that God is love and that their ultimate vocation is to exercise among men a ministry of reconciliation.”
Services were held in a large, windowless university lecture hall with closely set wooden seats. The atmosphere was not conducive to worship, still less to spiritual fervor. Dr. Ralph W. Lloyd, retiring president, tried to keep spirits up. But his efforts to keep order were handicapped by the substitution for the familiar gavel of a small bell of the type once used to call the maid from the kitchen—back in the days when there were maids.
A colorful note was provided by costumes worn by West African and Asian delegates, a red fez on a man from the United Arab Republic, and the great variety of physiognomies and complexions. Two ever-smiling observers from the Vatican sat faithfully in one corner of the hall.
Council debates focused on four main themes, the first being “Come, Creator Spirit, for the Re-Making of Man.” Many laymen felt lost in a sea of theological terms. And many representatives of the younger churches found the long theological discussions not merely boring but basically irrelevant.
The remaking-of-man report, optimistically labeled “final draft,” was cut to ribbons by the theologians. The Germans especially complained of the confusion between humanism and Christianity. On the final day a new “final draft” was approved for transmission to the churches. But since satisfactory clarification of the disputed sections had proved impossible, the whole matter was referred to the theological department of the alliance.
One of the basic theological problems that emerged in this discussion and also at several points in later reports was how to identify the work of the Spirit outside the life of the Church. No Reformed theologian was willing to limit the action of the sovereign God, but the question of identifying the true actions of the Spirit in the outside world demands a considerable exercise of discernment. Since there are no clearly defined criteria for such judgment, a tendency to follow personal preferences is all too easy.
The second theme, asking the coming of the Spirit “For the Renewal of Worship and Witness,” was received far more easily. The ensuing report declared a consensus “that a more frequent and a more joyous celebration of the Lord’s Supper is badly needed in many of our Reformed churches.”
In discussions of the third theme, “The Calling of the Churches Together,” an unsuccessful attempt was made to tone down emphasis on the sinfulness of division. Dr. Niesel defended the role of world confessional alliances, saying that they served as an introduction into ecumenism for many younger and smaller churches. Readiness to continue talks with the world body representing Congregational churches, talks that could lead to a merger of the two bodies, was also stressed.
Section Four, “For the Redemption of the World,” embraced the debate on racial problems and dealt also with “Peace” and “New Forms of Ministry.”
Delegates voted a resolution that would welcome an agreement among the churches of the world for fixing the date of Easter. Another resolution specifically requested the alliance executive committee and the Vatican observers to remind the Roman Catholic Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity that “a great strain is caused in ecumenical relations by the present practices of that church with regard to mixed marriages in most countries and by the restrictions of liberty of worship and witness and by civil disabilities suffered by minority evangelical churches in some countries.”
The growth of the alliance was itself a matter of some concern. This year’s council was by far the largest ever, with 419 delegates from 96 churches participating, as well as more than 300 fraternal delegates, consultants, observers, staff, and officially recognized visitors. A resolution to cut the size of the council in the future was adopted; it affects only the medium-sized and larger churches and will change the balance in favor of representation from smaller churches.
The Church: Place And Mission
In the small town of Zeist in the beautiful heart of Holland, the International Association for Reformed Faith and Action spent eight days stressing the importance of the Church’s faithfulness to its Lord in the midst of the ideologies and temptations of the time. The IARFA brought to its fifth International Reformed Congress last month six speakers from five countries to discuss the general theme, “The Church: Its Place and Mission in the Modern World.”
An element of continuity was achieved through daily Bible studies under the guidance of Dr. J. Cadier of Montpellier, France. The studies underscored the import of the scriptural letters to the churches of Asia (Revelation 2; 3).
Dr. P. Ch. Marcel, the French pastor who is president of the IARFA, placed the theme in its present reality in his opening address. The great danger to the Church comes from within, he said, noting evidence (1) in the reduction of God and Christ to the purely human level, as in Robinson’s Honest to God; (2) in the attempt to identify Christ with the Church, as if the latter automatically represented the former; and (3) in the fusion of Church and world, so that little remains of the distinctiveness of the faith. This (con)fusion was described as leading to an unbiblical universalism, so that even atheism is looked upon as an instrument of God, and to the denial of absolute norms for life, as in today’s sexual morality. Marcel asserted that Christianity has become humanized instead of humanity’s becoming Christianized.
The Church can challenge the world, said Dr. L. Coenen, German pastor and editor, only through a radical subjection to the norms of the New Testament. He charged that Protestant churches have become hierarchical and juridical establishments, and that “officials” carry the responsibility in our too-large congregations, which can hardly function as the body of Christ in which each member, fitly framed together, has his function and place. He challenged the congress to decide whether the New Testament church knew our “special offices” of elders, deacons, and preachers, who mainly perform the Church’s tasks today, and whether these tasks should not be the organic, harmonious expressions of every member of the body of Christ.
The idea was emphasized still more by H. Kleinert, a lay Christian from the Rhineland, who pointed out that the New Testament does not know our distinction of clergy and laity. He said that the Church is effective only when all its gifts, distributed to every member, can function in the Church’s action.
Dr. W. Stanford Reid of McGill University, Montreal, said that Christians today must learn from the Reformation. He noted that the Reformation was the work not of theologians and synods but of the Spirit of God. Implied were a rediscovery of God’s sovereignty and the rejection of church hierarchy; these lead to a God-focused life, lived in the patterns and structures of creation and providence, on the basis of redemption liberating man from sin so that the whole world can become the theater of human endeavor.
The Rev. E. L. H. Taylor of the Church of England said the Lord has judged the West by two world wars because the idols of scientific humanism have been worshiped. He declared that these idols can be broken only through a return to the biblical view of human life as religion, a view which cuts off the de-humanization and neutralization of existence as favored in the political and educational policies of the West. He insisted that the Church must be distinct from the world and suggested that it might be necessary to establish Christian schools, unions, and political parties.
Nineteenth-century individualism, said Dr. Herman Ridderbos, Dutch New Testament scholar, can be overcome by the new insights into the Word of God, which teach that the unity of the Church is a visible unity, since the Church is Christ’s body. According to Ridderbos, this unity can be visible in the Church as an organism, in the many Christian activities which cross denominational lines, but must also be present in the institutional church. He warned against two extremes: the one often found in the small seceded churches which often look upon themselves as the only perfect manifestation of Christ’s Church; the other found in the attempt to found a church transcending historical differences.
The congress at Zeist followed similarly convened meeting at Montpellier, France (1953); Detmold, Germany (1955); Strasbourg, France (1958); and Cambridge, England (1961). The IARFA is an association of persons who have tried to exert a unifying influence among Reformed-evangelical Christians since 1953.
BERNARD ZYLSTRA
The New And The Stable
An address by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., highlighted the European Baptist Conference at The Hague last month. The Negro Baptist integration leader’s appearance was televised to the Netherlands, West Germany, Denmark, and Sweden through a Eurovision network hookup.
In his televised sermon and in an earlier address to the conference, King stressed the obligation of the Church to support equal rights and opportunities for all men.
Citing the worldwide social and technological revolution, he declared that “the Church cannot say ‘let us go back to the quiet, stable world’ without violating the word of God that he makes all things new.”
King called on all Christians to “work together, seek together, and suffer together” in the face of worldwide challenges. He urged increased aid to developing nations of the world.
On international affairs, King welcomed the offer of Pope Paul VI to intervene in conflicts threatening world peace. However, he suggested that perhaps churches have “lost their right” to speak on world affairs because of Christendom’s failure to stop two major wars.
Forecast Of Tensions
Increased tension, disruption of order, and possibly violence as a result of the racial revolution were predicted by the national general secretary of the United States YWCA, speaking last month in Beirut, Lebanon, at an international YM-YWCA conference.
The YWCA official, Miss Edith Lerrigo, declared that “the years ahead are bound to be painful, costly, and in some places tragic.”
‘For Such A Time’
Cleveland, Tennessee (population 18,000), a suburb of Chattanooga, got a vote of confidence last month from the 200,000-member Church of God, which has its world headquarters there. The church’s General Council turned down a recommendation of its Supreme Council that the headquarters be relocated in a more cosmopolitan area such as Atlanta, Memphis, or even nearby Chattanooga. Instead the General Council voted to erect a new $1,500,000 office building in Cleveland and renovate existing facilities.
In another important policy decision, the church, one of the largest Pentecostal bodies in the United States, voted to increase its Executive Committee from four to six members.
Both decisions, made at the Church of God’s fiftieth General Assembly in Dallas last month, reflect rapid growth. The church originated in 1886 with a group of eight persons. Now it has some 6,366 churches and missions and is represented in all fifty states and in sixty-eight foreign countries. The foreign membership totals 454,952. U. S. membership is most concentrated in Tennessee and several adjoining states.
Assembly delegates voted without dissent a resolution affirming equal rights for all Americans. The statement said that “no American should, because of his race or religion, be deprived of his right to worship, vote, rest, eat, sleep, be educated, live and work on the same basis as other citizens.”
“No Christian can manifest a passive attitude when the rights of others are jeopardized,” the resolution continued. “Christian love and tolerance are incompatible with race prejudice and hatred.” Members were urged to “support that which assures all people those freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution” and to “continue to practice the love and brotherhood it preaches.”
The theme of the Dallas meeting, “For Such a Time,” taken from the story of Esther, emphasized the church’s evangelistic spirit.
Program For The Deprived
Delegates to the 152nd Seventh Day Baptist Conference, held in Salem, West Virginia, last month, called on the entire denominational constituency to “commit themselves to a more vigorous and Christlike program for the extension of love, mercy, and justice to persons deprived of their rights as free members of society.” A resolution adopted by the delegates noted that “any limiting qualifications of race as to church membership or attendance are not in harmony with the teachings of Christ.”
Salem was also the site of the first World Consultation of Seventh Day Baptists last month. The two-week conclave drew delegates from seven countries.
Scanning The Spectrum
“Spectrum of belief” is no mere catchword among members of the American Scientific Affiliation. At the annual meeting last month at John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Arkansas, ASA members demonstrated both the common basis of their faith and the range of their diversity in a program that focused on the origins of the universe, life, and man.
Professor John A. McIntyre led off with a paper that criticized the evangelicals’ lack of social concern, called for more imaginative biblical interpretation, and suggested that scientific research could glorify God as much as evangelistic activity.
More of the spectrum became evident the next day in an exchange of views of the “three-story universe,” Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., saying that the Old Testament did not assume such a universe, and Dr. Alder T. van der Ziel maintaining, “We read our own ideas into the text. Why not go to the text?” Dr. Buswell, dean of the faculty at Covenant Seminary, replied, “That’s my point.”
One of the more vigorously debated topics was the “Can Scientists Create Life?” question, which came up principally in a paper by Dr. Duane T. Gish, who has done pioneer work in biochemistry and biophysics. “The nature of the origins of life may be beyond the realm of scientific investigation—I certainly believe that they are,” said Dr. Gish.
The convention also included three papers proposing three possible dates for the creation of man—50,000 to 60,000 years ago (Professor James Murk of Wheaton College); 10,000 years ago, or not much before the development of agriculture (Dr. Stanley D. Walters of Greenville College, Illinois); and several hundred thousand years ago (Professor James O. Buswell, III, of Wheaton College). A fourth position would place Adam at the very beginning of tool-making man. Since all of these post-difficulties, Professor Buswell said it was a matter of choosing “which set of problems you want to be stuck with.”
In the concluding lecture of the convention Dr. Buswell took vigorous but charitable exception to the lovers of the kind of paradox that means genuine contradiction. “If something that the Bible declares to be true seems to be false, for me the only proper attitude toward the problem is to study, and pray, and wait for further light, while I cling to those plain anti simple truths which are clearly revealed and not contradicted,” said Dr. Buswell.
The ASA, which was founded in 1941 by five scientists of evangelical Christian conviction, has grown to 1,200 members. In recent years the group has included more and more evangelicals involved in pioneer scientific research, such as Dr. Gish of the Upjohn Company, Dr. McIntyre of Texas A and M, Dr. L. Evans Roth of Iowa State University, and Dr. Wayne U. Ault, of Isotopes, Inc. During the same general period, the group has broadened its spectrum of belief while retaining an evangelical orientation.
Since last year’s meeting, however, some members, led by Dr. Walter E. Lammerts, a geneticist, have formed the Creation Research Society, which has been variously characterized as a split, a revolt, and a protest movement. Although some CRS members are indeed critical of what they see as compromise by the ASA on vital issues, those talked to at the convention deny a split. One of them said that as far as he knew, all the old ASA members had retained their ASA connections. Some explain the existence of the new group by saying that the CRS is engaged in a specialized study of the evidences of creation, and that it is designed to provide an adequate forum for such studies.
The CRS statement of faith is longer and more specific than the ASA’s two-point statement: “(1) The Holy Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, the only unerring guide of faith and conduct. (2) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and through His atonement is the one and only Mediator.”
The CRS statement includes reference to the historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible, a universal flood, and a “creation week,” though opinions in the CRS on a literal six-day creation period tend to vary. Moreover, the ASA includes members who would not deny many points in the CRS statement.
The ASA has also changed its concept of mission over the years. A decade ago one objective was to supply information to ministers and theologians in order to keep them from crawling out on precarious scientific limbs. More recently the ASA has endeavored to keep its own members informed on theology so that they would not crawl out on precarious theological limbs. The ASA has close ties with the Evangelical Theological Society and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. It will meet concurrently with the IVCF Faculty Fellowship next year.
GEORGE WILLIAMS
Controversial Guest
America faces greater moral and religious problems than those of an economic and social nature, Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers, said last month in an address to 12,000 members of the American Lutheran Church’s Luther League youth organization.
“For the first time in history we have technical ability, thanks to automation, to satisfy the massive material needs of humanity,” he said, “but we still need to develop the ability of filling the needs of the inner man.”
Both at his introduction and at the conclusion of his address, Reuther received a standing ovation from the crowd in Cobo Hall, Detroit.
The enthusiastic reception for the labor leader was a sharp contrast to the message of some literature distributed outside the convention hall. Pamphlets told the young people, “You’re being misled.”
The labor leader was the subject of a pre-convention controversy. The church council of an ALC congregation in Los Angeles charged that he is “strong for the Soviet Union” and “denies God.”
An ALC spokesman countered that Reuther “has done an outstanding job in ridding [his] union of … Communists.”
The Mass In English: Some Theological Surprises
On August 24, in St. Louis, a Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in English for the first time in the United States. Kiel Auditorium was comfortably filled by nearly 11,000 persons, including some 180 Protestants. The Mass in English was part of the program of the twenty-fifth Roman Catholic Liturgical Week, which is the largest single gathering of Roman Catholics and an annual opportunity for bishops, priests, nuns, and especially lay people who are committed to the renewal of the church through changes in the central act of worship.
For Protestants the English Mass was of deep interest. Its setting was modern and plain, like that of a modern play. The altar was a simple, unadorned block, and choir members sat on wooden cubes on each side of it. The service was preceded by fifteen minutes of singing directed by a song leader who was at a desk to the side of the altar. The singing was from a prepared booklet, and its purpose was obviously to acquaint the congregation with the songs for the service to follow. From a desk on the other side the congregation was guided through the service by John Mannion, executive secretary of the Liturgical Conference. His guidance characterized the whole service—an interplay of high formality and warm folksiness.
Celebrant of the Mass was the Rev. Frederick R. McManus, associate professor of canon law at Washington University and consultant for the Pontifical Commission on Sacred Liturgy which was established for the Second Vatican Council. In a brief homily before the Mass he put forth the role of every member of the church: “You are the body of Christ.” Not all are apostles or “successors of apostles,” but all must serve in “adoration and renewal.” He offered prayers for “those others in Christ” and for “Jewish believers.”
In the Mass itself, a procession of laymen brought the bread to the altar to be blessed along with the wafer of the priest. Normally this bread is touched only by a priest or a nun. Disappointing, however, was the fact that in the canon—to the Roman Catholic the most sacred part of the Mass, during which the hosts are consecrated—the-celebrant spoke in Latin and almost inaudibly. It was reported after the service that although this was not as much as the Liturgical Conference would have wished and was not necessarily in line with the forward-looking views of McManus, it did represent the best wisdom of the group on how far they could go in this first use of English.
Theologically, there were some surprises. Mannion, in introducing the service, explained the Mass as the “offering of Christ to the Father in sign.” The altar was not against the wall but out in front, and the celebrant faced the congregation. The introduction to the reading of the Gospel spoke of “breaking the bread of God’s Word,” and the Mannion referred to the reading as the “peak” of the service. The congregation stood for this reading. Mannion was not robed but wore a grey business suit. The singing was enthusiastic and the leadership of the choirs beautiful. A new hymn, “God Is Love,” was led by its Negro composer, Clarence Joseph Rivers.
Asked what meant most to him, a young priest answered, “That English was used at all.” Donald Quinn of the press room, a Roman Catholic layman, said, “My spine tingled when the ‘Our Father’ was said in English, and when we were dismissed in English.” The whole great congregation was joyous, and the enthusiasm after the service was contagious.
ADDISON H. LEITCH
