To convert or not to convert? That was the question argued back and forth by evangelical, neo-orthodox, liberal, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox theologians at the second National Faith and Order Colloquium, held June 11–15 on the campus of Notre Dame University. The colloquium, arranged by the National Council of Churches, drew nearly a hundred representatives from a broad spectrum of theology within the structure of nominal Christianity. Notably absent were the Pentecostals and the far right American Council of Christian Churches.
The colloquium proved to be a landmark for conservative evangelicals. To encourage evangelicals and Roman Catholics to participate, the National Council leadership made it clear that involvement in the colloquium in no way aligned participants with the NCC’s ecumenical structure. Thus freed from any embarrassment or qualms of conscience, many conservatives were able to take an active role.
The official colloquium topic was “Evangelism in a Pluralistic Society.” The first National Faith and Order Colloquium, held last year in Chicago, dealt with conversion.
President James I. McCord of Princeton Theological Seminary delivered the keynote address. Position papers were read by Father Robert Hunt of Catholic University; Dr. Robert T. Handy of Union Theological Seminary, New York; Dr. Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, Jesuit professor of sociology at Fordham University; Dr. Langdon Gilkey of the University of Chicago Divinity School; the Rev. Robert Stephanopoulos, pastor of the Greek Orthodox Church of Our Savior in Rye, New York; and Dr. David O. Moberg, professor at Bethel College, St. Paul.
In a paper on the sociological approach to the study of evangelism, Moberg argued: “Theological differences regarding the meaning of salvation and the means of securing it are decisive. Christianity is divided over the goal of evangelism. Only for those who have a deep and sincere commitment to Christ can any ‘method’ be used effectively.”
In what proved to be the highlight of the conference, Dr. Colin W. Williams, member of the NCC staff and newly appointed head of the program for pastoral doctorates at Chicago Divinity School, said the old evangelical certainties are gone forever. In spite of past tensions between denominations, including the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, he described present denominational structures as irrelevant. Williams saw just one battle line: On one side, headed by the World Council of Churches, are arrayed the vast majority of mainline denominations, including (since Vatican II) the Roman Catholics. On the other side are the conservative evangelicals (in and out of the mainline denominations), whose leadership is found in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the National Association of Evangelicals, and certain conservative theological schools. Here are two opposing ecumenical circles, and the tension is very strong.”
When pressed by other participants, Williams avowed that he simply could not live comfortably in the same church with Billy Graham. Although he denies neither Billy Graham’s Christianity nor his sincerity, he said, he himself could not in clear conscience cooperate in his evangelistic efforts.
Williams maintained that the heart of the problem is the tension between the “Salvationists,” who emphasize personal conversion, and the “activists,” who insist that personal conversion must be supplemented by a social work of the Church that takes into account God’s “cosmic purposes” for mankind. To the charge that this was an oversimplification and that evangelicals, too, allowed room for social action, Williams replied that the tension is too great. He said the Graham type of evangelism, with its one-sided emphasis on personal salvation, tends to ethical immobility and endangers the structure of the Church by dividing it into two camps.
Something of a bombshell was dropped by Dr. Ernest van den Haag, professor of social philosophy at New York University and at the New School of graduate studies in New York City. Called in to present an “outsider’s” viewpoint, he amazed all the delegates and delighted many conservatives by challenging Christian ministers to “stick to their business” of preaching the Gospel of salvation from sin instead of dissipating their energies at tasks in which they have no business and, as often as not, no special abilities. By turning to social, political, and other issues, the Church and the Christian ministry today have lost their relevance. “Get back to the Church’s real business of personal faith,” was the psychoanalyst’s plea.
But for the conservatives, the most startling revelation was the deep concern for evangelism shown by participants from the National Council and by liberal theologians. Some, it is true, manifested concern chiefly in cautioning against evangelism as an activity of misguided Christian zeal. For many, however, there was deeply rooted anxiety over the proper role of evangelism and over how the Christian message can rightly be presented in a pluralistic world displaying many forms of Christianity—and particularly in the modern “one world” of many religions and secularistic philosophies. Unfortunately, because there was no agreement on what evangelism really is, the colloquium was unable to progress much beyond a statement of the seriousness of the problems.
This grasping after direction, evident throughout the discussions, was directly related to the general failure to bring in biblical norms. For one who was present both at the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin and at the Notre Dame colloquium on evangelism, no contrast was more obvious. At Berlin, the discussions were directly related to biblical authority. At Notre Dame, only two papers dealt directly with biblical material. To a conservative ear, all too often the criterion seemed to be: What sort of evangelism will succeed? The biblical mandate, however, gives a commission the Christian is not free to adjust.
Dr. Walter Harrelson, dean and professor of Old Testament at Vanderbilt University, delivered a paper full of excellent insights into the nature of the biblical commission to evangelize. Basing his conclusions primarily upon the Old Testament role of Israel’s witness to the nations, however, Harrelson argued that there is no biblical mandate requiring conversion from other religions. In a way reminiscent of Hocking’s liberally oriented Rethinking Missions of a generation ago, Harrelson decried the attempts of traditional evangelicals to convert the world to Christianity. Said he, “The goal of missions is not to make all nations (or religious groups) Christian, but rather to bear witness to the fact that life and good, wherever they are to be found, are the work of Christ. It is not a question of their joining our community to be right and in order; but rather, while remaining within their own religious community, of their securing the benefits of Jesus Christ.”
In the only other biblically oriented paper, Jesuit George W. MacRae of Weston College minutely examined the Great Commission and, using the exegetical processes of the Bultmannian school, came to the expected conclusion that Jesus never gave the great universal commission of Matthew 28; rather, this was the formulation of the early Church “in the spirit of Christ.” The only surprising element was that a Roman Catholic scholar should be advocating such theories. Indeed, throughout the colloquium, Roman Catholic scholars generally objected to the evangelical emphasis upon conversion. They insisted upon a wholly new orientation of their church’s conception of evangelism, an orientation more in accord with recent liberal views than with traditional conceptions, either Catholic or Protestant. Said Father Hunt, “In the past the Roman Catholic Church has felt it necessary to evangelize all non-Catholics; the Church now recognizes that there is an ecclesiastical community separate from us.”
From an evangelical perspective, the greatest weakness of the colloquium was the failure to define “evangelism” and the unwillingness of most participants to turn for the solution of their problems to Holy Scripture as the only infallible rule of faith and practice—as well as of evangelism.
Argentine Centenary
On May 25, 1867, a young Methodist minister arrived in downtown Buenos Aires riding the bay horse that soon became almost as famous as its rider. After tying the horse to a hitching post, the Rev. John F. Thomson, a handsome blackbearded Scotsman “whose top hat always sat precariously near the back of his neck,” went up the steps leading to the Methodist church on Cangallo Street.
A violent type of anticlericalism was the fashion, and so hundreds of young men went to hear the Protestant preacher. It was the first time a Protestant service had been held publicly in Spanish. According to a reporter who was present, Thomson spoke “with great eloquence, demolishing the superstitions of Rome.” This brought signs of approval from the anticlerical section of the audience, but interest soon vanished when the preacher gave a powerful address on “Christ and him crucified.”
This year evangelicals all over Argentina have been celebrating the centenary with public lectures, services of thanksgiving, radio programs, and a number of publications. On May 25 Bishop Sante U. Barbieri, ecumenical leader, addressed a large congregation at the American Church in Buenos Aires, only a few hundred yards from the spot where Thomson had preached 100 years before. He did not say much about Thomson the controversialist but pointed out that “the Methodist Church was born in the ecumenical movement … and must be ready to lose her identity when the moment to do so arrives, and God forms the wider community of one flock and one shepherd.”
According to a study published in May by Dr. Luis Villalpando, there are more than 400,000 members in the evangelical churches of Argentina, and the total evangelical community numbers over 1,000,000, roughly 5 per cent of the population.
From the evangelical perspective, these are current dangers: (1) a veiled universalism; (2) the temptation to preach the Latin American revolution instead of preaching Christ; (3) the survival of pietistic ghettos completely out of contact with reality; (4) an arrogant super-organized denominationalism; (5) a woolly type of interdenominationalism with very vague ideas about fundamental truths; (6) a lopsided emphasis on certain gifts of the Spirit.
However, the sound good sense of the average Argentine believer and his desire to obey God promise to hurdle these obstacles, which fortunately seem to affect church leaders more than the laity.
ALEC CLIFFORD
