On July 4, in a thousand hamlets, loyal Americans will march in parades as millions of their fellow citizens watch with pride. The passing of the Stars and Stripes will cause many backbones to stiffen and bring smart salutes from the military as well as the placing of hand over heart by those who pledge again their allegiance to “one nation under God.”
But many of our people will offer no salutes, feel no sense of pride, and pledge no allegiance to the flag. Some will not respond because of indifference or calloused hearts. Others will be working to tear the fabric of our national life to shreds; to worsen, not heal, our sickness; to destroy, not to build; to bring disunity, not unity, to the nation. For them, patriotism is dead; love of country is archaic. Far from echoing the words of Stephen Decatur, “Our country, right or wrong,” they will even refuse to say, “My country when it is right.”
Perhaps the time has come for us to read again the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
We do well to ask: Has the time come for us to abolish what our forefathers created? Has their vision of liberty, justice, and happiness proved unattainable? Ought we now to burn the flag, send our congressmen home, and close the doors of the White House?
Are we ready to say that the mythos, the heroes, and the folk tales that have bound us together as a people for almost two hundred years no longer enthrall us? Are we willing to forget our common heritage, dilute our sense of fraternity and destiny, and dissolve the cohesiveness that made us one?
The American dream that drew millions of immigrants as a magnet attracts metal has not been wholly fulfilled. We are faced with grave and challenging problems in our national life. We see many things we dislike, and can point to many injustices that have not yet yielded to truth and righteousness. But even as we acknowledge the defects we cannot forget the victories. The slaves have been freed; universal suffrage has become a reality; startling advances have been made to assure all our people of life and liberty as well as the right to pursue happiness.
Unlike millions of people in Russia, Czechoslovakia, China, and Cuba, our people walk as free men across our broad prairies and along our city streets; unlike the avantgarde Communist writers who languish in concentration camps or lie in unmarked graves, our people are able to write freely and to dissent vigorously while the whole weight of government, court, and police protects them in their rights and in their persons. The doors of our churches are open, the Bible is read, and the pulpits are free to sound forth the glories of our God. Church is separated from state and freedom of religion is no fond dream—it’s real. Our coins say: “In God we trust.” Our presidents take their oath of office on the Bible. We still pledge allegiance to a nation “under God.” In a spirit of hope and pride we can sing:
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Christians ought to be the best citizens and the finest patriots. Certainly they have a prior allegiance to God Almighty. But this can only make them better Americans. They need not gloss over the nation’s defects or sweep its failures under the rug. They need not claim that their country is always right. When it is right, they will support it; and when it is wrong, they will love it and work to correct it. Even as the Apostle Paul could speak proudly of his Roman citizenship, so should every American Christian speak proudly of his. The day that patriotism ceases, that day we will have ceased to be a people.
Patriotism is not dead; our nation is not finished. Let us rally behind our flag; let us love our country with all its faults; let us work to improve it with all our strength; let us defend it with all our resources; let us hand it on to generations unborn better than it was when we received it; let us instill in our children the hope of our forefathers for the ultimate fulfillment of their dreams. But above all, let us tell them that the greatness of America lies not simply in the achievement of the ideal but in the unrelenting pursuit of it.
Rome Comes To Geneva
Representatives of the World Council of Churches have often gone to Rome. But the Pope had never gone to Geneva—until Tuesday, June 10. It was the first visit of a Roman pontiff to this Protestant city in more than four hundred years.
Several things impressed us as we listened to the words of Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the WCC, and Pope Paul. Blake carefully spoke of Orthodox, evangelical, Anglican, and Catholic churches. It seems that the word “Protestant” has now become obsolete in ecumenical dialogue. Blake also said that the WCC does not seek unity at the expense of truth. With this principle we agree wholeheartedly.
When the Pope’s turn came, he asserted with candor and firmness that the road to membership in the WCC for his church is long and strewn with problems. But he did not say it was impassable. This is a real gain for the ecumenical movement. Yet the Pope clearly reasserted the dogma of Petrine supremacy and his own position as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ, the final and authoritative voice of God for the church on earth.
Blake’s assertion that unity should not come at the expense of truth clashes directly with Paul’s claim to primacy. If neither side bends or gives, there is no hope for rapprochement. Maybe we are unduly pessimistic but we are left wondering whether the WCC is not moving to acceptance of papal primacy. Is it not heading for a haven in Rome?
Subject: Racism To: World Council Of Churches
The World Council of Churches seems on the verge of abandoning a rational approach to the evil of racism. At the recent consultation on racism conducted by the WCC in London, emotional black militants were given the most influential role. The resulting recommendations make an overt appeal to hostility that suggests the opening of an ecclesiastical arms race. This is perilous strategy.
The recommendations were part of a 700-word statement released by the consultation chairman, U. S. Senator George McGovern, after a secret plenary session. WCC news releases did not disclose who drafted the statement or how it was adopted. (For the full text of the statement see News, June 20 issue.)
The London statement observes that the Church and the world are filled with “insidious and blatant racism” that is “in large part an outgrowth of the struggle for power that afflicts all men.” Unfortunately, the statement notes, the Church “is not using the weapons it possesses to eradicate racism itself—even within its own institution.” Churches are told that if they are to have any relevance in these critical times “it is imperative that they no longer concentrate their attention on the individual actions of individual Christians who are fighting racism.”
The recommendations call for economic sanctions by the council and its member churches against corporations and institutions that practice “blatant” racism. Governments are to be pressured into employing similar sanctions. Payment of “reparations” to “exploited peoples and countries” is to be supported and encouraged. And, “all else failing, the Church and churches” are called upon to “support resistance movements, including revolutions, which are aimed at the elimination of political or economic tyranny which makes racism possible.” There is no indication of what we are supposed to do if that fails.
It is true that the Church is not using its weapons very effectively to combat racism. But the statement reflects a misunderstanding of what those weapons are, and which ones are best. The recommendations overlook entirely the most effective weapon of all—the Word of God empowered by the Spirit of God manifesting himself in regenerate mankind. Instead, the statement calls for use of the crudest kinds of weapons, kinds for which there is no biblical mandate. Paul told the Corinthians, as an alternative New English Bible rendering has it, “We live, no doubt, in the world; but it is not on that level that we fight our battles. The weapons we wield are not those of the world.”
We think that the best service the Church can render the world in combatting racism is to show a good example. Indeed, we wonder whether the Church can offer any effective service in this area before it does show a good example. If, as the consultation says, the Church is full of racism, how can it possibly exert any kind of meaningful influence to reduce injustice in the world?
The basic program here is how to deal with evil—in the Church or out of it. And on this point the consultation showed itself ignorant. Its theological naïveté was transparent. The statement leaves the distinct impression that there is no other way to suppress evil than by force. It shows no awareness that Christ Jesus conquered sin, once and for all, and that men can live holy lives through trust in him.
One detects a strong note of impatience in the statement. The Church’s battle for racial justice through individual action is obviously too slow to be suitable, so dubious corporate action is urged upon the World Council. But what is really being proposed is more replacement of one power bloc by another. What indication is there that new power structures would be any more just than the present ones?
The reasoning of the drafters of the statement is particularly vulnerable where they call for sanctions and, “all else failing,” support of revolutions. The WCC constituency might well take its cue here and, in protest against alien methodology, institute some financial sanctions of its own against the WCC. And on the subject of revolt, if racism pervades the churches, who is to rebel against whom? And who among us are so free from prejudice that we can boldly take up arms against our brother because of his?
The statement is particularly provincial in focusing only upon the black-white problem, and in citing Southern Africa alone by name. The race problem is worldwide. Second-class citizenship is common to many countries. It is borne by the Indian in Latin America, the tribesman in Southeast Asia, the Arab in Israel, the Jew in Arab lands, and a host of other ethnic groups in alien environments. There are dozens of equally serious racial barriers throughout the world.
Next month the WCC Central Committee will meet in Kent, England, to consider these recommendations. We urge them to undertake a much more thorough and objective study of racism before they try to impose new strategies upon the churches.
Evangelism And Social Concern
The charge is often made that evangelicals have no social conscience. This accusation stems from evangelical single-mindedness about the need for personal regeneration. Yet there are innumerable evidences to support the claim that evangelicals have a lively social conscience and express it daily while others talk about social conscience and do little. A current example is found in a prayer letter from a physician connected with a “faith” board and serving in Nigeria:
“Recently someone asked me why I was so quiet, what was wrong. When I explained that four of my patients had just passed away, he sympathetically shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, you win some and you lose some’.… The statement in no way consoled me. I am not dealing with stock or business customers. I am not raising crops or flocks of chickens. I am trying to help people—real live human beings!
“When I lose, I lose hard.… The main reason I get upset is that another soul has slipped on into eternity. It is especially agonizing to know that the person was unprepared.
“ ‘Well,’ you say, ‘you did your best’.… The difficulty however, lies in the fact that it is not always true.… Though much is being done, one can see that there is much to accomplish before it is said we have done our best.
“A number of people have received Christ here in the past few weeks. One fellow, Danboyi Mang, was desperately ill when admitted. He responded rapidly to treatment, but he was downcast. Then one morning he became a different man. His face was one big, glowing smile. His whole attitude was changed. Danboyi had asked Jesus Christ to take his sins away. Several days later Danboyi suddenly started spiking a fever. Rapidly, despite my best efforts, he passed away. As I watched him take his last breath, I couldn’t help it—I cried. He was only twenty-five years old. There was a major consolation however: Danboyi Mang was with Jesus.”
Lawbreaking Lawmakers
When men who make the laws break the laws, a society moves closer to anarchy. Recently a group of Quakers were arrested for assembling on the steps of the U. S. Capitol—in clear violation of a law forbidding such a gathering—to protest the Viet Nam war by reading the names of the war dead. Three U. S. congressmen, George Brown (D-Calif.), Charles Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Edward Koch (D-N.Y.), joined the protestors in the hope that they too would be arrested. Since when Congress is in session members of Congress are subject to arrest only on charges of treason, felony, or breach of the peace, the three did not get their wish.
But they did accomplish two things: they wasted time, and they set a very poor example. The Quakers were arrested not because they were protesting the war but because they were carrying out their protest on the Capitol steps in violation of the law. The congressmen are members of the body that passed the law forbidding such an assembly. If they feel that such a law is wrong, they of all people have access to the channels through which the law can be changed. Others may feel they must break the law to get the ear of Congress, but certainly this is not true of the members of that body. The congressmen would have made much better use of their time had they stayed inside the building carrying out the responsibilities committed to them by their constituents and trying to change laws they consider bad.
If members of the highest lawmaking body in our land show a disregard for the law, what can we expect from others (especially the young) who see this example? A member of congress should be above reproach in his respect for the law. We do not question the right of these congressmen to oppose the Viet Nam war. But their encouragement of lawbreakers and their own defiance of the law are not worthy of the position entrusted to them by the American people.
A much better example to report is the record set last month by Congressman Charles E. Bennett (D-Fla.). He marked the start of his nineteenth consecutive year of not missing a single record vote in the House of Representatives. His 2,242 votes cast without a single miss broke all previous records in the 180-year history of Congress.
Summer Is For Steeping
Summer is a soporific served to the somnolent vacationer in a cup of sultry stillness. Sounds of laughing children splashing in the sprinkler, of music from a teen-ager’s radio, of ice tinkling in the glass at his elbow, all swirl gently against his languor. Smells of sweet peas and magnolias, of newly mowed grass, of steaks sizzling on the neighbor’s grill, smolder in suspension around his nearly motionless hammock.
Above, a swallow, its young independent, traces intricate patterns against a cloudless sky. Below, a buzzing bee hovers over clover, making honey while the sun shines. Across an indolent arm, tiny ants carry crumbs to “provide their food in the summer.”
With supermarkets and freezers, man scarcely needs to spend the summer stocking his storehouse, but he can still “go to the ant, … consider her ways, and be wise.” Man’s leisure compels stewardship, not lazy boredom, soul-swelling meditation, not sun-drugged torpor. “Steep thyself in a bowl of summertime,” Virgil wrote; you can brew a flavorful fall.
The Gospel In Gotham
The heartening response of New Yorkers to Billy Graham’s preaching of the Gospel (see News, page 31) shows what can happen when Christians work and pray together. For the second time in twelve years a tremendous impact has been made upon the nation’s largest metropolitan area. An ambitious television effort extended the effects of the crusade to sixteen other major urban centers.
Graham is alert to the fact that New York is a key to America’s heart and mind. It is the communications and financial capital. What happens in New York is almost automatically of national interest. Evangelicals must take the potential of New York more seriously.
Southern Baptists: Authority And Autonomy
How can a denomination maintain a firm commitment to the doctrine of biblical authority and at the same time insist upon the autonomy of individuals and groups within the denomination? This issue pervaded much of the discussion during the recent sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans.
Many within the convention have rightly seen the doctrine of Scripture to be the fundamental issue confronting the contemporary Church. The breakdown of belief in biblical authority leads to theological chaos and ecclesiastical anarchy. But the Baptist concept of autonomy will not even allow a binding formal statement to which church leaders must adhere.
A small group of professors and pastors within the convention (see News, page 33), in their desire to move the SBC away from the doctrine of biblical infallibility, repeatedly and loudly proclaimed this doctrine of autonomy. The problem confronting the convention was recognized by the Rev. Scott L. Tatum when in the annual Convention Sermon he emphasized that the authority of Christ supersedes the autonomy of both churches and conventions.
In the past the churches of the SBC have held firmly and proclaimed faithfully the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. Though committed to autonomy and opposed to creedalism, the SBC must not allow a vocal minority within the convention to seize upon the principle of autonomy as a means of moving the convention away from its traditional position on biblical authority. If this happens, a strong spiritual giant will very likely become an enemic spiritual weakling, as have others who have watered down their view of Scripture.
Seeing God Through The Cross
It is no accident that the cross is the symbol of the Christian faith. Not only did the death and resurrection of Jesus provide the means for reconciliation between God and man, but the cross event offers a graphic revelation of the person of God himself.
First, the cross tells us that God is sovereign. Immediately after man’s fall in the garden of Eden, God announced his plan for the ultimate defeat of Satan and his purposes in the world (Gen. 3:15). As time passed, God revealed more clearly how his plan would be carried out. Through the nation of Israel he would bring into the world a Suffering-Servant Messiah who would deal with the problem of the sin that had separated man and God. But Satan did not stand idly by. He drew upon all the resources available to him in his attempt to thwart the plan of God. He repeatedly attempted to wipe out the nation and the family through which the Messiah was to come; he tried to destroy the Messiah at his birth; he sought to render the Messiah incapable of carrying out his mission by leading him into sin; and, in an apparent victory for the forces of evil, he incited an angry and unbelieving mob to crucify the Messiah. But it was precisely in this seeming defeat that the sovereign God accomplished the purpose for which he had sent Christ into the world. The “It is finished!” that Jesus uttered on the cross was a shout of triumph because his mission was accomplished.
Second, the cross tells us that God is holy. God sent his Son to the cross not because he wanted to but because it was necessary. If there had been any other way to effect reconciliation between God and man, God would not have allowed his beloved Son to undergo the death of the cross. Jesus told his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and “suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.” Because he is holy, God could not overlook or dismiss the fact of man’s sin. It had to be punished, and it was punished in the person of Christ. Christ’s agony on the cross reflects the attitude of a holy God toward sin.
Third, the cross tells us that God is love. If the cross pictures God’s awful hatred of sin, it also portrays his incomprehensible love in that he himself, at great cost to himself and apart from any merit within man, took the initiative to meet the demands of divine justice. Thus Paul wrote, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
On the cross a loving, sovereign God carried out his plan to reconcile lost man to himself in a way consistent with his own character of holiness.
