The influential Southern Baptist press lined up behind a denominational decision to revise a controversial new book, but questioned the spirit in which the move was made. A survey of seventeen state papers showed wide support of the action taken by messengers to the 1970 sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention in Denver. There seemed to be more concern, however, about the way the messengers went about it.
One editor denounced the “vitriolic, hostile, accusative, unforgiving, prideful, arrogant and often downright abusive attitudes and words of many of the preachers who spoke [at Denver] in defense of the Bible.” Another lamented the fact that “unknown men who have never proven themselves grab the microphone and sway the messengers while proven leadership is ignored.” But most seemed to agree the messengers were right in ordering the Baptist Sunday School Board to recall and rewrite the first volume of the Broadman Bible Commentary. The most outspoken dissent was expressed by the Capital Baptist of Washington, D. C., which called the convention action a “big mistake.”
Other reaction came from New York, where officers of the Religious Publishers Group of the American Book Publishers Council issued a protest against withdrawal of the volume. They said that “to suppress or bowdlerize a book on the ground that it questions traditional thought is to deny the value of thought itself.” (See the editorial on page 21.)
The 472-page book in question is the initial volume in a set of twelve scheduled to be released by 1972. It contains several introductory articles on the whole Bible as well as a commentary on Genesis and Exodus. Dr. Clifton J. Allen, former editorial secretary of the Sunday School Board, is general editor. He asserts at the outset his preference for the “dynamic view” of the inspiration of Scripture (as over against verbal and plenary inspiration). “To the writer of this article,” he says, “the problems of the dynamic view of inspiration, though real, do not invalidate this view of the Scriptures. The problems are resolved by reverent faith in the Lord of the Scriptures and in the Scriptures themselves as the Word of God, in wholeness and unity in Christ.”
In another introductory article, Dr. John I. Durham of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, commenting on source analysis, declares that the approach of contemporary Old Testament study to Pentateuchal criticism recognizes within the Pentateuch “anachronisms, repetition, conflicting accounts, a variety of large and small discrepancies, differing conceptions of God, and several markedly different writing styles.” He adds that this approach “has led most contemporary scholars to the view that the Pentateuch known to us is neither a unity nor, when considered as a whole, a composition of Moses.”
About 20,000 copies of the book reportedly have been printed and about 10,000 of these have already been sold. The convention’s action to withdraw the volume was adopted by a vote of 5,394 to 2,170. James Sullivan, executive secretary of the Sunday School Board, said the board would meet August 12 and 13 and that its members “will give general guidelines concerning the procedure for complying with the convention’s requests.” The motion asked the board to see that the commentary was rewritten “with due consideration of the conservative viewpoint.”
What does the new president of the convention think of the commentary? “Personally, I’ve never found any single set of commentaries that satisfy me,” said Dr. Carl E. Bates, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina. He added that he had “every confidence in the people who have committed themselves to this task.”
Bates, 56, holds a high view of Scripture itself. He was converted to Christ as a young man in New Orleans. Broke and out of work during the depression, he was roaming the streets when someone gave him a job in a hotel, then a room, and there he read a Gideon Bible. That led to his conversion.
Reformed Church In America: Weighing A Wedge
After hearing a committee that worked for a year to seek reconciliation in the Reformed Church in America, the denomination’s top governing body struggled five days without deciding how to keep the nation’s oldest communion together.
Delegates to the annual General Synod meeting at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, went home wondering whether they had helped solve the church’s problems or had added to the fragmentation. In trying to ease pressures, they took tentative steps toward giving more decison-making power to the denomination’s lower judicatories.
“Regionalism” was proposed by a special committee of eighteen named in 1969 to resolve differences. The General Synod decided, however, that “regionalism” was too strong a word, and asked its own executive committee (a continuing body) to study “regionalization” and submit plans for implementing this concept next year.
By a thirteen-vote margin, the delegates refused to accept a judicial business committee’s attempt to recognize a form of regional self-determination. In doing so, they took a position opposite to that taken in May by the United Presbyterian General Assembly. At issue was a “united (joint) synod” formed by New Jersey judicatories of the two denominations.
The judicial business panel recommended that a complaint against the constitutionality of the New Jersey action be dismissed. The court defeated the recommendation on a 124–137 vote and then directed its New Jersey particular synod to submit another plan in 1971 for General Synod consideration. (The United Presbyterian assembly at Chicago upheld the joint body’s constitutionality on a split vote, but the margin of difference was greater.)
The national body also defeated, on a voice vote, a motion from a framer of the joint synod plan that the General Synod form two provinces to handle certain controversial issues. An “escape clause” in the proposal would have allowed conservative congregations to transfer from a liberal-dominated province and vice versa.
One unprecedented step was taken toward regional decision-making on a thorny issue. A constitutional amendment to give congregations the right to ordain women got over the first hurdle at Holland, but it must be approved by two-thirds of the classes (presbyteries) and the next General Synod before it becomes effective. The amendment gives classes the option of allowing their congregations to name women officers.
While this freedom would be welcomed in the eastern wing of the denomination, it may not get the approval of classes in the western sector. Proposed amendments that would have allowed distaff officers throughout the church have repeatedly failed to get the approval of two-thirds of the classes.
One action was designed to meet an objection from the western wing, traditionally opposed to the World and National Councils of Churches. Undesignated contributions for the central administration of the councils (amounting to about 5.5 cents per member annually) were removed from the General Synod per capita assessment budget. The RCA gifts to the general funds of the councils will hereafter come from voluntary sources.
One traditional recognition of the two regions was repeated in the election of General Synod officers. Retiring president Norman Vincent Peale of New York was succeeded by Professor Lester Kuyper of Western Seminary in Holland. The new vice-president is Christian H. Walvoord, former education executive in the denomination and now a pastor at New Paltz, New York.
ARTHUR H. MATTHEWS
Southern Presbyterians: Clashing In Memphis
For nearly three days the 110th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U. S. (Southern) had ascended a growing mountain of reports and recommendations with near unanimity—on the surface, at least.
There was no serious threat to approval “for study and response” of the Consultation on Church Union plan for joining Southern Presbyterians and eight other Protestant denominations in a proposed Church of Christ Uniting.
Dr. Robert Strong of Montgomery, Alabama, pointed out, however, that lack of opposition to study of the COCU plan in no way implied support by commissioners (voting delegates) for that plan or for proposals being framed for union with the United Presbyterian Church.
And so it went in Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tennessee, until the 1970 assembly came within eleven emotion-packed votes of labeling a church publication “profane, blasphemous and immoral.”
The vote not to do so was 189 to 179. It came after a vigorous debate on Colloquy, a monthly magazine published “especially for youth” by the United Church of Christ, but with the cooperation of United and Southern Presbyterians. By its negative vote, the General Assembly rejected the request of twenty-five commissioners “to order” the church’s Board of Christian Education to sever its ties with the magazine. The defeated resolution criticized language and photographs used in the publication, which recently received an award from the Associated Church Press for “outstanding performance” in religious journalism.
Until the Colloquy matter was introduced, the only closely contested order of assembly business had been the election of a moderator. Dr. William A. Benfield, Jr., Charleston, West Virginia, pastor who is chairman of the COCU Plan of Union Commission, squeaked to victory by a vote of 217 to 212. His opponent was an Atlanta minister, Dr. Harry A. Fifield.
JOHN F. NELSON
Adventist Urgency: Race And Missions
Urgency, said Kenneth H. Wood, editor of the Seventh-day Adventist magazine Review and Herald, is a good one-word description of the movement formally organized 105 years ago at Battle Creek, Michigan, with 3,500 members. Last month the Adventists plainly showed they have lost none of the zeal or urgency that characterized the young church. Now, with world membership hovering at the two-million mark, Seventh-day Adventists still boldly assert that Christ’s return is imminent, and that the advent message of their “remnant church” has been uniquely tailored by God for these times.
The strategy, declared outgoing general secretary W. R. Beach at the quadrennial Adventist General Conference in Atlantic City’s monstrous Convention Hall, is a self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending church in every land. He added that it was a church advancing in racial integration, for anything less would “eat the heart out of a world church.”
The race question was much on the mind of the 1,710 official delegates and some 35,000 observers and guests who swelled attendance to near-capacity on weekends. “We cannot love people on the Sabbath with our speech and dehumanize them the other six days by our actions,” said SDA world president Robert H. Pierson in his Sabbath sermon. He appealed for an end to misunderstanding.
A few, however, charged the Seventh-day church with a “callous and racist attitude.” And before the ten-day conference was over, there had been several minor confrontations, long talks between officials and spokesmen for activist Adventists (mostly black), and the passage of a strong resolution by the world body recognizing “that prejudices and discrimination are sins.”
Immediately after the resolution passed (it appeared to be unanimous, but dissenters weren’t given an opportunity to vote against it), the North American Division received for study a statement from a group calling itself Black United Constituents. That document had a familiar sound; it contained some of the same recommendations that black groups within the mainline denominations have been making to their officials for the past several years. Among them: more black leadership at top administrative levels, black-controlled unions (jurisdictional units of the church similar to synods), and more denominational money channeled to inner-city and black causes. (About 15 per cent of the church’s North American membership of 426,000 is said to be black.)
Despite the seeming preoccupation with race, the dominant theme of the convention stressed missions and holding fast to the Seventh-day doctrines of biblical literalism and the pure gospel message untainted by social activism. Some 800 missionaries, representing 193 countries, marched into the hall in a mammoth mission pageant. Many, garbed in colorful native dress, then filed out to mingle with startled participants in an Elks’ parade tooting down Atlantic City’s famous boardwalk. The church has sent out 18,000 missionaries since 1900.
Mission-mindedness is largely responsible for the denomination’s rapid growth—which persists despite the decline facing most major Christian bodies. World SDA membership grew 23.7 per cent between 1966 and 1969, with a gain of 5.8 per cent last year (North American membership climbed 3 per cent in 1969). Giving rose 8.2 per cent last year.
Theological liberalism seems to have made nary a dent in the SDA armor. A reporter could find no one at the convention willing to question either the SDA’s millennialist views or the prophetic utterances of its revered Ellen G. White.
The ecumenical movement is anathema to Seventh-day Adventists: the end result, according to one official will be the lowest common denominator in beliefs and coercion stemming from an unholy alliance between the state and the “fallen Babylon” of denominationalism. (Putting it more tactfully, if less graphically, President Pierson said in an interview: “To join the National or World Councils of Churches more closely than we are at present would not help us in maintaining the Word of God.”)
Pierson, 59, was elected to a second term; he has served since 1966. Also returned to office was Kenneth H. Emmerson, 52, treasurer, and Neal C. Wilson, 49, who heads the church’s work in North America. Replacing Beach, 68, who has been general secretary of the world church for sixteen years, is Clyde O. Franz, 57, a native of Cuba and an associate general secretary of the General Conference since 1966.
Honored at the conference were H. M. S. Richards, for forty years of broadcasting on the “Voice of Prophecy” program (now heard on 700 stations); veteran author and editor Arthur S. Maxwell of Signs of the Times, retiring; medical missionary Harry W. Miller, 91, for sixty-seven years of service in China; and Eduardo Castro, a Bolivian Indian who preaches to the same tribe that murdered his father.
Adventists hope they won’t have to hold another General Conference. But if Christ tarries, they will meet again in five years instead of the usual four. They really didn’t want to meet this year. Elder Pierson opened his address by noting, “With heavy hearts now in 1970 when the work should have been finished and God’s people in the kingdom we are yet here in Atlantic City for another General Conference.…”
RUSSELL CHANDLER
Legs For Religious TV
To see religious television programs, laments a United Presbyterian leader, “you’d think religion was on its last legs.” The Reverend Richard Gilbert was quoted last month in a TV Guide survey that predicts religious TV will become more heavenly minded.
“We’ve gone too far in embracing the secular world,” a National Council of Churches executive admitted. The result, says TV Guide, is a financial revolt of the “religious silent majority”—nearly 95 per cent of church members “who hunger for spiritual nurture but are being fed a crazy concoction of Marx and mush and mod,” according to an Episcopal clergyman.
“What we need now,” Gilbert suggests, “is a two-legged Gospel—the left leg being social concern, and the right being salvation.”
