In January, 1975, the so-called Hartford Declaration, entitled “An Appeal for Theological Affirmation,” appeared. Our editorial comment on the declaration said in part:
Other than focusing on “the apparent loss of a sense of the transcendent,” the signers identified no real theological enemy; instead, they simply slapped the backside of a wriggling centipede and crippled some of its legs. Specific disclaimers include facets of the secular theology promoted in recent decades by Harvey Cox and Paul van Buren; of the situation ethics of Joseph Fletcher and John A. T. Robinson; of the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutierrez and James Cone; of the process-perspectives of Schubert Ogden and the late Teilhard de Chardin. By eclipsing divine transcendence in whole or in part, such religious theorists had acclimated Christian theology to secular naturalism and humanism. The Hartford theologians—mostly non-evangelicals—have now laid down certain limits of tolerance [CHRISTIANITY TODAY, February 28, 1975].
The editorial went on to assert that the wording of the Declaration was “technical and not without ambiguities; it hardly carried ‘good news’ intelligible to the man in the street and in search of a viable faith.”
The Hartford Declaration was hardly a thunderbolt, but it stirred up Harvey Cox of Harvard and The Secular City and other theological professionals in New England. Not to be outdone, Cox and his colleagues last month pasted together their response to Hartford under the title “The Boston Affirmations.” It brought the two groups more or less into open conflict, and charges and countercharges are flying back and forth. The irrepressible Harvey Cox, tongue in cheek, bared his soul in a recent issue of the Christian Century (January 21), claiming for himself the title “Most Maligned Theologian of 1975.” His writing suggests that he may be a better fiction-writer than theologian. And whatever may be his current convictions, as soon as the theological wind shifts one can be sure of seeing Professor Cox spin off in another direction.
No sooner had the “Boston Affirmations” appeared than some of the framers of the Hartford Declaration went back into the pit with Cox. Dr. Peter Berger, a Rutgers University sociologist who signed the Hartford statement, welcomed the encounter, saying: “The Boston group wants to nail us down to a particular agenda which, broadly speaking, is a left-liberal agenda.… What gets across from the Boston Affirmations is that this agenda is what Christians ought to be concerned with. And I don’t buy this.”
Also in the fray was Richard Neuhaus, who had earlier debated with Cox and William Sloane Coffin over the Hartford Declaration (Cox modestly stated in the Century, “I was afraid the news that I had won [which I did] might deprive me of the prize,” i.e., the “Most Maligned” title). “I think,” Neuhaus said, “that the Christian Gospel always begins with an affirmation of the negative.” He later added that both the Hartford and the Boston statements were “made from, and to, as I understand it, the Christian community in America. And therefore they cannot be mutually exclusive unless we are trying to excommunicate one another.”
Boggled by the advocacy of transcendence in the Hartford statement, the Boston affirmers came down hard on immanence. They repeated the common slogan that “the transforming reality of God’s reign is found today” in the struggles for social justice—in efforts to better the lot of the poor, the sick, and the elderly, to foster political honesty and openness, and to “overcome sexist subordination” of women, among others. But apparently God’s reign does not include the quest for imputed righteousness through faith in Christ, through whose shed blood sinful man can be reconciled to God.
The two statements, when placed side by side, remind us of John Byrom’s satirical poem “On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini:” “Strange that such high dispute should be / ‘Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” Let both sides withdraw to some cloister far removed from the hustle and bustle of life and fight it out. The outcome won’t make much difference, because neither side is getting at the very heart of the matter. Neither answers the most pressing question for 2.7 billion people around the world: “What must we do to be saved?” The answer comes not from the philosophers or theologians but from a man with a missionary heart: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” This is one missing note in the declarations. Without it what Tweedledum and Tweedledee say makes little difference to a perishing world.
‘The Church That Is In Their House’
When writing to the Romans Paul sent his greetings to, among others, the church that met in the house of Priscilla and Aquila (Romans 16:5; see also First Corinthians 16:19 and Colossians 4:15). The infant church faced many difficulties in a hostile empire, but it did not have to contend with petty zoning ordinances that prohibited religious services in private homes.
In our day, an increasing number of American jurisdictions from coast to coast have been trying to enact this prohibition, and some have succeeded. Similar zeal has not been shown over meetings held in homes for political candidates, or large private cocktail parties that contribute disproportionately to the incidence of automobile collisions. In Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union is involved in litigation appealing a district court’s decision that forbids meetings for prayer, Bible study, and singing in a home. The ACLU is defending the First Amendment rights of the harassed Christian minority.
Reasonable limitations on the number of persons that can assemble in a building are desirable. The hazards of fire or other calamities must be considered. Citizens should be protected from excessive noise in their neighborhood, especially at late hours, and from excessive automobile congestion. Christians should be careful “peaceably to assemble,” as the First Amendment phrases it. But a local government should not be permitted to regulate meetings by means of arbitrary restrictions that bear no relation to public safety and public nuisances.
The highest authority, God himself, saw fit to institute Holy Communion in a private home in an upstairs room (Mark 14:12ff.). Subsequently he sent the Holy Spirit to all the disciples in Jerusalem, apparently about 120, who were gathered in what must have been a rather large private home (Acts 1:15; 2:1–4).
There is no documentary or archaeological evidence for the existence of church buildings in the first century. A few Christians today do not approve their use, and no Christians hold that they are essential. In many countries today, Christians, if they are to obey the command not to forsake assembling together (Heb. 10:25), must meet in private homes. That day may come to the United States as well. Governments may start by prohibiting groups that function as a regular New Testament Congregation from meeting for the Lord’s supper. Many localities have gone even further to prohibit small prayer meetings by people who are part of a larger group that gathers in a church building on Sundays.
Christians should not let local officials remove their God-given right to meet in homes. Happily, in this country, this freedom is recognized, we believe, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. Since higher courts normally enter the case only after arrest and conviction, Christians should be willing to endure such inconveniences in order to bring about eventual legal recognition of their right of peaceable assembly. When the magistrates at Phillipi wanted Paul quietly to forget their improper behavior toward him, he would not acquiesce (Acts 16:37). Neither should Christians today silently consent to the capricious orders of local authorities.
Naturally, the freedom that Christians seek for themselves must be granted to adherents of other religions as well. So long as genuine safety hazards are not created, and so long as noise and traffic pollution and congestion are moderate, Christians should defend the rights of all persons to meet peaceably in homes.
Liberty Limited
India’s postponement for perhaps as long as a year of the parliamentary elections scheduled for next month is only one of the indicators of a loss of freedom around the world recently. According to New York based Freedom House, only one in five of the world’s people now has full political and civil rights. No more than a year ago the ratio was one in three.
For a variety of reasons, the Indian situation calls for special attention. It is the world’s second most populous nation. Mahatma Gandhi, the hero of Indian independence, is revered by people seeking freedom around the world. His political heir (though she is no kin), Indira Gandhi, is often described as the world’s most powerful woman. Christians have had a special concern for the subcontinent over the years, particularly during the height of the modern missionary movement.
Now there is a new reason for concern. India is in a severe political and economic crisis. Mrs. Gandhi has been operating under emergency powers since last June, and the Parliament agreed last month to extend those powers. Government censorship of the press has been given permanent status—even beyond the end of the current “emergency.” For the duration of the emergency, the Indians’ rights of free speech and free assembly have been curtailed. Many of the ruling party’s opponents are in jail. The right of a citizen to know why he has been arrested has been suspended. Other personal freedoms have disappeared.
India’s problems are admittedly great. The country has about three times as many people as the United States, with a third of the area. It inherited problems from its colonial rulers twenty-five years ago. Ethnic, class, and linguistic differences have not been dissolved by independence. Outside political pressures have not helped.
Now Mrs. Gandhi is claiming that the central government must have more power to deal with the crises. Some foreign observers, including a few missionaries, agree. She still has great popular support from the population. (Strangely, international bodies that have criticized the curtailment of citizens’ rights elsewhere have said little about India’s situation.)
In its annual meeting last month, the Synod of the Church of South India expressed appreciation for the prime minister’s “commitment to preserve the democratic structure of the constitution.” The synod appealed to her, however, to withdraw the restrictions on freedom “as early as possible.”
If this current loss of liberty has been necessary to keep India from chaos, then history will record that. If the curtailment of freedom leads to still less freedom for that great nation’s citizens, that sad fact will be noted also. It is to be hoped that the emergency regulations will not prevent legitimate Christian work and witness.
Around the world, Christians ought to pray for their brethren in India. As they pray they should remember that freedom is fragile everywhere. It must be guarded and used responsibly in the 200-year-old United States as well as in countries with a much shorter life.
Help Wanted … Everywhere
“Missionary, go home!” is not a new cry. Anti-Christians have shouted it for years. What is relatively new is “Missionary, come home!”—the proposal for a moratorium on missionaries. This concept was advanced at the World Council of Churches’ Bangkok conference on Salvation Today and endorsed at the Lusaka assembly of the All Africa Conference of Churches. Advocates say that younger churches are too dependent on and influenced by foreign workers and funds.
So far, however, there have been few signs that Third World churches are willing to cut their overseas ties. On the contrary, there is fresh evidence that many of the younger denominations continue to want missionaries even though they have strong leadership and financial resources of their own.
In 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelization, a large portion of whose participants were from the Third World, confronted the moratorium issue. Two sentences in the Lausanne Covenant are to the point:
A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church’s growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelized areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service.
Since the Lausanne congress the flow has indeed increased. More workers are going from the evangelized areas to regions where the Gospel has not been presented. More of the younger churches are taking their missionary obligation seriously.
The latest indicator that the moratorium call is not representative of the younger churches is an action of Japan’s United Church of Christ (Kyodan). Beset by troubles of their own, leaders of the largest Protestant group in Japan have asked the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) not to withdraw missionaries. The Japanese have backed up their request with a promise of $26,000 to keep two Presbyterian teachers at work for the next year.
If the PCUS General Executive Board accepts the offer next month, the denomination will be able to keep at work two more missionaries than it had planned (see February 13 issue, page 59). Like so many other younger churches, Kyodan is saying loud and clear, “Missionary, come over and help us!” Neither Kyodan nor any other church can do the job alone.
The Vulnerable Christian
Pastors and teachers often exhort Christians to “be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.” This part of a verse in First Peter 3 bears repeating, but there is a need for seeing it in context.
This advice to be ready with words of witness falls in the midst of a passage about persecution. Throughout the New Testament it is taken for granted that Christians face suffering for their testimony. While the final paragraph of the chapter (beginning at verse 13) starts with a sentence of assurance to the zealous, the main thrust is a warning.
“Keep your conscience clear,” the passage advises us, “so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” Unbelievers will sometimes malign the Christian for clear words of testimony from God’s Word and for conduct based on that Word. And God does not promise exemption from criticism. What he does promise is that the critics will eventually be put to shame for their attitudes and actions.
How does the Christian face those who are bearing down on him because of his stand for Christ? “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord,” says Peter. Taking a stand for Jesus as Lord is sometimes a hard and lonely thing to do. But there is the comfort of knowing that God rules over all human affairs, including those of the persecutors.
Often believers skip over the warning in this passage against expecting God’s protection of the wrongdoer. Christians do suffer for doing wrong. Many self-styled martyrs are having all sorts of difficulty because they have promoted causes that are not God’s. They misquote the Bible to achieve their own goals. They use God’s people and money given by God’s people for their own purposes. And when they run into trouble they wrongly cry that they are being persecuted for Christ’s sake.
For the person who does wrong, there are certain consequences. But there is an assurance of God’s care for the person who, with a clear conscience, speaks and acts for a holy God. The last sentence of this chapter reminds us that Christ is at the right hand of God, “with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.”
