This issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY will no doubt arouse substantial reactions, pro and con, on the matter of tongues. The truce proposal suggested by Pinnock and Osborne should open the door wide to further, and we hope elevating, dialogue between those who are enthusiastically for tongues-speaking and those who oppose it. Tinney’s essay on the black origins of Pentecostalism provides background material that is important to a historical understanding of the religious movement that is the fastest growing in Latin America and has prospered in North America as well.
Our executive editor, L. Nelson Bell, in his “Layman” column speaks to an issue that is splitting the Presbyterian Church U. S. (see September 24 issue, page 42). Dr. Bell, a medical missionary in China for twenty-five years, was one of the founders of both the Presbyterian Journal and CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He has had to grapple with the question of staying in or leaving the denomination with which he has been connected for a lifetime. Some of his best friends have decided it is time to leave. He has decided to stay. This kind of decision is always difficult, and one can be sure of both plaudits and brickbats whichever way he decides. This much is clear: whenever a church becomes apostate, the true believer must leave. What is not always clear is when a church has indeed become apostate.
