About This Issue: June 05, 1964

A Christian layman issues a plea for meaningful preaching (page 5).… A biographical article describes the ministry of the late Alexander Maclaren of Manchester (page 7).… A librarian tells ministers how they can get the most out of local libraries (page 10). This issue is a special one for pastors with a number of features designed to be of practical help.

We are called to be ambassadors, says Craig Skinner, but we tend to behave like diplomats. His forceful article beginning on the opposite page is based on Second Corinthians 5:14–20.

Our News section includes a report of commemorative Baptist assemblies in Atlantic City.

Theology

A Drama in Four Acts

James S. Stewart

Text: “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11b).

The story of John Mark, the deserter who made good, could be written as a drama in four acts. But first, by way of prologue to the drama, a question arises. How came Mark to be accompanying Paul and Barnabas on their hazardous adventures?

This is easily enough explained. Barnabas was Mark’s own cousin and was no doubt eager to give the younger man a share in the great work of carrying Christ’s commission across the world.

John Mark came from a home that had played an outstanding part in the life of the Church from the first. His mother, Mary, had put her house at the disposal of the Jerusalem Christians. It was there, in an upper room of her house, that they met for weekly worship. It was there that Peter had gone after his dramatic escape from prison. Indeed, the probability is that it was this same upper room that had seen the Last Supper on the night of Calvary, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the birth of the Christian Church. Mark was the son of that home. Happy the young man who begins life in a home where God has an altar and Jesus is a familiar friend!

So we pass on from the prologue to Act 1 of the drama. This act bears the title “Recantation.” To begin with, all went well. Mark felt he had found his vocation. There was all the glamour of novelty about it—new places to visit, new friendships to make, new claims to stake out for Christ. But as the days went on, one thought began to trouble him. Were they not wandering too far from their base? Paul, with his far horizons and beckoning visions, seemed determined to carry the campaign into the unfamiliar and dangerous hinterland of Asia. Now Mark had not bargained for this. “The risk is far too great,” he told himself. “It is not worth it! I must remonstrate with Paul.” But when he endeavored to raise his objections, he found that he could scarcely say a word, for there was something in Paul’s face—a burning, passionate eagerness and a glowing, resolute determination—that silenced his stammered protests. There seemed to be no alternative—he had to go on. But all the time his nerve was beginning to fail him, and he knew it. What a wild, savage, God-forsaken land this was, and up among those mountain fastnesses what nameless perils might be lurking! And Jerusalem was so far away, and his heart so terribly homesick! Many a night he would have given anything just to have heard the temple bells again, or to have stood on Olivet and seen the sun flaming down the western sky. So the struggle went on in Mark’s soul, till at last there came a crisis.

It was in the dead of night, and Paul and Barnabas were asleep; but Mark was wakeful and was striding up and down by himself in the dark. Take a long look at him, I beg you—for there is a man at the crossroads with Christ, a soul facing one of those decisive hours that come to all of us sooner or later. “I can’t go on,” he is saying. “I ought never to have come. O home, home—I’m weary for my home!”

And then another voice speaks, very quietly and tenderly. It is the voice of Jesus. “You are not going to leave me, my friend? You surely can’t be leaving me now? Do you not love me any more?”

The man blurts out, “Yes, Lord, I do, you know I do! With all my heart I love you. How can you say such a thing? But, Lord, I don’t think I was built for this. I’m not a Paul or a Barnabas. I’m not like them with their iron nerves and their lion hearts. I’m just one of your ordinary people, Jesus, and it is asking too much of me!”

Then again the quiet voice speaks, but sadly now. “I do not compel you, friend. You are free to return if you must. But I died for you, my son, and this is hard, hard for me!”

“But don’t you see, Lord, I can’t go on? You must see that. I have tried my best, I have indeed. But I am not made for this kind of life, and it is not fair to ask me. Can’t you understand?”

At that a new voice, a third voice, comes breaking in—that of the Tempter. “Let Christ go, then. Let him go! Sell him and be done with it. Recant, man, recant!”

And then a great silence. But in the morning, when Paul and Barnabas rose to continue their journey, there was no John Mark there. And they went on their way alone. The tragedy of a soul’s recantation!

Now I know what some of us are thinking. All this was long, long ago. Conditions have changed completely. Christian discipleship is far simpler today: no danger of our deserting Christ through fear!

But are we sure? Suppose we single out one particular kind of fear. What about the fear of unpopularity, of being left on the shelf (as we say), of being passed over or made to suffer for our convictions? Does that never breed deserters?

Have you never stood at this particular crossroads with Christ, finding yourself suddenly confronted with the choice either to stand up for Jesus and let the world’s good graces go, or else to muffle your Christianity and keep the favor of some social set? Once when Wilberforce rose to speak in the House of Commons, “Ah,” said a sneering member, “the honorable and religious gentleman!” That sort of thing stings; and there is a bit of us—“the natural man,” Paul called it—that hates being stung, and would rather do anything, even blunder into open disloyalty and sin against God’s Christ, than stand out against the conventions of the world or the opinion of our fellow men. Unpopularity—that is one fear at least that still has the power to make souls desert Christ.

There are others: the fear of sacrifice, for example; the fear of losing ambitions on which our hearts are set; the fear of having to give up something in thought, desire, or habit that we know ought to be given up (this is one of the sternest struggles of life, and until a man has fought through it he is not right with Christ); the fear of God’s daily discipline; the fear of the cross. Are we not all in this together? Yes, in some degree we have all played our part in this first tragic act—the act of recantation.

We go on now to Act 2, which bears the title “Remorse.” Here we see Mark back in Jerusalem. The homesick man has come home. Away yonder among the mountains of Asia he had thought, “If only I could see Jerusalem, how happy I should be!” Well, here he is in Jerusalem. Is he happy now? Look at him.

Everything was the same—the streets, his home, the temple bells, the sun flaming down behind Olivet, everything the same; yet somehow there was a subtle difference. All the dear familiar things had lost their savor. Happy in Jerusalem? Call him rather the most wretched man on earth. After recantation, remorse.

Words cannot measure the remorse that gripped John Mark in Jerusalem, but the grip of it was agony. “Would God I might live those days through again!” he thought. “If only the thing had never happened! O God of mercy, turn time back, I beg, set me where I was before this dreadful thing occurred. I can’t have been myself then! For I do love Jesus. I swear I love him still. Lord, give me that bad hour back!”

I think I can see him at night, unable to sleep, rising from his bed, pacing to and fro in that upper room of many memories. “Where are Paul and Barnabas tonight?” he is wondering. “And where is Jesus?” I see him going down a Jerusalem street at noonday, and now and again people—his own Christian brethren—look strangely at him as he passes, then turn and point: “See, there is the man who deserted! Would you believe it?”

I see him at last one day sitting at the Communion table. He is listening dully to the familiar words. “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you.” The bread comes round, and then the cup. But just as he lifts it, something happens. He pauses and looks at that cup in his hand, for within him a voice has begun to speak—a voice unheard by any of the others there, heard only in Mark’s own soul. “This is Christ’s blood,” says the voice. “And if this is blood in the cup, and if it is the blood of Jesus, and if it was given for you, then what—in the name of all that is honorable—are you doing here? Jesus is out on the lonely, dangerous ways, seeking the lost and the perishing, and this is the blood of that agony. Will you dare to drink it—you? Look well into that cup, Mark, for you are crucifying Christ afresh, and there are drops of the blood of that second crucifixion in it. Look well into the cup!” And the man sits with the cup in his hand, staring at it. (Have we ever sat like that, confronted with the agony of Jesus, and knowing that some unclean thought of ours, some selfish slackness, some wretched little self-indulgence, was the cause of it?) And then I see him suddenly setting the cup down untasted, rising from the table, and leaving the room—and that very night, do you know where he is? Out from Jerusalem, out on the great north road, with his face set towards Paul and Barnabas and Christ again!

So we come to Act 3, and the title of this is “Restoration.” You know the story—how Mark returned to Paul and Barnabas; how Barnabas welcomed him eagerly but Paul refused to have anything to do with him (surely if Jesus had been there, it would have been Barnabas’s way, not Paul’s, he would have taken); how that unhappy dispute led to a quarrel, and the quarrel to a parting, Barnabas going off with Mark, and Paul with Silas; how this splendid coward redeemed his reputation and proved himself a true hero of Christ, so that even Paul relented in the end and took him to his heart again; and how when the great Apostle lay waiting his death in Rome, it was of Mark that he kept thinking. “Take Mark,” he wrote to Timothy, “and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”

It would be a great thing, the Gospel of Jesus, even if it applied only to those who had fought the good fight and run the straight race all their lives. But blessed be God, it is more than that, far more; and if the Christian preacher and evangelist has the gladdest and most thrilling task in all the world, it is because he has been authorized by God to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, the removing of their guilt and the shattering of their power. What is the Gospel? Hope for the hopeless, love for the unlovable, heroism for the most arrant coward, white shining robes for the most ragged, clean-hearted purity for the muddiest, inward peace and a great serenity for spirits torn and frantic with regret. There is a most moving scrap of conversation in George Macdonald’s Robert Falconer. “If I only knew that God was as good as that woman, I should be content.” “Then you don’t believe that God is good?” “I didn’t say that, my boy. But to know that God was good and kind and fair—heartily, I mean, and not half-ways with ifs and buts. My boy, there would be nothing left to be miserable about.”

If you have once seen Jesus, as the men and women of the New Testament saw him, there is nothing left to be miserable about. And there is everything in the world to set you singing! If I were to stand here and preach to you a limited gospel; if I were to tell you of a Christ who is the Lover of some elect, sky-blue souls who have never known the bitterness of self-despising and remorse, but not the Lover of all the world; if I were to suggest that there are depths of shame and humiliation and defeat from which the heights of heaven cannot be stormed—I should be preaching a lie.

“Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Was Jesus shocked when he saw them coming? Did Jesus ever turn round and say, “Ah, I did not mean you! I can go down deep to rescue the perishing, but not quite to such depths as that”? No, he saw them coming, lame and lost and lonely and sin-scarred and disillusioned and miserable, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven: “I thank thee. Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that the Gospel of grace works even here! I thank thee that thou hast sent me to restore to these thy broken children the years that the locust hath eaten.” And he took them to his arms, God’s bairns who had got hurt, and let them sob the whole sad story out. Then—“That is finished,” he said. “Behold, I make all things new.” Do we today believe it? Take your own life, take the saddest recantation there has ever been, take the most locust-eaten year you can remember, take the thing that may be hiding God for you at this very moment. Lay that at Christ’s feet. Say, “Lord, if Thou wilt …!” And see if, for you, the ancient miracle is not renewed, and the whole world filled with glory.

And so we end with Act 4 of Mark’s story. We have watched his recantation and his remorse, and then his restoration. The title that this final act bears is “Reparation.” How did Mark atone? How did he repair the damage he had done? He became an evangelist. He wrote a book. He gave the world a Life of Jesus, the first Gospel to be written. We can be sure of this, that multitudes of people in those old, far-off days who had never seen Jesus in the flesh met him in the pages of Mark’s book, and entered—under the evangelist’s guidance—upon the high road leading to salvation. Still today, after all these years, Mark is introducing men and women of every race and religion to Jesus and setting them face to face with the redeeming Son of God. That was his reparation—was it not a glorious one?

What, then, of ourselves? We who have wounded Christ so often—is there any reparation we can offer? We cannot be evangelists like Mark, we say. It is not given to us to write Gospels for the world to read. But think again! Is it not? The fact is, there is not one of us who cannot compose a Life of Jesus. You can write an evangel, not in books and documents, but in deeds and character. You can make men see Jesus. You can live in such a way that, even when you are not speaking about religion at all, you will be confronting souls with Christ—his ways, his spirit, his character—and making them feel the power and the beauty of the Son of God. It may be that, all unknown to you, one soul here or another there will owe his very salvation to that Gospel of yours; it may be that someone will rise from among the throngs around the judgment seat on the last day and pointing at you will cry: “There is the man to whom, under God, I owe everything! It was reading the Gospel of Christ in that man’s life that redeemed me.” And Jesus will turn to you with glad and grateful eyes. “Come, ye blessed of my Father—inherit the kingdom!”—Condensation of Chapter XXIII, “A Drama in Four Acts,” from The Gates of New Life, by James S. Stewart. © 1940, Charles Scribner’s Sons. Reprinted with the permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

The Minister’s Workshop: The Preacher as Steward

Paul S. Rees

This is written in India. One of our themes in a conference where approximately 1,100 ministers are assembled is Christian Stewardship.

A facet of stewardship—not wholly unexplored before—has suddenly blazed before my eyes. I refer to the Apostle Paul’s profound feeling that he was a preacher under bonds to Christ and that the Gospel was his as an immeasurably sacred trust—a treasure both to be guarded and to be shared. Timothy, he writes, I want you to know that this is “the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (1 Tim. 1:11, RSV). The same compelling conviction emerges in First Thessalonians 2:4, which Phillips renders: “We speak under the solemn sense of being entrusted by God with the gospel.”

The preacher, then, in any fundamental understanding of his office, is not an inventor, not an innovator, not an experimenter. He is a trustee. He must be humble enough to receive, loyal enough to guard, sensitive enough to share.

With this concept of trusteeship as our clue, let us say two things about the preacher’s task:

1. Preaching is a liberating bondage. It is “bondage” in the sense of definition of content and aim. An essayist or a columnist can range the globe for his topics—from Telstar to telepathy, from brigadier generals to beatniks. Not so a preacher! Christ—Christ in all his offices and offers—is his endless theme. The Bible—the one Book put in his hands at the time of his ordination—is his unvarying textbook.

Does this crib and coffin him? If it does, he has misconceived his Lord and mishandled his Bible. To a man who had gone stale, Oswald Chambers once put the question, “What do you read?” The man told him he read nothing but the Bible and books directly associated with it. Said Chambers: “The trouble is you have allowed part of your brain to stagnate for want of use.” He then recommended to his friend a list of over fifty volumes covering philosophy, theology, psychology, and numerous other tracts of classical and contemporary thought. By accepting the challenge that Chambers flung down, the man experienced a renaissance of the mind and spirit.

In comment on this case Chambers wrote: “When people refer to a man as ‘a man of one book,’ meaning the Bible, he is generally found to be a man of multitudinous books which simply isolates the one Book to its proper grandeur. The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life.”

Thus the preacher’s restriction of theme need never be a constriction of thought. He takes his fetters with him into a freedom that is boundless.

2. Preaching is a responsible originality. Too many of our sermons are as unoriginal and undistinguished as circlets of flattened dough when a biscuit cutter has done its neat and nimble work. This judgment, I feel, rests heavily on my own preaching.

Most of us need a homiletical shaking-up. More of the imaginative, more of the drama of life itself, more of the language and idiom of the culture by which our listeners are constantly being conditioned!

Donald Coggan, Archbishop of York, tells a delightful story about a keen Christian speaker who was to give a Bible talk to a group of tough fellows in the Bermondsey section of London’s East End. His text was: “Two sparrows for a farthing.”

“ ‘Sparrers?’ ” he began on a note of derision. “We don’t sell no ‘sparrers,’ not in Bermondsey. Kippers is what e would ave said if e’d been ere. A pair of kippers sold for three-’aipence—that’s what e meant.”

“In a few more sentences,” said one observer, “he compared the worth of the least of these men with even the best kippers, and a dark corner of the Gospel was immediately flooded with a bright light.”

Yet what we extol in a fascinating incident such as this is not originality for its own sake. It must be responsible and relevant originality.

There is an originality, whether of secular vocabulary or theological faddism or sociological sensationalism, that dissipates more than it illuminates the Gospel. It reminds one of an acid assessment of American preaching by Canon Alec Vidler: “So far as I can ascertain, the paradigm of American preaching is: ‘Let me suggest that you try to be good.’ ”

The stewardship of preaching! As alluring as it is awesome! It means a bondage that is forever breaking into new freedom. It offers an originality that is forever tethered to responsibility.

Books

Book Briefs: June 5, 1964

An Indictment Of The Existential Mood

Jesus and Christian Origins: A Commentary on Modern Viewpoints, by Hugh Anderson (Oxford, 1964, 368 pp., $7), is reviewed by Samuel J. Mikolaski, professor of theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Few books on New Testament studies written in English since the death of James Denney have furnished the reader with the breadth of knowledge, linguistic competence, and theological perspicuity that Professor Anderson has in this volume. A British scholar, Dr. Anderson is now professor of biblical criticism and theology at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Without question this is an important book for all students of theology. Three aims appeal to me as central to the author’s purpose (1) to assess carefully the historical skepticism that pervades contemporary theology; (2) to assess the strength and weakness of the German and British-American scholars New Testament perspectives and to compare their work; (3) to do this having firmly in view a reasoned conviction of the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth, his death and resurrection, and of the finality of the apostolic Gospel.

Four chapters are devoted to the question of the historical Jesus in recent literature, tracing the line from Albert Schweitzer through the schools to Bultmann, the post-Bultmannians, and those who in Germany, Britain, and America have formed a tradition strongly critical of Bultmann. Careful attention is given to the Historisch and Geschichtlich, the claims of form criticism, kerygmatic theology, and the question of the faith and historical elements of the apostolic witness. Though this is a complex task, the author exhibits the subtleties and divergences of opinion within as well as among schools of theology. Anyone accustomed to short sentences and uncomplicated issues may find this book tedious, but the discriminating reader will follow the discussion with understanding, appreciation, and profit.

Dr. Anderson argues that though Bultmann is interested in history, his claims lead to a Docetic Christ against which some of his students have reacted; nevertheless, they (e.g., G. Bornkamm) leave much to be desired in their treatment of the New Testament factual data. For example, “But have ‘existential openness,’ ‘intuitive encounter,’ or ‘Easter faith’ allied to historical research really produced a new historical certainty in our time by bringing Jesus in his unmediatedness right into our generation? Hardly!” (p. 181). Conversely, while he sides with the historicists, Dr. Anderson reminds his British and American colleagues, and Dr. Stauffer, that sheer historical event and record are inadequate to the essential nature of the saving Gospel.

The final two chapters engage the questions inherent in the New Testament teaching on the Resurrection and the Cross. Students will find the detailed analysis of the gospel narratives and evidence of the Epistles, plus the critique of the authorities, helpful. The Resurrection “was not a radical transformation, a radical break with the past of Jesus of Nazareth, but God’s vindication and confirmation of this Jesus” (p. 240). Further, in the apostolic preaching of the Cross “there is an unbroken line from the historical Jesus to the Kerygmatic Christ” (p. 270). In a pungent summary we read, “If ever the theology dominated by existence philosophy, with its disinterest in and unconcern for the completely human features of our Lord, were to infiltrate the life of the churches in any strength, would they not very soon go hungry for want of the humanity of the Son of God?” (p. 306). Central to the Gospel is the once-for-all character of Christ’s death for the sin of the world. In the case of Paul, he says, “the death and Resurrection of Jesus, which happened once for all in Palestine, are utterly decisive in their significance for the religious experience of men” (p. 274).

I counted up helpful, detailed discussion of more than two dozen theologians as widely spaced historically and theologically as D. F. Strauss, W. Herrmann, A. Schweitzer, R. Reitzenstein, R. Bultmann, G. Bornkamm, E. Stauffer, J. Jeremias, O. Cullmann, G. Ebeling, C. H. Dodd, V. Taylor, T. W. Manson, and John Knox. Copious footnotes comment on the views of many more. Dr. Anderson’s technical excellence is apparent, though significantly unobtrusive—a sign of the highly theological and philosophical character of the issues in biblical studies today. More than two-score catch terms and phrases of the German theologians are handled lucidly. Numerous short notes on biblical questions occur; for example: “witness” signifying both “witness to facts” and “affirmation of beliefs or truths” (p. 263); the New Testament usage of the term “Son” (pp. 333, 334); the adoptionist interpretation of Romans 1:3–5 (pp. 338, 339).

Nurtured on the works of James Denney (as I was), convinced that the New Testament confirms the historical and theological reality of Jesus of Nazareth, his words and his deeds, for saving faith, Dr. Anderson has written a challenging apologetic for New Testament Christianity that is argued competently within the current milieu. Because I agree with so much, I find little to criticize in this book. Perhaps a recognition of the importance of analytical philosophy as a method for theology, as at Oxford, might have been helpful. This research bids fair to say important things to the historical skepticism that Dr. Anderson inveighs against. But the cogent argument for the combination of both the historical and the theological as essential elements for saving faith is the striking and refreshing keynote of this work: “How then, we ask, can Jesus be known to us? For my part, I am forced to acknowledge that he may only come to us of a surety through our receiving and responding to the apostolic testimony within the context of the community’s life and faith and worship” (pp. 315, 316). The Christian community is indebted to Professor Anderson, and to Oxford Press, for this book.

SAMUEL J. MIKOLASKI

Gospel On Campus

On the Work of the Ministry in University Communities, by Richard N. Bender (The Methodist Church, Division of Higher Education, 1962, 264 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Leonard Verduin, emeritus pastor, Campus Chapel, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

An important word—“Methodist”—has obviously been omitted from the title of this book, for it was written by Methodists, for Methodists, and about Methodists. It speaks about Methodist campus problems and about Methodist solutions.

This volume on the Methodist ministry in university communities consists of twenty-six brief contributions by twenty-four persons selected from campus communities throughout the land—students, faculty people, administration personnel, pastors of campus churches. The fact that it is a Methodist book should prepare the reader for a wide range of opinion and outlook, for, as everyone knows, The Methodist Church is a very inclusivist Church. One does not expect, and certainly does not find, anything like consensus here as to what the problem and the solution are. That the book was written by a sheaf of writers also makes for multiformity and variegation.

It is not the Methodism of Wesley that comes to expression, but the Methodism of the past century. Although here and there one detects an awareness that old-line liberalism has had its day (as, for instance, with Ralph C. Dunlop, who speaks of a “return to classical Christianity, … to Biblical Christianity,” p. 88), it is the old liberalism that seems to go on unchastened (as, for example, with Deane Ferm, for whom “the old certainties are no longer certainties. This includes the Bible, the Church, the Apostles’ Creed, … the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the existence of God …,” p. 232 f).

To the present reviewer, the outstanding feature of all this is a greatly atrophied theology de Sacra Scriptura. Although we are told here and there that more Bible study would be a good thing on campuses, one looks in vain for the conviction, so much a part of original Methodism, that saving faith is in the first place a matter of Schriftglaube. The writers are prepared to say that “God has made himself known in Jesus Christ” (p. 19), but what is consistently omitted is that the same God who “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” has “at sundry times and in divers manners spoken in times past by the prophets.” The idiom is consistently that of “confrontation with Person”; little or nothing is said of “confrontation with Predication.”

The bête noire in this volume is “fundamentalism,” including the neo variety (which one of the contributors describes as “fundamentalism which has learned its university manners,” p. 202). One of the contributors, William E. Rhodes, Methodist chaplain at the University of Denver, informs us that “Billy Grahamism is one way not to work in higher education” (p. 194). Granted that Ann Arbor is not Denver, it remains a fact however that Rackham Hall at the former place was never more crowded to capacity than when Graham spoke from its podium.

The thinking that comes to expression throughout this book is the assumption that Christianity is simply the product of the culture in which it was launched, and that men who are of a widely different culture will for that reason stumble at it. Rhodes says: “The substitutionary atonement may be true [apparently he is not sure] but will have rough sledding” on a modern campus—as if it ever had any other kind of sledding! At another place we read that “persons addicted to the modern era cannot take seriously the assumption that sin is an infinitely heinous crime against God” (p. 202); but one does not have to be “addicted to the modern era” for that—all he needs is to be unconverted, in any age.

The reviewer does not desire to leave the impression that everything is wrong with this book, for it also contains much that is good and that everyone serving in a campus ministry will do well to ponder. For example: “The academic community is not in need of little stories about religion. It stands desperately in need of leadership capable of completely involving it in religious thought” (p. 120). The assertion (p. 188) that “the college community … involves people who have grown up in the church and yet have not the slightest knowledge of what the Christian gospel is all about” would seem to indicate that also upstate we have had enough of “little stories about religion.”

The volume is well published. Printing and general make-up are pleasing, and typographical errors are few. If a second printing takes place, the “rolls” on page 39 should, it seems, be replaced with “roles.” The “whom” at the top of page 67 should make way for the nominative form of the pronoun. These are minor defects, as is the “Parley” on page 65; but in a book of such sophistication typographical perfection is an asset.

LEONARD VERDUIN

Lost Purpose: Lost Identity

America Is Different: The Search for Jewish Identity, by Stuart E. Rosenberg (Nelson, 1964, 274 pp., $4.50) is reviewed by Jakob Jocz, professor of systematic theology, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Ontario.

The author is a well-known and highly respected rabbi of one of the leading synagogues in Toronto. He is both a trained sociologist and a scholar in his own right. Dr. Rosenberg already has a number of books to his credit, and the present volume is a worthy contribution to the subject of Jewish identity.

Though primarily written for a Jewish public, the book will prove of considerable interest to Christian readers in that it throws some light upon the present state of Protestantism and also touches upon subjects that concern both Jews and Christians.

In some ways the problem of North American Jewry does not differ from that of any other Jewish community in the Diaspora. The basic problem facing the Jewish minority is that of national survival. Paradoxically, Jewish identity is better preserved under the pressure of anti-Semitism than under conditions of democratic equality. Discrimination may spell suffering for the individual Jew but acts as a mighty preservative of the group in that it keeps the community together. The real danger arises when outward pressure is removed so that the ancient defenses that work for separateness become redundant. Such is the case in North America.

The American experience is unique in Jewish history—America Is Different—in that for the first time the Jewish community found itself on an equal footing with every one else. In such a situation a new threat arises, namely, assimilation to the adjacent culture. In the past, Jewish separateness was founded upon Judaism, the distinctive faith of an ethnic group. But this is not a religious age. Today Jewish adherence to Judaism is as nominal as Gentile adherence to Christianity. Strangely enough, Rabbi Rosenberg takes this fact for granted and pleads not for a return to Judaism but for the preservation of the specific Jewish loyalties. His main emphasis is upon “Jewish culture,” though he is keenly aware of the shift from Judaism to Jewishness. Zionist activity, fund-raising, and ethnic loyalty have taken the place of genuine faith. This is his complaint. But Rabbi Rosenberg cannot have it both ways; once Jewish culture and Jewish faith are so assimilated as to become indistinguishable, it is inevitable that the stress should be on culture and not on faith.

For the attentive reader there arises the inevitable question: What is meant by “Jewish culture”? It certainly is not any more a religious culture. On Dr. Rosenberg’s own admission, religious differences are of little account in modern secularized society. At best, both Jews and Gentiles indulge in vague religiosity, or what the author calls “religion-in-general.” But since the war, and especially as a result of the creation of the Israeli state, there is a tremendous upsurge of ethnic consciousness: the Jewish community is determined to preserve its identity. To this end Dr. Mordecai Kaplan’s program of Reconstructionism has assumed new significance. His influence pervades all sections of the Jewish community from the extreme liberals to the orthodox. “Peoplehood” with emphasis upon ethnic loyalty and custom is given first priority. The result is that Judaism is now understood as the “bearer of a civilization” rather than loyalty to the God of Israel. Even within the orthodox camp Jewishness prevails over against Judaism, so that it is now possible to be a “nonobservant orthodox Jew,” as it is possible to be a fervent Zionist without going to Israel except for a visit. In this, too, America Is Different. But if Dr. Rosenberg’s analysis is correct, then ultimately “Jewish culture” in North America resolves itself into secularized Americanism with a tinge of Jewish sentiment. This raises the perennial question of the raison d’être of Jewish separateness in the Diaspora.

What is the purpose of Jewish existence outside Israel?

In the last pages of Dr. Rosenberg’s book there are hints that separateness has resulted in cultural achievements that justify the Jewish struggle for survival. But is it a good enough reason? In the past, Jewish separateness was motivated by religious loyalties; today it is prompted by the herd instinct. Perhaps Dr. Rosenberg is too harsh with the Jewish intellectual after all? At least he refuses to be deceived and draws the last consequences of his atheism—without the God of Israel the Jew loses the purpose for his existence. How is it that Rabbi Rosenberg has so much to say about “Jewish culture” and nothing at all to say about Jewish destiny as God’s covenanted people?

Perhaps in a future volume the author will present us with a theological exposition of Israel’s raison d’être as the People of God.

JACOB JOCZ

A Novel Witness

The Martyred, by Richard E. Kim (George Braziller, 1964, 316 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, chairman, Department of English, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

The story told in this novel revolves around half a dozen main characters and is concerned with the conduct just prior to their death of twelve Christian ministers shot by Communists in North Korea in the latter half of 1950. Though these ministers died ignobly, and though even the Reverend Mr. Shin broke the heart of Captain Lee by confessing he did not believe in God, the message of the novel is that there is no alternative for suffering humanity other than a voice speaking from “far beyond history.” Colonel Chang, who did not believe in God, nevertheless at his death left money for the purchase and distribution of Bibles.

The author, a young Korean, acknowledges his indebtedness to Albert Camus; but the least significant interpretation of the novel would be one of simple atheism. (Actually the publisher calls it a Christian novel.) I find in it less of Camus than of Ibsen. Like a surgeon exhibiting a human organ to his students, Mr. Kim holds up every facet of his problem, both Christian and anti-Christian, and examines it thoroughly. It is the method of Ibsen, though here I find less of mere brilliance and more of deep sincerity than in Ibsen. It is a novel laden with the world’s grief.

Many significant questions are raised. Do people prefer a noble lie to the truth? Does God care about injustice and misery? Can atheists call Christianity a fairy tale if it actually meets a fundamental need of men? Can excessive humility turn into excessive pride? Should Christians “fail” sometimes just to prove they are human? Should religious hypocrisy be condoned for the sake of Christian unity? Does the study of history, if carried on honestly, lead to a power outside history? Are good and evil paradoxical rather than simply antithetical? From what source come courage, pity, love, and sacrifice in the hearts of men?

Among Mr. Kim’s remarkable gifts is that of symbolism. Even so ordinary an object as the bell in the bombed-out church in Pyongyang is said to ring, and sometimes to clang, by no earthly hand but by the winds of the sky. When an unbeliever asks why the incessant ringing cannot be stopped, he is answered, “It’s too dangerous to get up to the belfry.” Thus by sparse suggestion the thoughtful reader can find meaning everywhere in this novel.

Captain Lee, the narrator of the events, seems to represent the author’s viewpoint and feelings. Not a Christian, Lee is nevertheless deeply moved by the idea of Christianity, particularly as that belief changes the hearts of its followers. To appreciate the full meaning of the novel it must be remembered that Korea in Mr. Kim’s lifetime has perhaps experienced a more genuine Christianity than any other country on earth. It is evident that Mr. Kim has felt the power of God in the Christians of his native country.

CLYDE S. KILBY

A Clear Overview

God Here and Now, by Karl Barth (Harper & Row, 1964, 108 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by James Daane, editorial associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Here are seven lectures delivered by Barth during the past fifteen years. The first and last deal with a ten-day conference on humanism held in Geneva in 1949. The first lecture is Barth’s speech on “humanism” (which is almost a sermon) to the conferees, who were all non-Christians except for one Roman Catholic. The key to Barth’s “humanism” (he rejects all “ism” terms as not properly definitive of Christianity) is of course the “humanity of God.” In the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ, the nature, meaning, and secret of true humanity are to be found, and here only. If this is called “exclusiveness,” says Barth, “then we must let this change stand.” In the last lecture he shows how he fared with the advocates of various other types of humanism. Here we meet some of Barth’s humor, which often has overtones more serious than amusing.

One lecture deals with the nature of Christian proclamation and defines the nature of that grace of God which is proclaimed, and the nature of that free decision to which the Gospel summons man. Another lecture deals very lucidly with Barth’s understanding of the authority and significance of the Bible. Here he pretty much stands alone. His view of the Bible as becoming God’s Word, and as not free from human errors, will be unacceptable to conservative Christians, though they will feel some of the deep earnestness and seriousness that Barth holds for the Word of God as he conceives it. He has strong words of rejection for the Roman Catholic conception of the Word of God as borne by the hierarchy and culminating in the Vaticanum and compares it to the Protestant modernistic understanding of the Word as borne by the universal religious self-consciousness. And Barth warns those interested in the ecumenical movement that they pursue an illusion unless they recognize and respect the authority of the Bible.

In another lecture Barth presents his conception of the Church as an event: the gathering or congregating of those summoned by the Word of God; he then goes on to show what this conception means for church polity, specifically for the proper relationship among the many congregations. The remaining lecture indicates Barth’s understanding of Christian ethics.

This small book presents many of Barth’s basic theological ideas with remarkable clarity. Barth does not get simpler or clearer than this. Part of the credit must go to the very good translation of these essays by Paul M. Van Buren. In an introductory chapter Van Buren shows his basic disagreementwith Barth’s theological method and thereby indicates that though he once followed Barth loyally, he does so no longer. Barth, says Van Buren, like the sixteenth-century Reformers thinks it is enough to hear the biblical message and repeat it today, delivering it as a mailman delivers a letter. Van Buren feels the turning point for theology lies not in the sixteenth but in the second half of the eighteenth century, and he admits amazement that Barth should be so concerned about what the Bible says and so indifferent as to how the Bible says it and how it ought to be said today. The brief introduction lights up the contrast between Barth’s theological method and that of Van Buren and of the whole current school of existential, demythologizing reinterpreters of the biblical message who state its meaning in secular terms.

JAMES DAANE

Paperbacks

Books for the Church Library, compiled for the Church Library Department of Christian Herald (1964, 57 pp.). A listing of about 400 significant religious titles, some of which would be more appropriate in a minister’s study than in the library of the average church. The list is offered free to church librarians on request.

Sowing and Reaping, by Emil Brunner, translated by Thomas Wieser (John Knox, 1964, 91 pp., $1.50. Ten sermons.

For the Living, by Edgar N. Jackson (Channel, 1964, 96 pp., $1.50). A discussion of funeral practices, particularly as they relate to grief.

Not by Accident, by Isabel Fleece (Moody, 1964, 72 pp., $1). The reactions of a mother’s heart to God’s removal of her youngest son through an automobile accident.

His Life and Our Life: The Life of Christ and the Life in Christ, by John A. Mackay (Westminster, 1964, 80 pp„ $1.45). A former president of Princeton Theological Seminary writes in a style both delightful and lucid on what it means to be truly alive in Christ.

Counselling Unwed Parents

Thomas Edwin Carter

A leading member of a midwestern church came to his minister with a problem. Obviously tense and disturbed, he said, “I don’t know just how to begin, pastor. Well, to tell you the truth, there is something terrible that I’ve just learned about. Little Jenny told us last night that she is going to have a baby!” And having said this, he lost control of himself and began to cry.

The pastor knew Jenny well. She had been raised in his church, and he had observed her and given spiritual guidance to her for fifteen years. Now he sat with this dedicated Christian as they both puzzled over the question that loomed so large: “Why?” But more immediately another question had to be faced: “Pastor, what can we do?”

Anyone who has faced such a situation knows the feelings suffered by the unwed parents: disgrace, guilt, failure, rejection, hatred, utter bewilderment. In their general confusion upon learning of the pregnancy, approximately half of the unwed parents and their relatives will seek out a minister for help. But will the minister be prepared to offer help? Will he know what sort of guidance and support to give?

This problem is becoming more and more acute throughout the country. There is no accurate way of determining the number of young girls and older women who bear children out of wedlock each year, because of the many alternatives for dealing with the unplanned child. The unwed mother-to-be may have an illegal abortion or enter into a forced marriage. She may decide to keep the baby and bear the shame, perhaps falsifying information for the birth certificate. She may make use of the adoption black market or of the maternity home or hospital with a licensed adoption agency, or she may place the child privately with some “deserving” couple. But taking the number of known births and allowing for variables, it is estimated that some 250,000 children will be born this year to unmarried parents. Contrary to what is usually thought, the rate of illegitimate births for young girls has been less than that for older women. Clark E. Vincent, in his excellent study Unmarried Mothers, reported (p. 1) that during the twenty-year period 1938–1958, the rate of births to unmarried girls from 15 to 19 increased by 108 per cent, while the rate to those aged 25 to 29 increased by 453 per cent.

What is to become of Jenny and the thousands of others like her? The public has many and varied feelings toward unwed parents and their child. Very harsh and judgmental treatment has long been the rule, and though the trend is toward more protective and compassionate care, there is yet much to be desired. Even in the churches, one finds surprisingly much of the old punitive attitude and little of the feeling of Jesus: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” It should be realized that the punitive approach with its restrictive treatment does not produce any substantial saving in funds, nor does it generally promote reforms. It does, however, create human suffering, bitterness, further delinquency, and humiliation. The far more desirable attitude—and indeed the only Christian one—is that of rehabilitation. This approach is now practiced to some degree by many professions throughout the country. But it does not yet appear to be the feeling of most Christians. One might suggest that by their feelings toward unwed parents, other persons may sin more than the girl and boy involved.

Getting back to Jenny, what can and what should the local minister do for an unwed mother who comes to him for help? He can suggest a quiet and quick marriage—but he should resist this strong and natural temptation. Marriage may appear to be the morally correct step, and many a minister can point to an occasional success story to prove the wisdom of this. But it should be realized that the couple’s sexual and psychological experiences usually will work against the establishment of a sound marriage. The unwed parents will often admit the impossibility of attempting to base a marriage on their over-eagerness for sexual experiences. Far more than they need a husband or wife, the unwed parents need help that will provide a lasting solution to their immediate problem.

The minister can suggest that he knows a very fine couple who would like to adopt a baby without going through the usual time-consuming and sometimes costly channels. He should, however, strongly advise against this. In many states an adoption can be legally effected only through a licensed adoption agency. Still, private placements are often made because no strong objections are voiced and because this seems best for the baby. Difficulties arise when the baby is born defective or the adopting parents change their minds. Experience has proved that adoption agencies usually do a superior job. A minister, doctor, lawyer, or some other well-meaning person cannot match the ability and resources of an adoption agency. The minister should also discourage relatives who consider adopting the child. It is inconceivable that a child could be reared normally under these circumstances, to say nothing of the effect on the mother.

Many other possibilities might occur to the minister, the unwed parents, or the relatives. All should keep in mind, however, that much more is at issue than the future birth and development of an unplanned child. A spiritual and emotional crisis for all concerned is taking place. The feelings of the parents were briefly mentioned above. The young mother usually feels frantically alone and unable to face her immediate problems, much less the desperate future. One thing she needs throughout this experience is support and understanding helpfulness. The unwed father also feels confusion, tension, guilt, and conflict. If these are not alleviated, his future adjustment to life may be greatly impaired. Both need a wise spiritual counselor. Often the minister will be the only person who can bring a calm and sane approach to the situation. He must be sensitive to the feelings and needs of all concerned. But beyond this, he should be prepared to make referral to other persons and groups whose abilities and resources are needed.

The National Association on Services to Unmarried Parents believes that the unmarried mother needs personal counseling services, medical care, practical assistance with living and financial arrangements, the help of a child-care agency in working out plans for the baby, legal assistance, and pastoral counseling. The Child Welfare League of America is the professional social work organization that sets standards for services to unmarried parents. Its view differs from past attitudes toward illegitimacy, for it completely embraces the idea of saving the people involved, with concern for both parents and child.

Of all the possibilities of help for the unwed mother, the best in most cases is a carefully selected maternity home. If the minister has made a prior investigation, he will be able to refer her to a maternity home or hospital that is equipped to care for her. However, while there are some 200 such agencies throughout the country, not many of them measure up to the best standards.

The progressive and well-staffed maternity home is the agency of society best able to meet the needs of the unwed mother and her child. Because the mother’s immediate physical and emotional needs and her legal responsibilities are more acute than the father’s, the maternity home is organized primarily to deal with her, although some few homes are beginning to work also with the unwed father. The role of the maternity home has changed with a growth in the understanding of the mother, the development of greater skills on the part of the staff, and the increased availability of other community resources. In earlier days the maternity home provided the mother with some measure of environmental and spiritual security, medical care, and moralistic teachings. The basic purpose still includes these with various emphases; yet the ideal situation will seek to meet the mother’s needs as an individual without shutting her off completely from the natural flow of life. The local situation and the degree of confidentiality desired will naturally determine the social and community contacts. In any event, in a good maternity home the unwed mother who wants to make the best of a tragic event in her life can find acceptance and security; constructive relationships with other girls and staff members; planned daily activities; personal growth through self-understanding with the help of social workers, psychologists, ministers, and others; and the all-important medical care.

The experience of unwed parenthood may begin as tragedy, but it can turn out to be a therapeutic and growth-producing event. If the minister’s help is sought, the outcome, to a considerable extent, will be based on his skill and advice. It is very important for him to offer spiritual strength and counsel, to be able to find a reputable maternity home, and to be willing to give the necessary time and effort for long-term support and care. This is not an easy task, nor is it always a pleasant one; but it can be an extremely beneficial and important work in the name of the loving and forgiving God. Because about half of the unwed parents seek help through the church, it is essential that ministers know how to give them the realistic and spiritual guidance that is so greatly needed.

Ideas

Preachers and Their Making

What should go into the making of a preacher depends upon what he is to do after he is made. Unless there is clarity about his task, there will be little assurance about his training. Continual revision of pre-seminary and seminary programs and objectives suggests either that there is considerable uncertainty about the nature of ministerial work or that the task is constantly changing.

A new assessment of the ministry has just been published by Augsburg Press, The Making of Ministers, with the subtitle, “Essays on Clergy Training Today” (Keith R. Bridston and Dwight W. Culvers, eds.). Fourteen churchmen each contribute a chapter. If, as Gibson Winters of the University of Chicago Divinity School contends, a seminarian is no longer the man called by God and set apart to proclaim the given message of the Gospel but often nothing more than a seeker after such truth as can only be found in the ever-varying, historical situations of life; if the “two-world notions underlying the theological formulations of Christian orthodoxy have been collapsing for centuries” and the gathering of Christian people into congregations is really out of date—then a new kind of training is indeed demanded.

On the other hand, if the primary task of the minister in these revolutionary times is still to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then much more will go into his making than concern for contact and communication between college and seminary and between Christ and culture, important as these are.

The weakness of this symposium lies not in its preoccupation with these matters but in its theological reconstruction of the biblical faith, for such reconstruction entails the danger of turning the task of preaching a message into that of finding a message to preach. When what goes into the making of a minister is determined by a criterion like this, it is small wonder that, as the statistics of the book indicate, many ministers are quite at sea about who they really are and what they are actually supposed to do.

C. Umhau Wolf, pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Toledo, Ohio, sounds almost out of context when he declares that ministers frequently indicate a need for much more Bible study than they were given but that this need goes unheeded by seminaries in which “requirements in Bible become more and more minimal.”

Who is to blame for the confusion? Wolf replies: “Berger may blame the community and the congregation; Sittler may blame the congregation and administrative headquarters and in a way put the blame directly … on the minister’s psychological problems. Colleges blame seminaries and seminaries blame colleges.… Pastors frequently blame both the seminary and the college, while college and seminary professors look down their noses as if the average parish pastor is a useless, ineffectual, unintellectual cog.” He also says, “If we find a theological orientation and have prerequisites for professorships, we will be well on the way toward reshaping the ministry.”

The need for some kind of overhaul in the training of ministers is apparent. But unless this overhaul is based upon a clear recognition that the first task of the minister is to preach the Gospel, confusion will not be dispelled, and the hungry sheep will continue to look up and not be fed.

It is essential to the making of any minister that he be taught to preach the biblical message. There is no true minister of Christ who does not in some way share the compulsion Paul voiced when he exclaimed, “Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel.” Because the Gospel is contained in the Holy Scriptures, acceptable preaching must be in some real sense expository preaching. If the Bible is God’s Word, then that Word ought to be preached.

But much evangelical preaching today is weak and shallow. In many churches the pulpit is ineffective not because the minister is a theological liberal but because, even though he is an evangelical, he says so little. Too often he is so little devoted to the study of the Bible and so far from being immersed in its thought-world that he lives from hand to mouth in finding subjects. As each Sunday draws near, he has to scramble about for something to say. The only deliverance out of this bondage to uncertainty is that the minister learn to “open the Scriptures” so that he may use them in much the same way in which Jesus himself used them.

Exposition, moreover, must have behind it a sturdy vertebrate theology. Not every man who lives with the weekly task of delivering sermons can be, or needs to be, a professional, academic-robed theologian. Yet no deeply effective preacher can do without “a pulpit theology.” As he speaks out of a broad yet solid theological understanding of the Scriptures, his sermons will breathe a sense of authority. Theological competence, though not expressed in technical theological terms, brings depth to preaching. And the man in the pew whose minister knows where he stands theologically will grow in faith and doctrine. But when the man in the pulpit lacks a strong theology, his sermons will not build up his hearers in the faith but will rather follow one another like unrelated items on a grocery list.

Despite their evangelicalism, conservative seminaries that offer inadequate study of the Scriptures, ignore historical theology, slight the development of their own doctrinal tradition, and simply pour into the minds of their students the thought of their most recently accepted systematic theologian, are themselves contributing to arid preaching without passion. Evangelical seminaries will make fewer strong preachers if their students can graduate without reading men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley, and their modern successors. There is no substitute for first-hand encounter with the great seminal thinkers in theology.

The pulpit in our times is weak. Liberals ignore the only Gospel there is to preach; too many evangelical seminaries hand their students doctrine and theology all wrapped up in neat parcels to be believed and delivered without having first been made the subject of thoughtful and prayerful biblical study. As has just been said, theology is important. Yet not even the greatest of theologies is inspired, as are the Scriptures. Every system of doctrine devised by men stands in judgment under the Word of God, which remains the only unchanging rule of faith and practice.

To achieve a personal theology of the pulpit, the minister must learn to study the Scriptures with a mind not afraid of asking questions. For, essential though theology is, few things are more stultifying to good preaching than the practice of allowing the systematics learned in seminary to become a sacrosanct stereotype for interpreting the Bible. It must be acknowledged that conservative preaching is sometimes not a preaching of the Scriptures themselves but a preaching of seminary dogmatics.

Every minister should indeed be trained in a theological tradition. But he must master it instead of being mastered by it. Even though he is not a professional theologian, he should have a theology that he can rightfully call his own—not that he has originated it but that he has assimilated it and given it an impress from his own mind.

What is needed is a personalized theology. And for this the minister must learn to study the Scriptures with such curiosity and with such imagination that he repeatedly finds himself challenging, criticizing, and sometimes even contradicting what was taught him in seminary. The man who sees nothing in the Bible that disturbs the theology he learned from his professors and inherited from his particular tradition is not really studying the Scriptures. Nor will he be making sermons that come to life. Every preacher of the Word of God should search the Scriptures daily. Unless he does this throughout his ministry, he will fail to stand in deep commitment to his theological tradition and fail to enjoy the thrilling sense of freedom that comes from possessing a theology that, while given him by others, has become his possession through the discipline of his own thought.

Seminaries that train such ministers will not be confused and uncertain about what kind of men they are supposed to make. And such ministers will cease wondering about who they really are and what they ought to be doing and saying. But seminaries that no longer recognize that their first object is to train men to preach the Christian message will continue to be uncertain about what they are to make of the students who come to them.

The true unity of the Bible is, as Pascal said, found in “Jesus Christ, whom the two Testaments regard, the Old as its hope, the New as its model, and both as their center” (Pensée 739). On the Emmaus road the risen Lord placed in the hands of Cleopas and his companion the key to understanding the written Word when “beginning at Moses and all the proprets he expounded in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” It is for the seminary today to train preachers how to use that key in proclaiming the Gospel according to the Scriptures. Other things they will do; this they must do. Nothing can take the place of biblical preaching.

Much is being written these days that defines the task of the ministry as service to others. This literature speaks of “the total ministry of Christ” but defines ministerial service as doing almost everything except preaching. Yet no man will be more confused about himself than the minister who is busy doing things but has nothing to say.

Peril Of The Label

“Psychiatrists use dangerous words.” So says the noted psychiatrist Karl Menninger, founder of the famous Menninger Clinic, in a copyrighted article in a recent issue of the Saturday Evening Post. His counsel to fellow psychiatrists may and should be heeded by clergymen as well.

Dr. Menninger contrasts the harmless professional jargon of lawyers and archaeologists, for example, with the terms psychiatrists use, which can hurt people and cause them despair:

Words like “schizophrenia” and “manic-depressive” and “psychotic,” for example, frighten patients and worry their anxious relatives and friends. The use of these alarming terms also affects us psychiatrists. They lead us back into the pessimism and helplessness of the days when mental illness was thought to be made up of many specific “diseases,” and when each “disease” bore a formidable label and a gloomy prognosis.

Dr. Menninger is frank to say that we have all had spells of mental illness of varying intensity and duration, and what we need at such times is not a “label” but help. A label can ruin a career. One wrong word can “ruin a recovery.” It is not that he denies the existence of mental illness as such:

I agree with the American Medical Association and with the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health that mental illness is our No. 1 health problem. I do not think we help that problem by calling it a myth. But neither do I think we help it by persisting in obsolete terminology. Not only do these terms panic the patient but they discourage the doctor and permit him to justify a program of indifference and neglect.

The use of psychiatric terms, says Dr. Menninger, has reached the name-calling stage where people substitute “psychotics” and “psychopaths” for more traditional epithets such as “liars” and “skunks.” In answer to the question of what should be substituted for the technical terms, he says that often expressions that come from everyday life are more accurate, and that these do not have the same “dreadful or false implications.” For example, the expression “going to pieces” implies “those essential qualities of integration and steadiness which are the basis of our concept of the ‘vital balance.’ ”

The pessimistic effect the technical terms have on his fellow psychiatrists and others, claims Dr. Menninger, may explain why so little is done about mental illness. The situation is shocking enough: “… only about one fifth of the state hospitals for the mentally ill give patients any treatment.”

The awful fact that mental illness has become our number one health problem means that clergymen are encountering borderline cases more and more in their pastoral counseling sessions. And often the minister’s knowledge of psychiatry is borderline, too. It frequently goes little beyond knowledge of the terms Menninger warns against. The wise minister is aware of his limitations in this area, while the unwary is apt to form snap judgments and label a church member while consulting with his family. Sadly enough, such a label seems capable of traveling through a congregation with lightning-like speed. And the church, supposedly the repository of comfort and help, becomes rather a place of the whispered label and of haunting torment to the sufferer. “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire.”

The wise minister will consider the authority that is often attributed to his words because of his station. He will recall that it was Paul who counseled: “Let us speak the truth in love; so shall we fully grow up into Christ.”

Significant Announcements From Rome

Two recent announcements from Rome are of high interest. One, emanating from the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies and ratified and approved by Pope Paul VI, redefined the limits of acceptable biblical scholarship within the Roman church. The other, made by the Pope in St. Peter’s Basilica on Pentecost, established a special Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians headed by Paolo Cardinal Marella and analogous to the Secretariat for Christian Unity headed by Augustin Cardinal Bea.

That the first announcement reflects concern regarding the doctrinal implications of such scholarly methods as form criticism and demythologizing seems evident from the declaration that “there are being diffused many writings in which the truth of the sayings and the acts contained in the Gospels is being put in doubt” and also from the statement that “some promoters of this method, motivated by rationalistic prejudices, refuse to recognize the existence of a supernatural order and the intervention of a personal God in the world, coming about through revelation properly presented, let alone the possibility of miracles and prophecies.” While the commission accepted the use of modern historical methods in biblical studies, it made plain the primacy of the theology and philosophy of the church over critical scholarship, the norm being the established doctrine rather than scholarly findings. The contrast between this and the assumption of liberal Protestant scholarship that doctrine is subject to continuing revision in accord with biblical criticism is evident. On the other hand, conservative evangelical scholarship, while not repudiating reverent historical methods, has its norm in the plenarily inspired Word of God, the infallible rule of faith and practice.

The other announcement, setting up a Secretariat for Non-Christians, is a major development that may well have historic effects. According to the Pope, the secretariat will deal with other than Christian religions in “loyal and respectful dialogue.” But to interpret it as a relaxation of Rome’s missionary thrust is probably a mistake. Dialogue, such as Raymond Lull carried on with Islam in the thirteenth century, is an effective method of witness, as the history of missions so clearly shows. It is significant that the Pope said that “the catholicity of the Church is still enormously deficient” because “innumerable peoples and entire continents are still outside Christian evangelism” and that he stressed the value of the term “Catholic,” which “characterized the true Church of Christ.”

For the Jews the establishment of the secretariat raises some real questions. If, as a Vatican spokesman has said, the Pope’s announcement means that all non-Christian faiths—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and others—would come under the new secretariat, Jewish leaders may object to the implications of this classification in view of the unique relation between Judaism and Christianity that sets Judaism apart from all other non-Christian religions. Moreover, Jewish concern has already been expressed about the place under the new secretariat of the statement on Catholic-Jewish relations on which the second session of the Vatican Council last year failed to vote and which is to come before the third session as a separate declaration.

There may also be a strategic purpose behind the new secretariat in solidifying the confrontation with Communism of all who stand for religion of any kind. And for some it may be a straw in the wind that is perceptibly blowing in the direction of the great universal church some students of prophecy see on the horizon. At any rate, the establishment of the Secretariat for Non-Christians opens up vistas that Protestants will view with deep interest.

A Plea For ‘Sexual Democracy’

A professor of psychology at the University of Houston criticized people, according to an Associated Press report, who tell others what is right and wrong in the area of sex. They are “sexual fascists,” said Professor James L. McCary, and they are creating a mass of emotionally unhealthy people. Most of us, he told a group of university students, are sick. We allow others to impose on us ideas of what is sexually wrong and right, and deviating from them in practice, we feel “immoral, bad and wicked” and suffer from sexual neuroses and poor health.

He proposed that this “sexual fascism” be replaced by “sexual democracy” and went on to spell out the democratic approach to sex: “If a person is competent, well educated and adult, if he does not injure others or himself, if his behavior does not offend other people, then he should be able to make his own sexual decisions as to what is best for him.” He urged his student audience to throw off the sexual tyranny of a fascist majority.

His students assumably had little trouble classifying themselves among the “competent, well educated and adult.” And they doubtless thought secrecy the way “not to offend other people.” But if any student gave this “sexual democracy” serious thought, he found difficulty in determining what was “best for him” and yet would not “injure others.” In McCary’s sexual democracy no citizen may tell another what is sexually right. Each decides what is “best for himself.” The flaw in this code is that it provides no point of reference by which to judge what behavior is both best for oneself and non-injurious to other persons.

Sexual behavior is a highly personal matter, but it is never merely an individual matter, as the phrase “sexual relations” indicates. In sexuality another person is generally involved. Although we often hear it said of some practice, “it is not wrong in itself,” the fact is that nothing we do is really “in itself.” This is especially apparent in sexual relations.

It is absurd to call, as McCary does, an objective morality “sexual fascism.” If there is no objective moral law governing both parties, then McCary is right in asserting that it is arbitrary and fascistic for one person to tell another person what is right and what is wrong in sexual behavior. But if there is no objective law, the situation is worse than McCary realizes. For it is absurd to teach that any person who decides he is competent, well educated, and adult, and is offending and injuring no one, may behave sexually as seems “best for him.” Such a person is not bringing in the kingdom of sexual democracy. In the moral no less than the political realm, democracy without law is anarchy.

Is it fascistic and undemocratic to tell others what is moral or immoral in sexual behavior? Does not Professor McCary himself tell Houston students what is sexually right and wrong? If he were wholly consistent with his own position, he would teach students nothing about these matters. By teaching his own brand of sexual morality, he is imposing on others his ideas about what is right and wrong as truly as any Christian moralist who derives his standards from the revealed will of God has ever done.

This modern, democratic approach to sex is the road to boredom. And it is a short road. In the Christian view, sexual differentiation is a reflection of the image of God, and sexuality consequently is one of the profoundest mysteries of human personality. Precisely because sexuality is such a profound aspect of the mystery of human life, it requires transcendent guidance and governance. Which male (or female) is not a mystery to himself? What man or woman without some transcendent guidance really knows what is best for himself or what does not offend and does not injure others? When the mystery of sex is improperly invaded, the result is adulterous—impurity, a dirtying of oneself at the deepest level of his spirit—and quick boredom follows. Properly invaded, it is an endless road of profound satisfaction and ever-deepening human experience. Indeed, the mystery of sex is so profound that it is regarded in the Bible as the proper symbol of the relation between God and his people. In the Old Testament, Jehovah is the husband and Israel his wife. In the New Testament, Christ is the bridegroom and the Church his bride. And heaven’s joys are symbolized in “the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

Christian morality guards the mystery and banishes boredom.

The Baker Affair

The United States Senate has fallen on unhappy days and seems hesitant to apply corrective measures that would restore its stature and cleanse its soiled image. The staff of the Senate Rules Committee headed by Lennox P. McLendon in a report submitted to the committee has taken note of the fact that the Senate has suffered “the loss of much respect and prestige” in the Bobby Baker affair. The report charged that the former Senate majority secretary had engaged in gross improprieties in the course of building a personal fortune he recently valued in excess of $2 million. His salary was $19,600 a year. He had come to the Senate as a penniless page boy at the age of fourteen. While the report does not charge the Senate with responsibility for all Baker’s wrongdoings, it does make the point that “the Senate is responsible for putting Baker and others in places of responsibility without imposing upon them the enforceable standards of honesty and integrity the American people have every right to demand of all their public servants, high or low.”

The report calls for three fundamental reforms: (1) disclosure by senators, officers, and employees of business associations and income; (2) prohibition of association by these individuals with persons and organizations outside the Senate that are conducting business with the government; (3) requirement that all senators respond to requests from any Senate committee to testify about any knowledge they have of a subject under investigation.

Appearing at this late date, the third recommendation carries with it a certain irony. The committee majority had very obviously been unwilling to request senators to testify in the Baker case. The investigation was carried on with a languor unbecoming to the gravity of the case, and promising leads were never followed.

In contrast to Teapot Dome, the Baker case seems minor. But perhaps the former has something yet to teach us, particularly in the work of Montana’s two Democratic senators, Thomas J. Walsh and Burton K. Wheeler, who headed Senate investigative committees though Republicans controlled the Senate as well as the House. The work of the committees was effective, and terrible abuses of public trust were uncovered. But the public was apparently satisfied with the handling of the scandal, and the Coolidge administration was returned to office by a landslide.

Most senators today are arguing that civil rights is a moral issue, and we agree. But so is the integrity of the Senate. A whitewash ultimately satisfies nobody. “Murder will out,” as the saying goes. If the Senate is sitting on a volcano, the crust may be thinner than they think. But the public is entitled to know the truth of the matter. Self-criticism can be endured by a healthy organization, for self-criticism is itself a sign of health.

The Temptation Of The Specialist

“One of the most astonishing characteristics of scientists is that some of them are plain old-fashioned bigots. Their zeal has a fanatical, egocentric quality characterized by disdain and intolerance for anyone or any value not associated with a special area of intellectual activity.” The words of a preacher trying to pick a fight? No, these words are taken from an editorial that appeared in the April 24 issue of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Seeking to explain the origin of “scientific bigotry,” the editorial points to the “enormous pressures toward specialization” encountered by the science student. For the necessary concentration of effort, one of the student’s most useful psychological weapons is “to convince himself that the area of knowledge under study is indeed the most important possible. As a corollary all other intellectual pursuits can be ignored as worthless. It is necessary for virtually all scientists to adopt such rationalizations from time to time. To achieve success one must concentrate on performing a series of specific tasks with complete rigor.”

The editorial points out that one needs not only the ability to specialize but also the ability to escape the “web of his rationalizations.” The scientist lacking the latter is cut oil from other evolving knowledge. While specialization can lead to early establishment of a scientific reputation, in the end “it is often bitterly self-defeating.”

By way of footnote to this refreshingly candid editorial, we may add that one inclination of the bigot is to make pronouncements outside his field. The scientist-bigot faces awful temptations to pronounce, for example, on religious matters, and when he does so, falls readily into scientism. But this is a two-way street. Just as science is not the only vocation that tempts toward over-specialization, the scientist is not the only professional man to speak often with an air of authority outside his sphere. The theologian is vulnerable at this point if he gives the impression of speaking as a trained scientist.

Christians especially should be careful in handling facts in any field of knowledge, for they worship the One who made the gigantic claim that he is the truth. Reverence for the Saviour should lead us unerringly to reverence for truth, all the more so when we see ultimate truth bound up in the person of Jesus Christ. It was he who told his disciples that the truth would make them free, adding: “If the Son … shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” For the Christian, truth has a breadth born of the Creator himself. It is this dimension that effectually liberates from bigotry.

Theology

The Relevance of Repentance

L. Nelson Bell

If there should ever come a time that can truthfully be described as the “post-Christian” era, the reason for it will be that the Church no longer considers valid the things that are basic to Christianity. This trend already exists, so much so that the Church’s emphases are largely on peripheral matters. Like the Pharisees of old, we spend our time washing the outside of the cup while we pay little attention to the inside—sin in the human heart and God’s provision for its cleansing.

Why is “repentance” a lost word in modern theological jargon?

The first reason is that the nature of sin and its offense against a holy God are played down. Excuses for man’s behavior are given in philosophical and psychological terms that completely evade man’s responsibility to God. Our parents, our environment, our physical condition are blamed for what we do, and many who presume to right men’s ills deny or ignore the basic cause of those ills. Our Lord spoke of the religious leaders of his day as “blind leaders of the blind,” and these certainly have their counterparts today. This is harsh language, but it needs to be spoken, for we are convinced that much that goes under the name “Christianity” in our time has not the remotest relation to Christ and his redeeming work.

Repentance, the very gateway to man’s salvation, is rarely mentioned today. Man in his blindness and self-righteousness does not know that he is a sinner in God’s sight, that the effect of that sin is spiritual death, and that God was so concerned about sin that he took the one step by which sin might be cleansed—the death of his Son.

We need to stop and to realize that in the Gospel there are two imperatives: first, God had no way to redeem men other than by the sacrifice of his Son; and, second, man has no other way than to believe and accept what God has done for him.

Those who have had to deal with alcoholics or drug addicts know that first the addict must have a sense of need and of his own helplessness before the process of healing can begin.

But we, in our wordly wisdom and sophistication, have all but eliminated from our Christian vocabulary and preaching any realization of the lostness of man and of his own inability to do anything about it.

Repentance is sorrow for having done something wrong. It is an admission of sinfulness and of its offense against a God too pure to behold evil. It is the realization that against sin there abides the anger of a holy God, an anger that no longer exists where repentance and cleansing have taken place.

David, guilty of adultery and murder, cried out to God: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” He recognized that basic to all was his offense against the Holy One of Israel.

Job, convicted of his self-righteousness as he became aware of God’s holy presence, cried out: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6).

The New Testament carries the theme of repentance from the ministry of John the Baptist down to the Revelation.

John called on men to repent. Our Lord, did the same. This was the message of the disciples and of the apostles as the early Church came into being, and an emphasis in John’s vision on Patmos.

One day men came to Jesus and told him of Pilate’s killing some Galileans and mingling their blood with their sacrifices. Our Lord’s reply was: “Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2, 3). In like manner, in speaking of a local disaster that had taken the lives of eighteen people, he said: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Repentance is more than an attitude of mind; it is a reaction of the will against sin. And true repentance carries with it not only a sense of sin against God but the prayer and determination to turn, by God’s grace, away from that sin.

It is easy to be “repentant” for something we have done when we get in trouble as a consequence, but that is not true repentance. Judas “repented” and then event out and committed suicide. We have known many people truly sorry for the consequences of sin, but that is not repentance.

What God requires is contrition for our sins, for he is holy, and fellowship with him has been broken. Paul makes this plain: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Cor. 7:10).

The relevance of repentance to man’s forgiveness by God must be understood, for the two are inexorably linked together. Man repents, God forgives. Our Lord indicates this in his explanation of the gospel message to his disciples: “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name …” (Luke 24:47).

We are prone to presume on the love and mercy of God. We trust in grace and ignore his holiness. Paul says: “Or despiseth thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).

The writer has seen thousands of cases of leprosy. One type attacks the nerves so that local anesthesia results. The unfortunate victims of this often burn themselves because there is no sense of pain. Just so, one of the major problems in every generation is the lack of a sense of sin. As a result, spiritual anesthesia leads men to go on blithely in sin; and those who should warn them seem equally impervious to any conviction of offense.

Christ was unsparing in his denunciation of those who heard and did not repent, telling the people in the cities where so many of his mighty works were done that in the day of judgment it would be more tolerable for Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom.

Why has “repentance” become almost obsolete in theological vocabularies? This has not happened in a day, but as religious leaders have turned more and more from biblical concepts and terminology an entirely new philosophy has emerged. Sin is explained as something other than an offense against a holy God. Salvation is not something offered but something man already has—a universal condition.

Why repent for sins for which one is not responsible? Little wonder that the atoning blood of the Son of God shed on Calvary is “spurned” and “profaned” and the Spirit of grace is outraged!

Nowhere is the Church failing more in her God-ordained ministry than in neglecting to preach repentance for sin.

In the medical realm, a physician who denied or minimized the reality of cancer or questioned the necessity for early treatment would be called a charlatan.

Where the eternal destiny of man is at stake, shall the vital place of godly repentance be neglected in making the Gospel “relevant”?

Just that is happening.

Eutychus and His Kin: June 5, 1964

SO FAIR AND FOUL A DAY

For good collateral reading you may take your choice between a jet flight or a haircut. In case there are any female readers of this column, I suggest also a beauty parlor; there you find the happiest way to catch up on all the magazines you don’t want around your house. Nestled as I was on a jet recently, it suddenly occurred to me that the advertising in a magazine is more interesting than the articles. It also occurred to me that statistically, or odds-on, or you would surmise that, the ads ought to be more interesting than the articles, more interesting even than the stories—because the ad writers get paid more. This is a shift in values of which I think we ought to be increasingly aware.

If we can only remember that advertising writing is highly creative, that in itself is our best protection. Instead of worrying about the truth, we can accept this kind of writing for what it is: imagination, invention, and magic. We don’t have to believe it. All we have to do is enjoy, enjoy.

I don’t think our advertisers want us to know this, even though it is for our spiritual health that we do know it. The final blasphemy for which there is no forgiveness is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of truth. Such blasphemy is final and damning, because if we learn to call falsehood truth and truth falsehood, then even the word of salvation cannot penetrate, because the good news itself is a lie. How then could we believe the offer of forgiveness?

In his commentaries on the laws of England, Blackstone says, “A lie is the attempt to deceive.” In Milton’s Paradise Lost it was Satan who said, “Evil be thou my good.” We have been doing it to ourselves, and we are doing it to ourselves yet. “Don’t believe that—that’s just newspaper talk,” we say. The only trouble is that after a while we do believe it.

EUTYCHUS II

CIVIL RIGHTS

Regarding your … editorial, “Civil Rights and Christian Concern” (May 8 issue), I want to thank you for issuing another plea for Christians to express themselves on this matter. Many more such calls are needed because people who are not directly involved with issues they must face personally must nevertheless become aroused on the basis of moral principles. Until this happens we cannot look forward to adequate progress in righting existing wrongs. This is where preachers and editors in the Christian Church must assume courageous leadership.

The third point of your editorial, “the obligation to respect those whose conscience leads them to convictions different from one’s own,” is restated as “the obligation to respect the conscience of those who differ.…” These are not the same, and the difference is important. Since one’s conscience is subject to all kinds of perversions, I can hardly be called upon to respect the conscience of everyone else. Apparently Eichmann was following his conscience—at least that was his contention—but I cannot be expected to respect a conscience like that. There seem to be some consciences in our own land that are equally perverted.… On the other hand I must, as a Christian, accord to every other person at least the respect that comes from the knowledge that he is a person whom Christ died to redeem, and who is redeemable, however misguided he may be.

The fourth point disturbs me, not because of what it actually says, but because of what it nearly says and will be interpreted by many as saying. We hear on every hand a standard argument against civil rights legislation that “you cannot legislate morality”.… There is, of course, no question of passing moral legislation. We have had, and still have, a good deal of immoral legislation, some of which actually forbids moral action in the area of civil rights and race relations. It is high time we get some moral legislation in its place. The pending legislation may need modifying in some areas, but it is basically moral legislation, and its passing and enactment is a moral issue.…

Chicago, Ill.

SIGURD F. WESTBERG

• Our editorial plainly states that the civil rights issue is a moral one and agrees with reader Westberg in support of the pending legislation with modification in certain areas.—ED.

Your editorial on the civil rights issue is tops.…

RUSSELL T. HITT

Editor

Eternity Magazine

Philadelphia, Pa.

I especially appreciated your “therefore, Christian concern demands the ceaseless proclamation of the Gospel as the ground of ultimate reconciliation of the racial revolution.” This is the soundest word I have yet seen in the present racial conflict. We have no choice but to “forgive, as God through Christ forgave you” if we try to claim the title or position of Christian.

However, I cannot see this fight as a struggle to get justice for the Negroes. Churchmen are not concerned with justice, except as it is dispensed with mercy (hesed of the Old Testament, and agape of the New Testament). This is the Gospel.

Your closing switches us off the right track. Churchmen are not to be so concerned with “the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution,” but by the fact that our Creator has endowed us with these “unalienable rights”.…

BURR MORRIS

Presbyterian Church

Dimmitt, Tex.

Your editorial … was great.…

ALTON H. HARPE, JR.

Director

Baptist Student Union

Coral Gables, Fla.

I think you would be first to agree that the position you take is not … particularly novel. However, it was good to see in print a more or less frank discussion of this key issue of our time.

You say that “evangelicals, and indeed the Church as a whole, have lagged in racial relations. Especially has segregation within the churches been a stumbling block.” Yet for three columns preceding this statement you cautiously endorse corrective legislation while voicing many limitations to effective united action by evangelicals. While we need to be reminded that the Christian Gospel made relevant to the racial revolution may bring “ultimate reconciliation,” this approach, I fear, has often led to mere mouthing of an irrelevant Gospel (if it exists) and an utter lack of concrete action.

How refreshing … to read … the excellent news report of the recent assembly of the National Association of Evangelicals. Thank you for printing the courageous statement on civil rights that was adopted. The position is bold and forthright, and while not serving as a substitute for action, it is a solid foundation from which to begin to move. Why have conservative Protestants allowed their more liberal friends to steal their thunder on the very issue [to which] we believe we have a contribution to make?

To my knowledge, there were no evangelical leaders who participated publicly in the March on Washington or gave to the press at that time a statement from an evangelical point of view encouraging the civil rights movement.… We can be heartened by the attention the evangelical press is beginning to give to civil rights. Lead the way!

DONALD G. DAVIS, JR.

The General Library

University of California

Berkeley, Calif.

The editorial … is of great interest to us. Would it be possible to have enough copies … to send to our complete mailing list of 840?… We are quite anxious to place this article in all of our church homes.

FRED E. COLE

Coral Gables Congregational Church

Coral Gables, Fla.

This current issue (May 8) impressed me as being unusually interesting, varied, and informative. I refer not least to your editorial about “Civil Rights and Christian Concern”—a subject as difficult as it is vital today. Also to the article of Chaplain Ernest Gordon, whom I have known chiefly through his strong book, Through the Valley of the Kwai.

Since I have been struggling with Thielicke’s current book, The Ethics of Sex, I was impressed and helped by the current review.… I had known Thielicke as a preacher, notably in his strong and moving sermons, The Waiting Father.

Lakeland, Fla.

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

The page 47 comments, “Civil Rights Bill—Pro and Con,” in the April 24 issue were interesting.

First, it seems to me it would be wise to stress the fact, “a right always has a parallel responsibility.” “The right to do has a duty to do right as an escort.”

Then the following quote from Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) seems worth repeating: “Never, with the Bible in our hands, can we deny rights to another, which under the same circumstances, we would claim for ourselves.”

Finally, I believe, “the Golden Rule is a natural basis for a peaceful earth.”

Higginsville, Mo.

DAVE NOLTE

WINTER ON SPRING STREET

Since I am a member of the New York Presbytery I read George Williams’s article with great interest (News, Apr. 10 issue).

I appreciate the fact that Mr. Williams was genuinely attempting to be fair and to quote both sides of the issues.… However, I was quite disturbed on the reporting of the closing of the Spring Street Church.… There are a few points made in the article with which I would like to take issue.

1. It was insinuated that the church was closed in order that the presbytery might gain $400,000. You do not say that what motivated immediate action was that the Salvation Army was closing down their building and they supplied the heat for the church. It was estimated that if the church was to continue they would need $100,000 for renovation and $11,000 per year for operating cost. Those who attend (approximately 25) could raise only $5,230 per year.

2. The article gave the impression that many in the church were “fighting to stay alive.” If this is true, then why was the Sunday school closed down? The truth is that no one in the church was willing to teach the seven high school students who were in active attendance in Sunday school. Is this “fighting to stay alive”?

3. It was claimed that there was a “fair prospect that large apartment houses would be built in the area.” At the presbytery meeting Elder Bitner brought in a chart showing apartment houses already in the area. At no time was there any indication that the men and women of the congregation made an attempt to evangelize these buildings. Of what value would new apartment houses be?…

4. The remark that a presbytery official (name not mentioned) said that “the church was closed with the specific aim of scattering its congregation,” was very unfair.… I firmly believe that in this incident the presbytery has acted decently and in order.…

FRANK N. KIK

First United Presbyterian

Queens Village, N. Y.

CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS LOTTERY

What may appear to be so plausible in the much publicized lottery proposal for California may turn out to be quite clandestine, as revealed in the experiences of the New Hampshire venture into this same scheme.

State administrators there are discovering that their proposed panacea for their taxation ills has run [afoul of] the United States Postal Code. According to Section 4005, Title 39, mail destined for a scheme may be withheld from the operator of said scheme and returned to sender after having been stamped “fraudulent.” This applies to any lottery whether fraudulent or not.

[A Post Office Department pamphlet (“The Law vs. Lotteries,” P. I. 15) states:] “The explicit language of the lottery statute leaves no room to doubt that Congress intended to prohibit the use of the mails in any way to serve the interests of a lottery or those taking part in it.… It should also be noted that the postal law provides no exception for lotteries conducted by churches, fraternal groups, or any other worthy organizations; nor does it exempt games of chance which are legal under state laws. Many years ago, the postal law was amended so that it would clearly apply to any lottery, whether legal or not. Therefore, the Post Office Department must enforce the statute uniformly and without regard to laws which various states have enacted declaring certain games of chance to be permissible.”

Would not California run into this same snag—if and when it would embark on so foolish a venture?

Pasadena, Calif.

FRANK H. NELSON

ACTION IN APPALACHIA

Permit me to take this … opportunity of commending … Dr. Rolston for [his] very fine description of religion in the mountains as it appeared in your March 27 issue under the title, “Appalachia: Mountains of Poverty.” We would concur with the majority of the author’s findings as corroborated by our sixteen months of research here in Kanawha County, West Virginia, which concluded on January 31, 1964. This research, which was conducted under the name of Charleston Youth Community, Inc., was made possible by a grant from the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. The research included a section on the role of the church in the life of children and youth.

Action for Appalachian Youth is an outgrowth of these research findings and is a comprehensive demonstration program attempting to speak to some of the urgent needs of our southern Appalachian people.…

GORDON S. JAECK

Director

Action for Appalachian Youth, Inc.

Charleston, W. Va.

Theology

Once Married … Twice Wed

Edith A. Rees

Had the choice been mine, I probably would not have decided to be a minister’s wife. In the early imaginative years so important in the life of a teen-ager, I was going to marry a doctor. How differently it worked out. My best friend married the doctor, and I fell hopelessly in love with a minister. Looking back, I realize it was not so much that I choose the role as that Someone choose the role for me.

Being young I was only partially aware that my life as a minister’s wife would be different from that of most women. I would not only be married to a minister, but I would also be wed to his job. And I would not be able to escape from it, for the objectives of his high calling were too important and the job too challenging: namely, winning souls to Christ, strengthening and deepening the spiritual lives of his parishioners, and, in every way possible, enhancing the moral tone of the community.

In the first years of marriage, the minister’s wife faces many adjustments and new commitments. If her husband’s work compels him to travel, as was true in our early marriage, she must adjust to being left alone frequently. I never enjoyed saying “Good-bye,” nor did I ever really get accustomed to being alone; but I had to learn to accept this understandingly. After all, it is a part of the commitment. It has been a great encouragement and comfort to receive an occasional letter telling me that God had a special place for “those who stay by the stuff,” or to have someone clasp my hand and say, “You have a real share in your husband’s work.”

My husband’s one long pastorate began when he was invited to be a guest minister for one year in a large downtown church that had a long and illustrious history. Instead of one year, we stayed almost twenty. Because the church was well established, I missed many of the experiences—both valuable and amusing—that make such good reading when related by other ministers’ wives. They can tell of situations they faced or opportunities they had in a small, new, perhaps rural church where they were really needed to make things go.

The church we served was not only well established; it was also well run. I did not have to assume leadership, as many ministers’ wives have had to do. Was I then to be withdrawn and inactive? Not at all. Neither I nor my friends in the church wanted it this way. After all, there was the women’s organization with its many committees on which to serve, the chairmanship of a prayer and missionary circle to fill, the work of a deaconess to do.

My husband and I have always believed that the claims of the home have priority. Our home, I should explain, was nine miles from the church, so it was not the “goldfish bowl” type of parsonage. While this gave us a measure of privacy, I am sure we missed much in the way of fellowship with parishioners and were deprived of many an opportunity to entertain those who would have been a benediction to our home.

Always an early riser, my husband customarily left for the church at five o’clock in the morning. As he became busier and busier, I discovered that one way to help him was simply to be understanding about the duties that kept him away from his home and family. At least I would not add to his many pressures by putting him under strain about leaving his family alone so much. If the wife of a minister can give him the assurance that she is doing her best to carry on at home in his absence, she has done much to give him rest of mind and heart.

Our children, like those of most ministers, have been able to say a prayer from the time they learned to talk. The first was usually a lisping table grace, and it was not always easy for us to keep a straight face. When our eldest child was very small, she formed her prayers at the table with her head bowed but with her eyes wide open, peeking through the spread fingers of little hands with which she covered her face. One day, quickly viewing all she saw spread before her, she began thanking the Lord “for our potatoes and our carrots and our bread and butter.” Then she stopped suddenly and, not wishing to be impolite, said: “Oh, pardon me, Lord, we don’t have any butter.”

There are varied opinions as to how much a pastor’s wife should entertain. Carolyn Blackwood, in her book The Pastor’s Wife, quotes answers she received on a questionnaire, “How Much Entertaining Should the Pastor’s Wife Do?” Some replied: “not any”; “little if any”; “her friends, if she likes.” Others said: “A little entertaining at the manse is nice.” I believe the woman who marries a minister should realize she must work hard to excel in the art of entertaining. Usually it is easy to do well what one likes to do.

In my entertaining I never had to fear that I would be criticized for trying to outdo others in our parish. I was in a Scandinavian congregation where entertaining beautifully, yet with exquisite simplicity, was the natural thing. In fact, I was the pupil and the other women were teachers.

Moses

Bare-soled he waits,

Bowed hare-headed, stripped to the heart,

Eyes narrowing, hands to his face against the heat,

Watching.

Hissing, the dust-dry leaves and cobwebs shrivel

Baring the thin curved thorns woven with gold

And the black-elbowed branches

Wrapped in a web of flame.

(An incandescence brighter

Than burnished mountain under a burnished sky.)

Wondering, he waits

In the hot shadow of the smoking Voice.

Observes no quivering flake of ash

Blow down-draft from the holy blaze,

None glowing on the ground.

Shrinking, himself, before the scorching blast,

He sees the unshrinking thorny stems—alive,

Seared but still strong, uncharred, piercing the fire.

Enveloped now in burning, ardent Speech,

He feels the hot sparks touching his tinder soul

To turn him into flame!

LUCI SHAW

“Fools,” it is said, “rush in where angels fear to tread.” Soon after getting settled in the parish where we were to be for so long, I decided it was time to entertain the church board for dinner. I would have forty guests, twenty of them charming and experienced hostesses. That was a big order for anyone, I thought—and by the time the evening was over I realized how big. I ask: if the gravy had to be spilled all over a man’s suit, why did it have to be that of the chairman of the board of trustees?

If I were asked how I have helped my husband as a minister, my answer would probably differ from that of other ministers’ wives. Anyone familiar with my husband’s preaching would quickly agree that I could be of little or no help in his homiletical efforts. Oh, I can point out an awkward gesture, or suggest that he passed up several good stopping places in his sermon—but no more.

Yet no matter how excellent the preacher, there are always those to keep him humble. Sometimes a little child can do it. Our small daughter often noticed that her father buried his head in his hands while sitting on the platform waiting to preach. Finally her curiosity led her to ask, “Daddy, when you’re on the platform getting ready to preach, why do you always put your head in your hands?” He answered, “Why, darling, I’m asking the Lord to help me with my sermon.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then pursued, “Well, why doesn’t he do it?”

How could I best help my husband carry his heavy load? By being understanding and patient in regard to his work, for that work always had to come first.

Although twenty years as a pastor’s wife have taught me many things, now, after five years away from the pastorate, I discover that I am still facing new adjustments and still learning lessons. I am not the only one who has to make adjustments, of course. No husband can travel over 2½ million miles by air alone and sleep under his own roof only three weeks in a year without a deep concern for a wife at home.

Let’s face it, perhaps I am lonely. But am I going to feel sorry for myself? How dare I? Instead, I am going to be happy about each pastors’ conference held in another land. I am going to try to realize what it means to the missionaries to have a time of refreshment and renewal in a mountain retreat in India.

It has been my privilege to accompany my husband on some of his missionary journeys. Since our children are married, it is no longer necessary that I stay home. But when I must be alone, I shall continue to read Paul’s word in Philippians 4:11—“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

There is no other way. And I would want no other, for I am happily married to a minister and enthusiastically wed to his job.

Edith A. Rees is the wife of Dr. Paul S. Rees, who since 1958 has been vice-president at large of World Vision, Inc., and who for twenty of his thirty-eight years in the pastorate served as minister of First Covenant Church of Minneapolis. Mrs. Rees attended Asbury College.

The Minister and the Public Library

Marie D. Loizeaux

The library profession began centuries ago with scholars who recorded their own research and later collected and preserved the writings of others. Eventually groups of these writings were assembled in libraries where they were accessible to others.

But the library is modern as well as ancient. Through the years methods have been developed to make the accumulated knowledge of the centuries more available to more readers. What was once the sole possession of scholars has in our time become the heritage of every reader in the land.

A library is a center of past, present, and future; it contains the records that are mankind’s memory of the past and introduces the voice of the present, which combines with the memory of the past to supply guidance and build strength for the future.

A striking example of the way libraries can help utilize what has gone before was related in a national magazine a few years ago. Several hundred men were assigned to a research project during World War II. In some cases the studies required a period of two weeks, in others as much as six weeks. It was a costly undertaking in terms of both money and manpower. Later a management expert called in to investigate the project largely because of its high cost found to the amazement of those in charge that in 50 per cent of the studies, the same or better data could have been obtained almost at once simply by going to the library (cf. “Try Your Library First,” Rotarian, October, 1955).

No two libraries are alike; and while the realm of science, so linked with discovery, may appear to be a special illustration of the way the past can be of benefit to the present in providing a foundation for the future, the fact remains that this principle is inherent in every branch of knowledge and thus pertains to every library.

Religion has played a deep and important part in the development of many nations. In America Christianity has provided the foundation and bulwark of our way of life. It has given us the faith and the moral principles, brought here by the Pilgrims and their successors, that have made this country great. What was this faith? And what were these spiritual and moral principles that have entered so deeply into our national heritage? Surely this faith and these principles need to be recalled so that they may be applied to our day.

Who were the pioneers—of faith and thought—who endowed so rich a heritage for those who came after them? Christian literature tells us the answers. History reveals what our spiritual forebears did; biography goes deeper to tell who and what they were. Among the great source documents of the human mind and spirit, the books of Christian leaders and thinkers like Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, a Kempis, Luther, Calvin, Pascal, Bunyan, Edwards, and Wesley are basic. So with the writings of great theologians of our day. Moreover, novels by and about men and women of faith can so focus minds and hearts on the Christ whom they exalt that faith may be kindled and lives changed. Who could read Ben Hur or Quo Vadis? and not be moved? And who could fail to be stirred by sagas of the modern-day martyrs in Ecuador: Through Gates of Splendor and The Savage My Kinsman?

Christian literature is indeed a priceless and continuing inheritance, and among those most aware of its potential are ministers. But where will they get the books? If the minister is reasonably near his college or seminary, or perhaps his denominational headquarters, he will naturally tend to seek his reference materials there. If he has an extensive personal library, or is fortunate enough to have a book allowance, it may be that most of his reading needs are met, especially in view of the wide selection of inexpensive paperbacks now available. But if the minister is remote from a college, seminary, or denominational library and has not been able to build a personal library that can keep pace with his wide and expanding professional interests, he will find that his local public library can serve him well and that it is indeed eager to do so.

The Right Books For All

Public libraries are committed to being “all things to all people” and to providing “the right book for the right person at the right time.” They seek to serve as many as possible as fully as possible. They go to great lengths to meet and, indeed, to anticipate the needs and interests of varied readers—whoever they may be and whenever they may come. Nor do they wait for people to come; rather, libraries seek out this group and that—all for whom the library can bring added depth to professional or personal life.

Public libraries achieve universality of a sort through the taxation that makes them—in theory, at least—belong to all. But each public library must build its collection and its services primarily for the public that uses it, and there are many individuals and many groups that seldom call upon its resources. Although there are, of course, many exceptions, ministers appear to be among the less active users of public libraries.

What use might a minister make of his local public library? Some questions will point to the answer. Does he need homiletical material? Reference statistics? Information about social trends? The minister should be familiar not only with the great Christian classics but also with current books and magazines in his field. Wide reading in current affairs (both national and international) and acquaintance with the secular literature of the day are essential if a minister is to be in rapport with the people. If he is to interpret life in the light of the Scriptures, he must know not only the Scriptures but also life as it is lived today.

Moreover, some of the best illustrations in the minister’s sermons come not from books of illustrations but from his personal reading. His pastoral responsibilities require wide information in such areas as psychology and interpersonal relationships. The library’s music, drama, and art sections are helpful for special observances or for his understanding of modern culture. Does he need reference data or supplementary material for courses he is taking or articles he is writing? Does he have the slant he needs in working with young people or other groups in his church? What books does he recommend to his congregation? Does he inform himself on both sides of controversial issues? Does he relate news of archaeological findings to the Scriptures? On all these subjects the library has books or, if not, might get books if requested to do so.

How can the public library develop more active service to the local ministers? The first steps would be to ascertain its ministerial “public” and to make known its resources. It might begin by inviting the ministerial association to hold a meeting at the library and to see at first hand its varied scope. The librarian might explain how books are selected, how the library’s share of tax money is spent, and ways in which the library needs help in expanding its book stock and its services. He might point out possibilities for enlarging the minister’s personal insight into community and family life. (Here some information about what the community is reading would be enlightening.) He could invite reviews of appropriate books and magazines and suggestions for services that would be helpful. The library could regularly alert the association when new books and periodicals of special interest were received. It could oiler some measure of cooperation with church groups and arrange special exhibits. The opportunities are many, provided that the interest is present.

But such activity cannot be one-sided. The library has many calls upon its time and resources, and it should not be urged to provide materials unless the materials will be used. Neither is it fair to expect a library to build a religious collection out of proportion to the circle of readers that might be expected to use it.

Building For Balance

How do public libraries “build” a collection? With what is at hand as a nucleus, efforts are made—through purchase and gifts—to close up gaps and to fill in areas that are incomplete. Few librarians in public libraries know enough about the field of religion to make a balanced selection of volumes. Therefore they must rely on reviews and bibliographies, on “standard” catalogs, and on lists compiled by religious groups. Here the local ministerial association can be of invaluable assistance in suggesting works that would be useful to its members. Also welcome would be suggestions about religious periodicals and scholarly journals.

While the thought of censorship is anathema to librarians, the omission of some titles, particularly those on one side of a controversial issue, results in a certain censorship no less insidious because it is unconscious. Thus the local evangelical should make sure that the conservative point of view is included as well as the liberal one, which is more likely to be cited on current lists inasmuch as most list-making bodies appear to be liberally oriented. Selections made by these groups are important and need to be included; but they represent only part of what has been written on the subject and cannot, without their counterparts, form a proper balance. Thus, if the library has Barth and Tillich it should also offer Berkouwer and Carnell. If it adds The Interpreter’s Bible and Hastings’ Bible Dictionary it might well provide The New Bible Commentary and The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. A balanced collection is a service to the general reader as well as to the minister, for the interested layman who is unfamiliar with the niceties of theological thought can hardly be a discerning reader unless a well-rounded selection is available to him.

Few members of the community are more concerned with books and reading than are ministers. They should know their public libraries. Their librarians should know them and should be ready to place at their disposal professional experience and advice.

Marie D. Loizeaux spent many years in library work. She served as a librarian at the New Rochelle (New York) Public Library and was editor of the “Wilson Library Bulletin” from 1943 to 1959. Miss Loizeaux studied library science at Columbia University and is now editor for Loizeaux Brothers publishing house.

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