A Fortnightly report of developments in religion

The Southern Baptists had come to San Francisco. Of this there can be no doubt. As this reporter registered at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, he heard someone asking for Professor Ralph Elliott, a name currently denoting theological controversy. Emerging later into the bright sunlight of Powell Street, the first site greeting the eye was that of two former presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention clanging down Nob Hill in a cable car. J. D. Grey shouted gaily to the conductor. A frown momentarily creased Ramsey Pollard’s face. He could have been wondering about a loose cable. Or his mind may have turned to a convention battle looming ahead, undesired but seemingly as irresistible as the chilling fog of San Francisco.

Prior to this gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention (June 5–8), there had even been talk of possible schism. Southern Baptists in general were becoming increasingly aware of what even outsiders in academic circles had known for several years—that many professors in Southern Baptist seminaries no longer teach the high doctrine of biblical inspiration commonly held by ministers and laymen of the denomination. The foremost immediate trigger of controversy was a book: The Message of Genesis by Dr. Elliott, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. The book, published in 1961 by Broadman Press—the general book identification of the convention’s Sunday School Board, reportedly denies the historicity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis and has been the subject of many controversial columns in state Baptist papers. The pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church, K. Owen White, had charged the book with liberalism stemming from “the rationalistic theology of Wellhausen and his school.”

The Sunday School Board defended publication of the book, contending it to be “representative of a segment of Southern Baptist life and thought.” Midwestern Seminary’s trustees in special session late in 1961 reaffirmed their confidence in Elliott—reportedly by a 14 to 7 vote—as “a loyal servant of Southern Baptists.” The possibility was later raised that a substitute slate of trustees would be submitted to the national convention, inasmuch as its Executive Committee ruled such matters to be the responsibility of the trustees.

This is not the only seminary feeling the winds of controversy. The trustees of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina, have said certain faculty members would be “required to re-examine” their doctrine in the perspective of the seminary’s Abstract of Principles. Reportedly at issue were pronounced Bultmannian views in the New Testament department.

An Expansion Into Canada?

San Francisco symbolized the westward and northward thrust of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has stretched to Hawaii and Alaska in including all 50 states. The more than 10,000 official messengers present, as against 6,400 in 1951 in the only other meeting in San Francisco, reflected the booming growth of California’s Southern Baptists in that period from 40,000 to 165,544 members. In 1951 a now famous resolution removed all geographical barriers to U. S. expansion.

In recent years there have been pressures to enter Canada by seating messengers from churches in Western Canada. This year’s convention site, centered among expansionist-minded western Southern Baptists, seemed ideal for the climactic effort in face of denominational leadership which was generally opposed on grounds of the potential harm to relationships with Canadian Baptists. The convention voted to continue its encouragement of indigenous Baptist work in Canada. Later came a debate on amending the constitution to permit Southern Baptist entry into Canada. Proponents of the amendment pointed to the Great Commission and to the comparatively small number of Baptists in Canada—less than one per cent of the population. Opponents stressed the strength of Canadian nationalist feelings and potential harm to the Baptist World Alliance. A messenger who opposed the amendment moved it be referred to the Executive Committee for study. The motion carried by a vote of 2,696 to 2,042.

And at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, Professor Dale Moody has been under fire for his views, among others, on ecumenism and on the perseverence of the saints.

With these various agitations becoming pronounced in late winter and spring, San Francisco began to assume the dimensions of a showdown site. And it favored the conservatives, who are strongest in the Southwest and West. The tone of the gathering was indicated before the convention opened. The volume and placement of “Amens” at the Pastors’ Conference just prior to the convention indicated the conservative bent of the “messengers” (not delegates, for under autonomous Baptist polity nothing is delegated). A standing ovation followed an address by British Baptist J. Sidlow Baxter, who correlated the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis with the Lordship of Christ, and said: “We Baptists always have been champions of the duty of private judgment, but liberty to interpret the Bible never meant liberty to discredit the Bible.”

Just over an hour later, famed preacher R. G. Lee, a former three-term convention president, departed from his text long enough to throw his great prestige behind an “inerrant Bible.”

Once the convention proper got under way, the weight of responsibility for the impending trial fell upon the broad shoulders of Herschel H. Hobbs, who was re-elected by acclamation to a second one-year term as convention president. He is pastor of Oklahoma City’s First Baptist Church and radio preacher on “The Baptist Hour.” More than once he was referred to as the “man of the hour for the convention,” and he seemed to fit the designation. His fairness and folksy humor as chairman helped to ease tension. In his presidential address he sketched the development of theological liberalism and neo-orthodoxy along with their shortcomings. He also indicated opposition to extreme forms of fundamentalism. Noting that Southern Baptists were scarcely touched in the modernist-fundamentalist controversy of the twenties, he indicated that some Southern Baptist theologians have sought to “adjust Southern Baptist faith” to the neo-orthodox position. He said Southern Baptists had a right to be concerned about their educational institutions, though he went on to defend the majority of seminary professors. Hobbs indicated the need for a “delicate balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility.” In a move commonly interpreted as an attempt to avoid a hot theological clash on the floor, the convention’s Executive Committee recommended creation of a special committee to study the possibility of rewriting or adding to a statement of faith and purpose adopted by the convention in 1925. The committee would be composed of presidents of the state conventions who would present a statement a year hence to serve as “guidelines” to the various convention agencies. The recommendation was unanimously adopted.

But not all were yet satisfied. The convention later unanimously reaffirmed “their faith in the entire Bible as the authoritative, authentic, infallible Word of God.” Then after spirited debate, the following statement was overwhelmingly adopted: “That we express our abiding and unchanging objection to the dissemination of theological views in any of our seminaries which would undermine such faith in the historical accuracy and doctrinal integrity of the Bible, and that we courteously request the trustees and administrative officers of our institutions and other agencies to take such steps as shall be necessary to remedy at once those situations where such view’s now threaten our historic position.”

Dr. Clyde Francisco, professor of Old Testament interpretation at Southern Baptist Seminary, was quoted in the course of debate as fearing Elliott had opened the door of Pandora’s box. A motion to instruct the Sunday School Board to cease printing Elliott’s book was defeated.

The Southern Baptist Convention had averted a crisis, at least for the time being, had maintained its large and effective Cooperate Program for home and foreign missions (among other areas), and had made some striking affirmations for this day and age.

Graham’S Greatest?

Soon after the opening of the Greater Chicago Crusade in McCormick Place exhibition hall, it was apparent that this was a campaign worthy of a special chapter in the life story of evangelist Billy Graham. The estimated 33,500 who turned out for the initial service on Memorial Day represented the largest opening day crowd of any of his crusades. Subsequent turn-outs ran as high as 50,000. As many as 42,000 got into the hall, with the remainder being turned away.

The 19-day crusade was one of the the shortest he has ever held in a major metropolitan area. But some observers also felt that it was perhaps the most intensive. The crusade was scheduled to be climaxed with a June 17 rally at Soldier Field, which seats more than 100,000.

One of the highlights of Graham’s stay in Chicago was a Sunday morning service at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Some 5,000 were on hand, and more than 1,000 of these raised hands at the close of the service as a sign of their willingness to receive Christ.

Jungle Raid

In the jungle highlands 150 miles northeast of Saigon lies an American missionary leprosarium which fell victim to a night raid by a band of Vietnamese communist guerillas last month. The Vietcong raiders scooped up food and medical supplies, ordered the 250 leper patients to return to their villages, then fled with three American missionaries.

Those seized were:

Dr. Eleanor A. Vietti, 35, medical director of the leprosarium, of Houston, Texas.

The Rev. Archie Mitchell, 44, of Ellensburg, Washington, whose wife and four children fled to safety along with four American nurses who were stationed at the leprosarium.

Daniel Gerber, 21, of Dalton, Ohio, a Mennonite who worked as a maintenance man at the leprosarium.

Mitchell had been in the news before. He was the only survivor of a Japanese fire bomb explosion that killed six picnickers in southern Oregon during World War II. The six were apparently the only victims of direct enemy attack on the continental United States during the war. Mitchell’s first wife was one of the victims of the explosion.

The Vietnamese leprosarium had been operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Dr. Vietti and Mitchell are CMA missionaries. Gerber was a conscientious objector who was serving at the leprosarium to fulfill his obligation under the U. S. military draft law.

Graham’s schedule calls for a July 8 appearance at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle and a crusade in Fresno, California, July 15–22. In the fall he will go to South America for the second time this year for meetings in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Portions of the Chicago crusade have been recorded on film and video tape and will be presented in a series of hour-long television programs from coast to coast. More than 150 stations will carry the telecasts for five successive nights. Here is a partial list of the stations:

Of the stations listed above, most will begin the series June 25. Washington, Minneapolis, and Tampa will begin July 6.

Television stations in many other cities will begin the series July 2. Graham spokesmen said time and station particulars will be announced in local newspapers and TV guides.

Publishing Agreement

Eternity magazine announced this month that an agreement had been reached whereby it will be associated with The Sunday School Times under a common board of directors.

Dr. Russell T. Hitt will assume the role of publisher of both periodicals while retaining the post of editor of Eternity. The Rev. James W. Reapsome will continue as editor of the Times. William J. Petersen, formerly managing editor of Eternity, has been named executive editor.

Dr. C. Stacey Woods has resigned as president of the Times and will devote his full time to serving as general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

Woods will continue to serve as a contributing editor to both magazines. Dr. Philip E. Howard, Jr., former president and editor of the Times, will continue to serve as a consulting editor for that publication.

A Baptist Milestone

Freedom and liberty! These were the key words in a high hour for the American Baptist Convention, assembled in Philadelphia, May 23–27, to mark a milestone in its history: dedication of a new $8 million administrative headquarters building in nearby Valley Forge. More than the usual number of delegates and visitors, some 10,000 from churches in 42 states (total membership: more than 1,500,000), saw the meetings reach their climax on the next to the last day. In the morning they gathered at Independence Square to hear Baptists Harold Stassen and Nelson Rockefeller. Stassen, now a Philadelphia attorney, read a proclamation of freedom which was a summons to renewal of the fight for man’s right to enjoy “his God-given freedoms.” The fight was traced back to ‘76 and projected ahead to an impending atomic Armageddon which threatens freedom by threatening man’s existence. New York’s Governor Rockefeller pointed back to an American heritage of “fundamental beliefs in the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God,” and pointed ahead to the goal of its universal fulfillment.

The celebration of freedom, which for Baptists of this continent extends back to the Rhode Island of Roger Williams, then took the form of a twenty-mile “Cavalcade of Freedom” along the Schuylkill River (once used by early Baptists for immersion of converts) to Valley Forge by means of a fleet of city buses. There, within sight of the heights where Washington’s Continental Army encamped through its agonizing winter of 1777–78, the delegates were dazzled by a white concrete three-story building in circular form which has been acclaimed for its ethereal, floating quality. This was the new office center which was bringing together for the first time 800 staff workers who had previously been scattered in offices in New York and Philadelphia.

President Kennedy’s telegram of “warm greetings” was read, and Dr. Edwin H. Tuller, who had been re-elected to a three-year term as convention general secretary, described the circular structure as a symbol of unity and eternity. “Baptists were in the forefront,” he recalled, “of those who lived and died to establish a land in which freedom and liberty, under God, were to be cherished and maintained as sacred trusts from one generation to the next.”

Prior to Valley Forge celebrations, the delegates had conducted business in mammoth Convention Hall, and among their actions were these:

• Election as convention president of Dr. Benjamin P. Browne, who last year became president of Chicago’s Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

• Advocacy of “legislation providing for medical care to the aged through a financially and actuarilly sound Federal system which will enable people to set aside funds during their productive years to take care of need in unproductive years.”

• Call for restriction of “use of beverage alcohol in our national capital buildings, thus preserving our governmental center as an example of the highest influence of American tradition.”

Day before the convention assembled, its policy-making General Council had admitted to convention membership the church of which Martin Luther King is copastor with his father: Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, which also retains its membership in the National Baptist Convention in the U.S.A., Inc. Before giving one of the major convention addresses, King told the press that President Kennedy “has not lived up to his campaign promises about integration,” and that he hoped Kennedy would learn that “the high cost of prejudice is as injurious as the high cost of steel.”

The General Council also admitted into the American Baptist Convention as an affiliated body the 7,139-member Baptist Convention of Puerto Rico.

Amid the bright sunlight of celebration and ceremony, some heard a distant thunderclap in a report on theological education which was presented to delegates in digest form for study prior to expected action on it at next year’s convention in Detroit. The report, prepared by a “Committee of Seventeen,” declares that the denomination’s eight seminaries, “from the point of view of convenient access and available resources, … are not well-placed,” and indicates that relocation and merger are in order. Some seminary and faculty members have detected in the report a bias against the seminaries founded to serve churches which would not accept the liberal products of the older seminaries. The warning was voiced that immediate action along the report’s recommended lines could prove dangerous and divisive.

On the last day, the convention sermon found itself dressed in the vivid prose of Dr. Lee V. Shane, pastor of National Baptist Memorial Church, Washington, D. C., who issued a call for the freedom found in “unreserved commitment to Jesus Christ.” His hope and plea: “that here an entire denomination girded itself with new ardor and became orchestrated with the power of the Holy Spirit.”

F. F.

The Good Word For 1962 (Jargon-Wise)

Editor A. C. Forrest expresses his impatience with ecclesiastical jargon in the current issue of the United Church (of Canada) Observer. He confesses a bewilderment at the “goo of mid-twentieth-century ecclesiastical jargon.”

Forrest wrote the criticism upon returning to his Toronto office after a session with public relations and communications experts in the United States. He learned, he said, that the church’s prime concern now is for “person-centered communication.”

“We found it a fuddy-duddy language coined by enthusiastic religionists and adopted thoughtlessly by eager, sincere persons,” the editor declared. “They are tempted to substitute slogans for thoughts and change the slogans every time their listeners suspect their confusion, or their employers grow weary of poor results.”

After “fellowshipping with the togetherness boys,” he added, he came to understand why ministers and workers fill their wastebaskets with unread letters and pamphlets “that flow unedited from the Dictaphone-filled rooms of denominational headquarters.”

“The good word for 1962 is this,” said Forrest:

“Church HQ personnel are not going to fragment their confrontation any more: their re-coordinated effort has been dynamized to unleash the impulse that will give impetus to their impact. We have been sensitized by the feed-back from the field that there has been a fractionating of the Gospel at the ground level. So an interdenominational and interboard committee will be set up to seek representation from coast to coast, in order to structure a total curriculum in depth, designed to unfractionate the message so that all Gospel-motivated and theologically oriented persons of all sociological strata, may experience the wholeness of the Church.”

Identification Problem

A motion to change the name of the Unitarian Universalist Association to “The Liberal Church of America” was defeated by a resounding voice vote last month at the newly-merged body’s first annual convention in Washington, D. C.

The proposal was submitted by First Unitarian Church of Medfield, Massachusetts, which complained that the present name of the association “does not indicate our liberal religious approach.”

Speakers opposing the move expressed fear that the term would become mixed in people’s minds with politics.

The Rev. Charles Eddis of Quebec said that, with the Liberal Party under fire for its conservatism in Canadian politics, “the name would go over about as well in Canada as ‘the Democratic Church of the South’ would in Maine.”

A Christmas Stamp

U. S. Postmaster General J. Edward Day says a special postage stamp will be issued this year that will be “especially appropriate for Christmas cards.” The United States has never issued a stamp for Christmas mail, although many other countries do.

The Christmas-theme stamp was termed “bad news” by Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “We have long held that religious enterprise does not need government promotion, and would do better without it.”

Church-State Offices

The National Council of Churches opened a United Nations office last month “to help create a working center and symbol of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches’ concern for peace.” Said the Rev. Kenneth L. Maxwell, executive director of the NCC Department of International Affairs:

“We must seek more effectively to represent the work of the churches at the U. N. and interpret the work of the U. N. to the churches.”

Last January the NCC also set up a special Peace Corps office, which conducted this month a one-day conference for 75 denominational leaders with Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver, Jr.

Protestant Panorama

• The Presbytery of New York appointed a special nine-member judicial commission this month to try Dr. Stuart H. Merriam, ousted minister of Broadway Presbyterian Church, on charges of “untruthfulness” and “tale bearing.” The presbytery also voted to rescind its approval of the congregation’s call to the clergyman.

• Pentecostal church now under construction in São Paulo, Brazil, will be the largest in the world, according to its builders. The sanctuary will seat 25,000. A pinnacle will rise some 400 feet and will be topped by an open concrete Bible 50 feet wide and 45 feet high.

• Princeton Theological Seminary plans to establish a School for Advanced Theological Studies. President James I. McCord said the school must be provided “at an early date” if the seminary has as a “principal assignment” the duty of becoming the “intellectual center of the Church.”

• A Fundamental Baptist Congress will be held in Detroit, September 30-October 3, 1963. It is being billed as “one of the most widely representative gatherings that has ever been held among Baptists in North America.” Speakers are said to represent Regular Baptists, Conservative Baptists, the Baptist Bible Fellowship, and the Trans-Canada Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists.

• Bishop Lajos Ordass, ousted head of the Lutheran Church in Hungary, is “recuperating slowly” following a serious heart attack last April in Budapest, according to Ecumenical Press Service.

• The principal weekly journal of the Church of God is changing its name from Gospel Trumpet to Vital Christianity.

• The Peoples Church of Toronto reported a “faith-promise offering” for missions totaling $325,000 following the close of the church’s annual missionary convention last month.

• The Christian Medical Society reported last month that during the past year it had distributed some $2,300,000 in drugs and medical supplies to 440 doctors, serving under 84 mission boards in 70 countries.

Charismatic Revival

Anglican officials estimate that some 7,200 persons attended five services of a divine healing mission conducted a few weeks ago at St. Paul’s Church in Toronto.

The response supports a theory of certain religious observers that a charismatic revival is beginning to sweep across North America. A number of churches in large denominations have reported new interest in divine healing and speaking in tongues.

The mission at St. Paul’s, regarded by many as the most fashionable Anglican church in Canada, was conducted by Dr. Alfred Price, rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and warden of the International Order of St. Luke the Physician, an interdenominational organization stressing Christian healing.

More than 2,000 flocked to the altar for the laying on of hands by Price and a team of priests, including Canon R. P. Dann, rector.

Among those who came to the altar were crippled children in wheelchairs, a group of Salvation Army women, beatniks, and fashionably dressed persons.

In his sermons, Price listed several methods of avoiding illnesses, according to Religious News Service. He warned against an excess of alcohol and against social diseases and told the congregations to keep physically fit.

The Challenge Of Liberty

The verbal storm occasioned by American aid to Roman Catholic-dominated education in Colombia subsided this month. Upshot of the ruckus is that no strings are attached to the 40 million U. S. tax dollars earmarked for the Colombian school program under the Alliance for Progress.

A flurry of press reports first affirmed—then denied—that U. S. officials had secured guarantees in the aid agreement protecting educational rights of non-Catholics. As it stands now, the protection lies with assurances by the Colombian Minister of Education that guarantees of the constitution of Colombia will be in force. The constitution declares:

“The Government guarantees freedom of conscience.… No one shall be molested because of his religious opinions, nor compelled to profess beliefs or to observe practices contrary to his conscience.

“Freedom is guaranteed to all cults which are not contrary to Christian morals or to law. Acts contrary to Christian morals or subversive to the public order and which are executed in connection with or under the pretext of religious worship shall be subject to common law.

“The Government may make agreements with the Holy See, subject to the subsequent approval of Congress, for the regulation of, on the basis of reciprocal deference and mutual respect, relations between the State and the Catholic Church.”

U.S. aid officials apparently feel that discriminatory practices can be kept to a minimum through enforcement of the Colombian constitution. Roman Catholic leaders in Colombia, on the other hand, resort to the Concordat and Mission Agreement of 1953 (the work of a dictatorial regime and never ratified by the Colombian Congress).

Upon hearing an erroneous report that Colombia had agreed to write non-discriminatory religious clauses into all future Alliance for Progress loan agreements for education, the Presidential Palace in Bogotá issued a statement denying there had been such an agreement and adding that Colombia would accept no money under that condition.

The Colombian government’s stand won applause from the Catholic Worker, official organ of the Archdiocese of Medellin, which declared that “the Colombian government as the representative of a Catholic public and the guardian of the Constitution which considers the Catholic religion as the official religion of Colombia … has the obligation to venerate, to protect and to respect the Concordat with the Holy See and protect Colombian education from any efforts to free it from the church’s direction and control.”

The program for more educational facilities in Colombia provides that its government supply about half the necessary funds with the United States supplying the other half. The U. S. funds are not to be used in the so-called mission territory, where Protestant schools are prohibited. Some observers see this as a mere bookkeeping distinction, inasmuch as American aid frees Colombian funds for the mission territory, which embraces 75 per cent of the country.

Currently there are some 325 Protestant missionaries working in Colombia, most of them evangelicals. Their interests are represented by the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia, which has approved in principle the Alliance for Progress aid to Colombia schools. The confederation’s statement of assent was accompanied by appeals for anti-discriminatory guarantees in behalf of Protestants.

Most sources close to the situation acknowledge that there are serious church-state problems inherent in U. S. aid to Colombian education. Perhaps the most obvious is that it could conceivably set a precedent for domestic policy. Many observers see a strange inconsistency in the fact that U. S. tax money will help to build 22,000 classrooms for children in Colombia, whereas the U. S. Congress has thus far withheld direct federal aid to American public schools.

Another apparent paradox is that although Colombia’s educational needs are desperate, the government there has shown no signs of attempting to re-open some 200 Protestant schools which have been closed down by authorities in the last 15 years.

One explanation lies with the difficulty the central government in Colombia has in carrying through its policy to the local level. This distinction between central and local governments is emphasized by Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, whose eight-page study of U. S. aid to Colombian education is the best available.

Carlson, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, also says:

“Probably there can be no easy solution to the problems of a culture and society that have travailed for freedom as Colombia has, but the present situation does present a clear challenge to practice the constitutional protection of religious liberty with greater care.”

Guatemala For Christ

“Guatemala shall be for Christ, if united we witness for Him.”

With this as their theme song, Christians in Guatemala are joining in an “evangelism-in-depth” campaign coordinated by Latin America Mission.

Some 4,345 daily weekly or prayer groups are said to have been organized in homes since the year-long campaign began in February.

On June 10 a house-to-house visitation program and local church evangelistic campaigns got under way.

Among other summer activities are week-long campaigns in the nation’s 20 penitentiaries, hundreds of children’s Bible clubs, open-air meetings with sound trucks and moving pictures, youth rallies, and special efforts to reach professions, students, and industrial workers. Extensive use of radio and television is expected to build up until a united national evangelistic campaign is held in Guatemala City in November.

Scots Debate The Sabbath

The moderator announced a paraphrase, the precentor struck up the tune “Irish,” and some 1,800 voices unimpeded by any instrumental accompaniment made Edinburgh Assembly Hall resound with “How glorious Sion’s courts appear.” The annual general assembly of the Church of Scotland was in session. From the border town of Annan to the island county of Shetland, and from outposts of the Kirk in such places as Buenos Aires, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Bombay and Nyasaland came the 1,400 ministers and elders entitled this year to participate in what is often regarded as the Parliament of Scotland.

At the opening service earlier in the day in St. Giles’, Edinburgh, Dr. A. C. Craig, the retiring moderator, cited his Vatican visit and approvingly quoted the words, “Remember, you can’t either speak the truth or speak it in love unless you begin to speak.” This was later underlined by the Lord High Commissioner (the Queen’s representative), the Earl of Mansfield, when the assembly was formerly constituted and Dr. Nevile Davidson of Glasgow Cathedral elected moderator. To those who felt uneasy about the Rome meeting Lord Mansfield pointed out that their faith could scarcely be undermined by a mere exchange of courtesies. But it was the Queen’s letter, read to the assembly, which really went to the heart of the matter. “Surely,” it said, “the Church of Scotland has here a great treasure to offer; the vigour to serve and the faith to grasp the truth that only by drawing near to God can we draw nearer to each other.”

Later in opening day an attempt to see in the proposed moderatorial emblem (John Knox’s hat with two tassels) a hierarchical doctrine of the ministry was rejected by a large majority. The assembly agreed to send a message of congratulation to “our sister communion south of the Border” on the occasion of the consecration of the new cathedral at Coventry. Among those listening to the debates on the opening day were the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Archbishop of York, and the Archbishop of Uppsala, Primate of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, with which the Church of Scotland is in communion.

Features of the assembly included disclosure that only 45 ordinands finish their course this year (the Kirk needs 120 annually); rejection of a petition by the Duchess of Hamilton, who argued persuasively that a report on Africa was apparently deficient in its Christian doctrine of man (the report also asserted that the Central African Federation could scarcely survive in its present form); disclosure of an unhappy state of tension between the missions of the Dutch Reformed Churches and the Church of Scotland in Tiberias; and a recommendation to all courts and committees of the Kirk who hold shares in tobacco companies to dispose of their holdings and reinvest the proceeds elsewhere.

An official proposal to dissolve the Presbytery of Jerusalem was unexpectedly rejected after a former moderator of that presbytery had pointed out that here was an ecumenical opportunity. “As the moderator,” he claimed, “I was treated as if I were a beatitude.”

After a three-hour debate on baptism the assembly adopted an overture designed “to prevent ministers being a law unto themselves” and to eliminate indiscriminate administration. This will now go to presbyteries for consideration.

Public interest was especially evident in three of the assembly’s sessions: those dealing with Sabbatarianism, Rome, and nuclear weapons. The first of these proved to be most far-reaching, for it involved official sponsorship of a less rigid adherence to the traditional Scottish Sunday. The significance in this is clearly seen in terms of an unsuccessful counter-motion that the assembly “uphold the statement of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the Lord’s Day as being in agreement with the Word of God, the Teaching and Example of Our Lord, and the practice of Calvin and his colleagues.” In replying, the convener of the Church and Nation Committee, the Rev. John R. Gray, said: “The Westminster Confession is not infallible. To hold that it is, is to take the position that tradition can become infallible, and that is not the position of the Reformed Church.” Mr. Gray said the Confession was a headland, marking the way by which our church had come, but that we should not be tied to it forever. “I am sorry to find myself in disagreement on this issue with some in the Church of Scotland and outside whose integrity I respect, but I would plead with them … to ask themselves if our Lord really wants from the city youth or girl a kind of sullen idleness throughout all the hours of Sunday, and from the city child an exasperated restlessness, ‘wearying for the end of this punishment’.”

The assembly agreed that the General Administration Committee should examine the situation arising from the acceptance of the report on “The Christian Use of Sunday” and, if so advised, prepare a draft act for submission to presbyteries. It is not at all clear whether the majority of commissioners realized that what was decided may well commit the church to a most radical departure from its historic regard for the Westminster Confession as its subordinate standard of faith.

Regarding relations with the Roman Catholic Church, one or two minor storms blew up, and only some adroit replies from officials of the Inter-Church Relations Committee saw this report through without more serious opposition. Even so, the assembly agreed to two addenda. One of these instructed the committee to consider also the question of Presbyterian re-union in Scotland (which still has four smaller Presbyterian churches); the other stated in the firmest terms that informal meetings between Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic representatives were to be regarded in no way as steps toward union. Even this did not seem to offset the disquiet felt by some speakers, one of whom referred ominously to those ministers who “felt moved to leave the Church in 1843” (i.e., at the Disruption) on less provocation than was afforded by Dr. Craig’s visit to the Pope. Dr. Craig himself had earlier admitted that during his moderatorial year he had found throughout the country profound disquiet in connection with that visit.

Before a “Ban the Bomb” debate, about 100 members of the Edinburgh branch of the Council for Nuclear Disarmament stood silently with bowed heads as commissioners entered the Assembly Hall. This “greatest moral issue of our time” has recently led in Britain to mass demonstrations on a scale unknown in the United States, and to the fining or imprisonment of thousands, including aristocrats, professors and clergy. In the course of a two-hour debate a typical impassioned speech by the pacifist Dr. George MacLeod brought overwhelming applause from the house—and typical rejection of his proposals. The assembly refused to set up a separate committee on the subject, evidently considering that the two conflicting viewpoints could never be reconciled. It did urge, however, that Britain, in consultation with NATO, should abandon its nuclear deterrent, take all possible steps toward the abolishment of weapons of mass destruction, and accept nuclear inspection.

Meanwhile, the much smaller Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, meeting across the street, and the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church, meeting in Glasgow, each in its way showed itself in variance with the Establishment. Said a motion at the former: “The greatest obstacle to Christian unity and to the progress of the Gospel in the world is Romanism, because it tragically misrepresents the Christian faith both in the letter and in the spirit.” To this assembly the Church of Scotland significantly sent a delegate for the first time in a number of years. When he spoke, however, a number of elders quietly left. They returned after he had finished.

The Free Presbyterians, anticipating Church of Scotland proposals that sections of the Westminster Confession might be revised, stated their objection in typical forthright fashion. “My message to Dr. Davidson and his contemporaries is—keep your modernistic hands off the Confession of Faith,” said the Rev. R. R. Sinclair, clerk of synod. “If they want a new Confession of Faith, they should not revise the present Confession of 1643, but draw up a separate confession that will satisfy themselves.”

J. D. D.

Out Of The Ruins

On the night of November 14–15, 1940, more than a year before Pearl Harbor, Nazi bombers destroyed the cathedral at Coventry, an industrial town 92 miles inland from London. On May 25, 1962, the Queen and Princess Margaret walked through the ruins to the new cathedral for the service of consecration, the climax of 11 years’ work.

After a fanfare of trumpets the Bishop of Coventry, Dr. Cuthbert Bardsley, greeted the 2,000 worshipers, “In God’s name welcome to you all.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Arthur M. Ramsey, preached the dedicatory sermon. Within 48 hours some 50,000 people had visited the cathedral.

While much praise has been extended the new cathedral as a work of art, some adverse criticism also has been expressed. The structure has even been derided as a “pink power station” or glorified bus depot.

Architect Basil Spence has said, “I wanted to be traditional, and tradition has always been to build in a contemporary way.”

A sad note was struck a few days before the consecration in the death of Dr. Mervyn Haigh, who had been the local bishop when the former cathedral was destroyed.

Eichmann At The End

In death Adolf Eichmann proved to be an enigma.

The 56-year-old former Nazi officer, who was convicted of playing “a central and decisive part” in the killing of six million Jews, was the first man to be hanged in the 14-year-old state of Israel.

To a small group who witnessed the execution at Ramleh Prison near Tel Aviv, he said, “Long live Germany, long live, Argentina, long live Austria.… I had to obey the laws of war and my flag.”

For a number of weeks before his death, Eichmann had been counseled by the Rev. William Hull of Winnepeg, pastor of an evangelical congregation in Jerusalem.

Just before he dropped through the gallows trapdoor, Eichmann told the witnesses in German, “After a short while, gentlemen, we shall all meet again. So is the fate of all men. I have lived believing in God and I die believing in God.” In reaffirming belief, Eichmann used a term employed by Nazis who had left the church but still professed a belief in God.

Here is an account of Eichmann’s last moments as recalled by Hull:

The last meeting was an anticlimax, for we had been with him in the morning, Thursday, May 31, from 10 to 11 a.m. and found that now he had changed from his former cooperation and we no longer entertained any hope for his salvation unless it would be at the very final moment. We did not know at the morning visit that he would be executed that night. In fact, it had not been decided definitely at that time. In the morning we left him with the usual Auf Widersehen, and a promise that we would see him tomorrow.

At 8 p.m. that night we received word in Jerusalem from the Minister of Justice that we must be in Tel Aviv within one hour in order to attend Eichmann prior to the execution. Full arrangements had previously been made as to where we were to meet with newsmen (only four were pennitted to attend) and police and then to go to the execution. They had promised me that I would have about half an hour with him. In the event we had only about 20 or 25 minutes. The following is our conversation. It was not confidential, for it was listened to as usual by four police guards. H is Hull, E is Eichmann, and SPO is a special police officer.

We enter cell, 11:15 p.m.

H: Guten abend.

E: Guten abend. You look very sad. Why are you sad?

H: We are sad, because we know that your end is at hand. We kept warning you that it was near, now it has come. But if you will repent we will not be sad. Have you changed any in your attitude since this morning? Are you sorry for what you have done? Are you ready to repent?

E: No, I have not changed my mind. I am quite settled in my mind.

H: When were you told that the end is at hand?

E: Just a short time ago, about two hours. I was very astonished that they rushed things as they did in the appeal and now. But I have peace in my heart. In fact, I am astonished that I have such peace. When I consider the peace I have I say to myself how wonderful is my belief that it should give me such peace. Death frightens most people but not me for I know that I am right in believing as I told you in our discussions that death is but the release of the soul. In our discussions I mentioned how natural birth is parallel with the soul’s release at death. There is a design in nature which shows a plan with everything in order. It can’t be anything else. (He continued to talk on his God in nature as many times before. We did not take notes for it was merely repetition.) You are so sad and concerned about death but you see that I am not. (His face lit up with a big smile).

SPO: I have to limit your time. You have another five minutes.

H to SPO: Thank you.

H: We are sad because of your spiritual condition.

Mrs. H: You are blind and you won’t let God show you. I am here in place of your wife and you are so full of pride to make a good showing at the end that you do not even consider your wife and children, your little Haasi, and what they will have to try and live down because of the life you have led. You know how much they will suffer. If you would repent and let the world see that you are sorry for what you have done and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour people would have more compassion for your family. You are a very selfish and proud man.

E: (Very excitedly) Nein, nein. I am not proud. That is one thing I am not. I am not proud.

SPO to us: Don’t get him too excited.

Mrs. H: Our time is very short so listen very carefully. This is the last we have to say, we have to leave you. Remember the thief on the cross. At the last minute he repented on the cross and asked Jesus to remember him when He would come into his Kingdom. At the last minute, maybe you will change your mind and want to get into the Kingdom too, instead of going to Hell.

H: Call on the name of Jesus.

Mrs. H: Call on the name of Jesus. All power in heaven and earth is in that name.

E: Is the Reverend going with me to the end?

Mrs. H: Yes, to the very end.

H: Do you have any special message you wish us to give your family?

E: I wrote my brother and my wife this afternoon but tell my wife that I took it calmly and that I had peace in my heart which guarantees to me that I am right.

H: Would you like us to send the German Bible that we gave you to your wife?

E: No, she has her own.

Mrs. H: But maybe she would like the one you used for the last few weeks of your life.

E: Yes, that would be nice, please send it to her.

We left then at 11:40 p.m. Mrs. Hull went down to the SPO’s office. I remained in SPO’s office in the death cell apartment while Eichmann was being prepared for the execution. He had denied Jesus Christ as Son of God; he claimed he did not need a mediator between him and God. He said that the Bible was written by men, that it was but Jewish stories and fables and that he did not believe it was the Word of God.

Eichmann strongly maintained he was ready to die with peace in his heart. He persisted in his belief to the end of our discussions. He gave every appearance of being happy, even cheerful and with no sign of fear. He appeared to welcome the end. As I sat in the office the police guard came in for a cupful of brandy. Eichmann had the appearance of a drunken man yet when the SPO came to tie his wrists and put on the handcuffs he asked for one minute in which to pray. This was granted him and he stood in the corner and prayed. Then he turned to the SPO and said, “I am ready.” He was hanged shortly before midnight.

After leaving the death cell in the morning the SPO said, “I wish that I may have the same opportunity before I die that you have given this man.”

I was interested, some time ago, to read an article on the attitudes and values of American university students. The article had the intriguing title, “Sex, Sympathy, and Success.” The article, however, raises questions of more than local interest: the article raises questions which are of quite fundamental importance to Christians all over the world.

The author begins by pointing out that American students are desperately anxious to abide by the values of their social group, to do the right thing, to conform to social patterns, and to achieve success. American students, in this regard, differ little from university students in other parts of the world. The writer discovered that most students think that religion is a good thing; several students expressed the view that religion gives you poise; it facilitates the process of psychological adjustment; and it helps you to become a well-rounded personality. Not only does religion help you to achieve adjustment, it also helps you to win social acceptance. One freshman expressed the view that “religious qualities and high moral character are essential to success.” Thus the profession of religion, in the competitive economic world today, helps a man to get to the top. As though personal adjustment and social acceptance were not enough, there is also the prospect of financial reward. “The warmth derived from spiritual satisfaction,” another student says, “is a prime requisite in success. Religion and business serve one another.”

I want to examine, in a little more detail, the implied assumptions behind these comments and assertions. What we need to note, and to note carefully, are the reasons which are advanced for being religious. It is not that religion is necessarily true, the question of truth or falsity of religion is not raised; it is rather that religion pays. The question that we must ask is this: is the value of religion comparable to a course (with credits) in the psychology of Dale Carnegie? One student, for example, speaks of the importance of feeling contented, and the business value of plentiful smiling: “In one of Dale Carnegie’s books,” he says, “he gives you six ways to make people like you. One thing he stressed is a ready smile. It not only makes you feel better, it helps your appearance.” Now the question is: Is the religion of Jesus Christ in the same category as the psychology of Dale Carnegie? Is it simply a technique for self-improvement, an easy and convenient road to success?

Jesus, in the days of his ministry, rebuked the insincerity of those Jews who sought him, not because he was the truth, but because he gave them bread to eat. He knew, only too well, that their patronage and support was not disinterested: “Ye seek me,” he said, “not because ye saw signs but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled.” That was the plain and unpalatable truth: they simply followed him because their bellies were filled. And today we are all tempted to serve God out of prudential considerations of personal profit; for the benefits we hope to enjoy and the advantages we hope to gain. And what we forget is that God can not be exploited, he can only be worshiped.

Let me speak in terms of greater particularity. The followers of Moral Rearmament are urgent that Christianity should be proclaimed in Africa and Asia: it is, they reiterate, the only possible defense against Communist infiltration and advance. “We need,” said the late Frank Buchman, “an ideology that is big enough and complete enough to outmarch any of the other great ideologies. Today we see three great ideologies battling for control. There is Fascism, and Communism, and there is that other great ideology, “Christian Democracy.” But we dare not use Christianity as a weapon with which to fight our political battles: the question is not whether God is on the side of the western democracies, but whether the western democracies are on the side of God. And we ought to proclaim the Christian faith in Africa and Asia, not for its utilitarian value in providing a bastion against Communism but because it is the Gospel of God; that is, we should proclaim Christianity, not for its consequences, but for itself; not because it pays, but because it is true.

Let me bring the matter nearer home. Again and again men and women are urged to go to church for reasons which are patently selfish, and for the advantages which they hope to gain. One notorious example will suffice. One church, which charity indicates should remain anonymous, displayed the slogan: “Come to Church and cure your stomach ulcer.” What we have is the right thing urged for the wrong reason. Of course it is true that the person who goes to church is less likely to suffer from stomach ulcer than the person who consistently absents himself; of course it is true that there is a therapeutic value in the confession of sin and the experience of absolution and forgiveness; of course it is true that those who worship God are conscious of an inner serenity, a sense of peace, a feeling of tranquility. But these things are not an end in themselves, although they are often gracious by-products of the service of God. The service of God is not a tranquilizing pill, nor is the worship of God a sedative for tired and jaded spirits. And the worship of God is not an insurance policy against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as though the profession of the Christian faith exempted a man from the toils and tribulations which are an inseparable part of our common life. No! It is not for these reasons that the Christian man serves God; he serves God, not for his benefits, but for himself.

Pursuit of Material Rewards

Jesus refused to win men by the offer of material rewards. In the wilderness he refused to turn stones into bread; that is, he refused to win men by the offer of economic security. Of course it is true that man cannot live without bread, but it is also true that man cannot live by bread alone. Again, after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus was confronted by the same temptation. The crowd tried to take him by force to make him a king. Jesus immediately withdrew himself from them. He knew the selfish motives which moved them, the material considerations which swayed them. He refused to be a party to their game.

When he hung upon the cross he was urged to demonstrate the truth of his claims by exercising his divine power. “If thou be the Son of God,” they shouted, “come down from the cross,” and we will believe thee. He was tempted to use his divine power to compel belief, to win men by a spectacular display of miraculous power. He also rejected this temptation: He would win men by nothing save a cross, and he would offer to men nothing but a cross. “If any man will come after me,” he said, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” We need to ask ourselves what are our motives for the profession of Christian faith. Are our motives selfish and prudential? Worldly and utilitarian? Are we serving God for gain? Seeking him for profit? Pursuing him for rewards? Are we guilty of the monstrous presumption, the unutterable blasphemy, of treating the Sovereign Lord of the Universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, as a magic charm or lucky mascot?

The Motive of Gratitude

There is only one adequate motive for worship and that is love, and there is only one adequate reason for service and that is gratitude. “We love him,” wrote the Apostle John, “because he first loved us.” God, this is the Christian gospel, took the initiative on our behalf: “He first loved us,” and he paid the price of our salvation. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but heve everlasting life.” Jesus endured, for us men and our salvation, buffeting and spitting, scourging and torture, agonizing pain and cruel death. “Herein is love, not that we loved God,” writes John, “but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “He bore our sins,” wrote Peter, “in his own body on the tree.” God incarnate, a naked Figure upon the gallows, that is the measure of God’s love. That is why, with Isaac Watts, we sing:

Love so amazing, so divine

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

In the Nuremberg war trials a witness gave evidence concerning his experiences during the war. He had lived for some time in a Jewish cemetery in Wilna, Poland. This witness had miraculously escaped the Nazi gas chambers by hiding in the cemetery. There were also others who had made the cemetery their secret hiding place. One day, he related, in an open grave, a woman gave birth to an infant boy. The old Jewish grave digger, aged 80 years, assisted at the birth. When the newborn baby uttered his first cry, the devout old grave digger said, “Good God, hast Thou finally sent Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah himself can be born in a grave?” But after three days he saw that the baby was sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for the child.

It is, of course, a story of profound poignancy, of moving emotional power. And yet we tend to forget that the Son of God, the Messiah, was born in an animal’s feeding trough, in the stinking stench of an eastern stable, and that he died in loneliness and dereliction upon a cruel cross, having drunk to the bitter dregs the cup of human tears.

The remembrance of this fact should humble our pride. It should move us to penitence. It was our sin which nailed him to the cross; it was in our place that he bore the penalty instead. It is the recollection of this fact, this fact above everything else, that should evoke our gratitude and win our love and inspire our service.

Let me conclude by quoting the haunting words of that lovely seventeenth-century hymn in Edward Caswell’s translation from the Latin:

My God, I love Thee; not because

I hope for heaven thereby,

Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me

Upon the Cross embrace;

For me didst bear the nails, and spear,

And manifold disgrace.

And griefs and torments numberless,

And sweat of agony;

Yea, death itself; and all for me

Who was Thine enemy.

Then why, O Blessed Jesu Christ,

Should I not love Thee well?

Not for the sake of winning heaven,

Nor of escaping hell;

Not from the hope of gaining aught,

Not seeking a reward;

But as Thyself hast loved me,

O ever-loving Lord.

So would I love Thee, dearest Lord,

And in Thy praise will sing;

Solely because Thou art my God,

And my most loving King.

S. BARTON BABBACE

Principal

Ridley College

Melbourne, Australia

As in other matters pertaining to faith and practice, the evangelical looks to Scripture when he defines the boundaries of acceptable church government. At first glance, however, Scripture seems disturbingly indecisive, for no specific government is legislated for the Church. The general principles of polity are clear, but not the details. This is one reason why questions of government have caused such deep and lasting divisions in the Church.

It seems that the Spirit of God has been pleased to allow a certain flexibility in matters of form and order. In any case, we have no right to boast, for no branch of Christendom has precisely the same kind of government as that which existed in the early church.

The Necessity of Government. According to the Apostles’ Creed, the Church is a communion of the saints. This view comports with Scripture. True believers are a fellowship in Christ. This fellowship is not an external society whose rights dissolve when the corporation dissolves; it can exist without any organization at all.

But if this be true, why should the Church be yoked with ecclesiastical rule? Why not let the fellowship carry itself? The answer is, government keeps the affairs of the Church decent and orderly, that the ministry of the Word might not be hindered.

Although the Church is not an external society, it is a vital society with a normative ground of existence. Christ is the head of the Church, and Christ is confronted in and through Scripture. This is why the ministry of the Word is so essential to the fellowship. Unless Scripture is studied and preached with diligence, Christians will not know what God requires of them.

But if the ministry of the Word is to prosper, it must be delivered from the distractions of secondary duties. Hence, the Lord has been pleased to ordain auxiliary ministries in the Church—those of serving, teaching, and rule. These ministries, taken together, form the substance of church government. They give stability to the fellowship.

The Ministry of Serving. Scripture tells us that the ministry of serving was created to resolve a conflict of interests in the Church (Acts 6:1–6). The Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Charges of injustice threatened the fellowship. The apostles knew that something had to be done about the matter, and done at once. But they also knew that it would be wrong for them to leave the ministry of the Word to serve tables. Therefore, deacons were appointed to oversee the practical affairs of the church. Nothing must come between a pastor and his task of preaching the Gospel.

There is no limit to the ways in which the ministry of serving can lift burdens from the ministry of the Word. When a pastor is cumbered by much serving, he neglects his duties as a shepherd of the flock. Rather than giving himself to prayer and meditation, he types stencils for the bulletin, does janitorial work, or coaches a basketball team. Or his strength may be depleted by larger distractions such as fund raising, building church properties, or managing a complex educational system. A pastor must follow the example of the apostles: he must practice the art of delegation. Christian education directors and psychiatrists may be as necessary to the ministry of serving in the modern church as deacons were in the early church.

The Ministry of Teaching and Rule. Although the apostles entrusted the ministry of teaching and rule to elders, the appointment of elders—unlike that of deacons—did not arise out of a specific incident in the life of the fellowship. We are not told when the first elders were set apart or why. We are simply told that when relief was sent to the distressed brethren in Judea, the money was delivered to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:29, 30). It appears that the office of elder belonged to the government of the Church from the earliest times.

When Christ founded the Church, he drew on a fellowship which was already in existence. This fellowship was formed of Israelites who were accustomed to the mode of government that prevailed in the synagogue. Therefore, it was only natural that this mode would be carried into the new communion. The office of elder “continued in substance what it had been hitherto under the Jewish synagogue system in its best days, with suitable modifications and developments in accordance with the free spirit of the Gospel, and the Providential circumstances in which the Christian congregations found themselves placed. This presumption is confirmed by all the evidence, direct and indirect, bearing upon the point in the New Testament documents which belong to this period of the history” (D. D. Bannerman, The Scripture Doctrine of the Church, p. 410).

Although the apostles outranked the elders in authority, the elders were destined to become the highest permanent officers in the Church. There is no record that the office of apostle continued after the death of John; Scripture neither commands such a continuance nor does it specify the qualifications of those who should seek the office.

But the qualifications of those who seek the office of elder (or bishop) are specifically set down in Scripture (1 Tim. 3:1–7). The question was not left to chance. The Apostle Paul appointed elders in the places where he had preached, and at great personal risk. We could ask for no more forceful proof that the Gentile churches were to be governed by the same polity that prevailed in the Jewish churches.

The Purpose of Elders. The elders were entrusted with the tasks of teaching and rule. “This double function appears in Paul’s expression ‘pastors and teachers,’ where, as the form of the original seems to show, the two words describe the same office under different aspects. Though government was probably the first conception of the office, yet the work of teaching must have fallen to the presbyters from the very first and have assumed greater prominence as time went on” (J. B. Lightfoot, “The Christian Ministry,” A Dissertation in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, p. 194.) The ministry of teaching and rule had exactly the same goal as the ministry of serving: to keep the affairs of the church decent and orderly, that the ministry of the Word might not be hindered.

After the elders were appointed by the apostles, they served as a self-acting body. They could take the needed steps, with the concurrence of the congregation, to add to their number or to create any subordinate offices that might be needed for the more perfect life of the Church.

It should be observed, however, that though the elders were to teach and rule, Scripture does not spell out their specific duties. Scripture assumes, as it does in the case of the deacons, that as long as the elders are full of the Spirit and wisdom, they will not only see what is required of them but they will discharge their duties with cheerfulness and dispatch.

The Functional Element in Church Government. The church is presently divided on whether the ministry of rule requires a separate officer, such as bishop or superintendent, or whether this ministry belongs to pastors or elders who enjoy parity of rank. Two points should be noted in this connection.

First, the New Testament equates the offices of “elder” and “bishop.” Therefore, any distinction between these officers is based on expedience, not principle. “There was in apostolic times no distinction between elders (presbyters) and bishops such as we find from the second century onwards: the leaders of the Ephesian church are indiscriminately described as elders, bishops (i.e., superintendents) and shepherds (or pastors)” (F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts, [Eerdmans], p. 415). The validity of this exegesis is generally acknowledged.

Second, and more important, the ministry of rule, like other auxiliary ministries in the Church, is free to develop its office according to the needs of the times. In the actual life of the fellowship, therefore, divergent modes of government may emerge. These modes may be the result of rich cultural and social influences. Or they may simply grow out of the dictates of expediency.

There may be times when a fellowship is so small that all the prescribed ministries in the Church—that of the Word, serving, teaching, and rule—may devolve on the pastor himself. As he succeeds in training others, he can delegate the auxiliary ministries. But he must proceed slowly, for it is not wise to lay on hands hastily (1 Tim. 5:22).

When a fellowship reaches vast proportions, however, expedience may dictate that a separate office of rule be created. And it makes precious little difference what name is given to the officer in charge—whether bishop, archbishop, superintendent, or state secretary.

In some cases it may be more expedient to vest the office of rule in a group of men—a council of pastors or elders, a pastor and his deacons, etc. Neither the number of men nor their title is important. The important thing is that the office of rule is founded on biblical principles.

Church Discipline. When church members are guilty of gross immorality, they must be excluded from the fellowship until they give signs of evangelical repentance. The New Testament is clear at this point (see for example 1 Cor. 5). Gross immorality cannot be ignored, and neither can it be tried by just anybody. If the fellowship is to be kept decent and orderly, specific persons must be vested with authority to administer discipline. Spheres of lawful jurisdiction must be defined.

When church members follow false teaching, however, the New Testament is not so clear. On the one hand, Christians are commanded to continue in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. But on the other hand, they are not told precisely what doctrines are essential to fellowship, nor are they told precisely what to do with errorists. For example, certain Judaizers went about teaching the necessity of circumcision (Acts 15:1–5). The apostles denounced the error, but they did not excommunicate the Judaizers. Again, there were some in Corinth who denied the Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12). The Apostle Paul was shocked by such a denial, but he did not command the Corinthians to undertake heresy proceedings. And so it goes (see, e.g., Rom. 16:17; 2 Thess. 3:14, 15; 1 Tim. 6:3–5; 2 Tim. 2:14–19, Titus 3:9–11; and 2 John 9–11).

Since the data in the New Testament are not decisive, it is only natural that the church will be divided on how far to go when confronting errorists with the evil of their ways. Some denominations will create elaborate judicial machinery, while others will try to exclude errorists by the use of moral pressures alone. The mechanics of discipline are not important. The important thing is that the church is sincerely trying to continue in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. Complacency and indifference are the attitudes most to be feared.

Conclusion. Since church government is a servant of the fellowship, it is a means and not an end. This is an important point. We must not separate from one another because we do not agree in details of government. If we do, we forget that love, not skill in ecclesiastical rule, is the sign of a true disciple. Worldwide Christian fellowship is the ideal for the Church. Whatever hinders this ideal should be brought under the scrutiny of Scriptures.

Instead of boasting about superior polity, we ought to occupy ourselves with the weightier matters of the law-justice and mercy and faith. “Happier are they whom the Lord when he cometh, shall find doing in these things, than disputing about ‘doctors, elders, and deacons’ ” (Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Prefare VI, 5).

Devising new offices is not the whole answer to problems arising out of the complexity of the modern church. The offices in the New Testament are simple and effective. The sheer multiplying of offices may be a sign that the Church is substituting human wisdom for a life of faith and grace.

We do not need additional officers as such. What we need is prophets of God who can call existing officers back to biblical standards. As long as rulers are filled with the Spirit and wisdom, any form of government will do. And if rulers lack these virtues, even the most cleverly devised polity will be found wanting.

Too much government leads to tyranny, whereas too little government leads to anarchy. Either extreme disrupts the fellowship. Good rulers will not only steer the course between these extremes, but they will cheerfully acknowledge that their own authority is derivative and subordinate. Ecclesiastical rule has no independent rights. It exists as a handmaid to the ministry of the Word.

Bibliography: G. W. Bromiley, Christian Ministry; A. Harnack, “Organization of the Early Church,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VIII; C. Hodge, Discussions in Church Polity; T. W. Manson, The Church’s Ministry; “The Ministry in the New Testament,” The Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary Record, Vol. LVII, No. 3, July, 1952 (a Study prepared for the Commission on the Doctrine of the Ministry of the United Lutheran Church in America); V. Taylor, “The Church and the Ministry,” The Expository Times, Vol. LXII, No. 9, pp. 269–274.

Professor of Ethics

and Philosophy of Religion

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, California

Universalism is nothing new. As a church the first Universalist congregation in America was founded in Gloucester in 1779. Eleven years later the Universalists meeting in Philadelphia prepared their first declaration of faith and plan of government.

As time progressed the liberalism of the Universalist church increased until in 1942 the charter was changed to read: “To promote harmony among adherents of all religious faiths, whether Christian or otherwise.”

Finally, in May of 1960, Universalists and Unitarians merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association.

At no time have the major evangelical denominations recognized these churches as a part of the Protestant tradition, nor has either of them been admitted to membership in cooperative church groups.

Evangelical Christianity is now confronted by a different form of Universalism, all the more dangerous because it insidiously distorts the Gospel and opens the door of salvation to all, not on the basis of faith in Christ but on the basis of inherited participation in God’s redemptive love. As the “perfect pedagogue” His salvation must be effective for all men, we are told.

That the Unitarian-Universalist concept has a deadening effect on its believers is easily demonstrated. After nearly two centuries there are only a few hundred congregations with a total membership of less than 200,000. Missionary purpose and evangelistic zeal are naturally lacking—why preach to a need which does not exist?

The Universalism which the major denominations find in their midst today may not involve crass Unitarianism, nor the frank syncretism of Universalism, but this increases its danger for there is, on the surface, an apparent attempt to magnify the redemptive work of Christ which is appealingly deceptive.

Strange to say, those who espouse this new Universalism avidly try to bolster their position by a method they only too often try to deny to others, the quoting of “proof texts.” At the same time they find it necessary to reject the total revelation to be found in the Scriptures and to pass over other statements in the Bible which completely refute their position.

True, some theologians admit the possibility that some people may be lost while they reject the biblical affirmation that some men are lost.

The argument frequently heard from laymen is that, “God is too good to condemn anyone.” Apparently they do not know that man is already condemned by his sins and that God’s love is evidenced by his provision for man’s redemption through the death of his Son.

Because of its importance to and effect on individuals and the Church, we should examine this matter carefully. Among the Bible verses quoted to support this new Universalism are John 12:22; 1 Cor. 15:22; 1 Tim. 2:4; and Phil. 2:10, 11.

Let us examine these verses.

In John 12:32 we read, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Jesus was speaking to Jews and he was telling them that his crucifixion would draw “all men,” Gentiles as well as Jews. His was a universal offer of salvation and men from every tribe and nation would respond.

Again, 1 Corinthians 15:22 says: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” All men are born dead “in Adam” but by the new birth we are “in Christ” so that the death inherent in the old man and his deeds is lost in the new life we have in Christ.

Paul, in 1 Timothy 2:4 says, “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Unquestionably it is God’s will that all men should come to the knowledge of the truth. Unfortunately many reject that truth and God’s loving concern for them is defeated by their own willfulness.

In Philippians 2:10, 11 we read: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Here, as in all Scripture, we must take care not to interpret any one verse in a way which refutes Scripture as a whole. The logical interpretation would seem to be that some day every creature will acknowledge the sovereignty of God, some in his holy presence and some in the shades of eternal separation, between which there is “a great gulf fixed.”

The universalist position does violence to the total revelation of God, as found in the Scriptures, and to specific statements of our Lord and others.

In Matthew 25:46 our Lord says: “And they shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”

In John 3:36 we read: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

In Malachi 3:18 God warns against confusing the righteous and the wicked in these prophetic words: “Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

And, to make even clearer this distinction He goes on to say: “For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” (Mal. 4:1).

Paul describes the awful reckoning for unrepentant sinners in these words: “… when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:7b–9).

How can we preach the love of God without the backdrop of his righteous anger against sin? How can we proclaim the mercy of the Cross without telling of that which made the Cross necessary?

Thank God for his love! It was this love which sent his Son into the world, and it was this love which made necessary his death. But Jesus tells us that the object was to change the destiny of man: “should not perish, but have everlasting life”: a universal offer to be received by faith. To proclaim the Love of God is the good news. To accept that love through faith in God’s Son is eternal life.

The universal offer, “whosoever believeth” does not mean universal salvation, but salvation to those who accept him by faith. To cry, “Peace, Peace,” when there is no peace for the wicked is a grievous distortion of the Gospel.

The watchword of the Reformation was, “The just shall live by his faith.” God forbid that we should subvert this to a new slogan, “All men are saved, our task is merely to tell them so.”

Rna

Eutychus Associates had just finished setting up a task force on teaching machines and programmed learning when the whole thing was undercut by worms. Our research consultant who reads the newsmagazines now informs us that teaching machines have been up-staged by RNA. That’s where the worms come in.

RNA is ribonucleic acid, a chemical alleged to be in short supply among elder folks who forget where they put their glasses, but said to be abundant in educated flatworms. According to the article, injections of artificial RNA improved the memory of the oldsters. The worms enjoyed their RNA raw. Unconditioned flatworms were given a diet of other flatworms who had been trained to react to a flashing light. Eating this educated meat enabled them to learn the same trick twice as fast as worms who ate only the usual underprivileged fish bait.

If faulty memory makes you lose job opportunities, if you forget the boss’s name when you’re asking for a raise, if nobody loves you—then go out to the lab and eat worms. You may then thrill to a new skill, and cringe like a worm whenever a light is turned on.

Wait till the breakfast food people get this. We can expect brands like TOTAL RECALL and DOUBLECHECKS, perhaps even SHREDDED WORMS.

But suppose you want to be smarter than the average worm. Can digestible data be stored on tapeworms? Or must our diet include something a bit brighter? One scientist is credited with a flight of fancy. If memory is edible, he reasons, why waste all the knowledge a distinguished professor has accumulated at retirement age?

Should we assume that he is describing 1984, or joking? At any rate, absent-minded professors are safe. The Ph. D. may remain, but the RNA is exhausted.

Before you invest in RNA chemicals, stop to consider the market. For every researcher who wants to remember something, there must be ten who would rather forget something. For a happy birthday our culture chooses tranquilizers over memorizers ten to one.

Soon the magic pills of science will make us as adjustable as Alice in Wonderland: big or little, bright or dull—chemically conditioned. Yet somehow no one promises a chemical to give meaning to this flexible existence. For that a man must eat of the Bread from Heaven.

EUTYCHUS

Arrivederci, Barbarians

I imagine Charles Lowry, “Perspective on the Power Struggle” (May 11 issue), translated to Roman Christendom of the fifth century. As the barbarians over-run Europe, I hear him counsel …:

“There is an unprecedented struggle in our world between pagan barbarians and Christian Romans. The barbarians, in violation of religion and civilization, threaten to remake the world in an image of terror. We Romans are potentially much the stronger. Unfortunately, at the moment our leaders are not as pious as the commoners, religion is excluded from public life, and materialism and modernistic notions are corrupting the fabric of our common life.

“Only if we take our Christianity seriously can the tide be turned.… If we capture any barbarians we should be kind to them. If we meet any … on the street or in business, we should be civil and courteous. If we must kill them, we must do so with love.… Above all, we must match power with power. If necessary, we will fight with every weapon we have, and not only kill all of their warriors, but destroy their women and children and level their villages and camps. We should not even pause at having our own populace annihilated and our own civilization destroyed. As long as we think of our force as dedicated to God and truly controlled by love and justice, we have to use all possible force. Of course we do this as Christian citizens and not as Christian individuals.

“As Christian believers we are still idealistic—but again not so publicly that the barbarians might notice it. We are to go on praying and hoping … that we won’t have to use force or, that if we must, God and anybody left to judge will see … that we really only meant it with the very best of intentions. If the worst should befall us, we shall have destroyed barbarians and Romans in the service of law and order and to the glory of the Christian God.

“If we are intelligent, better Christians, and willing to sacrifice, these seeming contradictions may work out. In fact, the best thing might be to train Christian missionaries who will be able to show barbarian leaders that Christian Rome is really not so divided, impious, and materialistic as we know it to be. If they simply will not be convinced that way, then we are always ready to wipe out the whole lot of them just to prove our superior religion and way of life once and for all.”

NORMAN K. GOTTWALD

Professor of Old Testament

Andover Newton Theological School

Newton Centre, Mass.

Does Dr. Lowry actually dare to say that “authentic Christianity” has this glorious (!) witness—namely (p. 5), “far from declaring, in accordance with some theologians in their most recent pronouncements, that we will never initiate nuclear war in any form, that is just what under present circumstances we must be willing to do” (my italics)? Is this, Sir, the witness of Christianity? How does it differ from the sinister expediency of Khrushchev himself? How strangely it sounds on the lips of Jesus—whose followers I thought somehow we are. Even firebrand Reinhold Niebuhr is less militaristic than you on this!

BEN W. FUSON

Kansas Wesleyan University

Salina, Kan.

Dr. Lowry has only words of condemnation for communism chiefly because it does not believe in God or any hereafter. He criticizes communists because they wish to “build Heaven on earth.” That would not seem to be anything very heinous. Jesus had the same idea and “went about doing good” to accomplish just that, and spending much of his time healing people of their sicknesses. If Marx and Lenin had the deep desire to improve the condition of the mass of the people—as they did—and free them from their slavery under the rule of the capitalist, that surely should not be to their discredit, though we rightly abhor the many cruelties by which the Kremlin pursued its course in trying to seize all economic and political power and extirpate religion.…

GEORGE L. PAINE

Cambridge, Mass.

A Mailman’S Medley

I have received a goodly number of very interesting letters in connection with my recent article (“Ecumenical Merger and Missions,” Mar. 30 issue). Most of the mail was favorable and even those letters which raised questions were irenic in spirit and tone. Some arguments advanced in these letters are interesting indeed.

Several people argued that it was not fair to judge the missionary effort simply on the basis of the number of foreign missionaries and the increase or decrease of the field staff. It was in connection with this argument that one eminent Presbyterian indicated that the United Presbyterian Church is sending fewer missionaries but placing more emphasis upon financial support of national churches. It is interesting to observe that over a period of many years from 4 to 8 per cent of the total amount of money received by all of the churches in the Presbyterian Church was spent for foreign missions. Today slightly more than 3½ per cent of the total income is spent for foreign missions. This means that there has been a proportionate decline financially as well as in the number of missionaries.

Another Presbyterian suggested that in Latin America the idea “Yankee, go home” might be useful and that perhaps the national church would be served better if the missionaries in Latin America were to go home. I have no objection whatever to the redistribution of missionary forces. Some places where missionary strategy dictates that the missionaries should be removed, this could be done, but with a thousand tongues in which no portion of the Word of God has ever been translated there should be plenty of room for “displaced” missionaries to go and for hundreds of others who have not gone yet!

A key missionary expert from the United Church of Canada felt that since approximately one-half of the missionary work of the United Church was concentrated in China that it was unfair, in view of the cataclysm in China and the exodus of the missionaries, to assume that what I said was representative of the United Church. However, there were other churches who were equally committed in China, but who have not only recovered from the China debacle but have doubled, tripled and quadrupled their missionary forces. This is likewise true of some faith mission groups that are not denominationally oriented.

One of the most interesting comments came in a letter which expressed the writer’s unhappiness with the substantial rise of the faith missionaries and stated that this posed a threat to the ecumenical movement. Of this there can be no doubt. What the outcome will be, so far as the faith missionary impulse is related to the ecumenical movement, I do not know. And I suspect that no one else knows either. But that it will have a tremendous effect upon the ecumenical movement overseas admits of no doubt.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Vice-President

Fuller Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Air Power

Dr. Goppelt succeeds well in bursting Bultmann’s bubble (Apr. 27 issue). He also lets a quantity of air out of Barth’s balloon. But he doesn’t succeed too well in getting his own theological craft off the ground.…

E. ARNOLD SITZ

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tucson, Ariz.

Evaluation Of Evaluation

Walter R. Martin’s review of Herbert Bird’s Theology of Seventh-day Adventism (Mar. 2 issue) is, in my judgment, grossly unfair. Martin charges Bird with using “outdated quotations, particularly on the nature of Christ.” To be sure, Bird does use the “infamous Wilcox statement.” He mentions, however, in a footnote, that some Adventist leaders with whom he has worked “have not heard of its having been disqualified as denominational material, and have sought to defend it …” (p. 65). Bird further observes that he has not found this statement referred to in Questions on Doctrine, where one would expect the denomination officially to repudiate it. Other statements on the nature of Christ are drawn by Mr. Bird from Wm. Branson’s Drama of the Ages (written in 1950, and therefore hardly an “outdated source”) and from Questions on Doctrine, the most recent authoritative statement of SDA beliefs (1957). From the latter volume Bird even quotes a statement by Mrs. White, the inspired prophetess of the movement, to the effect that Christ “took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature” (p. 69); he clearly indicates the difficulties he has with the way the nature of Christ is described in this latest official volume of SDA teachings. It is therefore most unfair to assert that Mr. Bird, in discussing the nature of Christ, relies chiefly upon outdated quotations.

Mr. Martin’s objection to Bird’s statement that there can be regenerate people among the SDA’s as inconsistent with the charge of Galatianism overlooks the fact that even the Apostle Paul, who rebuked the Galatians for having begun to follow the errors of Galatianism, still addresses them as brethren (Gal. 1:11, 3:15, 5:13, etc.). It is one thing to attack the teachings of a group as unscriptural; it is quite another thing, however, to say that because of this fact there cannot be regenerate persons among them!

Mr. Martin accuses Bird of having ignored research work which tends to disprove his main thesis: viz., that SDA is a revival of the Galatian heresy. It is, to be sure, unfortunate that Mr. Bird makes no reference anywhere to Martin’s own recent work on the subject, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism. However, Mr. Bird bases his charges on research of his own, done with primary sources. In the chapter dealing with SDA and salvation, Mr. Bird quotes from Froom, White, Branson (all SDA authors) and Questions on Doctrine. He fully recognizes that in Questions on Doctrine SDA’s affirm that they believe in salvation by grace alone, but his contention is that their teachings on the investigative judgment (with respect to which Martin admits that Bird has done a good job) are not consistent with that claim! For the main burden of the investigative judgment doctrine is that what really determines whether a man is saved is his obedience to the law and his unfailing confession of every single sin! Furthermore, Bird finds evidence for “Galatianism” in SDA teaching on the Sabbath Day (p. 113) and in their rules about the avoidance of certain types of food (p. 125). He culls their teachings about these last-named matters largely from Questions on Doctrine and from Arthur Lickey’s God Speaks to Modern Man, written in 1952, and therefore hardly to be considered an “outdated source.” (Incidentally, both Lickey’s book and Branson’s Drama of the Ages are found among the “Representative Adventist Literature” listed in the back pages of Questions on Doctrine.)

I conclude that Mr. Martin has not given us a fair evaluation of what I consider to be a competent treatment of SDA theology.

ANTHONY A. HOEKEMA

Dept. of Systematic Theology

Calvin Theological Seminary

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Among its ministers the church numbers a group of problem preachers, those middle-aged and older men who are just biding their time until they can draw retirement checks from Pension Boards and Social Security. Meantime they contribute little to local congregations and to the overall work of the church.

Perhaps the church can learn from large secular corporations. Listen to Mr. Johnston, for example, the personnel vice-president of a corporation as he talks to Mr. Hill, consultant from an outside management firm: “Here’s my problem. We have four division managers—all from 50 to 57 years of age—who are one level below vice-presidential rank. Top management has decided these men aren’t qualified to handle vice-presidential assignments, so they won’t be promoted.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Johnston continued, “it’s significant that the men themselves seem to have reached the same decision. On the way up to their present positions they were good performers. Until recently, they were effective division managers. But now they have begun to coast. We’ll have to make other promotions around these men. In doing this we anticipate some trouble and friction. We also see problems in letting these division managers stay just to coast along eight or more years to retirement. We don’t want to discharge them, because each man has given the company some 30 years of loyal and effective service. What can we do?”

“What do you pay these men?” Hill asked.

“An average of $25,000 a year.”

“Then if they stay with you until retirement, the company actually faces a bill of at least a million dollars for what you fear will be increasingly unsatisfactory performance.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Johnston, “but you’re right. And when you nail the figure down this way, the prospect is very disturbing.”

Every corporation head has several managers or even vice-presidents who present a similar problem. Every company of medium or larger size has its share of older executives who seem to have exhausted their potential. They have stopped growing. They are just resting on their oars, and waiting for retirement.

Likewise, every bishop, synod president, or executive secretary knows ministers who have sloughed off in the work both in local congregations and in the wider outreach of the church. While their congregations may meet benevolence goals, these men no longer manifest any buoyancy in their work for the Lord.

The problem is widespread and serious at a time when shortage of pastors is a critical threat to successful church work. Yet it has not received adequate attention. Most of the interest in developing and assisting pastors has centered on recently ordained men or on those assigned to mission churches. This concentration of attention on younger men is understandable, of course, in the effort to discover particularly promising ministers early in their careers. Enthusiasm for developing capable young pastors, however, should not blind the church to the tragic waste of experience and maturity that comes from allowing older men to just drift out their remaining years.

Besides this waste of valuable talent, moreover, the church faces an even greater danger. Everyone knows that usually the most powerful and potentially most constructive influence on a congregation is its pastor. A minister who has stopped growing is not likely to inspire his people very much, either personally or through his sermons. A corrosive weakening of the spirit of the people may penetrate the congregation. No congregation is so strong that it can afford to accept stultifying influences for even a few years.

What’S The Answer?

Those church executives who have begun to recognize the problem in its full dimensions have also begun to explore ways of meeting it. From their experience, as well as from research in the dynamics of human performance, some tentative answers are emerging.

The first point to remember, of course, is that one may be wrong in concluding that a pastor has reached his top potential. After marking a rise for many years, a pastor’s curve of development may level out for various reasons. He may be bored by lack of challenge. He may be resentful over policies of church advancement. He may be disturbed over his own aging. He may not properly appreciate his great value to the congregation as a prime influence for its constructive growth.

Thus an older pastor may allow himself to barely hold his own or even to deteriorate at a time when, with proper incentives and opportunities, he could still show further and important growth. And even if he seems to have reached his peak of pastoral effectiveness, he surely need not decline from that level.

The problem is to find the causes for apparent cessation of growth, and then to find the incentives that will release unused abilities. Solving the problem is well worth the effort on the part of church executives, for it can help the present older pastors, and also prevent younger men from developing troubles later on.

Discovering and developing superior pastoral talent in young ministers is neither easy, nor necessarily always successful. Mature pastors who have reached a plateau, on the evidence of previous performance, at least show above-average creativity, ability, and initiative. Their accumulated experience should not be wasted. The time spent refreshing older pastors will yield at least as good a return as time spent in training younger but untried men.

What is known about an older person’s capacity for development? Psychologists would probably say, “Not much.” But adding the tentative thinking of psychologists with the observations of executives in industry may still provide valuable help.

Psychology Of Pastoral Achievement

In younger pastors, the desire to achieve—for Christ, for the church, and for themselves—is a powerful motivation. This desire also reveals personal needs and wants and family responsibilities. The passage of time lessens those considerations. Pastors have realized at least some of their objectives, discharged some of their family commitments, and have come to accept their limitations or lack of personal capabilities. Some limitations they ascribe to misfortune. Psychologists tell us that when achievement falls short of aspiration people are likely to adjust their goals downward.

As one 59-year-old rector put it: “When I was a young man in the church, I had it firmly fixed in my mind that I was going to be a bishop. Well, you learn as you grow older. Somewhere along the line, I began to recognize that only one man could be bishop in our diocese at a time. Many outstanding men do not get to that level. I learned some other things, too, some about the church and some about myself. I discovered that it was not only ability that got you to a bishopric, but circumstances had a great deal to do with it—for instance, the circumstance that consists in being at the right place at the right time and properly visible.

“I also discovered that you pay a high price for advancement to the top. You take on tremendous responsibilities. You work under heavy tension. You are called upon to sacrifice your cherished family life to your work. You see little of your wife and children and have little energy left for them when you do see them.

“I also learned that there are other things in life besides position—things that I value highly, such as being with the children as they grow up. I do not know exactly when it happened, but along through the years, somewhere, I lost sight of the bishopric. I made a kind of easy agreement with myself to settle for the church where I was and still am. Even though I’m now more than satisfied with this parish, I surely do not have to be ashamed of my achievement.”

This is a good statement of what the psychologist means by “downward adjustment of the level of aspiration.” And as this rector expressed it, such adjustment often results from combining a clearer view of the facts with alternative goals.

Lessening of physical vigor may also contribute directly or indirectly to a weakened drive for achievement. For one thing the aging process often dictates a slower pace of work. Or a lower energy level may make it easier for a pastor to prefer less demanding objectives. Or the same aging process may see a man, in the interests of security, replace some of his risk-seeking and risk-taking attitudes with those that show greater conformity to usual procedures. Young pastors are eager to establish a reputation; older men show concern over losing it.

Along with the downward adjustment to objectives, ministers sometimes develop a sour attitude toward the church’s treatment of the pastor. One pastor near retirement said, for example, “I’m glad that I’m at the end of my ministry, instead of the beginning, in these days of instability, lack of respect for the ministry, and change.” Indeed, while this approach was realistic, it was also somewhat cynical.

Many church executives would have to echo what one pastor expressed: “You have to get used to some pretty inequitable treatment in the church. Even outstanding accomplishment in a congregation is not rewarded and recognized as it should be. The church lets you sit where you are while the fellow with connections, influence, and the right background gets the opportunities for the outstanding call.”

These foregoing observations give us clues for remedial action. For one thing, if a man’s personal and pastoral growth is to continue, the diminishing drive for achievement must be replaced by some other positive motivation. This substitute motivation must be one that fully recognizes an individual’s changing life circumstances and the attitudes that grow therefrom. Moreover, to be fully effective, this fresh motivation must relate to actual performance and must not issue from mere policy statements and exhortation.

A business organization was planning a comprehensive internal development program for a group of managers immediately below the vice-presidential level. Some doubt was expressed about the value or wisdom of permitting older managers to participate. In confidential interviews, some of these older men had already shown skepticism about the development program and little interest in participating. After considerable delay, the decision to participate was left to each man.

Only a few older executives elected to attend the first sessions. No pressure was applied to have them change their minds. As time passed and increasing numbers of managers took part in the course and reported favorably on their experiences, attendance by the older managers began to pick up. In the end, practically every one of the older managers had chosen to attend the course, even men within two or three years of retirement age. With rare exceptions, the reaction of the older executives was positive, often enthusiastic.

One man told his boss, “This is the finest thing that the company has ever done for its managers. I didn’t want to attend the course. I arrived with a chip on my shoulder. I really volunteered to go just so that I could criticize the show. But by the time I finished the three weeks, I was ready to tell anybody in my position that if he did not attend, he was missing the greatest experience of his life in this organization. I already see a dozen ways in which I can improve my influence on the fellows that I supervise and help them to build their abilities for the future. My only regret is that this didn’t happen to me 20 years ago.”

Another man said, “I have four years to go to retirement. My mind was fixed on that target and I was simply resting on my oars. Now I see at least three major problems that I want to tackle that will result in a big improvement in the performance of my department. What I’m worried about now is that the time left to me is so short that I don’t see how I can carry out what I want to do.”

Some of the younger managers in attendance had comments like this: “One of the real smart things done by those who organize this conference was to let the old boys attend. We young fellows have learned a lot from them. And many of us have solid proof that the company recognizes that even a man who isn’t going any higher and in nearing retirement has a lot to contribute and is worth investing in.”

These examples from business management suggest that certainly part of the secret for sustaining the spirit and drive of older pastors is found in how the church treats them. If a pastor always has before him a well-defined picture of his importance to the congregation, to the church-at-large, and in the end to the Lord himself; if he is aware that the church values these contributions, he will make renewed personal efforts to maintain continuing personal development. Church groups that do more than merely talk about the problem can allay the often erroneous impression of older pastors that their congregations have lost interest in them.

Even a new board or committee assignment may reactivate a pastor who is succumbing to the sporific effects of a too familiar parish routine.

Older pastors need to realize, and be assured that they are the single most powerful influence on their congregations, that their people look to them for constructive leadership. Beyond this, pastors need specific proof that their contribution is essential for the continuing health of the local congregation and for the church-at-large. This can come, at least in part, by entrusting older pastors with an active role in the church’s teaching program. While younger pastors may make better leaders in certain phases of activity such as summer camps, here, too, pastors have much to contribute of maturity and understanding.

The upshot of our discussion is simple and direct. Too many churches are guilty of bypassing the valuable resources represented by older pastors. This waste of talent and experience is not only unnecessary, but it may be eliminated with great benefit both to the Lord’s church and to his kingdom.

Special Announcement

Universalism with its profoundly unbiblical thesis that all men are already saved is sweeping Protestantism.

To arouse active concern over this distorted “gospel” which cuts the nerve both of evangelism and of missions, CHRISTIANTY TODAY announces a stimulating venture. More than $1,000 will be awarded for relevant sermons (abridged to 2,500 words in written form) that 1. expose the fallacies of this contemporary movement and 2. faithfully expound the biblical revelation of man’s final destiny and the ground and conditions of his redemption. Selection of the winners will be by CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s editorial readers, whose decisions will be final. First, second and third place awards of $500, $250, and $125, respectively, will be paid upon publication of the sermons. The Editors reserve the right to publish two additional manuscripts selected for fourth and fifth place awards of $75 each. All rights to winning manuscripts become magazine property.

All entries in this competition must be original sermons actually preached to a congregation sometime during 1962. Two typewritten, double-spaced copies of each submitted sermon should be postmarked to the Washington office of CHRISTIANITY TODAY no later than December 31, 1962. No manuscript will be returned unless a self-addressed, stamped envelope accompanies the entry. Attached to each sermon (both copies) should be a cover page giving the contributor’s name, address, and present station of service.

A recent survey of American Protestant clergymen by CHRISTIANITY TODAY showed, in representative sampling interviews, the following results: 93 per cent of the fundamentalists, and 76 per cent of the conservatives, maintain that the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ is essential and should be preached; 26 per cent of the neoorthodox ministers consider the doctrine essential; and only 30 per cent of the liberal clergymen held that it should be preached. All in all 26 per cent of the clergymen interviewed did not think that the doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ was essential to their teaching or preaching. When a convocation of church delegates from around the world met in Evanston, Illinois, a few years ago, Life magazine reported that only 10 per cent of the American Protestant clergymen questioned found any significance in the doctrine of the Second Advent.

We once interviewed a minister who had gained some reputation as an authority on the Second Advent of Christ. He recalled that for ten years he hadn’t preached on that theme from his pulpit. He had heard too many preachers who knew more about Antichrist than they did about Jesus Christ, who knew more about “the great tribulation” than they did about regeneration. Some premillennialists caused him to lean toward postmillennialism; some post’s made him favor the pre’s! Finally he became something of a “panmillennialist”—everything would “pan out” all right when God was through in history! But, forced to face the fact of his cowardly position, during the years when he eschewed eschatology in his pulpit he engaged in a serious study of the subject, discovering that a vast body of Scripture spoke definitely of the Second Advent of the Lord.

“If the Scriptures say anything at all with clearcut, ringing force,” said the clergyman, “they say that Christ will one time return to the earth that crucified him. To efficiently complete man’s redemption he must invade history again as certainly as he invaded it once. Once the far left-wingers tried to make out that the disciples put in Jesus’ mouth those things which he himself speaks about his own return. But lately we don’t hear so much about that. To those who accept as authentic the sayings reported to Jesus in the Gospels the promise is clear—‘and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’ (Luke 21:27) and ‘For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Matt. 24:27).”

Jesus And His Disciples

The Gospel of Matthew gives a vivid account of the disciples putting a plain question to Jesus; what was to be the sign of his coming, and of the end of the world (Matt. 24:3)? Jesus might have answered this question with one of the enigmatic statements he was capable of; but he replied to it with sincerity and simplicity. Perhaps, after all, he felt that his followers were justifiably interested in such a vast subject! Why should he be unwilling to offer information on it?

So Jesus answered them. As far as we can discover he gave a more extended reply to this question than to any other the disciples asked him. The reply has many points. Many things will happen in connection with his coming. People will be misled by false teachers. There will be fraudulent christs. Wars will come, and rumors of wars. Nations shall attack nations; famines and earthquakes will take their toll. Christians will be persecuted. The hatred of nations will fall on believers. Faith will dwindle. Perfidious prophets will arise. Wickedness will spread to worldwide proportions. Some strange “abomination of desolation,” predicted by the prophet Daniel, will occur. A vast tribulation will shake the earth, worse than any before it, worse than any to come after it. There will be some sort of solar disturbance. The sign of the Son of man will appear in the heavens. A trumpet will sound. Angels will appear and gather God’s chosen ones from the four winds. Men will be as oblivious of the approaching doom as men in Noah’s day were unaware of the coming flood.

An article in Redbook magazine (August 1961) asserted that only one per cent of the ministerial students interviewed in several well-known American seminaries are convinced there will be a second coming of Christ. Although these young seminarians do not find the return of Christ a paramount theme, Jesus, when questioned about it by his followers, gave them an impressive sermon on it. To be sure it has been argued that Jesus was talking about the collapse of Israel and the fall of Jerusalem rather than the end of the world; but it is difficult for some of us to understand how this was the “end” to which he referred—seeing as how the Gospel was to be “preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations” before that “end” came (Matt. 24:21)!

Consider also Jesus’ words: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.…” Obviously such a global cataclysm could not be comprehended in the destruction of one ancient city! Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw tribulation as great, if not greater, than Jerusalem when it fell to Rome. Indeed, confronted by this mind-staggering picture which Jesus drew in response to his disciples’ query regarding his Second Coming we seem forced to decide that he was wrong about the whole thing—or else what he predicted is yet future.

Modern Man’S Unbelief

Naturally Christ’s reappearance seems an absurd idea to many in this age of automation. But is the idea more irrational to science than the doctrine of justification by faith to the mind of the philosopher? What could be more irrational than the idea of a holy God loving unholy men, and his justifying the ungodly? Is this not unreasonable in the light of human wisdom? It disturbs our system of a moral accounting; it jars our neat plan for punishing the guilty and rewarding the just. Is it not, in the hard light of “reality,” something of a theologian’s dream? Even the Bible scribes had to admit that it was “marvelous”; but it was the Lord’s doing! Even so shall the completion of our redemption, at the coming of Christ, be the Lord’s doing.

When we asked one minister what he thought of the Second Coming of Christ he said, “Such a phenomenon, making God a mighty Magician, is fit only for dreamers!” Still, God might have appeared as something of a cosmic Thaumaturgist had we been on hand to witness Creation! And the resurrection of Christ from the tomb may seem rather “magical” if we try to encompass it with test tubes and slide rules.

One man, after hearing a sermon on Christ’s second advent, cried, “Only a child could believe that God would indulge in such fantastic goings-on!” But it was Jesus who said that unless a man be converted and become as a little child he could not come to realize God’s kingdom. God’s “fantastic goings-on” have never been too easy for the dedicated earthling to accept! “Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus once prayed, “… thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25).

The doctrine of Christ’s return is not, of course, for those who put the ideas of the naturalists above the Word of God. It is only for those who are yet naive enough to believe the Scriptures, which Jesus said could not be broken. And it is interesting to observe that these same unbreakable Scriptures predict that men generally will not believe in the Lord’s return. “… there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:3–4).

Still, a considerable host of men, even in this day when the SAC-eagles roar and our rockets are tilted at the stars, with the necessary theological naïvete, agree with the staggering unsophistication of the Scriptures: “… unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time” (Heb. 9:28).

They believe, with Jesus, that the Scriptures cannot be broken, and that he will come again as certainly as he came the first time. The Scriptures were right about him once; they will be right about him once more. He came the first time in humiliation; he will come again in exaltation. Once he had not where to lay his head; the next time he will have crowns to give his own. He came once and was judged by men; he shall come again and be the judge of men.

There was a Babe in Bethlehem; a Teacher on the mount; a Saviour on a Cross; a Lord triumphant over the tomb. There shall be a King on the eternal Throne. Multitudes are looking, as multitudes have always looked, for the King’s appearance. They wait for him, unshaken by communism, unstaggered by pragmatism or existentialism, undaunted by Bultmannism. Two hundred decades of time away from the closing cry of the Church’s mighty Book, believers take it up still—“Even so, come, Lord, Jesus!”

At the Tomb

Why do you look among the dead

for him? Whom death cannot destroy

you seek in vain where mourners tread;

why do you look among the dead?

The tomb is bare, the guards are fled,

and earth has lost despair to joy.

Why do you look among the dead

for him whom death cannot destroy?

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

Matthew 11:15–19

The Preacher:

Ermanno Rostan has been since 1958 Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy. After studying at Rome and Edinburgh, he was ordained in 1933 and served as pastor in the Waldensian Valleys. From 1940 to 1943 he was the only Protestant chaplain in the Italian army. He holds a doctorate in law from Turin University, and an honorary D.D. from Moravian Theological College, Bethlehem, Pa. Dr. Rostan is the author of two evangelical books in Italian, and has edited Protestant religious journals.

The Text:

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

During his earthly life Jesus liked to watch children at play in the village squares in the peaceful Palestine countryside. He would notice children and watch them at length, not from mere curiosity, but because their behavior had a special meaning for him, about which he wanted to speak to the adults of his generation.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have preserved a vivid and realistic impression of those children’s games as well as Jesus Christ’s motive in speaking of them to his contemporaries, to make them face up to their responsibilities. Since Christ’s word is pronounced with the accents of truth and eternity, it will not be difficult for us today to recognize in it a message for all of us—both as churches and as individuals.

A Meaningful Game

The game of which the Gospel speaks is a very simple one but it involves active responsible participation in order to be played properly and meaningfully.

The children would be divided into two groups, one seated, the other standing. First a marriage would be enacted, then a funeral. The children seated in the square would play a dance tune on a flute. The game required dancing and festivity, but it would happen often enough that the children remained motionless in their places for who knows what reason, moodiness or indifference. Then there would be a change of scene, if the marriage game had not succeeded well, and they would sing dirges, as at a funeral. This time also however, the actors remained unmoved as if the matter had nothing to do with them or displeased them. In each case it was at once obvious why the children refused to respond: it was their lack of interest in the game, or lack of concern for it to go well; and so their behavior provoked their fellows’ rebuke: We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

In such terms, common as they seem, Jesus spoke to his contemporaries, pointing out to them their spiritual make-up so childishly uninvolved in the great crisis of faith and the clamant necessity for Christian action to bring about the plans to God. Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

Why this bitter, scourging, comment of Christ with all its overtones of severe condemnation?

The men and women of that day had been present at two great spectacles and had heard two tremendous messages: those of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John the Baptist—so the Gospel says—came “neither eating nor drinking”; his personality was marked by moral austerity and a vigorous prophetic preaching, whose characteristic was the coming of the wrath of God: O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:7, 8). But his contemporaries considered him on the one hand, too demanding, and on the other too lacking in sociability and humanity. His language was harsh even for the ears of the religious so that they said: “He hath a devil” and preferred not to listen.

But Jesus had also come, the Son of Man, clad in Messianic dignity, according to prophecy and, as prophecy had said, not, using his powers for himself but putting them at the disposition of the poor and the lowly: Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Jesus Christ had come “eating and drinking”; he had entered the homes of Zaccheus and Levi, though he was Emmanuel—God with us. Yet his contemporaries, mostly unconscious of that miraculous presence of the Godhead in the reality of human flesh, made light of him and, unfavorably impressed by the way Christ sat so loosely to the rigid formalism of official religion, said of him: Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans, and sinners.

Both alike, the men and the children in the streets, in Jesus’ time refused to take the stage and act in God’s plan with a sense of concern and responsibility.

The Modern Parallel

Today the game goes on, and history repeats itself. The situation is no less disturbing because our generation—at least in the West—does not withhold official respect from Jesus Christ and has no desire to rate him as a “gluttonous and a winebibber.” Yet it is perhaps more serious for our generation, for ours is a civilization that, for several reasons, calls itself Christian. Many are content to use Christianity’s external wrapping which they believe in, or say they believe in, merely to promote their private or national interests under specious excuses that drain the Gospel of its content and life. Thank God, there are men who repent like Zaccheus or go in search of the Master like Nicodemus: yet the Christian conscience is not deeply moved by the message of Christ which is ever a message of judgment and of grace. The number of churches and church organizations multiply; yet so does the number of those who sit as dull, apathetic spectators of world scene through which Christ passes every day, and where every day we can respond with the obedience of faith or with lack of concern.

When we talk like this it is easy to think of other people, of men far removed from our religious spheres. There is always the temptation to draw a hard and fast line between church and world, between sacred and profane, between “religious” people and those not so (or at least not seemingly so, even if, at times, they have hearts not as hard as our own). We speak easily of West and East, of Christianity and materialism, of belief and unbelief, as if God’s judgment was for but a part of humanity, especially the part not officially Christian. But Christ’s presence on the stage of human history is a disturbing presence for all, even for the Christian churches, amongst whom is no lack of lookers-on who cannot clearly make out the message of Christ, and do not feel the urgency of that interior response—the decision born of faith in Christ.

One hardly knows any more how to speak to such superficial Christians, perpetually turned aside by other issues. Give them a serious word and they do not want it because it lacks the note of joy. Give them a glad word, full of hope, and they reject it because they miss in it the notes of severity or solemnity. However the Gospel of Christ is presented, they always find a way of side-stepping the need of self-involvement. What they want, even they do not know: but what they do not want is quite clear. They want nothing that would compel them to stop and enter into themselves in the presence of God: nothing that would oblige them to take up the cross and follow Jesus. As long as religion keeps to the realm of a discourse of an academic or a social nature, they are willing to show interest. But let religion become that serious demanding thing it was on the lips of the Baptist and even more so in the preaching of Jesus, then they decide that is not the game they want. They change the subject, they talk of work, of affairs, of national or international situations as if Christ were not present in our generation with us, or with the problems of our day. So, today, many remain apathetic and bored in the presence of the Lord, though they are far from being indifferent towards all that concerns their material well-being and their political and ideological convictions. Should we play at weddings or not? Then someone will have to dance! Do you want to play at funerals? Then someone will have to weep! Too many Christians, alas, stand still and only play the “bagpipes.”

The Need For Commitment

Now, should you ask me where such Christians are to be found, I have to reply that one cannot easily make a map of Christendom. One thing I do know, and that is no one can be quite certain of himself or of his own Christian denomination. None is quite immune from the Satanic suggestiveness of apathy and conformism in religion. We are often impressed by the scientific achievements of our epoch and yet we do not manage to grasp the idea of Christ being here on our earth, inside our life and inside the destiny of men. All too often we exchange essentials for what is of minor importance and condemned to perish. For that reason the Gospel recalls us to personal commitment and a clear sense of responsibility.

Commitment to Christ is the negation of apathy, and of that Christian rhetoric so much more dangerous than worldly rhetoric. It is that intimate act of decision made by man before his God: the “yes” of faith in Christ; a yes to be repeated day after day in a world that is changing and where other lords seek to reign over us.

Commitment to Christ does not mean getting Christ on our side, making him keep step with us or forcing him to walk in our ways. He walks down all the ways of the world, even those where we would prefer he did not go lest he disturb our ecclesiastical or national projects. His word alone is worthy of our trust for life and for death. Only let us be willing to follow him without complaint, without a nostalgia for dead things, without fear in the face of disasters that threaten the earth. It is he who gives a new direction to our being, it is through him that we have life: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (John 17:3).

Commitment to Jesus Christ opens the path for us to responsible Christian living. The finest of theological formulae remain a dead letter unless translated into action and living witness. Jesus has come into the world as an actor with full responsibility for effectuating God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. He wants us to be his fellow workers, not mere spectators of his coming, or profiteers of his kingdom. The command “Do thou follow me” is for one and all of us, and calls for a humble response from us. The brief time of our earthly life, the Today in which he speaks to us, is the time for us to decide and to serve.

Perhaps this will entail humiliation or fatigue. Faith is indeed a battle to be constantly sustained, not a quiet and fixed possession. What is essential is to be able to discern in all the confused voices of the world the voice of him who is still calling men into his service. Can we but listen to that voice in our corporate and individual existences, I believe we shall be able to say with the apostle: For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe (1 Tim. 4:10).

Certainly we must pray every day that this become our experience.

It is senseless to divide our citizens who make up the loyal, active, dependable supporters of the nation, by using invectives and bitter criticisms, just because a few become overzealous, and sometimes say things that cannot be proved about some namby-pamby political leadership, and soft-peddling on atheistic Communism.

The newspapers, a little time ago, quoted a state leader as being vociferous in his damnation of what he calls the “rightist groups,” and said, “These are more dangerous than the Communists.” That is just nonsense.

These political “straddlers” and “moral inbetweeners,” and “religious no-man’s-landers” surely know that the Communists have no “middle ground” in their ideology. All men of all nations are, to them, either Communists or anti-Communists. We all know where the Communists stand. They are not afraid to declare themselves. They glory in it. However, they also know, if by use of smears and innuendos, they can get Americans divided by the neutralists, then the “in-betweeners” are actually aiding their Communist conspiracy. We can destroy ourselves without Communist atomic bombs. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me and he who gathers not with me scatters abroad.” That is pretty clear-cut thinking. That is the kind of thinking, loyal Americans, whether rightist or not, expect from the Capitol at Washington down to the humblest cottage.

This is exactly the day when all Americans, whether Christian or otherwise, should let each other know where they stand on the truth about our enemies, and atheistic Communists, and also on materialistic Socialism and the American free way of life. The best way to combat extremes, whether they be called rightists or leftists, is for all of us to let all other Americans, and even our enemies, know where we stand on all moral, economic, political, sociological, yes, religious loyalties.

The Americans who advocate coexistence, free fellowship, and companionship with professed enemies of Christian freedom and the true free way of life, seem always more ready to defend the so-called rights of these enemies than they do of their patriotic American brothers. We believe there can be no “in-betweenism” in matters of life and death, right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies.… We want our leaders, political, social, educational, religious, to let everyone, even our enemies, know where they stand, just as did Luther when he said, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” or like Patrick Henry, when he declared, “I know not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” There was no equivocation or secret evasion there. There must be none in our political, economic, social, religious leadership in America, against atheistic Communism—the world’s great conspiracy.

America could, and would, change for the better, the whole complexion of political and moral confusion in a few weeks, if all elected and appointed leaders in all national agencies would declare themselves as dedicated Americans, unable to be bought by any group except for the welfare of all Americans, and also, that they would demonstrate by their actions and by their votes that they will stop the waste in government, and practice sacrificial living and spending themselves, instead of just demanding the sacrifice be made by the people who elect them, and moreover, that they will practice Christian ethics at home and abroad.

Christian patriots must be known as men of the right, because they are dedicated to God’s truth, to the whole truth. They must endeavor to be truth-tellers because they are truth-lovers, and therefore, truth-livers. “Speaking the truth in love,” is the finest formula for the cultivation of goodwill and friendship in cooperative living, whether personal or national or international. No one need to be ashamed to be called a rightist, if he thinks right, speaks right, and lives right. This is the day to come out of the grey into the white, to come out of the dark into the light, to come out of the left into the right.—DR. GORDON PALMER, former president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in a radio broadcast on the Christian Patriotism Hour.

Recently a Sunday supplement in our Nation’s capital carried excerpts from a sermon entitled “Why I Know There Is A God.” The sermon had been delivered on Layman’s Sunday last year in an Arlington, Virginia, church. It was a message in simple terms of belief in God and in Christian principles. It concluded with the thought that man is placed on earth as a free agent. He is given freedom of choice and only he can make the decision as to whether he will or will not live by the guidelines which Christ followed throughout his days on earth.

The parishioner who delivered that sermon on Laymen’s Sunday was American Astronaut John Glenn. The rugged and unshakable faith expressed in the title by the author of the sermon permeated the whole.

Scarcely more than a month later, in the course of a tour of the United States, Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov reportedly was asked if his journey into space had had any effect upon his philosophy of life. According to the press, the cosmonaut said flatly, “I don’t believe in God.”

The statement was carried in an article under the heading, “Titov Puts Belief in Man Alone.”

Dividing Two Worlds

Perhaps nothing could dramatize more fully the gulf between philosophies of the noncommunist and communist world—the spiritual versus the material—than the words of these spacemen. Nor could any words point up more clearly the truth in the statement attributed to William Penn: “Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

If one is indeed to believe in “Man Alone,” what are the guidelines to be followed except power? Belief in a version of the perfectibility of man through forcible self-assertion led to the Hitlerian holocaust. What can a philosophy which denies God—which depends upon man alone—lead to except an even more terrible holocaust?

Through the ages thinking man has looked out beyond himself. Cicero expressed his thought thus:

There is something in the nature of things which the mind of man, which reason, which human power cannot effect, and certainly that which produces this must be better than man. What can this be but God?

Many years later, the man whose great faith held a tiny army in being at Valley Forge and won for us the freedom we enjoy today asserted his belief that: “It is impossible to govern the world without God.…”

The Inroads Of Atheism

Today, almost half the world is under the tyrannical rule of men who deny God. Here at home, alien forces strive to destroy the faith which forms the foundation of individual freedom. The sickness of secularism permeates large areas of our society. The Ten Commandments are ignored; the teachings of Christ dismissed. To many people, the word principle-fixed, immutable, unchanging—is simply a word and nothing else. Scores of pseudo-sophisticates today imply that it is not possible to adhere to a creed and remain intellectually free. These fervent worshipers of unbelief apparently are unable to comprehend man as a spiritual creature. They have no moral guidelines by which they may steer their own course of action. As a consequence, they are unable to supply effective guidelines for their children. Indeed, there are those who do not wish to expose their children to any training of any type which might be labeled spiritual. Such parents allegedly propose to “let them grow up and make their own choice of religion when they are sixteen or seventeen.” These so-called broadminded individuals have never planted a garden or they would know that a plant cannot grow and flourish until a seed has been germinated and the subsequent shoots are adequately watered, nourished and cultivated.

The spiritual side of the human creature similarly requires care if it is to flourish and develop. The guidelines given the child at the earliest age are vital to his future. Human beings need rules to live by, and self-rule is possible only as self-discipline is practiced. A world without moral disciplines inevitably must degenerate into a world without legal disciplines. When this happens, the word justice becomes a meaningless mockery.

The Empire Of Evil

We are witnessing this degeneration on a world scale as atheistic materialism advances like an icecap, smothering all opposition, destroying freedom, “remaking” the human creature into a soulless “communist man.” We are witnessing this degeneration on a national scale as atheistic materialism expresses itself in lawless terrorism on city streets and rural byways. We cannot ignore the increase in youth crime in the course of the past several years. The problem is not confined to any state or group of states. It is national in scope. Since 1948, police arrests of juveniles have more than doubled, while the population of our young people has increased by less than one half. In the course of this period, arrests of young people have increased six times as fast as arrests of individuals who have reached their eighteenth birthday.

It is true, of course, that these crime figures relate to only three or four per cent of our young people, yet our youth is contributing an ever-increasing portion of the total police arrests in this country. Youths represent 14 per cent of all arrests in the city and 15 per cent of all arrests in rural areas. Young people account for 61 per cent of all auto thefts, 49 per cent of all burglaries, 47 per cent of all larcenies and 26 per cent of all robberies.

Tolerance Of The Illegal

As moral disciplines decline, citizens become more and more willing to condone what may appear to be minor illegalities but which actually feed and keep alive the hydra-headed monster of organized crime. Illegal gambling may seem relatively harmless, yet it, together with prostitution, the sale of narcotics and obscene material, and a variety of rackets, supports a virtual empire of crime. Investigations have revealed that the underworld exerts its sinister influence in astonishing places. Almost every area of American life is touched in some manner by the organized empire of evil. It becomes visible in some instances in the corruption of public officials. It infiltrates labor unions. It buys its way into, or otherwise gains control of, legitimate businesses in numerous fields. Yet the overlords of crime do not look the part. To the uninitiated, many of the leading racketeers appear to lead lives above reproach. Some take part in community projects, help in charity drives, and even may play a role in religious activities. They wear no brand marked “hoodlum” and, unfortunately, scores of private citizens who think of themselves as basically honest continue to support them. This is so because a vast percentage of the money placed daily with illegal gamblers flows into the hands of the criminal overlords. This cash provides the capital by means of which vice, crime and corruption spread in ever-widening circles.

When civilizations die, they do so unobtrusively. The dry rot of spiritual decay sets in and the values which form the binding cement of national greatness become honeycombed and hollow. Cynicism, apathy and self-indulgence weaken the foundations of freedom. Failure to accept full responsibility as citizens in lower echelons of government cannot help but be destructive to self-government. Woodrow Wilson, speaking on Constitutional Government in the United States, touched the heart of the matter:

It is this spontaneity and variety, this independent and irrepressible life of its communities, that has given our system its extraordinary elasticity, which has preserved it from the paralysis which has sooner or later fallen upon every people who have looked to their central government to patronize and nurture them.

Guarding Civilization’S Future

We need to make sure that guidelines which served us so well in creating sturdy, self-respecting, self-reliant and God-fearing citizens in the past are not discarded. We need to follow those guidelines closely and make sure that youthful Americans today understand the necessity of holding to them. Faith and determination formed the solid basis of the great dream out of which grew the house of freedom we live in today. Faith in God formed the foundation of that house. Faith in man transformed the vision into reality.

I do not believe that we can begin too early to instill in America’s children a dedication to the morality and decency which derive from sound Christian training. I believe that such training is a very real antidote to the spiritual indifference which so often results in youthful crime. I repeat what I have said on many occasions: The bulwark of religious training is vital if the line is to be held against the forces of corruption, crime and disloyalty. I believe that men imbued with spiritual values do not betray their country. I believe that children reared in homes in which morality is taught and lived rarely become delinquents.

There are spiritual fountains from which free people draw their strength. The guidelines leading to those fountains must be made available to our children if the spiritual ropes which bind men’s souls in strength and courage and dignity are to hold fast when these same children become men and women.