A fortnightly report of developments in religion

In the shadow of Washington Cathedral in the nation’s capital on April 9–10, a small meeting took place which could possibly eventuate in a radical transformation of the face and character of American Protestantism, with repercussions, for good or ill, felt in theology, polity, preaching, missions, evangelism, education, and down the entire range of Protestant life and thought—ultimately to the nation itself.

Concluding Statement Of Delegation Chairmen

We have met as delegates of the Methodist Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. to discuss the possibility of the formation of a church truly catholic, truly reformed, truly evangelical. Each communion has been represented by both clerical and lay members, all of whom are deeply involved in the life of their churches and many of whom are widely experienced in ecumenical relations. We are grateful to God for having led us into these conversations, and we believe on the basis of our preliminary discussions that the Holy Spirit is leading us to further explorations of the unity that we have in Jesus Christ and to our mutual obligation to give visible witness to this unity.

We have made no attempt to reach agreement in areas of difference. Rather, we have sought to isolate issues that need further study and clarification. Among these are: (1) the historical basis for the Christian ministry that is found in the Scriptures and the early church; (2) the origins, use and standing of creeds and confessional statements, (3) a restatement of the theology of liturgy; (4) the relation of word and sacraments.

All of the delegations had in mind that they represent churches having deep roots in the Reformation. At the meeting they were reminded by theological spokesmen of the “earnest concern” of the Reformation “for theological integrity and cultural relevance;” and that today these principles of “theological integrity and meaningful witness demand the union of the churches.”

The delegates earnestly beseech the members of their churches to be constant in prayer that the people of God may be open to Elis leading, that these communions may receive from Him new obedience and fresh courage, and that God’s will for his people may be made manifest before the world.

It was the unanimous decision to hold further consultations. The next meeting [is March 19–21, 1963].

Some 40 churchmen gathered for conversations concerning the possible merging of their four denominations with memberships totaling almost 19 million: The Methodist Church (10, 046, 293), the Protestant Episcopal Church (3,500,000), the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (3, 259, 011), the United Church of Christ (2, 015, 037).

Billed as preliminary and exploratory, the sessions were closed to the press though interviews were granted. The atmosphere was reportedly amiable, the delegations including names like Eugene Carson Blake, James I. McCord, Theodore O. Wedel, Charles C. Parlin, Truman B. Douglass and John P. Dillenberger.

Further meetings will be held under the name of The Consultation on Church Union. Elected chairman for a two-year term was McCord, president of Princeton Theological Seminary.

The four-way merger plan was originally proposed by Blake, United Presbyterian Stated Clerk, in December, 1960.

Though combined membership of the four denominations involved in the talks does not total half the U.S. membership of the Roman Catholic Church, there are hopes of future additions. Delegates agreed to invite three more communions to join the consultations: the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) with nearly two million members, the Evangelical United Brethren with 750,000, and the Polish National Catholic Church with about 300,000. The latter, organized in 1897 as a result of dissatisfaction with Roman Catholic administration and theology, has been in full communion with the Protestant Episcopal Church since 1956. The Evangelical United Brethren have been holding conversations with the Methodists, and the Disciples with the United Church of Christ.

While spokesmen told of enthusiasm in their respective communions for merger, they also noted opposition. The various hurdles ahead were many. Calvinist, Arminian and Catholic theologies are represented in the consulting churches, though many of the historic creedal positions have been watered down through the years. Dillenberger, in an address termed indicative of the atmosphere of the discussions, took note of a growing ecumenical theology in contrast to the diminishing publication of denominational theologies. He later asserted that union should be accomplished by “convergence” rather than by taking all things from all churches or by “trading tradition for tradition.” Convergence was described as a total rethinking of concepts in the light of concepts of other traditions.

Dillenberger, a member of the United Church of Christ, pointed toward what could become the most formidable hurdle of all—the apostolic succession of the episcopate taught by Episcopalians. He did not see church history arguing for an unbroken succession, though he acknowledged that the church of the future would very likely have bishops.

As if to point up anticipation of this vexatious ecumenical problem, the Episcopal delegation was larger than the other three, which were equal, and the other major address was delivered by Episcopalian Wedel, who argued for the historic episcopate.

How Congregationalists, who form the larger part of the United Church of Christ, will feel about having bishops remains to be seen. Also congregational in polity are the Disciples, who own a further doctrinal distinction—they practice believers’ baptism by immersion. But this could possibly form a bridge to the Baptists. Lutherans have been busy with mergers among themselves, but the ultimate hope of many churchmen across denominational lines is for a united Protestant church of America, all the while seeking to prevent schism within the various communions over this very issue. Blake told reporters that continuation and building of the current “mood” depends partly on dissemination of information to “educate the laity to the level of thought that rises above petty disagreements over minor points.”

The Second Call

It was less than two hours after the Washington Consultation on Church Union had been adjourned. Half a continent away, in a crowded Denver Hilton Hotel ballroom, a lone figure stepped to the rostrum. Some 1,200 persons sang lustily a stanza of the “Star-Spangled Banner”, recited pledges of allegiance to the U. S. and Christian flags, then bowed in the opening prayer of the 20th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Some 48 hours and 25 press releases later, it was clear that the NAE had (l) renounced ecclesiastical isolation and (2) broken clean from right-wing extremism.

But resolutions chairman Arnold T. Olson, president of the Evangelical Free Church, cited what he termed an even more important action. He recalled that two decades ago leading U. S. evangelicals had issued a “call to St. Louis” for a meeting which ultimately gave rise to organization of NAE. It was time, Olson added, for “a second call,” whereupon he introduced a resolution asking NAE leaders “to issue a call to both constituent leaders and to leaders of other Bible believing groups not affiliated with the NAE, to meet together to discuss methods of strengthening evangelical witness and influences, and to find ways to initiate more comprehensive united action.”

Immediately preceding the “second call” was another resolution whereby NAE officially abandoned separatism:

“We believe that [spiritual] unity is manifested in love-inspired fellowship that stimulates cooperative effort toward a more effective Christian witness without the necessity of formal ecclesiastical union or uniformity of practice and polity. The NAE also looks with favor on group discussion and dialogue to assure the fair and accurate presentation of the evangelical position and in order to keep fully aware of developments in other areas of Christian life and work; faith and order. However, it should be noted that in participating in such discussions the NAE does not compromise the evangelical position of accepting the authority of the Scriptures nor does it identify itself with those who deny that authority.”

Still another precedent-shattering resolution declared that “communism is only one of many avenues through which Satan employs his powers of spiritual wickedness. We must therefore seek to maintain a proper balance.… The ‘Freedom Through Faith’ program should be continued and intensified.… The dangers of extreme positions are recognized and should be avoided.”

Two motions to temper the anti-extremism resolution were lost for lack of a second. The resolutions committee report was carried unanimously and without amendment.¹Other resolutions voiced concern over certain aspects of the U. N., called for guarantees of religious freedom in “Alliance for Progress” contracts, and criticized trends toward secularism in education.

Has an ecumenical spirit rubbed off on NAE? Have New Delhi and the Blake-Pike proposal driven evangelicals to reassess their own posture toward fellow believers?

Geiger counters are plentiful in mining-conscious Denver, but one needed merely to tune his ear to key convention speakers to detect a measure of ecumenical fallout. The World and National Councils of Churches were properly assailed, but this time it was a qualified shellacking.

Said World Vision President Bob Pierce: “I’m not going to spend my time fighting communism. The danger without communism would be just as great. The problem is sin.”

“Don’t ask me to spend my life fighting the World Council of Churches,” he added. “If the World Council were to get together and subscribe to our beliefs,” Pierce declared, it would not eliminate the necessity of a revival.

Dr. Paul P. Petticord, past NAE president, told newsmen that “we are not opposed to the organic mergers of denominations. We would not oppose federated fellowships. But … we assume first that the Bible is the basis for our unity, and that through the Bible we find a relationship in Christ that establishes unity.”

Dr. Herbert S. Mekeel, also a former NAE president, cited “merger fever” as an element “we must reckon with.”

Mekeel, who declared that “New Delhi in order to be consistent must lead to Rome,” stressed as well that the NAE constituency should be considerate of the millions of believers whose churches are in the framework of the ecumenical movement.

For most of the delegates, the convention was a time of great fellowship, perhaps at the expense of other factors. The business session during which the resolutions were acted upon was attended by only about 10 per cent of an estimated 600 voting delegates who were in Denver.

Repeated pleas were made from the platform that delegates take time out to visit a special prayer room for intercession and meditation. Yet most of the time the room was empty except for an attendant.

A late Wednesday evening prayer meeting, however, saw some 75 per cent of the audience stay for the 10-minute session, which was followed by another special prayer meeting for ministers and missionaries. It lasted somewhat longer.

Evangelist Billy Graham told a banquet crowd that America may be on the verge of revival.

“All across the country,” he said, “I am finding unrelated prayer and Bible study groups, and I sense the same pattern of the Holy Spirit in this country that characterized the Wesleyan revival in England.”

“God is moving in places where we thought he could not move,” he added.

Other convention developments:

—Dr. Robert A. Cook, president of King’s College, was elected to a two-year term as NAE president. Dr. Jared F. Gerig was elected first vice-president and Dr. Rufus Jones second vice-president, both for one-year terms. Dr. C. C. Burnett was re-elected secretary and Carl A. Gundersen was re-elected treasurer.

—Gundersen was presented with the NAE’s “Layman of the Year” award for distinguished Christian service.

—The Marion (Indiana) Christian Church was named winner in an architectural competition sponsored jointly by NAE and Christian Life magazine.

—The NAE’s Commission on Chaplains disclosed that a thorough study was being prepared of the unified Sunday School curriculum now employed in the military services. Commission members were outspokenly critical of the curriculum system (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 13, 1962).

—A theological study commission was reported to be working on what it termed “positive statements” defining evangelical conviction on the inspiration of the Bible, aspects of the person of Christ, and the nature of the Church.

Reformed Probing Action

Two major denominations of the Reformed tradition are proposing a joint resolution “to seek together a fuller expression of unity in faith and action.”

The Presbyterian Church in the United States with nearly 1,000,000 members, and the 250,000 member Reformed Church in America, made public a two-page statement at a news conference in the historic Church of the Pilgrims (Presbyterian) in Washington, D. C. this month.

A joint effort by the General Synod Executive Committee of the Reformed Church, and the Permanent Committee on Inter-Church Relations of the Presbyterian group, the resolution will be presented to the national general assemblies of each body.

While the stated clerk of each denomination made it clear that the resolution is not designed as a stepping stone to organic merger, neither shut the door to the ultimate possibility of such a merger.

The Rev. Norman E. Thomas, president of the General Synod of the Reformed Church called attention to the resolution’s avoidance of any specific reference to organic merger. “We hope it will lead to the opening of doors,” he said, “but we do not want to go beyond that now. There is real danger in becoming too serious too soon.”

The resolution included reference to a joint statement of cooperation made in 1874, speaking of “a union, not organic, but nevertheless a union real and practical.” Spokesmen stated that ultimate reunion of the Body of Christ should come as a result of cooperation, not to promote cooperation.

Joint exploration is suggested in the following areas of common concern:

Doctrine and Polity, Worship and Liturgy; World Missions and Ecumenical Relations;

Christian Education, including higher education;

Theological Education, including exchange of students and professors; A nationwide strategy for Evangelism and Church Extension and Retention;

Communicant referrals and mutual pastoral care, including chaplains and Armed Forces personnel;

Stewardship Education and Cultivation;

Interchange of Ministers and Church Workers, including consideration of pensions and annuities;

Men’s Work, Women’s Work, and Youth Work;

Christian Social Concern and Action;

Reciprocal studies of denominational administrative and organizational structure;

Exchange of pulpits, conference leaders, consultants and advisors;

Use of official church papers to acquaint our entire constituencies with the life and work of both churches, including church publications and communications media;

Developing personal acquaintance through exchange of sizeable groups of fraternal delegates to the General Synod, the General Assembly, Synods, Presbyteries and Classes, to Men’s, Women’s, and Youth assemblies and conferences.

The stated clerks of both denominations, declared that the committees which drafted the statement are widely representative of the dichotomy of thought within the whole of the churches.

If the national assemblies of both churches accept the resolution, each will appoint a committee of 12 to engage in joint exploration of these areas, and to make annual recommendations for further steps.

B.B.

Princeton Seminary 1812–1962

Is a full-blown theological controversy about to break upon the North American scene?

The doctrinal whirlwind, some observers say, may already have been spawned. Professor John H. Hick of Princeton Theological Seminary, whose membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick was denied by the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey because he would not affirm belief in the Virgin Birth, is expected to appeal his case before next month’s General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

A showdown is also possible among Southern Baptists at their annual sessions in San Francisco in June. An informal, eight-state delegation of pastors and laymen who met for two days in Oklahoma City last month were reported to have referred to “the current theological crisis within the denomination.” Their discussion centered on “infiltration of liberalism” in Southern Baptist seminaries, with particular attention to a recent book by Professor Ralph H. Elliott of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, The Message of Genesis, published by the Southern Baptist press. Elliott’s view is that of the “documentary hypothesis” relative the authorship of the book of Genesis.

The case of the Princeton professor is particularly timely and noteworthy, for it involves one of America’s best-known seminaries which begins this week a 14-month sesquicentennial celebration.

Ask any fundamentalist-oriented layman to name a liberal seminary and he will likely respond, “Princeton.” Ask a theological liberal to cite the most fundamental of denominational seminaries and he is likewise apt to reply, “Princeton.”

Actually, both are right. Princeton has probably turned out more evangelical ministers than any other U. S. seminary. While the faculty avoids such controversy as would label it “fundamentalist” or “liberal,” the student body is not so prudent, and for the most part classifies itself as “fundy” or not. In recent years, incoming classes have been nearly one-half “fundy.” Among schools most strongly represented in last year’s student body was Wheaton College, which like the University of California and Maryville (Presbyterian) College had 14 of its graduates on the Princeton Seminary campus.

Other strongly evangelical schools represented in Princeton’s student body last year included Bob Jones University, Seattle Pacific College (Free Methodist), Nyack Missionary College (Christian and Missionary Alliance), Houghton College (Wesleyan Methodist), Olivet Nazarene College, and Taylor University.

Strangely enough, the only indexed reference to Princeton Seminary in Encyclopaedia Britannica is found under the subject heading “Fundamentalism.”

On the other hand, there seems little doubt that the theological movement of the Princeton faculty and administration has been consistently to the left in recent decades. One highly-informed source who was close to the Princeton leadership for many years puts it this way:

“I like the men there, and I think of some as still conservative. But I do not know of a recent appointment that has been of the conservative sort. The Princeton literature that comes to me makes me feel that the trend is not in that direction.”

The founding of Princeton Seminary can be traced back to an overture from the Presbytery of Philadelphia which came before the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1809. Two years later a plan was adopted by the assembly providing for establishment of a seminary designed “to form men for the Gospel ministry who shall truly believe, and cordially love, and therefore endeavour to propagate and defend, in its genuineness, simplicity, and fullness, that system of religious belief and practice which is set forth in the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Plan of Government and Discipline of the Presbyterian Church; and thus to perpetuate and extend the influence of true evangelical piety and Gospel order.”

The assembly made an agreement with the College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) for use of campus space, and a cordial relationship has existed between the university and the seminary ever since. The campuses are still adjacent to each other, and there are many cooperative efforts between the two institutions, although they have always been operated independently.

The seminary opened on August 12, 1812, with three students and one professor, Dr. Archibald Alexander. Classes were initially held in his study. Five more students came in November of that year. Dr. Samuel Miller became the second professor in 1813. It was not until five years later that the first seminary building was erected, Alexander Hall, which still stands.

Charles Hodge, who was to become one of the greatest of American Protestant theologians, entered the seminary in 1816 after graduating from the college at Princeton. He stayed on as a faculty member and was said to have trained more men in theology (3, 000) than any other figure of his time. Hodge taught at the seminary for 50 years.

The seminary never had a president until 1903 when the office was assumed by Dr. Francis L. Patton, who served until 1912.

Hodge, two of his sons who also taught, Alexander, Miller, and Patton, plus Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield, who was professor of theology, all are recalled as evangelical giants. One seminary graduate has remarked that Warfield, who now looks impressively down from above the fireplace in the Campus Center, wears a disapproving expression.

If a single year could be referred to as a turning point for Princeton, it was probably 1913, when J. Ross Stevenson assumed the presidency. It was under Stevenson that the seminary experienced its greatest crisis, and the leading figure in the controversy which brought about the crisis was the late Dr. J. Gresham Machen, who was regarded by critics and admirers alike as the greatest leader of evangelical Christianity in his time. He was referred to as the one man the liberals had yet to answer.

Machen, a native of Baltimore, studied successively at Johns Hopkins University, Princeton Seminary, and at the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen in Germany. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1906 as an instructor and in 1914 was elected Assistant Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis. He was well known for his fundamentalist convictions and his stand increasingly became productive of difficulty. Seminary directors in 1926 elected Machen as professor of apologetics, but he never achieved the full-fledged professorship. The election set off a long chain of controversy climaxed in 1929 with a reorganization of the seminary by order of the General Assembly, which withheld Machen’s professorship.

The Gospel At Harvard

Evangelist Billy Graham preached regeneration to an overflow crowd of 2,500 at the Harvard Law Forum last month.

Following his talk, Graham and a long-time friend, Dr. Harold J. Ockenga of Park Street Church in Boston, took part in a panel with two Harvard Divinity School professors, entertaining questions from the audience.

A key point at issue was the relationship of evangelistic endeavor and social reform.

Graham stressed the need for personal commitment to Christ but also emphasized that evangelism and social responsibility were not mutually exclusive.

Ockenga agreed that there was no split between the two. “In fact,” he said, “we are pleading all the time for more social Gospel.”

“We have not abdicated this field,” Ockenga added.

The two Harvard panelists were Dr. James Luther Adams, Unitarian scholar, and Dr. Richard R. Niebuhr, associate professor of theology.

The meeting at Harvard climaxed a two-week campus crusade centered at three North Carolina colleges.

The election of Machen was made following the retirement of Dr. William Brenton Greene, who had served since 1892 in the chair first occupied by Patton. The chair, endowed by R. L. Stuart of New York, was first known as that of “the Relations of Philosophy and Science to the Christian Religion.” Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney was invited to assume the chair in 1925, but declined. Machen finally withdrew his name too, and directors named Cornelius Van Til first as instructor then as full professor. Van Til’s appointment likewise was never confirmed, and he taught only one year. In the summer of 1929, Machen led a faction which withdrew under protest from Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Van Til was among those who joined the faculty of the new school.

Current occupant of the Stuart chair, now referred to as that of Professor of Christian Philosophy, is Hick.

Stevenson served as president until 1936 and was succeeded by Dr. John H. Mackay, who started a controversy of his own by bringing from the Continent Dr. Emil Brunner to the Charles Hodge chair of systematic theology. Brunner’s neoorthodoxy drew fire from Presbyterians despite Mackay’s plea that the Continent was enjoying a “theological spring-time” in which he wished America to share. Brunner only stayed a year.

Mackay’s term reflected his passion for the missionary aspect of ecumenism. Says one recent Princeton graduate, who studied under Mackay as well as Dr. James I. McCord, who succeeded him:

“Whatever theological criticism must be made of Mackay’s administration, still he brought to the seminary a great and evangelical spirit.”

McCord is reportedly seeking to raise the academic prestige of the seminary to the level of Harvard, Yale, and Union. A major revision of the curriculum is already under way.

McCord’s most spectacular accomplishment thus far has been in lining up the eminent theologian Karl Barth to deliver a week of lectures. Barth, who was scheduled to lecture at the University of Chicago this week, is due in Princeton on Sunday. His appearance was to follow that of two prime movers of the ecumenical movement, Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and Dr. D. T. Niles, general secretary of the East Asia Christian Conference. Niles and Visser ’t Hooft were to lecture this week along with Dr. James S. Stewart, professor of New Testament at New College, Edinburgh.

The town of Princeton, which embraces the campuses of the university as well as the seminary, is located in the heart of the Eastern seaboard population concentration, midway between New York and Philadelphia. It has managed nonetheless to retain a degree of quaint, small-town flavor. The shops along Nassau Street, which borders the campus, are old-fashioned but neat-appearing. The community boasts a religious distinction apart from the seminary location: Jonathan Edwards is buried there.

The 30-acre seminary campus consists of an administration building, two classroom buildings, a library, a chapel, a campus center, four dormitories, three apartment houses, a gymnasium and athletic field, two outdoor tennis courts, and an outdoor swimming pool, plus a complex of homes used by faculty members.

The seminary has a current enrollment of 445 students. Degrees offered include bachelor of divinity, master of religious education, master of theology, and doctor of theology.

Academic excellence and tradition continue to draw many evangelical intellectuals to Princeton. But the future of conservative theology depends on faculty appointments, which are being watched. Already influential conservative Presbyterians are weighing the need for a new denominational seminary, which some church leaders may prefer to the risk of a costly denominational split.

‘A Man For All Seasons’

“Gideon” and “A Man for All Seasons” are among the four stage plays²The other two: “The Caretaker” by Harold Pinter and “The Night of the Iguana” by Tennessee Williams. This year’s “Tony Awards” will be presented April 29 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. nominated for this year’s major theater awards, which may indicate that religious themes are in for a big revival on Broadway.

“Gideon,” by Paddy Chayefsky, dramatizes the biblical character and his defeat of the Midianites (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 2, 1962).

“A Man for All Seasons” is a historical drama which exalts the character of Sir Thomas More, famous sixteenth-century English lawyer and author of the classic Utopia who played a key role in the religiopolitical struggle during which the Church of England was established. The play was written in 1960 by Robert Bolt and played in London before opening in New York last fall.

More, as played by Paul Scofield, is subjected to a series of ethical entanglements and finally executed as the upshot of a frameup to which Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, is a party. The historical authenticity of some of the script is open to question, but the plot is highly relevant to the contemporary political situation in America. Facets of the plot appear to have been forerunners of such modern-day phenomena as five percenters, deep-freezes and vicuna, loyalty oaths, Fifth Amendment silence—and even the religious issue.

More may have been sympathetic with at least some aspects of the Reformation, but he remained loyal to the church of Rome and severely criticized those who withdrew. Upon learning of England’s break with Rome, the “man for all seasons” cries, “This isn’t reformation. This is war against the church.”

More was canonized in 1935. The title of the play is taken from a passage which was composed by Robert Whittington for Tudor schoolboys to put into Latin.

Arguing For Prayer

The U. S. Supreme Court heard arguments this month as to whether the daily recitation of a nonsectarian prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. A ruling, the first such in the nation’s history, was expected soon.

The arguments were heard by eight justices. Justice Charles E. Whittaker, who had retired from the bench just a few days before, was in the audience but will not enter the deliberations. Neither will Justice Byron White, who had not yet been confirmed when the arguments were heard. Should the justices split 4–4, the lower court decision will be upheld.

Petitioners, residents of the state of New York, are five parents: two Jewish, one Unitarian, one Society for Ethical Culture, and one nonbeliever. They initiated legal action to enjoin the saying of this prayer in the public schools of their district: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” Having been denied by the highest

New York state court, their petition was taken to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Opposing petitioners’ case are respondents (the Board of Education of the school district) and intervenors-respondents (16 families with children in the schools in question). Seven families are Protestant, five Roman Catholic, three Jewish, and one non-believing.

Before the justices took their seats the Crier proclaimed to the standing courtroom: “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!… God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”

Next, seven attorneys were admitted to the bar. With uplifted hand they swore to “demean myself, as an attorney.… So help me God!”

Then for one hour attorney William J. Butler represented petitioners. After a few moments of presentation Justice Felix Frankfurter asked: “What is your petitioners’ exact grievance?” Butler replied that this prayer was a practice primarily violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and secondarily the Free Exercise Clause of the same amendment.

Some minutes later Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., asked: “The whole premise of your argument is that this amounts to teaching?”

“Yes,” answered Butler, “the reason for this prayer is to inculcate in children a love of God.”

“Is that a bad thing?” immediately queried one justice.

Replied the attorney, “No.… we are also religious people … prayer is good … but we should not compound the civic with the religious.”

Bertram B. Daiker, respondents’ attorney, had 30 minutes. He argued that the Establishment Clause “was intended to prohibit a State religion but not to prevent the growth of a religious State.” Porter R. Chandler, intervenors-respondents’ attorney, took up the remaining half-hour of argument time. He stressed that the “Regents’ Prayer” is an embodiment of traditional civic prayer. When recited voluntarily, it represents “a reasonable and proper method of developing an appreciation and understanding of the basic principles of our national heritage.” Neither the First nor the Fourteenth Amendments were intended to abolish it.

Chandler saw petitioners’ objections analogous to the objection of some to the saying by their children of the Pledge of Allegiance (a practice which they consider idolatrous). Chandler noted that legislatures have responded by exempting the children of objecters, not by abolishing the Pledge itself.

Chandler went on to point out that to prevent children from saying this prayer impairs their constitutional rights to the “free exercise” of their beliefs—to open school with a public prayer.

Supporting the prayer were briefs amicus curiae of attorneys general of 18 states. They said such a prayer does not, in their opinion, violate their state constitutions.

Respondents’ brief quotes from the state constitutions or preambles thereto of 49 states acknowledging that the rights and liberties of the people issue from God and express gratefulness therefor. It also notes that “all Presidents without exception.… have publicly recognized the dependence of this nation on Almighty God.”

It is generally believed the decision will have far-reaching consequences if the Supreme Court declares the prayer unconstitutional. Such a ruling will not merely eliminate opening prayer in public schools from Maine to Hawaii, but also Bible reading, Christmas pageants, and every other semblance of religion.

Should U.S. Aid Schools In Colombia?

Forty million United States tax dollars are earmarked to help upgrade the “public” school system of that most Roman Catholic of Latin republics—Colombia.

Already sites have been chosen and architects named for some of the 22,000 classrooms to be built under the four-year program, to which Colombia will contribute half the cost.

Yet there seems to be no prospect of persuading Colombia to abrogate Vatican treaties under which the Roman church, as the state religion, has virtually complete power over “public” education.

Nor have there been any official U.S. appeals to bring about the reopening of any of the 200-plus Protestant schools closed as a result of clerical orders during the past few years—in a country said to be 50 per cent illiterate.

In some areas Protestant children have been refused enrollment in “public” schools. Everywhere Protestant students have been forced to join their Catholic classmates in taking three hours of Catholic instruction each week and attending Mass on Sundays and feast days. The instruction frequently ridicules Protestantism.

The new American-aided program also envisions building four normal schools, training 9,500 new teachers, giving in-service training to 11,000 instructors and developing several thousand supervisors and administrators.

In the past Protestants have found the doors of Colombian normal schools closed to them. It has been almost impossible for them to obtain teachers’ certificates. Catholic prelates have authority to pass on the hiring and firing of teachers and to prescribe or outlaw textbooks.

The anomalous sight of free America’s bolstering an arbitrary school system may be explained in part by the haste with which the agreement was formulated. Apparently it was rushed through within four months after the Alliance for Progress Treaty was signed so that President Kennedy could announce it with a muffled fanfare of drums during his December visit to Colombia.

The announcement, scarcely heard in the United States, was publicized widely by Colombian newspapers. But Protestant leaders in Colombia heard it and their insistent questions soon caused a flurry of activity in the American Embassy in Bogotá.

Ambassador Fulton Freeman and his United States Operations Mission (Point Four) aides belatedly sought to calm Protestant apprehensions. After conferences with Colombia’s President and with officials of the Ministry of Education, they reported these verbal assurances:

1. None of the American-financed schools will be built in the “mission territories” (the 19 sparsely-populated, rural areas, comprising three-fourths of the land area of Colombia, where Romanists have absolute control over all schools and Protestant schools are allowed only for non-Catholic foreigners).

2. Protestant children will not be denied access to the new schools, nor will they be forced to take the Catholic instruction that still will be required of Catholic students.

3. Protestants will have equal access to the new normal schools and no longer will be denied teachers’ certificates.

However, such assurances from temporary officials in the Ministry of Education have failed to quiet the fears of the Colombian Protestants. Dr. James E. Goff, Presbyterian educator who has documented the running story of the Colombian persecution, puts it this way:

“Promises by Ministry officials, no matter how sincerely given, are worthless when stacked against the Concordat and the Treaty on Missions” (the two Vatican pacts which give the Catholics control over Colombian education).

“The present Administration,” Goff continued, “led by liberal statesman Alberto Lleras Camargo, is not inclined to enforce the restrictive articles of the two treaties. A subsequent conservative administration may well be disposed to do so. In all events, the Roman Catholic hierarchy may appeal to the treaties, which supposedly carry the force of law.” (A conservative administration is slated to take office this year.)

Goff saw “cause for surprise” that the U.S.O.M. people should have neglected to write into the education agreement itself adequate protection for Protestants.

“It is surely no secret,” he said, “that during the past 14 years the Protestants of Colombia have suffered a notorious religious persecution which has resulted in the death of 116 Protestant Christians because of their religious faith, the destruction by fire or dynamite of 66 Protestant churches or chapels, and the closing of over 200 Protestant schools.”

A clear violation of the American principle of church-state separation is involved in this situation, in the opinion of Colombian Protestant leaders and a number of Americans who know the facts.

Some officials in Washington already are retorting that the United States has no right to force our ideas of church-state separation on a friendly foreign country that needs our aid. Others say it is desirable and possible to urge the Colombian government to eliminate such discrimination against Protestants but that this discrimination should not deter us from pressing our campaign against illiteracy under the Alliance for Progress umbrella.

Protestants who see a violation of American principles in the Colombian program can point to a statement made in Washington last March by a Latin American expert, Senator Hipolito Marcano of Puerto Rico. Answering a hypothetical question regarding the use of United States aid for educational purposes in Latin America, Marcano said:

“I think that inasmuch as this is taxpayers’ money and the taxpayers’ money is controlled by the fundamental law of the land, which is the Constitution …, that control should accompany taxpayers’ money in all uses given it by the Federal Government.… I don’t think that because our money goes to a foreign country, they can do with the money what we cannot do with our own money in our own country.”

Even if this Constitutional ground should be shaken, there are Protestants and others in America who feel that this Colombian school program is completely wrong.

“Why should free America subsidize the denial of freedom,” such people ask. And they press their point with such question as:

“If Colombia needs more schools, why does she not start by striking down the tyrannical 1953 treaty with the Vatican under which Protestant schools are outlawed in 75 per cent of her territory?

“Why should America pour $40,000,000 into a school system that is dominated by prelates who have forced the closing of more than 200 Protestant schools while the Roman church and the Colombian government combined are unable to furnish schools for half the children of Colombia?”

The Rev. Lorentz D. Emery, another Protestant educator in Colombia, believes that American insistence on the inclusion of our principles of freedom in the Colombian education program would weaken clerical control of Colombian education, thereby “advancing education more than by the building of 22,000 classrooms.”

The American funds must be approved by Congress on a year-to-year basis.

The Overlappers

The three “trade associations” of the religious periodical press are the Associated Church Press, the Evangelical Press Association, and the Catholic Press Association. For some years, their memberships were for the most part mutually exclusive. The Evangelical and Catholic associations have well-defined membership qualifications resting on a theological base. The ACP has never had a membership credo, but its general orientation was that of Protestant liberalism. By this month it was obvious that much overlapping between ACP and EPA had developed and talks on cooperation were already under way.

The overlapping has developed as increasing numbers of publications originally aligned with EPA have also taken out ACP memberships.

ACP now has 163 member publications with an aggregate circulation of more than 17,000,000. EPA has 175 member publications with an aggregate circulation of more than 7, 600,000.

At its convention in New York this month, ACP presented 13 “Awards of Merit” and 16 honorable mentions.

The winners of merit awards:

Articles—CHRISTIANITY TODAY; The Churchman; Youth.

Editorials—The Churchman; Missions, Christianity and Crisis.

Denominational program or organized activity—Presbyterian Life; World Call; Missions Magazine.

News treatment (magazines)—Presbyterian Life; The Living Church; Baptist World.

News treatment (newspapers)—The Hawkeye Methodist.

Cited for honorable mention:

Articles—Unitarian Register and Universalist Leader; Saints Herald; Presbyterian Life.

Editorials—CHRISTIANITY TODAY, The Lutheran; Gospel Messenger; The Living Church.

Denominational program or organized activity—Baptist Record; Methodist Layman; Free Methodist.

News treatment (magazines)—CHRISTIANITY TODAY; The Christian; The Lutheran Standard; The Churchman.

News treatment (newspapers)—The Baptist Record; The Record.³Among periodicals which are members of ACP as well as EPA: Arkansas Baptist, Baptist Beacon, Baptist Program, The Baptist Record, Canadian War Cry, Christian Endeavor World, Christianity Today, Church Herald, The Commission, The Covenant Companion, Decision, Eternity, The Free Methodist, The Standard, United Evangelical Action, The War Cry, World Vision Magazine, Youth Compass, Youth in Action.

Barth’S Successor

Dr. Heinrich Ott, 33, of Riehen, Switzerland, will succeed Dr. Karl Barth as professor of systematic theology at the University of Basel.

Ott was once a student at Basel and studied under Barth. He became an instructor at the university after serving two Swiss parishes as minister.

Author of several books on contemporary theology, Ott declined an offer to teach at the University of Vienna to accept the Basel professorship.

No Hard Feelings

Cleared of all charges of immorality brought against him—charges that caused him to be deposed as Primate of the Orthodox Church of Greece—Archbishop Iakovos declared in Athens that he held “no hard feelings” for those who had accused him.

The ailing 67-year-old prelate, who abdicated in January “for the good of the Church” after only 12 days in the post of primate, said he had forgiven those who had charged him with “unmentionable acts.”

He declared he thought only in “loving” terms of those who “love me and (those who) hated me.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Evan Allard Reiff, 54, who had resigned January 25 as president of Hardin-Simmons University; in Abilene, Texas … Dr. Paul Rafaj, 66, president of the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches; in Olyphant, Pennsylvania … Dr. Robert F. Cooper, 81, chairman of the department of ancient languages at Belhaven College; in Jackson, Mississippi … the Rt. Rev. Christopher Maude Chevasse, 77, former Anglican Bishop of Rochester; at Oxford, England … Dr. Walter J. Noble, 83, former president of the Methodist Church in Britain … Dr. Jan Szeruda, 71, former Bishop of the Polish Evangelical Augsburg (Lutheran) Church; in Warsaw … Miss Florence Sleidel, 65, Assemblies of God missionary who founded one of the world’s largest leper colonies, the New Hope Leprosarium in Liberia.

Resignation: As professor of preaching at Gordon College and Divinity School, Dr. Lloyd Perry, who will assume the pastorate of the Central Baptist Church of Indianapolis.

Retirement: As president of the World’s Christian Endeavor Union, Dr. Daniel A. Poling … as president of Augustana College, Dr. Conrad Bergendoff … as professor of preaching and applied Christianity at Boston University, Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers … as pastor of Central Baptist Church, Miami, Dr. C. Roy Angell.

Elections: As bishop of the Pacific Area of the Latin America Central Conference (Methodist), the Rev. Pedro Zottele of Chile … as president of the American Tract Society, G. Raymond Christensen.

Appointments: As professor of systematic theology at the Oberlin College Graduate School of Theology, Dr. J. Robert Nelson … as faculty members in systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York, Dr. John Macquarrie and Dr. Paul L. Lehmann … as director of the Department of Education of the United Presbyterian Board of National Missions, Dr. Harry L. Stearns.… as religious editor for Protestant books with Doubleday and Company, Alex Liepa.

The highest canonical court in the church was unanimous in acquitting him of a charge of unbecoming conduct.

Convening as a court, the Holy Synod, the church’s executive body, ruled that the evidence brought against him did not substantiate the charges. Announcement came after five hours of deliberation. It said it “found unanimously that the accusations were not confirmed by the evidence produced … before the court.”

So ended a controversy which raged to a point where it threatened the nation’s unity, according to Religious News Service. Throughout his ordeal, press and churchmen alike called on the prelate to resign for the good of the church. The Greek government, for the first time in recent history, threatened to intervene in the church’s affairs and oust the archbishop. The prelate held out for a time but when government intervention seemed imminent he abdicated.

He was succeeded by Metropolitan Chrysostom Hadjistavrou of Philippi and Kavala, 83 years old and the oldest in point of service among all the Orthodox bishops in the world.

The Christian believer regards it as a most comforting Gospel revelation that in Christ Jesus God from eternity has adopted his chosen saints to be his dear children. It was definitely a manifestation of Christ’s sincere love for his disciples when he called them his “friends” (John 15:14); but the terms “sons and daughters,” which Scripture ascribes to Christian believers, imply far greater privileges than does that of friend. In his well-known monograph The Reformed Doctrine of Adoption, R. A. Webb writes of God’s gracious adoption of believers as his dear children: “When we approach Him in the intensity of worship, we gather up all the sweetness involved in Fatherhood and all the tenderness wrapped up in sonship; when calamities overcome us and troubles come in like a flood, we lift up our cry and stretch out our arms to God as a compassionate Father; when the angel of death climbs in at the window of our homes and bears away the object of our love, we find our dearest solace in reflecting upon the fatherly heart of God; when we look across the swelling flood, it is our Father’s House on the light-covered hills beyond the stars which cheers us amid the crumbling of the earthly tabernacle” (p. 19). It is from the viewpoint of its ineffable solace that the Christian believer gratefully considers the biblical doctrine of adoption.

Definition of Adoption. A. H. Strong briefly defines the doctrine of adoption under the general theme “Restoration to Favor” in connection with justification and reconciliation as follows: “This restoration to favor, viewed in its aspect as the renewal of a broken friendship, is denominated reconciliation; viewed in its aspect as a renewal of the son’s true relation to God as a father, it is denominated adoption” (Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p. 857). Similar is the definition given in the Cyclopaedia of McClintock and Strong: “Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God’s free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God and entitled to the inheritance of heaven” (s.v.). According to these definitions adoption embraces both the renewal of the soul’s true relation to God as a father and the bestowal of the privileges of sonship in this life and that to come. Thus believers, who by nature were alienated from God and were under his righteous judgment, are received by him as his dear children and heirs of eternal life.

The Doctrine Taught in Scripture. The term huiothesia, literally “placing as a son,” is used only in the New Testament (cf. International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, s.v.). It never occurs in the Septuagint, and in the New Testament only in those epistles which primarily concerned Gentile believers, e. g., Galatians, Romans, Ephesians. Even here the apostle’s emphasis seems to rest not so much on God’s adopting act as rather on the state of sonship and its prerogatives. Among the Greeks and Romans at Paul’s time adoption, that is, “the legal process by which a man might bring into his family and endow with the status and privilege of a son one who was not by nature his son or his kindred” (JSBE, s.v.), was so well known that Paul could presuppose that his readers understood what he meant by God’s spiritual huiothesia. But the question, whether the apostle was guided in his use of the term by the prevalent custom, is quite another matter. The Old Testament mentions three cases of adoption (Exod. 2:10; 1 Kings 11:20; Esther 2:7, 15), though all of them took place outside Palestine. Paul, however, definitely ascribes to chosen Israel the huiothesia (Rom. 9:4), just as the Old Testament attributes to believing Israel the prerogative of sonship (Exod. 4:22; Deut. 14:1; 32:5; Jer. 31:9). In the New Testament the precious Gospel truth that believers in Christ are God’s dear children is, of course, stressed also in books not written by Paul (e.g., Luke 20:36; 1 John 3:1, 2, 10).

Adoption an Eternal Act of Divine Grace. Adoption, according to Scripture, is an eternal act of divine grace, for he “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph. 1:5). This eternal predestination to adoption, just as God’s eternal election to salvation, was, of course, “in him” (Eph. 1:4), that is, in Christ Jesus, and so embraced his Incarnation, Vicarious Atonement, and Resurrection—in short, the whole ordo salutis; for “when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4, 5). Therefore the adoption is an act of God’s free grace and excludes all human merit; it is absolutely sola gratia. As believers have been redeemed purely by grace, so also they have been adopted purely by grace. Thus God heaps grace upon grace in electing, redeeming, and adopting his elect saints.

While Scripture ascribes to the Father the adoption and to the Son the redemption, it ascribes to the Holy Spirit the sanctifying act by which we become believers in Christ and so God’s dear children. The apostle teaches this truth very clearly when he writes: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8:14–17). In this life, of course, the believer’s assurance of his adoption is apprehended merely by faith; but on the day of the final resurrection he will be delivered “into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

The Relation of Adoption to Other Biblical Doctrines. The doctrine of adoption stands in close relation to those of justification, reconciliation, regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. The adoption exists objectively in foro Dei because of God’s eternal election of grace and Christ’s vicarious atonement. But subjectively the believer obtains it through faith in Christ or by becoming a believer in Christ, as the apostle writes: “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26). This means that in the very moment of his conversion to Christ he is a child of God. But in that very moment he is also justified, or declared righteous before God for Christ’s sake, whose perfect righteousness, procured by his vicarious atonement, he receives by his personal faith in the Redeemer. This comforting Gospel truth the apostle stresses in Romans 5:1: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But this verse declares also that the believer in the moment of his conversion is in possession of reconciliation with God, for by faith he has “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” According to Scripture, reconciliation is that very act of divine grace through which the believer is granted peace with God by his justification or the forgiveness of his sins.

But by faith in Christ the believer receives also regeneration or the new birth, as John writes: “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). This, moreover, means that then the believer is converted, since conversion in its proper sense is the “turning from darkness to light” by faith in Christ (Acts 26:18). The estranged sinner, who was turned away from God, is now turned toward his divine Lord with genuine trust and sincere love. In this sense the apostle writes: “God … hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). The regenerated believer is given the firm conviction that Christ is his personal Saviour who has redeemed him from sin, death, and hell. So also by faith in Christ the believer obtains the gift of sanctification or the gradual putting off of the old man, which is corrupt according to its deceitful lusts, and the gradual putting on of the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:22–24). Thus the believer’s faith in Christ accomplishes his entire renewal: his justification, reconciliation, regeneration, conversion, sanctification, and, last but not least, his adoption to sonship. Paul sums up this whole spiritual process of the believer’s turning from unbelief to faith, from sin to holiness, from death to life, when he writes: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9); or: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). As Scripture ascribes the believer’s whole salvation to faith in Christ, so also it ascribes to faith in Christ the individual divine acts by which the Holy Spirit works salvation in the believer. It is therefore immaterial whether the adoption is linked with regeneration or justification or whether, under a separate head, it is considered as the final goal of man’s spiritual reclamation by the Holy Spirit. There is, however, always a note of triumphant rejoicing in the sweet Gospel proclamation that Christian believers are God’s dear children (cf. 1 John 3:2 and similar passages). Thus the adoption may be regarded as the crowning act of God’s saving love.

The Blessings of the Adoption. Scripture is very explicit in describing the ineffable blessings of the believer’s adoption. According to Romans 8:14–17, these are (1) the sanctifying leading by the Holy Spirit; (2) the removal of the servile spirit of fear; (3) the filial trust by which the believer calls God “Abba, Father,” the joining of the two words giving emphasis to his endeared relation to God; (4) the witnessing of the Holy Spirit with his spirit that he is a child of God; and (5) the assurance that he is an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. The blessing of the Spirit’s witnessing in the believer’s heart is stated with the same emphasis in Galatians 4:6; only here the joyous prayer “Abba, Father” is ascribed directly to the Spirit’s witnessing. Accordingly, the believer calls God “Abba, Father” as the immediate effect of the assuring testimony of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of adoption therefore assures the believer of God’s fatherly love toward him and of his sure salvation in everlasting glory. In times of trial the Christian, because of the weakness of his faith, may not always perceive the Spirit’s witness, but it is nevertheless there as long as faith in Christ prevails; for in the final analysis faith itself is nothing else than the Spirit’s persuasive witness in the believer’s heart.

The Application of the Doctrine. While all Christian theologians glory in the comforting Gospel truth that believers in Christ are God’s dear children, they vary greatly in their treatment of the doctrine of adoption. R. A. Webb in his monograph, referred to above, takes note of the fact that Calvin makes no allusion whatever to adoption, while Turretin identifies it as the second element of justification. So also the thorough dogmatical work of Charles Hodge is silent on the subject, while A. A. Hodge devotes to it a short chapter. None of the ecumenical creeds of Christendom contains a formal confession of adoption, but the Westminster Confession and the Westminster Catechisms set forth the doctrine as a separate head in theology. The old Dutch theologian Herman Witsius in his work The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man (trans. and rev. by William Crook-shank; London: Edward Dilly, 1763) gives 19 pages to the subject of adoption and 17 to “The Spirit of Adoption” (Vol. II, pp. 591 ff.).

Luther translated the term huiothesia with “filial spirit” (kindlicher Geist,Rom. 8:15) or “sonship” (Kindschaft,Rom. 8:23; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). According to the classic Lutheran dog-maticians, adoption takes place at the same time as regeneration and justification. The certainty of the believer’s adoption, as also of the inheritance warranted by it, is counted by them as an attribute of the new birth. Pietism in its treatment of adoption came somewhat closer to the Reformed presentation. The Reformed theologians, however, do not always consider adoption from the same point of view. While some represent it as the fruit of justification, others regard it as coordinate, but subject to regeneration. Rationalism wholly discarded the biblical doctrine of adoption. Some of the early church fathers treated adoption as the effect of baptism, since the apostle in Galations 3:26, 27 traces the adoption both to faith in Christ and to baptism as the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Tit. 3:5, 6). This doctrine was retained by Luther who regarded baptism as a means of grace that works not ex opere operato, or by the mere act, but by the Word of God which is in and with the water (cf. McClintock and Strong, s.v.).

The conviction of Christian believers that in Christ Jesus they are God’s dear children is deeply rooted in the hearts of all who “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2).

Bibliography: The International Standand Bible Encyclopaedia, J. Orr, ed.; J. McClintock and J. Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature; The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; R. A. Webb, The Reformed Doctrine of Adoption; H. Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants; W. A. Jarrel, “Adoption Not in the Bible Salvation,” The Review and Expositor, XV (October, 1918), pp. 459–469; T. Whaling, “Adoption,” The Princeton Theological Review, XXI (April, 1923), pp. 223–235.

Professor of Systematic Theology

Concordia Theological Seminary

St. Louis, Missouri

The height, depth and breadth of God’s love can never be fully described, nor can it be understood this side of eternity.

The wideness of God’s mercy is beyond man’s comprehension. For this reason we too often try to squeeze him into the distorted and limited mold of human understanding.

The grace of God is man’s only hope. Made operative by faith, it is the means of our salvation. But for this attribute of God, man’s state would be hopeless. Day by day we are its recipients and by it God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts.

But that is not the total picture and some have erred in stressing only God’s love, mercy and grace, creating a concept which is distorted and incompleted. God is not a beneficient Santa Claus, an everpresent Genie, a tolerant Father in whose favor we rightfully bask and on whom we have the inherent claim to the good things of life.

But can we ever understand the love of God apart from the context of his holy anger? Can we understand the Cross until we know something of God’s capacity for wrath? Can we grasp the meaning of sin apart from the absolute holiness of God?

Part of the dilemma may stem from our concept of anger and wrath. The wrath of man is of the flesh, his anger only too often caused by some personal affront. Out of anger man may proceed to sins of speech or action. Aside from those occasions when regenerate man is roused to righteous indignation anger is usually sin and leads to many things which harm man and hishonor God.

The wrath of God is a holy wrath, a consuming reaction against evil the nature and extent of which no man can understand. Here we are confronted by the inscrutable fact of divine holiness and by the depth of the implications of sin. It is not as man hates that God hates; rather it is the revulsion of a righteousness which is altogether perfect against sin which is its antithesis.

To express either the holiness or the wrath of God adequately in human terms is impossible, but to recognize the fact of their validity is within the scope of all men.

When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews states, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31), we should face this terrifying affirmation. When he says, “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29), we should recognize God’s capacity for a holy and consuming wrath.

No man has proclaimed the love and mercy of God more than the Apostle Paul. Shall not these words then give us pause? “Do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:4, 5, RSV).

But Paul goes on to set the love and wrath of God in their perspective. In Romans 5:9 we read, “Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (RSV).

The wrath of God must be seen in the light of man’s sinfulness and in the total picture of that sin for which full atonement has been made. Romans 1:18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (RSV).

In this same vein we read in Hebrews 10:28, 29 these solemn words, “A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned (made light of) the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?” (RSV).

That the coming wrath may be avoided rings through the theme of redemption, for we are admonished to, “… wait for his Son from heaven, … raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thes. 1:10, RSV).

That the wrath of God hangs over impenitent sinners is likewise evident. “Let no one deceive you with empty words,” Paul says, “for it is because of these things (man’s blatant sins) that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6, RSV).

Furthermore, the wrath of God will be exercised through his Son, on those who willfully reject him: “… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thes. 1:7–9, RSV).

Shrug this off? Reject it as “out of keeping” with the love of God? Ignore it in favor of a god of our own making?

These are alternatives, but they are alternatives with dreadful consequences for those who embrace them.

All around us we see not only unbelief in God’s Son and his redemptive act on the cross, but also the sins of the flesh flaunted on every hand with a brazenness little different from the days of Sodom. God is not blind to these things and there is a day of reckoning. “On account of these (things),” Paul writes, “the wrath of God is coming” (Col. 3:6, RSV).

How can we ignore these warnings? How can we present to the world a deformed God, one abounding in a silly love in which there is neither holiness nor justice? For too long we have misrepresented God to a sinful world. Misinterpreting the love of God, as revealed in his Son on the cross, we have been guilty of ignoring his total holiness and the great gulf which separates the sinner from his Creator.

We have confused sentimentality with divine love and looked for cleansing and forgiveness without the shed blood of the Son of God.

Preaching to a lost generation we have failed to show the reality of man’s perdition as a backdrop against which there should be preached a love which provides the only way of escape.

No longer do we hear ringing from our pulpits the warning that a day is coming when men will attempt to hide in the caves and rocks from the presence of a spurned God, realizing too late that the wrath of God is as much a reality as his love, and crying out, “For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand before it?”

The same God who offers us redemption through the shed blood of his Son warns us to flee from the wrath to come. He does not leave us in ignorance as to what will take place. Nor does he leave us to go alone. John 3:36 carries this solemn message: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; and he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.”

Preach on that theme, ponder it. Then, and only then will the love and wrath of God be seen in their proper perspective.

And lo, it came to pass that in those days a mighty host of Marx assembled in the high court of Moscow to take counsel together how they might destroy the might of the West. And they came from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South. From the five continents and the seven seas they came. And the Lord High Commissar stood before them, and he, too, sought the answer to this mighty question.

And some said, “Let us invade Europe.” But the rest said, “No, this will turn men against us.” And others said, “Let us drop one hydrogen bomb to show our might.” But others, wiser than they, said, “They, too, have hydrogen bombs, and more than we.” And still others said, “Let us destroy the United Nations.” But the hosts and the Lord High Commissar rejected these and many other words of counsel. And so it was that they abode there many days, but without finding that which they sought.

And there arose an old man, one who had lived under the Czar, and under Lenin, and under Stalin, one who had seen many things in his day. And he said: “O foolish men, you seek to do that which would unite the world against you in hatred. Instead, we can win our struggle without losing any friend or sacrificing a life. Let us destroy the souls and minds of the people of the West, especially those in America.”

And the mighty hosts agreed, but none knew how. So they asked, “Old man, how would you do this?” And he said, “Listen to me.”

The Road to Serfdom

And the hosts of Marx gathered round the old man and hearkened unto him, even the Lord High Commissar.

“It is so simple, you who are used to espionage and the futile might of science. To destroy the mind and soul of a people you need only replace, gradually, the great with the trivial, the noble with the vulgar, the meaningful with the meaningless, the good with the bad. You need only provide diverting entertainment which is easy, free, and available. You may do this in the name of recreation or education and if you do it long enough men will become your slaves.”

“But old man, you have not told us how,” the hosts replied.

A Strategy for America

And the old man continued, “Because of progress every family, nay, every person in America can now have a television set or radio beside or before him all the minutes of the day. No longer will there be spaces of silence. Even at the beach, at the family outings, or while driving in the car voices and pictures may be heard or seen. Let us provide programs enough to keep their minds occupied from early till late, nay, let there be no moment in their lives unoccupied or diverted with trivia. If they tire of television let there be movies of like kind for them to attend. Or, if boredom forces them to read, let their reading, too, be cheap and vulgar. Men, women, boys, and girls will no longer read books. They will even believe that education and religion come best in pictures. And lo, I will tell you the most wonderful part of this conquest.”

“What is that, old man?” the crowd sought.

Free Enterprise Foots the Bill

“All this won’t cost us a penny. Their advertisers will pay for the television program. The people themselves will pay their way into movies and purchase the cheap books and magazines, especially the young who are eager for thrills. Now and then we will arrange for their police to capture a Russian spy bearing microfilm. This will divert their minds. Meanwhile we will continue our armaments and worldwide propaganda and pressures in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But our main program must be in the minds of Americans. And once the mind is captured the soul soon follows.”

“We will destroy old values and replace them with new ones of our making, which we must not permit in our lands. We will turn wrong into right and right into wrong. This will be done most pleasantly.”

“And how long will this take, old man?” the Lord High Commissar asked.

Where Unregeneracy Leads

“Who can tell? But we Marxists do not fret over a decade or so. It will come soon enough. Time and human nature are on our side. By providing cars and buses we will make Americans unable to walk and destroy their bodies. With easy chairs and couches we will soften their muscles even while we soften their brains. Within twenty years few American children will be able to read, write, spell, or think continuously for over five seconds. School children will chose the easiest subjects in school and make merely a passing mark in even these. All because from their infancy they have been bred on trivia at home. We will even cause their sacred book, the Bible, to become unknown and forgotten. We will make them incurious and even despise those who are curious and love learning for its own sake.”

High Tide is Coming

And the hosts of Marx praised the old man for his wisdom and gave him a seat of honor, to be photographed at the right hand of the Lord High Commissar. They voted to continue armaments, to continue pressure on the five continents, but to rely on the old man’s advice to win and capture the West. And so it is till this day.

GRAHAM R. HODGES

Emmanuel Congregational Church

Watertown, New York.

Any discussion of anti-Semitism is bound to raise the question of its cause. Widely-varying attempts have been made to explain this extraordinary phenomenon. Some have sought to find the explanation in factors of psychology, or economics, or sociology.

We are told that the Jew is hated because he is different, because he has his own cultural observances, keeps his feasts and holidays at different times from those of the majority, practices his own marriage customs and, most inconvenient of all if he observes them, has his own dietary laws. No doubt these things often make it difficult for Gentiles to have normal social relationships with Jews, but they hardly seem sufficient to account for the intensity of the dislike which many Gentiles feel for Jews.

We may be told that it is a case of “dislike of the unlike,” something comparable to color prejudice and other forms of racial discrimination, an inborn sense of aversion that centuries of contact have done nothing to eradicate. We may see the force of all this and yet feel that we are only touching the fringe of the problem.

The same is true of arguments oriented to economic factors. Jews are disliked because they are successful in business. They drive hard bargains and display their success in brash and obstentatious behavior. They are too exclusive; they live in a degree of voluntary segregation in neighborhoods they have largely appropriated for themselves. On the other hand, they will at times move into predominantly Gentile areas and cause resentment by their different standards of manners and behavior. Their strong sense of family loyalty is much to be admired, of course, but why must they be so smug about it? And why do they obtrude their Bar-mitzvah and circumcision celebrations in districts where it is only socially acceptable to be convivial at Christmas time? No doubt we have all heard arguments of this sort, but whether we agree or disagree we can scarcely regard them in any sense as adequate explanations of anti-Semitism.

Reaching Back Into The Past

Hatred of the Hebrew peoples has a very long history reaching back at least to the time of Moses and arising in countries where political and social factors have varied enormously. It is our contention that anti-Semitism is at root a theological problem and can never he understood apart from considerations of theology.

It is true that the Jew is different from other men, but the basic reason for his difference is his conviction, a conviction that again goes back to the time of Moses, if not to Abraham, that he stands in a peculiar relationship to God. The Jew if he is true to his faith must believe that God revealed himself to Abraham and entered into a solemn covenant with him, a covenant of which circumcision was the outward sign and seal (Gen. 17:7–14). Even before the covenant came into being, God had made solemn promises to Abraham: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12:2, 3).

The promises were repeated to Isaac and Jacob, and through Moses God entered into a covenant-relationship with the entire nation. Israel then became a “peculiar people,” the people of the Covenant, pledged to observe the Torah, the law of God in which his purposes were revealed.

Israel therefore has a peculiar vocation among men, namely, that of reminding them of the reality of God and that he has a law which men are required to keep.

It is precisely this reality of God and of his demands upon men which men are often anxious to forget. Yet so long as the Jew exists, complete forgetfulness of such reality is impossible. Hence his very existence is resented, and attempts have been made again and again to destroy him. The fact that from the days of Pharaoh to the days of Hitler these attempts have failed, and that, in the words of Disraeli, the Jew has “stood at the graveside of his persecutors,” confirms his conviction that he is in a peculiar sense the man of the covenant who belongs to the people of God, a people that cannot be destroyed until God’s purposes for them are fulfilled.

A Reminder Of God’S Reality

Anti-Semitism is closely involved in original sin. The primal, original sin of man is disobedience. Man has rebelled against God, chosen his own way rather than God’s, and made himself instead of God the center of his universe. This leads inevitably to a desire to forget, if not deny, the fact of God’s existence and certainly the validity of God’s law. In the Genesis story man is depicted as rebelling and immediately trying to hide from God. The very first temptation of the Serpent was to cast doubt on the reality of the divine command. “Yea, hath God said?” It is therefore not surprising that man should react against a people who in a unique way remind him of the reality of God and of the binding validity of his law. Yet this is precisely what the continued existence of the Jews serves to demonstrate.

Three writers of widely differing background have borne witness to the fact that the Jewish people and their history afford irrefutable evidence of the reality of God.

The Protestant theologian Karl Barth has said that the Jews provide the “only possible natural proof of God’s existence.”

Nicholas Berdyaev, the Russian Orthodox writer, has described how as a young man he determined to test the materialistic interpretation of history by applying it to the story of one people after another. He found that it broke down hopelessly in the case of the Jews. On all ordinary human standards of reasoning they should long ago have disappeared from the face of history. Their continued existence could only be explained in terms of the existence of God.

Similarly, Jacques Maritain, the French Roman Gatholic philosopher, says that Israel can only rightly be understood as a “Mystery” comparable with the “Mystery” of the Church. She is in the world but not “of the world.” It is her inevitable destiny to remain in the world as a reminder of the God whom men would prefer to forget. Of course, men still try to explain the existence of the Jews as a purely human phenomenon, but they have a subconscious fear that it is not wise to look into the matter too closely.

It is safe to say that the average man has at least some knowledge of the Old Testament. Even if he never reads it himself, there remain somewhere in his memory echoes of generations of churchgoing with the inevitable “First Lesson” consisting of solemn warnings from the prophets against idolatry and dramatic stories illustrating the fate of those who “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Coupled with all this is the recollection of the Ten Commandments to which no such comforting clause as “only five need be attempted” was ever attached!

It is as though the Jew constantly said to him, “Look at us and be warned in time! Here we are a people scattered over the face of the earth, a people with a tragic and terrible history, all because our fathers rebelled against God, refused to listen to his prophets, and rejected his laws.” This sort of object lesson is extremely unpleasant and naturally produces hostile reactions. People may seek to escape from the truth by pointing to the apparent prosperity of many Jews, but they forget that such persons are only the few fortunate survivors of the millions who have perished at the hands of their persecutors. Others may seize upon certain Jewish characeristics which they dislike, characteristics that are usually the result of centuries of maltreatment, and seek the explanation for anti-Semitism here.

The Hebrew And The Cross

There is, however, another far more subtle line of argument, more dangerous because of the strange mixture of truth and error which it contains. Did not the Jews reject and crucify Christ? Have they not been cast off and compelled to suffer as a result? Did not the rulers of Israel cry, “His blood be on us and on our children?” There can be no doubt that in the “centuries of faith” arguments of this sort were again and again used to justify anti-Semitism. It is often forgotten that for centuries persecution of the Jews was not only perpetrated by professing Christians but was carried out as the official policy of the Church in the very name of Christ! How are we to explain anything so utterly contrary to the spirit of the Christ who prayed even for his murderers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It is an oversimplification of the problem to say that the Church was corrupt and those who expressed hostility to the Jews were only nominal Christians. Good, even great, men of the Church adopted the traditional attitude. Chrysostom “the Golden Mouthed” preached the most violent sermons against the Jews. Peter the Hermit stirred up the Crusaders to turn their swords against the Jews long before they reached the Holy Land to fight the Saracens. Ambrose and Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Hilary of Poitiers, all joined in the chorus of denunciation. It is true that not all these men advocated or even approved actual violence against the Jews, but there can be no doubt that the cumulative effect of ceaseless denunciation created an atmosphere in which deeds of violence were natural if not inevitable.

All of this is not a matter only of the distant past. Up to the early days of this century there were countries in Eastern Europe where it was not an unknown thing for “Christians” to come out of their Good Friday services so incensed with hatred against those whom they blamed for the crucifixion of Christ that they would go down to the Jewish quarter, burn Jewish houses and synogogues, beat up the Jews, and even put many to death in the name of Christ, while holding aloft the symbol of the Cross as they carried out their actions. The horrible Eastertide massacres at Kishineff in 1903 are only one example.

In order to understand anti-Semitism, it is essential to grasp something of the mechanism of the “scapegoat.” There are times when it seems essential for peace of mind to transfer a sense of guilt onto another. Hitler felt the need for this in Germany between the wars. He found a country smarting under the consciousness of defeat and thought it essential to demonstrate that the Germans were not themselves responsible for the disaster. Who then was to be blamed? The “obvious” answer was the Jews who had “corrupted and demoralized” an otherwise invincible people. Thus once again the Jews were called upon to play the traditional role of the scapegoat and nearly six million were put to death.

The Role Of The Scapegoat

It was this role of scapegoat that the Jew was in reality playing throughout the Middle Ages and before then. The cross of Christ was the most damning indictment conceivable of the human race. If it were true to say that once in time God Incarnate came upon earth and the best men could do to him was to hang him upon a cross, then here surely was a sin which by comparison all others must pale into insignificance. It was intolerable for the race as a whole to plead guilty to so monstrous a crime. Never was the need for a scapegoat more urgent. And here was the scapegoat ready at hand. Who crucified Christ? The Jews, surely, who still reject him, who refuse to believe that he was the Son of God or to be baptized in his Name. But can the rest of mankind, above all the Christians, consider themselves acquitted? Are Jews alone to be held responsible?

The evasion of guilt on the part of the Gentile world is historically untenable. Roman as well as Jew must plead guilty. It is surely no accident that in the historic creeds Jesus Christ is described as “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” not, as might so easily have been said, “under Annas and Caiaphas the Jewish priests.” We know that not all Jews rejected him. The first Christian believers, the first witnesses, the earliest missionaries, were Jews. However, these considerations were soon forgotten in the desperate need to fasten the guilt for the crucifixion solely upon Jewish shoulders.

It is perhaps no coincidence that a change of attitude was first seen among evangelical believers, who recovered the sense that all men are sinners, all must plead guilty to a share in the world-sin which crucified Christ, and that only through faith in the Crucified is forgiveness of sin possible. With them came a sense of fellow-feeling for the Jews. And with the Evangelical Revival came the first missions to the Jews in modern times. Attempts had been made before to compel Jews to accept baptism by means of threats. Now for the first time in many centuries the Gospel was offered to them in love. True, the terrible record of the past proved, as it still proves today, to be a formidable obstacle in the path of the evangelist; but little by little many Jews have come to realize that there are true Christians who do not regard themselves as in any sense superior to the Jews but who take their place alongside them as fellow-sinners at the cross of Christ. It was said of Lewis Way, one of the early pioneers of the “London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews,” that he was the first Christian for many years to convince Jewish people that he truly and really loved them.

Anti-Semitism is basically a theological phenomenon, arising from original sin, an attempt to evade responsibility for the rejection of God’s provision of salvation. Its ultimate solution must also be theological. Christians and Jews will only learn to forgive each other when both find forgiveness at the cross of Christ.

Christianity today’s series of articles on Bultmann raises the question: Why has the neoorthodox theology (of Karl Barth) not been able to avoid a relapse to liberalism (Rudolf Bultmann)? This is a most interesting and revealing question, even if Continental theology might state the question in somewhat different terminology.

From Theology To The Bible

What happened? Since 1945 the focus of theological discussion shifted not only from Barth to Bultmann, but also from systematic theology to biblical exegesis. Between 1920 and 1940 systematic theology mainly furnished the topics of discussion, such as the question of natural theology. The theological student chose his university primarily on the basis of the kind of systematic theology represented there: thus he went to Bonn to study dialectic theology under Barth, or to Erlangen to be taught neo-Lutheran theology by Paul Althaus and Werner Elert, or to Tübingen for Karl Heim, or to Zürich for Emil Brunner. Whereas before World War I there was the danger of theology’s being dissolved into philosophy and history of religion, these men had restored it as an important factor in the field of thought. Consequently the number of theological students rose impressively. Largely through these men the Church was enabled to assume a clear-cut position over against her adversaries, particularly against the oppressive measures of national socialism.

Following the German catastrophe of 1945 this theology had its great share in reorganizing the Church; the neo-Lutheran theology of W. Elert shaped—at least partially—the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, and similarly the theology of Karl Barth left its imprint on the Evangelical Church of the Union. But the first theological topic which was commonly discussed after 1945 was put by exegesis: it was Bultmann’s program of demythologization! Bultmann himself had developed this program (without its eventual title) already in his essays and writings during the twenties; but while at that time it attracted limited attention, it now became widely debated, not only by theologians, but also by the general public. During the fifties the “Bultmann School” came to be one of the most influential factors in theological discussion; it is now represented in most of the West German theological faculties, and it has its own platform in the Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche.

In order to give a proper explanation to the prominence given to Bultmann and his school one must note also a parallel theological interest in Old Testament exegesis, centered particularly in the school around G. von Rad and M. Noth. The faculty in which G. von Rad was teaching attracted more students during the fifties than any other theological faculty in Germany. G. von Rad’s “Old Testament Theology” (Theologie des Alten Testaments) is rightly regarded as the most outstanding work of German theology since 1945. Each year there are more copies sold of the Neukirchener-Biblischen Kommentar zum Alten Testament, edited by this school, as well as of the new volumes of the Meyer Commentary, than were sold of any comparable work in ten years before the war! And only a very small percentage of these commentaries originates from the Bultmann school.

‘Reinterpreting’ Scripture

This overall picture of the situation provides a preliminary answer to the question: how could Bultmann’s influence outgrow Barth’s? Systematic theology in general was pushed into the background by biblical exegesis! And we must go on asking: how could that happen?

This process appears to me a good indication that the sola scriptura principle of the Reformation is still valid? The second decisive reason, however, was critical exegesis. We are gradually learning that the rise of historical research in Scripture during the eighteenth century has been, not a second Reformation, as is frequently said, but rather the most important theological event since the Reformation period. The terms of reference look very convincing at first glance: the body of literature incorporated in the Bible is to be scrutinized and exposed in exactly the same way as were other documents of the same time, namely, according to the principles of analogy, correlation, and criticism, to employ E. Troeltsch’s terms. But what does that mean? It means that the hermeneutical rule of the Reformation was abandoned, according to which Scripture was to be explained through Scripture, and Scripture again through faith in Christ! Thus Scripture is made the victim of the methods of modern autonomous science and of its underlying philosophical presuppositions! From the viewpoint of the history of thought, this was inevitable; for autonomous science had conquered step by step all areas of life since the day of the Renaissance. From the viewpoint of theology, however, this was at least partly necessary; for the biblical writings are real historical documents and the Son of God was born not only man, but a Jewish man of the first century. This is why historical Scripture research is necessary! But what was the result of this work? Historical Scripture research opened up to exegesis an invaluable treasure vault of philological and history-of-religion insights, but before World War I it ended in the so-called history-of-religion school (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule), by dissolving biblical exegesis into mere Religionsgeschichte. Original Christianity appeared as a branch of the Jewish or Hellenistic history of religion. Why it was still distinct from both could no longer be explained. Thus purely historical research had ultimately failed not only theologically, but also historically. This is why after World War I a change of attitude took place within historical research itself. Previously only those exegetes like J. Chr. K. Hofmann, J. T. Beck, and A. Schlatter, who stood somewhat removed from it, had pointed out that historical work with the Bible had to take the thinking of faith as its starting point, and not some philosophical ideology. Now, however, corresponding insights were perpetuated even within the circles engaged in historical research.

This happened through Barth and Bultmann. Both men had studied exegesis, not under A. Schlatter or Th. Zahn, but in the history-of-religion school, yet both of them discovered the limits of the “purely historical” exegesis. As a young Swiss pastor wrestling with the exegesis of Romans, Barth gained an insight which he expressed in the preface to his Commentary on Romans (1922): “The Epistle to the Romans will not be expounded, if you reproduce its contents historically as an objective observer; you will understand it only if, firstly, you will wrestle with it until the dividing wall between the first and the twentieth century will become transparent, until Paul himself will speak there and twentieth-century man will listen here, and secondly, until the dialogue between the document and its reader will be centered upon the matter itself.” This was the beginning of the most powerful movement within Continental twentieth-century theology! It was a courageous break away from the axioms of historical research. But has Barth really overcome it—or has he just shuffled it aside? His first principle, the principle of our being contemporary with Scripture, does not do full justice to its historical character. To state it simply: a truly theological exposition should not ask straightforward: what does the Epistle to the Romans say to me? But it rather has to ask the historical question first: what did Paul want to say to the Church at Rome? However, we can only answer this question—and this is the truth in Barth’s second principle—if we are captured by the same matter. It might, however, be that Barth looked at this matter too much with the eyes of Sören Kierkegaard. For these two reasons the exegetical meditations in Barth’s great Church Dogmatics, despite many deep theological thoughts, often deviate quite far from the verbal sense.

Because Barth only pushed historical Scripture research aside, instead of mastering it, its claim became all the more urgent after 1945. The impression spread that Barth, and basically also all the other systematic theologians, had not come to grips with the problems raised by historical Scripture research, and that their scriptural basis could not meet the challenge of modern exegesis. Over against this, Bultmann suggested an answer which honestly combined historical research and theological understanding of the Scriptures, and which offered a complete and overall theological system. In a different way from Barth’s, Bultmann gained distance from the history-of-religion school: he continued analyzing the texts historically, but at the same time he emphasized that the message of the biblical texts should not be described as an historical phenomenon, but should rather be interpreted. Bultmann contended that historical analysis ends up in mythical statements, while the proper sense has to be gained through existential interpretation. Here historical research was certainly taken into account, but apparently it was not dealt with in appropriate terms. The historical analysis and the philosophical principle of existential interpretation could rather be compared to two barriers which cannot be removed by means of a theological understanding of the text, but which limit such understanding. Exegesis is subject to these two principles just as Roman Catholicism is subject to the dogma of the church. The result is, to follow Luther, a similar “Babylonian Captivity”: historical results and philosophical thought-patterns become two walls barring the way toward an understanding of the text by faith. It is true that faith-rooted knowledge cannot ignore both, but we would have to grant it the possibility of coming to terms with both.

The present theological development thus finds its explanation through the decisive theological problems: Bultmann moved into the focus of theological discussion because he dealt with the most essential problem by which contemporary Protestant theology is being challenged—that is, the connection between historical Scripture research and theological exegesis; but he has gradually been losing the limelight these past two years, now that the solution offered by him is proving insufficient. Some additional factors supported this tendency. Since there was a vogue of self-criticism in post-1945 Germany, Bultmann’s critical attitude attracted many, but this criticism has led beyond him. Meanwhile German theological literature has also corrected not a few of his historical opinions and theories. Not only scholars adhering to other schools, like J. Jeremias and O. Cullmann, but also Bultmann’s own disciples and followers, have taken part in this revision from many sides. After 1945 new ways were explored for bringing the Gospel to people who sought it; Bultmann seemed to offer such a way, but his theology released no missionary power and brought the students adhering to it, once they had entered the ministry, into grave conflicts with what most church members held as their belief and confession.

What The Situation Demands

What, then, does this situation require?

1. We must not bypass historical Scripture research by simply returning to old-style dogmatics and exegesis! Speaking in the terms of church history, we cannot return to seventeenth-century orthodoxy or pietism; neither can we adapt their methods of exegesis. To mention just one example: we have to learn from historical Scripture research that “Son of Man” in the Gospels does not, as was commonly held from the second up to the eighteenth century, connote the human origin of Jesus, but that it is rather a term for Messianic dignity. During the last 20 years Roman Catholic theology, especially in Germany and France, has also adapted the methods of historical Scripture research!

2. However, when we engage in historical Scripture research, we must not forget what its 150-year-old history in Germany teaches us so clearly: the very moment when historical research stops merely collecting philological and historical material and starts explaining a biblical text, it becomes dependent on either the philosophical belief or the Christian faith of the scholar, basically even on both. Therefore historical research, whenever it aims at expounding Scripture, must go hand in hand with theological understanding! Certainly the field of history-of-religion research has grown so immensely in our days that there have to be certain specialists who engage, for example, in Qumran research or specific archaelogical problems; however, as long as these men do not go into theological reflections on the basis of the faith of the Church, they can merely furnish supplementary material towards the explanation of Scriptures; they cannot explain Scripture.

3. The crucial problem, and the question of life and death for a church which takes its stand on the scriptural principle, could be formulated as follows: in what way are historical research and theological understanding to be connected? Barth and Bultmann have both raised this question with much seriousness, but neither could offer a satisfactory solution; even A. Schlatter, whose commentaries are currently being translated into English, had found a better way in his day. In my opinion, we will have to seek for the solution in terms of the Reformers’ concept of the relationship between natural knowledge and the knowledge of faith. We must relate historical research (together with its underlying philosophical patterns of thought) and theological understanding to each other in a critical dialogue, in which the final word will lie with faith. Along this line we will have to make the principle of historical research, the analogia historica, subject to the principles of Scripture research as set forth by the Reformers, viz., the analogia fidei (analogy of faith) and the analogia scripturae sacrae (analogy of Holy Scriptures), and furthermore, we will have to adapt these principles in a new way.

It seems to me that this principle is already being put into practice, at least partially, in the method of Old Testament exegesis carried out by the group of theologians around G. von Rad. According to him, the Old Testament is properly explained only when there is an historical analysis which takes complete account of its relation to the world of the ancient East; but eventually it must be explained in the light of Jesus Christ, who is its end and its fulfillment. Accordingly, the New Testament is properly explained only when there is an historical analysis; but at the same time it must be understood by means of faith as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, as indeed the New Testament understood itself. This way, found in Julius Schniewind’s commentaries on Matthew and Mark, I endeavor to follow in my own studies and works.

It is significant that Bultmann and many representatives of his school are not able to gain a positive relationship to the Old Testament. Since they are not sufficiently aware of the reality of the living God, to whom the Old Testament witnesses and who is the Alpha and the Omega for the New Testament, they find themselves in a helpless position when it comes to dealing with certain central questions of the New Testament. Thus their historical analysis points out quite properly that Jesus has not directly fulfilled any of the Old Testament’s Jewish Messianic concepts, and they conclude that Jesus could not possibly have held himself to be the Messiah. It is little use when other scholars investigate the historical proof, and suggest that there must have been the concept of a suffering Messiah in Judaism, and that Jesus must have adapted it to himself. If, however, we relate this historical analysis to the understanding of faith in the light of the history of salvation, we see that the ministry of Jesus, viewed from the outside, was not and could not be Messianic. For he wanted to save the Faithful! Only he who believed and followed him could finally recognize: “Here is something greater than the temple,” greater than the prophets; here is, contrary to all evidence, the fulfillment (Matt. 11:2 ff.); for here the relationship to God becomes totally healed!

This example can clarify one thing: what we need in our situation are not some corrections of isolated single traits in Bultmann’s historical and theological concept, as they are presently being developed also in his own school. The only thing that could help would be to find a basically different way toward a solution of the central problem, by which the Church of the Word is being challenged in these days.

4. If it is true that the solution is to be looked for in the direction suggested above, then it will never come to us ready-made. Exegesis must enter into a constant dialogue between historical research and theological understanding, in course of which we must try constantly to renew our understanding of the biblical texts.

It will be the task of systematic theology, then, to confront the results of an exegesis, constructed from the acceptable methodical principles, with the theological tradition of the Church and with the philosophies and ideologies of our age. Systematic theology will then have to tell us what the binding teaching of the Church should be in our time, and help in its turn toward a further clarification of the presuppositions of exegesis, especially of the questions on faith and history, and of revelation and history. Systematic theology is not simply the extension of biblical theology; what is needed is a genuine dialogue between both disciplines.

The greater works of the past are seldom irrelevant to the present. In our own age of concern for unity, and of increasing ecumenical involvement with the Eastern Orthodox and Roman churches, this is particularly true of the famous Apology of the Anglican Reformer, John Jewel, which celebrates its four hundredth anniversary this year. This work enjoyed a European reputation in its day as representative of the whole Reformation position against Rome, and it was translated into several languages. Today, of course, it is little read. Nevertheless, the issues which it raises and the main points which it makes are no less apposite in our age than at the time of composition.

Unity And Authority

Jewel’s first concern is to rebut the charge that the Reformers are non-Catholic schismatics who destroy unity. This leads him to a discussion of the true norm of unity or catholicity. He finds it, not in obligatory conformity to a present organization and its authoritarian judgments, but in agreement with the doctrines and practices of the New Testament and their embodiment in the earlier patristic period. Judged by this standard, the Reformers are the true Catholics and the sixteenth-century Romanists are the eccentric innovators who destroy the only unity which really counts.

A second concern of Jewel derives naturally from the first. This was to establish the true standard or authority by which unity is to be evaluated. For Roman Catholics the one Catholic faith and order are decided not merely by Scripture, nor even by Scripture with the early fathers and councils, but also by tradition, by the teaching office, by decisions of Roman councils, and more recently by ex cathedra Papal pronouncements. Unity implies conformity to all these authorities. To Jewel, however, this is an impossible position. For one thing, the authorities are self-contradictory. In tradition and later councils there are things contrary to apostolic and patristic testimony. More basically, there are no good grounds on which to exalt the Roman authorities to parity with Holy Scripture. The early fathers and councils themselves acknowledge that they are bound by Scripture. Their witness is valuable to the extent that it agrees with what is found in the Bible. The truly catholic church is thus the church which is truly apostolic and therefore truly scriptural. All relative authorities in the church are subject to the absolute authority of Scripture and must be faithful to it.

Nor is Scripture authoritative merely because of its historical priority. This is important. We know what Christ said and did, and what the Church is meant to be, only through the biblical writers. Their work is the source and has normative value as such. Yet this is no ordinary source, nor are the apostles the mere inaugurators of a historical process. They are raised up by God, called by Christ and specifically endowed by the Spirit to do a particular work. Their work thus has a divinely imparted authority in and with its historical normativeness. To deviate from it is not just to introduce good or bad historical novelties; it is to diverge from the understanding and practice established by God himself. It thus involves fundamental aberration and disobedience, and cannot be justified by any lesser authorities, however valid in their own place.

Ecumenical Import

In terms of the modern ecumenical movement, the first value of Jewel’s work is that it enables us to see clearly the true nature and locus of disunity. Disunity is not just divergence from an institution. It is more than the competitiveness of two or more institutions. It goes beyond differences of opinion. As we are constantly told, it is a real sin. The sin, however, is not just to be disunited, nor is it just to be uncharitable or obstinate or supercilious as such. The sin is to be disunited from true apostolicity. We may introduce many relative standards in discussion of the issues of faith, order and practice which divide the churches. We may study historical circumstances of separation. We may evaluate the influence of conflicting trends, or the effects of nationality or personality. These things contribute to disunity and enable us to follow the process and apportion the responsibility. But they remain on the surface if taken in isolation. For ultimately the disunity which really counts, which is truly sinful, which demands investigation and which must he restored for true reunification, is departure from the apostolic standard. No ecumenical analysis which misses this issue, no discussion or plan which evades it, can bring the unity of the body of Christ which is so much desired and sought in the modern ecclesiastical world.

If this is so, however, then the central ecumenical issue is still that of the Reformation, namely, that of authority. Truly to know disunity we must measure what is by what should be. Truly to establish unity, we must bring what is into conformity with what should be. But to do this, we must have the norm by which to know what should be. Only the right standard can reveal disunity and help to unity. The wrong standard must inevitably breed disunity, prevent its basic understanding and hinder any attempts at its removal.

Modern Rationalism

Since the time of Jewel a new authority has come to dominate the Protestant world. This is reason. In some cases it may be hostile to Scripture, in others complementary, in others friendly; but always it claims superiority. Now reason is not to be despised. The Reformers, too, recognized that divine truth is not irrational, that the Logos is supremely logical, and that reason, purified and directed by the Spirit, has its own function. But reason alone or supreme makes an unfortunate master. It is anthropocentric, fallible and disruptive. It entails a clash of opinions which can be resolved only by compromise, relativism or abstraction. Little help is to be expected from it either in the profounder analysis of disunity or in approximation to true unity. Where reason is falsely enthroned, disunity is established.

In general, however, the promotion of reason as a supreme norm has been eccentric to the main development of the church. Neo-Protestant illusions should not blind us to the fact that this is still so today. The main challenge to Scripture has been, and is, from the related but rather different exaltation of tradition, the confessions, or the teaching office. This is not directly hostile to the Bible. Nor is it wrong in itself, for all churches can and should attribute some authority to their fathers, creeds, councils and authorized interpreters. The mischief enters when this relative authority is turned into an absolute alongside and finally above the Bible. As such it inevitably limits and muffles the authority of Scripture. And in so doing it forfeits its own pretended absoluteness, abandoning the solid truth of God to human change and novelty. It thus brings itself into inevitable conflict both with the Bible and with itself. The final result is the disunity of deviation from the apostolic norm, the forfeiture of any hope of true unity, and the probable attempt to impose a spurious counterfeit.

The Role Of Scripture

The only real hope for the ecumenical movement, or for the unity which it desires, is a return to real apostolicity in terms of the prophetic and apostolic authority of Scripture. This is a hard way. It involves a sharp and painful exposure of the real nature and ground of disunity. It makes compromise, evasion or self-complacency impossible. Yet it is an eminently fruitful way. It works back through the secondary complications to the solid ground which is common ground. It means the subjugation of all lesser authorities to the final norm, and therefore the overcoming of the differences, not by compromise, but by correction. It holds out hope for reconstruction in which the voices of the past are heard, and reason can do its proper work, but both positively and negatively the apostolic norm holds sovereign sway. It means the abandoning of unapostolic disunity in principle, and therefore the patient, humble, prayerful, obedience of faith in seeking the real unity which rests on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

Whether those who absolutize secondary authorities will follow this Way, one cannot tell. If not, the ecumenical movement is an illusion indeed. Even if evoked by the Spirit, it resists the Spirit. It is thus left with no option but continuing disunity or false unity. Yet the circumstance of the day present the invitation to this hard but fruitful way as they did at the time of the Reformation. Within the ecumenical movement itself, there are the more perspicacious who see that this is the right way which is also the only way. And either within the ecumenical movement or outside it, evangelical theology has a special ability and responsibility to assist at this vital point. What is required of it is neither carping criticism nor the dialogue which aims at no more than harmonization. It is the positive presentation of a theology and practice which uncover the real issue and set a right example by their own faithful adherence to the apostolic norm. It is the patient but persistent discussion, in word or writing, which bores back insistently to the bedrock of apostolic authority. It is the achievement of such evangelical unity under the Word of God that the many variations in evangelical faith, order and practice may be discussed, not in terms of relative authorities alone, but supremely in submission to, and reformation by, the one authority which is the guarantee of real catholicity and therefore of solid and inviolable unity.

Acts 4:29 (RSV)

The Preacher:

John R. W. Stott has been since 1950 Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place, in the heart of London’s west end. After a distinguished career at Cambridge University, he was ordained in 1945. Appointed a. royal chaplain in 1959, he is also Chairman of the Evangelical Research Center at Oxford, and a frequent speaker at student conferences. Mr. Stott’s published works include Basic Christianity and Fundamentalism and Evangelism.

The Text:

And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness.

The Series:

This is the fourth in CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S series of sermons from the United Kingdom and Europe. Among the preachers scheduled for future issues are Jean Cadier, President of the Reformed Faculty at Montpellier, France; Charles Duthie, Principal of the Scottish Congregational College; G. C. Berkouwer, Professor in the Free University of Amsterdam; and Ermanno Rostan, Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy.

So began the persecution of the Christian Church. Since that clay it has never ceased. It continues unabated today.

Peter and John, after healing the lame man at the Beautiful Gate and preaching to the people, had been arrested, put in custody and brought to trial. The Supreme Jewish Council had forbidden them to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, and when Peter and John quietly replied that they must obey God rather than men and that they could not help speaking of what they had seen and heard, the Sanhedrin further threatened them (whether with imprisonment, the dreaded scourging or death we are not told) and released them. Peter and John went straight to their Christian brethren to pray. It was a critical moment in the history of the infant Church. When Jesus had been arrested and tried, the disciples had all forsaken him and fled. And now the power of the enemy was turned on them. Would they falter and fail, or stand the test and hold firm?

In many parts of the world today the persecution of Christians is open and undisguised. Violent attempts are being made to stifle the Church’s witness. In Communist China the present experience of the Church has been exposed by Leslie Lyall in his book Come Wind, Come Weather, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1961. He describes the subtlety of the indirect attack by the creation of the “Three-Self Reform Movement,” which is pledged to purge the Church of all “imperialist influence.” Disguised as a patriotic movement, it has woefully compromised the truth of God and is in fact a tool of the State. All who dare to disagree with it are publicly accused and imprisoned. In Nepal newly converted Christians have been thrown into prison because of their faith. In Germany recently the East German bishops were virtually prevented from attending the Tenth All German Congress of the Evangelical Church. These things are not far away. Do not let us imagine that we are safe in England, where the Communist domination of the Electrical Trade’s Union has shown us the great power of the Communist Party in this country. The Americans also have Cuba less than 100 miles from their coast to remind them. It is not in the least unlikely that within the next few years we shall have to undergo persecution for Christ.

Their Attitude To God

They trusted the sovereignty of God. The opposition of the authorities did not overthrow their Christian faith. They did not begin to doubt whether God was God. They did not complain against his providence or whine over their sufferings. No. They prayed. And as “they lifted their voices together to God” (v. 24), their hearts and minds were filled with the divine sovereignty.

They called God “sovereign Lord,” using the word despotes, which was used of the Roman emperors and slave owners and signified a sovereign and absolute rule. They also called themselves His slaves (v. 20). Moreover, the fact that Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews, rulers and people, had been arrayed against Jesus did not frighten them. The enemies of God, who had been responsible for the death of Jesus, had only succeeded in doing “whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place” (v. 28). Twentieth century Christians have great difficulty with the doctrine of divine sovereignty and predestination, but the early Christians do not seem to have had. They held fast to it. They believed that God’s “never failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth” (Collect for Trinity VIII). They did not deny either human responsibility or man’s freedom to choose, but they saw these things within the wider context of the over-ruling sovereignty of God. Herod and Pontius Pilate, Gentiles and Jews, rulers and people were free agents, who set themselves of their own purpose against the Lord and his anointed, and yet in so doing, they were accomplishing the very thing which God s hand and purpose had foreordained. The hands which killed Jesus were wicked and lawless, yet he was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The same was true in their case; and they regarded the opposition of the world as under the controlling hand of God. What then was the source of their confidence? We must see how they qualified and elaborated the title “Sovereign Lord.”

1. They referred to creation. “Sovereign Lord, who didst make the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them” (v. 24). God’s sovereignty is viewed first and foremost in his creative work. The whole universe and its contents (earth, sea and space) were brought into existence by the will of God. They owe their origin and continuance to the purpose and power of God. They have no inherent self-control; they are upheld by the authority of the living God. Only God depends for his being on himself; all things else come from him and depend on him. If we are tempted to doubt that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men, and that he “orders all things both in heaven and earth,” then we need to do what these early Christians did and look at his work in creation. It is an easy step from faith in God as the Creator, to faith in him as the Sovereign Lord. It is this that we affirm in the Creed when we speak of God as the “almighty (i.e., All-Ruler), maker of heaven and earth.” That is, we state our faith in one who is ruler over all that he has made.

2. They referred to prophecy. In their prayer, the apostles spoke not only of what God had done (in creation), but also of what he had said (in Scripture); not only of his creative work, but of his prophetic word. “Sovereign Lord … who by the mouth of our father David, thy servant, didst say by the Holy Spirit ‘Why did the Gentiles rage …’ ” (vv. 24, 25). This is a quotation from Psalm 2, in which God clearly foretold the raging and rebellious fury of the world against himself. Kings, rulers and people would conspire together saying, “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.” But the God who predicted the opposition of the world predicted also its final overthrow: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.… I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

This prophecy of the world’s opposition to God’s Christ had been historically fulfilled. In that very city of Jerusalem there had been a vile conspiracy of Gentile and Jew, leaders and people, against the anointed Son of God (v. 27). Yet the victory was not in the hands of God’s enemies. God has not abdicated his throne. His own purpose of love will ultimately triumph.

These assurances should bring us comfort. The most frightening fulminations of men against God and Christ should not alarm us. If opposition breaks over our heads in England and we are threatened with extinction, let us take fresh courage from the works and words of God, from the evidence of his sovereignty to be found in what he has made in the universe and what he has said in the Scripture.

Their Attitude To Their Persecutors

They preached the Word of God with boldness. We have seen that the apostles felt no bitterness in their hearts towards God, and complained against neither his love nor his wisdom. But what about their attitude towards their persecutors? Did they show resentment towards them or seek to take revenge? Did they plot against their enemies as their enemies had plotted against Christ and them? Or did they run away and seek safety in the hills and caves of Judaea or Galilee? No. They did none of these things. They stayed at their post, although it meant imprisonment and scourging for some, and death for others, and they prayed for boldness to preach.

How positive they were! They were not content just to grit their teeth, to stay and stick it out. They loved their enemies, and desired the eternal good of their persecutors. They longed to see them won for Christ and saved by him for ever. They thirsted not for the destruction, but for the salvation, of their foes. They wanted them to hear the Gospel, to embrace it and to enjoy its innumerable benefits. So they prayed for utterance, for freedom of speech and courage to preach the word.

And God answered their prayers. The place where they were assembled was shaken. They were all filled anew with the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit they preached the word of God with boldness. Moreover, as they went forth, the Holy Spirit confirmed the word with signs following. These supernatural signs attending the ministry of the apostles (healings and other miracles) are probably the exception rather than the rule today. But the Spirit still can, and does, confirm the word with his own inner testimony, if not with outward signs.

In the book Come Wind, Come Weather which I have already mentioned, and in which Leslie Lyall gives an account of the present condition of the Church in China, he tells in one of his chapters the moving story of the Rev. Wang Ming-tao, whom he appropriately calls “Mr. Valiant-for-Truth.” Mr. Wang was the pastor of a church in East Peiping, actively engaged in the ministry of preaching and writing. When the Communists captured Peiping, he continued his ministry without fear. In 1951 he wrote these words in his magazine Spiritual Food Quarterly, as the opposition of the Three-Self Reform Movement was growing: “… the one who faithfully preaches the Word of God cannot but expect to meet opposition.… I know that this will come to pass. I am prepared to meet it. I covet the courage and faithfulness of Martin Luther.…” and he quotes one of his prayers. In 1954 Mr. Wang suffered the ordeal of a vast public accusation meeting. But still he continued without fear. In 1955 he wrote in a pamphlet: “We are ready to pay any price to preserve the Word of God, and we are equally willing to sacrifice anything in order to preach the Word of God.… Dear brothers and sisters, let us be strong through the mighty power of the Lord.… Don’t be cowards! Don’t be weary! Don’t give way! Don’t compromise! The battle is indeed furious and the battlefield certainly full of dangers; but God’s glory will be manifest there.… My dear brothers and sisters, let us follow in the steps of the Lord, and, holding aloft His banner, go forward courageously for His Gospel’s sake.”

That was, I think, in May 1955. On August 7, 1955, Mr. Wang preached his last sermon on “the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners,” with reference to the betrayal of Christ by the Three-Self Reform Movement. That night at 1 A.M. he was roused from sleep by the police. They bound him with ropes and took him to prison—“Mr. Valiant-for-Truth.”

Some Helpful Suggestions

Down the Christian ages persecution has too often caught the people of God unprepared. We need to get ready. Let me make three suggestions.

1. We need a deeper confidence in the sovereignty of God. The whole world is in the grip of a vast convulsion. The old order is passing away with bewildering speed. Nothing is secure or certain in the future. Our greatest need is a quiet, serene, unshakable confidence in the sovereignty of God. So we must meditate on the revelation which God has given of himself in his works and in his word, in nature and Scripture, until we are still and know that he is God, exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth. Then no catastrophe can shake us.

2. We need a deeper experience of the Spirit of God. A persecuted Church cannot stand in its own strength or survive by its own power. It will be engulfed, its life stifled and its witness smothered, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps our desperate need in the Church today of the fullness of the Holy Spirit will only come home to us when we are driven to it by the violent opposition of the world.

3. We need a deeper knowledge of the Word of God. If the day comes when we are forbidden to preach or teach in the name of Jesus, we cannot obey. The world can persecute the Church, but it must not be allowed to silence it. Our backs may be against the wall, but our mouths must remain open in testimony. But what would happen if they took the Scriptures from us, or if the Edict of Diocletian in A.D. 303 was re-enacted and all our Scriptures were ordered to be burned or confiscated? We must prepare soberly and sensibly for this eventuality too. We need to store God’s Word in our hearts, meditating on it, memorizing it. digesting it, until it is so much part of us that it cannot be taken away from us. They may take God’s Book out of our hands, but they cannot take his Word out of our hearts. So, if the storm breaks, we shall continue by grace to trust his Sovereignty and preach his Word.

A Poem

I

The age is a bastard

Born without a father to know,

Denying both its own being

And mine.

II

Melon-shaded light to read

The word from Logos-place

Is not enough. Melon-shaded,

Amber-shaded, dulcet, scarlet,

Jaded is not enough.

Spirit is enough.

III

I peeled the skin from my cheeks in a great spiral

As from a ripe orange. This is self-effacing.

I pulled shiny beads in a great shuffle

As on an abacus. This is self-negating.

I paraded God about on a silver chain

As one would a pet. This is self-piety.

God plucked me out of the grave

When I was corrupt with death and He breathed

A breath into me. And I live.

A. FRANKLIN GOODRICH

The sole objective of Communism is world domination through world revolution. On this foundation Marx based his economic and political philosophy. This objective directed every move of Lenin’s strategy and justified every act of his treachery. Mr. Khrushchev’s statements have never renounced this position nor has his conduct in international relations basically altered the Marx-Lenin procedure.

The official membership of the Communist Party is small, possibly 7 million in Russia and only 2 percent of the population in Red China. Yet in every particular it directly controls the lives of 900 million people.

Communism wants nothing of coexistence with us in the free world. Communism wants us—all that we are, all that we have. It wants you in complete submission to its authority; whatever it agrees to temporarily is but intended to achieve this ultimate purpose. It is not, therefore, the people of Russia or of Red China that we need to fear. Rather, it is Communism’s domination and the use of these people to gain control over our way of life, our resources, and us. Red China alone has fomented six wars and rebellions in other countries. So long as Red China is able to do this, Russia can afford to make deals which immobilize us in helping free nations to remain free and slave nations to revolt. Such was certainly the tragic case with Hungary. This strategy has divided Korea and undermined Tibet. It also may explain Red China’s continued castigation of the United States despite Mr. Khrushchev’s public warning against such outbursts.

However, not all the factors determining the direction of world affairs are on Khrushchev’s side. We have acted, regrettably, as if they were. Unfortunately, too, we have given him the advantage of the offensive.

What kind of world we shall live in depends on us. How accurately we appraise Communism, and what we are willing to do about it both in service and in sacrifice to secure for ourselves and for others the right to self-determination, will define the nature of our world and of our security.

Communism Is Not Moral

Before making agreements with Russia, the free world must ask: “How good is Communism?” To date we seem to be answering this question in terms of its military strength, industrial production, scientific invention, and mass education. These facts are but secondary. The main consideration is ethical. What character, what kind of personality the moral philosophy of Communism produces should determine the trustworthiness of Communism and our evaluation thereof. The Communists’ standard of action reveals their measure of integrity and tells us with what we must deal. Chesterton once observed that when you rent a room to someone, the real question to ask is not where he works or how much money he has, but rather, what is his philosophy of life. This advice could apply to nations also.

The basic question then, whether Mr. Khrushchev gives a watch to a worker, calls for universal disarmament, or speaks of peaceful competition in coexistence, is first and always the philosophy to which he is completely committed. The concept of “this jolly old Nikita” dare not fool us about the real Khrushchev. As Editor Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution said, “Remember when Khrushchev turns on the charm that he also heads a police state.” Read Marx and Lenin alongside the current news releases. World revolution, world domination by any means, has been Khrushchev’s training school. He is committed to the very same tactics. Remember he vowed to bury our system of free enterprise. Remember that in advocating trade agreements, he is not embarrassed to repudiate a $2,600,000,000 indebtedness to the United States. Remember Communism’s endorsement of slave labor that incarcerates even now at least 12 million in Russian labor camps alone. When you think of your future and that of your children, remember Marx’s concept of man as a producing animal. Don’t ignore what Overstreet said and verified, that “during 40 years of existence the USSR has set a world’s record for breaking pacts.” Remember Zinoviev’s words on treaty making which Communist leaders have never repudiated, “We are willing to sign an unfavorable peace because it would only mean that we should use the breathing space obtained to gather strength.” Remember the nonaggression pacts signed with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and what happened to all three in Russia’s “Little-Red-Ridinghood” act. Remember the 50 out of 52 agreements with Korea which the Reds have flouted and broken.

These facts are but several illustrations of Dr. John Bennett’s conclusion in Christianity and Communism: “The only ethical test they (Communists) recognize is whether or not it serves the Communist cause, which in turn bears out Lenin’s principle that ‘there is room in life only for those who are not troubled by virtue’.” We dare not stake our whole future on Russia’s present “good faith,” nor pay in advance for some eventual delivery of goods. Russia favors a “negotiation in crisis” strategy: point one, create a crisis; point two, make demands; point three, offer to negotiate. The result? A compromise in Russia’s favor. By agreement we surrender what is ours; by agreement they get what was never theirs. With such strategy nothing ever gets properly nor finally settled. Reopened hostilities are a constant threat under such “blackmail” conditions. Take the Berlin situation, for example. Establishing peace is not Communism’s chief concern. Rather, Communists want to maneuver themselves into a position where, if necessary, they can wage a successful war to gain control of Berlin. Conferences, therefore, either go on endlessly or end in stalemate.

Rejection Of The Idea Of God

Communism’s rejection of all forms of historical religion is thoroughgoing and final. It is atheistic in theory. More than this, Communism is committed to the destruction of all historical religion as rapidly as circumstances permit because religion, as we define it, is incompatible with Communism and a hindrance to its goals. Like Marx, all subsequent Communistic leaders have evaluated and treated the individual as a producing animal. That man exists merely to work for the State (the Communist doctrine) contrasts sharply with the Christian view, where man, as God’s child, stands in personal relationship to his Creator and yields to him his ultimate allegiance. Obviously if Communism is to survive, it must declare war on historic religion. Lest we think that Communism has softened its attitude toward religion, we need only to read what Dr. I. Krivilov, Communism’s prominent philosopher, said about Canterbury’s Red dean, Dr. Hewlett Johnson’s attempt to reconcile Communism and Christianity. Writing in Kommunist, the Party magazine, Dr. Krivilov said, “When such prominent figures as Hewlett Johnson state that dialectical materialism can coexist with Christianity, notwithstanding our high esteem for this outstanding man, we must show him the groundlessness of his thesis.”

Militant Against Christian Principles

Atheism in Communism is militantly committed to eradicating Christianity. As an instrument of destruction it is no less powerful than Russia’s nuclear weapons. Atheism destroys the moral and ethical principles of Christianity as a basis for man’s action, removes his sense of guilt when Christian principles are violated, and honors the man who repudiates them. Atheistic Communism takes complete charge of educating a man’s children. It makes him responsible only to the State which in Russia’s situation is the Party. It finally and summarily destroys his manhood.

While we may deplore atheism, in America we at least proceed on the principle of freedom in religion and the right to think. In Russia such right to think has no place whatever. To avoid persecution and to receive rewards, the individual must think and act only according to the Party line. At this point we should warn Americans that many evidences of such militant atheism are appearing in the United States. Apparently it is finding ways to use the law and its current interpretation to deny Christians full exercise and development of their basic rights and of their Christian philosophy of life. When some law permits a small minority to deny a large community the right to have a house of worship, or permits one school child averse to hearing Scripture or prayer, which are the common possession of both Christian and Jew, to cancel that right for all other children, then we see militant and destructive atheism at work.

Communism uses an immoral and unethical basis for its negotiations, while quite aware that the Western world operates on the morality and ethics of historic religion, believes that agreements must be kept, and considers human rights as paramount. For Communism, the end justifies the means. Winning is the main thing; whatever advances the cause is right, be it deception, murder, violation, or repudiation of agreements.

Why Christianity and Judaism cannot be tolerated in a political system which operates on this principle must be quite apparent. Obvious, too, in her negotiations is Russia’s abuse of the fact that free nations recognize the Christian ethic as foundational to a better world.

Russia has been very clever in deceiving the outside world about the real conditions inside her boundaries. For one thing, the tourist is shown only what Russia wants him to see. And if he sees a church it will be a full one. We get a truer picture of what Russia is doing to the Church when we realize that for the 3 million Jews—conditions are such that they can no longer worship on Saturday—less than 200 synagogues with only 60 rabbis are permitted; that in Moscow, a city of 5.4 million, there are two Baptist churches, 33 Greek Orthodox churches, two synogogues, and one Moslem temple (U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 26, 1959). By way of comparison this equals 14 churches for all Philadelphia, a city of 2,500,000 inhabitants. The same pattern of attrition is operating in Red China. All churches, furthermore, function under civil, not ecclesiastical, authority.

Justice W. O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court has recorded his findings in a hook titled Russian Journey. Mr. Douglas found no religious groups on the university campuses. The Communist Party, he was told, does all the educational work and supplies enough activities to keep the student busy without religion. Youth is taught that religion is evil and that atheism is the true faith. Religion, it was indicated, is for old people, for those too old to shake off their capitalistic philosophy. Soviets, according to Mr. Douglas, have confiscated all church property and demand 13 per cent of all church revenues. Church buildings are often desecrated by their use as cinemas, museums, and warehouses. What’s more, since in Russia the church has no legal standing, it cannot defend its property and other rights. “The State has destroyed the pulpit,” says Mr. Douglas. No church member can qualify for membership in the Communist Party, and without party membership it is impossible to secure public office or even any significant advance or promotion. The clergy dare not speak for social justice, and are so muzzled they can give only prescribed and stock answers to queries about religious freedom. To complain brings accusation of subversion or counter-revolutionary activities. To discredit Christianity, the propaganda ministry of atheistic Communism has taken pictures of Christ and hung them in Communist museums with the inscription, “A Jewish Fortune-teller.” Another portrays Christ among four horseman trampling down the people. Still another shows St. Christopher with the head of a horse. In one museum Mr. Douglas also saw a picture of drunken priests and nuns carousing together. The campaign against religion is an incessant one, he concludes, and aimed at Moslems as well as at Jews and Christians.

Because destruction of religion is a weapon used to destroy people’s confidence in the Western Powers, should not our free nations insist on real religious, as well as political, freedom as a quid pro quo for concessions which Communism seeks? In Tibet, the U.N. Commission discovered 65,000 Tibetans butchered, a military attempt to destroy national and racial groups, and an organized, ruthless campaign to stamp out Buddhism as a religion and to sack Buddhist shrines and buildings of their treasures. The hope of establishing common basis of morality and ethics on which to form trustworthy agreements is a religious problem. The “religion” of Russia still justifies slave labor for millions of people, and, according to a House of Representatives Committee report, in the last decade Red China has perpetrated 30 millions of political murders.

Significance Of Khrushchev

No movement or government is better than its leaders. When you ask, “How good is Communism?” you must therefore seek the answer in the character and conduct of its present officials. No competent observer will deny that from the beginning this leadership has been intelligent, shrewd and clever. These qualities, devoid of moral safeguards, explain Communism’s domination.

Khrushchev’s visit to the United States was intended to leave the impression that he is a different kind of Communist leader. While he became known not as jolly old Nikita” but as shrewd and clever “jolly old Nikita,” it appeared he would not push as hard and as far as his predecessors for world domination.

Is there any real evidence to support this hope? Many say Khrushchev is different from his predecessors. He is said to be easier to deal with and morally better, too. Khrushchev has murdered fewer political opponents than did Stalin, and is said to prefer the less devastating pattern of leadership as seen in Lenin. What are the real facts?

Coming to power through the promise of an election which he never permitted (Overstreet), Lenin achieved dictatorship by what is known in Communist procedure as the “big lie technique.” He then proceeded to increase that power by a worldwide strategy of conspiracy, evasion, and subterfuge. It was Lenin who propounded the principle that tactical collaboration with the enemy should be so designed as to disorganize the free world and to stregthen the forces of revolution. In his strategy, negotiation was never intended to settle anything but was to be used to weaken the enemy and to gain unfair advantage. Peace for Lenin and for Khrushchev as well is “a non-shooting phase of the permanent revolution.”

While in the United States, Khrushchev was actually subjecting us to a brain-washing operation of indoctrination and softening up. According to the surveys, he succeeded more or less with 13 per cent of our people. Whenever convictions and disciplines are weakened, and confusion and dissension set in, Communism is at work. Before we accept Khrushchev, therefore, we should insist on knowing exactly what he means by what he says. He may well be counting on the fact that by and large American businessmen, educators, clergymen and citizens will not insist upon such a translation.

When we decide how to evaluate Khrushchev’s proposal for disarmament, we should certainly be governed by all the immoral factors which constitute the true nature of Communism. While it was Khrushchev who enunciated the doctrine, it was really of Lenin’s making. The basis for good faith on which it was offered is no different from that by which Russia justified the violation of 50 agreements in respect to Korea. Khrushchev’s proposal sounds strangely similar to the Stockholm peace offer which would outlaw all atomic weapons as instruments of aggression; submit atomic weapons to strict international control; and brand as a war criminal any government that initiates use of such weapons against another. By omission, innuendo, and emphasis, this policy formulating leadership cast Western Powers in the role of would-be aggressors, but suggested no criticism whatever of Soviet policy. It said nothing about Stalin’s breaking of treaties and his conversion of East European countries into Soviet satellites. It held out against inspections and made numerous “promises” until the Western Powers complied with Soviet stipulations.

Words That Lie

It is extremely important that Americans know how Communists interpret and use certain key words. Communists, for whom Mr. Khrushchev is the spokesman, assume we will not be aware of or understand their double talk. We are indebted to Think magazine and to Mr. Edward Hunter, an authority on Red China, for the true definitions of these key words which Communists use in the Cold War to disarm us. We must always assume, indicates Mr. Hunter, that the Communist gives his words a meaning which best serves the purposes of psychological warfare. Thus “good in Communism means what is good for Communism, and “bad,” what is bad for Communism. “Truth” is whatever backs up the Communist line; whatever contradicts it is a lie, regardless of the facts. “Law” to the Reds is any regulation or order of the police or Party which governs only the accused; the authorities may uphold or disregard it according to the Party’s advantage. It is possible to be accused of a crime that violates a nonexistent law. And the “crime” could supposedly have happened generations ago. Linder terms of this “historic crime,” if the Reds took control of the United States, for example, every citizen could be punished for not helping in this endeavor. Two of the biggest lies ever perpetrated by any government, says Mr. Hunter, are those of the Moscow-Peiping axis: 1. that the United States engaged in germ warfare in Korea, and 2. that North American nuns attached to orphanages in China systematically murdered their infant charges.

“Peace” means simply the cessation of all opposition to Communism. “Struggle” is the Communists’ word for the war they wage until a Communist peace is achieved. “Unity” means submission to the Communist discipline. “War” means any resistance or attack on Communism. “Aggression” means any armed conflict against the Reds, even one of defense. “People” refers not to human beings as such, but only to followers of Communism. To say the people do not like something, as in Pasternak’s case, means the Party does not like it. When Communists mean “people” in our sense, they use the word “masses.”

By “coexistence” we mean live and let live. The Reds, however, mean thereby not interfering with Communist activity and expansion outside the Communist bloc. A “treaty” is binding only so long as it is of advantage to the Communist bloc. The Korean War truce is an example of this interpretation. To be pro-Communist is to be “liberal.” To be “tolerant” means to accept Red teachings; in other words, tolerance, as we know it is quite illegal for Communists. With such fraudulent language as a barrier, it is apparent there can be no real meeting of minds between us and the Communists.

Mr. Hunter exposes also the Communist trade double talk, something which every American businessman needs to understand. Trade to us is something non-political. For Communists, however, trade is that exchange which supports Soviet Russian economy and facilitates political control. In such an exchange Communism reaps most, if not all, the benefits. Thus its “economic warfare” becomes a major channel in subverting the free world. Merchants are rivals classified from a political point of view. In Burma, for instance, Peiping sold Japanese articles cheaper than they could be bought in Japan. The Communists had obtained them by barter as part of the Red China drive to prevent Japan’s development of natural markets in South Asia. In Thailand, Red China sold goods for less than the customs duties. A contract in Communist language binds only the non-Communist side. Our businessmen, therefore, need to recognize that with the Communists no security in contractual relations is possible.

On the basis of this information, are we to isolate ourselves from all relationship with a part of the world whose record has destroyed our faith in its integrity? Not at all! Let us continue to negotiate, if this delays a shooting war. Time is usually on the side of the democracies, so long as the Soviets postpone any action. But we must conduct our conferences realistically, with all the facts clearly in mind. Even at great personal sacrifice, we must meet the cost of maintaining material and military strength, but above all, of our spiritual principles and resources. We must use every opportunity to state our position and to win supporters for our cause. At all times, and especially now, “Eternal vigilance is still the price of our liberty and freedom.”