The Canadians headed north. From the Strait of Georgia in the West to Newfoundland’s Conception Bay in the East, from the distant Maritimes, Cartier’s French-accented St. Lawrence country, Ontario’s southward-jutting industrial wedge, the banks of the Assiniboine, from the measureless prairies and towering Rockies they came, some 400 of them. They were commissioners of the United Church of Canada, their nation’s largest Protestant communion—more than 1,000,000 adult communicants—and for the first time their General Council meeting brought them to the fast-growing northern city of Edmonton, Alberta. Site of the nineteenth meeting of their highest court was the red brick McDougall United Church overlooking the wooded banks of the North Saskatchewan River which, like some northern Danube, winds through prairie country where nineteenth-century Methodist missionary George McDougall labored so well among Blackfeet, Crees, and Stonys as to be largely credited with the absence of Indian wars in the area.

After sending an “Address of Loyalty” to the Queen, in which the Council pledged “allegiance to the Throne and Your Person,” the commissioners sought fulfillment of their appointed task “to enact such legislation and adopt such measures as may tend to promote true godliness, repress immorality, preserve the unity and well-being of the Church, and advance the Kingdom of Christ throughout the world.”

Commission reports produced only a moderate amount of debate, carried on in accents somehow reminiscent of a distant skirl of bagpipes. These were among the major issues:

Alcohol. The United Church has a strong tradition favoring total abstinence, unsuccessful efforts having been made in the past to condition church membership upon abstention. But some have complained of loss of members to the Anglican Church over this issue. A lengthy report slightly softening the church’s stand was adopted with few changes and surprisingly little opposition. While recommending voluntary total abstinence as the “wisest and safest course,” it also urged avoidance of excess by those “who exercise their right to use alcoholic beverages” and asserted the obligation of those of both opinions to maintain Christian fellowship with each other in tolerant spirit. Said one churchman, “I’m sorry to see us losing our crusading spirit on this issue.”

Birth Control. The Council approved a frank 66-page report by its Commission on Christian Marriage and Divorce, which declared the sexual act to be “for the perfecting of husband and wife, quite apart from its relation to procreation.” Ministers are to help those contemplating marriage consider factors relating to their decisions as to number and spacing of children, as well as urge them to get medical advice “concerning means of conception control that are both medically approved and aesthetically acceptable to both of them and in accord with their Christian conscience.” Traditionally strong for birth control, the Council withheld approval of abortion except when pregnancy seriously endangers the mother’s health. Artificial insemination by husband was sanctioned, while artificial insemination by donor was rejected as leading to “grave genetic, emotional, social and legal problems.”

International Affairs. The Council adopted substantially a report of its committee on the Church and International Affairs which asked the Canadian government to “reassess” its defense policy. The report advocated surrender of Canadian sovereignty “to the extent necessary to establish world order,” but questioned the wisdom of surrendering “decision making to such organizations as NORAD” and providing sites for U. S. missiles. Declaring Canada to be “faced with the urgent task of revising” her defense policy and her international posture, the report spoke optimistically of the possibility of Canadian alignment with the world’s neutralist nations and unilateral renunciation of nuclear warfare.

There is strong pacifist sentiment within the United Church. One highly placed churchman estimated that 25 per cent of her ministers would like to see Canada disarm unilaterally. Economic and moral reasons are set forth, among others. Trumpeted one commissioner: “I don’t want to die in nuclear war.”

This particular brand of pacifism, it is said, is to be distinguished from the classical type espoused by the historic “peace churches” which claim a thoroughgoing biblically-based pacifism. For exponents of the former favor a United Nations police force. Indeed, the Council voted that Canada should “provide as the chief task of its armed forces” her full share of an “enlarged and more effective U. N. police force.”

A motion favoring withdrawal from present military alliances, including NATO, was defeated.

The council voted for Canadian pressure toward an “international agreement (subject to international inspection and control) halting all nuclear tests etc. for destructive purposes.” It also reaffirmed its opinion of 1952, 1956, and 1958 that Canada “should give de facto recognition” to Red China and support its admission to the U. N. Principal E. J. Thompson of Edmonton’s St. Stephen’s College urged the United Church to hold conversations with the leaders of Red China and U.S.S.R.

Capital Punishment. Abolition of the death sentence was urged, to be replaced by a statutory life term with treatment and “the possibility of remission and parole.” Prisons are to be looked on as hospitals. Parole is to be withheld as long as retention is required by the well-being of society and the prisoner.

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 through merger of the nation’s Methodists, Congregationalists, and some 70 per cent of its Presbyterians. The resultant polity has been described as “pretty Presbyterian,” though little hope is seen at present for union with the “continuing Presbyterians.” But the United Church wishes to be known as a “uniting church” and has been carrying on conversations with the All-Canada Conference of the Church of Christ (Disciples) and the Canada Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. However, greatest interest is in conversations with the Anglican Church of Canada, which have had their ups and downs for some 15 years, the issue of Episcopal ordination providing a formidable barrier to the desired “organic union.” A study guide outlining relationships between the two communions is now to be sent United Church congregations, the Council decided. The climate of the current conversations is described as “cordial” but actual cooperation as “spotty.”

On “Ecumenical Night,” along with eminent American Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake, the Council heard the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Most Rev. Dr. Howard H. Clark, advocate unity but at the same time point to the “great distance” between segments of the two churches—e.g. Anglo-Catholics and liberal United churchmen, “whose Chistology is difficult to distinguish from … Unitarian.”

“Continuing Presbyterians” tend to look upon the United Chuch as lacking a theology—hotly denied by some United churchmen, who point to the statement of faith contained in the original Basis of Union. It is said that modernism in the church is fading. On the other hand, one leader claimed there is “practically no fundamentalism per se in the United Church’ ” identifying this with “literalism,” though he claimed there is considerable “orthodoxy.”

Elected moderator for the two years until next General Council, was Dr. Hugh A. McLeod, 66, minister of Winnipeg’s Knox United Church. Reared in modernist thought, he is becoming more fundamental as the years pass, he said.

Retiring moderator Dr. Angus J. MacQueen pointed to United Church weaknesses which are reflected in need for renewed zeal for missions and church reunion, as well as a revitalized spiritual life. Following church union in 1925 there was a surplus of ministers, but now a severe shortage of ministerial candidates has reached emergency proportions, according to one educator, and not only among French Canadians. Church growth is lagging well behind the nation’s population increase. Every conference showed a drop in new members by profession of faith. Four-fifths of all money raised remains within the congregational treasury—“a shocking proof of self-centeredness,” charges Dr. MacQueen. Remarked one minister who had transferred from another church five years earlier: “This is a fascinating church to work in but it’s a sleeping giant.”

But signs of hope were seen in Council action to enlarge industrial chaplaincy work and enter a new mission field—South America. It also voted merger of the church’s two women’s groups, hoping for greater effectiveness in missions support particularly.

Friends of the United Church would be encouraged by the Board of Overseas Missions’ call for faithful prayer, stressing the imperative of reliance upon the Holy Spirit. Heartening too are Dr. MacQueen’s words: “Christianity is not just one more among the world’s religions. It is unique. God came in all the fullness of His truth and grace in Jesus Christ for the whole world. This is the story we have to tell to the nations.”

THE WELLSPRINGS OF LIFE

Christians have life, eternal life, but this does not immediately transfer us to heaven.

We live in a world where secular pursuits are necessary, contacts with others a part of existence itself.

We are unceasingly confronted by problems, decisions, difficulties, sorrows, frustrations and every conceivable kind of situation which call for action and reaction.

Christians living in an alien world, but citizens of another, are called upon to so live that they may commend the faith which they profess to those who know not the Lord.

The very fact that we are Christians entails a responsibility for which there is no human answer. That we are not our own but “bought with a price” makes it imperative that we faithfully represent and reflect the One who has redeemed us.

Confronted with both the reality and the awesome implications of our position we can well say with the Apostle Paul: “For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?”

Some Christians have tried to escape the contacts of the world and in so doing have abrogated their duty to God and their fellow man.

One of the most electrifying things which could happen would be for Christians to live seven days a week as Christians should live—shining lights in pagan darkness; savorful salt in a putrifying society.

But such a life cannot be lived by an act of the will. There are required resources no man has within himself. This is a matter of supernatural help, but it is available to every Christian willing to pay the price.

The wellsprings of life have their source in the Holy Spirit. They flow as living water to bless others, but they continue only as the channel remains clear and as the earthly vessel is renewed day by day by close contact and communion with the Living Christ.

Aware as we are that the body must have nourishment and exercise, we are often oblivious to the fact that the spiritual life of the Christian must also be nourished and exercised.

Accepting the validity of Christ’s death and resurrection as our only hope for eternity, we often forget that such faith is the door to life here and now and not pious insurance for the next.

The average Christian is spiritually starved and ignorant, and as a result is a poor witness to the saving and keeping power of Christ. But those who drink deep at the wellsprings of life carry with them the sweet savor of Christ, for they consciously live in his presence. It is such Christians who show forth in their lives the fruits of the Spirit but it is the privilege of all to do this.

Where is this help, and how do we obtain it? There are many earnest souls who long for such a renewing experience day by day but they have never seriously sought the answer.

Subjectively the wellsprings of life are found in prayer and Bible study. Objectively they produce a day-by-day living for the glory of God.

Prayer and Bible study take time, and our lives are pressed by legitimate demands which inevitably encroach until good and necessary things crowd out the one thing which gives meaning to daily living. For this reason it is imperative that a decision be made and a program set up and then carried out.

The decision requires recognition of the primary place which spiritual nourishment must have in the life of the Christian.

The program requires that a specified time be set aside each day for prayer and Bible study and that nothing shall be permitted to interfere or interrupt.

The best time of the day is the early morning and the place should be one of quiet and solitude.

Prayer is a privilege and blessing of many facets—praise, worship, thanksgiving, supplication, for others and for ourselves. Nothing adds more to the exercise of prayer than a prayer list—people, problems and objectives for which we pray. As time goes on this list grows, while at the same time we see God’s loving concern through answers for specific people or objectives.

Like Job of old we too can pray for our children and bring God’s blessings to them. Following the example of our Lord we can reach out across the world and pray for men everywhere.

It is with prayer we approach the study of God’s Word, asking that the Holy Spirit will make that which we read plain to our minds and apply it to our hearts.

Then it is that Bible study ceases to be a chore and becomes a delight. For the first time we begin to sense the wonder of this revelation of God as it speaks to our needs, shows us our sins, comforts and strengthens, and unfolds before us the panorama of God’s dealings with man.

There are so many ways to study the Bible. Let me suggest that for a long time we read only the Bible. There are so many good books about the Bible, but none of them is a substitute for the Book itself.

Basic to such study is a reading through many times of the Bible as a whole. Only then can one get the composite picture so necessary and so rewarding.

Then one can follow a particular theme or doctrine through the entire Bible and in so doing find joy and strength.

A most fruitful way to study the Scriptures is to take a number of different translations and read a portion in each translation. Old verses will take on a new meaning. Obscure phrases will suddenly come into focus.

How much time should one spend at the wellsprings of life? Here we are dealing with a privilege of vital import, not with clock-watching. For some an hour will suffice; for others the time may be shorter or longer. The thing so urgently needed is that Christians shall set aside a specific time of day when they sit at our Lord’s feet, talk with him and let his Word speak to their hearts.

Several objections to this program may come to mind: “Not sufficient time”; “Would make me lose much-needed sleep”; “This could be very boring.”

Anyone who is too busy to take time to drink deep at the wellsprings of life is too busy and should adjust his or her schedule.

Such a program may make one get up a little earlier each morning, but experience proves that the time spent with the Lord brings with it physical as well as spiritual renewing.

As to being boring: just give it a try and you will find it to be the most thrilling experience of each day.

L. NELSON BELL

With the arrival of Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III upon the scene of history, a new stage in human defiance of God set in. It was a resurgence of the spirit of Babel. Men sought for a universal kingdom whose glory would be man. To explain the situation, the prophet Isaiah was raised up. He was to see his king, Ahaz, turn against the Lord and place his trust in a human ruler, an act which brought on, step by step, the final downfall of Judah. Israel would first be taken, and then Judah (after existing about one hundred and fifty years) was finally to fall to Babylon. With Ahaz’ act, the heart of the theocracy, we might say, had been taken away. In the book of Isaiah we find the explanation of those events which were taking place and how through them God would bring about his own exaltation.

The downfall of Judah finally occurred, and there was need for another prophet (Isaiah had long been dead) to warn the nation as to the proper course for it to follow. Such a man was Jeremiah. In the account of his prophetic call (Jer. 1:10), God states that he has appointed Jeremiah over the nations and over the kingdoms to root up, break down, destroy, exterminate, build, and plant. In a sense it may be regarded as an all-embracing commission. But it does not mean that the prophet was to engage in such activity in a physical sense; rather his proclamation would have these particular effects. Like Isaiah, he too was to interpret the dealings of God with the nations of his time.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROPHECY

The following may serve as a brief outline of Jeremiah’s message.

Chapter 1. The Prophet’s Call.

Chapters 2–20. Oracles concerning Judah, its sinfulness and the coming of judgment.

Chapters 21–23. Jeremiah’s boldness with respect to Zedekiah. His courageous prophecy against false prophets.

Chapter 24. The symbolism of the two baskets of figs. The people of God and those who follow Zedekiah.

Chapter 25:1–14. Conclusion to the above. The coming of Nebuchadnezzar and the exile.

Chapter 25:15–38. Prophecies concerning the nations.

Chapters 26–29. An attempt to take the life of Jeremiah. Explanation of the appearance of the king of Babylon. Hananiah the false prophet.

Chapters 30–35. Announcement of blessings to come. The Messiah. Messages of hope.

Chapters 36–45. Personal experiences of the prophet himself.

Chapters 46–51. Oracles uttered against the nations.

Chapter 52. Appendix—of an historical and interpretive nature.

JEREMIAH’S CALL

In the book of Isaiah the personality of the prophet is for the most part kept in the background, and his message receives the pre-eminence. In Jeremiah, however, the man himself is brought to the fore. This in no way minimizes the significance of the message nor does it obscure it; rather, through the personal experiences of the prophet we get the message more deeply impressed on our minds.

Jeremiah is said to be the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who lived at Anatoth (the modern Anata, a small village some distance northeast of Jerusalem). He first received a revelation from God during the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, king of Judah. In this revelation God tells Jeremiah that in a special sense he has been prepared for the prophetic ministry. Even before Jeremiah had been formed in the womb, God had called him and appointed him as a prophet to the nations. Like other prophets Jeremiah protested, but in language reminiscent of Deuteronomy God tells the prophet that he is to speak all that God commands him.

To compare his call with that given to Isaiah is profitable. Like Isaiah Jeremiah is to root up and tear down, but he is also to build and to plant. Unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah receives several visions, and the first of these, in which the prophet sees the shoot of an almond tree, has to do with the certainty of fulfillment of God’s word of prophecy. With this first encouraging vision we find ourselves face to face with language reminiscent of Deuteronomy. A second vision stresses the coming of an enemy and the consequent calamity. Having received these visions the prophet is commanded to gird up his loins and to prophesy. The expression “to gird up one’s loins” probably goes back to an ancient practice of belt wrestling. Its ancient significance is lost, but it does indicate that Jeremiah is to prepare himself for the context of declaring the word of the Lord to a hostile nation.

MESSAGES OF JEREMIAH

In a brief article, it is impossible to discuss the outline of the prophecy in much detail. Probably the best one can do is say a few words about some of the principal themes with which Jeremiah deals. In the first 25 chapters, the themes are introduced. First of all the prophet stresses the fact that a punishment will come because of Israel’s apostasy and wickedness. The nation’s sin is depicted in contrast with God’s loving dealings. Thus, in Jeremiah 2:5 we have the heart of the matter: “What perverseness have your fathers found in me that they departed far from me and followed vanity and became vanity?” Jeremiah relates what God had done for the people and then asks why, in the light of God’s goodness, the nation should act as it has. Hence, Jeremiah brings to light in denunciatory fashion the sinful condition of the people who are ripe for judgment. We may note passages such as 2:9–19 in which God declares that he will condemn the nation; 2:20–37 which reveals the idolatrous worship of the people; 5:1–9 which tells of the faithlessness and godlessness of the people; and 5:20–31 wherein the guilt of Judah is set forth as the cause of her ruin.

Jeremiah announces that God will certainly punish the nation, and he will punish it by bringing on an enemy from the north. At one time this enemy was believed to be the Scythians (mentioned by the historian Herodotus), but now it is generally thought that Jeremiah is referring to the Babylonians. To enter Palestine the Babylonians would have come down into Palestine from the northeast. The enemy is described as a great nation (6:22–26), a nation which is merciless and has no pity. This description well applies to the Babylonians.

Israel must repent of her sin and turn to the Lord. If she is to live she must seek the ancient ways and walk in the ancient paths. In tender fashion God calls the people to come back to him. “Unto me, thou shalt return” (3:2). Judah in her unfaithfulness has acted like an harlot, but refuses to be ashamed of her deeds. Again in 3:11–17 there is a tender call of God to the people to come to him: “I will not be angry with you, for I am merciful” (3:12).

These themes run through the first 25 chapters of the prophecy. In a certain sense they may be said to constitute a reasoning on God’s part with the nation. They also give us the philosophy of God’s dealings with mankind. It has often been objected that in driving the Canaanites from Palestine and giving the land to the Israelites, God did an unjust thing. Today the objection is not so frequently heard. It is apparent that the Canaanites did not deserve to occupy the land. So great was their iniquity, that it was for the good of mankind that they be dispossessed of Palestine. It was God’s purpose to give Palestine to his people, that in time the Redeemer might come from them. At the same time, as Jeremiah says in 2:3, “Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruit of his harvest.”

God, however, is no respecter of persons, and he will not regard iniquity. His own nation had sunk into such a state of sin that it was no longer the theocracy. It too must be removed from the land and that by a nation which knew not God. In the exile, therefore, we see manifested God’s hatred of evil, even when the evil is performed by those who claim his Name. In his first 25 chapters, Jeremiah points this out. He explains to Judah that punishment must surely come for her sin, and he urges her to repentance.

Is Jeremiah’s message relevant for today? Truly it is, for it meets us where we live. We tend to think that our problems are all “social.” As a matter of fact, our problems are basically individual, and have to do with human sin. Our nation is no stronger than the individuals which compose it. There must, if the nation itself is to survive, be a turning from sin on the part of individuals. But in their own strength, individuals cannot turn from sin; indeed, of themselves they do not really know what sin is. We need, therefore, what the men of Jeremiah’s day needed, the gospel of Christ. We need to hear the condemnation of the law, but also the invitation from a gracious God.

Like Isaiah before him, Jeremiah pointed out the true source of deliverance and the only hope of man. Indeed, reflecting upon language which Isaiah had earlier employed, Jeremiah declares that God will raise up unto David a righteous Sprout (23:5). By this figure Jeremiah obviously has in mind a king who will reign on David’s throne, and who in his reign will embody the highest ideals of the Davidic dynasty. He will reign in righteousness; indeed his Name will be “the Lord our Righteousness” (i.e., the Lord, who is the source of our righteousness). The figure goes back to 2 Samuel 23:5 where it is taught that God will cause to sprout his desire. Isaiah takes over this thought and gives to it a personal touch by applying the word Sprout or Branch to the Messiah (Isa. 4:2). In Isaiah the word is set in parallel with an expression “the fruit of the land.” Jeremiah drops the picture element, and uses the word of the Messiah in an entirely personal sense. The Sprout, according to Jeremiah, is one whom the Lord will cause to grow forth from David’s line, who will reign upon the throne of David and will in His reign exhibit a righteousness such as none of the human kings had known. When He reigns, Judah and Israel will again be reunited, and David will never lack a man to sit upon his throne (33:14–26).

In the figure of the Messiah, we see the basic similarity between Isaiah and Jeremiah. Both prophets realize clearly that there can be no hope for the nation in a merely human king. Good as were some of the descendants of David, they did not embody the ideals of the Kingdom as they should. There must come One whom the Lord himself will raise up, and this One is the Messiah. A careful reading of chapters 23 and 33 makes it clear that the salvation of which the prophet speaks is spiritual in nature. For this reason the hope of the nation lay not in might nor in power, nor in superiority in warfare, but in One whom God would raise up, in whom men would find righteousness.

JEREMIAH’S EXPERIENCES

Much in chapters 26 through 45, which deal with Jeremiah’s experiences, is self-explanatory. The chapters inform us how difficult was the work of a faithful prophet. There was, of course, the opposition of the royal court, but there was also the opposition of false prophets.

One of these false prophets, Hananiah, the son of Azur, a prophet from Gibeon, announced in the very temple, before the priests and people, that the exile would be of only two year’s duration. This prophecy was uttered to embarrass Jeremiah, for it was spoken directly to him. It may well be that when Hananiah saw the faithful Jeremiah, his resentment was aroused, and he broke out before all the people. For Jeremiah it would have been a humiliating experience, particularly when Hananiah’s message was one which the people would have rejoiced to hear. Hananiah said that the exile would endure for only two years; Jeremiah had prophesied that it would last for seventy. How this message of Hananiah’s must have thrilled the crowd, and how despised in their eyes Jeremiah must have appeared!

Jeremiah’s answer to this falsehood is truly remarkable. He utters the fervent wish that such words were true. In his inmost desires he wishes that the exile might be short-lived. But he must be faithful to the God who has commissioned him. From ancient times, he says, true prophets have spoken of war and famine and suffering. Their messages have never been well received.

So great was Hananiah’s wickedness, in speaking falsehood and in opposing the truth which Jeremiah proclaimed, that Jeremiah prophesied his death, a prophecy which was soon fulfilled, for we read, “And Hananiah the prophet died that year in the seventh month” (28:17).

False prophets constituted one of the sore burdens which Jeremiah had to bear. And in his opposition to them he reveals himself as a man of sterling courage. He is one whose main concern is to be faithful to the Lord who had called him. In this respect he sets an admirable example for those of us who would preach God’s Word today. Jeremiah did not seek popularity; he did not curry favor; he was willing to stand alone, to be ridiculed for the sake of the One whom he served. Truly he was a great prophet.

LITERATURE ON JEREMIAH

Ministers who desire preaching material from Jeremiah will find help in Fire In My Bones, by Fred M. Wood (Nashville, 1959). This little book contains a useful study of the prophecy with application to the present day. It is a stimulating work and will offer valuable help to one who is approaching the study of Jeremiah. An interesting series of studies in Jeremiah by H. L. Ellison has recently appeared in The Evangelical Quarterly. It should prove of help to those who are interested in studying the structure of the book. Among modern commentaries, that of Theo. Laetsch (St. Louis, 1952) is particularly valuable. Here is a one-volume work, thoroughly conservative, which deals with textual and critical problems. It is a pleasure to commend it. Among the older works, Keil is of course valuable. Until a newer work of the same quality and standard as Keil is produced, we shall have to depend upon his commentary. For further literature the reader may consult lists in the various introductions to the Old Testament.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Professor of Old Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

THE BIG DEBATE

These television debates of our presidential candidates leave me exhausted. Not even TV bowling requires so much body English. To avoid the bends when the pressure is released I find there is nothing better than a round or two of fist-fighting debate about the debate in my neighbor’s recreation room. Of course we are all agreed on our aims; we support the same candidate. We differ only on the means—how he should campaign. When our discussions warm up it is just as well that we don’t have to project a dignified image to several million observers.

Dr. Martin Luther Bauer dropped in during a lull in our last session. He is a great admirer of his namesake, and was soon describing the Reformer’s debates with Eck at Leipzig. Television came too late. Those debates were spectacular, crammed with everything a TV cameraman could desire: ruling dukes, gowned doctors, crowds of partisan students. Even the lecture chairs were worth a close-up. The standard shot of a participant listening to his worthy opponent would have come alive when it caught Martin Luther smelling a carnation during Eck’s first attack.

Luther and Eck did not debate in the vacuum of a television stage. The live Leipzig audience reacted all around them. The university professors slept, either from policy or from professional boredom; the students rioted; Duke George shouted on occasion. Even long hours of Eck’s scholastic quibbling could not make the occasion dull. Any U.N. cameraman would have known how to fill in the time with views of scribbling secretaries and snoring professors. The microphones might even have picked up from the back benches of the Romanist side the Latin cry Dā eis Eccum!

Debates are much milder now, which is a blessing. The explosive combination of politics and religion which surrounded Luther detonated in religious war. Refugees from the aftermath in Europe found and formed religious liberty in America. It is difficult to preserve religious liberty both from and for those who don’t believe in it. In America it seems even harder to preserve both liberty and religion. Christ forbade his disciples to fight for him, but called them to die for him.

EUTYCHUS

WINE REPLIES

October 4, 1960

Your letter of Sept. 6, 1960, referring to your intention to publish the “Open Letter” of Dr. Charles Clayton Morrison and informing Senator John F. Kennedy of an opportunity to reply thereto, was inadvertently misplaced in the flood of mail.

Senator Kennedy has asked that I acknowledge receipt of your letter and to indicate that he believes his remarks expressed to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960 are substantially responsive to the questions posed in the “Open Letter.” Accordingly, there is enclosed a copy of the full text of the Senator’s remarks on that occasion. This is to be considered as the reply to the “Open Letter” identified above.

JAMES W. WINE

Special Asst. to Senator Kennedy

Washington, D. C.

• The text enclosed by Mr. Wine, reproduced by the Democratic National Committee from an Associated Press dispatch in the Washington Post for September 13, has been publicized across America in past weeks by television, radio, and printed news media. Copies are available from the Democratic National Committee, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, Washington 6, D. C.

ED.

THE SUPRA-PARTISAN LEVEL

Charles Clayton Morrison’s masterly letter to Senator Kennedy (Sept. 12 issue) lifts the religious issue to the high supra-partisan level where it belongs. Your voter readers will all hope that the distinguished Senator will give Dr. Morrison’s pointed questions the kind of answers they deserve.

DANIEL S. ROBINSON Director Emeritus

School of Philosophy

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, Calif.

I have just finished reading the … “Open Letter to Senator Kennedy.” In my judgment this is the best article I have seen on the very vital issue confronting the American people today. If this article is to be reprinted in pamphlet form I should like to order one thousand copies.

May I say that I thank God for such a magazine as yours. I read each issue from cover to cover.

EARLE R. HARVEY Director

Fresno Area Migrant Ministry

Division of Home Missions

National Council of Churches

Fresno, Calif.

Could this possibly be available in reprint for distribution? Not so much to convince my Roman Catholic friends (although some of them would do some “self-thinking” on the matter), but to awaken, all too many, broad-minded Protestants!

MRS. CHARLES SCHENK, JR.

Beacon, N. Y.

• Reprints are available at five cents each or $2.50 per hundred.

—ED.

The instinct of evangelical Christians that there is an important religious issue in the current political campaign for president of the United States is sound. Unfortunately their efforts to articulate these issues are often clumsy and backfire with the charge that they are made by “bigots.” A high percentage of statements released have cut with a dull knife, but Dr. Morrison uses a scalpel. He defines the issues both clearly and carefully.

Obviously Senator Kennedy will not respond to this “open letter” since its form is that of argument rather than inquiry. I doubt that the device of an “open letter” measures up in integrity and cogency of Dr. Morrison’s argument.

It is because I think the issue now at the forefront of the American mind is not the religious issue itself but religious bigotry that I caution and urge that the entire position of evangelical Christians be stated with precision and that all clever devices and political trickery be avoided. I am convinced that there are religious issues which deserve the attention and may well determine the vote of millions of Americans.

I am afraid that political strategists have developed a flanking movement to counter the genuine religious issues. By screaming about religious bigotry they are able both to solidify the Roman Catholic vote for their candidate while also shaming evangelical Christians into silence if not into voting for him.

This will explain my support of Dr. Morrison’s statement of the issues and my demurrer with reference to the form he has used.

DUKE K. MCCALL

President

The Southern Baptist

Theological Seminary

Louisville, Ky.

There is a notion in the air about us that it is incongruous to “inject” the Roman Catholic issue into the Presidential campaign, the implication being that it is a pseudo issue.

If this be the case, one is left to wonder why a man of William E. Gladstone’s calibre could ever have been so ill at ease about an earlier aspect of the matter. The infallibility of the Pope had then recently been decreed by the Vatican Council (1870). Rightly or wrongly, the inference was drawn by Gladstone that loyalty to an “infallible Pope” by a Roman Catholic was inconsistent with the latter’s loyalty to a civil state like Britain. Gladstone aired his views in a pamphlet entitled, The Vatican Decrees and Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance (1874). The issue proved to be so real, that necessity was laid upon none other than John Henry Newman to answer the great statesman who had raised it. While obviously feeling that Gladstone’s assertions may have been motivated by a spirit of controversy, Newman nevertheless did not simply dismiss them as matters of bigotry. His answer, published in 1875 under the title, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, turned out to be a meaty 200-page book to which he had applied the best of his wit, persuasion and scholarly rhetoric. The plain fact is that even today Senator Kennedy could hardly find a better source book to present his own case, should the need arise. The growing contention, I understand, is that it should not arise. With this contention I disagree.

Surely this country would claim to be as democratic as was England around 1874–75. We believe in freely discussing problems that bear upon the life and destiny of our nation, especially when the selection of our President is at stake. Whatever our religious allegiance may be, it is unworthy of us to shyly push under the rug an issue whose implications were deemed real enough to bring face to face such giants as Gladstone and the man who was soon to be elevated by Pope Leo XIII to the dignity of Cardinal.

EMILE CAILLIET

Professor Emeritus

Princeton Theological Seminary

Princeton, N. J.

Why should it be considered an “alien phenomenon” that Catholics want their children to hear of God and Christ in a non-public, non-secular parochial school?

Is it now American or democratic to dissever and divorce religion and education (religion and five days a week of the student’s life) so that for 25 hours a week he hears nothing about God, Christ, Bible or Christian heritage—even Christian hope or ethics? Such atheism-aiding, socialism-aiding education is further backed by the presence in public schools of the God-opposing theories, the anti-Christ ideologies (evolution, etc.). Why should not Protestants have Christian schools instead of public? Why condition the children against God?

Are Catholics more smart, Christian, and loyal to the children’s deepest needs than we are?

LEROY VICTOR CLEVELAND

Westminster Congregational Church

Canterbury, Conn.

Are we as mere mortal men in such a position today that we can say that the election of Sen. Kennedy is not the will of God?… With the “anti-Catholic” things which are being said and written in regard to Sen. Kennedy’s campaign, are we following Christ’s teachings in “The Sermon on the Mount”? Did our Lord say, “Spread hatred among your friends, turn your back on your enemies”? Minneapolis, Minn.

SAM BARINGTON

There is no suppression of freedom in the Catholic Church. If one does not agree with its teachings, all he has to do is leave the Church. There are plenty of religions wherein there is no head and the reason there are so many religions today is because someone not liking the teaching of his church has started another. So if a Catholic feels that he is suppressed he can do the same. Or does your mind tell you he would be roped and held? When little men begin casting long shadows, the sun is setting on a nation.

… In the twenty states where nuns are teaching in so-called public schools, why are you referring your question to Mr. Kennedy? That situation does not exist under a Catholic president. Why are those nuns teaching? Because the State has no schools in those communities. Would you charge that to the Catholic Church? Your statement reminds me of a thought expressed by a non-Catholic friend some time ago. She wondered why most orphanages were run by Catholics. Any knowing non-Catholic would know that they have no dedicated people to run orphanages.

KATHERINE JANSEN

Chicago, Ill.

Dr. Morrison’s open letter to Senator Kennedy is both enlightening and irrefragable. If his running mate can cry religious intolerance after reading it, he is selling his birthright for a mess of pottage.

FERDINAND A. SAUNDERS

Nedrow, N. Y.

This is a very excellent article, and presents matters relating to a Catholic president in a most helpful, Christian way. I shall be waiting to see if the Senator accepts and uses the opportunity to reply to it; and, if so, what his reply will be like.

MARVIN E. PARRISH

First Pentecostal Holiness Church

Radford, Va.

This is a superb and balanced expression of my uneasy feeling about Kennedy and the Roman issue.

VERN L. KLINGMAN

First Methodist

Billings, Mont.

A most wonderful letter—should go to every American.

JOSEPH S. LONG

Grace Methodist

Billings, Mont.

The fullest and keenest contribution to date on the important matter of Romanist President.

MICHAEL M. MCDIVITT

Pittsburgh, Pa.

It is a masterpiece. It is one of the most comprehensive and thought-provoking discussions on the religious issue that I have read.

GLENN I. FORD

First Church of the Nazarene

St. Paul, Minn.

If we have a Catholic president after the first of the year …, we can lay the blame at the door of the Protestant churches and the religious press.

A. W. OSBORN

Berea, Ky.

There is bifurcation in Protestantism. The Christian Century came out against Norman Vincent Peale for questioning Sen. Kennedy’s ability to preserve the separation of state and church. And who poses far more severe questions in the “open letter” published in CHRISTIANITYTODAY? None other than Charles Clayton Morrison, former editor of the Century. Brother, where are the “party lines” these days?

RUDOLPH F. NORDEN

Broadview, Ill.

May we elect a president of the United States who believes all marriages are legal and offspring from the same legitimate.

BERTRAM JENKINS

Portland, Ore.

Kennedy, going through the ritual of a Roman Catholic, apparently rebels against the encyclicals and pronouncements of the popes whom he acknowledges, by being a Catholic, are authoritative and sometimes infallible. Will he then, while going through the protocol of the presidency, actually deny or rebel against that encyclical of U.S political history—the Constitution?

This “religious question” is a political issue, not so much in gaining or losing votes, but because it is tied to political freedom. Many of us, labeled “bigots” by other bigots, frankly are worried about hell—a political purgatory of deprived personal freedom on this side of the curtain of death. The specter of Galileo still haunts and the ashes of Savonarola still burn the religious dissenter in Italy, Spain, and Colombia. With Catholicism in power the only valid argument against the “it can’t happen here” attitude would be geographical! Then freedom wouldn’t even have time on its side.

ALBERT E. CRAMER

London Bible Institute and Theological Seminary

London, Ont.

AT ST. ANDREWS

As a member of the General Board of the National Council of Churches and the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, I regret to say that it has seemed to me that CHRISTIANITY TODAY has generally reported the meetings of both bodies in such a way as to put the worst possible construction on most of the things done at those meetings, and has generally exhibited a negative attitude toward the ecumenical movement so far as it is embodied in the National and World Councils of Churches. For that reason I am more than happy to be able to write this word of appreciation for the way in which the St. Andrews meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council was reported and interpreted. By and large, I think it was a fair report.…

More and more it has come to be for me a matter of deepest concern that between those whom Dr. Carnell fittingly described as the “classical orthodox” and those who in varying degrees take a more “liberal” position, a great gulf seems to be fixed and lines of communication fail. The gulf is always widened when those in either category question the basic devotion of the others to the Lord and Saviour whom both seek to serve.

JAMES E. WAGNER

President

Evangelical and Reformed Church

Philadelphia, Pa.

J. T. MUELLER

Best story I have read on the Council.… Concordia Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.

IN CENSURE OF CELIBACY

Mr. Lund’s piece on “The Protestant Parsonage Today” (Sept. 12 issue) was thoughtful and helpful. He referred to certain writers—a dean of a large theological school in eastern United States and to an Anglican divine—who have made arguments for a celibate clergy in the Protestant Church. Mr. Lund evidently does not agree with such absurdity but one wished that he might have given necessary “treatment” to the unscriptural nonsense of these writers. Of course Paul’s statement that the bishop shall be the husband of one wife means only one but it does show the custom and make the implication of married ministers. And we know that Peter was married, and the evidence makes it almost certain that Paul had been married. He said that he gave his vote … against the Christians. If that statement is literal, then Paul had been married because only married men could be members of the Sanhedrin.

Then, so-called “celibate” clergy are not celibate after all. Dr. W. B. Bagby, who began our Baptist mission work in Brazil and labored some fifty years or more, told me that he had been in hundreds of priests’ homes and was introduced to their wives whom they called “companions.” It was the common custom. The priests all had these concubines and made no bones of it.…

People in distress, especially women where delicate matters are involved, cannot talk to an unmarried man as they can and will to a married man.

… As long as preachers have sense they will marry good, cultured Christian women, the greatest power next to God that ever comes into their lives, and will pay no attention to the twaddle of theological professors about a celibate clergy.

L. E. BARTON

Montgomery, Ala.

Every now and then, in reading publications that deny the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture, we find Luther’s evaluation of the Bible quoted as the manger or cradle of Christ in the sense that Luther, highly esteeming the Christ of Scripture, regarded less highly the Scriptures setting forth Christ. They may also add that according to Luther the words and stories of the Bible are unpretentious swaddling clothes, while only Christ, who is the treasure that lies within, is precious. This interpretation of Luther’s statement calls for examination.

CLIMAX OF AN ARDENT APPEAL

Luther’s evaluation of the Bible as the cradle and swaddling clothes of Christ occurs as a climax in the third paragraph of his “Preface to the Old Testament,” which appeared in 1523 and then again in 1545 in the last edition of the Bible which he edited. In this Preface he entreats Bible students to study the Old Testament diligently as Christ himself commands us in John 5:39. So also Paul used the Old Testament to prove from it Christ’s atoning death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3), and Peter referred to it frequently. Luther expresses his deep regret that so many persons in his day were spurning the Old Testament as though it were written only for the Jews, and holding that they could rest satisfied with the New. That is the gist of the first paragraph of Luther’s Preface. Properly speaking, Luther had been serving as professor of Old Testament at the divinity school of the University of Wittenberg. While he interpreted also books of the New Testament, his specialty was expounding the Old Testament to his students from the viewpoint of the coming Christ.

In the second paragraph of his Preface, Luther urges his readers to study the Old Testament because the holy Apostles prove from it so convincingly New Testament Gospel truths. As highly as we esteem their motivation and proof in the New Testament, so highly we must regard the Old. Luther closes his paragraph with this impressive appeal: “What else is the New Testament than a public preaching and proclamation concerning Christ, declared in the passages of the Old Testament and fulfilled by Christ?”

THE CRADLE IS PRECIOUS

In the third paragraph of his Preface Luther extols the Old Testament wholly because it is the cradle of Christ, that is, because it foretells and describes the coming of Christ. I quote the paragraph as it is given in the Muhlenberg edition of Luther’s works (Vol. 6, pp. 367–368, Philadelphia, 1932). This version was carefully compared with the German (St. Louis) edition of Luther’s works (Vol. 14, pp. 2–3, Concordia, 1898), which is very reliable and cites the Preface as it is contained in Luther’s Bible of 1545.

But in order that those who know no better may have incentive and instruction for reading the Old Testament, I have prepared this introduction with whatever ability God has given me. I beg and faithfully warn every pious Christian not to stumble at the simplicity of the language and stories that will often meet him there. He should not doubt that, however simple they may seem, these are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the high majesty, power, and wisdom of God; for this is Scripture and it makes fools of all the wise and prudent and stands open to the small and foolish, as Christ says in Matthew XI [11:25]. Therefore let your own thoughts and feelings go, and that of the Scriptures as the loftiest and noblest of holy things, as the richest of mines which can never be worked out, so that you may find the wisdom of God that he lays before you in such foolish and simple guise in order that he may quench all pride. Here you will find the swaddling clothes and the mangers in which Christ lies, and to which the angel points the shepherds. Simple and little are the swaddling clothes, but dear is the treasure. Christ, that lies in them.

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

One cannot help but conclude from these words that Luther’s view of the Bible was not that of a liberal but that of a believing Christian. He regarded the Bible and particularly Genesis of the Old Testament, to which he no doubt refers most of all in his Preface, as the divinely inspired Word of God. It was Luther’s firm belief that the simple expressions and seemingly foolish stories are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the divine Majesty, Power, and Wisdom.

This means that Luther believed in both verbal and plenary inspiration. He regarded Holy Scripture as making fools of all men who refuse to believe it, and he held that it stands open or is revealed only to babes who believingly accept it as God’s true, inerrant, and saving Word. It is for this reason also that he begs and warns his readers to abandon their self-conceit and unbelief and to receive the Bible as the highest and most precious sanctuary, indeed as a rich mine that can never be exhausted no matter how great are the treasures of divine wisdom one draws from it. Only those who approach the Bible with this childlike faith will find the wisdom which God sets forth to quench the arrogance of self-conceited, over-bearing and unbelieving Bible critics.

When, therefore, Luther concludes his urgent appeal with the climactic thought that the simple and seemingly foolish Bible stories are the swaddling clothes and manger of Christ, he does not mean to disparage them but rather to express his most reverent esteem of Holy Scripture which offers to man the supreme blessing of eternal salvation in Christ, the incarnate and crucified Saviour of sinners.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

The household of God, says Paul, is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20), and, as E. A. Litton has observed, a foundation does not repeat itself. It is, indeed, evident from the New Testament that the apostolate is an essential ministry; but it is clear also that the apostolate is not and cannot be a ministerial succession. Let us examine this question somewhat more fully, for it is one which looms prominently in discussions concerning intercommunion and reunion at the present time.

The apostolate is essential because it is the foundation of the Christian Church, not only in the temporal sense that the Apostles were the first to carry the Gospel to Jew and Gentile but in particular because to them was entrusted and through them was communicated that fundamental knowledge of the truth whereby the Church of Christ is constituted. To them the Lord himself promised that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all that he had said to them, and would guide them into all the truth (John 14:26; 16:13). This promise was given to certain individuals, 11 in number (Judas Iscariot having left to put his traitorous plan into effect, John 13:30), who were in the unique position of having received intimate instruction from the mouth of him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3), but who, not only because of the fallibility of human memory but also because of the imperfection of their comprehension, were in need of the special grace of the pentecostal Spirit so that they might infallibly recollect and then impart and interpret to the world the saving truth which they had learned at Jesus’ feet and of which Christ himself, in his person and work, was the living embodiment. This was the essential foundation on which the Christian Church would be reared.

Plainly, however, the apostolate as a ministry was not communicable. It was limited to those few who had received instruction direct from the Incarnate Word of God himself—to which the further qualification was added that they were witnesses of the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Thus the place vacated by Judas Iscariot was filled by one who had “companied with (them) all the time that Jesus went in and out among (them), beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that He was received up from (them),” and who would with them be “a witness of his resurrection” (Acts 1:21 f.). Paul’s apostleship, though in an external sense exceptional, nonetheless rested on these same two pillars, firstly, that, like one born out of due season, he had seen the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:8), and, secondly, that the message he proclaimed had been received not from man but through revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1).

The ministry of the apostolate can be spoken of as a continuing ministry only in the sense that the teaching communicated to and through these inspired men continues without interruption to be fundamental to the constitution of the Church. Now their teaching, it is true, was oral—but not only oral, for it was also, in all its essentials, committed by them to writing. In all its various parts, in fact, the New Testament is, quite simply, the doctrine of the Apostles—not, however, of the Apostles as mere men or even as theologians, as though they were professional purveyors of religious thought and philosophy; but as chosen men who, under the control of the Holy Spirit, were accurately reproducing the very teaching of Christ himself. Therefore we see the New Testament to be, even more radically, the doctrine of none other than Christ, the divine Mediator. Herein the unique and fundamental character of the apostolic function becomes unmistakably clear.

In the post-apostolic Church the place of the Apostles has been taken by their writings, which are, and can never cease to be, the authentic doctrine from and concerning the divine Head of the Church. Accordingly, to cite E. A. Litton again, “the New Testament Scriptures are the only real Apostolate which the Church now possesses.… In every Christian society which is in a healthy state Matthew, John, Paul, Peter still decide points of doctrine, order its affairs, and preside in its councils with undisputed authority” (Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, p. 389).

This is far from being an individualistic conclusion; for in reality it is the conclusion of the universal Church, however much some sections may have beclouded the issue with subsequent fancies. The fixing of the Canon of Scripture in the post-apostolic period was the quite definite acknowledgment by the Church that certain books, as distinct from all others, possess an authority which is unique and normative for all time. “The fixing of the Christian Canon of Scripture,” says Oscar Cullmann, “signifies precisely that the Church herself, at a given moment, traced a clear and firm line of demarcation between the period of the Apostles and the period of the Church, between the time of foundation and the time of construction, between the apostolic community and the Church of the bishops, in other words between apostolic tradition and ecclesiastical tradition. If this was not the significance of the formation of the Canon the event would be meaningless.… By establishing the principle of a Canon, the Church recognized in this very act that from that moment the tradition was no longer a criterion of truth. She drew a line under the apostolic tradition. She declared implicitly that from that moment every subsequent tradition must be submitted to the control of the apostolic tradition. In other terms, she declared: here is the tradition which constituted the Church, which imposed itself on her” (“Scripture and Tradition,” in Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 6, No. 2, June, 1953, pp. 126 f.).

Just as, in the phrase “the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” the term “prophets” quite certainly indicates the teaching of God’s messengers of the former dispensation as crystallized and delimited in the Canon of the Old Testament Scriptures, so also the term “apostles” now, since the passing of the apostolic age, quite certainly signifies the teaching of God’s messengers of the New Covenant as crystallized and delimited in the Canon of the New Testament Scriptures. Thus the apostolic ministry today is and only can be the ministry of the New Testament, through which the Apostles themselves continue to preach and teach to the world the saving truth delivered to them by their sovereign Lord and Master. The apostolic minister, therefore, is the prerogative neither of popes nor bishops as such, but belongs to every Christian believer, be he archbishop or the humblest Sunday School teacher, who faithfully hands on the doctrine of the New Testament. The only genuine apostolic succession is a succession of doctrine, not of ministerial orders.

This being so, it is impossible to approve the claim put forward in certain circles that the episcopate is properly the prolongation of the apostolate, that it alone is today the apostolic ministry, and therefore the essential ministry of the Church and a sine qua non before any scheme for reunion or intercommunion with nonepiscopal churches can become effective.

But there are yet other considerations to take into account. In the first place, it is evident that the Apostles had as it were a roving commission, in particular with a view to the founding by them of churches in places where the Gospel had not previously been preached, whereas to a bishop was delegated the oversight of a church or churches already established in one particular locality.

In the second place, there is ample evidence that the episcopate developed not from the apostolate but from the presbyterate. As Bishop Lightfoot says in a famous essay, “the episcopate was formed not out of the apostolic order by localization but out of the presbyteral by elevation” (Dissertation on the Christian Ministry, in Commentary on Philippians, p. 194). Indeed, it is apparent that, to begin with, presbyter and bishop were synonymous terms. Thus, for example, Paul admonishes the presbyters of Ephesus to take heed to themselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit had made them bishops (Acts 20:28). This original identity of order is confirmed by the manner in which Paul writes elsewhere, without need of explanation, of a twofold ministry consisting of bishops and deacons (Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1 ff., 8 ff.; 5:17 ff.), the implication being that presbyters and bishops are one and the same order. (Note also Titus 1:5, 7; 1 Pet. 5:1 f.) It must suffice to mention here Jerome, among the fathers of the early Church, who not only points out that “the Apostle clearly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops” but also explains the relationship as follows: “Of the names presbyter and bishop the first denotes age, the second rank. In writing to Titus and Timothy, the Apostle speaks of the ordination of bishops and deacons, but says not a word of the ordination of presbyters; for the fact is that the word bishops includes presbyters also” (Letter CXLVI, to Evangelus). Technically, then, there are not three but two orders in the ministry: deacons and presbyters, episcopacy being but a distinction within the latter.

As the infant Church grew and became established, so it was a perfectly natural development that one among the presbyters in a particular locality be designated by the rest as their president (or moderator), though only as primus inter pares. Thus the episcopate as an office distinct in this sense from (though still among) the presbyterate had its origin. It is a development which is found at a comparatively early stage in the apostolic Church; for at the Council of Jerusalem, c. 51 A.D. (Acts 15), it is, significantly, James the Lord’s brother, not one of the Twelve, who, as the presiding presbyter or bishop of the church of Jerusalem, presides over the whole representative assembly, which includes the Apostles as well as his fellow-presbyters. Similarly, in writing of his visit to Jerusalem, Paul, no doubt for the same reason, gives precedence to James over the Apostles Peter and John (Gal. 2:9; note also Acts 12:17; 21:18). James, then, though not himself belonging to the apostolate, may be described as the earliest bishop, in accordance with the later significance of that term, and that too at a time when all the Apostles, including Paul—with the single exception of James’ namesake the brother of John, who had been put to the sword (Acts 12:1 f.)—were flourishing. He cannot, therefore, be described as a successor of the Apostles, nor his ministry an extension of the apostolate.

The manner in which the order of deacons originated is clearly described in the New Testament (Acts 6). But what of the order of presbyters? There is little room for doubt that the presbyters of the New Testament churches were in fact a quite natural and probably unpremeditated continuation of the office of elders (presbyters) which was distinctive of the polity of the Jewish synagogue. Synagogue worship had its historical origins in the dispersion of the Jews whereby the great majority of their race was through distance cut off from the Temple worship in Jerusalem. Its form was essentially simple: a weekly gathering for prayer, thanksgiving, and the reading and expounding of the Scriptures. In no sense was there any attempt to reproduce in the synagogue the sacerdotal ministry of the Temple with its elaborate system of sacrifices; for to the Jew it was unthinkable that the Levitical ritual should take place anywhere excepting in the Temple on Mount Zion. Accordingly, the synagogue had no priestly (in the sense of sacerdotal) order of ministry.

In New Testament times there were synagogues in great numbers throughout the Mediterranean world, including Jerusalem, and these formed a natural, readymade springboard for the Christian Church, since the expository and homiletic form of the synagogue service afforded an unparalleled opportunity for the declaration of the Christian Gospel as the fulfillment of the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was an opportunity of which our Lord took advantage (cf. Luke 4:16 ff.: “… he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day …”), and also the Apostles who as pioneers of the Gospel followed the lead their Master had given in this respect.

The synagogue, then, may be considered as the seed-bed of the Christian Church, both in regard to the form of worship—prayer, thanksgiving, and the reading and exposition of Scripture—and in regard to the form of ministry—presbyterian and nonsacerdotal. (There are some scholars who maintain that the diaconate was also derived from the synagogue; but that is a question which we must leave aside here.) In the centuries that succeeded the apostolic age, however, a doctrine of the ministry was elaborated which was distinctively sacerdotal in character and based upon a pattern not of the synagogue but of the Temple with its Levitical priesthood and sacrificial system. “Though no distinct traces of sacerdotalism are visible in the ages immediately after the Apostles,” writes Bishop Lightfoot, “yet having once taken root in the Church it shot up rapidly into maturity. Towards the close of the second century we discern the first germs appearing above the surface: yet, shortly after the middle of the third, the plant has all but attained its full growth” (Op. cit., p. 244).

It is Tertullian who first describes the ministry in plainly sacerdotal terms, calling the bishop “the chief priest” (summus sacerdos) and defining the Christian ministry as a sacerdotium. The process reaches its fullest expression in the writings of Cyprian. The bishops of the Church now correspond to the high priests of Israel, even to the extent of belonging to an unbroken succession supposedly from the Apostles, answering to the Aaronic succession of the high priests of the Old Testament. This line of succession is viewed as guaranteeing the uninterrupted transmission of sacramental grace from the Apostles onward; and it becomes but a short step to the conception of episcopacy as, in its office and functions, actually constitutive of the Church, and as such the essential ministry.

It need only be said here that such a concept of the Christian ministry is entirely out of harmony with the teaching of the New Testament, and not least that of the Epistle to the Hebrews which makes it unmistakably clear that the Levitical order of priesthood has been superseded by the order of Melchizedek; that of this new order Christ is the one and only Priest, who, unlike the priests of the Aaronic line, continues forever “after the power of an endless life”; that consequently there is henceforth no sacerdotal succession; and that, since the sacrifice Christ offered (of himself) was offered for sins forever and once for all, it cannot be repeated nor re-presented, nor regarded as only one in a succession of sacrifices.

The New Testament itself suggests what are the real essentials of a genuine apostolic succession when it tells us that “they that received the word and were baptized” on the first Whitsunday “continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and the prayers.” In other words, to be a successor of the Apostles is not the prerogative of any ecclesiastical order but of every individual who (like the Apostles) has believed the word of the Gospel and been baptized, who faithfully preserves and transmits the doctrine of the Apostles, and who maintains the fellowship of the Apostles in the communion of the Lord’s Table and in public worship. It is this succession which we must work to establish once more in this present generation.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Second in a Series of Three

The Communists are today spraying the world with ideological and propaganda missiles designed to create a deadly radioactive cloud of Marxism-Leninism. From bases behind the Iron Curtain and in the non-Communist world, this cloud of Communist propaganda is drenching many lands, with a particularly heavy fall-out in this nation.

The deadliest of these Communist missiles—whose warheads are exceptionally heavy—are being directed against the Christian pulpit. Communist gunners, with special ideological training and schooled in atheistic perversity, are “sighting in” the clergy—hoping to shatter, immobilize, and confuse this powerful forum of idealism, morality, and civic virtue. No assignment is more strategic in the Communist world today than the disruption of the Church of God—both within and outside the Iron Curtain.

Why does the Church—which has no military forces—merit the most explosive of Communist rockets, the most venomous of Communist hate, the most vituperative of Communist scorn? Because religion, of all facets of Western civilization, represents the eternal “thorn in the flesh” of communism, that jagged rock which is constantly puncturing, exposing, and unmasking Communist claims, performances, and hopes. The Communists realize that unless the Christian pulpit—that mighty fortress of God—is liquidated, pitilessly, mercilessly, finally, the very existence of communism itself stands in jeopardy. The spiritual firepower of the Christian Church—based on the love of God—is sufficient to destroy all the Soviet man-made missiles and rockets and extirpate this twentieth century aberration.

And the Communists know it—and fear it.

THE RELIANCE ON ATHEISM

To understand the Communist attack against the Christian pulpit, we must, so to speak, transplant ourselves into the control room of Party strategy. Let’s see the Communist high command at work as it executes its attack against the Church. Let’s note its mode of approach, its variable tactics, and ultimate goal.

The basic Communist weapon is the materialism of the Communist dialectic. Communism is atheistic, utterly denying God. This has been a fundamental premise of communism since the days of Marx and remains so today under the mendacious huckstering of Nikita Khrushchev. “It is not religion that creates man, but man who creates religion.… It is the opium of the people” (Karl Marx). “Religion is a kind of spiritual gin …” (V. I. Lenin). “In my outlook on life there is no place for religion” (William Z. Foster, Chairman Emeritus of the Communist Party, U.S.A.). “We remain the Atheists that we have always been” (Khrushchev).

Just why, we may ask, does the Party rely so greatly on these missiles of atheism? Just why do other phases of Communist strategy alter, but never the dependence on this weapon?

The answer is simple and fundamental to any progress which communism hopes to achieve. Atheism is an all-out weapon of highly destructive and devastating power. If properly launched, atheistic missiles can mangle, cut, and obliterate the spiritual tendons of life—belief in God, faith in Judaic-Christian values, love of the Church. The very existence of Communist Man—that fanatical atheist imbued with the ethics of expediency—is proof of the paralyzing power of atheism in destroying the taproots of spiritual strength which flow into the individual personality in a Christian civilization. Hence, in Communist strategy, these missiles of atheism are the ultimate weapons, the essential ideological artillery designed not to damage partially but to destroy ruthlessly.

However, as we watch from the Communist control room, we note that, in launching these missiles of atheism toward America, the Communist rocketeers are experiencing considerable trouble. These mighty missiles are propelled, but then, like meteors, they seem to burn up as they approach the atmosphere of America, a proud Christian land. In simple language, here is the problem of Party strategists: how can an atheistic Communist Party operate in the United States where the vast majority of people believe in God?

To attack directly, with an open appeal for atheism, is to risk defeat, frustration, and loss of faith. To stand on the street comer and proclaim, “We the Communists believe in atheism,” will not gain recruits. To denounce God in open Party appeals will cause open resentment and hostility. What is to be done?

A STRATEGY OF DECEIT

The Communist answer: employ a strategy of deceit—a technique designed to hoodwink non-Communists. This is today one of the Party’s most potent attacks against the Christian pulpit.

The strategy means primarily three things:

1. A false claim that the Communists stand for tolerance of religion. The Party’s tactic in the Christian world is to de-emphasize the importance of religion, to talk and write little about it, and emphasize other topics, such as social, economic, and political issues. A leader of the Communist Party, U.S.A., recently commented: “We know there is no God or Supreme Being, but we can’t go out and tell this to church people.” “We do not declare and must not declare in our programme that we are ‘Atheists’.…” (Lenin). If questions are asked, Communists pose as being “tolerant,” and say that religion is a “private matter” for the individual. “The people’s state holds that the question of religious belief is a private matter; belief or nonbelief in religion relates to the personal freedom of an individual.”

Actually, however, religion is not a private affair for the Communist. “Religion is an ideological foe of communism, and the reconciliation of the two is impossible.” As a Marxist, he must be an atheist. He has absolutely no personal choice. “Personal freedom of an individual” is a deceptive Party shibboleth. Any non-Communist believing this double talk is being trapped—and “softened up” for the next tactic in this strategy of deceit.

2. To achieve a mutuality of agreement with the Christian pulpit on “common issues” (as defined by the Communists). This tactic is being actively pursued by the Communist Party, U.S.A., today. “Look,” the Communists are saying, “we are tolerant of religion, we do not want to attack your faith. Rather, let’s work together on issues in which we are both interested—peace, civil liberties, economic justice. We Communists are believers in love, justice, and the brotherhood of man. We too want a world of peace and good will. Let’s not fight but work together.”

Here is the deadly “come along” of communism, directed today at the Christian pulpit. This enables the Party to move close to unsuspecting ministers and laymen who see only the exterior verbiage and not the concealed danger. How does the Party work here? In many ways: encouraging churchmen to endorse, support, and even participate in Communist front groups; to sign Communist-sponsored petitions; to neutralize clerical opposition to communism (if a minister can be influenced to even keep silent about the dangers of communism, the Party has gained).

At the same time the Party, through infiltration tactics, is attempting to reach inside the churches. In one instance, a Communist official instructed Party members to join churches and become active in their organizations. Another member was working in the church office, while still another Party official helped conduct the financial affairs of his parish. Most important, of course, is the youth field. A national Party leader recently commented that Communist youth must find “common ground” with church youth groups, “not only for ideological reasons but also for the use of their facilities!”

3. Exploit the church for their own Communist ends. This “brotherliness” of Communists is most purposive: the Communists want to hitch as much of the influence of the Christian church as they can capture to the Party’s cause. This means that if clergymen or laymen participate (knowingly or unknowingly) in fronts, sign Communist-sponsored petitions, speak favorably of Communist objectives—these points must be exploited to strengthen the Party’s position. To a prospective “customer,” a communist canvasser will say, “The Rev. X has signed this petition, why don’t you sign too?” “The Rev. Y has endorsed this organization. You know him. Why don’t you help us and contribute some money?” “The Rev. Z has spoken favorably of this proposal. This shows that it’s in the spirit of the Church.”

To the Communists, any support gained from church circles enables them to break down the moral antipathy of the community and gives them a desperately desired “respectability.”

Hence, this strategy of Communist deceit is aimed to undermine, hoodwink, and exploit the Christian pulpit.

A WAR FOR THE MINDS OF MEN

Now, we may ask, what is the answer to this ideological attack? What can the clergy of America do to defeat this Communist strategy?

First, we must make this assertion. The Christian pulpit is today one of America’s most formidable barriers against communism. The spiritual dedication of thousands of clergymen, in large and small churches across the nation, is a powerful antidote to the danger. America owes a great debt of gratitude to the stalwart example of our religious leadership.

Yet the Communist attack toward the Church continues. What can you, as clergymen, do to help blunt this tactic?

In our nation one of communism’s most potent allies is apathy toward and lack of knowledge of communism. Very strangely, many citizens will be highly conversant about the diseases of azaleas, the weathering qualities of automobile paints, the latest ways to play a new card game—yet know nothing about communism, that deadly plague which threatens to extinguish our way of life. That is one of the anomalies—and tragedies—of modern-day America.

Perhaps we can pose several questions.

Have you, as a minister, preached any sermons describing the frightful challenge which communism poses for the spiritual heritage of America?

Have you encouraged members of your church to read about communism and to learn about its evil nature?

Have you urged the formation of discussion groups to acquaint men and women with this challenge?

The approach must not be one of fear, but knowledge. Communism is not a monstrosity to be hidden from sight, never spoken about publicly, or shunted into a side closet. Communism is not a controversial subject, best to be left untouched. Communism is not so overpowering as to throw us into a state of hysterical fear, anger, or violence. Like an epidemic of polio, the solution lies not in minimizing the danger or overlooking the problem—but rapidly, positively, and courageously finding an anti-polio serum.

THE GREAT CHRISTIAN ANSWER

We in America have this anti-communism serum, the answer to the Communist challenge. It lies in the strength of our Judaic-Christian tradition, the power of the Holy Spirit working in men. Too frequently, both clergy and laymen, do not realize the full resources at their command in the Christian tradition—the tremendous power of God to turn men toward good, to make personalities bloom with the living courage of sainted men. The job of you as clergymen is to help channel this divine power into the hearts, minds, and souls of men. Literally, the Gospel has the power to turn the world upside down. That should be your mission.

No greater challenge has ever faced the Christian Church. Communism has caused the deaths of millions of people. No enemy in all these 2,000 years has held such a deadly challenge to the Christian pulpit. As spokesmen of God, your task is to enable men to know the truth, so the truth will set them free.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Protestant-Catholic dialogue, long popular on the Continent, is now gaining currency here. There are values in this dialogue, but they will be jeopardized if a sentimental approach obscures both its purposes and its possibilities. The contemporary American dialogue is due for ignominious collapse unless it is reoriented.

THE AMERICAN VERSION

The American version of the dialogue got off on the wrong foot. It was meshed into the outmoded liberalism of a generation ago. This has already produced superficiality which, in turn, will assure failure. The dialogue commenced in the sentimental vein that all participants are fellow Christians and that, therefore, the positions they hold are ultimately bound to be one. Such sentiments carry an aura of truth but are really deceptive and, in the long run, damaging to genuine confrontation.

The assumption of ultimate oneness is merely an extension of a vapid liberalism which insisted that “we are all heading for the same place, however our various routes may differ.” To such minds, theological differences were inconsequential. These men were too lazy to assess the differences and too flabby to care about the consequences. Differences between creeds, such liberals felt, are due to prejudice. If prejudice could be overcome, the differences would automatically disappear.

FLATTERY AND FOOD

How could prejudice be overcome? Why, by getting together. Let men of different creeds gather around a table—preferably piled high with good food. Let them get to know the other fellow, call him by his first name, come to realize he does not have horns. In such an atmosphere men would soon understand that their labels did not matter, that beneath it all they were one. The warm glow of brotherhood would melt the hardest prejudice.

This was an era which derogated thinking and elevated sentimentality. Its typical product was the National Conference of Christians and Jews, dedicated to the proposition that brotherhood can be built by ignoring differences. The dialogue in many ways reflects the spirit of this movement. There is gentle ribbing about creedal differences, always correctly done with one’s own group as the object of the sally. There is the mutual flattery and, in the case of the Protestants, the fawning accommodation. Out of it all there emerges a disposition to confuse sentimental meetings with genuine dialogue. The trouble with such “dialogue” is that it lacks reality. It does not actually “come clean.”

RIGGED DIALOGUE

Here is one instance of phony dialogue, which evades issues rather than meets them. The question of state aid to church institutions is a favorite topic. The typical panel will feature Protestants and Roman Catholics, or sometimes a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew. Now the Supreme Court has already spoken for millions of Americans when it interpreted the First Amendment as forbidding the use of tax funds for church schools. This view is held by many churchmen; no doubt it is the majority view here in the United States. Yet, in instance after instance, the “dialogue” is rigged so that this majority point of view is not represented at all. The Protestant on the panel will likely be someone like Dr. F. Ernest Johnson who favors state subsidies to church schools, and the Jew will likely be Will Herberg who outdoes Roman Catholics in his zeal for public subsidies to separate church schools. A Protestant who represents the majority Protestant viewpoint and a Jew who represents the majority Jewish viewpoint are barred from the dialogue lest their presentations “offend the Catholics.”

This means that the real issue—shall the state pay subsidies to church schools?—is not courageously faced. The “dialogue” moves solely within the orbit of how much these schools will be paid and how legal prohibitions against such payments can be overcome.

Something more fundamental is wrong with “dialogue” of this kind. Its sentimental “brotherhood” motif rests on a false theological assumption. The false assumption is indicated in one of Robert McAfee Brown’s “Rules for the Dialogue” (Christian Century, Feb. 17, 1960). Dr. Brown writes: “We would agree that (the dialogue) should lead ultimately to the unity of all Christians, to the fulfilling of the prayer of Christ ‘that they may be one.’ ” He then goes on to state that while unity does not seem realizable at the moment, yet “with God all things are possible.” He adds: “All we can really do is to say in penitence and yet in hope that we disagree and that it is wrong to disagree.”

Does this imply a need for breast-beating over the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ is not the monolith which the Roman hierarchy insists she must be? Can any Protestant who takes his faith seriously believe that Christ’s prayer envisaged the creation of one all-embracing ecclesiastical monolith? What Dr. Brown apparently contemplates as a mutually acceptable goal for the Church would be regarded by many as a goal to be avoided at all costs. The great division which he deplores as evil they would see as meaningful and valuable. What we have here is not a rule for dialogue but a method of giving away the case of the free churches before the dialogue can commence. This “rule” rigs the dialogue in such a way that realistic confrontation between the monolith concept and the concept of the free churches becomes impossible.

THE ‘COMMON BOND’

The “common bond” assumption in the dialogue is exaggerated and misleading. What Protestantism and Romanism have in common is less definitive, less significant than that which divides them. This realization points to a conclusion for the dialogue: we should confront each other not as representatives of the same faith but as representatives of quite different faiths. Protestants should confront Roman Catholics in the dialogue much as they would confront Jews.

If this point needs amplification, let us note that Protestants and Roman Catholics have been steadily moving apart for centuries. Despite the “conversation” and the “dialogue,” they are in the decisive matters farther apart today than they have ever been. There is no foreseeable change in this development. The explanation for the growing division is clear: Protestantism has an anchorage in the Scripture which Rome has, in part at least, eschewed. Rome has, in effect, substituted its own infallible head, the Pope, for the Scriptures as the basis of authority. Rome’s theological development demonstrates what can happen when the scriptural moorings are severed. The dogma of Papal Infallibility (1870) is frequently cited as the step that made the Protestant-Roman division irrevocable. But perhaps even more decisively divisive has been the development of the cult of the Virgin Mary in the Roman church. As expressed in the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (1854), the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1950) and in a plethora of popular religious practices in Roman Catholic parishes, this movement has largely severed Rome from the Apostolic Christian tradition.

THE UNBRIDGABLE CHASM

The dogmas just cited, proclaimed by an infallible Pope, are required beliefs for all Catholics. These beliefs represent no more than bits of pious gossip and are quite without warrant in the New Testament. Apparently they were unknown to the apostolic Church. Yet because the Roman church is uninhibited by Scripture in its theological development, such items can become unchangeable dogma. The possible end of the Marian gambit is even more outrageous to Protestants. This is a dogma which may yet promote Mary to the role of Co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ of the human race. In view of such passages as Acts 4:12, Rome’s repudiation of its tie with traditional Christianity will be virtually complete. Roman Christianity will have become a “Mary faith” rather than a Christian faith.

It thus appears that dialogue commencing with an assumption of ultimate unity of faith is falsely based. Its danger is that in a desire for good fellowship and in an ambition to appear big and brotherly, the cutting edge of conviction will be dulled. The danger is accommodation which atrophies faith. Such unsound dialogue may actually lead to the abandonment of the Christian witness. Reinhold Niebuhr recently declared that Christians ought to abandon their effort to convert Jews. Here the fruit of long and pleasant dialogue with Hebrew leaders in New York City is the rejection of one of the clearest imperatives of the Gospel.

AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE

Dialogue must be put on a realistic basis. It must be based not on an assumption of nonexistent oneness but on an assumption of irrevocable difference. It begins with the frank acknowledgment that we are not at one with Rome in purpose and direction and never can be so long as we are true to the Gospel we have received. Protestantism and Romanism are permanently incompatible. What we seek in the dialogue is not unity or agreement. What we seek is 1. a clear identification of our positions in relation to each other, and 2. a way of living together in a common culture.

The first points to a new form of the dialogue. A major criticism of the dialogue as we have observed it is its shapelessness. It is not only sentimental, it is inchoate. It sets forth in all directions and arrives there. The dialogue needs to be set in the classic form of debate. Recall that Luther’s Ninety-five Theses were propositions for debate, a familiar and useful academic procedure in his day. The debate was not held at the time of posting, but it was held a few years later when Luther contended with Eck. None can doubt the enormous theological and even cultural significance of this classic encounter. How its careful form and exacting discipline contrast with the dialogue that we know! The Luther-Eck debate was not shapeless. It was not characterized by the fuzzy sentimentality which avoids issues in the name of “brotherhood.” It was, rather, the well-calculated clash of fact and authority on clearly drawn issues. This is the kind of dialogue that will serve us well today.

The second goal of the dialogue is to adjust our incompatibility so that it will not erupt destructively but operate in a manner mutually stimulating. We seek in the arena of free discussion a creative outlet for the drives once expressed in the wars of religion. We seek to understand each other. We seek a modus vivendi amid unreconcilable differences. Every belief, every ambition we cherish as Protestants must always be subject to the tempering realization that we are called to live side by side with Roman Catholics in peace.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Whither the World Council of Churches? This is a question which has been in the minds of many for a considerable time. Is the WCC aiming at the goal of a single massive uniform World Church? Is it seeking unity at all costs, especially at the cost of truth and spirituality? Is it, in fact, Christian mainly in a superficial sense rather than in depth? It is quite proper that questions such as these be asked—and that they be asked in all seriousness by those who are intimately involved in the WCC no less than by those who may be classed as spectators. The movement is beset by dangers. For example, the temptation is ever present to make, for the sake of unity, the common doctrinal denominator as low as possible. It is not difficult to deceive oneself into confusing uniformity of order with unity in faith, whereas, as Church history has constantly shown, the latter is not at all dependent on the former. The meetings of the Commission on Faith and Order and of the Central Committee of the WCC in St. Andrews, Scotland, this summer have therefore been of special interest to the Christian world.

Whatever else these meetings may have revealed, they have certainly shown that the WCC is not standing still. It is a genuine movement, the impulse of which is an earnest longing that the true oneness of Christians in Christ may be visible as well as invisible, to the end that the world may believe (John 21:21). As the movement increases in size, however, so the machinery of organization is also necessarily increased, the staff is expanded, and the peril grows of degeneration into an ecclesiastical bureaucracy and of that stagnation which the shadow of the impersonal hand of officialdom so readily induces. If this peril is to be avoided it must be remembered that organizing geniuses are a menace unless their hearts beat with the loving and essentially personal dynamism of the Gospel.

At this summer’s meetings there were certain welcome signs of movement in the right direction. One was the evident desire on the part of the majority of those attending the Faith and Order Commission for freedom to express oneness in Christ by openly uniting at the Lord’s Table in obedience to his command, “This do in remembrance of Me.” How much longer will the manifest disunity at the very place where above all others the unity of Christians should be displayed to the world be allowed to continue? This is a stumbling block which cries out to be removed. The desire for the way to be opened for all fellow-believers to the Lord’s Table (which should be “fenced” only against unbelievers and hypocrites) cannot indefinitely be inhibited by those whose views of ecclesiastical purity or of ministerial validity and sacramental efficacy are narrowed by limiting concepts which the New Testament does not in any way encourage.

This desire is apparent in the following statement which occurs in the Report to the Central Committee on the Future of Faith and Order: “The Commission on Faith and Order understands that the unity which is both God’s will and His gift to His Church is one which brings all in each place who confess Christ Jesus as Lord into a fully committed fellowship with one another through one baptism into Him, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one Gospel, and breaking the one bread, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all; and which at the same time unites them with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are acknowledged by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls the Church.”

The desire is most trenchantly apparent in the Report of the Ecumenical Youth Assembly in Europe, held in Lausanne in July of this year, unanimously presented by the delegates who attended (some 1,600 in number, I believe). “In that we are deliberately returning home to our local churches, we are also deliberately returning to our own denominations,” they say. “But we are all going home as Christians who are profoundly disturbed by the guilt of division. We are going home as Christians who have experienced what it means not to be able to become one at the Lord’s Table.… We will not stop asking: What really keeps us apart from the others? Which of our objections, measured against the testimony of the Bible, are today no more than prejudice and nontheological traditions? How far are we kept apart only by our national loyalties and state church organizations? Are we really making any effort to clear away these differences?”

This particular Report constitutes a remarkably realistic and challenging document, the burden of which may be summed up as a demand for less talk and more practice. The impatience, the vision, and the candor of youth may well prove a decisive factor in preserving the World Council of Churches from spiritual arthritis.

Two developments at the St. Andrews meetings should go some distance toward allaying the misgivings of those who have feared that the WCC is moving towards the objective of a monolithic World Church and that its basis of membership is so inadequate, especially in that it makes mention neither of Holy Scripture nor of the Holy Trinity, as to leave the door open for the entry of those whose position is not that of the historic Christian faith; for, firstly, the Report on the Future of Faith and Order declares that “we would state emphatically that the unity we seek is not one of uniformity,” and, secondly, the Central Committee has decided to recommend for adoption at next year’s assembly to be held in New Delhi an expanded form of the present basis of membership, which will include explicit reference both to the Scriptures and to the Trinity, as follows: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Those scriptural and evangelical principles which we hold sacred must not indeed be compromised. But the WCC is a movement which cannot be ignored, and an attitude of aloofness and scepticism on the part of evangelicals means not only a restriction of their own influence within the wider sphere of the Church Universal, but also a withholding from the WCC of that very influence which should play so vital a part within its development. As things are, the WCC is not devoid of evangelical membership. Such membership, however, could with advantage be strengthened. If we know, clear-sightedly and in love, where we stand, then there is no place for fear and nothing of which to be ashamed.