Key Washington pulpits saw abandonment of traditional year-end sermons in deference to delegates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which held its 125th annual meeting in Washington, December 26–31.

Nation’S Capital

At Washington Cathedral—“In thinking be mature,” Dr. Paul Tillich counselled 500 scientists. “Such an admonition one would hardly expect in the context of apostolic writing. But here it is [1 Cor. 14:20], appearing in the same letter of Paul in which he contrasts sharply the wisdom of the world with that foolishness of God which is wiser than the wisdom of men.”

Tillich, eminent Harvard University theologian, centered his guest sermon on the topic of mature thinking and what he continually referred to in approving terms as “divine foolishness.”

His definition of a “mature man”: “One who has reached his natural power of life and thought and is able to use it freely. He who is mature in thinking has not reached the end of his thinking, but he has reached the state in which the human power of thought is at his disposal.”

Having thus intimated that maturity is divorced from moral connotation or dimension, Tillich continued:

“[Christians] often bury their power of thought because they believe that radical thought conflicts with the divine foolishness which underlies all wisdom. But this is not so, certainly not for biblical thinking. Radical thought conflicts with human foolishness, with spiritual infancy, with ignorance, superstition and intellectual dishonesty.”

“The decisive step to maturity,” he said, “is the risk to break away from spiritual infancy with its protective traditions and guiding authorities. Without a ‘no’ to authority, there is no maturity. This ‘no’ need not be rebellious, arrogant, destructive. As long as it is so, it indicates immaturity.

According to Tillich, “the way to maturity in thinking is the hard way. Much must be left behind: early dreams, poetic imaginations, cherished legends, favored doctrines, accustomed laws and ritual traditions. Some of them must be regained on a deeper level, some must be given up. But for this price, maturity can be gained, a manly, self-critical, convincing faith, not produced by reasoning, but reasonable and at the same time rooted in the message of the divine foolishness, the ultimate source of wisdom.

Tillich’s arguments, some observers noted, prompt such questions: What are the norms of a reasonable faith? Why not gain maturity by saying “no” to Tillich’s idea of maturity?

His concluding assertions: “The divine foolishness of thought and the divine foolishness of life are united in the symbol of Christmas: God in the infant, God as infant, anticipating and preparing the symbol of Good Friday—God in the condemned slave, God as the condemned slave.”

At National Presbyterian Church—Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister at the stately house of worship frequented by President Eisenhower, began his “Science Sunday” sermon with a reading:

What, though in solemn silence all

Move round this dark terrestrial ball?

And though no real voice nor sound

Amid the radiant orbs be found?

In reason’s ear they all rejoice

And utter forth a glorious voice:

Forever singing as they shine

The hand that made us is divine.

—Joseph Addison

“Now we may have to revise that hymn—or reinterpret it,” said Elson. “During the past week an orb made not by divine hands but by American hands has been circling round this ‘terrestrial ball.’ And there was a ‘real voice’ and ‘sound’ emitted from the orb. It was the sound of a man’s voice—the voice of a man who last Sunday sat in this church.”

“Whatever else this fantastic phenomenon suggests,” Elson continued, “it surely underscores the dominant feature of our age—the spectacular triumph of applied science.”

With little more introduction, Elson was driving a point across: “All science is based ultimately upon faith. To suppose that science simply begins by inquiring, wholly without presuppositions, is to be naive indeed. For one thing, all scientific work, including all experimentation, rests upon moral foundations. Science, as we know it, would be quite impossible apart from a tremendous and overarching concern for honesty.”

“If all men need faith,” he added, “and if scientists need it with especial urgency, it is highly important to be selective in our faith.”

Echoing Elton Trueblood’s The Yoke of Christ, Elson suggested a faith which (1) produces genuine humility, (2) involves trust in what is permanent, (3) speaks to the whole man, and (4) meets the tests of intellectual integrity.

“The work of a scientist,” Elson said, “takes on a great new seriousness if he is a believer, because then he is not really inventing; he is discovering. The ideas are not merely the puny efforts of his own mind, but represent the thoughts which were before the world was made, and will be when the world is gone.”

At St. Matthew’s Cathedral—The Right Rev. Msgr. William J. McDonald, rector of Catholic University, said “the Christian” will welcome each scientific advance “because he knows that every spark of knowledge is an additional ray of light reflected in the mirror of creation.”

‘In The Beginning God’

The convening of the 86th Congress was reverently marked by a 45-minute communion service at National Presbyterian Church and chaplains’ invocations in the Senate and House.

President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon led a party of government dignitaries present for the 8 a.m. service at the church, which was nearly filled.

After the benediction Eisenhower, walking briskly and nodding smilingly to worshipers in aisle seats, went to the door with Dr. Theophilus M. Taylor, moderator of the United Presbyterian General Assembly, who was among clergymen officiating at the communion table.

In the Senate, Dr. Frederick Brown Harris prayed God “to give humility, understanding, and the grace of receptivity to those who in thy name and for the nation’s sake in this hallowed chamber are entrusted by the people with the solemn responsibility of governance.”

Dr. Bernard Braskamp began the House session by quoting Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God.” He then asked God to grant that “all our citizens may invoke the blessings of thy grace and favor upon our chosen representatives” and concluded with recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Bishop’S Mishap

Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam was reported recuperating early this month at his apartment in the Methodist Building, in the shadow of the Capitol. Oxnam suffered a concussion and a broken left arm in a traffic mishap in New York on the day before Christmas. He was confined to a New York hospital for five days and cancelled all January engagements.

Oxnam was hurt as he and his wife alighted from a cab. His overcoat was caught in the cab door and the vehicle pulled away, throwing him to the pavement and dragging him 10 feet before the driver realized what had happened.

The Oxnams had planned a family reunion Christmas. The Oxnam children, their wives and husband, and seven grandchildren were present in the home of their son, Robert, president of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Illegitimacy In Washington

Unwed mothers account for nearly one out of every five live births in the District of Columbia!

Negroes are responsible for some 75 per cent of illegitimate babies, a Washington Health Department doctor notes. He adds, however, that latest available statistics also show illegitimate pregnancies among the Washington white population to be the highest of any comparable city in the nation.

And of 185 pregnancies reported in the District of Columbia public school system recently, 129 were in junior high schools!

All figures given are based on firsthand evidence, but they present the problem conservatively. Officials are certain that there are many more illegitimate babies born who are not reported as such. The rate of abortions is also high.

The illegitimacy statistics for the District of Columbia were publicized last month as the result of a report prepared by Dr. John R. Pate, director of the city’s Southwest Health Center.

Pate said the most current statistics indicate that about 37 per cent of unwed mothers are teen-agers. Most pregnancies occur among girls in the lowest socioeconomic group.

Federal figures point up Washington’s problem even more sharply. According to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, out of 34 states reporting the legitimacy status on the birth record, the city of Washington totals surpassed 20 of them.

Among whites in Washington, most recent totals reveal 48.7 illegitimate pregnancies per 1,000 live births or 4.9 per cent, twice the rate for this group on a nation-wide basis. In the non-white group, while not the highest, the illegitimate birth ratio was 268.7 per 1,000 live births or 26.9 per cent. This makes a combined average for both race groupings of 185.7 per 1,000.

“A clinic setting doesn’t seem to be the right environment nor clinic personnel the proper individuals to moralize, sermonize or sit in judgment in these problems,” Pate said. “But surely there must be some way to reach these young people and we must find it.”

The doctor added:

“It must be emphasized that creating life is a right but that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation and every possession a duty.

“In some areas of the nation, for example, cities in the Far West and Far Northeast, the statistics are not nearly so staggering as those we find here in this area and especially in cities in the South and along the Middle Atlantic seacoast. It may be that social patterns in other areas are different or their opportunities and interests have different goals and different methods of expression.” (Since government jobs attract many from distant places, Washington is a city of lonely women exposed to special temptations.)

Pate did not pin down proposed solutions, but he did emphasize the need for clergy cooperation if the “deplorable situation” is to be alleviated.

While Pate did not criticize the work of churches, his report represents an implicit indictment of clergy and laity alike in the Washington area. Many Christians will see that the widespread immorality indicates lack of adequate propagation of Gospel principles.

Formally unrelated to the Washington report but indirectly akin are statements by two national leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church last month.

Dr. Conrad M. Thompson, evangelism director, charged that many congregations are concerned only with their “beautiful sanctuaries” instead of the souls of men outside the church.

Dr. Philip S. Dybvig, home missions director, described Americans as “largely ignorant” of the meaning of true Christian righteousness. He blamed the situation on a “do-goodism stemming from a humanistic unchristian zeal for religion.”

Both leaders made their observations in reports to the Home Missions Board of their church in Minneapolis.

Thompson said emphasis on organization and activities in local congregations tend to make people satisfied that “all is well with our souls.”

Too many pastors, he claimed, lack the proper urgency in their preaching with the result that “the line of demarcation between the lost and the saved is rubbed out.”

He called for a clear interpretation by pastors to laymen of the theology and meaning of “the priesthood of believers—the role of the layman in person-to-person witnessing and in his vocation.”

Dr. Dybvig urged increased emphasis on a cardinal Lutheran tenet, the doctrine of “justification by faith, without the works of the law.”

To stem the “contrary winds of humanism,” he challenged pastors to “delineate more clearly between law and Gospel, and thus help our people to that true and abiding peace which comes only when we know Christ as our Saviour.”

Views In The News

Whither Evangelicalism?

Retiring president Warren C. Young told delegates to the 10th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society that they “will best be fulfilling its (the society’s) function when the sincere efforts of others are evaluated in an atmosphere unclouded by theological witch hunting.”

“Let us strive as brethren in Christ,” said Young, professor at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago, “to judge the efforts of others in the spirit of love which should motivate all the work of Jesus Christ.”

Delegates to the meeting voted to extend the scope of the professional society of evangelical scholars and theologians by establishing a new “section” to cover Middle Atlantic States. Prior to the society’s meeting December 30–31 at Nyack Missionary College, 25 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, the group had “sections” in New England, the Midwest, South, and Far West. The new regional division will be known as the “Eastern Section.”

In addition to a national convention held annually by the society, which now includes 495 active members, each regional division sponsors yearly meetings. Membership is open “to all evangelicals who subscribe annually to the doctrinal basis: ‘The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and therefore inerrant in the autographs.’ ”

Young’s address, entitled “Whither Evangelicalism?” noted that “if, as we search for truth, we do err, let others be ready to point out the nature of the error and so lead one another back to the center of our evangelical faith. If we shall aid one another in this way we shall make real advances for the cause of Christ and we shall not deviate far, nor long, from that normative center which should always be our goal. Let us strive to know as best we can the truth that is found in the Christian gospel and to relate it to a constantly changing world.”

Delegates voted to dress up the ETS quarterly bulletin, and it was announced that the third in the society’s “Monograph Series” would soon be released—a volume entitled Darius the Mede, by John C. Whitcomb, Jr.

Highlighting the sessions was a panel discussion with four papers on “Early Chapters of Genesis.” Other papers presented at the convention included these titles: “An Excursion with Ginomai,” “Communism and Religion in the United States,” “The Coptic Gnostic Texts from Nag Hammudi,” “The Imminent Appearing of Christ,” “Rudolf Bultmann’s Concept of Myth,” “Moses Amyraldus and His Hypothetical Universalism,” “Justification and Regeneration in the Theology of John Witherspoon,” and “The Soteriology of Karl Barth.”

A Missionary’S Indignation

“The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” caught imaginations of many a U. S. movie-goer this month, but the courageous woman missionary whose adventuresome life the film depicts was still indignant.

Miss Gladys Aylward, who is in Formosa and has yet to see the film, protests (1) failure of 20th Century-Fox to show her the script, (2) selection of Ingrid Bergman for the leading role, and (3) producers’ use of romance in the story.

Miss Aylward says she has received detailed reports of the picture from friends. She says the reports indicate that the film story has inaccuracies.

The Aftereffects

There is evidence that with gross distortion of facts, U. S. Communists may be exploiting the Cleveland World Order Study Conference’s recommendation that Red China be recognized by the United States and admitted to the U. N.

The Communist Worker, published every Sunday in New York, came out in its November 30 edition with this headline: 38 MILLION PROTESTANTS TELL IKE: RECOGNIZE CHINA. The text beneath referred to 600 Cleveland conferees as “spokesmen for 38,000,000 church-goers.”

Actually, the 600 conferees were not spokesmen for constituent churches of the National Council of Churches, under whose sponsorship the meeting was held, and have never claimed to be!

The Worker also used the situation to observe, with no basis in fact, that conference speakers reflected “the growing will of our populace to achieve a genuine policy of peaceful co-existence with the socialist orbit of the world.”

Meanwhile in Formosa, representatives of 57 Christian churches and missionary organizations throughout Free China, in a special meeting at Taipei last month, voiced opposition to the conference’s recommendations. Those who attended the meeting voted to send cables to the National Council of Churches in New York, the United Nations, and to President Eisenhower. Text of the cables:

“With very deep sorrow we have learned of the recommendations of the World Order Study Conference advocating the recognition of Red China and its admission into the United Nations. This we believe to be terribly misguided judgment which the church of Christ throughout the world should reject.

“We, the responsible leaders of the Christian churches of the Republic of China, hold to the divine commission for the preservation of truth and righteousness. We unitedly oppose atheistic communism and pray for the recovery of the Christian churches on the mainland of China.

“We present to you the following requests: Immediate rejection of the recommendation that America recognize Red China and allow its entrance into the United Nations and further that you repudiate the entire letter of the World Order Study Conference; that you hold fast our Christian truth and faith and refuse absolutely to compromise with atheistic communism which is persecuting believers and destroying churches. We should realize that world communism under the leadership of Soviet Russia will not stop with the conquest of the mainland of China and this area of the world. Their final objective is the communizing of the entire world including the United States. Unless we immediately stop this evil we will be lost beyond remedy.

“In the spirit of Christian love, we solemnly warn you not to compromise with godless communism nor to cooperate or seek to co-exist with it. The will of God is clearly revealed in the Bible, 2 Cor. 6:14–17. We look forward to your reply and count on you to reject the resolution of the World Order Study Conference.”

The cables were signed by Hou Tien-Ming, acting president of the Chinese Christian Association.

[In Washington, a deluge of mail flooded CHRISTIANITY TODAY offices in response to a request that readers voice their views on (1) whether the United States should recognize Red China, and (2) whether the United Nations should admit the Peking regime. (See December 22 issue.)—ED.]

Religious Literature

Calvin Memorial Year

A number of significant books are scheduled for publication this year in connection with the 450th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin and the 400th anniversary of the final edition of his epoch-making Institutes of the Christian Religion. These are among volumes which are to appear in 1959, now being called “Calvin Memorial Year”:

Thine Is My Heart, devotional readings from the writings of Calvin, compiled by John H. Kromminga. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Life and Teachings of John Calvin, by John H. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Baker.

John Calvin—Contemporary Prophet, edited by Jacob T. Hoogstra. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Tracts and Treatises on the Reformation of the Church, The Henry Beveridge Edition, with historical notes and introduction by T. F. Torrance. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, by T. H. Parker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

The Rise and Development of Calvinism, edited by John H. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

John Calvin, by Albert-Marie Schmidt. New York: Harpers.

S. C. M. Press of London will offer a new translation of the Institutes edited by John T. McNeill. The same translation will be made available in the United States by The Westminster Press of Philadelphia in 1960.

Doubleday is scheduling for 1960 a volume by Edward A. Dowey, Jr. representing a translation of key extracts from Calvin’s work. The book’s introduction will tell of Calvin’s life and work.

Ancient Manuscripts

Publication of two recently-discovered ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of John, one in Greek and the other in Coptic, were reported last month at the “American Textual Criticism Seminar,” held in New York in connection with the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

One of the manuscripts contains the latter portion of John in Greek and dates from about 200 A.D. The other, with most of the Gospel in the Bohairic dialect of the Coptic language, was believed to have been written in the fourth century.

Their publication was announced by Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary. He said the Greek fragments of John’s Gospel were published by the Bodmer Library of Geneva after it had acquired them from an antiquities dealer in Egypt. The text of the Bohairic Gospel of John, he reported, was published recently in Louvain, Belgium.

Metzger also disclosed acquisition of another ancient Coptic manuscript—the First Epistle of Peter in the Sahidic dialect-believed to date from the third century; and three-fourths of the Commentary of St. Ephraem on an Harmony of the Gospels which weaves together into one narrative the four separate gospels. The commentary is in the Syriac language and dates from about 500 A.D.

The epistle was obtained by the University of Mississippi and the commentary by Sir Chester Beatty, British collector of antiquities.

Auca Epilogue

Harpers is adding an epilogue to its best-selling missionary volume, Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliot. The epilogue will consist of a brief chapter added in a new printing of the book.

Since writing the volume, Mrs. Elliot has made successful contacts with the Auca Indians of eastern Ecuador who killed her husband and four other young missionary men three years ago.

Church Construction

Toward A Billion

After five years of upturn, expenditures for construction of churches “and related facilities” leveled off, according to official government statistics.

But the prediction is for about a 10 per cent increase in 1959, which would send the total toward the billion-dollar mark. Last year an estimated 865 million dollars went into the construction category which the Departments of Commerce and Labor label “religious.” The total thus fell slightly short of 1957, when a record of 868 million dollars was set. The government figures generally are recognized as the best available, though federal statisticians admit they cannot be precise about construction of churches. Totals given for church construction actually include funds expended for specially-constructed cemetery vaults, mausoleums, crematories and funeral parlors, as well as for churches, Sunday Schools, seminaries, mission houses, and novitiate buildings. Government spokesmen say, however, that the costs added by the burial-related statistics are “virtually infinitesimal.”

The figures do not represent the sum of completed construction projects. They are based on contract awards as reported to the government by the F. W. Dodge Corporation. Experts judge how long individual jobs will take, then estimate accordingly. Predictions are based on current trends.

Despite qualifications, church construction expenditure totals as released by the government do provide year-by-year indications of the amount of religious building, especially when adjusted against rising costs (see chart below).

In 1959, church construction is expected to take about a dollar out of every 55, or slightly less than 2 per cent of the total U. S. outlay for new biuldings. Over-all U. S. construction this year may reach one billion dollars a week, a total of $52,300,000,000.

Construction by nonpublic schools and private colleges, many of which are church-related, will also set a record in 1959, the government forecasts. New buildings valued at $600,000,000 will be built by these educational institutions, the forecast says, compared with $565,000,000 last year and $525,000,000 in 1957.

Construction by private hospitals, homes for the aged, and other institutions, many of which are also church-related, will maintain about the same record level in 1959, according to the government. Building activities in this field were estimated at $605,000,000 for 1958, compared with $525,000,000 in 1957.

Cathedral Of Tomorrow

With World War II and its travel difficulties past, the Humbard evangelistic party looked to increased opportunities of service. But the touring musical family had hardly realized their new beginning when fire swept a public auditorium in Daytona Beach, Florida, where they were holding meetings. Virtually all possessions were lost, including $20,000 in musical instruments and a truck used to haul them.

But from that setback came a determination to preach the “old-fashioned Gospel” as never before. And within a decade, the oldest of the Humbard children was heading up one of the most ambitious church building programs in U. S. history. The result was one of the world’s largest and most modern church buildings, completed last year at a cost of some $2,500,000. The church, called the Cathedral of Tomorrow, draws in three Sunday services an aggregate of 12,000 worshippers. Two other buildings are planned for the site in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, a suburb of Akron. Plans also include regular national network telecasts from the cathedral’s built-in studio-type facilities.

It all started with a 17-day evangelistic campaign in Akron little more than six years ago. It was a campaign much like hundreds of others the Rev. Rex Humbard had led in 17 years of touring America. But after the meetings were over, Humbard recalls that “the Lord began to speak to me about staying in Akron to start a permanent work.” A state charter was obtained for an interdenominational assembly, and attendance at temporary quarters soared.

The talented Humbards are known for selections of the “country music” variety. A brother still tours with a musical party. The father now pastors a church in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Some churchmen criticize the interdenominational approach of the Humbards, while others (e.g. American and Southern Baptist, Nazarene, and Assembly of God) have at times sponsored their campaigns.

Still to be built on the 21-acre Humbard tract in Akron are a chapel and a library. The Cathedral of Tomorrow, which took two and a half years to complete, was dedicated last May 26.

Almost a million dollars of the $2,500,000 spent on the cathedral’s construction has been paid.

Morning, afternoon, and evening services are held in the cathedral each Sunday. Average attendance at Sunday School and the other three meetings is about 4,000. Mid-week services draw about 2,000. Telecasts are now carried locally, but Humbard hopes eventually to extend coverages to a large network. On New Year’s eve, six stations carried more than seven hours of telecasts from the cathedral.

Humbard has four ministerial associates including a brother-in-law, the Rev. Wayne Jones. Others are the Rev. Jackie Burris, the Rev. Will Chandler, and the Rev. George Pryor.

The cathedral’s main sanctuary is built like an auditorium, and has seats for 5,400. Another 2,300 can be accommodated when the glass fronts of adjoining classrooms are opened. There are 154 Sunday School rooms in all.

The giant structure features a dome made of glued laminated arches which provide a main auditorium free of posts.

At one end of the auditorium is a 168-foot stage with mechanically operated curtains. A speaker’s stage, 25 feet wide, rises on a hydraulic lift, as does a television camera located in an aisle. The lectern-pulpit is equipped for radio and television broadcasting.

Upstairs there is a nursery with 200 beds, a toddlers’ room, and youth rooms.

A prayer room beneath the stage accommodates 750 worshippers, and a chapel for smaller congregations is open 24 hours a day.

Dominion Of Canada

Mission In Toronto

The United Church of Canada is planning a new $950,000 building to replace Toronto’s Fred Victor Mission.

The new building will house a church, a home for the aged, accommodations for transients, and a plant for good-will industries. It will occupy the space now taken up by the old building, which is being demolished, and an adjoining lot. Some $600,000 of the cost will be borne by the United Church Home Missions Council. Another $150,000 will be available from the present mission’s building fund, and the Province of Ontario will help to finance the home for the aged section.

The new Fred Victor Mission will accommodate 60 aged men and beds for 110 transients.

Anglicans And Union

Christian unity should be dear to the hearts of most Canadian Anglicans, but not at the price of division in another realm, the first edition of the new-format Canadian Churchman asserts.

“Of what advantage would it be,” the editorial asks, “to become part of a great national church if it should mean separation from a world-wide communion embracing customs and tradition of often wider divergence?”

Entitled “Time Is Not Yet,” the editorial was written by the Rev. A. Gordon Baker, editor and general manager of the monthly, official organ of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The clergyman asked why there seemed to be so much consternation over the apparent failure of union negotiations between the Anglican Church and the United Church of Canada. Merger discussions between the two bodies, initiated by the Anglicans about 15 years ago, have been at a standstill for some time.

The new Canadian Churchman is a semi-tabloid publication with 12 five-column pages. Inside are church news, book reviews and a children’s section.

Republic Of Korea

Faith Or Fraud?

Park Tae-sun, Korea’s best known faith-healing leader, was in a Seoul prison this month on charges of “fraud and intimidation.” He had been investigated by civil authorities for three months about fatalities allegedly connected with his “praying message.” Park’s chief accuser, Kim Sung-kon, charges the faith-healing leader with a real-estate swindle and with responsibility for seven deaths. Park allegedly advised against medical treatment.

Southeast Asia

‘Profitable’ Riots

Buddhism in Ceylon is realizing profit from last May’s communal riots between majority Buddhist Sinhalese and minority Hindu Tamils. The Tamils suffered much more property loss and probably the greater part of the fatalities (officially estimated at 158 but commonly believed to be much greater). Among relatively small property losses sustained by the Sinhalese was the destruction of two Buddhish temples in the northern part of Ceylon. One of the temples, located at Nagadeepa, was particularly sacred to Buddhists. Governor General Sir Oliver Goonetileke, fearful of Buddhist uprisings, had promptly ordered government workers to restore the Nagadeepa temple.

Observers report that not only has the temple compound been restored, but a new house for the priest and an electric generating plant have been thrown in for good measure by the government. Officials say that Ceylon should thus make up for the favoritism which they claim has been shown to other religions by foreign governments of the past.

The government of Ceylon regularly subsidizes Buddhism in various ways despite a small but respectable minority of priests who decry government aid and warn that such aid will bring more harm than good.

Ban Hit Again

A three-year-old national ban on commercial showing of the film Martin Luther was assailed anew last month by the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches, which urged President Carlos P. Garcia to lift the restraint.

This move was dictated by a decision of the federation’s executive committee to use the Luther movie to raise $5,000 for the 10th World Jamboree of Boy Scouts to be held in the Philippines next July. The amount was allocated by the Boy Scouts of the Philippines as the Protestants’ share in the drive for Jamboree expense funds.

In a letter to President Garcia, the Church group’s president, Dr. Gumersindo Garcia (no relation) said the request was made because exhibition of the feature-length film in Protestant churches “where facilities are very limited was never satisfactory.”

Charging that Protestants had been discriminated against by the ban, the federation head said, “We can find no reason whatsoever to allow pictures of banditry and gangsterism, and those which arouse the bestial passions of men, and disallow the showing of a film like this which portrays great strength of character and heroism.”

The ban was imposed in March 1955 by 11 members of the 12-man Philippine Board of Review for Motion Pictures, a government agency. All the reviewers are Roman Catholics. Because the twelfth member protested vigorously and appealed the order to the late President Ramon Magsaysay a compromise was reached whereby the film could be shown exclusively within the confines of Protestant churches.

Christian Students

Seven Americans were among 85 delegates and observers on hand last month for a week-long Asian conference sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation in Rangoon, Burma.

Purpose of the conference was to discuss the life and mission of the Church in the Asian countries. The countries and areas represented included Burma, Ceylon, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Okinawa, Malaya, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Korea and Thailand.

Among countries which sent observers to the conference were the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Kenya, Lebanon and Nigeria.

The delegates and observers were welcomed by Dr. Hla Bu, Cabinet Minister for Burma’s Kachin State and chairman of the Burma Christian Council.

The American participants in the conference were the Rev. Charles Long, WSCF secretary in Geneva, Switzerland; the Rev. John White, Disciples of Christ student worker; Delmar Wedel, YMCA Student Department Secretary in Japan; Robert Bates, WSCF Southeast Asia secretary, whose headquarters are in Ceylon; and two student delegates.

Top 10 Religion Stories

Religious Newswriters Association, made up of newspaper religion editors of many faiths, conducted a poll of members and came up with this version of the top 10 religion stories of 1958:

1. The death of Pope Pius XII and the election of Pope John XXIII.

2. New moves by the nation’s church bodies against segregation.

3. Death of Cardinal Mooney and Cardinal Stritch and the elevation of Cardinal Cushing and Cardinal O’Hara.

4. News in which birth control principles figured.

5. World Order Study Conference of the National Council of Churches.

6. Merger of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. with the United Presbyterian Church of North America.

7. Election of Arthur C. Lichtenberger as presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

8. Statement of bishops at last summer’s Lambeth Conference in London.

9. Demands of Protestants and Other Americans United that Catholic presidential candidates answer three questions on public schools and representation in the Vatican.

10. Dismissal of 13 professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

Selection of the story on segregation cited declarations by United Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics.

On birth control, the Lambeth Conference view and the New York hospital controversy were specifically mentioned by the RNA poll.

Top item of interest to the World Order Conference was the recommendation for U. S. recognition of Red China and its admission to the United Nations.

Of the three questions referred to relative to the POAU demands, the editors said, the one which aroused the most interest was:

Do you approve or disapprove of your (Catholic) church’s directive (Canon 1374) to American Catholic parents to boycott our public schools unless they receive special permission from their bishops?

The other questions would ask (1) the candidate’s position on Catholic bishops’ denunciation of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the religion clause of the First Amendment, and (2) his policy concerning appointment of an envoy to the Vatican.

Protestant Panorama

• A $4,000,000 training school of Gospel radio and television technique will be established in Atlanta, Georgia, in honor of Dr. E. Stanley Jones, veteran Methodist missionary evangelist and author. The school, to be known as the E. Stanley Jones Institute of Communicative Arts, will serve as a teaching affiliate of the Protestant Radio and TV Center of Emory University.

• Sister Georgina, member of the Order of Notre Dame de Sion, is enrolled as a student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first nun ever to matriculate there.

• American religious and voluntary organizations contributed $128,769,000 worth of relief and rehabilitation supplies to needy persons overseas during the fiscal year 1958, according to the Department of State.

• The executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has approved for submission to the next session a 1960 record budget of $18,500,000, an increase of $1,000,000 over the 1959 budget.

• The City Council of St. Thomas, Ontario, unanimously passed a resolution last month which called for provincial legislation to authorize physicians to order blood transfusions to save a child’s life “despite the objections of parents or guardians on religious grounds.” The action was instigated by the death of a Canadian youngster after his parents, Jehovah Witnesses, refused to permit blood transfusions to be given him.

• As the first step toward establishment of a Lutheran college in Toronto, the Canadian district of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is sponsoring a 250-seat chapel on the campus of the University of Toronto, which already includes one United Church, one Presbyterian and two Anglican church colleges.

• The Protestant Council of the City of New York says non-whites comprise more than 55 per cent of the estimated 960,000 Protestants who are active church members in the five boroughs of New York City.

• A group of Protestant churchmen met in New York last month to plan a series of network television programs and to discuss what theological issues could and should be presented on TV. The meeting was sponsored by the United Church of Christ Office of Communication for the National Council of Churches’ Broadcasting and Film Commission. It was reportedly the first time that pastors and theologians took an active part in planning a TV network religious series. The programs will be televised on the NBC-TV’s “Frontiers of Faith.”

• Closed circuit television is helping a number of overcrowded churches across America. One such is the Brookdale Baptist Church in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where some 500 regularly attend the sanctuary service while another 200 take part via the TV screen in a downstairs auditorium.

• The Federal Communications Commission granted a construction permit last month to Moody Bible Institute of Chicago for a new standard broadcasting station to be operated at East Moline, Illinois, 150 miles west of Chicago.

• Some 23,000,000 Baptists in more than 100 countries were urged to offer prayers on February 1 for world peace, religious freedom, and evangelism in a special message issued in Washington by the Baptist World Alliance. The plea was made in connection with Baptist World Alliance Sunday, February 1, when the alliance marks its 54th anniversary as an international fellowship of Baptists.

• A twelfth century copy of the Hel-marshausen Latin Gospels and Eusebian Canons was purchased in London last month by a New York dealer. The price, highest sterling amount ever paid at auction for a rare manuscript, was $109,200.

• Mary Johnston Hospital in Manila, built in 1908 through a gift from a Methodist layman in the United States, marked its golden jubilee last month at ceremonies attended by church and civic leaders. It is the oldest Protestant hospital in the Philippines.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. Alvin W. Johnson, 63, retired world director of the Seventh-day Adventist Religious Liberty Association, in St. Helena, California … Dr. Tillman M. Sogge, 55, chairman of the Joint Lutheran Union Committee, in Northfield, Minnesota … Dr. R. L. M. Waugh, 65, former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, in Belfast … Dr. William W. Sweet, 77, Methodist educator and church historian, in Dallas … Dr. W. Graham Scroggie, British Bible teacher.

Elections: As president of the Canadian Lutheran Council, Dr. Albert G. Jacobi … as Lutheran bishop of Harnosand, Sweden, Dr. Ruben Josef-son … as executive secretary of the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, E. Harmon Moore … as president of the Evangelical Theological Society, Professor Gilbert H. Johnson; as vice president and program-arrangements chairman, Dr. Allen A. MacRae … as Bishop of the Eastern District of the Slovak Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Czechoslovakia, Dr. Stefan Katlovsky.

Appointments: As circulation manager of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Roland E. Kuniholm … as secretary of the Commission on Theology of Mission (WCC-IMC), Dr. David H. Stowe … as president of the society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, Robert M. Grant … as vice-president-at-large with World Vision, Inc., Dr. Paid S. Rees … as business manager of Youth for Christ International, Peter Quist.

Resignations: As president of the Danubian district of the Hungarian Reformed Church, Dr. Albert Bereczky … as executive secretary of the Southern Baptist Education Commission, R. Orin Cornett.

Retirement: From the Anglican primacy of Canada, Archbishop Walter Foster Barfoot.

Award: To Dr. Clarence Sherman Gillett, the Fifth Order of the Sacred Treasure by Japan, in recognition of 30 years service to the people of the Japanese nation.

BOOK OF THE FORTNIGHT

This remarkable venture improves the best features of scores of book purchasing plans. More books are sent to fewer readers more often with less obligation. You do nothing. Absolutely nothing. No applications to fill out, no forms to return. If you do not wish to keep the books which you receive, give them away or throw them out. Under no circumstances are you obliged to read any of them. This ultimate plan is made possible by the generosity of a select group of authors who pay handsomely to have their works printed. Publishers are invited to participate with choice “surprise” stocks (trade term for works they are surprised to find still in stock).

Book of the Fortnight offerings are reviewed in this column (although not all books here reviewed can be included in the plan). If you wish to become a member of the Fortnight Club, keep subscribing to this paper, and keep wishing. Perhaps your name will be chosen at the next centennial meeting of our board of directors. But remember, do not apply; you do absolutely nothing!

Our first offerings include:

Strange Stranger, by Ella Mae van Buiten. A novel for heart burn. Glee Hopewell finds herself strangely drawn to this strangely forbidding stranger. Must she learn the secret of Agent 33? (Answer classified.)

Counseling Counselors, by an Anonymous Analyst. The author was the prominent director of a famous Viennese clinic, who has recently been institutionalized. He writes from a first-hand knowledge of the field. In-service psychoanalysis is recommended through a new input-output tape recorder proposed by the author.

The Committee Man, by the Committee on the Advancement of Ecclesiastical Committee Work. This book represents the fruit of five years of committee investigation into the self-image of the committee man. It is composed of a symposium of self-portraits and a joint declaration which is useful as a master committee report for any occasion.

Dead Sea Treasure Guide, by Ali von Totenmeer. Are the fabulous treasures described in the copper scroll of the Qumran Community still buried in Palestine? See for yourself with this do-it-yourself manual for the amateur archaeologist. Complete directions, Arabic dictionary, pick, shovel, etc.

CHRISTIAN AND JEW

You are to be congratulated on your materials … on Christian and Jew and the need to win the Jew to Christ (Dec. 8 issue). Our own people do not understand the change that has taken place in the past quarter century in the Jew—his attitude towards life and God and in his attitude towards Jewish culture. Christian people are tragically indifferent to winning Jews. This almost criminal indifference indicates that something is basically wrong in our approach to the task of evangelism. I rejoice in your courage in facing this task.

The Sunday School Board

Southern Baptist Convention

Nashville, Tenn.

I promptly showed them to a Jewish friend …, and he too is so impressed that he would like to have some extra copies.… One of the difficulties I have run into in talking to my Jewish friend is, being a reformed Jew, he takes an extremely liberal view of the Old Testament, which … to a certain extent kicks the props out from under the New Testament.

Pensacola, Fla.

I trust that you will not consider it an impertinence if I venture to state that, in my judgment, the conception of the pre-Christmas issue was … inspired.

Miami Bible Institute

Miami, Fla.

Despite diverse viewpoints, the Niebuhr essay and recent articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY focus attention commendably on the importance of reconciling natural man, Jew and Gentile, with God. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:19) to teach and baptize all nations is universal, given by Christ after he came to his own who received him not (John 1:11). Paul, the Pharisee of Pharisees (Acts 23:6), calls it the “ministry of reconciliation” of man with God through Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:18). Again, as “Apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13), he sums Jewish-Gentile relations before God, reminding them that “the natural branches” (Jews) were broken off because of unbelief, that the “wild branches” (Gentile believers) are grafted in by faith, but that they dare not be “highminded, but fear,” knowing that “the natural branches” shall be (re)grafted “into their own olive tree” (Rom. 11:20–24).

We Christians have no choice but to honor Christ’s commission, being most effective as we remember Paul’s admonitions, also his assurance that the gospel of Christ is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first.…” (Rom. 1:16). He exhorts our ministry to the Jew, while counseling patience in what the Rev. Buksbazen calls the “uphill task.” Paul says the Christian must not be ignorant of the fact that “blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:25). Then Christ comes to regraft the natural branches (Israel), pouring upon “the house of David … the spirit of grace and of supplications and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.…” and “the Lord shall be King over all the earth” (Zech. 12:10; 14:9).

Rabbi Gilbert observes that many Jews, going to Christianity, fail to find a cessation from prejudice and finger-pointing. Jews embracing Christ do so, knowing they must also suffer prejudice and finger-pointing from their own—learning Christ’s standards that “he that loveth father or mother … or son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Who but the Son of God, the Messiah, our very own Creator (John 1:3), has authority to make such a demand of mortal man in order to redeem his immortal soul?

Bringing the Jew to recognize Christ as his Messiah is difficult because of Israel’s partial blindness. It does require exceptional love and understanding and a goodly measure of practical charity. But of many fields of Christian service, I know of none that is more blessed of God or more satisfying than to bring one of His “chosen” back to his inheritance. There is always the exciting possibility of guiding another Paul through his self-imposed blindness to full spiritual vision, from darkness into the “light of the world” (John 8:12).

Vice President

American Board of Missions to the Jews

Washington, D. C.

The article by Victor Buksbazen in exposing Niebuhr’s unbelief is worth the price of subscription.

Bethany Baptist Church

Rushtown, Ohio

The article … by Buksbazen is superb in every sense of the word. How Dr. Niebuhr could ever utter publicly or privately that it is wrong to evangelize the Jews, is beyond human comprehension, and beyond biblical truth.

First Baptist

Mason City, Nebr.

As to … Niebuhr’s … writings: one of the prime difficulties in getting a good theological education today is that you have to read so much that is not so.

As to the brilliantly sincere rabbi: that man can write.… It was strange, though, why he stepped aside … as to the “Bible Belt.” We welcome his fuller investigation. A Jew is doubtless safer in the Bible Belt than any other area of the same size on earth. We deplore our few real crackpots as much as anybody.

Niebuhr … introduced a discrimination that is worse than those the good rabbi had in mind, when we were asked to omit the Jews from our Christian witness. Who is Niebuhr to make the great commission, as given to Christian Jews, read: “Go ye into all the world except to the Jews …”?

First Baptist

Vardaman, Miss.

How striking that a Jew(!) must tell Niebuhr this fact … [of] the unique character of Christianity.

Christian Reformed

Modesto, Calif.

The rabbi ventures a contrast, saying that “the earth-rooted revelations of Judaism” are “profoundly more relevant to the kind of world in which we live—God’s world—than the other-worldly promises taught in the name of Christianity.” … In … the “Westminster Shorter Catechism,” nearly half of the 107 questions and answers deal with the Ten Commandments. This has made what is called “the Presbyterian conscience.” The rest of the catechism is taken up with God’s correction of sins against the commandments.

First Presbyterian

Prince George, Va.

The rabbi … gives himself and his cause away! “… The Jewish people shall be the ministering priests unto … men”—that is when they eventually control the world. This is Zionism’s main aim. All Jews are not Zionists, but those with most of the money and influence are …, and they have and will use any means within their power to attain this end.…

Have you ever thought that perhaps the premillennial view has been concocted by the Jews? I have heard many say that we should practically bow down to the Jew because he is God’s chosen race. What do Romans and Galatians say though? We are all equal in God’s sight. We are all sinners and we must all come through faith.

Pauma Valley, Calif.

Indeed did Rabbi Gilbert make me “bristle.” … “… Redemption is a gift that must be earned and deserved.” This is exactly the point at issue. He recognizes that redemption is a gift, yet he insists on earning it, as if it were wages or a bonus for good work, instead of a gift freely offered. He … desires the redemption of society, believing that “man must evermore urgently dedicate his hands at shaping and reshaping the stuff of this life. Right here he and Niebuhr are identical; redemption is the product of man’s hand.…

The quotations from Niebuhr indicate what has been long suspected, that this eminent theologian regards Christianity as more of a religion than a faith. Of course, he is not alone in this. Many Protestants, forgetting their Reformation protest against institutionalized salvation, seem to be covetously eyeing organization as the means of redemption. If these people are correct and modern Christianity is more of a religion than a faith, then indeed is it a product of our Western Gentile civilization and not the product of Christ or the Apostles; and Niebuhr’s conclusion is correct: God does have two ways in which to redeem society, one way for the Jews and another way for the Gentiles, and we ought to stop trying to assimilate the Jews into a Gentile religion.

… Only a short while ago … we all saw the institutional glory of Rome.… Why couldn’t [Luther] have left well enough alone?… Simply because the institution couldn’t deliver the salvation it promised to him.… Speaking and acting as though the Church can redeem society, whether Judaism, Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, is to point up our need for another reformation.

We seem to be in an age enamored with man’s power and accomplishment, even sincere Christians no longer objecting to glorification. We parade our statistics and laud our churchmen, proud of the position to which we have attained. We raise to places of distinction those of our number who are able by devious paths to thread the intellectual needle and thus make Christianity compatible, yes even respectable, in this world of tension. I say this humbly and tearfully, none of us has cried out to stop the adulation of the press in praises of our denominations and our leaders. On the contrary, we have been proud of it, counting it no more than our just due, helping to counteract the tremendous strategic advantage of the Roman Catholic Church. There is no worse offender than I and the Church of which I am a member, for it and its leader have been singularly praised. Shades of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Acts 14:8–18)! Have we forgotten that we, too, are men of like passions? Is our vision so distorted that we think we are the savior of the world—that our words of wisdom will save it?

St. Paul’s English Evangelical Lutheran

Philadelphia, Pa.

MASS MURDER

Where in all the world, in any country or state, has the church, officially and unreservedly, stood positively and boldly for the renunciation of mass and legalized murder? Where, over the centuries, have the peace-making Pacifists, in Jesus’ name, ever been prayerfully and actively supported by the historic churches as a whole? On this matter our Saviour Christ weeps over the Church, through his Sermon on the Mount, daily.…

St. Mary’s Rectory

Cupar, Sask.

PICTURES OF COLOR

Permit me to express sincerest appreciation for the splendid message … by Lee Shane (Dec. 8 issue). Not only was the underlying emphasis of his message very good, but I doubt if I have ever read a message where so many word pictures show forth to stimulate the mind and the imagination. To my mind it made the message as much more colorful and impressive as color pictures are superior to black and white.

First Baptist Church

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4).

This is capable of two meanings: either that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possession; or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce men to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view, 2 Corinthians 7:10.

Godly Sorrow

Mourning is a wringing or pinching of the soul upon the apprehension of some evil present, whether it be privative or positive, as we speak; that is, when a man finds that absent that he desires, and that present which he abhors, then the soul shrinks and contracts itself, and is pinched and wringed; and this is what we call mourning.

RICHARD SIBBES

This mourning is by no means to be confined unto the initial experience of conviction and contrition, for observe the tense of the verb: it is not “have mourned,” but “mourn”—a present and continuous experience. The Christian himself has much to mourn over. The sins which he now commits—both of omission and commission—are a sense of daily grief to him, or should be, and will be, if his conscience is kept tender.

ARTHUR W. PINK

Luther refers it to patient endurance as an element of religious character. Earthly afflictions, as leading to higher attainments in holiness, may be included in the mourning here spoken of. But it evidently refers primarily, if not exclusively, to spiritual sorrow, in view of the feelings of a corrupt sinful nature. A mourning spirit is nearly allied to one that feels its impoverished condition, and hence this beatitude follows very naturally the preceding one.

JOHN J. OWEN

Satan comes, says St. Paul, as an angel of light. So sorrow, methinks, though it walks the earth veiled and draped in black, with dust upon its bent head and steps that fail, will yet be found to wrap within its weeds the light and blessedness of heaven; and he who should entertain this guest aright, will find, when the disguise is laid aside, that he has “entertained an angel unawares.” As a messenger of God’s grace, this angel of sorrow knocks at our door, charged to lead us, if we will, to that “godly sorrow” which “worketh repentance.” If, instead of putting it from us as an unwelcome visitor, we will sit meekly at its feet to hear its voice, it will fetch forth from its dark bosom the very consolations of God.

J. OSWALD DYKES

Whosoever hath sin must mourn. Let him take his time and place, whether he will do it in this life or in that which is to come. Sin must have sorrow, that is a ruled case; and he that will not willingly mourn, shall, will he or nill he, in another place.

RICHARD SIBBES

The Consolation

The promised consolation corresponds to the mourning which is called blessed: and here the consolation is not given by mere words, but in fact (Luke 6:24). This consoling efficacy is only one of a thousand virtues which come forth from the kingdom of God to bless men. In hearing this comfort, the hearers must have had brought before their view the consolations promised for the Messianic time: for comfort and consolation were expected to come to men with His kingdom (Isa. 40:1; 61:2; 66:11), nay, the Messiah and his kingdom were expressly called the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25; Jer. 31:6).

A. THOLUCK

These seem worse off than the merely poor in spirit, for “they mourn.” They are a stage higher, though they seem to be a stage lower. The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves. These men are grieved by sin, and tried by the evils of the times; but for them a future of rest and rejoicing is provided. Those who laugh shall lament, but those who sorrow shall sing. How great a blessing is sorrow, since it gives room for the Lord to administer comfort! Our griefs are blessed, for they are our points of contact with the divine Comforter. The beatitude reads like a paradox, but it is true, as some of us know full well. Our mourning hours have brought us more comfort than our days of mirth.

CHARLES H. SPURGEON

Buddha sought to comfort the mother whose babe had died, by sending her round the city with a bowl, instructing her to beg a peppercorn from each house, but to take none from any house whose parent, spouse, or child, or slave had died. And when, having fulfilled her instruction, she returned without a single grain, he pointed to the commoness of sorrow, and exhorted her to endure what all must suffer. His whole religious system was directed to training men so that they should not feel sorrow. Buddha’s view is the world view—that sorrow is the great evil; that its commonness is our only comfort; and how to endure it is our chief concern. But the Saviour’s view is directly opposite. He does not say, “Pitiable are the mourners;” but Blessed are they.

RICHARD GLOVER

It is touching to find what impatience real mourners have of every false comforter. You try to heal their wounds with the usual salves of society. You tell them it is a common lot; and grief is vain; and it were better to bear up with a will, steeling the soul to hardness and coldness: for grief, you say, is profitless or hurtful. You bid them seek for a change of scene, and look out for solace on fair nature’s face; or you send them into cheerful company, and trust to time, the healer, to soothe the smart.… No mourner who is true to himself will have such comfort. God never meant he should. God would have men mourn on, and mourn deeper, till their heart has pierced through to the real root of all affliction, in its own separation from Himself; and then He would have them mourn for that till He has brought them to Himself to be comforted in Him. He has put this blessedness into all mourning, that he means it to lead to mourning for sin; and He means all mourning for sin to lead to repentance, and all repentance to the blessed comfort of pardon and purifying.

J. OSWALD DYKES

Does this refer to all mourners? What class of mourners was Christ anointed to minister to? See Isaiah 61:3, first clause. What is meant by “mourners in Zion?” (Those whose mourning is of a spiritual kind—for their own sins, and to the sins of others.) What is promised to them in this verse? When is this fulfilled? (Partly in this life, partly in the life to come.) What comfort is given them now? Matthew 9:2. What comfort have they under chastisements? Hebrews 12:11. What comfort shall be given them hereafter? Revelation 7:16, 17. Is not such mourning, then, a happier and more blessed thing than the joy of the world?

THE FAMILY TREASURE

An issue of the gravest spiritual, moral, and political implications has been forced on the Church and upon individual Christians.

What shall our attitude be to official communism, the Communist governments which control certain nations of the world?

To this momentous question, there can be no intelligent answer unless we know what communism is, and further, unless we can distinguish the peoples from the governments that control them.

What is communism? To answer this question is not as easy as some may think. From the politician comes one reply, from the economist another, from the theorist comes a third, and from the Christian there must come still another answer, though all these aspects should be taken into consideration.

For the Christian there is this inescapable fact: communism embodies a crystalized philosophy that denies the existence of God and persistently and ruthlessly attempts to destroy faith in and worship of God on the part of all who come under its control.

This attitude towards the Christian religion is a matter of record in the writings of theoretical and practical leaders of the party and is demonstrated wherever communism is in control today. In Russia a program is progressing whereby young people, denied access to or time for religious training and worship, are being brought up as a generation totally ignorant of God.

In China the Communist regime began with a superficial tolerance towards the Church, which progressed into a period of “education” for Christian leaders and church members and now has become an unending pressure to subordinate God and Christian principles to the complete domination of the State—the individual’s god.

A broader definition of communism has been made by Dr. Fred C. Schwarz, a native of Australia, who has been touring America warning against this monstrous evil towards which we seem to be becoming more and more tolerant.

Dr. Schwarz says: “Communism is a disease. It is a disease of the body, of people, and purposes to kill millions more.… More tragically it is a disease of the mind, because it is associated with systematized delusions, not susceptible to rational argument.… Terrifyingly it is a disease of the spirit, because it denies God … robs him of spirit and soul … reduces him to the level of a baseless creature.”

Recognizing the enormity of this thing called communism, the Christian’s concern must be one of honest evaluation and right reaction. And the material advances made in backward countries that are Communist dominated should not becloud the basic issue.

Rarely is an adequate distinction ever made between Communistic governments and the people which they govern. In Russia it was a handful of fanatical, dedicated Communists who seized power and forged an aggressive program for world domination. In China it was the same.

The Christian therefore faces the vitally realistic fact that in dealing with the governments of these countries we are dealing with the enemies of the peoples of those countries.

That many of these nationals seem unaware of this fact in no way invalidates the truth, for any government which imposes on the governed the philosophy inherent in communism is an enemy to those so subjected. Christians should have only love in their hearts for the peoples of Russia and Red China. But how can they temporize with the system and those who rule in these countries?

What should be the attitude of the Church towards communism?

If communism is the ghastly evil that evidence shows it to be, then the Church and the Christian should reject any effort that is directed towards “understanding,” recognizing, or cooperating with governments and groups controlled by Communists.

This is a strong statement and needs to be justified.

Editorializing on the action of the Fifth World Order Study Conference, in which it was recommended that our government give diplomatic recognition to Red China and that she be admitted to the United Nations, the Washington Evening Star made this comment: “It is very difficult to reconcile Christian concepts with what might be considered the political realities of this matter.” In dismay and even frank anger over this action, other newspapers have joined in registering surprise.

It must never be forgotten that communism has one long-range aim, and that is to dominate the world. To this end every known means of infiltration, subversion, perversion of truth, military domination, and violation of human rights will continue to be used.

There is no ground for mutual trust or honest discussion with communism. Speaking to an American general who spent months in negotiating with the Communists over a specific problem, the writer asked how it was he could stand the abuse, the lying, and the unbelievable trickery with which he was daily confronted? His reply was: “I knew from the beginning that their plans were evil, that they would only speak the truth if it served their purpose at the moment, and that every device would be used to further the Communist cause with no respect for right or justice. Starting on that principle I was able to withstand the emotional strain.”

One of the gravest dangers America faces today is its tendency to weaken or soften under pressure. None of us wants war. We want peace—almost at any price. We see the menace of communism, and reason that an attitude of conciliation on our part may be the part of Christian statesmanship and hope for some sort of peace in the world tomorrow.

The Psalmist warns against walking in the counsel of the ungodly, of standing in the way of sinners, and of sitting in the seat of the scornful. In the same vein Alexander Pope, in his Essay on Man writes:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

There is likelihood that this process is taking place in America today. The object of an unrelenting foe, we find ourselves contemplating some kind of compromise in which we ourselves will be the ultimate victims.

A “policy of realism” in dealing with communism is the rising demand. But honest realism demands the opposite of that being advocated by some today.

The average American would rejoice if the man-erected barriers between nations were completely demolished. But this longed-for goal will not be achieved by recognizing forces that are the very spirit of anti-Christ.

The wrath of God is a neglected doctrine. Well-intentioned but poorly-disciplined imaginists have contributed to this neglect. Transgressing the bounds of Scripture, they have conjured up descriptions of wrath and punishment savoring more of Dante than of the Gospel. God has been misrepresented as a merciless tyrant more reminiscent of the brutal soldiers of Pilate than of the compassionate victim of their violence. This type of hell-fire-and-brimstone preaching serves only to lessen the effect of a true biblical doctrine upon the minds of intelligent and sensitive listeners.

The abuse of this doctrine, however, does not justify its neglect. It is a vital component of the “whole counsel of God.” It is a revealed truth prominently mentioned in the New Testament. As such it ought to be preached and taught to sinful men in each generation.

In The Bible Text

The Greek term for God’s wrath is orgé, and it refers, not to furious outbursts of selfish resentment or petulant anger, but to the intense recoil of divine holiness from sin, and to the equally intense judgment of God upon sin. Although we must not liken the wrath of God to the sinful human passion of selfish vindictiveness, it is just as erroneous to conceive of his wrath as so unlike human emotions that it becomes unreal and irrelevant. Denney well reminds us that “God’s wrath is no empty name, but the most terrible of all powers—a consuming fire in which everything opposed to His holiness is burnt up” (The Expositor’s Bible, on 1 Thess. 1:10).

The Greek terms orgé, orgés, and orgén occur in some 28 New Testament passages. Five references occur in the Gospels, seventeen in the Epistles, and six in the Apocalypse. Here is the list: Matthew 3:7; Mark 3:5; Luke 3:7; 21:23; John 3:36; Romans 1:18; 2:5, 8; 3:5; 5:9; 9:22; 13:4, 5; Ephesians 2:3; 5:6; Colossians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2:16; 5:9; Hebrews 3:11; 4:3; Revelation 6:16, 17; 11:18; 14:10; 16:19; 19:15.

The King James Version renders orgés as “anger” in Mark 3:5, and orgén as “vegeance” in Romans 3:5. The word “wrath” is used also to translate the Greek thumou in six places, all of them in the Apocalypse (14:16, 19; 15:1, 7; 16:1, 19). While orgé and thumos are related terms, they are not identical. George R. Berry distinguishes them nicely; “thumos is impulsive, turbulent anger; orgé is anger as a settled habit” (Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament, p. 47). Orgé is the fixed emotion of God toward evil, the necessary repulsion of his holiness against all sin. Thumos is that same attitude expressed in positive and punitive action. It is the latent fire in the heart of a volcano released finally in vehement and furious eruption.

The wrath of God is, of course, expressed by other words and described in other passages. A classic and awesome example is 2 Thessalonians 1:7–9. In the restricted compass of this article we cannot survey in details these 28 explicit references to the divine orgé. But attention can be directed to the sins that call it forth and to the forms that it assumes.

Provoked By Serious Sins

All sin elicits the wrath of God, for his holiness is absolute and uncompromised, and repulsed by any form or degree of iniquity. Nevertheless, the New Testament mentions certain specific evils as drawing down the wrath of God upon evildoers.

The wrath of God blased in the eyes of Jesus when he looked upon his enemies “with anger (orgé) being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5). Lack of compassion was expressed in their opposition, under the pretense of loyalty to the sabbatic laws, to the healing of a crippled man. Lovelessness is a sin which negates the very nature of God, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Wrath is the inevitable reaction of God to this enormous evil.

In John 3:36 the wrath of God is pictured as “abiding” upon those who are guilty of unbelief in the Son of God. The context shows that such unbelief arises not out of ignorance, but out of disobedience to the testimony of God in Christ (vv. 31–35).

The deliberate suppression of truth in unrighteousness provokes the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18). Here the phrase “hold the truth” should be rendered “hold down the truth.” The truth by which men are saved is checked in many lives by the iniquities to which they are abandoned. Truth is sinned away!

The main sin of the pagan world in Paul’s day was sexual immorality, both in conversation and conduct. Such promiscuity, he declares, invites the wrath of God “upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:2–6; Col. 3:6). How desperately our loose-talking and fast-living generation needs an echo of the apostolic thunder against the perversion and exploitation of sex!

An ominous phrase, “wrath to the uttermost,” is used to designate the punishment of men who hinder and oppose the gospel message (1 Thess. 2:16). Certain Jews had forbidden the apostle “to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved.” By this attempt to muzzle the Gospel they “filled up” their sins, bringing them to the overflowing measure which made the response of divine wrath inevitable and inescapable. God has invested blood in man’s salvation. He cannot lightly regard those who despise the Cross and assay to silence its witnesses.

Finally, in Hebrews 3:11 and 4:3, the historic example of Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness is cited as an occasion for the wrath of God. With hardened hearts they refused to enter Canaan, and God sware in his wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest.” Now a rest from the guilt and bondage of sin is provided in Christ. We are warned not to harden our hearts and refuse that rest while God is calling to it. Our unbelief can issue in withdrawn privilege, the punitive action of holy wrath. Matthew Henry has a trenchant remark on Luke 14:24 that is fitting here: “They who will not have Christ when they may, can not have Him when they would. Even those who were bidden, if they slight the invitation shall be forbidden.”

Manifested In Various Ways

The prophetic words of Jesus in Luke 21:23 identify the destruction of Jerusalem, fulfilled in 70 A.D., as a signal instance of divine wrath upon a Christ-rejecting nation. Some political calamities reflect more than the changing fortunes of war; they evidence the displeasure of God, the sovereign ruler of the universe.

Those who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18) were judicially abandoned to their unclean lusts, vile affections, and reprobate minds. Three times the apostle employs the chilling clause, “God gave them up” (vv. 24–28). Sometimes in his wrath God smites men down; at other times he gives men up!

In Romans 13:4 Paul views a ruler as “the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Evildoers are grimly reminded, “he beareth not the sword in vain.” The sword “betokens the power of capital punishment” (Henry Alford, The New Testament for English Readers, p. 955). A magistrate’s imposition of the death penalty upon criminals is one expression of the divine wrath.

An earthquake, occurring in consonance with the conflict at Armageddon and unprecedented in devastating power, topples Babylon, symbol of human pride and revolt. The incident is interpreted by the Apocalyptic seer as “the fierceness of God’s wrath” (Rev. 16:19).

The punishment of those who “worship the beast and his image” is described by the terrifying figure of torment in fire and brimstone forever. Suffering this punishment is further described as drinking “the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation” (Rev. 14:9–11).

The final judgment of impenitent men is associated with the wrath of God. Thus the Revelator writes, “Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged” (Rev. 11:18). And Paul gravely warns of “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:5, 6). In both passages the condemnation of the wicked is viewed in contrast to the rewarding of the righteous.

To this aspect of God’s wrath, the future judgment and punishment of the wicked, we must associate such phrases as “the day of wrath” (Rom. 2:5; Rev. 16:7) and “the wrath to come” (Matt. 3:7; Luke 3:7; 1 Thess. 1:10). Divine wrath is visited upon certain sins in various ways here and now, but its ultimate revelation and severest infliction await the future. The penal consequences of sin endured in the bodies and minds of men now are mere tokens of a coming “wrath to the uttermost” (1 Thess. 2:16).

Expression Of Righteousness

God’s wrath is holy and righteous altogether. It is never the expenditure of personal rancor and bitter malice upon helpless and undeserving victims. It is “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16). We associate meekness and gentleness with a lamb, not wrath. In meekness the Lamb of God was sacrificed at Calvary for the sins of the world. Wrath is God’s “strange work” of vengeance upon those who scorn that Cross. Their sin and guilt is aggravated and compounded by their inexcusable rejection of “Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:10, literally). By the intensity of his love which provided the Cross, we may gain some insight into the equally intense wrath that must avenge the Cross.

The righteousness of divine wrath is further seen in the character of those who shall suffer it. The impenitent are referred to as “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) and “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom. 9:22). The visitation of wrath upon men is not attributable to resentment, frustration, and malice in God, but to a fundamental and inexcusable wrongdoing and wrong-being in men. The love and mercy which save men from being scorned with ill-disguised contempt, God has no alternative but wrath. The wrath of God in its finality is just as horrifying as his love is amazing. Men deny that revealed truth at the peril of experiencing that horror. We ought fervently to thank God for a Book and its faithful expositors who warn us to “flee the wrath to come!”

C. H. Dodd shrugs off the wrath of God as “an archaic phrase” (Moffatt New Testament Commentary, Romans, p. 20). But until sin becomes anachronistic, the doctrine of wrath will be relevant. It is sin, and only sin, that arouses wrath in God. We have only to scan today’s headlines to realize how active the damning forces of evil continue to be. In the death of Christ wrath is propitiated. The wrath-provoking and hell-deserving sins of men can be forgiven. Those who believe on Christ will find that “He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18). Those who reject Christ are without refuge from the storm of wrath coming upon a fallen race. Liberalism’s emasculated love and Universalism’s perverted logic to the contrary, upon the finally impenitent “wrath to the uttermost” must fall!

END

W. E. McCumber has been Pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Thomasville, Georgia, since 1953. Earlier he ministered to the Arcadia, Florida, Church of the Nazarene. He is author of Holiness in the Prayers of St. Paul and other works.

Life

LIFE! What is it? Is it the scarlet thread Running through flesh? When it is stilled, Are we then dead?

Life! What is it? Is it the questing spirit Seeking, ever seeking Beyond the immensities Where the circling planets, Each in its orbit, Speak of eternal order, Sing of eternal LOVE?

In the immensities Does spirit meet SPIRIT? All seeking ended?

Home in the heart of God Life finds fulfillment— Finds its true end, Finds its beginning.

—SOPHIA SCOTT

I should like to speak specifically on the question “What is the Gospel?” There is much confusion today among Christian people about this. It is a generalization, and subject to a great deal of qualification.

Perhaps I should begin by saying that all possible points of view relative to the Gospel, or the way of salvation, may be divided into two groups. All religions outside the Christian faith can be classified as those which teach salvation by works. Whatever else may be said about them, this one tie binds them together, whether the works be ritualistic, sacrificial, or moral.

In contrast, the Christian faith holds to salvation by grace. It believes the Gospel to be the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross, bearing substitutionally our sins and the sins of the whole world; that he was buried; and that he also rose again as proof of his triumph over the grave, finished character of his work, and his true Sonship of God. The Gospel plainly stated then, is that a person can be saved for all eternity by simply putting his trust in Jesus Christ.

When one asks, in talking to people, “What is the Gospel?” one gets a variety of answers. I had occasion years ago to examine an ordained minister who was a graduate of theological seminary. I asked him the question, “What is the Gospel?”, and I was amazed to see him fumble, stall, and finally misquote Acts 16:31. This is more typical, unfortunately, than the exception. Were one to take a hundred people at random today, there probably would not be five who could explain what the Gospel is. Even people who go to church with some regularity are confused.

In personal work it is almost invariably true that if one is discussing what it means to be a Christian, or how a person can be saved, one usually encounters some form of the gospel of works. Many will claim that they are doing the best they can, others will admit degrees of failure but believe that were they to do better, they would then be Christians. They fail completely to understand the simple elements of the gospel way of salvation.

May we consider, therefore, two things that the Gospel is not, and then two things that the Gospel is. First of all, the salvation that God has provided in Christ is a salvation not deserved. It is a fundamental teaching of the Bible that those who are Christians according to biblical definition, are not so because they deserve it. God did not see some measure of goodness in man which caused him to bring man into the knowledge of the faith. On the contrary, the Bible states that people who are out of Christ and who are brought to Christ are totally undeserving of salvation. For example, Scripture most frequently uses the term “lost.” This is an absolute term. Second Corinthians 4:3 says, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”

Unmerited Salvation

Scripture also describes unsaved people as “dead,” spiritually dead. When Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, he reminded them that before they accepted Christ they were “dead in trespasses and sins.” They were not just sick, they were “dead” so far as spiritual life was concerned. Another word Scripture ascribes to unsaved people is “condemned,” or the state of living under “the wrath of God.” Man is condemned before a righteous God; and as far as merit is concerned, he stands without hope. Paul speaks of the unsaved as “without God and without hope.”

It is clear that if God has saved us, he did not save us because we deserved it. He did not save us because we were good. Everyone in heaven, Old Testament saints as well as New Testament saints, is there by grace, and through the merits of Jesus Christ.

Let us therefore reiterate: salvation cannot be deserved. There can be no appeal to innate goodness, character, culture, or education. These offer no grounds for divine salvation.

Unearned Salvation

At the same time, and this is the second negative, salvation cannot be earned. If a man’s character cannot deserve salvation, it is also true that there is nothing one can do to earn it. As I said before, the notion that salvation can be earned is a very common one. I think, with all fairness, this is the belief of the Roman Catholic church. Its whole appeal is to do something to be saved. If one does the sacrificial thing, gives his money, or even his life, he is promised salvation.

But by contrast, our Christian Gospel tells us we cannot earn salvation. I was a member of the church for many years before it dawned on me one day, through the ministry of a faithful Bible teacher, that I could not be good enough to be saved. I had assumed, in spite of all statements to the contrary in the catechism, that if I went to church and did the best I could, and was faithful in attendance, and gave my money, and prayed, and did the normal Christian things, I could thus be assured of salvation. There are many people who are similarly confused. They do not understand that, while good works have their place in the Christian faith, they cannot be the ground of salvation.

We cannot earn salvation; we fall far short of what God would have us be and do. There is indeed no righteousness in us that can possibly justify God’s saving us. In Ephesians 2:8–9 we read: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” This is a tremendous passage; it makes abundantly clear that works, or anything that we do, can never earn divine approbation. There are many people in the world today trying to earn salvation. The Bible puts a blight on their whole system. We can neither deserve salvation nor earn it.

Finished Work Of Christ

In contrast to these negatives, I believe there are two positive affirmations that can be made which are very clearly taught in Scripture. The first of these is that salvation is a finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, there are many things God lets us do for him, but salvation is something that God does for us. It is a work of God, made possible by the grace of God and by the work of Christ.

When Christ died on the cross he said, “It is finished.” He was declaring the fact that when he died, the full price of our redemption was paid. His death was of infinite or forensic value; it was sufficient in its provision for the sins of the whole world. He had provisionally, as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:19, reconciled the world unto himself.

The death of Christ, however, does not in itself save anyone. It is God’s abundant provision, which must be applied. So we are told that we are “not redeemed … with silver and gold (that which represents human attainment and value) … but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). How clear this should be in our own thinking, and in our preaching. If we are saved at all, we are saved by the blood of Christ. And it is Christ’s sacrifice that is the basis of our salvation.

We are told that this one offering of Christ is sufficient in contrast to the Old Testament, where they brought their thousands of lambs and sacrifices, and were never through. Hebrews 10:14 tells us: “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” In other words, if we are saved it is because God has done something for us, and does give us this wonderful salvation the moment we trust him.

In speaking of faith, I want to emphasize that I do not mean merely a professing faith, or coming forward in a meeting, or joining a church, or submitting to the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We recognize that there are people who have gone through that whole route and are still lost.

A friend of mine who preaches on the radio said to me that the superintendent of the Sunday School in a large evangelical church came to him and asked, “I heard you explain the way of salvation; would you tell me how I can be saved?” This is what is going on these days. We have to recognize the fact that sometimes the Gospel does not find root in people even though it is faithfully preached, and many with all outward appearance of Christianity are without the inner reality of truly being born again. What they need is Christ as their Lord, and the appropriation of the work he did for them on the Cross.

Salvation is a finished work. When Christ died on the cross he did all that was necessary to save you and me. There is not a single good work we can offer in addition to God’s. After we are saved, then is our chance to do good works; but those works are not our guarantee of salvation, they are the fruits of it. They do not substantiate salvation; they are the testimony. The ground of redemption is wholly the finished work of Christ.

Gift Of God

The second affirmation I should like to mention is, salvation is a gift. We see how these four facts, the negative and the positive, fit together:

Salvation cannot be deserved;

Salvation cannot be earned;

Salvation is a finished work of Christ for us;

Salvation is a gift.

Many people cannot grasp that salvation is a gift, but there are few facts more obvious. Man could not possibly pay for an infinite salvation. He was morally bankrupt, dead in trespasses and sins, under the wrath of God; what resources had he? Could he lift himself by his own bootstraps? If God saves anybody at all, he does it out of his own mercy, and gives salvation as a gift. Scripture testifies specifically to this point: “Being justified freely (literally, without cost) by his grace through the redemption (i.e., the price paid) that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).

This redemption cost God his Son; it cost Jesus Christ the agony of dying on the cross; it was an act of infinite worth, infinite merit, a total gift of God. If we are not saved today, there is only one reason. It is not because we’ve done bad things, because all of us are bad. There is just one reason why a person is lost, and that is he has not received God’s gift of salvation.

Romans 6:23 testifies, “… the wages of sin is death.” Sin has its wages, its inevitable judgment, “but the gift of God is eternal life.” Again Christ said of his disciples, “I give unto them eternal life” (John 10:28). In 1 John 5:11 it is written: “And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

Who could imagine anybody giving away anything of value without getting something in return. It is a hard thing to persuade a lost soul that God wants to do something for him, that God is a God of grace, who has paid for his salvation, and now offers it to him, needy as he is, as a gift.

The greatest question in all the world is simply, have we received the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Saviour? One can never sit on the fence. If one is not saved, he is lost. If one is saved, then he is not lost. There is no one in the middle.

The story was once related how Dr. William M. Anderson came to know the Lord. Dr. Anderson for many years was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Dallas and was largely responsible for the location of Dallas Theological Seminary. His father had been the pastor of this church, and as a young lad he had grown up there. One Sunday evening his father was preaching the Gospel and inviting people to trust Christ. The young son went home that night, wondering, “Now I am the preacher’s son, but am I saved?” He just did not know. Like many others, he had never understood clearly just what the Gospel meant. He was confused between doing something for God, and letting God do something for him. Young Anderson went to bed, but he could not sleep. After all it is a good idea not to sleep if one is unsure he is saved or lost.

Finally he slipped out of bed, and on his knees he prayed: “Lord, if I have never accepted you before, I do so now.” That may or may not have been the night of his conversion, but the important thing was not when; rather, was he now a child of God?

If there is one who is aware of any uncertainty, any failure to come to grips with this greatest of all decisions, the challenge is to accept the gospel invitation and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. Then rest on the authority of the Word of God. The Word says that if anyone believes on the Lord Jesus Christ he is saved, saved for all eternity. The divine program is to hear the Gospel, believe the Gospel, then preach the Gospel.

END

This gospel message was presented by Dr. John F. Walvoord at a luncheon meeting of the CBMC of Washington, D. C. Dr. Walvoord is President of Dallas Theological Seminary.

I am not the only one to observe the great changes that have occurred within the past 50 years. Nor am I the only one to remark that greater changes have occurred during my 50 adult years than during the preceding 500 years. However, I should like to relate how God has led me to these changes, and to take advantage of the spiritual opportunities they presented.

In my lifetime great advances have been made in man’s ability to communicate. How well I remember my boyish amazement when a telephone was installed in our home on the orange ranch, so that we were able to talk with friends living four miles away in Redlands, California. The wireless achieved commercial success in 1897. Later, during high school days, I wrote a mail order house for the parts to make a wireless receiving set. To receive messages over a wire was a marvelous thing, but how amazing to hear messages simply coming out of the air! I immediately busied myself with learning the Morse Code, and became proficient enough to land a job as an assistant dispatcher for the railroad.

It was a part of God’s plan that as a lad I should be so fascinated by these new modes of communication. Thus in 1924, seven years after my conversion, when God spoke to me during a sleepless night in a Pullman car about preaching the Gospel by radio, my heart immediately responded to the idea of the greatly increased efficiency that radio could give evangelism. To think that while standing in one place I could tell the good news of Christ to many thousands scattered over a wide area! I did not feel personally qualified for such a ministry, but God so gripped my heart with the vision of what radio could do that as dawn came and the train was approaching Pittsburgh, I told God I would attempt to put my church services on the air as soon as I returned to Placentia, California.

Radio was so new in those days that it was hard to get others to share the vision. Some actually felt that since Satan is the prince of the power of the air, it would be folly to try to preach the Gospel via the air waves! Some of my deacons felt that if church services were put on the air, people would make this an excuse for staying at home. But we tried it anyway, and soon people from all over Orange County were packing the evening services of our church at the crossroads amongst the orange trees. The deacons were soon convinced!

In the late twenties networks were beginning to thread their way across our country, and in 1931 I was led to try one broadcast on a private network up the West Coast. Through the great response to this one broadcast, God shoved me how much a radio network could add to the efficiency of evangelism. But funds were insufficient to continue on a network, and so we did the next best thing by going on station KNX, whose 50,000 watts could blanket the 11 Western states with the Gospel. The program became increasingly popular on this station, and in 1936 we were able to buy time on 13 of the Mutual Broadcasting System stations extending from Los Angeles to Fort Wayne.

We occupied the best hour on Sunday evening, and it wasn’t long until a cigarette company which wanted the entire Mutual network was threatening to pre-empt us. The only way to keep that choice spot was to take the whole network. I had only four weeks to inform the radio listeners of the greatly increased cost of going from 13 to 65 stations, but God worked so marvelously that when it came time to pay the bill we had $4.29 left over!

Era Of Radio Evangelism

Ever since then we have been on a coast-to-coast network, and it seems that God was pleased to raise up radio evangelism to meet a particular need. Mass evangelism suffered a decline between the heyday of Billy Sunday in the twenties and the rise of Billy Graham at mid-century. But during this time radio evangelism helped fill the gap. Hundreds of conversions were reported every week, and it helped rather than hindered the local church. Once when I was about to speak before the Southern Baptist Convention, the master of ceremonies asked how many of the 4,000 ministers present had ever received into their churches members who had been converted through listening to the Old Fashioned Revival Hour. My heart skipped a beat or two—until a great forest of hands went up.

When television became widely used, it looked as though radio would become obsolete. But people are becoming increasingly wearied by western gun fights and fixed quiz shows, and as a result radio has been experiencing a surprising comeback. People’s interest in the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, for example, has never been greater than at present. How I do praise God for enabling me to preach still from Sunday to Sunday with nearly world-wide coverage.

Training Evangelists

I note also an advance in the field of education, namely, in the greatly increased number of young people who are now attending college. This fact has definite implications for Christianity in America. Let me show why I think this is so.

In early America, colleges were mainly for the training of ministers. Later it became expedient to train ministers in seminaries. But at the close of the last century many of our seminaries began to succumb to the lethal fumes of liberalism, and it became apparent that orthodoxy was soon going to be without an adequate supply of trained leaders. Providentially, God raised up many Bible institutes, which were very effective in training thousands of young men and women—many of whom were not college graduates—to know their Bibles and have a zeal for evangelism. After my conversion I myself graduated from such a school, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, where I had the very finest training from a giant of the faith, Dr. R. A. Torrey.

Bible institutes saved the day for Christianity because they were so effective in training people to meet the immediate needs of the Christian enterprise. But because they are geared to the level of the high school graduate, they are not able to provide their students with that breadth of perspective and intellectual acumen so essential for those leaders whose responsibility it is to give guidance in shaping orthodoxy’s long range policies in our changing world.

To complicate this picture, a greatly increased percentage of the younger generation were graduating from college. Many of these felt called to the Lord’s service, but where would they find adequate training? To many the Bible institute level seemed too elementary, and evangelical seminaries on a high scholastic level were all too few.

I believe it was in view of this need that God laid a burden on my heart to found a theological seminary which might become what Cal Tech is to engineering and West Point to military science. The picture which I have painted to show the need for such a seminary was not as clear to me then as it is now. But God saw it clearly, and in 1947 he led me to contact Dr. Harold John Ockenga of the Park Street Church in Boston, to procure the faculty for such a school.

Despite many obstacles and much criticism during the past 11 years, God has wonderfully worked to raise up a seminary which helps to meet the need for training evangelical leadership. The charter faculty consisted of four members, but now there are 16 faculty members, men of unquestioned orthodox conviction, clear-cut evangelistic zeal, and thorough theological training. Already a theological literature is being produced which neo-orthodoxy and liberalism respect.

Thus I want to testify to the fact that God has worked in my life—as he has in many others—to do those things which were needful for his work in view of the great changes which have occurred.

Facing The Moral Sag

There is one more change which I would like to mention—one which creates a problem that is not really being remedied. There is a moral declension evidenced on every hand in America.

This current declension is an exhibit of the innate corruption of man. The Bible teaches the fall and the result of the fall in the total depravity and corruption of mankind. Again and again in history this has been demonstrated. Civilizations have their birth, growth, period of fullness, decay, fall and finally, oblivion. The decadent conditions which preceded the fall of other civilizations are being paralleled in our own beloved America. The predominant emphasis upon sex in literature, advertising, family relations, entertainment and news, the dishonesty in personal and economic relations, the avarice exhibited in love of money and position, the indulgence in ease, the dependence upon state paternalism for security, all reveal the weakening of the moral fiber of this nation.

Notable is it that the predominant message of New Testament preachers, such as the Lord Jesus, John the Baptist, the Apostle Peter, the Apostle Paul, was on repentance. The same was true of the Old Testament prophets in the days of crisis in Israel’s history. If ever we needed a message of repentance, namely, the change of one’s mind concerning the basic principles of relationship to God, and the turning from one’s sin with a godly sorrow, it is now.

Unless this nation repents, the judgment of God is sure to fall. But there is no reason to expect the nation to repent until professing Christians repent. Judgment must begin at the house of the Lord. I pray that God in his goodness may bring about a genuine old fashioned revival, such as has occurred at times in our nation’s history, so that our country may continue to enjoy his blessings.

END

Charles E. Fuller is known to countless multitudes as the radio voice of the “Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” Eleven years ago he founded Fuller Theological Seminary, whose 39 original students have grown to 450 graduates, 100 of them on mission fields throughout the world. In this essay he tells how the passion for souls led him to preach on the air waves.

Modern society no longer respects the Church as its major interpreter and guide in the social crisis. There are many reasons for this development.

Christianity On The Defensive

For one thing, the Church herself appears inundated by the World; never has she been so unmercifully challenged to justify her very right to existence. To be sure, Christianity always has been a minority movement, and the World has always confronted the Church with some degree of deliberate indifference and hostility. In our day, however, the front of opposition reveals a swaggering re-enforcement quite unknown in ancient, medieval and early modern times. In strategic Western intellectual circles, self-assured and bold philosophical naturalism has triumphantly overrun the social sciences and therefore culture itself. Moreover, the lunge of communism betrays a veritable lightning thrust of social revolution. Its world penetration and power have made the Christian impact seem embarrassingly inefficient and ineffective. As never before, the ranks of atheism are trying to uproot and to discard Christian guidelines; their concerted drive to dominate and monopolize both intellectual and functional areas of society has anti-Christian goals. Naturalism is deaf to the Church’s verdict on the social order because it considers a supernatural faith devoid of authentic credentials to survive a scientific age. It believes the Church sooner or later must simply learn to speak the language of this World.

For this misunderstanding and abuse the Church itself must accept a measure of blame, although certainly not because of failure to convert the whole World. Actually, global conversion has never been her God-given responsibility, although this fact in no way excuses laxity and deficiency in her primary task of evangelism and mission. Her blameworthiness, rather, rises from other considerations.

At one time, when the Church was socially significant, the effects thereof were unforgettably bad. Students of the Middle Ages can recall especially the fifteenth century in this regard.

Today the Church’s ineffectiveness and disrepute stem not from her one but rather from her multiple and conflicting solutions for the social crisis. Too many answers dilute modern respect for the Church. While professing to embody and to channel the unique perspective of divine revelation, the Church has failed to convince the world of this orientation. Her many contradictions in teaching and in social action have not confirmed nor illustrated the demands of her declared frame of reference. She has therefore been pushed to “excuses” rather than to reasons for her exclusive independency. Were the Church therefore to openly identify herself as simply the vehicle of a lofty but changing ethic and not as the ordained bearer and defender of an absolute and once-for-all revelation of redemption, the secular world would embrace her as a powerful, useful, cultural dynamism. The Church’s inconsistency in regard to social issues, her incompatibility and vacillation of message while claiming to speak for the living God, surely place an intolerable and insulting strain on the World’s credulity and reason.

Pessimism Over Social Change

Not only from without but even from within, the professing Church manifests signs of uncertainty and pessimism today about the nature of her social responsibility. Many vigorous proponents of supernaturalism and special revelation now argue that the Church’s role is simply to challenge rather than to re-create society. This logically means casting the whole ideal of Christian culture to the uncertainties and vagaries of our storm-swept social order. With no built-in controls to assure direction, the ideal of Christian culture will scarcely get into orbit, let alone chart a visible and measurable course in the world. The Christian believer is to compassionately picket the cultural order with a signboard: “Outrage to love and justice.” All the while, however, the social order remains permanently aligned with the world, the flesh and the devil. To take issue with this neo-orthodox thesis of challenge, rather than re-creation, as the task of the Church brings charges of perfectionist insensitivity to the depth of sin in human life and history.

Reaction Against Liberal Optimism

The present wave of pessimism must be understood as a reaction to the tide of optimism that had previously overflowed and soaked into the Christian social vision. It was this exuberance of the early twentieth century that produced the social gospel. Interestingly enough, the distinctive feature of the social gospel was neither its passion for social justice nor its conviction that Christianity has social relevance. What might by way of contrast be called social Christianity long antedated it. Both Christianity’s emphasis on justice and on the social relevance of redemptive religion throb through the pages of Scripture. Without this balanced approach, Christianity becomes anemic. The social gospel knowingly surrendered the personal gospel of Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death and his supernatural redemption and regeneration of sinful men. Instead, it sought to transform the social order by grafting assertedly Christian ideals upon unregenerate human nature. This optimistic approach assumed first, that the World will steadily and progressively improve until it finally culminates in an enduring kingdom of righteousness and peace. Second, such transformation of the social order can result (perhaps even within our lifetime) by inspiring unregenerate mankind to live by Christian ethical principles. Third, such achievement does not require nor depend upon personal redemption by divine grace and supernatural sanctification.

A Forfeited Opportunity

Perhaps at no time in modern history was American Protestantism so propitiously situated as at the early twentieth century for a world impact. The age of discovery and invention was thriving. Their interest in each other warmed by the revival flames of the previous generation, the scattered churches were already being united in a formal way by ecumenical efforts. Idealistic philosophy—a speculative supernaturalism of many shades—dominated the university centers while naturalism was still on the periphery. Furthermore, the Communist Party was merely an oddity. Consequently the masses (at least in America if not in Europe) still looked to the churches for constructive social guidance. Most intellectuals, too, were sufficiently versed in Western history to acknowledge Christianity as a vital force with which sociological thinkers must reckon.

Sad to say, Protestantism dissipated this great opportunity and certain dire consequences followed hard upon its growing deference to the social gospel:

The social gospel became an alternative to the Gospel of supernatural grace and redemption. This divergence became more and more obvious after 1910. Rauschenbush, who supplied A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) at the point where the movement had lost spiritual moorings and direction, still propounded the importance of the supernatural regeneration of sinners. At the same time, he shared Washington Gladden’s explanation of evil mainly in terms of man’s environment rather than of the traditional doctrine of depravity. Protestant liberal spokesmen soon enlarged the revolt against traditional theology, and fashioned their optimistic view of history and man from evolutionary theory rather than from the biblical sources of revealed religion. Seminaries training the young clergy took pains to define the antithesis. Popular books like Sheldon’s In His Steps annulled the need of Christ’s vicarious death for sinners. Through the social gospel churches were given a task unstipulated by the Great Commission. The new preoccupation perhaps came through neglect and at the expense of the Church’s divinely appointed mission.

From then on, many churches in the major denominations espoused a nonsupernaturalistic interpretation of the Christian religion, or even dissolved its unique elements in the solvents of idealistic speculation. At its historic moment of world opportunity, Protestant Christianity, since the Reformation happily freed it from man-made traditions and accretions, now surrendered many of its great pulpits to the theological and social fabrications of the modern mind.

As the ecclesiastical relationships of the regular churches tightened, many churches mirrored the policies of denominational leaders aggressively dedicated to the social gospel. The independent churches, which repudiated the social gospel and therefore carried the full burden of supernatural evangelism and missions, were often embroiled in fervent criticism of denominational churches and of ecumenical activities. Even to this day more than half the foreign missionaries remain deliberately unaffiliated with world ecumenical effort. Instead, they have aligned themselves with strictly evangelical agencies. Within Protestantism itself, therefore, tensions mounted because of controversy over the nature and content of the Christian imperative.

In its reaction against the social gospel, the fundamentalist movement became socially indifferent, and even made the inevitability of social decline a part of its credo. To some extent, pessimism resulted from dispensational views which taught that world-wide spiritual apostasy must precede the second coming of Jesus Christ. So intense was fundamentalist social pessimism, in fact, that even any sign of spiritual revival was often considered suspect. The drift of Protestantism in the twentieth century, particularly widespread apostasy within the professing church, contributed significantly to this fundamentalist negativism. With organized Christianity replacing the good tidings of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sinners with promotion of the social gospel instead, world doom seemed inevitable. Christ’s return glowed as the only bright prospect at this time.

The Reformation Heritage

By such evangelical Protestant evasion of the larger problems of social justice, except as social betterment indirectly followed the regeneration of individuals, contemporary evangelicals contrast sharply with their Reformation heritage. Despite its closely guarded and cherished reliance upon biblical authority for the Church’s message, the Protestant Reformation concerned itself no less with Christianity as a world-life view than did medieval Catholicism. The social perspective of fundamentalism may be described as a reaction. Its revolt against the social gospel deflected evangelical Protestantism from the spiritual vision of a Christian culture to an attitude of social isolationism.

Evangelical Social Passion

Admittedly not all evangelical traditions have been interested in a Christian social thrust. Social withdrawal had been the attitude of the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement. Such withdrawal, however, was not historically the normal temper of evangelical Protestants, neither in the age of the Reformation nor in the revival eras of eighteenth century England and nineteenth century America. Indeed, in his Brewer prize essay Revivalism and Social Reform (1957), Timothy L. Smith observes that the social passion of evangelicals in the post-Civil War period “merged without a break into what came to be called the social gospel” (p. 235). Twentieth century Protestant humanitarianism is therefore inestimably indebted to bygone evangelicals who made and maintained Protestantism as a mighty social force in America. In this sense the evangelical revival movements furrowed the ground from which the social gospel sprang. As Dr. Smith comments in another connection (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Sept. 29, 1958), the seizure by liberalism of the proprietorship of the Good Samaritan is “one of the great ironies—and falsehoods—of our time.”

Fundamentalist Disinterest

The fundamentalist lack of social vision must therefore be seen primarily as a reaction against Protestant liberalism. The twentieth century “gospel” of social betterment and the first century “good news” for the individual seemed two irreconcilable statements of the Christian task and hope. Fundamentalism came to regard this antithesis of man and society not simply as accidental in view of liberalism’s unfortunate defection from biblical theology, but as necessary in view of the nature of the Gospel and its course in the World. The movement of fallen history is downward; entrance to the kingdom of God comes only through individual rebirth. The primary task of the Church is evangelism and missions. Alongside these sound convictions, fundamentalism, unfortunately, neglected the Christian criticism of the social order and the task of sheltering the whole range of human freedoms and duties under the self-revealing God.

Recovering Lost Ground

During the past 20 years evangelical Protestantism has steadily sought to recover lost ground in the realm of social concern. The tiny book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) reflected the private conviction of a growing bloc of evangelical leaders that Christianity makes imperative the declaration of the social relevance of biblical religion and ethics in all spheres of life. The six brief chapters of that book were first prepared upon request as essays for Religious Digest, but the magazine’s editors were fearful that the series, scheduled over a period of months, would arouse misunderstanding unless published as a unit. Hence they appeared from the first in book form. Since mid-century, evangelical social concern has steadily mounted. More and more it became obvious that the evangelical failure to proclaim Christ as Lord of the whole life allowed secular and sub-biblical agencies to pre-empt the spheres of culture for alien points of view. At the present time the influence of extreme dispensational views is on the wane in interdenominational colleges and even in some Bible institutes.

New Juncture Of Forces

The appearance of the fortnightly magazine, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, marked a new contemporary juncture of evangelical forces with the Reformation emphasis on Christianity as a world-life view and with the insistence of nineteenth century American revivalism on the social significance of the Gospel. Other agencies contributed in a somewhat preliminary way to this confluence of conviction. For more than 15 years Reformed and fundamentalist clergy had served together on various commissions within the National Association of Evangelicals. Today the evangelical movement recognizes in a new way not only the propriety but the necessity of a social application of the Gospel. Those rejecting the concern for social justice as an illegitimate facet of evangelical interest, vocal though they may be, more and more represent a retreating minority.

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry’s address on “Perspective for Christian Social Action” was delivered recently at a Christian Freedom Foundation retreat in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania. Part II, which will appear in the February 2 issue, deals with the controlling principles of an evangelical strategy for social ethics.

Of the weaknesses of New England religious life, none is more apparent than that of Unitarianism, which has its administrative and numerical center in this area. It cannot be denied that Unitarianism has failed to reproduce itself; and, except for participation in the general growth in the population of the country, it has been able to count no significant increase in its constituency. The Universalists have also met an essentially similar fate, attested by the recent association of the two groups for self-preservation. Thus, one may raise the question, why the enfeeblement of a movement which, at the outset, seemed as though it might sweep all else before it?

Origin And Development

Believers in the unity to the exclusion of the tri-personality of God have ideological roots reaching as far back as the Ebionites of the early Church. These Ebionites represent a combination of Jewish-Gnostic teaching. By the fourth century the Arians had arisen to carry on the emphasis. They held that Christ had been brought into being at the beginning of creation, and hence was a creature not of being or substance with the the Father. He was called God because, assertedly, he was next in rank to God and had been delegated the power to create. In the sixteenth century the emphasis of Arius was continued by a group of humanists in Italy, the leaders of which were Laelius and Faustus Socinus. The latter understood his position to be based completely on Scripture, but for him Christ was never more than a miraculously endowed man who effected salvation by setting an example for other men. So, Socinus did not approach orthodoxy as closely as Arius.

The movement spread from Italy to Poland, to Transylvania, and finally through Holland to England, which became the most important single source of later Unitarianism. American Unitarianism arose as early as 1783, independent in many respects of the English movement, but not uninfluenced by it. At the outset it tended to be more Arian than Socinian, and this meant that Christ was considered not just a good man but actually next in rank to God.

Boston was the early center of the movement and William Ellery Channing was its first popular leader. Andrews Norton of Harvard became its theologian. And thus, articulate opposition to orthodoxy began. In the third decade of the nineteenth century Transcendentalism emerged and Unitarianism passed from the status of a heresy to that of a clearly non-Christian philosophy. The early twentieth century saw this philosophical theism replaced in part by a kind of religious humanism. Since the Second World War, there has been somewhat of a “revival” in Unitarian circles. A belief in God is returning to certain Unitarian pulpits. It is the conviction of the writer, however, that this can be only a temporary ebb in the relentless flow of the logic of Unitarianism to a thoroughgoing humanism.

Speculative Theism

1. Changing and early Unitarianism: the autonomy of the moral sense. Channing and his followers considered their new view true to the Bible. “Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or exception” (Baltimore Sermon, 1819). Many of the marks of orthodoxy were present: the doctrines of heaven and hell, the Cross as a necessary ingredient of salvation, and an expressed opposition to the reduction of Christianity to a theology of feeling. However, Channing’s doctrine of self-salvation potentially undermined every orthodox view and rational sentiment that he held. This, as well as his emphasis of the absolute and exclusive unity of God, laid the ground-work for Transcendentalism.

Since man needed to be educated rather than reborn, Channing went on to appeal to man’s moral sense as the basis for his fundamental convictions. The inconsistency of this with a repudiation of theological sentimentalism he did not see. Channing’s weakness was not his emphasis on rationalism, since he really did not take reason seriously. And, once he had made feeling the criterion of truth, it was impossible for him to limit the field. Unwashed as well as full-dress feelings will make their way to the fore, and there is no ground to do anything but to admit them.

2. Emerson and Transcendentalism: the demolition of the Christian edifice. The emergence of Transcendentalism was at once a development from and repudiation of earlier Unitarianism. Following the implicit recognition by Channing of the autonomy of the moral sense, Emerson explicitly cut himself off from specific dependence on the Bible and reason. Though Channing and Norton strove to stem the emerging tide, they succeeded only in stirring up interest in the new views.

Emerson, influenced by the Swedenborgian interpretation of nature in terms of spiritual symbols, accepted nature as the corpus of revelation. His method was, as with Plotinus, mystic vision. The certainty of the deliverances of the intuition transcend even the laws of logic. Transcendentalists were not careful, professional philosophers, but rather poets and literati. But even then, they were more philosophers than theologians. While Channing’s God may have been pale (one gets the impression that He may be still alive), Emerson’s God is hard to distinguish from nature itself.

This is understandable since it would appear impossible for any speculative philosophy, by itself, to undergird the assertion of the existence of a personal God. Metaphysical realism, for example, does not issue necessarily in a God-concept. A number of varieties of non-theistic views are possible. The theistic alternatives are little better. Most of the usual concepts bear little resemblance to a personal, much less Christian God. If we have recourse to a combination of speculative philosophy and orthodox theology, we find that it depends more on the latter than the former, since it must rest on the historicity of the biblical documents.

In order to reach a God-concept apart from the evidences of revelation, it is necessary to show that the universe demands a personal cause. Empirically, it appears most difficult to support such a postulate, since the opposite view—that of a self-contained and purely natural universe produced by the chance concatenation of matter—presents no logical contradiction and could theoretically account for all data. Further, if one favors the idea of a God, a multitude of questions remain unanswered. Is he friendly, indifferent, or antagonistic to human values? Is he omnipotent or limited? Is he creator or simply the architect of the universe and supervisor of its processes? Simply to consult the evidences of common human experience is to suggest unpopular answers to all these questions.

Perhaps, however, metaphysical idealism may hold the answer. On the surface it seems much more akin to an adequate theistic view. Yet, it is possible to be a metaphysical idealist and hold to a position that begins and ends with the universe, without conferring even a pantheistic title upon it. Further, the allowing of a transcendent ultimate does not necessitate a view of the absolute as personal or unitary. Able idealistic philosophers (e.g. Plato) have held to an impersonal but immaterial, transcendent multiplicity as the ultimate ground of reality. Impersonality also seems to be an attribute of the absolute as conceived by Hegel, Bradley, and von Hartmann—to name a few. What is more, the general objections raised against the theism of metaphysical realism would also apply to metaphysical idealism.

3. Humanism: the evaporation of philosophical theism. Unitarian theism of the philosophical variety was gradually replaced by religious humanism. God, who has been reduced to a postulate, could be expected to put up very little resistance to complete liquidation. After all, a God who is dead probably deserves, in all respectability, to be buried. And, if nothing else, Unitarians have always been respectable people.

The “Humanist Manifesto” (first draft by Roy Wood Sellars), produced in 1922, asserted the self-existence of the universe, the natural emergence of man in the evolutionary process, the non-existence of an immaterial mind, religion as “those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant,” and the unacceptability of “any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.” Without the evidence of biblical history through trustworthy documents, only certain broad philosophical arguments on the basis of intuitive insight could stand in the way of such a reduction. Humanism has the recommendation of being more realistic than intuitive, speculative theism.

However, two large incongruities remain. First, why should the humanist continue the “church” meeting at all? Second, what is the source of a binding ethic on a humanistic base? The contradiction in the latter may be put very simply: the religious humanist passes from an affirmation of what is to what ought to be as if there were a necessary connection between them. Humanism-naturalism can only describe; it cannot obligate in any universal, non-hypothetical sense. And hence, ethics, created by man, can be destroyed by man.

4. Contemporary Unitarianism: theism revived. “Believing that the traditional liberal answer of man’s primary and ultimate dependence on his own powers to solve his problems has proved inadequate, it [Unitarianism] is willing to explore new sources of power and truth, most notably Christian theology, existentialist philosophy and the social and personality sciences” (Parke, The Epic of Unitarianism).

Leaven Of An Ideology

Lest orthodoxy be too encouraged by such sentiment, it must be remembered that since the source and criterion of spiritual truth for the Unitarian are the deepest feelings of his “unfallen” nature, his attitude can change overnight. Such instability is necessarily involved in any view except one which depends on an objective series of revelatory acts by an absolute and a personal God.

The plight of the Unitarians is the plight of all liberals and all denominations under the influence of liberalism. While Unitarianism as an organized movement has not done well, it has, as an ideology, like leaven penetrated all the major evangelical denominations. Protestantism needs, consequently, to remind itself of two things: (1) It has presently within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and (2) this problem can be solved only by establishing itself on God’s infallibly revealed Word. The continuance of reliance on individual moral and spiritual intuition reduces theology to simply a descriptive science of men’s deeds and desires. And hope as well as authority must depart.

Only Biblical Theism Adequate

If the Bread of Heaven from the living God is to be given to man, rather than the stones of human speculation, only biblical theism is adequate to the task. It is not less rational but more rational than other theologies or philosophies of religion which depend in the last analysis on a subjective experience as both the source and criterion of truth. Biblical theism appeals to history and logic as the ground of its credibility, and rests upon the verified revelation of the living God as the authority and power of its message. It sets no store by the moral and religious sentiments of inherently depraved man.

END

Lloyd F. Dean is Professor of Philosophy, Gordon College, and Editor of The Gordon Review. A lifelong Congregationalist (in which denomination Unitarianism arose) and resident of Greater Boston, he is familiar with religious life in New England. His B.A. degree is from Gordon College; B.D. from Gordon Divinity School; Ph.D. from Boston University.

The Day of Days

The Day of days will surely come When Jesus Christ will reappear; He’ll judge the living and the dead, His voice at last the world will hear.

He’ll come with angels from on high, The wicked then will be no more; In righteousness He’ll reign supreme, Our Saviour whom we all adore.

The wars of earth will all be past And men forevermore be free; For Jesus Christ will then be King, The saints will all rewarded be.

O Day of days! O reign of peace! When poverty will be no more, When all the dead in Christ shall rise, And all our conflicts will be o’er.

God speed the Day! Come, Lord, and reign, O fill our hearts with endless praise; Destroy the evil of our age, And usher in the Day of days.

OSWALD J. SMITH