Conversion to Christ means an entirely new dimension of living

The word on the lips of the peoples of the world today is “revolution.” Every few days we read in our newspapers of another revolution somewhere in the world; an old regime has been overthrown and a new regime has taken over. Conversion is a revolution in the life of an individual. The old forces of sin, self-centeredness, and evil are overthrown from their place of supreme power. Jesus Christ is put on the throne.

No one can read the New Testament without recognizing that its message calls for conversion. Jesus said: “Except ye be converted … ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Paul encouraged men to “be … reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20) and insisted that God now “commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Paul viewed his office as that of an ambassador for Christ—“as though God did beseech you by us” (2 Cor. 5:20). It was James who said: “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (Jas. 5:20), and Peter taught that we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (1 Pet. 1:23).

In reading the New Testament we are confronted with many incidents of men and women who encountered Christ either personally or through hearing the message preached. Something happened to them! None of their experiences were identical, but most of them experienced a change of mind and attitude and entered an entirely new dimension of living.

In my opinion there is no technical terminology for the biblical doctrine of conversion. Many words are used to describe or imply this experience; many biblical stories are used to illustrate it. However, I am convinced, after years of studying Scripture and observing conversions in the lives of thousands, that it is far more than a psychological phenomenon—it is the “turning” of the whole man to God.

I would suggest three elements which in combination I have found most effective in conversion. The first is the use of the Bible. The Bible needs more proclaiming than defending, and when proclaimed its message can be relied upon to bring men to conversion. But it must be preached with a sense of authority. This is not authoritarianism or even dogmatism; it is preaching with utter confidence in the reliability of the kerygma. A. M. Chirgwin observed that the Reformers “wanted everyone to have a chance to read the Bible because they believed profoundly in its converting power.” This could be said of every great era of evangelism. I know of no great forward movements of the Church of Jesus Christ that have not been closely bound up with the message of the Bible.

Recently my attention was called to one of the most thrilling stories I have ever heard about the power of the Word of God. In 1941 an old Tzeltal Indian of southern Mexico approached a young man by the name of Bill Bentley in the village of Bachajon and said: “When I was north I heard of a book that tells about God. Do you know of such a book?” Bill Bentley did. In fact, he had a copy, he said; and if the tribe would permit him to build a house and live among them, he would translate the book into their language.

In the meantime, Bill returned to the United States to marry his fiancée, Mary Anna Slocum. Together they planned to go to Mexico in the fall. But when fall came, Mary Anna returned to Mexico alone. Six days before the wedding Bill had died suddenly, and Mary Anna had requested that the Wycliffe Bible Translators let her carry on his work. When she reached the village of Bachajon, the Indians had been warned against the white missionary, and instead of welcoming her, they threatened her that if she settled among them they would burn her house down. Settling in another part of the tribe, she began patiently to learn the Tzeltal language, translating portions of the Word of God, and compiling a hymnbook in Tzeltal.

Six years passed and Mary Anna was joined by Florence Gerdel, a nurse. They started a clinic to which many Tzeltals came for treatment. Mary Anna had completed the translation of the Gospel of Mark and started on the Book of Acts. A small chapel was built by the Indians who had abandoned their idols for the living Christ.

In the highland village of Corralito, a little nucleus of believers grew from five families to seventy Christians, and they sent for the missionary women to come teach them the Word of God. Mary Anna and Florence went and were warmly welcomed by all seventy, who stood outside their huts and very reverently sang most of the hymns in the Tzeltal hymnbook. In little over a year there were 400 believers. One of the most faithful was the former witch doctor, Thomas, who was among the first to throw his idols away.

By the end of the following year there were over 1,000 believers. Because of the pressure of the crowds, Mary Anna could make little progress in her translation work. Concerned, the Indians freed the president of the congregation to help Mary Anna with the translation while they themselves took turns helping in his cornfield. When unbelieving Indians burned down their new chapel, the Christian Indians knelt in the smoldering ruins and prayed for their enemies. In the months following, many of these enemies were soundly converted to Christ.

By the end of 1958 there were more than 5,000 Tzeltal believers in Corralito, Bachajon, and twenty other villages in the tribe. The New Testament in Tzeltal had been completed.

Mary Anna Slocum and another missionary moved to the Chol tribe, where there was a small group of believers who desperately needed the Word of God in their own language. Others came to help. Indians volunteered to build the much needed airstrip for the mission plane. As the believers multiplied, chapels large and small appeared throughout the area.

When the Chol New Testament was completed, there were over 5,000 believers in that tribe and thirty congregations. One hundred young men had been trained to preach and teach, and a number had learned to do simple medical work. A missionary wrote:

Formerly these Indians were indebted to the Mexican ranchers who lived in the area holding large coffee plantations. They also sold liquor. The Indians, before conversion, were habitual drunkards, in debt to these land-holders. To pay off their debts the land-owners forced them to work on their plantations whenever they needed work. After the Indians became Christians, they stopped their drinking, paid off their debts and began to plant their own coffee plantations. The coffee of the ranchers was left unharvested. As a result, the Mexican ranchers have been forced to sell the land to the Indians and are moving out of the area.

What a tremendous illustration of the power of the Scriptures! I am more convinced than ever that the Scriptures do not need to be defended but proclaimed.

Secondly, there needs to be a clearly defined theology of evangelism—not so much a new theology but a special emphasis upon certain aspects of the theology that has been in the mainstream of the Church throughout its history, both Catholic and Protestant. It is the theology that focuses attention upon the person and work of Christ on behalf of the alienated in every generation, the theology that invites sinful men to be reconciled to God.

Dr. D. T. Niles has written: “No understanding of Christian evangelism is possible without an appreciation of the nature of Christian proclamation. It is not an affirmation of ideals which men must test and practice; it is not an explanation of life and its problems about which men may argue and which in some form they must agree; it is rather the announcement of an event with which men must reckon. ‘God has made Him both Lord and Christ.’ There is a finality about that pronouncement. It is independent of human opinion and human choice.”

Thirdly, there must be an awareness that conversion is a supernatural change brought about by the Holy Spirit, who himself communicates the truth. At every evangelistic conference we hear discussion of “how we can communicate the Gospel to our age.” We must always remember that the Holy Spirit is the communicating agent. Without the work of the Holy Spirit there would be no such thing as conversion. The Scriptures teach that this is a supernatural work of God. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts men of sin. Jesus said: “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). It is the Holy Spirit who gives new life. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).

There is a mystery in one aspect of conversion that I have never been able to fathom, and I have never read a book of theology that satisfies me at this point—the relation between the sovereignty of God and man’s free will. It seems to me that both are taught in the Scriptures and both are involved. Certainly we are ordered to proclaim the Gospel, and man is urged to respond.

However, this one act is not the end of the matter. It is only the beginning! The Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit comes to indwell each believing heart (1 Cor. 3:16). It is the Holy Spirit who produces the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. It is the Holy Spirit who guides us and enlightens us as we study the Scriptures (Luke 12:12). We are told that we can also be “filled” with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). The missionary expansion of the Church in the early centuries was a result of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19, 20) and no less of the joyful constraint created in believers’ hearts at Pentecost. They had been filled with the Spirit. This great event was such a transforming experience that they did not need to refer to a prior command for their missionary activities. They were spontaneously moved to proclaim the Gospel.

While there is no doubt that certain persons have a charismatic endowment by the Holy Spirit for evangelism (Eph. 4:11), yet in a sense every Christian is to be an evangelist. In little more than ten years, Paul established churches in four provinces of the empire—Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. Before A.D. 47 there were no churches in these provinces. In A.D. 57 Paul could speak as if his work there was done and could plan extensive tours into the Far West without anxiety lest the churches he had founded perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support. Such speed and thoroughness in the establishment of churches cannot be explained apart from the operation of the Holy Spirit and a sense of responsibility for evangelism by every Christian.

The missionary responsibility was interwoven with the most important offices of the early Church. Each bishop was expected to be an evangelist and to encourage the evangelization of pagans in his own diocese. Some of the renowned missionaries of the post-apostolic period were Gregory Thaumaturgus of Pontus, who became bishop in 240 and carried on successful evangelistic work in his diocese; Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia, under whom a mass conversion took place; Ulfilas, who preached to the Goths; the enthusiastic Martin of Tours; Ambrose of Milan; and Augustine of Hippo. Almost all of these people were converts to Christianity and propagated their newly found faith with a Spirit-filled zeal reminiscent of the apostolic age.

I believe that if our clergy today were filled with the Spirit and out among the people, even on street comers, proclaiming the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, a new day would dawn for the Church. Paul said that in Corinth he did not use clever words or persuasive language. He said: “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). He knew that in the Cross and Resurrection there was power to change an individual and a society.

Conversion is the impact of the kerygma upon the whole man, convincing his intellect, warming his emotions, and causing his will to act with decision! I have no doubt that if every Christian in the world suddenly began proclaiming the Gospel and winning others to an encounter with Jesus Christ, the effect upon our society would be revolutionary.

Readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY who shared the vision of an Institute for Advanced Christian Studies can walk taller this week with the good news that this venture will make a modest beginning in 1968 (see editorial, page 26).

Many lonely church workers in the United States are surprised and gratified to discover that evangelicals in this land may number about 40 million. Only their isolation and competition keep them from achieving common evangelistic and spiritual goals, since numerically they constitute the largest religious grouping in American life.

Somewhere I have noted that, were evangelicals each to give only one extra dollar a year to some evangelical venture, they could see dramatic results. Some 800 of our readers posted a dollar to the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies—before there even was an Institute; others still have an opportunity to do so.

Ultimately the institute headquarters could be located in Philadelphia or New York, Boston, Washington, Berkeley, or some Midwestern city such as Ann Arbor. What is needed is a suburban estate or urban center with access to a major university complex and to adequate library research facilities. Such estates are often tax burdens. The dedication of an attractive site to the advancement of the truth of revelation in a secular culture could give bright new power and visibility to evangelical realities.

Not only creeping republicanism but also creeping secularism is developing in Canada as traditional Christian symbols are dropped from government along with traditional royal ones. The new national flag with a maple leaf as its main symbol has replaced the flag in whose top left corner appeared a Union Jack with its three crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick. Now parliament has made “O Canada” the national anthem, replacing “God Save the Queen.”

What the exact words of the new national anthem will be is still unknown. A parliamentary committee is working on a revision of a version that has been sung popularly but unofficially for two generations. The desire for revision is due in part to a dislike of the song’s several repetitions of the words, “We stand on guard for thee”:

O Canada, our home and native land,

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise,

The True North, strong and free,

And stand on guard, O Canada,

We stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, glorious and free,

We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

But a more important reason for revision is the present version’s failure to recognize the sovereignty of God in the clear and majestic way “God Save the Queen” did.

If a national anthem is to express the national character truly, and if Canada has not become a secularistic country, it is imperative that its anthem call on citizens to acknowledge their recognition of God as the ultimate ruler of the land.

Certainly the origins of Canadians’ life show this recognition of God as ruler. When in the sixteenth century Jacques Cartier landed on the shores of the Gaspe peninsula to claim the territory for the king of France, he planted a great cross to show that he came not only as a Frenchman but also as a Christian. And when the early British explorer Martin Frobisher came to Canada’s northern shores, the first act of his crew was a communion service conducted by their chaplain, Master Wolfall.

Confederation in 1867 showed the same conviction: both the title, “Dominion,” and the national motto, “From Sea to Sea,” were taken from Psalm 72.

Unless Canadians have now reached a point where the majority recognize no power above the temporal one, their national symbols must manifest this traditional conviction that God is “king of kings, lord of lords, the only ruler of princes.”

Believers in God should not allow themselves to think that this is a trivial matter because “what’s in a name?”—or a flag, or an anthem. The recognition of God’s sovereignty by a nation is one of the most fundamental principles in its political philosophy, and a failure to see that can be the first step toward a totalitarian state.

The late H. Richard Niebuhr contended that belief in God was the basic reason for the establishment in the American constitution of the system of checks and balances that prevents any one branch of government from arrogating undue powers. Some have said that this feature resulted from a theological tradition that stressed original sin and hence did not want to trust any human institution more than was necessary. But Niebuhr argued that the Christian belief in divine sovereignty was the really decisive influence, conscious or unconscious, in the thinking of the framers of the constitution.

Niebuhr’s thesis is cogent, because a belief in original sin is not enough to ensure democracy. Thomas Hobbes, for example, showed in the previous century that a strong awareness of human corruptibility could lead a person to advocate an absolute government as an effective policeman for keeping depraved man in check. Niebuhr was right. Only when people are clearly convinced that above them stands the Almighty God is there a sure way of guarding against inordinate pretensions by governments.

In speaking of “the mandate of heaven,” Walter Lippmann has expressed somewhat the same idea. Democracy, he says, requires belief in a higher sovereignty than the state’s. Historically, human rights have needed the recognition that above the government stands some higher power, such as a personal and sovereign God, or a higher law, such as the natural order. The loss of both convictions by large numbers in the nineteenth century, Lippmann says, prepared the way for the twentieth century’s acquiescence to the total claims of the state.

Christians and others should therefore take seriously the threat posed by the creeping secularism in such traditionally theistic countries as Canada and the United States. What may seem to some as quibbling over words is really a matter of great significance. A romantic idealization of secularity should not be allowed to bring about a naïve submission to what is a danger both to faith and to freedom.

Although revival is often spoken of glibly, with every little spiritual stir giving rise to speculation of a great awakening, the real thing does occasionally happen. The latest legitimate claim to revival belongs to the 112 million people of Indonesia, where in recent months there has been a historic surge in the Christian churches (see also April 28 issue, p. 42).

“It’s too early to put all the pieces together,” says Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, executive secretary of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, “but there can be no doubt that revival has broken out.”

Taylor says the best estimates show at least 200,000 conversions from Islam to Christianity within the last eighteen months. Mission boards are assigning top priority to getting help to the workers in Indonesia, now the world’s fifth-largest country. Nowhere before has there ever been a comparable response from Muslims—missionary experts often regard them as among the hardest people in the world to reach.

Christians in Indonesia are still very much the minority group there, numbering something less than 10 per cent of the total population. But many missions report startling statistics in baptisms and new church members. At the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin last fall, an Indonesian delegate declared that in one area hundreds of new Christians were virtually standing in line to be baptized.

Taylor says that the revival is showing itself in at least three ways. The first is through the enthusiastic witness of lay people who go out in small bands to evangelize. Some of them are illiterate and must rely on what Scripture they have memorized. These lay witnesses have had their best results among disenchanted ex-Communists who survived the bloody aftermath of the abortive 1965 coup in Indonesia.

According to Taylor, there has also been a tremendous movement among pagans, and thousands are known to have been burning their fetishes and idols.

In addition, there has been an unusually effective cell movement as a result of efforts among the Dutch Reformed, the largest Protestant group in Indonesia. Some older churches, however, are said to be resisting the new movement.

Reports of the awakening now include calls for more Bibles to meet the unusual demand. A number of teams of evangelists are said to be going about fanning the flames of the revival. Healings and other miracles have been reported, as well as all-night prayer meetings and mass confession of sin. All these signs are traditionally associated with genuine revival.

Missions

Radio Lumiere, operated by West Indies Mission, began broadcasting May 17 from a new 240-foot tower located in a mud flat near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. In three days the second-hand diesel that turns the power plant gave out, and technicians had to revert temporarily to an old sixty-foot hurricane-damaged antenna. A 1,000-watt transmitter has been ordered to replace the present 250-watter.

South Viet Nam government approved construction of a “missionary embassy” in Saigon by World Vision. It is to be built across the street from U. S. and British embassies along the prominent boulevard that leads to National Palace gates.

Missionary aviation training facilities of Moody Bible Institute will be moved to Elizabethton, Tennessee. The new site is said to offer better flying conditions than the present airfield, located two miles from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

A health-insurance program for missionaries is being developed by Christian Medical Society. The organization will serve as administrative intermediary between an insurance underwriter and mission boards. Wide participation will allow the underwriter to tailor coverage to the special financial and health-care requirements of missionaries.

A Dalat, South Viet Nam, ceremony marked publication of the New Testament in Koho, language of one of the nation’s largest mountain tribal groups.

Personalia

Hans Küng, much talked about young Roman Catholic theologian in Germany, will be visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York, during the 1967–68 spring semester.

Martin Niemoller, controversial German Protestant churchman and a member of the World Council of Churches’ presidium, is scheduled to be visiting professor at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, for the second semester of the 1968–69 academic year.

LeRoy Moore, Jr., a Southern Baptist clergyman on the faculty of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, will go to teach history at the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut.

William G. Chalmers was appointed president of the University of Dubuque (United Presbyterian), succeeding the Rev. Gaylord M. Couchman. Chalmers has been an area counselor for the United Presbyterians’ Fifty Million Fund. Couchman will remain at the university as director of church relations.

Dr. Herbert S. Anderson was elected general director of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. He is currently a pastor in Portland, Oregon, and has served for three years as president of the Conservative Baptist Association of America. He holds a doctorate in theology from Princeton.

Commissioner Clarence D. Wiseman, 60, has been appointed national commander of the Salvation Army for Canada and Bermuda. Until recently, Wiseman was the head of the Army’s International Training College in London, England. He succeeds Commissioner Edgar Grinsted, who is now on a world tour before retiring in his native England in September.

Two faculty members have resigned at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School. Librarian Robert Hannen moves to Central Baptist Seminary, public-relations head L. Earle Shipley to a fund-raising firm in New York.

Dr. William J. Villaume resigned last month as president of Waterloo (Ontario) Lutheran University. Villaume cited a forthcoming report from a management consultant firm and said he felt “it would be advantageous for the board to be as free as possible from all long-range commitments so that planning for the future may not be hindered.”

Msgr. Vincent A. Yzermans, for three years the director of the United States Catholic Conference’s Bureau of Information, was named editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Educational background of the 41-year-old priest includes graduate study in journalism and communications arts at Notre Dame and Fordham.

Dr. Robert A. Traina became dean of Asbury Theological Seminary. He succeeds Dr. Maurice E. Culver, who plans to return to Southern Rhodesia to resume missionary work under appointment of The Methodist Church. Traina has been professor of English Bible at Asbury.

The Rev. Robert Pierre Johnson was elected general presbyter of the New York City Presbytery, the first Negro ever to be named to the post. Johnson has been pastor of Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C., and is regarded as an expert in inner-city problems.

Two teams of American church leaders, one dove and one hawk, went to Viet Nam last month with contrasting purposes.

A four-man team commissioned by the National Council of Churches was said to be making the trip to discover what meaning American policies and actions are having in that area. The group is headed by Executive Director Robert S. Bilheimer of the Department of International Affairs of the NCC.

The other team was dispatched by the American Council of Christian Churches. An ACCC news release said that “the purpose of this team going to Viet Nam at this time is to encourage out fighting men in Viet Nam to know that there are many churchmen in the United States who support them in this conflict against the atheistic Communist aggressors and to assure them of our prayers. Also this team wishes to make known to the public and to our elected leaders in Congress that we are for victory over Communism in Viet Nam.”

There was some speculation that at least one member of the NCC team might try to reach Hanoi. The announced itinerary included stops in Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia, as well as South Viet Nam. Traveling with Bilheimer were William Phelps Thompson, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.; Episcopal Bishop George Barrett of Rochester, New York; and Dr. Tracy K. Jones, Jr., associate general secretary of the World Division of the Methodist Board of Missions and chairman of the NCC’s advisory committee on peace. All lean heavily to a dove-like stance and have been associated with numerous statements critical of U. S. military policy in Viet Nam.

The ACCC party planned to visit, in addition to Viet Nam, Korea, Formosa, Thailand, and Laos. The group included Dr. Marion H. Reynolds, Jr., president of the ACCC; Dr. John E. Millheim, general secretary of the ACCC; the Rev. James T. Shaw, executive secretary of International Christian Relief; and the Rev. Donald L. Gorham, southern representative of the ACCC.

The ACCC release said the churchmen would be “preaching to our fighting men, distributing gospel tracts and Bibles, visiting hospitals and chaplains, encouraging them spiritually as well as morally in this conflict.”

Meanwhile, a church in New York City said it has sold its stock in Dow Chemical Company—primary producer of napalm used in Viet Nam, according to the church—as a protest against civilian casualties in Viet Nam.

The church made a $7,000 profit on sale of the stock, which will go to several organizations working in Viet Nam to alleviate human suffering.

In announcing the sale, Cornelius McDougald, chairman of the board of trustees of the Community Church of New York, said, “We are chagrined and ashamed at the large number of civilian casualties in this war. We have seen reports that at least 50,000 civilian casualties will be admitted for treatment into Viet Nam hospitals this year, 1967. It is estimated that at least twice this number do not survive to reach the hospitals.… Most of them are victims of indiscriminate use of napalm and anti-personnel bombs.”

Chaplain Casualties

Seven American chaplains, six from the Army and one from the Navy, have died as a result of the Viet Nam war, according to information given by the U. S. Defense Department June 19.

Three of the Army chaplain victims were killed in action: Captain Michael J. Quealy (Roman Catholic), Captain James L. Johnson (National Baptist Convention, U. S. A.), and Major William J. Barragy (Roman Catholic). Two others have died as a result of wounds: Captain William N. Feaster (United Church of Christ) and Captain Ambrosio S. Grandea (Methodist). Lieutenant Colonel Meir Engel (Jewish) died in Viet Nam of a heart attack.

The Navy chaplain died in a fire aboard the U. S. S. Oriskany while attached to the Seventh Fleet off Viet Nam. He was Lieutenant Commander W. J. Garrity (Roman Catholic).

No fatalities have been reported among Air Force chaplains.

Baptists Cancel Out

A Delaware pastor spearheading a Baptist unity movement says the group’s 1967 conference, which had been scheduled for July 15–22, has been canceled because of lack of interest.

The announcement came from the Rev. Howard R. Stewart, chairman of the unofficial movement. It said “that the number of registrations coming in did not warrant continued plans for it.”

The meeting was to have been held in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Winifred Davies

Miss Winifred Davies, a missionary to the Congo since 1946, was killed May 28 in a clash between national army troops and rebels. She had been held hostage by the rebels since August, 1964.

Miss Davies, in her forties, was a native of England. She served under the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade.

James Ira Dickson

Formosa’s best known Protestant missionary, Dr. James Ira Dickson, died last month at the age of 67.

Dickson founded the Taiwan Theological College and served as its principal. His wife, Lillian, operates the famous “Mustard Seed Mission.” They have served under the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Costly Apartheid

A Dutch Reformed theologian, Dr. Adrian D. Pont, will have to pay $27,777 to two leaders of the Christian Institute of South Africa, Dr. Albert Geyser and Dr. C. F. Beyers Naudé. A court in Johannesburg found Pont guilty of willful libel. In his church paper Die Hervormer he had, without mentioning the two men’s names, accused them of having united themselves with Communism to destroy white Christendom in South Africa.

The long-drawn-out court case drew international attention because Pont not only attacked the two churchmen but also argued that the World Council of Churches, the British Ecumenical Council, and the Netherlands Reformed Church had been infiltrated by Communism. Pont, in his defense, drew on material published in the United States by Edgar C. Bundy, Billy James Hargis, and Carl Mclntire.

Pont called Geyser and Beyers Naudé “persons of low morals who have sold their country, people, church, Protestant faith, Christendom, and God.” Their Christian Institute was organized by a group of South African pastors from several churches when three Boer churches refused to accept resolutions adopted by the controversial Cottesloe conference against apartheid. The institute fights for desegregation of South African church life and keeps contact with the ecumenical movement.

The court decision by Judge William Trollip is a book of 180 typewritten pages. Trollip concluded that Pont had indeed written about the two theologians who sued him for libel, even though their names had not been given. Trollip also said that Pont has never offered to apologize.

Pont has not had to break his piggy bank to pay the award. His church, smallest of the three Boer churches, has decided to pay it for him.

The verdict marks the second time the tiny denomination has had to pay out a major sum as the result of a court case. Five years ago it tried to dispose of Geyser, then teaching at the theological faculty of the church, calling him a heretic because he opposed apartheid. Geyser asked the highest court of South Africa to judge him. He was cleared of the accusation, and the church had to pay the costs of the case—almost $170,000 that time.

The church finally was able to rid itself of Geyser. After the first court case, its synod adopted a resolution forbidding its members to seek the aid of a worldly judge.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Preaching To Communists

Evangelist Billy Graham planned to travel to Yugoslavia this week for services in Zagreb. It will be the first time he has preached in a Communist country.

Graham is to hold a press conference in his hotel in Zagreb, attend a reception for pastors, diplomatic guests, and government officials, and preach once on Saturday and twice on Sunday. Zagreb is the second-largest city in Yugoslavia, with 470,000 inhabitants.

Graham’s itinerary also called for a stop and his first preaching service in Italy—in Turin. The trip was to follow his All-Britain Crusade June 23-July 1, which with television and radio relays gave an unprecedented outreach to the 48-year-old evangelist.

On the way from his North Carolina home to Europe, Graham stopped in Washington to say that he was a convert to the government’s anti-poverty program. “Only by government action can we win the war on poverty,” he said. In a later radio address he criticized federal officials for lack of concern for law and order.

Communion And Health

The Communion chalice, sometimes criticized as a spreader of disease, gets a relatively clean bill of health in a report published in the old established British medical journal, The Lancet.

Three women scientists who conducted an investigation said the risk is slight. They wanted to find out to what extent bacteria are passed along with the common cup as it goes from person to person.

One important factor, they reported, is that it is wine that is drunk from the cup. The wine is about 14 per cent ethyl alcohol, they said, which is enough to kill some bacteria within two minutes and others within ten.

Furthermore, if the chalice is wiped with a clean cloth between communicants, the number of germs is usually reduced by about 90 per cent.

The study recalls the observations of the Apostle Paul, who warns against eating the bread and drinking the cup in an unworthy manner and notes with regard to violations, “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:30).

Fed Up With Liberals

One of Australia’s leading clinical psychologists, who made history as the first woman to be elected president of the West Australian Congregational Union, has resigned from that denomination to become a Baptist.

Mrs. Enid Cook, who had represented Australia at the International Congregational Council, left Congregationalism because she views it, in Western Australia, as “a dying church no longer sure it has a real witness in our community.” Moreover, she said that a proposed merger of Australian Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists seems “unattractive.” She characterized local Australian council of churches’ committee meetings as “among the most boring and useless I have ever attended.”

Mrs. Cook has a private practice in psychotherapy and holds degrees in theology as well as psychology. She says she has brought her professional services into a new integration with the conservative perspective, having seen afresh the power of personal conversion in clinical experience.

CRAIG SKINNER

To convert or not to convert? That was the question argued back and forth by evangelical, neo-orthodox, liberal, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox theologians at the second National Faith and Order Colloquium, held June 11–15 on the campus of Notre Dame University. The colloquium, arranged by the National Council of Churches, drew nearly a hundred representatives from a broad spectrum of theology within the structure of nominal Christianity. Notably absent were the Pentecostals and the far right American Council of Christian Churches.

The colloquium proved to be a landmark for conservative evangelicals. To encourage evangelicals and Roman Catholics to participate, the National Council leadership made it clear that involvement in the colloquium in no way aligned participants with the NCC’s ecumenical structure. Thus freed from any embarrassment or qualms of conscience, many conservatives were able to take an active role.

The official colloquium topic was “Evangelism in a Pluralistic Society.” The first National Faith and Order Colloquium, held last year in Chicago, dealt with conversion.

President James I. McCord of Princeton Theological Seminary delivered the keynote address. Position papers were read by Father Robert Hunt of Catholic University; Dr. Robert T. Handy of Union Theological Seminary, New York; Dr. Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, Jesuit professor of sociology at Fordham University; Dr. Langdon Gilkey of the University of Chicago Divinity School; the Rev. Robert Stephanopoulos, pastor of the Greek Orthodox Church of Our Savior in Rye, New York; and Dr. David O. Moberg, professor at Bethel College, St. Paul.

In a paper on the sociological approach to the study of evangelism, Moberg argued: “Theological differences regarding the meaning of salvation and the means of securing it are decisive. Christianity is divided over the goal of evangelism. Only for those who have a deep and sincere commitment to Christ can any ‘method’ be used effectively.”

In what proved to be the highlight of the conference, Dr. Colin W. Williams, member of the NCC staff and newly appointed head of the program for pastoral doctorates at Chicago Divinity School, said the old evangelical certainties are gone forever. In spite of past tensions between denominations, including the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, he described present denominational structures as irrelevant. Williams saw just one battle line: On one side, headed by the World Council of Churches, are arrayed the vast majority of mainline denominations, including (since Vatican II) the Roman Catholics. On the other side are the conservative evangelicals (in and out of the mainline denominations), whose leadership is found in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the National Association of Evangelicals, and certain conservative theological schools. Here are two opposing ecumenical circles, and the tension is very strong.”

When pressed by other participants, Williams avowed that he simply could not live comfortably in the same church with Billy Graham. Although he denies neither Billy Graham’s Christianity nor his sincerity, he said, he himself could not in clear conscience cooperate in his evangelistic efforts.

Williams maintained that the heart of the problem is the tension between the “Salvationists,” who emphasize personal conversion, and the “activists,” who insist that personal conversion must be supplemented by a social work of the Church that takes into account God’s “cosmic purposes” for mankind. To the charge that this was an oversimplification and that evangelicals, too, allowed room for social action, Williams replied that the tension is too great. He said the Graham type of evangelism, with its one-sided emphasis on personal salvation, tends to ethical immobility and endangers the structure of the Church by dividing it into two camps.

Something of a bombshell was dropped by Dr. Ernest van den Haag, professor of social philosophy at New York University and at the New School of graduate studies in New York City. Called in to present an “outsider’s” viewpoint, he amazed all the delegates and delighted many conservatives by challenging Christian ministers to “stick to their business” of preaching the Gospel of salvation from sin instead of dissipating their energies at tasks in which they have no business and, as often as not, no special abilities. By turning to social, political, and other issues, the Church and the Christian ministry today have lost their relevance. “Get back to the Church’s real business of personal faith,” was the psychoanalyst’s plea.

But for the conservatives, the most startling revelation was the deep concern for evangelism shown by participants from the National Council and by liberal theologians. Some, it is true, manifested concern chiefly in cautioning against evangelism as an activity of misguided Christian zeal. For many, however, there was deeply rooted anxiety over the proper role of evangelism and over how the Christian message can rightly be presented in a pluralistic world displaying many forms of Christianity—and particularly in the modern “one world” of many religions and secularistic philosophies. Unfortunately, because there was no agreement on what evangelism really is, the colloquium was unable to progress much beyond a statement of the seriousness of the problems.

This grasping after direction, evident throughout the discussions, was directly related to the general failure to bring in biblical norms. For one who was present both at the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin and at the Notre Dame colloquium on evangelism, no contrast was more obvious. At Berlin, the discussions were directly related to biblical authority. At Notre Dame, only two papers dealt directly with biblical material. To a conservative ear, all too often the criterion seemed to be: What sort of evangelism will succeed? The biblical mandate, however, gives a commission the Christian is not free to adjust.

Dr. Walter Harrelson, dean and professor of Old Testament at Vanderbilt University, delivered a paper full of excellent insights into the nature of the biblical commission to evangelize. Basing his conclusions primarily upon the Old Testament role of Israel’s witness to the nations, however, Harrelson argued that there is no biblical mandate requiring conversion from other religions. In a way reminiscent of Hocking’s liberally oriented Rethinking Missions of a generation ago, Harrelson decried the attempts of traditional evangelicals to convert the world to Christianity. Said he, “The goal of missions is not to make all nations (or religious groups) Christian, but rather to bear witness to the fact that life and good, wherever they are to be found, are the work of Christ. It is not a question of their joining our community to be right and in order; but rather, while remaining within their own religious community, of their securing the benefits of Jesus Christ.”

In the only other biblically oriented paper, Jesuit George W. MacRae of Weston College minutely examined the Great Commission and, using the exegetical processes of the Bultmannian school, came to the expected conclusion that Jesus never gave the great universal commission of Matthew 28; rather, this was the formulation of the early Church “in the spirit of Christ.” The only surprising element was that a Roman Catholic scholar should be advocating such theories. Indeed, throughout the colloquium, Roman Catholic scholars generally objected to the evangelical emphasis upon conversion. They insisted upon a wholly new orientation of their church’s conception of evangelism, an orientation more in accord with recent liberal views than with traditional conceptions, either Catholic or Protestant. Said Father Hunt, “In the past the Roman Catholic Church has felt it necessary to evangelize all non-Catholics; the Church now recognizes that there is an ecclesiastical community separate from us.”

From an evangelical perspective, the greatest weakness of the colloquium was the failure to define “evangelism” and the unwillingness of most participants to turn for the solution of their problems to Holy Scripture as the only infallible rule of faith and practice—as well as of evangelism.

Argentine Centenary

On May 25, 1867, a young Methodist minister arrived in downtown Buenos Aires riding the bay horse that soon became almost as famous as its rider. After tying the horse to a hitching post, the Rev. John F. Thomson, a handsome blackbearded Scotsman “whose top hat always sat precariously near the back of his neck,” went up the steps leading to the Methodist church on Cangallo Street.

A violent type of anticlericalism was the fashion, and so hundreds of young men went to hear the Protestant preacher. It was the first time a Protestant service had been held publicly in Spanish. According to a reporter who was present, Thomson spoke “with great eloquence, demolishing the superstitions of Rome.” This brought signs of approval from the anticlerical section of the audience, but interest soon vanished when the preacher gave a powerful address on “Christ and him crucified.”

This year evangelicals all over Argentina have been celebrating the centenary with public lectures, services of thanksgiving, radio programs, and a number of publications. On May 25 Bishop Sante U. Barbieri, ecumenical leader, addressed a large congregation at the American Church in Buenos Aires, only a few hundred yards from the spot where Thomson had preached 100 years before. He did not say much about Thomson the controversialist but pointed out that “the Methodist Church was born in the ecumenical movement … and must be ready to lose her identity when the moment to do so arrives, and God forms the wider community of one flock and one shepherd.”

According to a study published in May by Dr. Luis Villalpando, there are more than 400,000 members in the evangelical churches of Argentina, and the total evangelical community numbers over 1,000,000, roughly 5 per cent of the population.

From the evangelical perspective, these are current dangers: (1) a veiled universalism; (2) the temptation to preach the Latin American revolution instead of preaching Christ; (3) the survival of pietistic ghettos completely out of contact with reality; (4) an arrogant super-organized denominationalism; (5) a woolly type of interdenominationalism with very vague ideas about fundamental truths; (6) a lopsided emphasis on certain gifts of the Spirit.

However, the sound good sense of the average Argentine believer and his desire to obey God promise to hurdle these obstacles, which fortunately seem to affect church leaders more than the laity.

ALEC CLIFFORD

Riptides of ecumenicity ran strong last month as commissioners to the 107th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) served notice that they no longer desire their denomination to be a sectional church but are committed to plunging more deeply into ecumenical waters. In the wake of a battering debate on membership in the Consultation on Church Union, they voted 255–184 to remain as a full participant. Commissioners also ratified 405–16 further negotiations leading to union with the Reformed Church in America.

Half a mile away, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America overwhelmingly endorsed continued efforts toward merger with Southern Presbyterians but rejected full participation in COCU 148–128, choosing to retain observer status. The favorable RCA-PCUS negotiation votes set the stage for acceptance next year of a plan of union by the national bodies. This will then be submitted for approval of presbyteries and classes and finally returned to the General Synod and the General Assembly for official ratification in 1969.

Reluctant to jeopardize delicate negotiations with the 240,000-member RCA (by then complicated by the General Synod’s rejection of COCU membership), the 955,000-member PCUS refused to invite other Reformed churches—specifically the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.—to join merger talks. The PCUS General Assembly was also unwilling to pass a resolution expressing “its gratitude to God” that the UPUSA in its “Confession of 1967” “has been led to this authentic, historical, contemporary confessional statement of its faith.” It did, however, commend the United Presbyterians Book of Confessions for study in the church and for consideration by the RCA-PCUS Joint Committee of Twenty-Four as it writes a confession for the new proposed church. Further opportunity for PCUS-UPUSA cooperation was provided by the assembly’s approval of the creation of union synods and presbyteries with other Reformed churches.

While Southern Presbyterians were unified in their desire to merge with the conservative Reformed Church in America, vigorous floor fights on a variety of issues showed a sharp cleavage between the dominant liberal advocates of COCU and the National Council of Churches and a strong and vocal minority of conservative evangelicals. The division was most vividly seen in debates on the election of the moderator, COCU, the Delta Ministry, a new publishing policy for denominationally owned John Knox Press, and a statement on American intervention in Viet Nam.

Dr. Marshall C. Dendy of Richmond, Virginia, executive secretary of the church’s Board of Christian Education, squeaked to a one-vote victory, 226–225, over his third cousin, Dr. Patrick D. Miller of Decatur, Georgia, in the race for moderator. Considered the more liberal of the two nominees, former jazz musician Dendy proved to be a forceful moderator. He expressed the wish that his church break away from its narrow geographical bounds and hoped that the RCA would “go into COCU with us.”

The COCU debate centered on whether full participation committed Southern Presbyterians to involvement in an emerging 25-million-member Protestant superchurch. Dr. William A. Benfield, Jr., chairman of the Ad Interim Committee for COCU, asserted, “Our participation means that we are in the mainstream of what I believe to be the most significant movement of ecumenism in the history of Protestantism in America. But our participation … has not and cannot commit our denomination to any change in the standards of our church.”

Presbyterian Journal Editor G. Aiken Taylor, the only PCUS commissioner present at the recent Cambridge meeting of COCU, replied by referring to statements from COCU officials that the consultation will put off drafting a final constitution for the united church until after the denominations come together but has a present aim of creating a de facto union before completion of formal structures. He called attention to a statement by COCU chairman David Colwell that remarkable strides are already being made in coordinating and consolidating the work of the boards and agencies of the participating denominations. Dr. William Kadel, president of Florida Presbyterian College, urged continuation in COCU since, he claimed, there are biblical, confessional, historical, and contemporary bases for such an action. Dr. Horace L. Villee, moderator of the Synod of Mississippi, objected to membership since “the consultation is working for a church union where doctrine and polity mean nothing.” After an hour and a half of heated exchange, the General Assembly voted to remain a full participant in COCU.

After approving a report aimed at resolving irregularities in the Synod of Mississippi and establishing a committee to help churchmen carry out its recommendations, the General Assembly debated continuation of its support of the NCC Delta Ministry. Dr. Kadel endorsed the Delta Ministry as “a principal witness to human need … that speaks to the church’s responsibility to serve … and provides an opportunity to forgive an institution within the church.”

The Rev. Lee Gentry of Cleveland, Mississippi, strenuously opposed it, claiming that “no permanently located minister [in the Delta] can say anything good about it.” He stated that “its methods are not Christian” as it divides lower-class Negroes from those in the middle classes, and sets Negroes against whites. “Where do you find creation of hostility [as a Christian method] in the Bible?” he thundered. The Rev. F. W. Hobbie of Staunton, Virginia, admitted the Delta Ministry had made mistakes but expressed appreciation for its “ministry of compassion, of service, of Jesus Christ.” The Rev. W. J. Stanway of Hattiesburg said the NCC project is “obstructionist,” “creates dissent and ill will,” and “is not concerned with the souls of the Negroes.” The Rev. James Baird of Gadsden, Alabama, called the assembly to choose between its own Mississippi committee and the Delta Ministry, claiming it was a question “not of concern but confidence.”

The assembly finally voted approval of the Delta Ministry, 222–214. An amendment by Dr. J. McDowell Richards, president of Columbia Theological Seminary, softened the blow by making it clear that the General Assembly “is not pointing the finger of criticism at Mississippi as more sinful than other sections of our church and … we do not approve all that has been done by the Delta Ministry.…” The sum of $25,000 is presently earmarked by the PCUS for the Delta Ministry.

Liberals scored another victory as the assembly approved a new publishing policy for its John Knox Press. The commissioners voted 292–117 to expand the range of books John Knox publishes by deleting the requirement, “and which are written by authors within the bounds of the evangelical tradition.” Moderator Dendy sought to justify the change by claiming that “the definition of evangelical is difficult to have agreement about” and the new policy facilitates “dialogue with Roman Catholics and others.”

Another heated debate resulted in approval of a resolution on American policy in Viet Nam. It stated, “we are deeply perplexed and anguished by the tragic war in Viet Nam,” and directed to the churches a series of questions that included these: “Should a government ever draw back from inflicting damage upon its enemies at the possible price of military defeat?” “Is there a worse evil than defeat?” “Are we truly committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as good news to the Communist as well as the capitalist, to the revolutionary as well as the conservative, to the stranger as well as the friend?” Many commissioners wanted a stronger PCUS statement of commitment to U. S. policy in Viet Nam. The resolution was passed as Moderator Dendy’s affirmative vote broke a tie in the assembly.

As the PCUS engaged in tempestuous verbal battles, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America displayed a greater sense of unity. In addition to giving the green light to merger talks with Southern Presbyterians and the red light to participation in COCU, the synod acted to:

• Elect Dr. Harold Schut of Scotia, New York, president of the General Synod and Dr. Raymond Heukelom of Orange City, Iowa, vice-president;

• Reaffirm its Covenant of Open Occupancy in housing;

• Create one board of superintendents for its two seminaries, Western and New Brunswick;

• Merge its Boards of Education, World Missions, and North American Missions and its Stewardship Council under a new corporation.

• Submit to its forty-six area bodies a proposal to open the offices of elder and deacon in the church to women;

• Call on President Johnson to “assure territorial arrangements in the Middle East” that take into account the “relevant historical, human, and moral factors” that will result in a righteous peace.

The 1967 national church assemblies in Bristol showed a drift to the left by the PCUS and maintenance of a steady and generally unchanged course by the RCA. Whether the ecumenical tides in the two denominations will go in or out will be largely determined by action taken at their national meetings in 1968.

Presbyterians At Ottawa

The 93rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, meeting in Ottawa June 7–15, was told by its retiring moderator that he didn’t have time to waste “in the wilderness of ecumenical relations.” Speaking to a full house in Knox Church (which was founded 123 years ago when a group of Presbyterians favorable to Free Church principles withdrew from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church), Dr. Deane Johnston said that Presbyterians had a duty to their own church. “The Presbyterian Church suits us,” said the burly exarmy chaplain, “and preserves deep insights into God’s revelation which should not be allowed to perish from the church. As Presbyterians, we must be prepared to defend the doctrines of Reformation.”

The next day, the Papal Delegate to Canada, the Most Rev. Sergio Pignedoli, was introduced to the 260-member assembly by the newly elected moderator, Dr. John Logan-Vencta, 68, with the words: “What John Knox would have said at a time like this I would hesitate to say.” This was the first time that a Roman Catholic representative paid an official visit to the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

In spite of the new ecumenical climate in the Canadian churches, the visit did not go unprotested. The Rev. Hector MacRury of Toronto presented a formal protest to the General Assembly on the basis that the visit of the Papal Delegate was contrary to the Subordinate Standards of the Presbyterian Church as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith. MacRury referred his fellow churchmen to Chapter 25, Section 6: “Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof; but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God.” The protest was allowed to stand, but a vote commending those responsible for inviting the Papal Delegate was passed 122–46.

Ecumenical interests did chalk up one major victory, however. The assembly voted overwhelmingly to respond favorably to an invitation to join the Anglican and United Churches of Canada in their talks on union. Observer-consultants are to be appointed, and the move affirmed “that the term of reference of these observer-consultants be those indicated by the submissions from the presbyteries on the matter, namely that they confer in Christian charity with our brethren of other churches, but take no action which would commit our church without consent of the assembly.”

Another first at the 93rd General Assembly was the presence of voting women. By action of last year’s General Assembly, women were made eligible for ordination to the ministry and eldership. Several women have already been made elders, but though several have qualified for ordination to the ministry, none has crossed the boundaries of tradition.

J. BERKLEY REYNOLDS

Baptists On Divorce

The Ontario and Quebec Convention of the Baptist Church in Canada is asking the Canadian government to relax divorce laws. Adultery is now about the only grounds for divorce in Canada.

The 750 Baptist delegates who met at Peterborough June 9–12 drew up a resolution calling for consideration of divorce in cases of: insanity, when expert treatment over a suitable period of time has not produced a cure; chronic alcoholism or drug addiction; repeated acts of cruelty endangering health; repeated prison terms; disappearance for three years; and desertion for three years. The resolution reaffirmed the church’s adherence to Christian ideals in marriage and called for reconciliation attempts by both parties before the granting of a divorce.

Here is a first-hand account of a visit to the old city of Jerusalem immediately after its takeover by Israel. The report was written by Dr. Dwight L. Baker, chairman of the Baptist Convention in Israel:

The only churches damaged in the new city were the Roman Catholic church on Mt. Zion and St. Andrew’s Church of Scotland, opposite Mt. Zion.

A shell narrowly missed the Jerusalem Baptist Church, falling just beyond the gate into the street. The apartment of Frank Hooper, a Baptist, was another near miss. It was pocked by flying shrapnel, and a two-inch shell fragment tore into his daughters’ bedroom and lodged in a book. The title of the volume: This Singing World.

Near the border, St. John’s Anglican Church was not damaged, but the Finnish Mission School across the street took two direct hits. There were no injuries.

Two days after the firing ended, the government press office arranged a tour of the old city of Jerusalem for journalists. Many Arabs wore looks of deep disappointment, but most were ready to converse. Standing opposite the Damascus Gate, the assistant postmaster of the old city, a Christian, emphasized that Jews and Arabs had lived together before and could do it again.

From the northeast, near St. Stephen’s Gate, we approached the Haramesh-Sherif, commonly known as the Dome of the Rock. What must have been a miracle of restraint and accuracy in firing left the gleaming gold dome of the mosque untouched. The day before, an Israeli Muslim dignitary had been there. He had told newsmen that the courtyard is blessed by the Koran as second in sanctity only to Mecca. Pointing to the golden dome, he had recalled that according to the Koran, it was from this very place that Muhammad rode to heaven on his white horse, Burak.

A favorite topic of speculation among Israelis is the mosque area, also believed to be the site of the once glorious Temple of Solomon. Will there be an attempt to rebuild the temple and reinstate temple worship and sacrifices? The only official comment is that complete religious freedom will be preserved for all faiths.

Outside the unscathed Church of the Holy Sepulcher, five Israeli soldiers stood guarding the entrance. They told me that although Israelis were not permitted to enter, I could go in since I was a Christian. I declined, thanking them and explaining I had visited the church many times before.

A Greek priest who had been sitting and chatting with the soldiers responded with a smile when I asked him in Arabic how the church fared. “Better than before,” he replied, “thanks to these brave soldiers.” Such pleasant statements might not reflect the true feeling of the Christians, but again they might. The key to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been in the hands of a leading Muslim family since the Muslim conquest. It is now not wholly unthinkable that the key might be passed to a committee of Christians who hold worship rights in the ancient church.

As I walked toward the American consulate near Mandelbaum Gate, I stopped at the Garden Tomb. The first gate, sealed long ago, had been blasted open. Inside no one responded as I called. Farther out near the center of the garden, partly hidden by thick foliage, three men were digging. I asked whether they could help me find the custodian, Solomon Matar. One of them pointed to the small gatehouse and replied, “He is in there. We are preparing to bury him.”

On the second day of the fighting, Matar had responded to persistent pounding at the gate. As he opened it, he caught a burst of machine-gun fire at point-blank range as Israeli soldiers rushed into the garden. Jordanians preparing for battle had set up a gun emplacement atop Gordon’s Calvary, overlooking the tomb. Apparently thinking the garden to be full of Jordan legionaires, the Israelis attacked. The Jordanian gun was silenced, but blood flowed again at Calvary. Three days later, an Anglican archbishop read prayers at the new grave in the garden, attended by six neighbors and the widow of the fallen keeper of the tomb.

The following reflections were written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Harry W. Genet, assistant executive secretary of the Arabic Literature Mission in Beirut, Lebanon:

As the smoke of battle cleared, the opponents tallied the staggering human and material costs of the four-day war. At the same time, the slender missionary force in the Arab world was involved in a similarly dreary reappraisal of its drastically altered situation. Dislocation, isolation, and a new level of hostility are the formidable fresh obstacles to missionary advance in the Middle East.

Most disturbing of all has been the hardening Arab attitude toward foreigners. Missionaries who are glad to bear the reproach of Christ find instead that they are saddled with the reproach of being an Amerki or Ingleezi.

Beirut is no doubt as restrained as any Arab capital. But a routine check at the American embassy June 6 gave me a taste of the new bitterness. Trapped inside for two hours, I watched a youthful mob wreck autos, set a lower floor ablaze, and hurl rocks at windows until tanks cleared the area. Missionaries face the hard fact that for now at least they may be as much a liability as an asset to churches they helped plant.

Against a formidable array of obvious minuses stand a few easily overlooked pluses. For one thing, recent events will prod missionaries into exploring new avenues of witness that would survive ouster of foreigners. And the misery of Arab tragedy has opened up an overwhelming opportunity to show the compassion of Christ.

Accent On Christian Education

A Theology for Christian Education, by Nels F. S. Ferré (Westminster, 1967, 224 pp., $4.95), Christian Education in Mission, by Letty M. Russell (Westminster, 1967, 159 pp., $1.85, paper), The Recovery of the Teaching Ministry, by J. Stanley Glen (Westminster, 1967, 125 pp., $1.85, paper), and Straight Talk About Teaching in Today’s Church, by Locke W. Bowman, Jr. (Westminster, 1967, 151 pp., $1.95), are reviewed by Edward L. Hayes, assistant professor of Christian education, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.

A strange subordination of the teaching function pervades the life, work, worship, and proclamation of the Church. This rather disquieting note is sounded in all four volumes. It might seem somewhat pedestrian if it had come from religious educators. However, a leading theologian, a New Testament scholar, a pastor-turned teacher, and an East Harlem parish worker here strike an amazing similar note.

An underlying conviction that Christian theology must be transposed into the educational key provides the impetus for theologian Nels Ferré’s A Theology for Christian Education. His attempt to integrate education and theology ought to be welcomed by scholars in both liberal and conservative camps. Ferré decries the subordination of church education: “To underplay education is to impoverish the life of the church.”

The author tackles the whole gamut of theological involvement in Christian education. He contends that Christian theology can no longer operate with presuppositions of either substance philosophy or process philosophy, and his reshaping of theology does not leave education untouched. His effort to integrate psychology, sociology, and philosophy is admirable. Such efforts, Christian and secular, have been meager.

Ferré concludes his work with a concise theology for Christian education, the substance of which reflects his concept of both the determinative Gestalt of the faith and the continuity of revelation. God is understood as Educator (viewed in relation to pedagogical process), Christ as Exemplar, and the Holy Spirit as Tutor. A theology for Christian education, Ferré contends, will help Christian education come into its own. The question remaining is, “What theology?”

Ferré’s and Glen’s volumes are by far the weightier of the four. J. Stanley Glen’s The Recovery of the Teaching Ministry, now published for the first time in paperback, carefully documents the contrast between sanctuary and classroom, the optional nature of the minister’s teaching role, the divorce of preaching from teaching, and the sublimation of truth to religious experience. His analysis deals a devastating blow to ambivalence toward church education. The greatest contribution in this volume is Glen’s synthesis of preaching and teaching.

Straight Talk About Teaching in Today’s Church is an eloquent plea to lift up the words teaching and teacher. It is hard to locate outspoken pastors, Bowman says, who exhibit a passionate, personal concern for the ministry of teaching. The teacher who wants sympathetic, non-technical help will find this an invigorating volume, regardless of how he reacts to the author’s ecumenical strategy for teacher improvement.

In Christian Education in Mission, Letty Russell expresses concern in quite another way. Christian education, she says, has been separated from other parts of church life. As a separate discipline, it never seems to have been exactly on the right foot. The Sunday school in particular appears as “a possession of the church that is applied as a ‘band aid’ to various problems of institutional survival.”

Miss Russell urges that instead of reshaping our ideas about education, we reshape our churches. She views education as something that takes place in a context. This vantage point is useful as long as there is a foundation for judging the validity of the context. But the author blurs that foundation somewhat. She rejects “morphological fundamentalism” with its rigid answers, and her only alternatives are freedom and courage to live with questions, intuition about truths, and the need to celebrate our freedom.

These four authors are not doing what is altogether too common of late—passing intemperate judgment upon the Church. Each in his own way offers positive assistance for the renewal of church education. The reader, whether he be pastor, professional theologian or educator, or lay teacher, will find helpful direction.

What’S An Evangelical?

Evangelicalism in America, by Bruce Shelley (Eerdmans, 1967, 134 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Ronald H. Nash, head, Department of Philosophy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green.

Shelley’s fine little volume marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Association of Evangelicals. One finds in it a short history of evangelical Christianity in Europe and America as well as a documented survey of the NAE’s first 2½ decades. Shelley also discusses the nature of evangelicalism and its relation to other movements in contemporary American Christianity.

Evangelical Christianity is not a denomination, religious organization, or theological system. It is, in Shelley’s eyes, more of a mood, a perspective, an experience. Modern American evangelicals continue to believe and preach the Reformation theology of Calvin and Luther and carry forward the evangelistic spirit of John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon. The major theme that runs through evangelical Christianity is the necessity of personal salvation. Evangelicals hold that conversion is a definite, decisive, and profound experience.

Evangelicals differ from liberals in their persuasion that doctrine is an essential ingredient of the Christian faith. Men gain God’s new life by believing the Gospel. Evangelicals are trinitarians who accept the deity of Christ and his atoning death; they look for a bodily resurrection and a future judgment; and they do not, like many liberals, think that what a man believes is irrelevant as long as he believes something. Evangelicals deplore the theological fuzziness so prominent in many American denominations; they regard it as unfortunate when even quasi-conservative religious groups exalt subjective religious experiences at the expense of sound doctrine. And it goes without saying that evangelicals are concerned about theological apostasy, whether it be Tillich’s camouflaged unitarianism or Altizer’s “Christian” Buddhism.

Evangelicals differ from fundamentalists in rejecting anti-intellectualism, theological nit-picking, and bitterness of spirit. The evangelical believes that a defense of the Gospel can be coupled with Christian charity and intellectual integrity.

Many otherwise conservative religious groups are wavering in their approach to the Scriptures. No one will question the genuine piety and theological conservatism of Southern Baptists, for example. But it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find professors in Southern Baptist colleges and seminaries who believe in propositional revelation. One sees an increasingly pitiful picture of devout theologians trying to maintain the verities of the faith while they reject the integrity and cognitive status of the only religious authority on which these doctrines can be based—the Bible. The result is that what one hears from Dixie these days sounds more and more like a nebulous mysticism. In contrast to this Barthian nonsense (i.e., noncognitive non-sense), evangelicals continue to maintain that the Bible is not only a revelation of God’s person but also a revelation of God’s truth. A denial of propositional revelation, evangelicals maintain, can only lead to a radical subjectivism that leaves the Christian without a foundation for his theology and without an apologetic for his faith.

Shelley does not ignore the shortcomings of orthodoxy, but as he says, “the church has known her periods of decadent orthodoxy but she has never witnessed a decadent evangelicalism. When the spirit of evangelicalism dies, the church will cease to exist.”

How Far To ‘Anything Goes’?

You and the New Morality—74 Cases, by James A. Pike (Harper & Row, 1967, 148 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by William C. Brownson, assistant professor of preaching, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.

This most recent contribution to the mushrooming “new morality” debate represents, in one respect, a distinctive approach. Bishop Pike harks back to his first professional discipline, the study of law, and applies to contemporary ethical problems the familiar case-study method. Most ethical theorists, he complains, deal in abstractions, using only a few scattered examples—generally “loaded” ones at that. Here is an attempt to ground ethical conclusions more securely in “the inductive process.”

Armed with his battery of case-studies (seventy-four, to be exact), Pike aims to show the bankruptcy both of code ethics (“founded on immutable laws derived from an infallible source”) and of antinomianism or “anti-lawism.” The major force of his attack is leveled against code ethics—the view most people accept, at least on the conscious level. Bishop Pike puts to the test four of the alleged authorities on which this type of ethics is based: the Ten Commandments, other biblical injunctions, the teaching of the Church, and natural law. All are found wanting. The various commandments, he says, sometimes make conflicting claims. Other biblical injunctions are seen to lead to absurdities when consistently applied. The teaching of the Church, when viewed historically, is a welter of contradictions. And as for natural law—who is to decide what that really is, anyway?

Antinomianism, on the other hand, is dismissed on the ground that it doesn’t really work; that is, there are too many other would-be antinomians around to spoil the fun!

With these two contenders disposed of, “situation ethics” is seen as the one live option. For Bishop Pike, this means that there are no “ready-made answers for particular decisions.” The following are recommended as guidelines for decision-making: taking a responsible approach, rating persons above things, valuing eros love supremely (Pike sees agape love as inadequate because it sees the other as unlovable, thereby treating him as a thing instead of a person, eros on the other hand, sees what is lovable in persons and loves it), adopting fulfillment and service as the style of life, giving serious attention to the Code (as representing generalizations of human experience), and being aware of “pertinent factors to be weighed.”

You and the New Morality is a stimulating book. There is no doubt that Bishop Pike has posed some “hard cases” for which no pat answers will do. And almost everyone will find much to agree with in his proposed guidelines for decision-making. The book is disappointing, however, from a number of perspectives. Christian theologians will look in vain here for any grounding of ethics in God’s self-revelation. Biblical scholars will wince at the superficial treatment of New Testament ethics, particularly as this appears in Pike’s caricature of agape. And those who see lawlessness as a major foe in our time may view this book as another sellout (though perhaps a well-meaning one) to the enemy.

Like others of its kind, the bishop’s approach seems sadly naive. He calls for objective analysis in a host of situations that are emotionally charged, to say the least. Although he ends by bringing the norms of Scripture in at the back door (the Code is to be given “serious attention”), the main drift of the book suggests that, after all, we have precious little to guide—or restrain—us. For many, it may be a short step from there to “anything goes.”

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• The Indomitable Baptists, by O. K. Armstrong and Marjorie M. Armstrong (Doubleday, $5.95). The stormy but glorious history of Baptists in America is vividly related by a former congressman from Missouri and his wife.

• The New Testament and Criticism, by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans, $3.95). Introduces evangelicals to a positive, creative use of biblical criticism—textual, linguistic, literary, form, historical, and comparative religion.

• Nothing But the Gospel, by Peter H. Eldersveld (Eerdmans, $3.50). A collection of biblical, literate sermons by the late minister who served as the voice of the Christian Reformed Church on the “Back to God Hour.”

Uniqueness Of The Old Testament

The Authority of the Old Testament, by John Bright(Abingdon, 1967, 272 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Robert B. Laurin, professor of Old Testament, California Baptist Theological Seminary, Covina.

The life and relevance of the Church reside in its biblical preaching, since only biblical preaching carries the normative authority of the Word. This is the conviction that produced this important book. But the specific problem to which Professor Bright addresses himself is the manner in which the Old Testament shares in this authority. It is a centuries-old problem, found even in Paul’s dispute over the place of the Law in the Church. But here in this book we are given a most lucid and compelling answer to the problem as a whole.

The volume is divided into five parts, each of which often rambles and becomes repetitious, but each of which has a simple point to make. The first chapter deals with the nature of the problem of the Old Testament’s authority. The Church, by including the Old Testament in the canon, has shown its belief in its authority as a rule of faith and life. But in what way, particularly since much in the Old Testament is from a different religious and political and cultural way of life? The second chapter surveys the major classical solutions in the history of the Church, each of which has its modern counterpart. There has been the Marcionite approach of eliminating the Old Testament from the canon, or at least of relegating it to second rank. There has also been the church fathers’ approach of retaining the Old Testament through allegory and typology. Then there has been the liberal Protestant approach of separating teachings of abiding ethical validity from outworn and sub-Christian elements.

Bright rejects all three of these approaches. In the third chapter he offers his own detailed view of the authority of the Old Testament. In brief, it lies in its unique theology, expressed in one way or another in each text, and shared with the New Testament, though this theology is often presented in cultural forms and applications that must be rejected. The fourth chapter shows what this understanding means methodologically. One must exegete the Old Testament from the perspective of continuity and discontinuity with the New. The theology of the two Testaments is basically the same, so one may read the Old Testament for its plain meaning. But there is also a “new” Testament, so one must also read Old Testament theology in light of what it has become in the New. Finally, in the fifth chapter, Bright presents us with illustrations of what this means in practice. This is worth the price of the book. Not only are “easy” texts examined (Ten Commandments; Jer. 31:31–34), but also historically passé (Isa. 7:1–9), ethically deficient (2 Sam. 11:1–12:24), and culturally crude (Ps. 137; Josh. 11:16–23; 23) passages are explained.

The book is exciting reading and if considered seriously should do much to restore powerful biblical preaching to modern pulpits.

Authority: Pragmatic Or Ordained?

Ordination and Christian Unity, by E. P. Y. Simpson (Judson, 1966, 184 pp., $5.75), is reviewed by James Daane, director, Pastoral Doctorate Program, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

A Baptist bias and an ecumenical urge combine to discover a road without barriers leading to Christian unity. The author, Ervin Peter Young Simpson, professor of church history at the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School, dispatches apostolic succession, the traditional conception of ecclesiastical authority, the laying on of hands, and the threefold ministry as having no other foundation than their pragmatic usefulness in meeting the needs of the Church as these emerged during the Church’s historical development.

None of these orders or structures of the Church’s ministry, according to Simpson, is prescribed by the Bible. Aside from the injunction that the Church carry on its ministry decently and in order, the Bible enjoins no specific order. Any and all orders are “permissible when they do not contradict the spiritual principles of the scriptural revelation, undesirable when they obscure that revelation, and unacceptable when they contradict those spiritual principles.” In short, any order of the Christian ministry, any structuring of church authority, is acceptable if it is thought to facilitate the Church’s ministry.

The ministry of the Church in any or all of its forms belongs to the bene, the welfare, of the Church, not to the esse, the essence. Only the action of the Holy Spirit is essential to the Church. There are no offices in the Church ordained by Christ or the apostles and vested with an authority that is to be exercised by the occupants. Christ alone is the authority in the Church, and he has not, it is urged, deposited any of his authority in any office, nor delegated it to any occupant of such an office. Spiritual authority, says Simpson, cannot be delegated. The only authority in the Church is found in those people who, under the gift and operation of the Holy Spirit, possess a high quality of inner spiritual life. The laying on of hands conferred no authority; it merely indicated the selection to special service of persons who already had persuasive authority in their inherent spiritual quality. Such personal spiritual authority, says Simpson, cannot be transmitted. Even Christ’s authority in the world was of this personal, morally persuasive kind.

The Church, according to Simpson, cannot be an institution that mediates God’s grace; the sacraments as media of God’s grace are always conditional, dependent for their effectiveness on human cooperation, since God by his Spirit only operates directly upon the individual in the “I-Thou encounter.” Thus no earthly, human, institutional medium can be a necessary medium, nor the particular medium chosen by God, for the mediation of divine grace. One would think that such a view is not only unrelievedly individualistic but inconsistent with the motif of the Incarnation. But Simpson surprises us by asserting that if there is any extension of the Incarnation, it is the Holy Spirit!

What, it must be asked, does Simpson do with Paul’s injunction that elders be appointed in every church and that they, for the sake of their office, be honored? Simpson does urge that Jesus did not institute a presbytery to rule over his church. But about this injunction of Paul he says nothing, unless he is indirectly addressing this obstacle to his position when he warns against an extreme biblicism that regards the Bible as “completely inerrant and wholly supernatural” and as “an infallible guide book,” and when he suggests that the way to avoid “the Scylla of bibliolatry and the Charybdis of complete liberty” is to grant “ultimate authority” to “the gospel of God” to which the Bible testifies. He also asserts that even the apostles do not belong to the esse of the Church (though Paul asserts that they, with the prophets, are the foundation upon which the Church is built). Further, Simpson sees Paul as carrying the motif of the synagogue and Peter the motif of the temple, and sees in the first the error of Reformation Protestantism and in the other the error of Roman Catholicism.

But even these arguments are not enough to lead one to dismiss Paul’s injunction and accept a view of the Church and its orders and structures based on an unrelieved individualism and on a spiritualization of the whole reality of God’s redemptive action in Jesus Christ—a spiritualization that contends that God can pursue his redemptive business with actual, historical sinners only by directly confronting the individual sinner, and even then, only if the sinner is willing. For this carries the view that if the sinner is not willing, God’s entrance into the concrete historical situation remains unsuccessful—a position consistent with Simpson’s idea that the Holy Spirit is the only real extension of the Incarnation.

This book is the product of a capable scholar. No reader will doubt it. But the author has not shown himself capable of subjecting the views of his tradition on the Church—its ministry, its authority, its sacraments—to the critique of the Bible.

There is little possibility that Simpson’s kind of spiritualization of the Church and the order of its ministry, which reduces the esse of the Church to pure pragmatics, will show the road the whole Church will tread toward unity. Indeed, Simpson is really interested, not in the unity of the Church, but, as his book’s title suggests, in Christian unity, a unity of Christian individuals who never attain corporate reality, and who do not wish to, since God deals only with individuals. Neither the Reformed, nor the Lutheran, nor the Anglican, nor the Roman Catholic, nor the Orthodox, nor the Coptic churches will take seriously this view from the left field of the Reformation on how to achieve unity. None of these believe that God deals only and directly with the individual, and none, therefore, will accept a merely pragmatic view of the Church and of its ministry and sacraments.

As was said, Simpson with facile dispatch rids himself of the biblical teaching about offices in the Church that carry authority which its incumbents exercise both over those who acknowledge such authority and over those who reject it. Simpson recognizes no authority in the Church, nor in Christ himself, except that which carries its own persuasion. If the Church, the Christ, and the Gospel have no authority but this, how, we ask, shall the Church exercise discipline over those who remain unpersuaded, and how shall Christ one day judge all men according to the Gospel?

Simpson has a Church that is only for believers; a Church that has no authority, no gospel imperative for a sinner, unless he on his own recognizes and acknowledges its moral-spiritual authority; and hence a Church with a Gospel that has no inherent authority either to discipline a sinner in this life or to judge him in the Last Day. Much is wrong in the various sectors of the Christian Church—but not enough to gain acceptance of this road to that unity for which the ecumenical movement hopes and prays.

How It All Began

Religion: Origins and Ideas, by Robert Brow (Inter-Varsity, 1966, 128 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James I. Packer, warden, Latimer House, Oxford, England.

With the modern decline of conviction about the truth of Christianity has come a new interest in “religion” as a world-wide human phenomenon. In this situation, Brow’s ground-clearing introductory survey of the forms that religions have taken in East and West, and of the options of belief and behavior with which they confront us, will prove a very useful tool, particularly in student work. Brow knows his way around, particularly in the area of Indian religions (he worked in India for many years), and has a flair for the thumbnail sketch. His book is packed with information presented in a neat and palatable form.

Particular theses are of striking interest. In the first part of the book, Brow shows convincingly that the hypothesis of monotheism, with informal animal sacrifice, as the earliest religion fits the evidence better than any doctrine of religious evolution through animism and magic. He brings out well the character of the new departures in Eastern religion in the sixth century B.C. as essentially reactions against priestcraft, and helpfully isolates Unitarian ethicism (Zoroastrianism, Islam, Sikhism, “liberal” Christianity, and modern Judaism) as a typical pattern of reactionary simplification.

In the second part, Brow points up the parallelism of J. A. T. Robinson’s “end-of-theism” thinking and the “modified monism” of Hindu Vedanta philosophy. Robinson has now forsaken the “ground of our being” image, but as long as he believes that the essence of the Christian position is to see “reality as personal” he will continue to be vulnerable to Brow’s criticism that it is really a refined monism that his theology voices. Perhaps Robinson’s real problem, like that of Tillich, is that he is too naturally religious to be consistently Christian.

There are small flaws. Unhappy references to Berkeley and Oliver Cromwell show Brow off his beat. There are some over-simplifications. The mysterious “Unity” in the diagram of monistic positions on page 34 is probably Radhakrishnan’s position, but neither text nor index makes this clear. All in all, however, this is a reliable and very recommendable book.

A Many-Sided Ethic

Biblical Ethics: A Survey, by T. B. Maston (World, 1967, 300 pp., $6), is reviewed by Reginald Stackhouse, professor of philosophy of religion and ethics, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Ontario.

T. B. Maston wrote this book out of a conviction that one of the greatest needs in the Church is a deeper understanding of what the Bible says about ethics. To meet this need he surveys, clearly and comprehensively, the ethical teaching of both Old and New Testaments book by book.

Running throughout the work are certain basic convictions that Maston claims are found all through the Bible and must be upheld emphatically by the Church today. One is the centrality of the ethical dimension of the Christian life. This dimension is not simply an addendum to the one that connects God and the believer, nor is it an option that the believer is free to accept or reject. It is a fundamental part of the believer’s relation with God, because, Maston writes, “religion and ethics are thoroughly integrated in the Bible.”

The Bible shows that God himself is the true foundation of Christian ethics, says Maston; this means that no moral code is the beginning and the end. The author does not discount the need for a moral code nor suggest that the Bible fails to provide one. What he does is show how that code is mandatory because it comes from God, not because of anything intrinsic in it.

The still popular notion that the Old and New Testaments teach different ethics is shown to be a shallow misunderstanding. The two testaments share a basic outlook and, despite any particular differences, find a unity in their common belief that the ethical life is a response to God.

Maston shows a welcome perspicacity in refusing to accept glibly the current catchphrase approach to Christian ethics. Yet at the same time he is careful not to close his eyes to the truths writers are now advancing. He rightly asserts that no single term can describe biblical ethics because all refer to different aspects of the Bible’s many-sided message. We must therefore give attention to all of them—a covenant ethic, a koinonia ethic, a love ethic, a will-of-God ethic, and the like.

What is even more necessary is that we heed Maston’s appeal to see how the real vitality of the Christian ethic depends on its arising from a fellowship with the living Christ, without whom not even the right words form the Word of life.

Book Briefs

This Is Living: Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, by Leonard Griffith (Abingdon, 1967, 159 pp., $3). Spiritual treasures from the “uncomplicated” book of Philippians that enrich the life of the man in Christ.

The Word of Reconciliation, by H. H. Farmer (Abingdon, 1967, 105 pp., $2.75). Farmer considers Christ as reconciler, prophet, priest, and king and tells what his saving work means in the lives of men.

Search for Identity: A View of Authentic Christian Living, by Earl Jabay (Zondervan, 1967, 150 pp., $3.95). The chaplain of the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute claims that a major cause of emotional problems is the loss of a sense of identity, then shows how faith in Christ leads one to a proper sense of personal identity. Recommended.

Religion and Contemporary Western Culture: Selected Readings, edited by Edward Cell (Abingdon, 1967, 399 pp., $7.95). Readings that present leading positions on the relation of religion to culture, art, literature, philosophy, psychotherapy, science, and the socio-economic and political orders. The evangelical viewpoint is studiously neglected.

The New Christianity, edited by William Robert Miller (Delacorte Press, 1967, 393 pp., $6.95). The rise of the new theology is traced in this anthology of writings by William Blake, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, Tillich, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Robinson, Altizer, Cox, and others.

Systematic Theology, by Paul Tillich (University of Chicago and Harper & Row, 1967, 912 pp., $12.50). Tillich’s three volumes published in 1951, 1957, and 1963 combined under one cover.

Living for a Living Lord: Devotions for Women’s Groups, by Lucy J. Pelger (Concordia, 1967, 97 pp., $2.95). Thirty brief, meaningful evangelical meditations for women’s groups.

The Catholic Avant-Garde, by Jean-Marie Domenach and Robert de Mont-valon (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, 245 pp., $5.95). Describes post-war efforts to modernize Roman Catholicism in France and pave the way for church-wide aggiornamento.

Handyman of the Lord, by James W. English (Meredith, 1967, 177 pp., $4.95). A challenging account of how Negro minister William Holmes Borders sought for forty years to meet the spiritual and social needs of the people of Atlanta.

“All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable … (2 Tim. 3:16a). “The Office of Minister of the Word is to preach and teach the Word of God,” says the Constitution of the Reformed Church in America. This is a lifetime calling. No preacher can ever finish proclaiming the whole Word of God.

People today need to know the Bible as a whole and the whole counsel of God through the Bible. The preacher’s job is to explain the whole Bible or as much of it as he can during his life.

Take one book of the Bible and preach all the way through that book with as few interruptions as possible. Divide the book into sections. Treat each section in one sermon.

Read the passage of Scripture until it speaks to you. Read at least six versions in English to observe shades of meaning. Read the passage in as many other languages as you can read easily. Make a brief outline of what the passage says to you. Then check with a concordance, a Bible dictionary, and several commentaries. Finally, pray and think through the application to the congregation.

Let the Holy Spirit guide in your selection of two or three books of the Bible to expound during the year. Give about one-third of your life as a preacher to the Gospels, about one-third to the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation and about one-third to the Old Testament.

Select some great expository preacher as your model. Mine is John Calvin. During twenty-five years in Geneva, with sometimes as many as seven sermons a week, he managed to preach through most of the Bible once. If you do not wish to read the Middle French of Calvin, select some English or American preacher. Study carefully the sermons of one of the great preachers, for example F. W. Robertson, Charles H. Spurgeon, Alexander Maclaren, George Adam Smith, John Bunyan, D. L. Moody, Horace Bushnell, Phillips Brooks, or James S. Stewart.

In preaching from the Old Testament you will have to make some selective adaptation of the consecutive expository method. John Calvin preached 159 consecutive sermons on the Book of Job. I found my congregation getting a little tired of sermons from Job after I preached thirty. Calvin preached 200 sermons from Deuteronomy. I have never had the nerve to do more than twenty-four, though Deuteronomy is a vital book with which to meet talk about “the new morality.”

However, after you have become accustomed to the discipline of the expository method there is no reason why you should not preach at least 100 consecutive sermons on the Gospel According to Matthew. If you study as thoroughly as does D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, you will preach 300 sermons in about six years from Matthew.

In your work as pastor and teacher you will draw from many parts of the Bible during the course of a year. In your daily devotions you will study and meditate upon at least twelve books of the Bible. As a Bible school teacher you will study intensively at least four more books of the Bible. And it will occur to you that certain books of the Bible are especially ripe for the times.

You will have to balance the appropriateness of a book of the Bible in addressing the moral climate of the era over against the long-term preparation required for a thorough exposition of a Prophet, a Gospel, or a Letter.

If you live near a Bible college or a theological seminary, take advantage of any courses in books of the Bible offered to graduate students. I have always been grateful for courses in “Preaching from John” and “Preaching Values in Mark” under the late Andrew W. Blackwood. Also helpful were the courses in Jeremiah and Mark under the late Howard T. Kuist. Dr. Emily Werner in courses on Luke and Acts pointed the way to popular-style exposition.

After it becomes clear to you which book of the Bible you are going to study carefully, prayerfully, and thoroughly in order to preach it, begin your preparation by reading the book once each day for thirty days. Make an outline on a newspaper-sized sheet of paper or cardboard or a series of sheets of paper. A paragraphed Bible may help you to note the most logical units for preaching. Make as many inductive observations à la Ruskin as you can. Let God speak to you through the pages of Holy Writ. Note topically as many detailed applications as come to you clearly.

Next you should compare the results of your prayer and study with what has been written by authorities on the book of the Bible you are hoping will become alive to others through you. You should have on file a collection of Bible-book studies. From 1956 through 1961 CHRISTIANITY TODAY published a series of articles on the “Bible Book of the Month.” Most of these articles included excellent lists of books for further study. Interpretation sometimes carries invaluable Bible-book studies. Popular introductions to the Bible such as The New Bible Handbook, published by the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, contain useful suggestions for analyzing a book of the Bible. Most dictionaries of the Bible also provide useful comparisons at this point. Finally, make sure you own five or six of the best commentaries on the book of the Bible you are preparing to expound.

When you have finished all this, you will have done more than half the work of preparing your series of sermons on a book of the Bible. Moreover, you will have allowed a large place for subconscious incubation controlled by the Holy Spirit. The final detailed preparation for each sermon can then be completed in about one full working day. Every preacher develops his own system of final preparation. Perhaps I have allowed necessity to be the mother of invention, but I find one hour per day for six days better than one straight eight-hour day.

The consistent use of the expository method imposes certain limitations upon the preacher. (1) He must have a quiet study. (2) Since the total preparation of a sermon using the expository method requires, on the average, about two full days, the minister’s life should be free from petty distractions, such as fund-raising. The preaching of the Gospel should be supported by tithes and offerings, in order that the work of the Holy Spirit may not be frustrated. (3) The pastor’s participation in the social life of the congregation will not be great. He can enter into selected social activities. Otherwise he should save his time for prayer and study. (4) The expository method is best adapted to long-term pastorates. Having served nearly nineteen years in one church, I find I have hardly completed half of what I ought to have done. It is difficult to see how a man could develop a solid program of expository preaching with less than five years in one place.

The rewards of Bible exposition are great. Most worshipers follow the Scripture lesson with open Bible in hand. They are vitally interested in what the Bible has to say to them.—The Rev. LEROY NIXON, Queensboro Hill Community Church (Reformed Church in America), Flushing, New York.