Dr. bulkley’s letter, found on page 22 of this issue, calls for an attempt to clarify certain issues.

The question of “individual conversion and the changing of social structures as appropriate ways by which the Church is called upon to function in her task of serving Christ in the world” is not one of “alternatives” but one of priorities. The social structures of society can never be adequately changed until the hearts of men are changed. It is not the clothes people wear, or the food they eat, or the houses they live in that is of primary concern for the Church. Rather, it is the inner man and his relationship to God.

The Church has a high and holy calling, to proclaim the message of redemption in Christ. If she does not fulfill it, no one will. If she gives priority to social action, she might possibly succeed in eliminating every social, economic, and political injustice; but she would then find that men were still lost sinners without knowledge of the Saviour.

At issue is the nature and mission of the Church. Is she called, as Dr. Bulkley implies, to be God’s instrument “in the development of a world in which freedom and justice, peace and brotherhood, are to be genuinely characteristic of human relationships”? Such a shift in social values and behavior is indeed desirable. Yet the fact remains that the Church is called to witness to redemption of sinners through faith in Christ. The Church is a spiritual organism in the midst of a secular society, and the desired changes can take place only as the Spirit of God changes the hearts of men.

The risen Lord, commissioning the newly converted Paul to service, said: “I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18, RSV). There were desperate social needs in the day of the Apostle Paul, but there were more desperate needs of the heart.

That the redeemed should show evidence of the transforming power of Jesus Christ in social and interpersonal relationships is indisputable; “faith without works is dead.” But Christianity must not be equated with any particular demand for social action. Of late, civil rights has been the main social concern. A few years ago it was pacifism. And there now is emerging a new social concept, the eradication of poverty. These are not the Gospel, nor are they doctrines of the Christian faith.

As for Dr. Bulkley’s rather cavalier description of a conversion experience: unquestionably there are those who equate their own salvation experience with things they “give up.” This kind of negative Christianity is only too common. But it is also a fact that a man may be engaged in numerous activities for making the world a better place in which to live and also “be the same old sinner.” “Giving up drinking or smoking or playing golf on Sunday” no more makes a man a Christian than does the participation in social activities, such as the Selma-Montgomery march. (I have heard participation in such activities described as “redemptive acts.”)

Unless social action shows clearly that it is motivated by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and done in his name, it is secular and not Christian. But compassion for man’s welfare and a Christian witness can and should be combined if the Church is involved. I know, for I was engaged in social work as a medical missionary in China for twenty-five years, and the Gospel had top priority.

The willingness, even urgent desire of some social planners to make use of the power of government to force change in attitudes is not, I believe, the Christian approach to a difficult problem. Caesar cannot make Christians or change hearts.

The Church is in the world to proclaim the Gospel to others who need to be redeemed. There is grave danger that the pressure of some to make the Church “relevant” by engaging in social engineering, economics, and politics can make her irrelevant in the very area where she is most needed. Her competence and calling are, or should be, in the things of the Spirit.

In our Lord’s story of the prodigal son, it would seem that the wayward boy’s primary need was to “come to himself” and return to his father with a confession of his unworthiness and need. This can well be termed a “conversion experience,” and it was the key to his rehabilitation.

The primary emphasis now evident in some areas of the Church indicates that there are those who do not regard mankind’s—the “prodigal’s,” if you will—spiritual state as of vital importance to the Church. Apparently these persons will be content if they can make the erring son happy, comfortable, and prosperous in the “far country”; they do not feel that they must bring him back to his Father through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

I shall be accused of lacking social concern. I do not; no Christian should. But if the Church’s primary concern is not spiritual, she fails in her mission. This is not a matter of “alternatives” but of priorities, and unless the sequence is kept clear we shall fail all along the line.

In most of the major denominations, there is taking place a thorough reappraisal of the function of the Church. Even more important, we believe, would be an appraisal of the message of the Church. Too many hungry sinners rise from their church pews still feeling unfed; they have heard about various secular issues and social programs, but the needs of their souls have been neglected.

Slowly but surely the concept of the Christian minister is being changed. Instead of a man who concentrates on spiritual matters, he is becoming one whose primary focus is on secular affairs—to the great loss of the Church and the confusion of an already confused world.

At the same time, many Christians feel that the spiritual nature of the Church is being subverted to secondary ends. They rightly feel that it is their duty to wield their individual influence for righteousness, but they see ecclesiastical leaders assuming secular leadership and using the name of the Church to further their own concepts for the social order.

With all my heart I agree with Dr. Bulkley’s affirmation in the second paragraph of his letter, that it is the grace of God which must lay hold on a man’s heart to remake and renew his heart.

But we are confronted on every hand by the Church’s becoming a pressure organization for social changes, all of which are blueprinted to follow a particular concept of righteousness. And churchmen do not hesitate to solicit the forces of secular government to accomplish these ends.

A good physician will not be content with treating symptoms. He looks for the cause of the disease. The Church should do no less.

Party Words and Party Line

You Can Say That Again

It was E. Stanley Jones who said some years ago, “Christianity is a very wordy religion.” This could well be a very telling criticism. I don’t know exactly what can be done about the problem, though, since Christianity does depend on words for the proclamation that is at the very center of its task.

More serious than the number of words we have to use, however, is the way we use them. One of the debates now surrounding the new Presbyterian confession concerns the question whether the old words of the old confession are still useful in this day and age. On the other hand, there is voiced the criticism that even in the new confession all is not too clear. So there may be some old words that need to have their content refurbished and some new ones that don’t carry the message. This wordy religion of ours can play all kinds of tricks on us before we get complete understanding.

A few days ago I sat in a committee meeting in which most of the members were quite anxious, as some committee members are these days, to use nothing but the latest words. The only trouble is that the latest words are beginning to take on a patina all their own.

I took the trouble to copy down sixty-two terms in one committee meeting. I won’t afflict you with all of them, but I am sure you will delight in the new-old familiarity of a representative few. Enjoy with me our committee meeting: articulated, hopefully, readiness, target group, orientation (in all its variants), dimension, contextual, viable, dialogue, power structure, position papers, meaningfulness, spelled out, rubric, area, shared, ground rules, challenge, shared perceptions, frame of reference, drag out on the table—and so on far into the night.

It seemed to me that my new role is to inform you so that I may elicit responses in terms of precluding the option. And now I think it is about time to finalize this amorphous reference.

EUTYCHUS II

The Party Line

To insist, as you do (“Millennium Tomorrow,” Editorials, Feb. 4 issue), that churchmen, to be true to their calling or responsibilities, must do nothing more than espouse the official line is exactly the kind of thinking that permitted a Hitler to rise to power.…

EMMER ENGBERG

Gustavus Adolphus College

St. Peter, Minn.

• Espousing “the official line” (as found in some recent ecclesiastical pronouncements) is precisely what we have encouraged churchmen to avoid in the Viet Nam question, lest they encourage Communist aggression.—ED.

As You Like It

May I say how deeply I appreciate Christianity Today. It has given me a wider horizon of evangelical thought from men of God whose zeal in defending the faith is most heartening.

R. T. GRAY

East Finchley Baptist Church

London, England

Responsibility

The editorial on evangelism (Jan. 21 issue) is one of the best articles on our responsibility in today’s world that I have ever read.

JOHN EDMUND HAGGAI

Key to Life Broadcast

Atlanta, Ga.

Of Books And Choices

The inclusion of J. Jeremias’s The Central Message of the New Testament among “Choice Evangelical Books of 1965” (Feb. 4 issue) is unfortunate because it is misleading to evangelicals and misrepresents Professor Jeremias’s own position.

Beside the fact that the attitude reflected throughout this volume toward the origin, character, and authority of the New Testament text is unacceptable to many evangelicals, divergences of an even more fundamental character are present. For instance, the argument that Jesus viewed his death as having sacrificial character is supported in part by the allegation that he was mistaken about the nature of his own burial and the fate of some of his disciples (p. 44). That this notion of a fallible Jesus has undermining and even destructive consequences for evangelical Christology and soteriology hardly needs to be said.

Neither a limited amount of private conversation with Professor Jeremias during my student days in Göttingen nor a careful reading of many of his writings has given me any indication that he is or cares to be considered an “evangelical” in the sense in which that word is employed in American church life.

Evangelicals have made and will continue to make appreciative use of Professor Jeremias’s writings. They are thankful for his careful philological studies and the judicious and sober manner in which he customarily deals with the text. But they truly profit from his work only when they keep in mind that his position—including his opposition to Bultmann—is something other than evangelical.

RICHARD B. GAFFIN, JR.

Instructor in New Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

Your Book Review section for January 21 contained an excellent report of Professor John Macmurray’s Search for Reality in Religion, together with most appreciative references to the religious experience of its author.…

JOHN PITTS

Calvary United Presbyterian

Pompano Beach, Fla.

Against Book-Club Banning

Re your advertisement for the Conservative Book Club (Jan. 7 issue) and the unjust criticisms leveled against it by some of your readers (Feb. 4 issue) …: The Book Club has offered books from such reputable publishers as Random House, Macmillan, Van Nostrand, McGraw-Hill, Harper and Row, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Its current selections are Marguerite Higgins’s Our Vietnam Nightmare and Oleg Penkovskiy’s The Penkovskiy Papers (a current best seller nationwide).

As a Christian and a conservative, I feel that it is no disgrace to belong to the club.…

WILLIAM L. BROWN

Ypsilanti, Mich.

Even if there were something undesirable about the Conservative Book Club, their advertisement proved only that they and CHRISTIANITY TODAY are in agreement regarding advertising, not necessarily politics.

The … club is not “a front for the John Birch Society” as claimed. Being a JBS member, I think I’d know if it were.…

WILLIAM A. REDMOND

East Taunton, Mass.

I was very disturbed when I saw two letters from readers objecting to the full-page advertisement.… Personally I felt that you acted rightly in accepting this advertisement.…

Let me add that I am well pleased with CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I admire your sane and scholarly outlook, combined with your faithfulness to the Word of God, and find your magazine both helpful and inspiring.

WALTER C. JOHNSON

Hanover, Mass.

Not Either/Or

Editorials and articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY frequently address themselves to the alternatives of individual conversion and the changing of social structures as appropriate ways by which the Church is called upon to function in her task of serving Christ in the world—always to the detriment of the latter. Is it not possible to raise the question seriously as to whether or not these are really alternatives? May it not be that, if we are to be his instruments in the development of a world in which freedom and justice, peace and brotherhood, are to be genuinely characteristic of human relationships, we stand in need both of persons who are individually committed to Jesus Christ, acknowledging him as Lord and Saviour, and of laws and social structures which will support rather than frustrate this goal? Why is it necessary to stress either at the expense of the other?

For my part, at any rate, the fact that I am personally involved by vocation in that part of the Church’s mission which does seek to have some impact upon the structures of society certainly does not make it impossible for me to recognize that personal commitment to Christ and the changing of men’s hearts is fundamental. Laws and social structures can and do make a vast difference in how men act toward each other, but they cannot, save obliquely, transform men’s inner motivations and attitudes. They can make a man treat his brother with a greater degree of justice, but they cannot make a man love his brother and respect him. Only an event that transpires deep within his inner being can do that, an event in which the grace of God lays hold upon him and remakes and renews his life. So far as I am concerned, there is no argument about that.

But the trouble is that so much that passes as profound conversion and change of life, so much that goes by the name of “giving one’s life to Christ” or “being born again,” just doesn’t seem to ring true, just doesn’t seem to bring forth the fruit one ought to have the right to expect of it. To be sure, the man who claims to have undergone this experience very likely now attends church more frequently and stands ready to pray and testify in public—which is very good, but scarcely evidence of a life which is now lived not for self but for Christ and others. Or he may give up drinking or smoking or playing golf on Sunday. Or he may begin tithing and bearing witness to his conviction that tithing realty pays. Or he may become a more faithful husband and a more loving father and a more useful neighbor. Even though it may sound as though I am doing so, I am not really meaning to belittle any of this. I am only trying to make it clear that all of this and much more is just a beginning and that much of it is pretty peripheral, at that. “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees”—and of the conventional Christian, too—“you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

A man can do all of these things and still remain in very significant and central ways the same old sinner. The prosperous business man can be “saved” and still keep tight hold on all the prejudices and presuppositions dictated by the supposed self-interest of his particular economic class. The happy suburban dweller can become a Christian as a result of an evangelistic campaign and still put what he conceives to be the maintenance of property values in his neighborhood above the achievement of justice for his Negro brethren who would like to purchase homes there on the same basis as do those whose skin is white. The patriotic American can give his life to Christ and still lack any sensitivity to the feelings and aspirations and deprivations of the vast millions of men and women and boys and girls who live in Asia and Africa. More splendid, well-meaning people than we can possibly count will express their Christian faith and life through deeds of kindliness and service to their fellow men without recognizing that there are vast numbers of other persons whose needs can be met only if the structures of society are so changed that the meeting of these needs comes to be the usual rather than the unusual thing to happen—and without further recognizing that, before kindness can really speak to men’s souls, they have to experience the sort of justice which acknowledges their dignity and worth as persons.

What I am ultimately trying to say is that, if a man’s heart is so changed that he comes to love his neighbor as himself, and if he begins to comprehend the meaning of that love, he will come to see that his neighbor, wherever he may be across the world, can find the sort of life to which justice entitles him only through the changing of social structures. It does little good to find one man a job if the structures of our economic life—even in the midst of abundance—result in a constant figure of unemployment which is in the millions. It does little good to help one Negro family find a home outside the ghetto if the whole structure of our real estate industry and local politics is fashioned in such a way as to close almost every door outside the ghetto to almost every other Negro family. It does little good to do very much for anybody if we are unable to create the structures for the world which will serve to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war. That is to say, even the kindest and worthiest of motives are not enough to make unnecessary the elimination of those structures of society which frustrate the achievement of justice and the substitution for them of structures which will make the achievement of justice more likely.

And there is no evidence that the kindest and worthiest motives are what emerge from what we label the conversion experience. All too frequently it is all too clear that what emerge are the old self-regarding and self-seeking and self-satisfied motives intensified and deepened by now being identified with God’s will and purpose. It isn’t that personal commitment is not desperately needed and at the very heart of the Christian life. It is rather that so much of what passes for it is almost totally superficial, and this remains true, even though there may be a good deal of emotion and feeling accompanying it and even though there may also be some change in the habit patterns characterizing one’s life.

There is no more striking example of what I am talking about than the current civil rights situation. People all over the country had for many decades been “giving their hearts to Christ,” and probably a larger proportion of them had been doing so in the South than anywhere else. But these same white American Christians who allegedly had been well saved were hard at the business of maintaining social institutions all over the country, and especially in the South where their concentration was so marked, which relegated millions of their fellow American Christians whose skins happened to be a bit darker to a sort of second-class citizenship which disgraced this country before the world and which was a denial of all of the human concern that Christ’s coming was all about. These darker-skinned, American Christians were kept out of the white churches and schools and neighborhoods (unless they came in as servants). They were denied the right to vote, the equal protection of the law, the equal opportunity for employment in accordance with their capacities. To be sure, they were often treated kindly as individuals; but it was a patronizing sort of kindness whose every manifestation was based on the presupposition that these were inferior beings and that their altogether wiser white neighbors knew what was really best for them and could be trusted to make their major decisions for them. There is no need to say more of this. The facts are well known and indisputable, and the facts were perpetrated by good Christians who were sure that all that was needed was for men’s hearts to be right—and that, since they had given their hearts to Christ, obviously they were right.

For ninety years following Emancipation, the Negroes, North and South, waited for justice to come to pass through the change of men’s hearts. Men’s hearts allegedly were changed, but it didn’t make any difference to the Negroes. Whites acted toward them just about as they had acted before that change took place. Only when the Supreme Court decision of 1954 opened the door to hope for the Negro and other decisions followed and legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, only then did things begin to change—only when obsolete and unjust social structures were challenged, and men no longer waited for something to happen in men’s hearts to make the difference. Then the civil rights movement, from Montgomery to Selma and beyond, took hold, and the old structures of prejudice and segregation and injustice began to totter. The Negro still has a long way to go, but now he is on his way—not because men’s hearts have changed, but because judicial interpretations and laws and sit-ins and freedom rides and demonstrations have put new hope in the minds and lives of men who previously had borne with injustice hopelessly. And the sad and bitter truth is that the roadblocks have been put in his way, and the law of the land has been frustrated again and again, and justice has continued to be denied, by these same white American Christians who are in church every Sunday and who are supposed to be new men in Christ Jesus.

Now it is a hundred years and more since Emancipation. I, for one, can conceive of no possible justification for expecting the Negro to wait one moment longer for justice to come from the changing of white hearts. That process has had its chance, and it has abysmally failed. Now the only possibility is to fashion and enforce laws which require men to do justly to their Negro brethren however they may feel in their hearts. Perhaps their hearts will eventually change just front force of the habit of acting justly.

Civil rights is but one dramatic illustration of the point I am seeking to make. There could be many more. Nothing I have said negates the importance of valid commitment to Christ and change in the human heart. But it does insist that that commitment and that change must be real, so real that they transform whole constellations of attitudes and make them ready to be just. And it further insists that the doing of justice cannot wait for all men to come to that sort of commitment but rather requires the alteration of social structures here and now.

ROBERT D. BULKLEY

Secretary Board of Christian Education

Office of Church and Society

United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

Philadelphia, Pa.

• A reply to Dr. Bulkley’s letter will be found in “A Layman and His Faith” (see page 26).—ED.

What to do when the minister discovers that churchgoers remember little more than the sermon illustrations

A pastor who grew weary of the usual Sunday morning “That was a good sermon” comments determined to find out just how effective all his “good” sermons were. He began to ask his people questions, such as which part of the sermon they particularly found helpful, or which part they remembered best. He was horrified to discover that the majority could remember nothing at all except a few incidental illustrations!

His problem is the problem of every preacher of the Gospel. We are all acutely aware of the difficulty of effective communication, a difficulty that is by no means a modern one. Paul noted that he had been sent to preach, but “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1 Cor. 1:17).

And here we find a clue to the perennial problem of communication. It is quite possible, as Paul says, that the chasm between the pulpit and the pew has been created by the words of the preacher rather than the hardness or blindness of the congregation. Reflecting upon some of the sermons that I have heard and read and preached, I find this to be not only a possibility but an actuality. In many ways the modern preacher is tempted to rely upon the wisdom of his words, only to find that such wise words become foolish and of no effect upon his hearers.

There are, first, the overly elegant. A good figure of speech, like a sharpened spade, can enable the user to dig deeper and faster. But it can be overdone. I have a copy of a sermon that I heard delivered to a group of ministers. In it there are such phrases as “asbestine, fear-filled negativists”; “history’s epileptic time clock”; and “hanging by a neurotic, emotional thread.” The entire message was peppered with similar elegant, and often bewildering, word combinations. I remember showing the sermon to a member of our church, a man with a master’s degree in education. We puzzled and debated for some time over the meaning that was intended, finally agreeing that the message was a striking and elegant achievement but quite ambiguous and perplexing.

It is not difficult for most preachers to overwhelm their congregations. Usually the preacher has had a certain amount of specialized education; often he is a man of superior intelligence. He will usually be speaking to at least a few people who have little formal education. It is imperative, therefore, that he keep in mind the counsel of Denney: “No man can give at one and the same time the impression that he himself is clever and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save.”

Secondly, there are the overly psychological sermons. A sermon preached in a large Eastern church included such ideas as the “quest for identity,” the risks involved in “self-declaration,” and our “involvement in the anxieties of living.” After reading the sermon carefully, I was able to capture the basic meaning. But what of those who were not able to give it careful study, who needed to understand it by hearing? I doubt that one person in an average hundred could have followed the thought.

The training in pastoral psychology that the modern preacher receives should not blind him to the fact that, even for the average college graduate, the thought patterns of psychology and psychiatry are not familiar ground. You may easily overwhelm your congregation with your psychological acumen, but will you bring them face to face with the living Christ?

Thirdly, there are the overly simplified sermons. I once sat under a preacher who used the same phrases and ideas so frequently that he began to apologize for them himself! An evangelist once said, “It’s the old, old story. You’ve heard it so many times before, but it’s still the wonderful Gospel.” I wondered whether he was proclaiming or apologizing.

The peril of depending upon the wisdom of human words does not excuse the preacher from striving to make the most effective use of the language. The story is an old one indeed, but it can be expressed in limitless ways. If the minds of the congregation are to be kept focused upon Christ rather than the Sunday roast, it is imperative that the preacher labor to retell the old, old story, sparing no efforts to capture the immensity of grace in human words, and drawing forth freshness from the well of his own experience and growth.

Fourthly, there are the overly egocentric sermons. While it is true that the preacher will always be working around the hub of his own experience, he must beware lest he find himself proclaiming his own frustrations rather than the riches of God’s grace. Somehow he must separate himself from the irritations and problems that he encounters throughout the week and concentrate wholly upon the truths of the Gospel as found in the Bible.

Otherwise he may find himself mistaking a chip on his shoulder for fire in his bones. A pastor stood up on Mother’s Day, looked at his congregation, and said: “I guess I’m supposed to say something nice about mothers today. But the way I feel about women today, it’ll be hard to say anything.” Problems with women in churches go back to the days when Euodias and Syntyche were at odds at Philippi. The wise preacher, however, will proclaim his Lord rather than advertise his personal problems.

Fifthly, there is the overly theoretical sermon. Ours is a pragmatic age. Whether the sermon is topical or expository, devotional or doctrinal, it will not penetrate the hearts of the congregation unless it can be shown to be practical. A man should never be left at the end of a sermon with the attitude, “Well, so what?” He ought always to be faced with a decision.

At some point, the sermon must intersect the problems, the aspirations, or the interests of the hearer. Some years ago the newspapers proclaimed that President Truman had announced that the national deficit would be seven billion dollars less than anticipated. On a back page of one newspaper, there was a story about three boys who had made a splint for a dog with a broken leg. A survey revealed that 44 per cent of the women readers remembered the dog story but only 8 per cent recalled the President’s announcement.

Finally, there is the overly equivocal sermon. The temper of the age is symbolized by a Methodist church that had on its outdoor signboard a message urging attendance at the nearby Presbyterian church. There is almost a fear of dogmatism, a reluctance to preach in the spirit of “Thus saith the Lord” that borders on inanity.

A pastor in a large church of a total-abstinence denomination preached a sermon entitled “To drink or not to drink.” Afterwards a young woman remarked: “I’m still not sure whether he thinks we ought to or ought not to.”

Years ago Mark Twain revealed, in characteristic fashion, the absurdity of being overly equivocal. His editor had cautioned him to state only facts, and those that he could verify by personal knowledge. When he was sent to cover an important social event, he turned in the following: “A woman giving the name of Mrs. James Jones who is reported to be one of the society leaders in the city gave what is reported to be a party yesterday to a number of alleged ladies. The hostess claims to be the wife of a reputed attorney.”

God has chosen to save the world by means of the foolishness of preaching. Preaching is the utilization of words. Words that leave the hearers awed but perplexed, words that fail to capture the imagination, words that reflect the preacher’s personal frustrations, words that lack practical application, and words that hesitate in uncertainty will fall into that chasm that ever threatens to separate the pulpit from the pew. May our words be worthy of the “exceeding riches of his grace.”

I’D Do It Again

Every now and then someone says to me, “Pastor, if you had the opportunity to choose your vocation again, would you choose the gospel ministry?” And my answer always is, “Yes, even after twenty-five years in the ministry, I’d do it again.”

There are several reasons for my answer. I am sure that no profession offers so many opportunities for service, so many challenges, so many burdens to be lifted, so many sorrowing people to be comforted, so many eager youth to train, so many souls to be led to Christ, as does the gospel ministry.

No other profession requires so much hard work for such meager earnings, so much self-sacrifice often for such little appreciation, as does the gospel ministry.

Therefore, I say these things to my questioner: The ministry is the one profession you should never enter unless you are “called,” the one vocation you should never remain in unless you succeed, the one life-work you can never be content with unless you give more than you receive, and the only job in which your fellow man is your master, Christ your senior partner, your conscience, through the Spirit, often your only guide, and God your constant strength and stay.

The gospel ministry is humbling yet ennobling, tiring yet invigorating, discouraging yet more often encouraging, depressing yet exalting, filled with both distressing and glorious experiences. You will never be the same again after you prepare for and enter the ministry, and you will never want to be the same.

Your fellow men will use you, the Church will praise you, your Lord will bless you, and your Heavenly Father will reward you in his kingdom.

Yes, even after twenty-five years, I’d do it again!—THE REV. LESTER MILTON UTZ, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Holmes Beach, Florida.

“For the most part” the new confession “follows the weaker or less orthodox elements and abandons those features that keep Barth more strictly in line with his Reformed foundation.”

There is an impression in some circles that the proposed United Presbyterian “Confession of 1967” is substantially an expression of Barthian rather than Reformation or biblical doctrine. Apart from the role of Dr. Markus Barth on the committee, the probable reasons for this are that (1) the language is in the new dogmatic style, (2) an impression of neo-orthodoxy is given, and (3) there are general parallels to Barth’s dogmatic presentation. Whether or not the confession is close to Barth’s theology in detail, however, is a more doubtful question that can be settled only by rigorously comparing it with his Church Dogmatics.

The understanding of confessions and their role forms an obvious starting point, for Barth, who had a hand in the Barmen Declaration of 1934, devotes several pages to this question. Parallel ideas in the proposed new confession would seem to be that confessions are subsidiary and reformable, that they can and should have a place as concurrent standards, and that they ought to contain something of general as well as purely local concern (“The Confession of 1967,” lines 10 ff.; Church Dogmatics I/2, 20, 2).

Barth, however, also demands that a confession should be evoked by an inescapable issue. The Presbyterians’ Special Committee on a Brief Contemporary Statement of Faith is in difficulty here: in the first place it has behind it the weak explanation that “a short Statement of Faith written in these times … should be of interest and value …” (“Minutes of the General Assembly,” 1957, I, 143), and in the second place the whole idea of a dated confession inevitably suggests passing opinion rather than burning conviction. The difficulty is met by (1) referring to the need for response to “a major watershed such as the eighteenth century” (in the background essay by committee Chairman Edward A. Dowey, Jr., included in the committee’s report), and (2) speaking of the search for a subject for reformulation (in the “Introductory Comment and Analysis” that precedes the confession text in the report). But the first reference leads to little positive conviction in the confession, and the artificial search shows few signs of the necessary concern. Barth, in fact, believed that a good confession (like Barmen) should be ready for the risk of a damnamus (“we reject and condemn”); it is hard to see how the “Confession of 1967” fits in with this understanding, for, when it comes to the point, it will not even come right out with a rejection of inerrancy!

The structure of the confession also calls for notice. It is basically soteriological, Christological, and ecclesiological. The main theme, reconciliation, is treated under the two heads of God’s work and the Church’s ministry, with an eschatological addendum. Part I on God’s work is trinitarian in treatment (on the basis of Second Corinthians 13:14), but precedence is here obviously given to Jesus Christ. At first glance this seems to be an outworking of the Christological emphasis characteristic of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, and it is obvious that the interrelating of Christ’s work, the Spirit’s ministry, and the Church’s mission follows the general structure of Church Dogmatics IV/1–3. Closer analysis, however, shows that for all the Christological stress, Barth’s work is quite different and more orthodoxly trinitarian in arrangement. Thus, it begins with prolegomena (Trinity and Word) in I/1–2, moves on to God in II/1–2, then to God the Creator, III/1–4, and only then to God the Reconciler in IV/1–3 (with a projected but unfinished conclusion on God the Redeemer in V). In fact, the outline of Church Dogmatics would provide a more comprehensive confession than is possible if one theme alone is made the subject. (Barmen, of course, achieves concentration in answer to a specific challenge, that of “German Christianity” under Hitlerite totalitarianism.) Another important structural point is that Barth rightly sees the need to introduce the doctrine of Scripture in the prolegomena; he solves the question of priority of God or Scripture by dealing with the latter in the context of a first trinitarian statement. In contrast, the “Confession of 1967” raises the question of Scripture only under I, 3, B, though in fact it already presupposes its doctrine in the preface (lines 11 ff.).

When we turn to lines 40 ff. of the confession and then to I, 1 (“The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ”), we find many echoes of Barth, especially Church Dogmatics IV/1–3. Thus we might refer to the “God with man” of line 41 (C.D. IV/1, 57, 1); the emphasis on Christ’s presence in the Church’s ministry (41; C.D. IV/3, 69); the bearing of our judgment (56 f.; C.D. IV/1, 59, 2); the different images for the Atonement (61 ff.; C.D. IV/1, 59, 2); the exposure of sin by Christ rather than the law (82 ff.; C.D. IV/1, 60, 1); sin in the relations to God, fellow man, (self) and world (84 f.; C.D. IV/1, 60, 1); and the wrath of God as the expression of his love against all that opposes him (96 ff.; C.D. IV/1, 59, 2). In the shorter section I, 2 (“The Love of God”), we are again in the same circle as that of Church Dogmatics when we read of God’s showing power in the form of a servant (104; C.D. IV/1, 59, 1); or of his appointing the world of space and time as the sphere of his dealings with men (109 f.; C.D. III/1, 41, 2); or of life as a gift and task (118 f., a common German play on Gabe and Aufgabe); or of Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel (131 ff.; C.D. II/2, 32, 2; IV/1, 57, 2).

EXEMPT?

I am a Christian.

I believe That Jesus is God’s Son and that he died

And rose again, and that it was for me;

This is my faith, such as it is,

And in this faith is all the hope I have;

But in the office where I work

Are men and women too

Who do not know this Way at all;

And there I am; I speak no word

For I am there, you see—

I, who am filed with envy,

Self-conceit and ridicule.

I see the need they have; and, God,

I dare not say a word, though I know well

How you have said, “Go, ye …”

I fear that I am one who bears your Name

But keeps his fingers crossed.

DONNA G. HUMPHREY

On the other hand, there are other no less striking differences. Thus the whole treatment of Jesus Christ in I, 1, A lacks the depth and comprehensiveness of Barth’s threefold presentation of Christ: the Lord as Servant (Priest), the Servant as Lord (King), and the True Witness (Prophet) (C.D. IV/1–3). Moreover, the use of “images” for biblical statements of the Atonement seems to go beyond what Barth says, and there is nothing comparable to Barth’s strict outworking of the judicial aspect, especially with its emphasis on representative substitution. In this respect there is also complete divorce from the important thought in Church Dogmatics that Christ is both elected and rejected (C.D. II/2, 33, 2), and rather oddly only the “risen Christ” is described in the confession as “savior of all men” (69 ff.; why not “crucified and risen Christ”?). Universalism is perhaps more categorically excluded by the confession than by Church Dogmatics (77 f.: “To refuse life from him is to be separated from God in death”), though this seems to have Arminian implications that Barth tries, if not always successfully or consistently, to avoid.

A final important matter in these two sections is that Barth, in the great patristic tradition, insists that one cannot deal adequately with Christ’s work apart from his person (hence the great Christological section in IV/2, 64, 2). The confession, however, merely states that “the Trinity and the Person of Christ … are recognized as forming the basis and determining the structure of the Christian faith” (lines 31 ff.; committal to Chalcedon?). The text fails even to give Christ his title as God or Son of God, except in a less precise way in lines 41 and 134. Barth is surely on the right lines when he explicitly works out his soteriology in terms of Christ, not merely as Priest, King, and Prophet, but also as God, Man, and God-Man.

The doctrine of the Word of God under I, 3, B (“The Communion of the Holy Spirit: The Bible”) is also strongly reminiscent of Barth’s teaching. Thus Christ as Word incarnate (lines 175 ff.), along with the word spoken through faithful preaching and reading of Scripture (187 ff.), recalls Barth’s Word incarnate, written, and proclaimed (C.D. I/1 and 2). The confession’s use of the term “witness” for Scripture (175 ff., 180, 183, and so on) is also in line with Barth’s discussion in Church Dogmatics I/2, 19, 1. Further points of similarity are the categories of recollection and expectation (cf. 180 ff.; C.D. I/2, 14, 2–3); the stress on the “present” character of God’s speaking (187; C.D. I/2, 19, 2); insistence on the truism that the biblical words are words of men (192 f.; C.D. I/2, 19, 2); and concentration on the historical and relative thought-forms and ideas of the Bible, with at least the implication that they are inadequate or erroneous (193 ff.; C.D. I/2, 19, 2).

It would thus appear that the “Confession of 1967” adopts substantially the view of the Word, and specifically of the Bible, found in Church Dogmatics. It does this, however, without the many important (if not wholly sufficient) safeguards that Barth incorporated into his work. Thus Scripture is for Barth the word written, whereas the “Confession of 1967” does not call it this but lumps it with faithful preaching as word proclaimed. Again, Barth gives the Bible precedence over preaching and thus accords it true normativeness, whereas the confession puts faithful preaching before reading, thus preserving normativeness only by way of the “faithful.”

Barth also accepts, though he does not emphasize, the original giving of Scripture by the Holy Spirit and the uniqueness of the prophets and apostles within God’s work of salvation (C.D. I/2, 19, 2; 21, 1). We look in vain for this note in the confession (except perhaps in 127 f.). Two noteworthy references to the Scriptures occur in the material accompanying the confession in the committee’s report: “The Holy Scriptures are the unique and normative witness to this work of Christ” (in Leonard J. Trinterud’s essay “Confessions of the Church: Times and Places”) and “It is not a witness among others but the witness without parallel, the norm of all other witness” (in the “Introductory Comment and Analysis”). Yet the confession itself does not accord to Scripture the uniqueness Barth strongly insists upon (an insistence not tempered by any such weak statement as the confession’s “… to whom the Holy Spirit bears witness in many ways,” lines 176 f.). Again, Barth argues that God speaks through the very words of Scripture—a version of verbal inspiration which involves him in the practical “fundamentalism” of which Niebuhr complains but for which there is no parallel in the confession. It should also be noted that when Barth makes Christ the hermeneutical key, he is in fact much more precise than the confession with its vague, clumsy, yet restrictive interpretation, “in the light of its witness to God’s work of reconciliation in Christ” (191 f.).

Finally, Barth recognizes in the Bible a direct, absolute, and material authority (C.D. I/2, 20, 1) that goes far beyond the imprecise “normative witness” of the confession (178). If I understand the confession rightly, it is ascribing to Scripture a historical normativeness that as such has the recognition of the Church (177 ff.). Now, this is true and important; but, as Barth points out (C.D. I/2, 20, 1), authority at this level is still indirect, relative, and formal. In virtue of its special position as given and used by the Spirit, however, Scripture has for Barth a direct, material, and absolute authority that frees it from dependence on the Church’s decisions (e.g., respecting the canon) and that makes it superior in principle to every other authority, whether tradition, fathers, councils, confessions, or teaching office. At this critical point, Barth undoubtedly sides with Reformation orthodoxy, whereas the confession with its generalization leaves the way open for accommodation not only to liberalism (“he will continue to speak to men … in every form of human culture,” 200 f.) but also to Romanism, with its list of relative authorities differing only in degree (infallible pope as well as normative Scripture). Failure at this point, of course, destroys the whole thrust of Church Dogmatics in its attempt, on the basis of the scriptural principle, to state a pure evangelical dogmatics in contradistinction to Romanist error on the one side and liberal Protestant on the other. For this, a witness that is directly, absolutely, and materially normative is required.

Time and space do not allow us to speak of Part II of the confession, where we would in any case be hampered by the lack of Barth’s definitive ethics of reconciliation in the projected Church Dogmatics IV/4. Enough has surely been said, however, to justify certain conclusions. First, the “Confession of 1967” undoubtedly reflects many elements of Church Dogmatics. Secondly, it is highly selective in its use of Church Dogmatics. Thirdly, it seems in the main to adopt generalizations without the delimitations that are so important in Barth. Fourthly, it also follows for the most part the weaker or less orthodox elements and abandons those features that keep Barth more strictly in line with his Reformed foundation. Finally, comparison with Church Dogmatics, quite apart from other criteria, brings to light many weaknesses in the conception, structure, and statement of “Confession of 1967.”

In sum, this is a “Barthian” confession only in a diffused and refracted sense. It would in fact be far stronger theologically, and more rather than less positive from the standpoint of orthodoxy, if it were in many respects closer to Church Dogmatics, though this would still leave it open, with Barth’s work, to the final and conclusive scrutiny of the “normative witness.”

WE BUILT A TEMPLE

We built a temple, beautiful and tall;

we made it stronger than a Berlin-wall.

We built an altar brighter than a star,

where we could pray, forgetting hate and war;

where we could find a refuge from the heat

of human anger in the violent street.

We heard the gentle voice of one who told

of Him who talked of peace in days of old.

Calmed were our souls till it would almost seem

that Calvary was rather like a dream.

Here we, caught in a tranquilizing trance,

could meditate in holy arrogance.

We built a church out in the suburbs, far

from where the noisy, frantic people are.

We built a ghetto out of shining stone;

walled in from Man, we serve our God—alone.

LON WOODRUM

Has the preacher become a promoter, planner, pusher, and performer, rather than a prophet and pastor?

In this age of “heat ’n eat,” “brown ’n serve,” and “chili ’n pour” we have turned more and more to religious innovations such as “dial-a-devotion,” “drive-in church,” and a general juke-box religion. The average pastor finds himself caught up and borne along on the tide of it all. (I speak as one who has spent nearly twelve years as pastor of various churches and who is now a pastor in a “specialized setting” as an Air Force chaplain.)

More and more I have found that there are forces that push the pastor. He must “be a success” at all cost, “go-go-go.” He must be “all things to all men”; but, unlike Paul, he is expected to be all of them at the same time. His call is to be Prophet, Priest, Pastor, Promoter, with the emphasis on the first three. However, he often wakes up to find that he is Promoter, Planner, Pusher, and Performer, with hardly any time to be any of the former.

The peril of this is that we may grow stale, go to seed, or become mechanically professional. For, you see, one could promote, plan, push, and perform even if the Holy Spirit did not exist. God could very well be on the sidelines, or not be considered at all, if our ministry consisted only of these things.

It is possible for us ministers and Christian workers to get so busy doing things for Christ, running Christlike errands, that we fail to see that the spiritual life is being Christlike. God has called us not just to do something but to be something. When one finds his spirituality lacking, his first impulse is to do something. Often what he needs is first of all to be something, to be what God wants. Those who do God’s work without being what God wants are the ones the world sees as hypocrites. Ultimately God’s cause is hurt rather than helped.

There are some defenses against this kind of mechanical professionalism. We need a bigger view of God and Christ. Often our God is too small, limited to certain programs, a certain church, a particular denomination. The story is told of a Japanese Christian in this country who had just heard a sermon by a famous preacher. Asked what he thought of the sermon, he replied, “From listening to him you get the idea that God is a white man, an American, and a Baptist. But everyone knows that God is a yellow man, a Japanese, and a Methodist.”

We need a bigger view of the Church. It is the only institution Christ founded. It is not primarily a money-raising institution, or a cultural center, or a museum or library. Rather, it is the only institution charged by Christ himself with the responsibility of teaching and preaching the Word of God. It is the only institution concerned about man’s soul and eternal destiny. The Church is in the business of changing lives, redirecting energies, recovering what is noble in man.

We need a bigger view of our own lives and ministry. First, we need to ask ourselves whether we are being what God would have us be. The basic question concerns, not what we are doing, but our attitudes and our status before the Lord. Perhaps the starting place is a renewal of dedication—not to our own breathless little program but to the Lord Christ himself.

Above all, we are called to live lives of holiness. Sometimes we cringe from that word, but this is still our first requisite for being used by God. We are never criticized for being too holy, only for not being holy enough. People expect us to be what we are inviting them to become. Self-imposed holiness is not the way to Christ, but Christ is the way to true holiness. We may be the “good organizer,” or the “good mixer,” or some other kind of good fellow; but if our lives are not primarily characterized by holiness, we must ask ourselves what place Christ really has in them.

We are called to be saints. A saint is not simply someone who has been elevated to religious prominence; he is first of all a person in whom Christ lives. The early Christians were called saints, holy ones; and we today, if we are the New Testament kind of Christian, are obligated to be saints also. We are called to live the spiritual life, which has been described as adoration of God, adherence to God, and co-operation with God.

The world is crying out today with a need as deep as the inmost part of the human soul. Some clearly feel their need; others feel only a dissatisfaction and an uneasiness they cannot explain. What they need is not more planning, promoting, or pushing, but a real demonstration of old-fashioned piety. The world needs someone who can say with serene confidence, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”

Does the Bible provide some insight into the marriage relationship that will help answer growing questions on birth control?

The English Renaissance exegete and saintly “Oxford reformer” John Colet, a close friend of Erasmus and Thomas More, is supposed to have remarked: “Better that no one should marry.” Whereupon someone asked, “But Dean Colet, then what would happen to the human race?” Taken aback, the Dean of St. Paul’s pondered the question, then suddenly brightened and said, “Why then the end of the age and our Lord’s coming could not tarry!” This tale may well be apocryphal, and certainly Colet eventually acquired a positive view of the marital state (Seebohm informs us that he advised More to marry and entrusted the control of St. Paul’s school to married burghers); but the story typifies some of the confusions that have attended theological thinking on the subject of marriage and childbearing across the centuries. Christians have often manifested strange blind spots in dealing with the theology of marriage, and current discussion of birth control by both Roman Catholics and Protestants is the unwitting manifestation of a theological perplexity that extends far beyond specifics such as the “rhythm method” or “the pill.”

Roman Catholics: Marriage As A Means

The attitude of the Roman church toward birth control is well known, though its rationale is seldom comprehended. Rome has never been happy with the principle of birth control. Limitations on childbearing in marriage are indeed permitted (preferably by sexual continence, but also today by the so-called natural rhythm method); however, such limitations are regarded as exceptions, applicable in cases of ill health, disease, acute poverty, serious temptation to sin, and so on. The use of “unnatural” (i.e., mechanical) birth-control devices stands condemned by papal decree; indeed, in 1930, the famous encyclical Casti Conubii declared that artificial contraception is “an unspeakable crime” and “shameful and intrinsically immoral.” Widespread debate is presently going on in Roman Catholic circles over the legitimacy of the birth-control pill (see The Pill and Birth Regulation: The Catholic Debate, ed. by Leo Pyle; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964), but Pope Paul has as yet given no indication that the pill trill be classed with “natural” birth-control methods. The Pope’s conservative statement of June, 1964, and his reported directive to the Ecumenical Council to re-endorse the affirmations on birth-control made by Popes Pius XI and XII suggest that Rome still looks with grave concern upon any techniques that would limit offspring in marriage (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Dec. 17, 1965, p. 34).

Critics of Rome have often gleefully pointed out the strange inconsistency that holds up the celibate state as an ideal for the clergy and at the same time seems to do all within its power to encourage childbearing on the part of the married. This is not, however, a genuine inconsistency at all, as one can see if he understands the theological base of the Roman view of marriage. Celibacy is most definitely regarded as the ideal state of life, permitting undivided attention to things spiritual (cf. the “marriage” between nun and Christ symbolized by wedding ring and white vesture). Marriage is of value not as an end in itself but as a means to an end. What end? As the Corpus Iuris Canonici makes clear (1013, Par. 1), and as the Holy Office reasserted in 1944 (Denzinger, 2295), the primary purpose of marriage is the generation and raising of children; other aspects of the marriage relationship must be viewed as contributory to the procreative purpose. Even the progressive Vatican II Schema 13, which endeavors to set marriage in a more Christocentric framework, twice states that “matrimony and conjugal love are by their very nature ordained for the procreation and education of children.” Rome is thus quite consistent in making every effort to discourage birth control, and in taking particularly strong measures against all attempts to limit birth by techniques in opposition to the “natural law” doctrine fundamental to all Thomistic theology.

The traditional Roman view of marriage and birth control has been a source of embarrassment to its advocates and a fruitful base for criticism by moderns who resent religious authority. It is pointed out that, pragmatically, fewer and fewer Roman Catholics accept the procreative “marriage as means” interpretation of their church. Thus in a 1956 survey of the marital relationships of English women, Chesser found that of his sample of Roman Catholics 47 per cent were practicing birth control; and in 1959 Freedman and his associates, in investigating the contraceptive practices of American wives, discovered that even among the Roman Catholics who were regular churchgoers, 26 per cent were using birth-control devices considered gravely sinful by the Church.

The application of “natural law” thinking to the birth-control issue seems especially bizarre, since it is difficult to see why man can legitimately control “natural” phenomena such as vegetation and animal population and yet cannot without sin control his own numbers in the face of severe population pressures. As one writer has put it, a fixed law of nature dictates that male Caucasians grow hair on their faces; but it is not sinful to use a razor—whether straight or electric! And why is the use of mechanical contraceptives more “unnatural” than the application of the rhythm method? The latter obviously creates an unnatural pressure on the married couple to restrain their desire during one phase of the menstrual cycle, whereas the use of contraceptives or birth-control pills permits intercourse when natural desire dictates. The rhythm method, according to Dr. John Rock of the Harvard Medical School, himself a Roman Catholic, “is to be considered an unnatural method, for it is during the fertile period that the whole psychosomatic psychology of the healthy, normal female is prepared and intended by her primate nature for coitus” (Medical and Biological Aspects of Contraception, Boston: Lippincott, 1943).

Secularists And Liberal Protestants: Marriage As An End

More important, however, than these specific objections to the Roman Catholic theology of birth control has been the rise of a very different philosophy of marriage in modern times. This is the view, nourished by the courtly love tradition of the medieval period and the romantic movement of the nineteenth century, that sees the union of man and woman not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. The twentieth-century ideological shift from essentialistic to existentialistic patterns of thought has greatly accentuated the new view of man-woman relationships; as the distinguished French medical scholar Chauchard puts it, “To speak of natural law is to produce an easy indifference. Modern man sees himself as free.… He refuses every constraint” (Apprendre à aimer; régulation des naissances et morale sexuelle, Paris: Fayard, 1963, p. 62). When combined with a thinly disguised contemporary humanism, the result is a sex ethic (not limited to marriage) that sees in the love relation per se the fulfillment of human aspirations and the manifestation of God-as-Agape. Thus we arrive at the so-called new morality of the Bishop of Woolwich and the permissive sex ethics of numerous moderns—philosophies that, in radical contrast with Roman Catholicism, absolutize the love relation with hardly a second look at procreation.

The attitude toward birth control arising from such an existentialistic-humanistic context is easily predictable: Birth control is no longer a theological problem; “we are faced with a problem that must be solved at the purely biological level” (David J. McCallion, “Human Population Pressures and Birth Control,” Canadian Journal of Theology, July, 1960). The ethics of birth control becomes situational and ad hoc. As a car sticker my wife saw yesterday expressed it: “Trouble Parking? Try Planned Parenthood.” The overpopulation issue engulfs birth-control thinking, resulting in weird volumes such as retired Army Colonel Alexander J. Stuart’s Overpopulation—Twentieth Century Nemesis: A Condensed, Objective Study of Procreation—from the Amoeba to Modern Man (New York, 1958). Even a respectable work like The Population Explosion and Christian Responsibility (1960) by Richard Fagley, an official spokesman for the World Council of Churches, focuses chief attention on the economic and technological aspects of population growth and sees the ecumenical movement, with its united witness to an overpopulated world, as “the way forward.”

Though liberal Protestants and secularists have readily identified the erroneous reasoning in Roman Catholic birth-control doctrine, they have, strange to say, fallen into a more acute form of the same error. Roman Catholic “natural law” thinking is a variety of what G. E. Moore in his Principia Ethica called the “naturalistic fallacy”: the assumption that the descriptive (what is) automatically gives rise to the normative (what ought to be). But the liberals commit this same blunder with far less “justification” (since they have neither absolute church nor inerrant Scripture to interpret nature for them). The overpopulation problem in itself does not establish the morality of birth control, any more than it would establish the morality of war as a means of reducing the population. And the situational ethic of agape-love, as I emphasized in a previous article in CHRISTIANITY TODAY (“The Law’s Third Use: Sanctification,” April 26, 1963), leaves man with no guideline for the content of ethical action. Love is a motive, not a structure, and one makes a severe logical “category mistake” to think that it can serve both functions. A reliable revelation of God’s divine will is sine qua non for man’s ethical decisions in the realm of marriage and birth control as in all other areas of life. In Holy Scripture, one has the key to interpret God’s hand in nature and human life and the guideline for love’s operations.

Biblical Christianity: Marriage As Analogy

And how does the Bible view the problem area we are confronting? To answer this question we must move beyond proof-texting to the focal center of scriptural teaching on marriage. This center is not to be found in the first two chapters of Genesis, so often cited in isolation, but in Ephesians 5:22–32, which quotes Genesis in the context of the New Covenant in Christ. Understood in the light of New Testament fulfillment, marriage cannot be regarded simply as a means (“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth”) or unqualifiedly as an end (“They shall be one flesh”). Rather, it is seen as an analogy—indeed, as the best human analogy—of the relationship between Christ and his Church. After having connected husband-and-wife with Christ-and-the-Church by no less than three hōs’s (“as”) and two kathōs’s (“just as”) in ten verses, Paul concludes with a summary statement on the marriage relation: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” When and only when marriage is viewed as the “type” of which Christ-and-Church are “antitype” can we avoid the Hegelian-like dialectic extremes of the Roman and liberal Protestant views of marriage and birth control. Specifically:

1. As Christ’s relation with the Church is a total love relation, not just a means to an end, so one must not view marriage simply as a procreative function. Where birth control can contribute to “subduing the earth” in order to achieve a better total human relationship, it is not to be condemned (cf. William E. Hulme, “A Theological Approach to Birth Control,” Pastoral Psychology, April, 1960). By the same token, the psychosomatic wholeness implied in Christ’s incarnation for man’s salvation condemns the Manichean and neo-Platonic depreciation of the flesh that colors so much of Roman Catholic celibacy teaching. No better counteractive exists to all such functional misunderstandings of marriage than the writings of Charles Williams, the late Christian poet and friend of C. S. Lewis (Shideler well titles her treatment of Williams’s thought The Theology of Romantic Love).

2. Yet neither is the human love relationship an end in itself. “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given marriage”—why? Because “when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away”; in the full manifestation of the antitype the type is embraced and disappears. Thus the love relationship between male and female must never be absolutized. It is truly meaningful only insofar as it reflects the Christ relationship. Apart from this it becomes idolatrous, taking on demonic quality despite its lack of genuine ultimacy. The present state of American mores and morals is sufficient evidence of the appalling consequences that attend the isolation of sex from God’s revealed will.

3. In light of the divine analogy of marriage, we can see the centrality of children to marital union. Christ did not give himself up to death as an isolated deed; he did it to “bring many sons unto glory” (Heb. 2:10). As the union of Christ and his Church does not exist for its own sake but to bring others to spiritual rebirth, so the marital union is properly fulfilled in natural birth. And since natural birth precedes spiritual birth, as creation precedes redemption (John 3:3–12), so the Christian home can be the greatest single agency for nurture in the twofold sense; thus did the Reformers view it (cf. Lazareth’s Luther on the Christian Home). The burden of proof rests, then, on the couple who wish to restrict the size of their family; to the extent possible and desirable, all Christian couples should seek to “bring many sons unto glory.” After all, as C. G. Darwin pointed out at the University of Chicago’s Darwin centennial, those who restrict their birth rate will ultimately be engulfed by those who do not: “Homo contracipiens would become extinct and would be replaced by the variety Homo progenetivus.” The Christian application of this principle is obvious.

4. Sexual relations outside marriage are unqualifiedly to be condemned, not for the naturalistic (and logically questionable!) reasons set forth by Bertocci (“Extramarital Sex and the Pill,” The Christian Century, Feb. 26, 1964), but because they violate the high analogy of Christ-and-Church. Thus Israel’s prostitution of God’s grace through idolatry was symbolized by Hosea’s wife, who lived as a woman of the street, and Paul expresses revulsion at the thought of those who are “members of Christ” becoming “one flesh” with harlots, thereby violating the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:13–20). The crux of Paul’s argument against illicit sex is the analogy relation—that Christians “are bought with a price.” So the use of birth-control devices outside of marriage is not to be tolerated. And the hypocrisy of gas-station dispensers “for prevention of disease” is to be made clear in no uncertain terms.

How practically are Christian marriage partners to decide the birth-control question? Within the framework of the analogy relation, they are to consider it personally and prayerfully in light of their own physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual situation, and in light of the population picture in their area of the world. (The answer will not be the same for Christians in India and those in Canada; for those led to lucrative vocations and those led to pioneer missionary work.) They will act responsibly, remembering that irresponsibility is equally possible at the Roman Catholic antibirth-control and the secularistic pro-birth-control extremes. Viewing marriage as neither means nor end, but as the great analogy of Christ’s work of salvation, the Christian will seek to do all he can to make his marriage evangelistic—generatively and regeneratively. He will consider with all seriousness such proposals as that recently made by the Rev. Eldon Durham, who, in the face of the severe and rapidly growing population problem in so many parts of the world, advocates that Christians “begin to constitute families by means of adopting the unwanted, the disinherited, the dispossessed and the rejected children” of the earth (Time, Dec. 3, 1965, p. 77). Though such a suggestion must not be used to justify non-childbearing in American marriages and irresponsibility or immorality on the part of couples living elsewhere in the world, is not the proposal genuinely analogous to the “grafting” of the Gentiles unto the tree of salvation (Rom. 11)? Surely the childless Christian couple is here offered a superlative privilege and opportunity.

But however he is led to fulfill his personal responsibility before the Lord of the Church, the Christian stands free from the shackles of legalism and from the chaos of libertarianism. “If the Son shall make you free,” said Jesus, “you shall be free indeed.” On the basis of this merciful freedom in Christ the Apostle beseeches us as a reasonable act of worship to present our bodies “a living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God.”

Is Christian Science true to the Bible? Or does it exalt Mary Baker Eddy’s writings above the Scriptures?

Christian Scientists claim to be true members of the body of Christ. Their leaders who have met for discussion with Presbyterians (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, September 10, 1965, p. 39) acknowledge that one of their motives is to establish Christian Scientists as Christians. Is this claim well founded? Is Christian Science faithful to the Scriptures? Is Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, its official textbook, “the voice of Truth … uncontaminated by human hypotheses,” as the book itself asserts (pp. 456, 457)? Let us ask ten questions of Christian Scientists, get answers from their own writings, and compare these answers with the teachings of the Bible.

1. Does Christian Science have a source of authority above the Bible? On the surface it would seem that Christian Science accepts the Bible as its final source of authority. In Science and Health we read, “As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life” (p. 497). In practice, however, Christian Scientists accept the Bible only as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy, whose Science and Health is really their ultimate source of authority. This book, as we saw, is said to contain “the revealed Truth uncontaminated by human hypotheses.” Though Christian Science is said to be “unerring and Divine” (Science and Health, 1934 ed., p. 99), the Bible is often said to be in error (ibid., pp. 139, 521, 522, 542). As a matter of fact, Christian Science completely reinterprets the Bible so as to read into it meanings poles removed from its intent. So, for example, Genesis 1:1 is “explained” as follows: “This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected” (ibid., pp. 502, 503). In their Sunday services, Christian Scientists follow readings from the Bible with extensive readings from Science and Health. As Charles M. Braden has pointed out, Christian Scientists accord to Science and Health an authority equal to or greater than that of the Bible, “since the true meaning of the latter is known only through the interpretation given it in Science and Health” (These Also Believe, p. 209).

The use of a source of authority above the Bible is condemned by Scripture itself. In Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man asked that his brothers still on earth might be given an additional revelation besides what was found in the Bible of that day; specifically, that Lazarus might be sent to them from the realm of the dead. To this Abraham replied, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Here Christ clearly disavowed the need for any source of revelation superior to the Bible. Any group that considers a human writing superior in authority to the Bible cannot claim full loyalty to the Word of God.

2. Does Christian Science deny the personality of God? For Christian Science whatever is good is God, and whatever is not God does not really exist; God is the divine Mind, and Mind is all that truly exists. God is “All-in-all” (Science and Health, p. 113); God is “Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind” (ibid., p. 115). Is God personal? “God,” says Mrs. Eddy, “is infinitely more than a person … can contain”; he is “a divine Whole, and All, and all-pervading intelligence and love, a divine, infinite Principle …” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 16). Since for Christian Scientists God is not above the universe but is identified with it as the All, we must conclude that the God of Christian Science is not personal.

The Bible, however, teaches most plainly that God is personal, quite distinct from the universe he has created. This is clear from Genesis 1:1, and from a passage like Psalm 90:2: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” God is said to be displeased (Ps. 2:5), indignant (Ps. 7:11), angry (Num. 11:1), and rejoicing (Zeph. 3:17); he is said to choose his people (Eph. 1:4), and to reject evildoers (Jer. 7:15, Rev. 22:19). Surely such activities can be ascribed only to a person.

3. Does Christian Science deny the Trinity? The doctrine of the Trinity has been a keystone of the Christian faith from the beginning. But according to Christian Science, “The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM” (Science and Health, p. 256). Despite this flat denial, Mrs. Eddy felt compelled to make certain concessions to the trinitarian conception: “Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person called God,—that is, the triply divine Principle, Love” (ibid., p. 331). But this kind of “trinity” obviously bears no resemblance to the Trinity of Scripture. A little later Mrs. Eddy defines her trinity in still different terms, suggesting that Christian Science is equivalent to the Holy Spirit of traditional Christian theology: “God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter” (ibid.).

Can a movement that rejects both the Trinity and the personality of God still claim to be Christian?

4. Does Christian Science deny the reality of matter and thus of creation? Matter, according to Christian Science, is mortal error, an illusion, unreal; therefore God could not have created a material universe. Since God is all and all is God, this all cannot have been created by God. For Christian Science, therefore, the narrative of creation in Genesis 1 is not a record of God’s calling a universe into existence at a certain point of time; it is rather an allegorical description of something that had no beginning and will have no end: the unfolding of the thoughts of God (ibid., pp. 502, 503).

According to Scripture, however, God is by no means to be identified with the universe he called into being: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God …” (Heb. 11:3). To reject the distinction between God and creation is to rob God of his sovereignty and to drag him down to the level of the universe.

5. Does Christian Science deny the reality of sin? Christian Science teaches that sin is a delusion and an illusion. “The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise” (Science and Health, p. 472). In other words, though sin may seem real to man, it is not real to God.

Christian Science denies the historicity of the fall of man. Adam was not a historical person; he is a synonym for error. So the story of the fall is simply an allegory picturing what is unreal and untrue. When one asks Mrs. Eddy, “If God made all that was made, and it was good, where did evil originate?” one gets the amazing answer, “It never originated or existed as an entity. It is but a false belief” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 45).

The Scriptures, however, depict sin as a tragic reality, and the fall of man as the saddest event in history. Only against the somber background of man’s sin can one perceive the glory of the cross of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). If sin is not real, the whole Bible is a lie.

6. Does Christian Science deny the reality of disease? Mrs. Eddy says, “The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal fear, a mistaken belief …” (Science and Health, p. 377). Disease, she says further, is an illusion and a delusion: “Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter cannot be” (ibid., p. 393). Since disease is considered to be wholly a mental phenomenon, the cure of disease is also mental: the removal of mental and spiritual tensions that produced the symptoms mistakenly interpreted as illness.

But the Bible pictures pain and disease as real, and as having been brought into the world by man’s fall into sin (Gen. 3:16, Isa. 33:24, Rom. 8:20–22). As Mrs. Eddy admits, Jesus himself often called diseases by name (Science and Health, p. 398). Luke informs us that Dorcas was truly sick (Acts 9:37), and Paul tells the Philippians that Epaphroditus had been “sick nigh unto death” (Phil. 2:27). Paul, in fact, even prescribed a remedy for Timothy’s stomach trouble (1 Tim. 5:23).

7. Does Christian Science deny the reality of death? Death is defined in Science and Health as “an illusion … the unreal and untrue.… Any material evidence of death is false, for it contradicts the spiritual facts of being” (p. 584).

But what do the Scriptures say? With the utmost lucidity, the Bible teaches that death entered the world as the penalty for man’s sin (Gen. 2:17, Rom. 5:12), that Christ came into the world to abolish death (1 Tim. 1:10), and that in the world to come, because of the redemptive work of Christ, there will be no death (Rev. 21:4).

8. Does Christian Science deny the deity of Jesus Christ? The answer to this question is not simple, for Christian Scientists distinguish between Jesus and Christ. Jesus, they say, was a man who lived in Palestine many years ago, and Christ is the name for a certain divine idea: “Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ” (Science and Health, p. 473). What is the relationship between Jesus and Christ? The invisible Christ (“the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science”) became perceptible in the visible Jesus (ibid., p. 473, 334); Jesus—who was no more than a man—presented and demonstrated Christ, the divine idea. We should therefore have to say that Christian Science denies the deity of Jesus and the personality of Christ.

All this indicates that the person of Jesus is not really important for Christian Science, since Jesus only demonstrated a divine idea. We are not surprised, therefore, to find Mrs. Eddy saying: “If there had never existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet, it would make no difference to me” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 318).

The Scriptures, however, emphatically teach that “Jesus” and “Christ” designate the same person, and the two names often occur together. That Jesus was not just a man but was fully God is clearly stated in John 1, verses 1 and 14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.… And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.…” That the name Christ did not designate a divine idea but a person is evident from the words of Peter’s confession, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). By suggesting that it is not really important whether Jesus existed or not, Christian Science cuts the very heart out of the Gospel.

9. Does Christian Science deny the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ? According to Christian Science, Jesus did not atone for our sin by shedding his blood on the cross. This view is not surprising, since Christian Science denies the reality of sin. If sin is not real, why should it have to be atoned for? Mrs. Eddy says, “That God’s wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son, is divinely unnatural” (Science and Health, p. 23).

What, then, do Christian Scientists say Jesus’ work was? He demonstrated the truth: the divine idea that sin, disease, and death are unreal. More specifically, the work of Jesus was to set us an example of the kind of life we must live. “His consummate example was for the salvation of us all, but only through doing the works which he did and taught others to do” (ibid., p. 51). A typical Christian Science way of describing Jesus is to say that he was the “Way-shower” (ibid., pp. 30, 228). What brings salvation, therefore, is not a living faith in the person of Christ but an acceptance of divine truth: “Christ is Truth, and Truth is always here,—the impersonal Saviour” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 180). Mrs. Eddy calls faith in the person of Christ a species of scholasticism: “Scholasticism clings for salvation to the person, instead of to the divine Principle, of the man Jesus …” (Science and Health, p. 146).

The Scriptures, however, teach most plainly that salvation is impossible without faith in the person of Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). That Christ had to make atonement for sin by dying on the cross is also clearly taught: “Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:25). What Mrs. Eddy rejects as “divinely unnatural” the Bible affirms: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). Christ bore the curse for us, that he might fill us with his blessing. The Jesus of Christian Science, therefore, is a far cry from the Jesus of the Scriptures. Fallen man needs more than a Way-shower; he desperately needs a Saviour.

10. Does Christian Science hold the biblical view of salvation? To determine what Christian Scientists teach about salvation is difficult, since at this point they involve themselves in hopeless contradiction. On the one hand Mrs. Eddy insists that, since sin and evil have no real existence, the way to get rid of sin is simply to stop believing in it: “To get rid of sin through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind or reality.… You conquer error by denying its verity” (Science and Health, p. 339). On the basis of a statement of this sort, sin is just a bad dream, and we must all learn not to believe in bad dreams. Yet other statements in official Christian Science literature give the impression that sin has some reality after all: for instance: “The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning. There is no other way” (ibid., p. 327).

In Christian Science, therefore, salvation from sin occurs in either of two ways: when one ceases to sin, or when one stops believing that there is such a thing as sin. But one can hardly hold both views at the same time, for how can one stop doing what he believes to have no real existence? In either interpretation, however, the death of Christ has nothing to do with salvation.

As we saw earlier, however, the Bible leaves us in no doubt about the reality of sin. It further teaches that man can by no means simply quit sinning: “Everyone that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin” (John 8:35). Man’s salvation is secured through the death of Christ as an expiation for sin; Christ is said to have “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26). Man receives this salvation through faith in Jesus Christ: “… whosoever believeth on him [shall] not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Justification, acceptance as God’s child, and the forgiveness of one’s sins are received through faith apart from the works of the law (Rom. 3:28). And only through living union with a personal Christ (not an impersonal principle) is man enabled to turn away from sin and to live for God: “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). It is certainly clear that Christian Science teaching on salvation bears not the slightest resemblance to the soteriology of historic Christianity.

On all ten points, therefore, the teachings of Christian Science are contrary to Scripture. Can a Christian Scientist, then, call himself a true member of the body of Christ? Only if he repudiates most of the teachings of his church. And why should this person then remain with a group whose teachings he has thrown overboard? If one wishes to be true to Scripture, he must reject Christian Science.

“Show us how to get on with King Science, whom the turn of history has put over us.… Call us back to the faith that stems from the Red Sea.…”

If you can, Daniel, come alive and point the way for us in this our jaded decade. Rise up from Sheol and speak to us with that ring of authenticity and integrity with which you spoke to the classes and the masses of the jaded decades of your day.

In heathen Babylon you accepted impossible assignments when most of your brethren hung their harps and their hopes on willow trees. You had to say what you had to say, even if kings came in on the brunt end of your sight and your insight. It’s the likes of you that we need these days, Daniel. No, it’s you that we need.

There is this matter of our acquiescing to science. We must reckon with it even as you and other Israelites had to reckon with Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylon. Princely, admirable, and winsome it is—even as Nebuchadnezzar was—and it has in it the capacity for doing God’s bidding even as that heathen king had.

If you were here, Daniel, you would show us how to get on with this king whom the turn of history has put over us. You yourself were youthful and unspoiled when unfaith began to rule over you; and yet you did not yourself take up with it. You always went so far with it, but no farther. You studied three years at its seat of learning but maintained the Israelitish faith of your green and growing years. You ate at its table what was worthy, but nothing else. Your “act of existing” was in its milieu, but three times daily—and always—you had contact with environs of a higher order.

In the old world northeast of the Hellenic area, and even here in what we call the new world of the West, Daniel, there are many who still mean to follow your God but who have bowed down to King Science—afraid to offend even the least among his devotees. Our friends say that the new king is right, that there are no interventions in our world from God and the angels nor from Satan and the demons. Strangely enough, they think people will not bow down to God if he is likely to intervene in the natural order. With all of their yen for rapprochement with science, they yield too much.

If you were here, you could help us in this matter of bowing down to this king—who is not so irreligious in himself, but who consorts with the irreligious at far too many points.

Also, Daniel, you could help us on these new moral theories that are wedging their way into God’s own citadels. Way-out moral theorists—some of them bishops, if you please—would have us sowing wild oats while serving the Lord, as long as it supposedly advances the good of other persons. (Perhaps you will not know what bishops are. They occupy places of prominence among ministers of the Most High, being specially charged to defend the faith.)

A few of these bishops and not a few ministers of lower status are telling us that as long as we love other persons, and desire their well-being, we can violate all the old moral regulations. Fornication is not even frowned upon. And you will not believe this: adultery too can be sanctified by this principle of love.

As you might suppose, this view is gaining wide acceptance in our society. It is just what people have been looking for—a rationale for sin, a way of accommodating the Holy God to man’s exceeding sinfulness.

You yourself, Daniel, did a few daring things in your time. We still have the writing that tells of your standing up and standing out for Yahweh in the midst of kings and lions. We understand that you took them all on—all the men who said simply what they knew the kings and the commoners wanted to hear. That was something, how the Lord made you his mouthpiece when only about three other persons shared your heart.

And prepare yourself for this one, Daniel: A few prophets and priests, set aside to do the work of Yahweh, are saying that God is dead. One is not always sure what they mean by this, but just now the rumor is on everyone’s lips. It is filling the pages of religious journals and spilling over into the secular press. Sometimes it seems to be just God as he has usually been conceived who is supposed to be dead: he is not living, nor personal, and he cannot be thought of as near us or far from us. At other times they seem to be saying that he really is dead. You would not know about Darwin and Nietzsche and Freud, but they seem to have sired this line of thought. Another theologian, recently deceased, who said that God does not exist as an objective reality, is credited with nourishing it. In our country a man named Hamilton, and another named Van Buren, and one called Altizer, are causing a bigger hullabaloo than Ahab’s four hundred prophets ever did. Atheists have often hawked their unholy wares. But there is something different about this new species: they seem to say that God did exist but now does not, and that he died in our time. There is even the suggestion of suicide.

To some of us this seems to be a colossal transference. God, they feel, no longer answers them; and since nothing could possibly be wrong with these persons themselves, they conclude that the God who does not answer them must have died. Young and cavalier, they propose a journal and a society to further their views.

There is a mite of arrogance in some members of the God-is-dead clan, while in others there is more of hollowness and lostness. If you were here, Daniel, you could tell how the living God really did deliver you and your three friends. You could tell how he responded to your worship, how he opened up to you the dreams of kings and a whole panorama of what was yet to be. Ezekiel spoke glowingly of your wisdom, indirectly, saying of God, “Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel” (Ezek. 28:3a). And Ezekiel compared you with Noah and Job as one of the three stand-out men of righteousness up to his time (Ezek. 14:14). Even your heathen enemies had to admit that “the spirit of the holy God” was in you. Come alive, then, and jolt us with a word that will dispel this pratter and save the pratterers.

Also prominent just now, Daniel, is the issue of whether ordinary history is important. Some talk about meta-history or primal history, in distinction from what history means in plain language and on our street. They are saying that Messiah’s resurrection took place on some unordinary plane of history. A reporter for the Jerusalem Times, unless he were already a believer, could tell nothing of that stupendous miracle. Such men urge sheer faith, not faith that is supported by historical fact, on the part of God’s people. Others urge faith in the incarnation of God’s Son, but without the “easy” support of the doctrine of a virgin mother. A Swedish bishop calls the virgin birth a “rationalistic explanation” of the incarnation. And we have a highly controversial German theologian in Marburg who discounts the historical character of the whole Christian faith.

Now Daniel, you are perhaps aware that only a little after your time a pagan named Plato appeared in Greece and discounted concrete history, saying that particular things and events are not important and that only concepts or ideas are real. Well, there seems to be a kind of kinship between this fellow Plato and some who depreciate concrete, historical matters today. Late in the last century, Ritschl tried to divorce the faith from factual matters, and he seems to have influenced those who depreciate history. Scientism, of which I was speaking a while ago, is also responsible for a kind of faith-without-fact religion.

About half a millennium after your time, Daniel, there lived two contemporaries, Tiberius Caesar the emperor and Jesus Christ the Messiah. Four main documents tell posterity of Tiberius Caesar, and the documents are quite universally accepted. Four main documents, which we call the Gospels, tell of Jesus Christ, and many scholars discount their veracity. No doubt a major reason for this is that some influential scholars have no mind for the miracles reported in connection with Jesus Christ. The Christian faith, which is what your kind of faith flowered into, is based upon a multitude of miracles, which scientism does not allow; and so these men have divested the faith of miracle, feeling that they have thereby done service to the faith.

The truth is, Daniel, that you yourself came off far better in the den of the lions than you have in that of the critics in recent generations. Your own history has been denied. It was earlier said that there was not even any Babylonian captivity, but on that point the critics have acquiesced to archaeological data. A few scholars deny that Ezekiel had any part in the captivity, and legions of scholars say that you had no part in it. They say that the Daniel (or Danel, as it is in the Hebrew) referred to in our Prophecy of Ezekiel is an earlier, extra-Israelitish saint; and that you lived some four centuries later and perpetrated a fraud in pretending, in your writing, to have lived through the seventy years of Babylonian captivity.

If you were with us, Daniel, you could clear up many things about the import of history. No other among all the ancient writers of Scripture saw details of what was to come as clearly as you did. You saw the connection between history and redemption.

Come alive, then, and call us away from Plato and Ritschl and back to the faith that stems from the Red Sea and the Chebar and Bethlehem and Golgotha and the Empty Tomb.

Come to think of it, Daniel, we have a legacy that you left us in twelve chapters. Besides, if men heard not the Messiah when he was here—so he warned us—neither would they hear Moses, nor Elijah, nor you, were you all to rise from the dead, while their hearts were hardened.

Whether you make it back or not, therefore, Daniel, we shall carry on. We shall engage ourselves with the foolishness of preaching that Gospel of Christ which is God’s power of salvation to all who believe, to the orthodox first and also to the unorthodox.