What is the underlying issue in the current debate on church-state relationship in this country? It is not, though it sometimes is made to sound that way, between those who believe in a state church and those who do not. The first amendment settled that. It is rather over what the first amendment means. The two positions which have developed are the historic interpretation and a new interpretation which is still somewhat fluid. The historic interpretation is that our government recognizes the existence of God and is favorable to the cause of religion generally. The new interpretation asserts that our government is entirely neutral, that it is neither for nor against religion.

The Issues Before Us

Let us look at the scene in the United States to see if we have correctly stated the issue that our people and our courts are trying to solve. Last year, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a general prayer composed by officials of the public school system in New York State, and recited with their approval. When President Kennedy was asked in his press conference for his reaction, he replied, “We can pray a good deal more at home and attend our churches.” This was excellent advice, but it does not deal with our problem. People in Russia can also pray at home and in their churches. Francis B. Sayre, dean of Washington Cathedral, said, “I thought President Kennedy missed the point when he advised us to pray at home, for this nourishes only our private lives as individuals, but what of our corporate life as a nation?”

Now this seems to highlight the question: Does our government as a government have any religious quality? It has had such a quality in the past. The assertion that it now does not is a novel theory, and the burden of proof is on those who assert it. Justice Douglas, in a concurring opinion, writes, “I cannot say that to authorize this prayer is to establish a religion in the strictly historic meaning of these words.” This is a frank admission, and we would do well to think about it. What does the statement in the first amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) mean in its historical context?

A somewhat similar issue arose in connection with the relationship of the Constitution to slavery at the time of the Douglas-Lincoln debates. The issue then concerned the extension of slavery to the territories, and, as Lincoln feared a new interpretation of the Constitution would permit, to the free states themselves. Senator Douglas expressed indifference to the moral questions involved and stated that he personally did not care whether the question was “voted up or down.” In reply Lincoln appealed to the original intent of the Constitution and of the Founding Fathers; he appealed to history to confirm his view and to refute that of Senator Douglas and of the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court. He said, “I always believed that everybody was against it (slavery) and that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to believe so, and such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself, else why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into new territory?”

Now, let us try to do what Lincoln then did, to discover what meaning the first amendment had for those who wrote it and for the government that enforced it. Our first president, George Washington, not only was enormously influential in adopting the Constitution, but, in enforcing its provisions, believed most strongly in the necessity of religion for our national health and future prosperity. In his farewell address, the father of our country wrote: “Religion and morality are the indispensable supports of political prosperity. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid me to expect that national morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious principle. Morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Who that is sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

But let us ask Thomas Jefferson, generally and rightly regarded as the chief architect of the idea of separation of Church and State, how he understood the relation of faith in God and the government. Jefferson was a Deist, and he was opposed to any church, such as the Episcopal, being established as the official church, but judging from his own actions he knew nothing of a secular government. In the Declaration of Independence he plainly speaks of God as the Creator of all men and the Author of our lives, our liberties, and the right to pursue happiness. He closes this document which declared us to be a nation with these words: “with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Does our government recognize God today? It certainly did in the hour of its birth.

Since the adoption of the Constitution and of the first ten amendments shortly thereafter, the Congress has recognized the existence of God in various actions and has been friendly to religion generally as held by our citizens. It has been not indifferent to, nor neutral to, but friendly to religion. This is what we should expect if our government is “of” and “by” and “for” the people, for our people have ever been, what a recent decision of the Supreme Court has recognized, “a religious people.” The Congress has employed chaplains to open the business of both houses regularly with prayer. Chaplains have been employed to serve in the armed forces of our nation. The Bible has been used in our courtrooms to enforce the oath, and the Supreme Court has regularly opened with a prayer. In the public school system, which was accepted by our country when the Protestant churches held the balance of power, it was understood that while narrowly sectarian religion would not be taught, the great moral truths of religion would be. Horace Mann, who at the very least is one of the fathers of public school education, believed that the two great commandments of love to God and love to neighbor would be part of public school education. Tax exemption to the churches was granted by a friendly government which confidently expected that good churchgoers would be good citizens. In short there was a religious consensus on the part of the great mass of our citizens which caused our government to recognize the presence of God in our national affairs.

This is the point at which those in favor of the new secular attitude on the part of our government speak up. We now live, they say, in a pluralistic society; no religious agreement any longer exists, and therefore the government must assume the attitude of strict neutrality. But is this really true? We are no longer as strongly Protestant as in the past, but the growing strength of Roman Catholicism is not hostile to the expression of faith in God on the part of our government. The proportion of Jews is larger than in colonial days, but it was a Jew who wrote, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” The forces of secularism are larger or at least more aggressive than in the past, but they existed then also. If when we were born as a nation we could express a reliance on “the Protection of Divine Providence,” can we not do so today? Statistically today we have more people formally united to religious organizations than we did then. In various sample religious polls taken to establish the religious beliefs of our nation, the results are startlingly similar. Over 95 per cent of our population regularly profess to have some sort of faith in God, and less than 5 per cent assert that they do not. In a republic such as ours, since we cannot at the same time please both of these groups, whom should we please—the great majority or the minority? In 1865 our government caused the motto “In God We Trust” to be stamped on our coinage. So the right of men to disbelieve is granted, but the right of the majority of our citizens to express their faith in God has also been granted.

There are various minorities in our nation. A minority of our citizens believe in socialism. They have a right to do so and to try to persuade others to their point of view, but they do not have the right to inhibit the great majority of our citizens from expressing faith in capitalism through appropriate actions of our government. So the convictions of a minority of our citizens should not be allowed to coerce our government into a false and harmful neutrality to the One whom Jefferson called “Creator,” nor towards that religious life that Washington thought indispensable for our political institutions.

But an even more important consideration should be borne in mind by our people. We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Russia. We head up the free world, and Russia heads up the world of Communism. Each side has enormous armies, navies, and air forces, hundreds of millions of people, and atomic power. Each side thinks it should win. Russia has said that it will bury us. Which side should win? Is it not evident that the scales will be tipped by some outside power? The power that will decide is God, for he has promised the victory to those who serve him. In the past our government has publicly acknowledged God, at our birth and in every great struggle. But if the secular view of the first amendment wins, this will no longer be so. The issue then will be between Russia, which is hostile to God but permits worship, and the United States, which officially is indifferent to God but allows liberty. How much difference is there between hostility and indifference?

All of our presidents have invoked divine aid, and President Kennedy has in this year asked for “God’s help.” May our nation, as a nation, ever do so in the great arena of our national and international life.

END

The lecture hall at the university rang with new ideas as the thirty-three-year-old monk continued introductory remarks to his new commentary: “… all good works are but an outward indication of the faith from which they proceed; … Where faith is of the right type, all … qualities [such as] peace, happiness, love toward God and everybody … follow naturally on account of the immeasurable blessing which God has bestowed upon us in Christ.… Therefore we own that faith justifies without any work whatsoever” (quoted in Adolf G. H. Kreiss, D. Martin Luther’s Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, p. 29).

There was no uncertainty in his voice. Had he not struggled through the years just for this hour? Known for singular piety, devotion, and monastic zeal, his life nevertheless had been filled with unhappiness. He had had no peace in his heart.

But as he studied the Scriptures the light dawned upon his troubled soul. Now there was no longer any doubt in his mind about the meaning of the third chapter of Romans, that letter of Paul which has been called the “Acropolis of the Christian faith.” In his studies Doctor Martin had noted especially verse 25: “Mark this, this is the chief point and the very central place of the epistle and of the whole Bible.”

From that lecture hall at the University of Wittenberg the learned monk went out into the world with a newfound faith. He did not know then that he had left the Middle Ages behind him and stood on the threshold of a new era, that he had shaken the world intellectually, politically, and religiously.

But God’s hand had been placed upon his shoulder, and the fire which had smoldered for centuries suddenly burst into flame. “His doctrine of justification by faith was the decided step toward the emancipation of the individual from the absolute authority of the hierarchy” (Henry C. Sheldon, History of Christian Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 5). Today at least one-third of the Christian world stands with Martin Luther on the doctrine he proclaimed, sola scriptura, the Scriptures as the only authority for sinful man in seeking salvation.

History has shown that it is difficult to keep a fire going. People get into the habit of things. The fire dies down, and formalism creeps in. Where is the flame, the inspiration, the life?

Not far away. God’s hand is stretched out. It touches another seeker after truth and holiness. He has wrangled with Hebrew and Greek syntax for many a year. He has met every week with other likeminded men. At least once every week he has “gone to Communion.” He has even served as a missionary to the American Indians. But to no avail. No peace, no happiness. Then one day, in the spring …

And again we see the hand of God moving among men. It makes little difference where in the world. He moves men in one country, and men become aware of his calling in other countries or upon other continents. Here, at a time when John Wesley is seeking after light and holiness, the heads of the Moravian Church in Germany are making arrangements to send a pious and gifted evangelist (who later became a bishop) to America, directing him to pass through London. Little do they realize what great consequences will come out of this journey!

The man chosen for this service was Peter Böhler, who after his arrival in London met John and Charles Wesley; to them he gave of his rich evangelical experience. Böhler believed in a complete self-surrendering faith, an immediate conversion, and a joy in believing. These things John Wesley did not have. He worked at them, but seemingly to no avail. Then one day he went to the extremes. During the day he attended a service in St. Paul’s Cathedral; in the evening he “went unwillingly” to a prayer meeting in a simple house on Aldersgate Street. And it was there he heard Luther speak. “Faith is a living and bold trust in God’s grace, so sure of itself that it would defy death a thousand times. Such trust and reliance upon God’s grace makes a man cheerful, courageous, and friendly toward God and all …” (quoted in Kreiss, op. cit., p. 19). Wesley’s spirit leaped for joy. He recognized that at long last he had found what he had sought. From that prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street, Wesley came out a changed man. From then until his death fifty-three years later, he could preach from his own experience a dynamic Christian faith. Aldersgate was to him a most wonderful experience which led to a most active life. In half a century Wesley with his followers broke up the cold formalism of English church life, made Christianity the transforming power for hundreds of thousands of working people, and set in motion philanthropic and reform impulses that led to John Howard’s crusade against prison horrors, William Wilberforce’s against slavery, and Robert Raikes’s Sunday schools.

In speaking of Wesley’s attendance at the prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street, we said that “it was there he heard Luther speak.” But was it really Luther who spoke? Was it not another, to whom also the words of life had come after a period of suffering in heart and soul—one who wrote, through the Holy Spirit, what John Knox called “unquestionably the most important theological book ever written”? From it we quote:

For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been made manifested apart from law … the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Rom. 3:20–25, RSV).

We believe God had put his hand upon Saul even when he “laid waste the church, and entering house after house … dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Acts 7:54–8:3, RSV). And God’s hand was upon him from the moment he became Paul, when God showed him “how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16, RSV).

We have mentioned these three: Paul, Luther, and Wesley. There is an interesting chain reaction in the impact of the words of Paul in Luther’s life, and then of the words of Luther upon the life of John Wesley, who in return gave impetus to religious movements which have lasted for two centuries.

Did God then have nothing to say to other people through the intervening centuries? Of course he did! It was Paul’s Letter to the Romans which gave abiding importance to the life of Augustine, whose influence on the Church has been tremendous.

Centuries roll by. A man is on a journey when a vision of his departed saintly mother comes to him. It is the climax of that mysterious inner change in a person’s life which is called conversion. Before the altar of a nearby church this man gives himself, in a flood of tears, irrevocably to God. God honored his servant, and Bernard of Clairvaux became the greatest religious force of the twelfth century. His “love to Christ … in spite of extreme monastic self-mortification, found so evangelical expression as to win the hearty approval of Luther and Calvin.… Men admired in Bernard a moral force, a consistency of character … which added weight to all that he said and did …” (Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, p. 246).

Then there was Francis of Assisi, of whom it is said that when he heard the Lord’s words recorded in Matthew 10 read in the church, he understood them as a personal call for him to give up all for his Master. So he did. He “entered into marriage with poverty” and gave the Gospel to the common people, the poor, the downtrodden, the forsaken. In so doing, in accord with the Word, he became the greatest of medieval saints.

“And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of …” Yet we must not forget Peter Waldo and the “poor men of Lyons” who began the Waldensian movement and suffered much persecution for following Christ; finally they were nearly all destroyed except for a few in the northwest corner of Italy, where the group today is the oldest member of the Protestant family and more vigorous than ever.

Or how can we fully estimate the life of John Wycliffe, the “Morning Star of the Reformation”? In the Bible he found the one criterion for Christian faith and action, and therefore began to translate the Word into English so that it would be available to every man. His ideas were popularized by his Poor Preachers, and later by the Lollards, who spread his teachings especially to Bohemia and nearby countries in Central Europe. There they took root through the preaching and writing of John Huss, that great martyr who so influenced Luther that the latter admitted at the Leipzig debate that his positions were those of Huss and that the Council of Konstanz had erred in condemning the Bohemian reformer. Out of the Hussite movement grew (from the time of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks) the Unitas Fratrum, which absorbed most of what was vital in the Hussite movement and became the spiritual ancestor of the Moravians, who in turn greatly influenced John Wesley at his time of dire spiritual need. Thus we see how God through “spiritual chain reactions” leads in the movements of the centuries.

The “link” between Pietism in seventeenth-century Germany and the great Wesleyan revival movement in eighteenth-century England was formed by the work of two men who came out of the Pietistic movement: August Hermann Francke and Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf. The former experienced what he regarded as a divine new birth while writing a sermon on John 20:31. He later laid the foundation of his famous institutes, which were located in Halle and known as Franckesche Stiftungen. Under Francke this place became also a center for missionary zeal. From here Schwartz, Plütschau, and Ziegenbalg went to India. During the eighteenth century no fewer than sixty missionaries went forth from Halle to far-off peoples.

Zinzendorf was more interested in “heart-religion” in the Pietistic sense than in the barren Lutheran orthodoxy of his time. His was an intimate fellowship with Christ, who completely dominated his theology.

Zinzendorf opened his estate to the refugees from Bohemia and nearby Moravia, where the persecution which had begun with the Thirty Years’ War had lasted for a hundred years. He later became the leader of this group of sorely tried Christians.

During their journeys to and from the American continent, Moravian preachers came into contact with John Wesley and greatly influenced him, as has been related above. The Moravians carried on great missionary activity in many places—in Surinam, Guiana, Egypt, and South Africa, as well as among the American Indians in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Their missionary passion could only inspire others, who were given the holy flame and became zealous evangelicals both in England and on the Continent.

The fire spread to the New World, mainly through the efforts of George Whitefield, an associate of John Wesley. Whitefield emerged from a crisis in his religious experience in joyous consciousness of peace with God and began to preach the Gospel of God’s forgiving grace, peace through the acceptance of Christ by faith, and a consequent life of joyous service. “Dramatic, pathetic, appealing, with a voice of marvellous expressiveness, the audiences of two continents were as wax melted before him” (Walker, op. cit., p. 511).

While Whitefield went about preaching on this side of the Atlantic, he was witness of and a coworker in the Great Awakening, which was really the counterpart of Pietism in Germany and Methodism in Great Britain. It broke out in the church served by Jonathan Edwards and spread like wildfire, especially in New England. The movement did not last very long, however, mainly because of the political situation in the colonies.

While Methodism already had been introduced in the American colonies, it was Francis Asbury who carried the torch. This he did on horseback as he rode 270,000 miles over roadless swamps, pathless forests, untraveled wilderness. Having ordained more than 4,000 preachers, he could well be called “the maker of Methodism in America.” He did all this because from the time of his conversion at the age of thirteen he never forgot that it was “through faith in Christ” that he had accepted his Lord and Master.

Concerning all these men, the words of Scripture surely hold true: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord … that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them” (Rev. 14:13, RSV). Their deeds went with them into the nineteenth century. In this land the holy flame touched the life of a lawyer, who immediately experienced a wonderful conversion. From that time on Charles G. Finney gave up his practice and went out preaching the Word, always holding forth the importance of his listeners’ coming to immediate decision. It is estimated that those converted through his ministry exceeded half a million (Elgin S. Moyer, Who Was Who in Church History, p. 144).

The hand of God also touched the life of a Boston shoe clerk, and Dwight L. Moody left a good living to give himself in unstinted service to his God for a new life in the Spirit. Though not an ordained minister, he became a very effective preacher and evangelist who, together with the singer Ira D. Sankey, conducted many evangelistic campaigns both here and in Great Britain. It is said that Moody personally dealt with nearly 750,000 individuals in his eagerness to win them to Christ. He became a noted educator and left the Northfield schools in Massachusetts and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago as a witness of enduring value. It would not be too much to say that through these institutions he, though gone from the scene of his labors, has influenced thousands of people.

A contemporary with Moody was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who felt God’s call in a little chapel among the Primitive Methodists in England (although he soon joined the Baptists). Immediately he became famous as a “boy preacher,” and that fame followed him throughout his life. His ministry as an evangelist was different from others in that he stayed in one place, and people came to his great tabernacle. His writings had an enormous circulation.

In England a branch of the Wesleyan church touched the life of William Booth, who felt that he had to go outside of the church, out “into the highways and byways,” to seek the lost whom the Saviour loved. This compulsion to go anywhere in order to seek out men and women and give them the Gospel came to Booth and his wife after they both had been led into a deeper Christian experience through the influence of John Wesley’s teachings on sanctification. Booth’s Salvation Army came into being in London’s East End. He lived to see its work in fifty-five countries where the Army continued to be active in street preaching, personal evangelism, and practical philanthropy.

The working of God seems to have its heights and its valleys. We leave the centuries behind us. Men and women of God have come and gone. One can truly say with the Lord of the harvest: “One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (John 4:37, 38, RSV).

Where are we in this latter part of the twentieth century? There is much to make Christians pessimists, but there are also signs of encouragement. Such efforts as, for instance, those carried on by Billy Graham and his associates in evangelism, and the response given on every continent, could point to a world revival far superseding anything we have seen before.

So the influence spreads when man responds to God. It’s like a fire, spark to spark, from century to century, leaping across continents. There is persecution and suffering in response to the call, but there is also the endless march of splendor of Spirit-filled coworkers with God.

END

In 1528—only a decade after the posting of the Ninety-five Theses—Erasmus asserted that “the Lutherans seek two things only—wealth and wives (censum et uxorem)” and that to them the Gospel meant “the right to live as they please” (letter of March 20, 1528, to W. Pirkheimer, a fellow humanist). From that day to this Protestants have been suspected of antinomianism, and their Gospel of “salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the Law” has again and again been understood as a spiritual insurance policy which removes the fear of hell and allows a man to “live as he pleases.”

Sanctification Twice Desanctified

The claim that Protestantism is essentially antinomian seemed to have an especially strong basis in fact in the nineteenth century. Industrialization and urbanization brought about social evils which were overlooked and rationalized by many professing Protestants. Inevitably a reaction occurred, and in the social-gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries one encounters a textbook illustration of what Hegel called the antithesis. In its fear that Protestantism had become ethically indifferent, the social-gospel movement of Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch identified the Christian message with social ethics. From an apparent justification without sanctification, the pendulum swung to a “sanctification” which swallowed up justification. In their eagerness to bring in the kingdom of God through social action and the amelioration of the ills of the industrial proletariat, the social gospelers generally lost track of the central insight of the Reformation: that the love of Christ must constrain the Christian, and that we can experience and manifest this love only if we have personally come into a saving relationship with the Christ who “first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and gave himself on the cross for us (1 Pet. 2:24).

World War I burst the optimistic bubble of the social gospel; no longer did there seem to be much assurance that human beings had the capacity to establish a sanctified society on earth. But the reductionist biblical criticism with which the social-gospel movement had allied itself did not die as easily. So loud had been the voices of modernism against a perspicuous, fully reliable Scripture that in the most influential Protestant circles it was believed that a return to a propositional biblical ethic could never take place. The result was (and is, for the movement is by no means dead) an existential ethic.

The Protestant existentialists do not of course go to the length of the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre, who says in Existentialism and Human Emotions, “There are no omens in the world.” But when Sartre follows this assertion with the qualification that even if there were omens (as the Christian believes), “I myself choose the meaning they have,” he comes very close to the approach of the contemporary Protestant existentialist. The latter, unable to rely (he thinks) on a biblical revelation which is objectively and eternally definitive in matters ethical, must himself “choose the meaning” of Scripture for his unique existential situation. In practice he agrees with Simone de Beauvoir when she says that man “has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals” (The Ethics of Ambiguity). Right or wrong is never determined absolutely in advance; the Bible is not a source of ethical absolutes—it is rather the record of how believers of former times made ethical decisions in the crises of their experience. What distinguishes the Christian ethic from the non-Christian, in this view? Only the motivation of love. The Christian has experienced God’s love, and so is in a position to bring that love to bear upon the unique existential decisions he faces. This existential approach, at root highly individualistic, has in recent years been given a “group discussion” orientation by such writers as A. T. Rasmussen, who, in his Christian Social Ethics (1956), asserts that existential decision should take place in “the higher community of God,” where “Christian discussion” serves as “the channel through which the Holy Spirit moves in the dialectic or give-and-take of genuine spiritual intercourse to provide ethical guidance.”

The contemporary existential ethic in Protestantism is a second instance of desanctifying sanctification, for it inevitably devolves into ethical relativism. Sartre, when asked advice by a young man who, during World War II, was torn between a desire to join the Free French Forces and a feeling that he should stay in France to take care of his mother, could only say, “You’re free, choose, that is, invent.” Likewise, the Protestant existentialist can never appeal to absolute law; he can only say, “You’re free, choose to love.” But what does this mean in concrete terms? Theoretically it can mean “anything goes”—an antinomianism indeed—for each existential decision is unique and without precedent. Thus the housemother in Tea and Sympathy who committed adultery out of self-giving (agape?) love in order to prove to a student that he was not incapable of heterosexual relationships, cannot be condemned for her decision. As for Rasmussen’s ethic of social existentialism, one can see that it merely compounds the problem on the group level. George Forell has well characterized this approach as “inspiration by bladder control,” for the person who stays longest in the group discussion is frequently the one whose “responsible participation” determines the “contextual and concrete” ethic of the moment. The absence of an eternal ethical standard either in individualistic or in social existentialism totally incapacitates it for promoting Christian holiness.

Answer Of Classical Protestantism

In the Protestantism of the Reformation, antinomianism is excluded on the basis of a clear-cut doctrine of the Law and a carefully worked-out relation between the Law and the Gospel. The Reformers assert, first of all, that no man is saved on the basis of Law. As the Apology of the Augsburg Confession puts it: Lex semper accusat (“The Law always indicts”). Whenever a man puts himself before the standard of the Law—whether God’s eternally revealed Law in the Bible or the standard of Law written on his own heart—he finds that he is condemned. Only the atoning sacrifice of Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the demands of the Law, can save; thus, in the words of the Apostle, “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9).

But God’s Law, as set forth in Scripture, remains valid. Indeed, the Law has three functions (usus): the political (as a restraint for the wicked), the theological (as “a paidagogos to bring us to Christ”—Gal. 3:24), and the didactic (as a guide for the regenerate, or, in Bonhoeffer’s words, “as God’s merciful help in the performance of the works which are commanded”). Few Protestants today dispute the first and second uses of the Law; but what about the third or didactic use? Do Christians, filled with the love of Christ and empowered by His Holy Spirit, need the Law to teach them? Are not the Christian existentialists right that love is enough? Indeed, is it not correct that Luther himself taught only the first two uses of the Law and not the tertius usus legis?

Whether or not the formulation of a didactic use of the Law first appeared in Melanchthon (Helmut Thielicke [Theologische Ethik] and others have eloquently argued for its existence in Luther’s own teaching; cf. Edmund Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions), there is no doubt that it became an established doctrine both in Reformation Lutheranism and in Reformation Calvinism. One finds it clearly set out in the Lutheran Formula of Concord (Art. VI) and in Calvin’s Institutes (II, vii, 12 ff.). It is true that for Luther the pedagogic use of the Law was primary, while for Calvin this third or didactic use was the principal one; yet both the Lutheran and the Reformed traditions maintain the threefold conceptualization.

An Essential Doctrine

The Third Use is an essential Christian doctrine for two reasons. First, because love—even the love of Christ—though it serves as the most powerful impetus to ethical action, does not inform the Christian as to the proper content of that action. Nowhere has this been put as well as by the beloved writer of such hymns as “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” and “I Lay My Sins on Jesus”; in his book, God’s Way of Holiness, Horatius Bonar wrote:

But will they tell us what is to regulate service, if not law? Love, they say. This is a pure fallacy. Love is not a rule, but a motive. Love does not tell me what to do; it tells me how to do it. Love constrains me to do the will of the beloved one; but to know what the will is, I must go elsewhere. The law of our God is the will of the beloved one, and were that expression of his will withdrawn, love would be utterly in the dark; it would not know what to do. It might say, I love my Master, and I love his service, and I want to do his bidding, but I must know the rules of his house, that I may know how to serve him. Love without law to guide its impulses would be the parent of will-worship and confusion, as surely as terror and self-righteousness, unless upon the supposition of an inward miraculous illumination, as an equivalent for law. Love goes to the law to learn the divine will, and love delights in the law, as the exponent of that will; and he who says that a believing man has nothing more to do with law, save to shun it as an old enemy, might as well say that he has nothing to do with the will of God. For the divine law and the divine will are substantially one, the former the outward manifestation of the latter. And it is “the will of our Father which is in heaven” that we are to do (Matt. 7:21); so proving by loving obedience what is that “good and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Yes, it is “he that doeth the will of God that abideth forever” (1 John 2:17); it is to “the will of God” that we are to live (1 Peter 4:2); “made perfect in every good work to do his will” (Heb. 13:21); and “fruitfulness in every good work,” springs from being “filled with the knowledge of his will” (Col. 1:9, 10).

Secondly, the doctrine of the Third Use is an essential preservative for the entire doctrine of sanctification. The Third Use claims that as a result of justification, it is a nomological fact that “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). A man in Christ has received a new spirit—the Spirit of the living God—and therefore his relation to the Law is changed. True, in this life he will always remain a sinner (1 John 1:8), and therefore the Law will always accuse him, but now he sees the biblical Law in another light—as the manifestation of God’s loving will. Now he can say with the psalmist: “I delight in Thy Law” and “O how I love Thy Law!” (Ps. 119; cf. Ps. 1 and Ps. 19). Only by taking the Third Use of the Law—the “law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2)—seriously do we take regeneration seriously; and only when we come to love God’s revealed Law has sanctification become a reality in our lives. Ludwig Ihmels made a sound confession of faith when he wrote in Die Religionswissen-schaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen: “I am convinced as was Luther that the Gospel can only be understood where the Law has done its work in men. And I am equally convinced that just the humble Christian, however much he desires to live in enlarging measure in the spirit, would never wish to do without the holy discipline of the tertius usus legis.” The answer to antionomianism, social-gospel legalism, and existential relativism lies not only in the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, as C. F. W. Walther so effectively stressed, but also in the proper harmony of Law and Gospel, as set forth in the classic doctrine of the Third Use of the Law.

END

WE QUOTE:

RELIGION IN AMERICA—We see great increases in religious attendance, increases in the treasuries of religious organizations—but do we find the power, the manifestation of God’s will in the lives of our people?… Nothing in our Judeo-Christian faiths tells us that we are to isolate God into a little compartment.… Jesus Christ himself went out where the people lived and walked, where the people worked and played.… The apostles stood in the market places of that day and performed their tasks and enunciated their gospel.… They may be the real need of America … not the perfunctory following of a faith, but the performance of that faith within the daily walk, seven days a week, not one.… We have been caught up in American life, in my opinion, by words, words, words. We sometimes talk a problem to death. You know the old saying, “Anytime three Americans get together they elect officers”—we are so organization minded! But the words of our faith must take meaning and become rooted in action.—Governor MARK HATFIELD of Oregon to the Fourteenth Anniversary Dinner of “Religion in American Life.”

It has been shrewdly said that true greatness grows. It not only endures, but actually increases. The stature of those whose greatness springs from goodness (as the highest always does) is enhanced as the years go by, and succeeding generations recognize more and more of significance in their character and influence. This is a principle clearly distinguishable in the case of those whom God has chosen to be lights of the world in their several generations. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). It is so for him, as that Scripture suggests, but where greatness is allied to righteousness it seems as if that illumination is conveyed to after-ages.

Certainly this has happened with John Wesley. He has always been known as an outstanding figure in the history of the Christian church. But his stock improves as the march of time takes us further from his century, and it can be said that never was he more appreciated than today. We are beginning to realize the measure of his greatness. The judgment of Augustine Birrell that he was “the greatest force of the eighteenth century” is widely accepted. A recent editorial in The Times Literary Supplement has reaffirmed this conviction. “No historian can miss the immense raising of the nation’s spiritual temper by Wesley in his own movement and through its effects in the Church of England. When we review the nineteenth century we find the evils which we criticize in our own, sometimes in worse shapes, but we see a high seriousness and far less confusion of mind. The recovery of the national mind and character started with Wesley.”

This acclaim is not confined to Great Britain, of course. Wesley’s fame is universal. In the language of Gladstone, his “life and acts have taken their place in the religious history not only of England, but of Christendom.” It is from this broad standpoint that Professor Martin Schmidt has penned the latest biography. He sees in Wesley a man who lived and acted as an ecumenical Christian. He regards him as belonging to the whole of Christendom, since the last of the major ecclesiastical organizations to have come into being in the development of Christianity originated with him.

Amidst this deepening volume of applause, we must not overlook the fact that Wesley became the man he is now hailed as being through the intervention of God. No doubt many of his qualities already lay hidden within his personality, but it was only at the touch of the Spirit that they sprang to life and received their necessary integration. All that Wesley was and did can be traced back to a transforming experience on a never-to-be-forgotten day. If the Damascus road explains Paul the Apostle, if the Milanese garden accounts for Augustine of Hippo, if the Black Tower at Wittenberg gave birth to Martin Luther as the pioneer reformer, then Aldersgate Street, London, produced John Wesley as the world knows him today.

On May 24, 1738, as a young Anglican clergyman in much distress of soul, Wesley went very unwillingly, like Shakespeare to school, to a predominantly Moravian society meeting. There someone (probably William Holland) was reading from Luther’s preface to Romans. “About a quarter before nine,” recorded Wesley in his famous journal, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Dr. Henry Bett succeeded in tracing the precise passage from Luther’s introduction to Romans which must have so warmed Wesley’s heart. Here is how it runs: “Wherefore let us conclude that faith alone justifies, and that faith alone fulfills the law. For faith through the merit of Christ obtains the Holy Spirit, which Spirit makes us new hearts, exhilarates, excites and influences our heart, so that it may do those things willingly of love, which the law commands.”

It was the signal contribution of Wesley to the age in which he lived that he set experience in the foreground of Christianity. It is virtually a new term in the theology as it appears in his writings. He restored the element to the primacy it occupies in the Scriptures. “Wesley brought the whole Christian world back to religion as experience,” declares Professor George Croft Cell; “in religion, experience and reality come to the same thing.”

Some Significant Emphases

It must not hastily be supposed, however, that Wesley’s emphasis upon experience amounted to mere subjectivism or that he can rightly be regarded as the precursor of Schleiermacher and his school in this respect. Wesley was too scriptural to fall into such imbalance. His experiential theology was safeguarded at every point from subjectivistic deviation by counteracting features which derived from his own dramatic conversion in Aldersgate Street.

1. Experience was interpreted in terms of a divine-human confrontation. For Wesley, experience stood at the receiving end, so to speak, of God’s sovereign grace. He insisted, as much as Calvin ever did, that the divine will and the divine deed are alone determinative of man’s salvation. God takes the initiative. “It is plain that God begins His work at the heart. God begins His work in man by enabling us to believe in Him. Out of darkness He commands the light to shine.”

It is at the heart that God begins and continues his work, and not in a vacuum. He deals with sinners, and all Wesley means by experience is the reaction produced in the personality when God quickens it through his Spirit. It is his way of describing the new birth leading to the new life. Wesley preached regeneration as unremittingly as Whitefield. “It is the great change which God works in the soul when He brings it into life; when He raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God when it is ‘created anew in Christ Jesus.’ ”

2. Experience was never divorced from the authoritative Word of God. Wesley was homo unius libri. The Bible was his criterion. A thorough study of his doctrine of Scripture has yet to be made, though in differing contexts both Professor G. A. Turner and Dr. H. D. MacDonald have made excursions into this field. Concerning the Scriptures, Wesley wrote: “Every part thereof is worthy of God; and all together are one entire body, wherein is no defect, no excess.” And again: “According to the light we have, we cannot but believe the Scripture is of God; and … [thus] we dare not turn aside from it, to the right hand or to the left.”

It is significant that the Word of God, through the exposition of Romans, was instrumental in Wesley’s conversion. He could conceive of no Christian experience apart from the Bible. As Colin Williams has correctly observed, “in Wesley experience is not the test of truth, but truth the test of experience,” and that truth is equated with the revelation of Scripture.

3. Experience was regarded not as static but as a growth in grace. Determinative and seminal as was the Aldersgate Street conversion in Wesley’s spiritual biography, he refused to fix experience at this single point. Rather he saw it as the bursting of the rock from which the life-giving stream was to flow throughout the remainder of his career. With justification there came assurance, though Wesley recognized that this simultaneity is not apparent in every case. The witness of the Spirit is not always immediately realized. But this phenomenon is a factor of Christian experience, nevertheless, at some point, and normally not far removed, if at all, from conversion.

But for Wesley assurance itself was only a step on the highway of holiness. “Let none ever presume to rest in any supposed testimony of the Spirit, which is separate from the fruit of it.” The major objective was holiness of heart and life, and Wesley made it the main plank in his platform. “This doctrine is the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appeared to have raised us up.” Although Wesley left room for a crisis in spiritual experience beyond regeneration in which a more complete consecration allowed a more conscious appropriation of the Spirit, he was careful to insist on the relativity of such expressions. Sanctification is basically a process extending from the moment of new birth to the redemption of the body. “Sanctification begins when we begin to believe,” he said, “and in proportion as our faith increases, our holiness increases also.” But the expansion of faith is itself a work of the Spirit; hence Charles Wesley’s prayer, which is always relevant: “Stretch my faith’s capacity.”

“All that the Wesleys said of permanent value to the human race came out of their evangelical experience,” affirmed Dr. J. E. Rattenbury. “All their distinctive doctrine was discovered in that realm of the Spirit—which had been supernaturally revealed to them in May 1738.” But this vital theology of experience was not disconnected from its essential rootage in the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, and the energizing of the Spirit which has as its goal the reproduction of Christ’s image in the heart. As such it is relevant to our situation today as we seek to steer an evangelical course between the Scylla of synergistic subjectivism and the Charybdis of formalized orthodoxy.

END

Every student of Methodist, and indeed of modern church history, is familiar with the famous passage in which John Wesley describes the striking experience which he underwent on May 24, 1738: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to the society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; … assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death” (Journal, I, 475, 476).

How important was this experience in John Wesley’s spiritual life? Attempts have been made, especially during the present century, to play down its significance. For example, the Belgian Franciscan priest, Father Maximin Piette, in his book John Wesley in the Evolution of Protestantism, says this (p. 306):

This famous conversion, which has been called upon to play so prominent a part in the doctrinal life of the Methodism of the nineteenth century, enjoyed but a very modest role in the founder’s life and in that of his companions. In fact, whether it be considered in its preparation, or be studied in itself and its results, it would seem to have been merely a quite ordinary experience whose effects time was quickly to dull. Had it not been entered in the first extract of the Journal, it is quite possible that Wesley would have entirely forgotten all about it. In any case, subsequent appraisals, made after the lapse of many years, reduce to pitiable proportions the song of praise and victory which first accompanied it.

But concerning this opinion there are two things to be said. First, Wesley himself never had any doubt as to the crucial significance of the Aldersgate experience. For instance, writing to his brother Samuel in October, 1738, he said this:

With regard to my own character, and my doctrine likewise, I shall answer you very plainly. By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word I was not a Christian till May 24 last past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but surely then from that time to this it hath not, such is the free grace of God in Christ. What sins they were which till then reigned over me, and from which by the grace of God I am now free, I am ready to declare on the housetop, if it may be for the glory of God. If you ask by what means I was made free (though not perfect, neither infallibly sure of my perseverance) I answer “by faith in Christ by such a sort or degree of faith as I had not till that day” (Letters, I, 262, 263).

Seven years later, when, so to speak, the emotional dust had settled and Wesley could view the matter dispassionately, he said this to a correspondent who has been identified as Thomas Secker, Bishop of Oxford, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury:

It is true that from May 24, 1738, wherever I was desired to preach, salvation by faith was my only theme.… And it is equally true that it was for preaching the love of God and man that several of the clergy forbade me their pulpits before that time, before May 24, before I either preached or knew salvation by faith (Letters, II, 65).

Second, most evangelically-minded students of Wesley’s life have accorded to this Aldersgate experience a place of equally high importance in Wesley’s spiritual development. For example, the Englishman Henry Bett says:

Whatever you call the experience of 1738, it was that which made Wesley the man he was and enabled him to do the work he did. It really does not matter whether you call it his conversion or not. On any and every possible interpretation of it, it was a spiritual event that gave Wesley quite a new sort of religious experience, with an assurance and a power and a peace and a joy he had never known before, and it was this change which made him into the Apostle of England. Apart from it he might have been an eighteenth century clergyman of the best type, with a perfectly sincere religion of a rather formal, ecclesiastical and intolerant kind; but he would never have been the man who led the Evangelical Revival (The Spirit of Methodism, p. 35).

And the American W. R. Cannon agrees:

If conversion be defined in the sense in which Wesley understood and defined it—God’s own act in which a man is turned away from his former self, made to pass from darkness into light, delivered from the power of Satan unto God, made over in mind and spirit—then the experience at Aldersgate Street … must stand without dispute as the date of Wesley’s conversion (The Theology of John Wesley, pp. 67, 68).

But exactly what was the nature of this Aldersgate experience? Dr. Umphrey Lee contends that “attempts to interpret that experience as an evangelical conversion which transformed Wesley from a sinner to a saint, or from a naturalistic humanist to a Christian, are in contradiction to Wesley’s own judgment and misreadings of the facts” (John Wesley and Modern Religion, pp. 101, 102). Certainly there can be no doubt that Wesley had been devoutly religious, at least since 1725. He not only had become an ordained clergyman of the Church of England but also had lived a life which was in many ways exemplary in devotional practice. For example, at Oxford University he was a member of the so-called Holy Club, whose practices included regular attendance at public worship and weekly partaking of the Lord’s Supper, regular meetings for prayer and Bible study, visitation of the sick and prisoners, and the organization of classes for poor children. And in 1735 he had volunteered to go out to Georgia as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. What difference, then, did Aldersgate make to Wesley’s spiritual life? Dr. Maldwyn Edwards gives this answer:

Despite the exceptional quality of his Christian living he did not (before this event) know peace of mind or release of spirit. Consequently he had neither a sense of acceptance with God, nor a sense of power. Upon his conversion, however, he had deliverance and assurance and strength. He expressed it in his own words as he ruminated on his conversion experience. “Herein I found where the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea fighting, with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered: now I am always conqueror” (Journal, I, 477) (The Astonishing Youth, pp. 81, 82).

What Edwards says is undoubtedly true. But perhaps a more intelligible explanation is this: whereas before Aldersgate Wesley had known God only at secondhand, now he knew him at firsthand, in personal encounter and living experience. What had hitherto been a matter of intellectual belief now became a living reality, renewing Wesley in his inmost being and giving him both an assurance and a power which hitherto he had lacked. This helps to explain Wesley’s own description of this experience, namely, that he had passed from the state of a slave and a servant to that of a son. Bishop Francis J. McConnell rightly says that “this is the heart of it all, and this is the heart of the Gospel” (John Wesley, p. 63). This kindling and renewing experience Wesley simply could not keep to himself: he had to tell it abroad far and wide so that as many others as possible might be persuaded to enjoy it for themselves. Hence the great missionary crusades which Wesley conducted for the rest of his life, which changed the face of England religiously and founded the great Methodist Church. So the secular historian W. E. H. Lecky is not exaggerating when he says that “the scene which took place at that humble meeting in Aldersgate Street forms an epoch in English history” (England in the 18th Century, II, 558).

END

Sydney Smith, canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, did not like Methodists. A few months before he died in 1845 he said: “I feel so weak both in body and mind that I verily believe, if the knife were put into my hand, I should not have strength or energy enough to slide it into a Dissenter.” Precisely 100 years later, I was present when another Church of England clergyman (the only chaplain in the area) refused Communion to two young RAF men on active service in North Africa—because both were “Dissenters.” The Church of England still discourages its members from taking Communion in a Methodist chapel, allows Methodists to communicate in parish churches only in exceptional circumstances, and insists on reordaining Methodist ministers who enter its ranks.

All that will be changed and a 224-year-old division healed if the two churches implement the proposals made in a report published jointly by the Church Information Office and the Epworth Press (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, News, March 15). Acceptance of the proposals in principle will commit both churches ultimately to full organic union. Until 1965 the question stands open: “if any man can shew just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.” The four distinguished Methodists who entered the minority report have already spoken, pointed up the tensions, and supplied a basis for discussion. I mention only three of the points they have raised.

1. Scripture and Tradition. It is ecumenically fashionable at present to talk about a revival of biblical theology in the church of Rome, and about an increasing realization by Protestants that the Bible can be understood only in the context of the Church’s life, i.e., within Tradition. Because these two streams have come together, we have the basis for true ecumenical dialogue. This is plausible if you say it quickly without defining terms, and a similar criticism is made of the current report which, says the Methodist minority, does not sufficiently acknowledge Scripture’s preeminent place over Tradition. We children of the Reformation tend too facilely to reject Tradition and all its works.

The souls of now two thousand years

Have laid up here their thoughts and fears

And all the earnings of their pain—

Ah, yet consider it again!

But the Anglicans and Methodist majority do not stop at showing the value of Tradition—they are at great pains to defend it, and one must ask why this is necessary. As Principal Rainy put it: “The Church of Christ has no liberty to become the slave even of its own history.” This report is a perilous guide in that it tries to subordinate both Scripture and Tradition to “the living Word of God.”

2. Episcopacy. Anglicans are asking Methodists to assent to a version of the “historic episcopate” which has no New Testament warrant and is acceptable only to the Anglican three per cent of Christendom. Some seventy years ago Bishop J. C. Ryle of Liverpool said: “We never will admit that the acts and doings and deliverances of any Bishops, however numerous … are to be received as infallible.”

3. Ordination. In the Service of Reconciliation proposed by the report, there is episcopal laying on of hands, and a form of words employed remarkably similar to that used in the ordination of Anglican clergy. The Methodist minority sees reordination in this rite, a view confirmed by the Church Times: “We shall be surprised if the rite here proposed is not found to contain all the essentials of Catholic order.” Thereafter the declaration of the absolution and remission of sins is to be regarded as “part of the priestly and ministerial office.” The report denies that this is a rejection of a Methodist’s previous ministry, and points out that Methodists later in the service lay hands on Anglicans. Lady Playfair, in the London Daily Telegraph, wrote succinctly: “Anglicans, by laying on of hands, believe themselves to be conferring an indelible sacramental mark by their part of the ceremony, while (presumably) the laying on of hands by the Methodists can do no harm if it can do no good. Only a very devious-minded Christian will be able to find edification in such a scene.”

Apart from the astonishing omission from the report of any systematic discussion of the nature of the Church, the other major problem highlighted is the “established” nature of the Church of England. Bishops are appointed by the State (twenty-four of them are members of the House of Lords), which has also the oversight of matters of doctrine and worship. Many Anglicans down the centuries have warmly approved this arrangement, and the Victorian Dean Stanley asserted explicitly that “the religious expression of the community should be controlled and guided by the State.” The less traditional Sydney Smith was, indeed, regarded as living up to his reputation when he said: “If experience has taught us anything, it is the absurdity of controlling men’s notions of eternity by acts of Parliament.” Contemporary evangelicals, who might have been expected to agree with this, are apprehensive lest the powerful High Church party use the Methodists as a bargaining point to obtain freedom from parliamentary control in order to raise the ceiling of the Church.

Church merger reports are peculiarly vulnerable things. In one sense they are not constructed to withstand close scrutiny, calling as they do for compromise. Whenever striking and imaginative variations are played around a familiar theme, the strident cry of heresy is heard in the land, and dark allusions are made about building new boats to founder on old rocks. But this present report is the work of twenty-eight men over six years, and it would be mean and dishonest to condemn it unread, as many did with the Anglican-Presbyterian report in 1958. On the other hand, an exciting document like this might prove to be heady wine and a subtle temptation to rash, unthinking activity. Like moving on when the cloud is still.

A BRUTAL SPORT—The Davey Moore fight is one more illustration that boxing is a brutal sport even under ideal conditions—if it can be called a sport.—GOVERNOR EDMUND “PAT” BROWN of California.

PROTECTING THE TARGET—Moore’s death is a terrible thing, but in this case the public interest can best be served by scientific inquiry, not by the hasty pronouncement of the governor. For a sport so bound up with physical violence, there has been almost criminal lack of controlled, scientific exploration in the area of protecting the target of a fighter’s fists, the human head. Prefight encephalographic examination—which California administers—and a quick look by even the most competent referee during the heat of a championship fight obviously are only part of the answer. If boxing is to survive, its supervisors need to know a lot more about it. More—and fast.—Sports Illustrated, April 1, 1963.

SUPERVISION OR ABOLITION?—Boxing is a terribly dangerous trade, as well as a savagely degrading one. Since 1945, Ring Magazine reports 216 boxers have died of ring injuries. Of this number, 14 lost their lives last year.… No human agency has ever succeeded in divorcing boxing from gangster domination, and on the evidence it must be assumed that no one ever will.… The committee [of the New York legislature] has already admitted that even the power and majesty of New York State is not equal to the task of policing the fight racket. Pending now in the legislature is their plea that the Federal Government take over the supervision of boxing. Washington bureaucracy is not the answer to the malodorous fight racket, any more than it was to prohibition. Boxing is squalid animal atavism, and the only sane answer to it lies in its abolition.—RICHARD STARNES, United Features columnist.

LIKE A PREMATURE MINE BLAST—I won the ring’s most coveted title by stopping a man much larger and stronger than I was—one who outweighed me 65 pounds. I blasted him into helplessness by exploding my fast-moving body-weight against him.… Exploding body-weight is the most important weapon in fist-fighting or in boxing. Never forget that!… I was exploding that weight terrifically against the giant. Even before the first round was finished, Willard looked like the victim of a premature mine blast.—JACK DEMPSEY, Championship Fighting, Prentice-Hall, 1950, p. 3.

A SIMPLE CONCUSSION—When one prizefighter hits another in the head, his objective is to render the opponent temporarily unconscious by a simple concussion, which usually leaves no permanent damage. But a hard blow can also bruise the brain, breaking some of its blood vessels and destroying nerve cells. This kind of damage can kill.… A long succession of moderate contusions (bruises), which cause slow, leaky hemorrhages, may permanently damage small parts of the brain, causing the “punch-drunk” state in veteran pugilists.—Time, April 13, 1962.

HOPE AND ASSURANCE—The hope of “big money” is not sufficient reason for such a serious risk; even the assurance of large profits does not give a person the right to risk his soundness of mind and body to probable detriment.—GEORGE C. BERNARD, The Morality of Prizefighting, Catholic University of America Press, 1952, p. 126.

IS FIGHT-WATCHING SINFUL?—Thomas Aquinas knew nothing of professional boxing; but with an unerring knowledge of human nature he pointed out that to take pleasure in the unnecessary sufferings of another man is brutish. Anyone who has watched professional fights will know what Aquinas was talking about. The crowd has come for blood and the knockout. The knockout is the touchdown pass, the home run of boxing. The nearer it is, the more frenzied the howling of the crowd. As Nat Fleischer said simply of the first Patterson-Johansson fight: “The crowd, sensing the kill, went wild.”—RICHARD A. MCCORMICK, S.J., “Is Professional Boxing Immoral?,” Sports Illustrated, November 5, 1962.

WHEN THE CROWD COMES ALIVE—It is nonsense to talk about prize fighting as a test of boxing skills. No crowd was ever brought to its feet screaming and cheering at the sight of two men beautifully dodging and weaving out of each other’s jabs. The time the crowd comes alive is when a man is hit hard over the heart or the head, when his mouthpiece flies out, when blood squirts out of his nose or eyes, when he wobbles under the attack and his pursuer continues to smash at him with pole-axe impact.—NORMAN COUSINS, Saturday Review, November 5, 1962.

THE RANGE OF OPINION—DAVEY MOORE (the day before the fatal fight): “I’m a fighter because I like the sport. It pays well … it hasn’t done me any harm”; New York GOVERNOR NELSON ROCKEFELLER: “A manly sport”; MRS. DAVEY MOORE: “an act of God … that could have happened to anyone”; California Governor EDMUND BROWN: “I will strongly support legislation asking the people of California to outlaw professional boxing in the 1964 election”; POPE JOHN XXIII: “Fistfights … are contrary to natural principles. It is barbaric to put brother against brother. Christ engaged in neither sports nor politics.”

THE THIRST FOR BLOODLETTING—What annoys us about the sporadic, high-minded campaigns to outlaw commercialized boxing is the tendency to hand the blame for its low estate on racketeers, crooked managers, sadistic fighters, callous referees, etc. They are all, in a sense, only the hirelings, the performers of the game. The responsible proprietors are the public. Without their money, their eager collusion in this legalized mayhem, there would be no professional boxing.… It would be a far more encouraging manifestation of developing decency if pro boxing simply died of malnutrition—if it perished because people grew tired of the bloodletting, or ashamed of whatever in their nature draws them to the spectacle for the vicarious thrill.—Chicago Daily News.

WOULD BANNING END IT?—Banning boxing would not end it, any more than prohibition ended drinking. They would fight in barns and cowpastures, on boats in the river and outside the three-mile limit.—Detroit Free Press.

Every true pastor longs to engage in personal counseling. Except in method and in terminology, counseling is far from new. Parts of the Bible report many cases. In midsummer, if only to prevent a slump in attendance, have a brief course of counseling sermons. Why not base them on favorite psalms? As the hymnal of the Hebrew Church this book has about 50 Psalms of Praise—65 of Prayer—five of Teaching—and 30 of Testimony. Some of these from a single person; others, from a throng.

Leading up to a brief series, a sermon, “The Way to Enjoy a Psalm” (1:1). See it as a gift of God to the imagination. Since popular exposition calls for willingness to omit, deal only with the tree and the chaff. First the positive, and then the negative, by contrast. Put in the forefront what the hearer should remember; then, to heighten the effect, the opposite. I. The Tree: The beauty of being right with God—with others—with self. Here stress the singular. Then by contrast, the plural. II. The Chaff: Men with no roots—no fruits—no beauty. During such a sermon a girl nine years young drew a picture of a tree. Some day she will show it to her grandchildren and tell them about God. What if she had not come to church that day, and there learned to enjoy a psalm?

The bulletin should list a number of Testimony Psalms for home reading next week, with the topic (not the text) of the coming sermon. Subject of the brief series: “God’s Remedy for a Broken Heart.” First Sunday in July: “The Bible Remedy for Fear” (27:1). Amid occasions for fear, faith brings Guidance—Deliverance—Victory. Energy once wasted in friction now starts an automobile, keeps it running, lights it after dark, heats it in winter, and may cool it in summer. The God who gives a man such wisdom enables his servant by faith to conquer every fear.

“The Bible Prescription for Anxiety” (37:5–7). Occasions abound; so does God’s grace. By Faith Rely on the Lord—Help the Other Fellow—Enjoy Your Religion—Leave Results with God. That sounds simple! Yes, and it works, if a man trusts God. “The Bible Cure for Despondency” (42:5). For a Case turn to Elijah (1 Kings 19): A man of middle age—Strong—Useful—After a time of strain—So blue that life seems not worth living. The Cause: Trying to get along without God—Thinking about a worn-out body—Nerves all on edge—Apparent failure—Loneliness—Fear. God’s Cure: Rest for the body—Change of scene—Vision of God—Call back to work—Message of hope. Commit to memory this text. Use it when you begin to feel blue. See God!

“The Bible Deliverance from Guilt” (51:1). After this series, people will ask for another. Thank them, and take eleven months to prepare. Subject, much the same, with stress next time on soul security, through trust in God. “The Bible Secret of National Security” (46:1). The psalm seems to have come from 701 B.C., when the siege by Sennacherib was lifted with no loss of life. So trust God to keep our land today.

“The Bible Secret of Personal Security” (91:1). From the two main parts single out a few facts to stress: I. The Meaning (1–8): II. The Secret (9–16). Present only as much as the hearer can take home and remember for life. “The Bible Antidote for Loneliness” (122:1). Here deal with the home church as God’s way of diverting undue attention away from oneself. I. Show Loyalty to the Home Church by Your Presence: Desire—Delight—Devotion. II. Praises: Its Welcome—Worship—Work. III. Prayers: For its Peace—Prosperity—Pastor. By faith live this way; you will find friends both divine and human.

“The Bible Song for Vacation Time” (121:1). “The Traveler’s Psalm,” dear to the heart of David Livingstone. Also, “The Railroader’s Psalm” (v. 8). It all sings about God’s Providence in the life of a believer. Key word: “keep,” or “preserve.” In each main part keep God first: The God of the Waiting Hills—The Sleepless Watch—The Friendly Shade—The Winding Road. It guides at last to the unseen City of God. Thank Him for a faith that leads you to look up and sing about God’s Providence.

Next year the July series may deal with a few other Testimony Psalms, or with ones about Prayer, or else Praise. In a later year, chosen Parables from St. Matthew or St. Luke. No sermons will bring more delight to both pastor and people. They will give thanks for a minister with a heart as well as a head, and with a God-given love of beauty.

Better still, sinners will be saved, one by one, and learn to rejoice in the Gospel that sings. The saints will find more of heaven while still here on earth. When the people of God learn to love the best of the Psalms, they learn to love the God who used the Psalms in preparing for the Advent of Christ.—In the author’s book, Expository Preaching for Today (Abingdon Press, 1953), see in the Index, “Psalms.”

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1; read vv. 1–11).

Who has not been moved by the “battle song of the Reformation”? In “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” Luther caught up the meaning and message of this psalm. The three parts all sing about our God.

I. Confidence in God (1–3). Why fear anyone or anything if we have God? The Refuge in whom we hide from the storm; the Strength to guarantee stability; the Help present every moment to lift, hearten, and save. Everything else man has claimed as a foundation is on the point of trembling.

Who but God can ward out fear? The believer is not dismayed by things that pursue, for God is his refuge; by things that weaken, for God is his strength; by things that frighten, for God casts out fear. Today Christ affords the basis for a personal trust that gives victory.

II. Relief During a Siege (4–7). A new picture with startling suddenness. Instead of dread and disaster, a dynamic vision of quiet and security. God not only is a source of safety; he supplies refreshing streams that bring new life and hope. God himself is the river of gladness. Quietly and gently streams of his grace flow into needy hearts and bring new life. We can come to this unfailing stream confidently, and find richer blessings than the Psalmist was able to picture, all made possible, by the death of our Saviour.

III. Deliverance Before Dawn (8–11). When day breaks the enemy has gone. Charred chariots, broken spears, ruined arrows! Few of us have looked on such unbelievable destruction. How senseless to struggle against God! He alone has the right to be exalted on earth. Today it is God’s desire that rebellious rulers turn to him and save their people from the horrors that await his foes. God’s ideal is a world peopled with men and women submissive to Christ as King.

The psalm is strangely applicable to our day. The night darkens. Fear grips our hearts. Who will save us? The answer comes that God is here. He knows. He cares. He is waiting to work out his plan in our lives. What a difference his presence ought to make! Through his life-giving river God sustains us, and through us waits to bless others. “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!”—From Preaching from the Psalms, Harper Brothers, 1948.

SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

KYLE M. YATES: God Our Mighty Fortress and

The Gospel from the Psalms

FRANK B. STANGER: The Golden Text of the Deeper Life

COSTEN J. HARRELL: God’s Hand Upon the Helm

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Rom. 12:1; read vv. 1–13).

“Boys and girls, if you remember nothing else, remember the Gold Text.” This you often heard in Bible school. Our Golden Text (vv. 1, 2) has to do with the deeper life, the Spirit-filled life. In their setting these verses tell three facts about the deeper life. It has—

I. An Exclusive Relevance to Christians, to “brethren,” who have been born again. They have experienced the mercy of God in forgiveness of sins. Now they also have the mercies of God through intelligent ministering to God. How many sinners are intelligently ministering to God?

II. A Demanding Relationship to your total being. “I beseech you”—here Paul appeals to the will. “By the mercies of God”—here to the emotions. “That ye present your bodies”—put them at the disposal of God, to be used according to his discretion. Here Paul refers to every part of the human person. In response to such total dedication of the self the Holy Spirit enters and becomes our Christian possession.

III. A Personal Rendition in Daily Living. In the Greek “a living sacrifice” is that which gives continuing evidence of being alive. Being filled with the Spirit is an inner experience; it is also a growing, developing life, with evidences of the Spirit’s continuing presence: 1. A dedication that is continuing. It is not enough to make it here and now; dedication has to be made again and again.

2. A transformation that is inward (v. 2). “Be not conformed”—not fashioning one’s self by another’s pattern. That would be worldliness: outward change with no corresponding inward transformation, a metamorphosis. 3. A revelation that is practical. To find the will of God for your life, and to do it. That is “good”—it pleases God; “acceptable”—pleasing to other believers; and “perfect”—achieving one’s appointed destiny. What an eternal significance! 4. An evaluation that is realistic. “Not to exceed the bounds of Scripture” in what we think about ourselves. Apart from the grace of God you and I cannot evaluate ourselves aright. 5. A cooperation that is binding. Clergy and laity alike are members one of another. When we realize that we belong to the body of Christ we cooperate at the deepest spiritual level.

Now I feel led to ask you a question. We have been thinking together about our needs today. Can it be that you personally need what we have called the deeper life? If so, here and now present your members a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service.—President of Asbury Theological Seminary, Methodist, Wilmore, Kentucky.

O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so (Ps. 107:1, 2a; read vv. 1–32).

Redemption is the theme. God’s main business has always been redemption. To redeem us men cost him more than anyone can ever know. He did so because he was good, and for this reason we should praise him now. The four pictures that pass before us in the psalm show some of the distresses from which God sets us free.

I. The Lost (4–9). In their distress these lost ones become desperate enough to pray. They need a guide. Unless someone leads them to God, they will never taste the joys of salvation. At once God answers. The very second the SOS sounds from the desert the great arm of the Good Shepherd reaches out to save. With him to lead, their fear fades, hope springs up, the way appears, the city soon is reached. Today the Psalmist whispers that the Father is waiting to hear and to save.

II. The Bound (10–16). Behold a group of persons languishing in prison, with daily suffering and distress. They represent a vast multitude who have fallen into the snares of Satan, and must suffer until rescued by the Redeemer. Some are in bondage because of rebellion against God. That was true of Israel as a nation, and godless living still brings bondage far worse than Babylon could devise. In response to prayer God sets men free from bondage to sin. So we should turn to him now with thanksgiving for salvation.

III. The Afflicted (17–22). Here see persons who by sinful deeds have brought on themselves terrible sickness. They represent an untold host who suffer from sin as earth’s direst disease. Before they die, some use their little remaining strength in crying out to the only Physician who can succor sinsick souls. The Lord heals them. Today Jesus heals all manner of soul-sickness. Our gratitude impels us to thank him, and offer him sacrifices of praise.

IV. The Storm-Tossed (23–32). Behold a group of sailors caught in a storm at sea. They know that they stand face to face with death. Hence they pray to God. Above the shriek of the storm God hears them, and sets them free from their distress. Thus the poet says that God is good to anyone who in distress looks to the Lord for deliverance from peril and death. Thank God for this Gospel from the Psalms!—From Preaching from the Psalms, Harper Brothers, 1948.

The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice (Ps. 97:1a; read vv. 1–12).

The anchor of the soul is a good man’s faith in God, in His unfailing love and righteousness. In a New England church hard by the sea, the fishermen who worship there look up to an anchor. Thus they turn their hearts to God with hope, as “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.”

I. God Is in Control. The doctrine of divine sovereignty is of immediate and practical concern to every man. One God over all is the ground of the Christian’s hope. His hand is upon the helm. To speak of him as the One who “holds the whole world in his hands” is to acknowledge his magnificence, majesty, and wisdom. The God of discernment and decision, the “living God,” ever present and active in his world. Therefore we ask: What kind of God is he on whom the faithful depend?

II. God Is a Person. So he revealed himself in the long history of his chosen people. In the fullness of time he sent his Son. The central theme of Jesus’ teaching was God. Apart from the fact of a personal God, revelation would be a fairy tale. The Christian faith will admit of nothing less than this: God is a Person, the Everlasting Thou!

III. God Has a Plan. Where there is control, there must be a plan. His plan is no less evident in the world of men than in the wonders of nature. His plan is as extensive as his love. “Through the ages one increasing purpose runs.” At long last through his Son God has made known his purpose. Through the labyrinth of the centuries he purposes to “bring together in one all things in Christ.” In Christ the magnificence of God’s design is made known to us, and in this light we find direction for the decisions of every hour.

IV. God Will Not Be Defeated. We put our confidence in God the Father Almighty. The Christian faith affirms that the universe operates under a “unified command.” We rest in the assurance that things never get beyond the divine control. A sinful race rebels against the Lord, but cannot defeat him. Amid all the ills that sin has wrought, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

“The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.” Because with mind and heart and intuition a Christian believes that God cannot be defeated, the child of God is an incurable optimist. The times are out of joint, but the man of faith does not lose heart. “Alleluia: the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”—From Christian Affirmations, Abingdon Press, 1962.

Rabbi, Why Torture The Pronoun?

The Torah, The Five Books of Moses, A new translation of The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic text (The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963, 416 pp., $5), is reviewed by Jakob Jocz, Professor of Systematic Theology, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada.

With several new translations in recent years and with the New English Bible in the process of completion, it may come as a surprise that the Jewish Publication Society of America should venture upon yet another English translation. There are, however, good reasons for this special Jewish enterprise.

Any Christian translation of the Old Testament, no matter how scholarly, is suspected of Christological overtones. It is also a matter of scholarly pride as stated in the Preface of the 1917 version: “The Jew cannot afford to have his Bible translation prepared for him by others. He cannot have it as a gift, even as he cannot borrow his soul from others.” Furthermore, Jews believe that they have a flair for the Old Testament which is peculiarly their own.

If we may judge from this volume (two more are in preparation: The Prophets and The Hagiographa), the translation is in several respects revolutionary. Whereas the 1917 version was largely modeled upon the idiom of the King James Bible, the present translation is a complete departure from traditional language. Not only is it a new translation but a new rendering in modern terms. In some ways it is also a departure from established theological tradition. A case in point is the Shema which now reads: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Deut. 6:4). The text is the locus classicus for the Jewish concept of the Unity of God.

The unevenness of style in the 1917 version was due to the fact that about 23 scholars had a hand in it. The present translation is mainly the rendering by one man, Dr. Harry Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College. His work was scrutinized by an editorial board consisting of two other scholars and three rabbis, with Dr. Solomon Grayzel acting as secretary. The presence of the three rabbis, each representing a section “of organized Jewish religious life,” is to ensure acceptance by the whole Jewish community.

We thus have before us a lucid text in modern English almost free of archaisms. Theological implications have been slurred over. At any rate, this was the intention. The result, however, is not devoid of polemical bias. The effort to avoid Christological allusions is evident. Thus Genesis 3:15 reads: “They shall strike at your head and you shall strike at their heel.” Yet the Hebrew text uses the singular pronoun. The same applies to Numbers 24:17, which reads: “What I see for them is not yet, what I behold will not be soon.…” This is a departure from established tradition. Even the 1917 version reads: “I see him but not now; I behold him, but not nigh.”

In cases where the text is controversial there are appended footnotes leaving it to the reader to make his choice. The name of God as disclosed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 is left untranslated: Eheyeh—Asher—Eheyeh. Consequently we are left with the following: “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, Eheyeh sent me.” The story of the Fall loses much of its deeper meaning by the description of the “tree of knowledge of good and bad.” In this context, “bad” is hardly the opposite of “good.” Here, as elsewhere, the lack of theology is only too apparent. It is a question whether the Bible can be adequately translated without a theological position.

This is an attractively produced book on excellent paper in large, easy-to-read type. The Jewish Publication Society of America deserves to be congratulated on an outstanding achievement.

JACOB JOCZ

Never Dull

Psalms of David, by David A. Redding (Revell, 1963, 174 pp., $3), is reviewed by James D. Robertson, Professor of Preaching, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

The minister of First Presbyterian Church, Glendale, Ohio, uses the searchlight of twenty-three psalms to probe the thoughts and intents of the heart of Everyman, and the result is a vast uneasiness. But this honest inventory of human deviations and foibles is preparatory to the release of that spiritual dynamo that is at the heart of the psalms. If the diagnosis is disturbing, the cure provided is ample. These sermons richly interpret the grace of God as expressed in the psalms, showing its relevance to all sorts and conditions of men. The psalms are presented as prayers—“the prayers of every man, every where, every time; earthbound but heaven-bent, blind, stumbling, feeling his lonely way in the darkness up to God” (xv).

The messages are rich in variety of allusion and aptness of illustration. The style is eminently contemporaneous—curt, direct, often colloquial, and never dull. Many sentences are almost epigrammatic: “Heaven comes in the same breath as death.” “Happiness is a thread hanging in a forest of flashing knives.” Some readers, however, will question the pulpit propriety of frequent expressions like these: “Pharaoh was making God furious, but God kept His sense of humor.” “Castro will say phooey to God once too often.” “Only God can wash behind the years.” Nothing stuffy about this language! It does succeed in calling attention to itself! For its wealth of provocative insight, however, this little book of sermons should be studied by the man who contemplates preaching on the psalms.

JAMES D. ROBERTSON

Too Spiritual

The Meaning and Mystery of the Resurrection, by Thomas S. Kepler (Association, 1963, 188 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Fred L. Fisher, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, California.

If one wants a book that summarizes all the factors which must be considered in a study of the Resurrection, this is such a book. If one wants a book which solves all the problems of the Resurrection stories, he will not find it here. Kepler views the resurrection of Jesus as a real, but bodily, resurrection which has left an indelible impression on religious culture; herein lies its meaning. He finds it impossible to express exactly what happened in the Resurrection; herein lies its mystery.

Many of the New Testament traditions of the Resurrection Kepler views as mythical stories to explain the Christian belief that the same Jesus who walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee has now become the living Lord of the churches. However, Kepler sees in such a view no reason to give up the comfort and assurance that are attached to the reality of the Resurrection. Many Christians will find it difficult to maintain their faith in the meaning and reality of the Resurrection if they must give up the historical reliability of the stories of the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus. Certainly, it would be impossible to fit a theory of the solely spiritual resurrection of Jesus into the theology of Paul, who insisted that both the resurrection of Jesus and that of Christians are bodily resurrections.

A major plus of the book is a good summary of resurrection beliefs in the ancient world and a careful distinction between the Greek theory of the immortality of the soul and the Christian doctrine of resurrection. This book will make you think, but be prepared to cross swords with a skillful antagonist.

FRED L. FISHER

Even Better Than Intended

New Insights Into Scripture: Studying the Revised Standard Version, by J. Carter Swaim (Westminster, 1962, 206 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by C. Ralston Smith, Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITIONS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLE

* The Reality of the Resurrection, by Merrill C. Tenney (Harper 8: Row, $4). The resurrection of Christ is vigorously defended as a hard, unshakable historical reality, and full treatment is given its many facets.

* New Testament Introduction: Hebrews to Revelation, by Donald Guthrie (Inter-Varsity, $4.95). A flowering of conservative scholarship of such excellence that others may measure their efforts by its standard.

* Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, Revised Edition by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (Scribner’s, $15). Thoroughly revised by scholarship ranging the theological spectrum as widely as did its original authors fty years ago. Excellent new maps.

The achievement of this book is better than its intention. It can be lifted above its immediate objective (to aid in the study of the RSV) to serve as an encouragement in the reading of the Scriptures in any of the many versions. Conveniently divided into 12 chapters, it might be used as a springboard text for a study group meeting over a year’s time. One might argue with some of the defenses of those areas of translation in the RSV which have caused concern. However, this would be to lose sight of the greater value of the book in encouraging an enthusiastic, humble, confident approach to the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. The style is quite simple and chatty, and one moves with ease through the pages. Many interesting illustrations from life in a pastorate season the teachings. It is helpful to have a Bible at hand for ready reference and understanding of some of the reasoning presented.

C. RALSTON SMITH

To Find A Method

Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910–1931, by T. F. Torrance (Alec R. Allenson [Naperville, Ill.], 1962, 231 pp., $5; SCM Press, 25s.), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Torrance’s purpose is not to present a compendium of Barth’s early thought but to trace the course of Barth’s debate with modern theology. This is done in the hope that the superficial interpretations and tendentious criticisms so often leveled at Barth will be waylaid.

Torrance knows Barth’s thought inside out; this is prerequisite to his task of showing how Barth attempted to forge a theological method which would be wholly determined by the nature of its object: God’s revelation of himself in the time and history of Jesus Christ. Barth was convinced that the regnant theological method of the time was determined by man’s own religious ideas and consciousness, by the scientific and philosophical concepts then in vogue; he was equally convinced that this methodology produced a theology of culture and not a theology of the Word of God. Barth, therefore, sought to forge a method which would express a theology untainted by any idealogy. The quest was an agonizing struggle, one that traveled no straight road. Barth had to backtrack and rewrite his Römerbrief and undo his Die Christliche Dogmatik in terms of his Kircheliche Dogmatik. He had to retrace his steps to replace his original dialecticism and subjectivism (in which man was a “participant” in revelation) with an analogical (i.e., Christological) theology in which not man, but Jesus Christ was both the objective and subjective possibility of revelation, and also the Being as well as the Act of God. Further, his earlier analogia entis had to be displaced by an analogia gratiae.

The most decisive turning point in Barth’s struggle stemmed from his study of Anselm, a story told in Barth’s book on Anselm, Fides Quaerens lntellectum. From this point on (1931) Barth moved away from an abstract theology about God and away from a subjectivistic theology of man, toward a theology determined wholly by the consideration that God became man, and thus a theology of the Humanity of God, of Jesus Christ.

How well Barth succeeded in excluding all extraneous influences and in penetrating the reality of revelation to discover all the determinants for a truly Christian theological method will long be debated.

Torrance makes no attempt to evaluate critically Barth’s early thought, except in terms of the inner logic of its own development. Yet his overall estimate is obvious. He places Barth in the ranks of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther. More significantly, he asserts that at the great watershed of modern theology we must choose the basic method either of Barth or of Bultmann, adding that “there is no third alternative.” He writes further, “The way of Barth leads to the establishment of Christianity on its own solid God-given foundations and to the pursuit of theology as a free science in its own right; the way of Bultmann leads to the dissolution of Christianity in secular culture and to the pursuit of theology as an expression of a reactionary, existentialist way of life.” If indeed these are the only two choices, then for the biblical theologian there is but one.

Torrance has brilliantly presented the movements and outcome of Barth’s decades of labor to achieve a theological method befitting the object of its concern. In doing it he has demonstrated his competence to proceed to a critical evaluation of Barth’s method; if he will now do this, he will render another unequaled service.

JAMES DAANE

Crown Of The Orient

Ancient Antioch, by Glanville Downey (Princeton University Press, 1963, 340 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by James L. Kelso, Professor of Old Testament History and Biblical Archaeology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This book is a condensation of the author’s earlier History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest—the most important book on this key city of the Near East. Antioch vied with Alexander for the honor of being second only to Rome. After the death of Alexander the Great, Antioch transplanted Greek culture into the Levant. Rome also complicated the picture when Pompey captured Syria and Palestine. The early Church had missionary headquarters in Antioch, and later this Church created a Hellenic theological pattern which subsequently came into full bloom in Constantinople—the city which replaced Antioch for both church and state.

Temples and festivals to Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Tyche emphasized the Greek nature of the city, and paganism fought Christianity here until the city’s decay in the sixth century. Antioch was full of famous churches and of church leaders, such as Paul, Ignatius, Basil, and Chrysostom. Seleucus Antiochus, Epiphanes, Tigranes, Pompey, Anthony, the Roman emperors, the Persian kings, and Queen Zenobia all contributed to the city’s story. Antioch was a major literary center; the books of its famous writers have been preserved and give a vast amount of detailed information about the city.

Antioch was the military center of the Roman Empire’s defenses against the Persians and the emporium for trade from faraway China and all lands between. Its wealth enabled it even to be lighted at night, and here pleasure and athletics vied with war, business, and religion. Riots were common, and even the Church factions used this technique. The city was often laid low by earthquake and fire; ultimately these two, plus the plague and a Persian sacking of the city, brought about the end of Antioch. Constantinople then became the master city of the Near East. The whole restless Levant with its interest in everything good and evil is excellently portrayed in Antioch, the city famed as the “Fair Crown of the Orient.”

JAMES L. KELSO

How Growth Goes

The Dynamics of Church Growth, by J. Waskom Pickett (Abingdon, 1963, 124 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Frank Bateman Stanger, President, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

Whenever Bishop J. Waskom Pickett speaks or writes it is always imperative for the Christian world to give careful heed. Now retired from the active episcopacy, but not from continuing Kingdom-labors, Bishop Pickett speaks out of a background of a ministry which was fulfilled in the context of Christian missions. He is truly a missionary-statesman, possessing keen insights into the relationship of the Christian faith to all other religions and of the Christian church to the new age being ushered into the world’s history.

As D. T. Niles states in the Foreword, in this volume the author writes concerning the urgency and possibility of Church expansion in the contemporary world.

The book contains seven chapters. Each chapter reveals a basic Christian conviction in the mind and heart of the author. In the opening chapter, “The Case for Rapid Growth,” the author declares his foundational emphasis upon the principle of community in successful evangelism among people of non-Christian cultures. Bishop Pickett has always been a firm believer in “group movements.”

Chapter II, “The Tragedy of Retarded Growth,” portrays the urgency of the present situation for evangelism.

The voice of experience sounds throughout Chapter III, “Assembled Lessons from Many Lands.” The author presents both mistaken missionary assumptions of the past and lessons learned in missionary experience.

No Christian person can afford to bypass the reading of Chapter IV, in which the author declares that Christianity is the most effective weapon against Communism. Even the chapter’s title allures the reader: “How Protestant Churches Obstruct and Counteract Communism.”

The author is convinced of the importance of the ministry of laymen. Chapter V is based on the thesis that “preaching is imperative but not sufficient.”

Chapter VI, “Yesterday’s Best Not Good Enough Today,” is an impassioned call to a new and deepened Christian dedication, both on the part of Christian individuals and in the life and program of the Church.

The closing chapter abounds with Christian optimism. In addition to the mention of nations now predominantly Christian, Sarawak, Korea, and certain African nations are discussed as “potential Christian nations of tomorrow.”

This is a book with a world perspective. Its major values lie in its insights for the advancing work of the Church in its program of world evangelization. But the spiritual principles and procedures discussed are no less relevant for the Christian worker in the local church and for the lay evangelist in the homeland.

FRANK BATEMAN STANGER

According To Philip

The Gospel of Philip, by R. McL. Wilson (Harper & Row, 1963, 198 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Gerald L. Borchert, Associate Professor of New Testament, North American Baptist Seminary, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Since the discovery of the codices from Chenoboskion (Nag Hammadi) our knowledge has been greatly augmented with respect to the period following the close of the apostolic age when the Gnostic heresy became a threat to the Church.

Among the 49 Coptic documents which came to light at Chenoboskion three so-called gospels have turned up, viz. The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, and The Gospel of Philip. R. McL. Wilson has finally made available to the English-speaking world a very helpful introduction to the third of these so-called gospels. His translation of Philip seems to be slightly more accurate than the earlier work of Catanzaro-Schenke, and his sectioning or paragraphing of the text (e.g. #4) also seems to be more plausible. In addition to a translation, Wilson has included an excellent commentary, a short introduction, and a brief statement of the theology of The Gospel of Philip.

The author, a New Testament lecturer at St. Andrews, has given most of his attention to the commentary. He compares the ideas in Philip with what we know about Gnosticism from the church fathers and the early non-Christian writers, and he draws a number of helpful parallels to biblical, rabbinic, and other Chenoboskion texts. By means of these comparisons and parallels the commentator supports the view that Philip was probably written late in the second century by a Valentinian Gnostic.

This book will be read primarily by those interested in the field of Gnosticism or early Church history. It is nonetheless written in such a way that the clergyman who has first read R. M. Grant’s commentary on The Gospel of Thomas (The Secret Sayings of Jesus) will find that he is quite at home in this work also.

In general, as a commentary on the Chenoboskion discoveries Wilson’s book marks a decided advance over Kendrick Grobel’s fragmentary work on The Gospel of Truth.

GERALD L. BORCHERT

Moses In Mosaic

Old Testament Theology, Volume I, by Gerhard von Rad (Harper, 1962, 483 pp., $8), is reviewed by Merrill F. Unger, Chairman of the Old Testament Department, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

This brilliantly scholarly work is authored by the well-known professor of theology at Heidelberg University, Gerhard von Rad, and made available in English through the translation from the German by D. M. G. Stalker. Hailed as a pioneering figure in biblical studies, Professor von Rad offers the reader the most thoroughgoing application of form criticism to the pages of the Old Testament. Part One deals with a history of Jahwism and of the sacred institutions of Israel, and Part Two treats the theology of Israel’s historical traditions. There is no doubt that the author’s handling of his material on the basis of his critical presuppositions, his vast learning, and his technical skill, is masterful. Those who delight in a new approach, based upon latest critical theories, will hail the fresh and original manner in which Professor von Rad attempts to present Old Testament theology.

But the results of the author’s researches are certainly perplexing and disappointing to the student who sees the Old Testament as a historically reliable document. To Professor von Rad the Hexateuch (the Pentateuch and Joshua) came into being from a confessional arrangement of different complexes of conflicting and contradictory traditions. The figure of Moses, for example, is mixed up and blurred in these various groups of traditions, later forcing his way into narratives where originally he was a stranger. The best that can be done for Israel’s great lawgiver and type of Christ (cf. Deut. 18:15–18) for those who picture him as the founder of a religion, is that they can only reach back to “very ancient individual traditions which are difficult to reconcile with one another” (p. 14). If this is true of Moses, who figures so prominently in Old Testament theology and who can be traced so minutely as a type of Christ, what happens to the pattern of the rest of Old Testament theology, which is so intimately interwoven with New Testament theology and forms the basis? Brilliant but unsound handling of God’s Word in this manner will have its style and popularity, but will be forsaken when some new critical fad comes into vogue to capture scholarly fancy in Old Testament higher criticism.

MERRILL F. UNGER

Book Briefs

Journeys After Saint Paul, by William R. Cannon (Macmillan, 1963, 276 pp., $4.95). An excursion into history; the author travels every place connected with Paul and gives an on-the-spot description. Good reading.

The Great Promise, by Karl Barth, translated by Hans Freund (Philosophical Library, 1963, 70 pp., $2.75). Bible lectures Barth presented to students during Advent in 1934.

Daniel to Paul, edited by Gaalyahu Cornfeld (Macmillan, 1963, 377 pp., $13.95). A historical critical evaluation, tempered neither by fact nor by responsible scholarship. The kind of interpretation that invites psychoanalysis.

In Time … For Eternity, by G. W. Hoyer and J. P. Kretzmann (Concordia, 1963, 353 pp., $5.95). Sixty-eight sermons on the church year; to be read for their biblical thought and inspiration, not for their style.

Space Age Christianity, edited by Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. (Morehouse-Barlow, 1963, 191 pp., $4.50). An edited account of the lectures and discussions on “Space Age Christianity” which took place at the Seattle World’s Fair. A book of high interest for those who fear that the science of the space age is a threat to the Christian faith.

Sermons to Intellectuals, edited by Franklin H. Littell (Macmillan, 1963, 160 pp., $3.95). Sermons by, and representative of the theologies of, W. S. Coffin, Jr., P. Tillich, H. Thielicke, D. T. Niles, W. Herberg, and eight others. High in quality, they traverse the theological spectrum wide and free.

Job: Defense of Honor, by Roger N. Carstensen (Abingdon, 1963, 158 pp., $3.25). Job’s trials interpreted as a defense of man’s inherent worth and honor. Christian author sees similarities between the Book of Job and Greek drama.

Salute to a Sufferer, by Leslie D. Weatherhead (Abingdon, 1963, 95 pp., $2). Author gives some radically Christian insights and suggestions about human suffering. Written—successfully—for laymen.

George Washington and Religion, by Paul F. Boiler, Jr. (Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, 235 pp., $4.50). Was Washington a Christian? An extended examination concludes that if being a Christian means believing in Christ’s deity, atoning work, and resurrection, then Washington was not, for he was more unitarian than anything else.

The School Question, compiled by Brother Edmond G. Drouin (Catholic University of America, 1963, 261 pp., $7.50). A reference book for the literature that has arisen around the religion-in-public-schools controversy, 1940–1960.

Red China Prisoner, by Sara Perkins (Revell, 1963, 127 pp., $2.50). Firsthand account of the experiences of an American missionary in Old and in Red China. A story of faith versus Communism.

Luther, by Franz Lau, translated by Robert H. Fischer (Westminster, 1963, 178 pp., $3.75). A portrayal of Luther that finds the key to his life in his inmost spiritual struggles.

Visible Unity and Tradition, by Max Thurian, Brother of Taizé (Helicon, 1962, 136 pp., $3.50). The author, one of the three original brothers of the Protestant monastic community of Taizé, considers the already considerable visible unity of the Church, and calls for more.

Dogmatik, by Wolfgang Trillhaas (Alfred Töpelmann [Berlin 30], 1962, 581 pp., 36 German Marks [$9]). A substantial dogmatic work; by a German author who uses but refuses to be bound by theological tradition, and seeks to speak both to the Church and to the world.

Paperbacks

An Educator’s Guide for Preparing Articles for Periodicals, by James W. Carty, Jr. (self-published [order from Box 218, Bethany, W. Va.], 1962, 28 pp., $1). Teacher of journalism gives pointers to teachers on how to write an article that will be published and read. Also excellent for ministers with an urge to write. Its value dwarfs its size and price.

Positive Protestantism, by Hugh T. Kerr (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 108 pp., $1.75). Author sees the essence of Protestantism in a positive, constructive rather than critical affirmation of the Gospel that God was in Christ for man’s redemption. First printed in 1950.

How to Teach the Word of God, by Edwin J. Potts (Harvest Publications [5750 N. Ashland, Chicago 26], 1963, 104 pp., $1.50). Uncomplicated but pertinent short essays to aid the teacher of religious education.

Current Books and Pamphlets (Missionary Research Library [3041 Broadway, New York 27], 1963, 32 pp., $.50). All the new titles added to the Missionary Research Library between July 1 and December 31, 1962. Rules for borrowing books by mail may be had on application.

Reprints

The Birth of the Christian Religion and The Origins of the New Testament, by Alfred Firmin Loisy (University Books, 1962, 413 and 332 pp., $10). The last two great works of Loisy, excommunicated Roman Catholic priest and leader of Catholic modernism, in which he employs critical historical methods to the rise of Christianity.

The English Hymn, by Louis F. Benson (John Knox, 1962, 624 pp., $6.50). Survey of the development and usage of hymns in the worship of English-speaking churches. First printed in 1915.

Paul the Missionary, by William M. Taylor (Baker, 1962, 570 pp., $3.95). A biography of Paul. Evangelical. First printed in 1909.

STRANDED WITH THE BIBLE—“I am starting my adulthood with full knowledge or what I have to do. I wasn’t rescued until I understood, until I realized my sins and decided to make recompense for them.” So said Helen Klaben, adventuresome 21-year-old Brooklyn girl who with a 42-year-old Mormon lay preacher, Ralph Flores, survived seven weeks of sub-zero cold following the crash of their light plane in the Yukon Territory. Said Miss Klaben, who is Jewish: “It was Ralph’s Bible. I read both the Old and New Testaments. I know what I have to do, what my work is, what faith is, faith in God.”

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—A “Canadian Southern Baptist Conference” was organized at Kamloops, British Columbia, reportedly looking toward eventual formation of a Canadian Baptist Convention on a par with U. S. state conventions.

Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod will send 20 observers to the Lutheran World Federation assembly at Helsinki this summer.

Methodist Television, Radio, and Film Commission opened a Hollywood office. Shooting of two new episodes of a children’s television series is already under way. The new office is located near Hollywood and Vine.

New England Fellowship of Evangelicals is launching a program to combat juvenile delinquency. Executive Secretary Tolbert E. McNutt cites a threefold approach to counter delinquency—through social workers, a boys’ town, and parent education.

Lutherans are coming out with a contemporary English version of Martin Luther’s 430-year-old Small Catechism.

Newly released Church of Scotland Year-Book reveals a net loss of 8,663 communicants during 1961, the last year for which comprehensive statistics are available. The yearbook gives the total number of communicants as of the end of 1961 as 1,290,617. Population of Scotland is 5,178,490.

FOREIGN MISSIONS—Nine seafaring missionaries en route to Haiti were reported safe after their 100-foot vessel sank in choppy seas off the coast of Mexico. Leader of the rescued group was the Rev. Howard A. Smith, 51, minister of Calvary Church of the Full Gospel in Wilmington, California.

Presbyterian U. S. Board of World Missions will undertake long-range studies on pastoral care of missionaries and support of mission institutions overseas. The board has cited difficulty in meeting increasing costs.

The Evangelical Church of Laos ordained its first minister last month at a simple ceremony in Luang Prabang. He is the Rev. Moun Douangmala, who has been a Christian believer for some 30 years. The only other minister national in Laos is the Rev. Saly Kounthapanya, who was ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance mission in 1951.

Native New Guineans snapped up the first 15,000 volumes of the Four Gospels printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in pidgin English. An immediate reprint was ordered. Pidgin English is a simple language, based mainly on English, which is used in New Guinea and Papua and is the only common language in an area where hundreds of native dialects are used.

MISCELLANY—Excommunication of deposed Argentine dictator Juan Peron reportedly was lifted by the Roman Catholic Church. Aides of Peron, who took refuge in Spain in January, 1960, say he wrote to Pope John XXIII several months ago, stating he was a repentant and faithful member of the church and desirous of “reconciliation.” They report he was officially absolved in a private ceremony.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer declined an invitation to visit the United States this spring. Lisle M. Ramsey of Religious Heritage of America disclosed Schweitzer’s decision following a trip to the famed medical missionary’s station in Lambarene, Gabon.

Proposed legislation to ease restrictions on Spanish Protestants was treated pessimistically in Ya, the Roman Catholic daily newspaper in Madrid. An article written by Father E. Guerrero, S.J., asked whether an “easy and even cordial getting-along-together spirit [between Catholics and Protestants] may not finally result in the playing down of Catholic requirements and aspirations, ending up in indifferentism.”

Construction of a Christian settlement at Ness Anim in West Galilee was expected to start soon with the rejection by the Israel Parliament’s Interior Committee of demands from Orthodox Jewish groups to halt the project.

The Baha’i International Community submitted an aide-mémoire to the U. N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva asking assistance to obtain release of nine Baha’is sentenced to death and imprisonment in predominantly Moslem Morocco last December. The aide-mémoire called it “a clear case of religious inquisition.”

St. Louis University and Catholic University of Quito, Ecuador, will conduct an exchange of professors and students as well as teaching methods with a $400,000 grant from the U. S. Agency for International Development under the Alliance for Progress.

FBI reports a seven per cent increase in crime during 1962. Crime rates rose to record highs in all areas of the nation. The number of persons under 18 arrested increased by nine per cent.

PERSONALIA—The Rt. Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, disclosed that he was suffering from symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. He canceled all speaking engagements but said he would try to complete his term of office as presiding bishop—until the denomination’s next general convention in 1964.

The Rev. Charles Webster, Jr., was dismissed as Baptist Student Union director at Clemson (South Carolina) College. His ouster was announced following a congregational meeting of the Baptist Church of Clemson. The church finances Baptist student work at the Clemson campus, aided by a state convention appropriation. Webster said he was removed for befriending Harvey Gantt, first Negro to enroll at the school. Several church spokesmen insisted that other than racial issues were involved.

Dr. Markus Barth, son of theologian Karl Barth, appointed professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian).

The Rev. Oscar A. Anderson accepted the presidency of Augsburg College, Minneapolis.

Dr. A. R. Keppel resigned as president of Catawba College (United Church of Christ) to become first executive director of the new Piedmont University Center of North Carolina in Winston-Salem. Keppel was succeeded at Catawba by Dr. Donald C. Dearborn.

Dr. Jack S. Wilkes, Methodist minister and president of the University of Oklahoma City, elected mayor of Oklahoma City.

The Rev. George E. Kempsell, Jr., Protestant Episcopal rector whose outspoken stand against racial discrimination in Scarsdale, New York, attracted wide attention, named rector of St. Michael and All Angels Church in Dallas, Texas.

Bruce A. Brough, former editorial assistant at CHRISTIANITY TODAY, joined the staff of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration periodical.

WORTH QUOTING—“Communism is not a religion, because its dogmas are like shifting sands, or more properly the devil quoting the Bible. It can be compared to addiction much more than to religion or faith.”—John Santo, ex-Communist, in testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Deaths

THE RT. REV. A. W. NOEL PORTER, 78, who served as Episcopal bishop of the Sacramento, California, diocese for 24 years; in Palo Alto, California.

DR. LYLE O. BRISTOL, 48, former dean at Eastern Baptist College and Crozier Theological Seminary; in Medford, Massachusetts.

COL. EDWARD P. FELKER, 71, general counsel for Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State; in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

BISHOP KAI JENSEN, 64, who last May became the spiritual head of the Lutheran Diocese of Arhus, Denmark; in Arhus.