An event of considerable interest in the religious world is the publication of the first of two volumes containing the Registers of the Company of Pastors of Geneva which cover the period of Calvin’s residence in that city. This present volume, in fact, puts in its appearance out of chronological order, for it covers the final years of Calvin’s life, from 1553 to 1564. Next to appear will be the volume covering the earlier years, and the editors (Dr. R. M. Kingdon and Messieurs J.-F. Bergier and Alain Dufour) not only promise a third volume comprising a general introduction, but also express the hope that they may be able to extend the enterprise in yet further volumes which will relate to the years from Calvin’s death to the end of the sixteenth century—years which are less well known but of great significance in the development of the Reformation in Europe. The work is being published, under the supervision of the Rev. J. Marcellus Kik as managing editor, by Librairie E. Droz of Geneva—a publishing house already having to its name a distinguished sequence of works on personages and movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The text of these contemporary records is partly in French and partly in Latin, and the writer of this review is preparing an English translation for publication next year.

1553 was the year of the arrest, trial, and condemnation of Michael Servetus, the notorious assailant of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. As early as 1531, when only 20 years old, he had published his Seven Books concerning the Errors of the Trinity. Subsequently he had studied medicine and practiced as a physician. His work The Restitution of Christianity appeared in 1553, and this same year he was recognized and apprehended in Geneva. The Registers give the written theological disputation that took place between Servetus and the Genevan ministers (the agent of the latter being in effect Calvin). The views of Servetus were tortuous and bizarre, and he was not too scrupulous in his manner of quoting from the patristic authors when claiming support for his aberrations. Despite earnest attempts to persuade him to an orthodox frame of mind, he remained brazen, obdurate, and unrepentant, and on October 27, 1553, he was burnt at the stake by order of the city council of Geneva, with the approval of the churches of Berne, Basle, Zürich, and Schaffhausen as well as the church of Geneva.

Today, quite rightly, we deplore this burning. Enemies of Protestantism have constantly used it as a stick with which to beat the church of the Reformation. But it should be remembered, firstly, that this one incident was a drop in the ocean compared with the cruel tortures and deaths inflicted on a multitude of Protestants, and, secondly, that Servetus would have been burnt by the Roman Catholics with no less alacrity had he been apprehended in one of their states instead of in Protestant Geneva. Servetus was universally condemned as an intolerable heretic, and in those days the penalty for heresy was death. In time the Church learned once again that though heresies may never be tolerated, the heretics who propound them should be disciplined by excommunication but not killed. Today the Church seems all too prone to go to the other extreme by tolerating not only heretics but also their heresies, so that the orthodoxy of the past is looked on by many as the oddity of the present, and sometimes not tolerated.

The perusal of these Registers shows that the tasks and problems of the Church were basically the same then as they are now. We observe the occurrence of a dispute between the ecclesiastical and the civic authorities over the right to excommunicate offensive members. When the state sought to deprive the Church of this right, the ministers declared that “they would choose death rather than consent to the abandonment of so holy and sacred an order, which had for so long been observed in the church.” We find theological tension and rivalry developing between Geneva and the neighboring territory of Berne. We read of a visit of the famous William Farel to Geneva when he stirred up trouble for himself by preaching against the misdemeanors of the youth of the day. His integrity was vindicated, however, and the city treated with honor this man to whom so many of its citizens owed their conversion.

Quaint characters also appear on the scene. In September, 1554, an unnamed Scotsman presented himself before the Company of Pastors, claiming that God had called him to go to all the churches and bring about the settlement of all disputes. He sought to authenticate his claim, we are told, by adducing some quite inappropriate passages of Scripture. The pastors responded that though they were unable to recognize his vocation or to give him letters of commendation, yet they would glorify God if he were used for the benefit of the Church.

We are able to witness, as it were, the care with which appointments to the sacred ministry were made: the choice of men of unblemished character; the emphasis on preaching and pastoral responsibility; the concern for the reverent use of the sacraments and for the proper exercise of discipline. Systematic Christian education was a prominent part of the program of reform, and humanitarian provision was made for the sick, the aged, and orphans.

But while duly concerned with the building up of a strong and healthy Christian society in Geneva, the church there was by no means preoccupied with its own needs. Nothing testifies more eloquently to the spiritual vitality of Calvin’s church than the quite remarkable missionary activity revealed in an almost incidental manner in these records. Over and over again we come across the minutes of men being sent to minister not only to the country villages of the Genevan territory, but to towns and cities throughout France and to the islands off the coast of France, also down to Piedmont in Italy, and even across the seas to far-off Brazil. So much for the calumny, still current, that Calvin’s theology spells the death of evangelism!

SKEPTICAL GENERATION—I think there is no question that the vital core of this generation is engaged in a spiritual and intellectual temporizing action; essentially and bodily skeptical, it operates behind a mask of attentive compliance in order to preserve pleasures it understands. It lives in a medium of low pressure doubt which would be intolerable to anyone that ever experienced the exhilaration of a conviction.—Professor F. J. KAUFFMAN, the University of Rochester, “Be Careful Young Men—Tomorrow’s Leaders Analyzed by Today’s Teachers,” Nation (March, 1957).

QUEST FOR MEANING—What every young person seeks in college from liberal education—whether or not he has articulated this—is self discovery.… What such a person wants—what we all want—is a meaning that becomes a motivating force in our lives. And when we ask this question, whether we are conscious of it or not, we have begun to think religiously, and have begun to ask of God.—NATHAN M. PUSEY, president of Harvard University, “Religion’s Role in Liberal Education,” Religion and Freedom of Thought (1954).

A ONE-SIDED CURRICULUM—Many students go through four years of college and become fairly well equipped for their particular profession without ever being forced seriously to consider the most basic questions of life. In the busy curriculum, concern for acquiring the “how” of making a living has largely replaced the inquiring “why” of existence and ultimate purpose in life.—CHARLES E. HUMMEL, Campus Christian Witness (1958).

SURVEY OF 25 CAMPUSES—We found no religious revival on the campuses we visited. There was an honest interest in what religion has to offer; on some campuses, administrative officers and chaplains reported an increase in the number attending chapel and church services.… On the other hand, contrary to some accusations, we did not find the college student to be antireligious. We would term it, rather, in many cases a suspension of consideration and a questioning of the traditional approaches to religious belief. Students of all faiths, as well as those with no fixed beliefs, told us again and again that they were uninspired by the usual pattern of religious activity.… We are led to believe that the student response to religion is conditioned heavily by the current strongly relativistic social thought. Many students react against absolutism in any form, and, to them, religion is purely and simply absolutism.—EDWARD D. EDDY, JR., The College Influence on Student Character (1959).

ACADEMIC HOMECOMING—A spate of books by both theologians and educators offers sufficient proof that the mind’s adventure has struck tents in the secular land to seek a better country. Who knows where it may next pitch camp? There are verdicts to which men return and return. Signs appear that education may return to the Biblical faith which has long been its secret home. The Biblical faith in such a journey will not be Biblical faith as the Victorian era construed it, but Biblical faith as education itself has helped newly to interpret it—a faith, illuminated by modern scholarship and rediscovered under the shocks and realities of our apocalyptic time. That faith, twisted by our finite hankerings, may easily become the “indoctrination” against which education rightly raises its barriers; but such indoctrination is now a smaller threat than an arid secularism.—Dr. GEORGE ARTHUR BUTTRICK, professor emeritus, Harvard University, Biblical Thought and the Secular University (1960).

FACULTY ATTITUDE DIVIDED—In American college faculties two points of view, each one persuasive and admirable, will be found among the more responsible scholars. I have in mind now the whole question of religion on the campus.… On the one hand … probably a majority view … is that of an agnostic but devoted concern for learning and the search for truth … for the ideal of a non-divisive pluralism in this quest, for freedom from any kind of pressure or authoritarianism.… The hidden sleeper in this ostensible freedom and tolerance is that wittingly or unwittingly it opens the door wide to positivist indoctrination and dogmatic relativism. In this stand for an untrammeled pursuit of truth, safeguards are set up against authoritarian pressures of all kinds including those of religion but not against equally authoritarian negations. The other admirable position … asks for full recognition, in ways appropriate to today, of the religious heritage of the college or university, and of our society, as a profoundly corrective factor in this same search for truth.… It asks that our vital religious traditions … should have full freedom in the open market of higher education and learning to make their impact and be assessed and criticized like all the other main forces of culture and the intellectual life.… In all areas of college instruction the danger of authoritarian indoctrination should be controlled by policy in appointment and by the intellectual morale of the campus, not by excluding controversial subject matter from the curriculum.—AMOS N. WILDER, “Christianity and the Campus,” New Republic (Dec. 15, 1959).

THE BIBLE IN EDUCATION—We cannot believe that ignorance of the Bible is a suitable hallmark of educated men. A working acquaintance with the two Testaments seems to us so obviously fundamental as not to require argument.—“General Education in School and College,” a committee report by faculty members of Andover, Exeter, Lawrenceville, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (1952).

LOSS OF ORIGINAL PURPOSE—The purpose of it all [college education], in the words of the Harvard charter of 1650, was “the advancement of all good literature, arts and Sciences” in the framework of eternity: “The maine end … is, to know God and Jesus Christ.” In proclaiming these goals, the charter was speaking not only for Harvard, but, as it turned out, for the old-time college in general.… At the zenith of its power and influence 100 years ago, the single-minded college was, before the end of the 19th century, to lose its position.… The flood that engulfed them came from three main sources: the new western state universities, German scholarship and higher criticism, and the philosophy of evolution.—GEORGE P. SCHMIDT, professor emeritus of history, Rutgers University, “A Century of the Liberal Arts College,” School and Society (May 5, 1962).

Colleges And Institutes On Review

The Bible College Story: Education with Dimension, by S. A. Witmer, Introduction by Merrill C. Tenney (Channel, 1962, 253 pp. with appendix, $3.75), is reviewed by Frank E. Gaebelein, Headmaster of The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York.

Here is the first published full-length treatment of the Bible institute-college movement. Moreover, Dr. Witmer was unusually well qualified to write it. A careful scholar and experienced teacher, he spoke out of years of effective work in Christian education, during which he served as president of Fort Wayne Bible College and, until his death in 1962, as executive secretary of the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges.

For entirely too long the distinctive contribution of evangelicalism to education through Bible institutes and Bible colleges has been overlooked. Yet the development of the Bible institute-college since the founding of Nyack Missionary College in 1882 and Moody Bible Institute in 1886 has brought to education in the United States and Canada a new genre that occupies a place all its own, quite apart from the liberal arts college on the one hand and the theological seminary on the other hand. As such, and largely through the efforts of Dr. Witmer and other evangelical leaders, the United States Office of Education has recognized the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges as the one accrediting agency of undergraduate theological education.

The story of the development of the Bible institute and college in America has long needed telling. No group of schools that has influenced the religious life of the country and of the world as widely and deeply as has this group can be overlooked. These schools represent a major force in modern missions both home and foreign, with an important contribution to evangelism. In adult Christian education through evening schools and correspondence courses their influence is great, and they are training a significant number of ministers.

Dr. Witmer has told the story well. From his definition of the Bible institute-college (the cumbersome designation is later in the book shortened to “Bible college”) as “an educational institution whose principal purpose is to prepare students for church vocation or Christian ministries through a program of Biblical and practical education,” to the Appendix with its descriptive list of the Bible institutes and Bible colleges of the United States and Canada, the book is authoritative. Statistical material, reflecting thorough investigation, illustrates the history, philosophy, and outreach of the Bible college.

The 12 chapters of the book find their unifying principle in the subtitle, “Education with Dimension,” the “dimension” being a spiritual one derived from the centrality of Scripture in the life and practice of the Bible institute-college. As Dr. Witmer shows, the spiritual dimension which characterizes these schools is no innovation; on the contrary, it goes back to colonial days and to the very foundations of American education. But whereas the very institutions which were built upon a biblical foundation have long since lost their original Christian dimension, the schools he describes are applying a biblical philosophy to education and are doing this consistently and with awareness of present-day needs.

Dr. Witmer leaves few aspects of his subject untouched. Especially noteworthy are his discussions of the contribution to public education made by Bible colleges in the training of teachers, the vital influence in a time of moral declension of a type of education that takes seriously the moral and spiritual imperatives of the Word of God and that seeks nothing less than the development of Christlike character, and the sound emphasis on practical Christian work that distinguishes these schools. Some of the facts presented are little known. How many educators realize, for example, that correspondence-school education in America was originated at Moody Bible Institute when it first offered its Class Study Programs? And how many, even in the Bible colleges, realize that the Bible institute movement has European roots, as in the Gossner Mission in 1842 and The East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in 1872?

Measured against the millions in other areas of education, the 248 Bible institute-colleges in the United States and Canada with their total enrollment of about 25,000 students do not bulk large. Yet no one reading this book can fail to see that their influence is out of all proportion to their size. And it is a growing influence. These schools are here to stay. Therefore, the answer to the question “Is the Bible college necessary?” is simply this: “As long as the Bible is necessary.”

This, then, is a definitive book, essential for a full understanding of education in America. No department of religious education in college or seminary can afford to ignore the information it contains. Dr. Witmer’s presentation is fair and objective. While he writes at times with warmth and persuasiveness, the impression is never that of special pleading. Quite otherwise, there are passages of needed criticism of Bible-college education. Dr. Witmer was too disciplined a thinker to indulge in overstatement. The restraint and accuracy of his presentation lend authority to this volume, which in its field will stand as a landmark.

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN

It’S Just Possible

The Church College in Today’s Culture, by W. O. Doescher (Augsburg, 1963, 127 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, Professor of History, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.

The theme of this book—that the church college has a role to play in the shaping of contemporary culture—finds wide support among Christian people. Very few, if any, are disposed to dispute the intimate relationship which should exist between the Christian college and the cultural life of the American people. But the author of this book, a professor of philosophy and dean of the faculty at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, fails to deal with this theme in the manner it both deserves and demands in such a time as ours. This failure results in part from his describing the task of the Christian college in terms of the contemporary technological revolution, which leads him to evaluate the predicament of modern man from the point of view of a kind of Christian existentialism. (He specifically disavows the existentialist philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre.) Nowhere does he openly state his own reliance upon a Christian existentialism, but this reviewer feels that such an outlook lies at the heart of his argument. He talks of estrangement and the frustrations of modern man and admits that he lives under a sense of guilt, but this estrangement, frustration, and sense of guilt which characterize his life are the result of man’s creatureliness rather than of man’s sinful nature and rebellion against a righteous and holy God.

But an even more fatal weakness in this book is its denial of the supreme and exclusive nature of the biblical revelation. This becomes very evident in the author’s insistence that the Christian is obliged “to hear every word that God speaks and so he must necessarily listen to the word of God spoken in creation”; he takes this line of reasoning to the conclusion that “in the tremendous discoveries of modern science God has granted new insights to this generation which a faithful church must incorporate into her theology” (p. 64). It would thus seem that the evangelical church must listen to science as well as to the Scriptures in the formulation of its creeds. But how long will a church which equates science and the Bible remain evangelical?

Reading for Perspective

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

★ Triumphant in Trouble, by Paul S. Rees (Revell, $3). A sensitive but ringing proclamation of the promises, the peace, and the encouragement of the Christian Gospel.

★ Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, by Karl Barth (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, $4). Popular lectures, including the five given in the United States, showing the task, place, and wonder of theology, and Barth’s hope that America will develop a theology of freedom.

★ Hurdles to Heaven, by Brian Whitlow (Harper & Row, $3). A dissection of the traditional seven sins and prescriptions for developing the contrary virtues. Done astutely, and with literary brilliance.

This departure from Luther’s insistence on the Scriptures as the sole source of authority for the Church affects the author’s whole outlook on the role of the Christian college in cultural relationships. This shows itself clearly in his assertion that Christian theism is one of the hypotheses that can be held concerning the nature of the universe but “shares its status with many alternatives such as Marxism, Platonism, Evolutionary Naturalism, Pragmatism, Hegelianism” (p. 98). If that Christian theism which must be the frame of reference for Christian educational activity is only one among several possible frames of reference, how can the Church speak with authority to any age? Dr. Doescher is willing to assert the overwhelming balance of probability inherent in the theistic world view of Christianity (p. 99), but this is apparently as far as he will go.

This book is a far cry from that loyalty to the Scriptures which characterized Luther, and its weakness at this point blunts its evangelical thrust to such a degree that it fails to present the role which Christian colleges must play and also fails to offer a sufficiently vigorous Christian theism to support them in their cultural mission. Nothing less than the whole counsel of God is sufficient as a frame of reference for Christian educational activity.

C. GREGG SINGER

A Critical Look

Missions In Crisis, by Eric S. Fife and Arthur F. Glasser (Inter-Varsity Press, 1961, 269 pp., $3.75; paper $2.25), is reviewed by Wade T. Coggins, Assistant Executive Secretary, Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, Washington, D. C.

In Missions In Crisis two young evangelical leaders in missions’ thinking take a hard look at the vital questions facing the Church’s missionary endeavor today. They wrestle with the nature of revolution and its effect on the world in which the Great Commission must be carried out.

The first half of the book is given to a study of pressing external and internal problems confronting the Church. This study is not overly pessimistic but rather is realistic in setting the stage for matters of strategy to be discussed in the second half of the book.

The external forces which challenge the Church are summed up under the title “The Church On The Defensive,” which perhaps sounds more defeatist than the content warrants. Included in this part of the book is a serious study on the nature of nationalism, which is so often mentioned as a problem in missionary work. The authors do not label it “good” or “bad,” but classify at least three types of nationalism in an effort to understand underlying philosophies. They see the terms “self-expressive nationalism,” “self-satisfied nationalism,” and “self-assertive nationalism” as summing up the basic types.

In looking at Communism as a challenger of the Church, the authors insist that to reach the world that is being wooed by Communism “the missionary today must know the communist movement thoroughly. What is the true nature of communism? What is its basic philosophy? What are its attractions? What is its great strength?” (p. 63). They ask further: “But where is communist dogma weak? Like all man-made systems it has glaring inadequacies. What are they?” (p. 64).

A penetrating study of the lessons the Church should learn from the China exodus brings to concrete terms the problems of missions and Communism. The authors feel that “prominent in the postexilic writings of former China missionaries is their profound realization that the deepest lessons learned from God concerned faith and not service” (p. 74).

The reader will be left with some hard questions for which he must seek his own answers, since the authors do not offer any. Here is an example (growing out of the discussion of the China exodus): “Was the whole of God’s purpose confined to that which took place within the walls of local churches or in evangelistic efforts among the unsaved? Did He really endorse the terrible passivity of Christians toward social problems? Was their withdrawal from the harsh realities of the suffering world outside the church walls His good, acceptable, and perfect will?” (pp. 78, 79).

The authors do not overlook the internal tensions of Christendom as reflected in recent writings on missionary strategy. They discuss the development and direction of the ecumenical movement and the concerns expressed by many for its effect on missions.

In the area of strategy considerable emphasis is placed upon reaching the great city populations and the students of the world. Any attempt to set up priorities of those to whom the Gospel should go first has insurmountable problems, but Fife and Glasser make a strong case for the importance of the above-mentioned segments of society.

In this discussion of strategy the closing chapters of the book review some of the strategic programs currently being used in proclaiming the Message effectively.

The book has a modest but well-chosen bibliography.

WADE T. COGGINS

Barth In Focus

Portrait of Karl Barth, by Georges Casalis, translated and introduced by Robert McAfee Brown (Doubleday, 1963, 136 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

People rarely like their own portraits, but Barth likes this one drawn by Georges Casalis. Closing his ears to “overabundant praises,” Barth credits the author with having “understood my thought” and having “discovered to my joy the same intent which is at the foundation of my own life and work.”

Since Barth recognizes himself and his thought in the book, and since the book makes no attempt to be critical of Barth’s thought, the book is insured against any substantial criticism. Indeed, would it not be highly impolite to criticize a portrait which its subject finds satisfactory?

The book is in fact a valuable portrayal of Barth’s background, his participation in the world in which he lived, and the processes in which his life and thought developed. Here is a concise record of what Barth wrote and how, when, and why, as well as a calendar of his whole authorship defined in reference to the history of his times. For those who have read or intend to read Barth, the book is very helpful in that it puts Barth’s life and writings in their historical perspective. This is no small service for the life of a man who has both lived and written so long and so much. The author himself calls his book a “guidebook.” It is indeed a kind of Barthian Baedeker for the reader who wishes to visit the times and places traversed by Barth’s life and thought.

If I dared venture any criticism it would be that the portrait could have given more of Barth the man, and not so exclusively Barth the theologian. But even such criticism could be countered by the reminder that theology for Barth is so comprehensively sweeping that the whole Barth is Barth the theologian.

Robert McAfee Brown, who translated the book from the French, provides a superbly written introduction, whose literary eloquence more equals the demands of the book’s subject than does the more prosaic style of the book itself.

JAMES DAANE

The First Twenty-Five

Called Unto Holiness, The Story of the Nazarenes: The Formative Years, by Timothy L. Smith (Nazarene Publishing House, 1962, 413 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Ralph Earle, Professor of New Testament, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

The Church of the Nazarene is one of the younger denominations. Born at Pilot Point, Texas, on October 13, 1908, it now numbers over a third of a million members in the United States and Canada, in addition to a large constituency in more than 40 foreign fields. This volume covers the first 25 years of its history.

The author, associate professor of history and education at the University of Minnesota, spent many months in full-time research before beginning to write. He visited every section of the nation in order to get firsthand information from living pioneers and to examine all available archives. The thorough research, extensive documentation (50 pages of notes), and excellent literary style all contribute to the value of the book.

The story begins with the holiness revival of 1858–88. The first of these years is famous for the large daily prayer meetings which “broke out almost spontaneously in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and nearly every city and town in the northern states” (p. 11). In the same year William E. Boardman published The Higher Christian Life, which sold some 200,000 copies in the United States and England. Also in that year the leading Baptist evangelist, Dr. A. B. Earle, began to profess and preach “the rest of faith,” as he called it.

It is often assumed that the Church of the Nazarene is a “split-off” from The Methodist Church, because of its strong emphasis on the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. But Smith points out that among the early leaders—several of whom became general superintendents of the new denomination—were Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Friends, and members of other prominent groups.

The author does not gloss over the difficulties faced in molding these many types into a single denomination. Obviously there were critical questions of church order and standards, to say nothing of exact doctrinal formularies. But associations from various parts of the country finally amalgamated.

The first main merger took place in Chicago in 1907, when representatives from New York and New England met with delegates from the Church of the Nazarene in California. The next year the large southern constituency joined, making it a national denomination. In subsequent years other groups in the United States, Canada, and the British Isles became Nazarene.

Dr. Smith (who received the Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1955) not only presents a wealth of factual data, but also interprets it, with a keen historian’s insight into trends and influences. Probably no previous writer had achieved such a clear perspective of the varying fortunes and misfortunes of the holiness movement of the past 100 years. His work will be welcomed as an important contribution to the understanding of this significant chapter in American church history.

RALPH EARLE

Eternal Greatness

The Greatness of Christ, by John H. Patterson (Victory, 1962, 121 pp., 10s. 6d.), is reviewed by A. R. Millard, Temporary Assistant Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, The British Museum.

Fashions are almost as changeable in theology as in clothes, but some themes are immutable; the cardinal topic treated in this book is as eternal as its Subject. From a description in the first chapter of the meaning of the Fall both to God and to man and the requirements for any reconciliation, the author passes to four different considerations of the great Reconciler. Three evidences of Christ’s greatness are shown in the remaining chapters: the authority of the Kingdom, the confidence of the House of God, and the unity of the Holy City.

The author is lecturer in geography at the University of St. Andrews. His style is simple and lucid, the result of mature experiencing of what he writes. This book should evoke from all who read it the humble and joyful exclamation, “How great Thou art!”

A. R. MILLARD

For ‘Lawmen’

Religion and the Law, Of Church and State and the Supreme Court, by Philip B. Kurland (Aldine, 1962, 127 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by John Feikens, attorney, Detroit, Michigan.

To the reviewer of this book, a lawyer by profession, and hopefully in thought process, it is disconcerting if not downright frustrating to note the many lay experts making uninformed observations on large issues of Constitutional law. Businessmen who would not depreciate a machine for tax purposes without consulting tax counsel are nonetheless readily, and without investigation, making vigorous pronouncements as to legal issues involved in the complex problems of the integration of Negro citizens. There are many who without batting an eye indulge themselves in conversational chest-beating that Chief Justice Warren should be impeached. Similarly, many sincere Christian people rush into the legal arena of church and state relations, apparently feeling that their faith will see them through, that dedication in matters spiritual gives them expertise in such complicated Constitutional questions, that they have “insight” mainly because the matter is, after all, one of religion.

Professor Kurland’s book will get such persons back on high ground and will teach them and all others who desire instruction what the state of the law of church and state and the United States Supreme Court really is.

This work (brief, really) is masterful. It combines superlative analogy and excellent scholarship. It is exhaustive but not tiring—a thorough analysis of fundamental legal principles evolving in this most sensitive area.

The book has wonderfully quotable quotes. For example: “It is the genius of the common law and thus of American Constitutional law that its growth and principles are measured in terms of concrete, factual situations, or at least, with regard to factual situations as concrete a the deficiencies of our adversary system permit them to be.” Again: “My own reading of the cases leads me to the conclusion that aid to parochial schools is non-unconstitutional so long as it takes a non-discriminatory form. I am at least equally convinced that the segregation of school children by religion is an unmitigated evil. As a judge I should have to sustain the constitutionality of such legislation; as a legislator, I should have to vote against its passage.”

His thesis is that “the proper construction of the religion clauses of the first amendment (of the United States Constitution) is that the freedom and separation clauses should be read as a single precept; that government cannot utilize religion as a standard for action or inaction because these clauses prohibit classification in terms of religion either to confer a benefit or to impose a burden,” and that the thesis offered “is meant to provide a starting point for solutions to problems brought before the Court, not a mechanical answer to them.”

Quoting Mr. Justice Brandeis, “We must be ever on guard lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles,” Kurland traces the significant cases decided by the United States Supreme Court so that the reader is enabled to make a judgment “as to what the law is likely to be if the problem of parochial school aid or a similar question comes to the court for decision.”

Thus parents interested in Christian schools and members of school boards and committees working on long-range plans for private religiously oriented education will find great benefit here.

Those in these groups who by social and political action will seek to attain accelerated evolution of the law in favor of their own positions will need this study to plan strategy.

Kurland, it must be said, gives them warning. He writes: “There has been no consistency in the judicial opinions of the court.… The method of weighing Constitutional objectives in order to choose among them affords no guidance for further action except on what Holmes called a ‘pots and pans’ basis.” Nonetheless, the evolving laws as rules are laid out here, and the tacticians, the strategists, and informed citizens must become acquainted with them.

JOHN FEIKENS

Dystopias

From Utopia to Nightmare, by Chad Walsh (Harper & Row, 1962, 191 pp., $4), is reviewed by Arthur F. Holmes, Associate Professor and Director of Philosophy, Wheaton College, Illinois.

From Chad Walsh’s pen has come another fascinating volume of interest and worth to evangelicals. The author presents the results of several years’ work on his theme with the same literary skill that has marked his other writings.

He traces the utopian ideal from Plato’s Republic onwards, and affords the reader a panoramic survey of Plato’s company: Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Campanella, Edward Bellamy, H. G. Wells, and others. But utopianism has waned in this century, and dystopias now take their place: Evelyn Waugh, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell figure large. The author is not content to summarize others, however. He enumerates the recurrent themes of utopia and dystopia; he asks why the latter is now more in favor; he compares the two sets of ideas and adduces related Christian themes.

Of particular interest are the dystopian’s demurrers regarding the goodness of man, his awareness of the tension between material satisfaction and creative individuality, and his pessimism regarding technological societies. For one’s view of society, be it optimistic or pessimistic, rests on one’s view of man, and the redemption of society can hardly be accomplished by any happiness-engineering that fails to restore to man the dignity of God’s children. For a readable survey of literature’s commentary on human optimism and pessimism, this would be hard to excel.

ARTHUR F. HOLMES

Best In Fifty Years

The Greatness That Was Babylon, by H. W. F. Saggs (Hawthorn, 1962, 562 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by Francis Rue Steele, Home Secretary of North Africa Mission, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.

The Bible is virtually unique among the world’s great religious books in that it records not only ideas about God but also the acts of God in history, acts which affected the lives of real people who lived long ago. In this sense the Revelation of God is closely related to history. It treats of real events that occurred at specific places at definite points of time. For this reason the Bible student has a special interest in the reconstruction of ancient history in Bible lands. Such information throws welcome light on the historic background of the unfolding plan of redemption set forth in Scripture. Mr. Saggs has performed a much needed service in this field for biblical studies; no comparable volume has been published in English during the past half century. Every serious Bible student must have this book in his library.

Here we have a survey of the history of Mesopotamia (the title “Babylon” is misleading) from the first appearance of human cultural remains to the conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Persians. And not only political history—frequently described mainly in terms of military campaigns—but economic and cultural history as well are sketched in a style calculated to appeal to the educated non-specialist. Sixty-six plates and fourteen cuts admirably illustrate the text.

Writing a history of Mesopotamia is a formidable task. The very abundance of data, welcome as it is, complicates analysis of the problems resulting from conflicting evidence. We should be all the more grateful to Saggs for his courage and industry. The chapter on the relationship between our present civilization and ancient Mesopotamia based on such items as metrology, mathematics, and law is especially valuable. Research over the past century has pushed back our cultural horizon beyond Greece another thousand years to Mesopotamia. It is helpful to collect this evidence and place it in proper perspective. Conservative Bible scholars will not find all of Sagg’s identifications and explanations acceptable since he is unduly favorable to liberal criticism.

The rather extensive bibliographical notices with which the volume closes will facilitate further study of items of special interest to the reader. But it is to be regretted that footnotes to identify special citations and factual statements are absent. One further glaring omission must be noted; there is only one map in the text (a line cut), and the sketch maps inside the boards are limited in scope. A series of maps depicting the geographical and political development would greatly enhance the usefulness of the book. This oversight should be corrected in a subsequent edition.

FRANCIS RUE STEELE

Paperbacks

Preaching and Congregation, by Jean-Jacques Von Allmen (John Knox, 1962, 67 pp., $1.50). A substantial study of such matters as the miracle of preaching and its place in worship, together with a consideration of preaching as the Reformed contribution to the ecumenical movement.

Saints, Signs and Symbols, by W. Ellwood Post (Morehouse-Barlow, 1962, 80 pp., $.85). Sketches and terse descriptions of religious symbols used in the Church.

The Ministry of the Spirit, Selected Writings of Roland Allen, ed. by David M. Paton (Eerdmans, 1962, 208 pp., $1.65). A very competent discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit in the missionary enterprise, by a man whose stature continues to grow. First American edition.

The Religious Factor, by Gerhard Lenski (Doubleday, 1963, 421 pp., $1.45). A sociological study of the influence of religion on the political, economic, and family life of Protestants, Jews, and Roman Catholics in the city of Detroit. Revised; first printed in 1961.

Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum (Faith in Search of Understanding), by Karl Barth (World, 1962, 173 pp., $1.35). Barth takes the measure of Anselm’s celebrated argument for the existence of God. Important for an understanding of both Anselm and Barth—particularly for the latter’s theological method. For scholars only.

Ploughing in Hope, by Kathleen Callow (Victory Press, 1962, 96 pp., 4s. 6d.). An account in unusual spiritual depth vividly pointing up the problems and rewards of two Wyclilfe Bible translators working among the Indians in Brazil.

The Christian Idea of History, by Donald C. Masters (Waterloo Lutheran University, Waterloo, Ontario, 1962, 37 pp., $1). Brief discussion of many facets of a Christian philosophy of history; delivered as a lecture at Waterloo Lutheran University.

A METHODIST EXPERIMENT—The Holman Methodist Church of Los Angeles is holding Monday evening services in an effort to reach people who can’t or won’t attend on Sunday mornings. “We have had as few as 17 worshipers, and as many as 100,” says the pastor, Dr. L. L. White. “I do not intend to measure the value by the usual yardstick, the size of attendance. We will measure it by what happens to the people who do come.”

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—Evangelist Billy Graham is reported to have agreed to a second major crusade in Chicago, June 4–13, 1965. Last year’s evangelistic series drew an aggregate of 703,000 persons with nightly meetings in McCormick Place and a closing rally at Soldier Field.

Anglicans plan a major expansion of their ministry in Latin America. Provisions include a “top quality program of theological education in an ecumenical setting.” The thrust was formulated at a four-day consultation in Cuernavaca, Mexico. On hand were 25 leaders of the Church of England, the Church of Canada, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, and the Church of the Province of the West Indies.

The Southern Presbyterian Board of World Missions approved a proposal to give national churches greater control over the denomination’s missionary activities abroad. The recommendation had been made by a consultation on world missionary strategy convened by the board last October in Montreat, North Carolina.

Trans World Radio says its will put into operation on October 1 the world’s most powerful Protestant radio station. The transmitter will be located on the island of Curacao, about 20 miles off the coast of Venezuela. In addition to an initial 250,000-to-500,000 watt short-wave transmitter, an AM transmitter of at least 50,000 watts, and possibly as great as 750,000 watts, is being planned.

A resolution calling for law and order in complying with court or federal mandates on integrating public schools was tabled by the Alabama Episcopal diocese, 110 to 94. The Episcopal bishop of Alabama and his coadjutor were among 11 clergymen in the state signing a statement warning against “hatred and violence” and “inflammatory and rebellious” declarations in connection with the possible desegregation of public schools.

An estimated 10,000 persons filed into Manila’s Plaza Miranda for an evangelistic rally which took the form of a prelude to the Billy Graham crusade scheduled in March. Among the evangelists who spoke were Greg Tingson and Muri Thompson.

MISCELLANY—Plans are being laid in Holland for a joint Roman Catholic-Protestant church building campaign. Proposals under consideration involve many new churches at seaside resorts and other tourist centers. Suggestions have been made to build one or more of these seasonal churches for the use of both Catholics and Protestants.

Construction began on a $10,000,000 brewery “within smelling distance” of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. An appeal has been filed with the state Supreme Court asking for a ruling that would allow a local option liquor election in the precinct.

Ecumenical Press Service quotes missionaries who say there is “a ready market” for literature in the Congo. The Bible is said to be a best seller. Archie Graber of the Congo Inland Mission was quoted as saying that “interest in buying the Scriptures is at least double anything I’ve known in my 32 years in Congo.”

The words of the national anthem of Uganda have been modified to invoke the name of God. Instead of “O Uganda, thy people praise thee!” the words will read, “O Uganda, may God protect thee!”

The 275th anniversary of the birthday of Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian, was marked in Washington, D. C., by a tribute from the Swedish ambassador to the United States, Gunnar Jarring, who described him as “one of those universal genuises who turn up perhaps once in a century.”

The U. S. Senate observed the 45th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence Day by inviting the Rev. Joseph J. Fedorek, rector of St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, to serve as its guest chaplain. The prayer marked the day in 1918 when the Ukraine declared its independence as a nation, a freedom later extinguished through Communist conquest.

Dr. Joost de Blank, Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa, will preach the closing sermon at the Anglican World Congress in Toronto next summer. It will mark his first trip abroad since he suffered a coronary attack last summer.

Baptism was castigated as a “health menace” and “a senseless and dangerous rite” in the weekly pro-atheist broadcast of Moscow Radio. The Communist commentator said “thousands” of babies died of pneumonia following christening ceremonies and that “weak hearts” and “weak lungs” in adults had been traced to baptism in their early years.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION—Decatur (Texas) Baptist College, said to be the world’s oldest junior college, has been invited to move to Dallas to form the nucleus of a proposed Baptist university there.

Trustees of Gordon College and Divinity School authorized conversion of the academic calendar to a trimester program. Students will attend three equal periods of 14 weeks each which will enable them to complete undergraduate work in three years.

A group of presidents of private church-related colleges in North Carolina gave general approval to a plan whereby state financial aid would be provided their students. A committee, appointed by the group and headed by Dr. Carlyle Campbell of Meredith College, a Baptist school, will study specific proposals.

PERSONALIA—Dr. Helen Kim, president emeritus of Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Korea, named to receive the 1963 Upper Room Citation for distinguished contributions to Christian fellowship around the world.

The Rev. J. Martin Bailey appointed editor of United Church Herald, official organ of the United Church of Christ.

The Rev. Philip Crouch named president of Central Bible Institute, ministerial training college of the Assemblies of God.

J. Edward Smith elected executive director of the Pocket Testament League.

WORTH QUOTING—“If I’ve learned anything in the last two years in working on the local level, it is that when the clergy provides leadership, we can move ahead.”—Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in an address at the monthly meeting of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D. C.

“Prophetic preaching has been an integral part of the life of the Church at least since the eighth century B.C. Many times it has rescued civilization from the brink of disaster, and I for one am confident that it can do it again.”—Dr. K. Morgan Edwards of the Southern California School of Theology.

“The Church today needs time out to tune up. We are so busy building a bigger orchestra that we cannot stop to tune our instruments. What good is a big orchestra if two-thirds of the members never show up for practice or else are off key when they perform?”—Dr. Vance Havner, in an address to a conference of the Evangelistic Association of New England.

Deaths

WILLIAM CARDINAL GODFREY, 73, Archbishop of Westminster and leader of Britain’s five million Roman Catholics; in London.

DR. ROLAND QUINCHE LEAVELL, 71, president emeritus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

DR. J. ERNEST RATTENBURY, 92, leader of the opposition to the Methodist union in Britain in the late 1920s and former superintendent of the West London Mission; in London.

PROFESSOR AARON E. KOPF, 36, director of admission at Concordia Theological Seminary; in Springfield, Illinois.

Religious leaders are worried about the impact President Kennedy’s tax reform would have upon charitable contributions.

A number have already expressed concern over the new rules proposed for itemizing tax deductions.

As set forth in Kennedy’s tax message to Congress last month, all deductions—including those claimed for church and other charitable contributions—would be subject to an overall 5 per cent “floor.” This means, in effect, that itemized deductions would be limited to those in excess of 5 per cent of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income.

In filling out his return, therefore, the taxpayer would add up all his deductions (charitable contributions, medical expenses, interest payments, and so forth), then reduce that total by 5 per cent of his adjusted gross income.

At present, the average taxpayer may deduct all charitable contributions up to 20 per cent of his gross income, and up to 30 per cent in the case of donations to churches, educational institutions, and hospitals. If he chooses not to itemize deductions, he may claim a “standard deduction” which amounts to about 10 per cent of his income.

Kennedy’s proposal would extend the 30 per cent limit to “all organizations eligible for the charitable contributions deductions which are publicly supported and controlled.”

The President asserted that “present law permits a handful of high income taxpayers to take an unlimited deduction for charitable contributions, instead of the 20 to 30 per cent of income normally allowable.… They should be limited to the same 30 per cent deduction for charitable contributions as everyone else.”

It is estimated that more than 40 per cent of all individual income-tax returns are filed by people who itemize deductions. Kennedy said that under the proposed tax reform 6,500,000 taxpayers would no longer itemize deductions. He observed that the “broadening of the tax base which permits a greater reduction in individual income tax rates has an accompanying advantage of real simplification.”

He intimated that he did not foresee an adverse effect on charitable giving.

“This 5 per cent floor will make $2.3 billion of revenue available for reduction in individual tax rates. At the same time incentives to home ownership or charitable contributions will remain. In fact, this tax program as a whole, providing as it does substantial reductions in Federal tax liabilities for virtually all families and individuals, will make it easier for people to meet their personal and civic obligations.”

NEWS / A fortnightly report of developments in religion

‘CONCESSIONS’ SEEN IN EDUCATION PROGRAM

President Kennedy’s 1963 program for federal aid to education includes some “concessions” to parochial and other private schools and to private colleges, including those that are church-related, according to Religious News Service.

While the major part of the omnibus program would be restricted, as in previous proposals, to public schools only, the President has asked Congress to remove discriminations against teachers in parochial schools that were incorporated in the National Defense Education Act.

He urged that the forgiveness of student loans be extended to those who teach in private schools, as well as public schools, and in private colleges.

Kennedy also asked Congress to provide stipends up to $75 a week for teachers in private schools who attend summer institutes sponsored under the NDEA, RNS reported. At present, teachers in non-public schools may attend such institutes but do not receive the financial support which is given public school teachers.

In his message transmitting the program to Congress, the President made no direct reference to the religious issue which has been at the heart of the debate over federal aid, saving only:

“We can no longer afford the luxury of endless debate over all the complicated and sensitive questions raised by each new proposal on federal participation in education.”

A Roman Catholic priest in Pittsburgh stated that if a member of his congregation saves $100 through the Kennedy-proposed cuts in income tax rates, “maybe he will give $30 to $40 of that to the church.”

The consensus, however, seems to be otherwise. The Rev. T. K. Thompson, director of the Department of Stewardship and Benevolences of the National Council of Churches, declared:

“This proposal would undoubtedly make it harder for churches and charities to raise funds. And it’s already hard enough.”

Thompson said he had discussed the proposal with about a dozen philanthropic leaders at a meeting in New York and “most of them were of the opinion that the change would have a negative, although not a catastrophic, effect on giving.”

The Rev. Arthur Joyce of the United Presbyterian Department of Stewardship and Promotion told United Press International that tax deductibility “has unquestionably served as an extremely important incentive to giving.”

A legal official of the National Catholic Welfare Conference agreed that “the proposed change certainly wouldn’t make things any easier.”

The Wall Street Journal quoted a Baptist church official as saying that “without the deduction feature, I’m afraid there would be many people who wouldn’t give at all.”

A charity administrator whose institution depends largely on a large number of small gifts from people in the $5,000 to $10,000 income bracket said he did not think there would be any effect.

But concern was voiced particularly by administrators of institutions that depend on gifts from middle- and higher-income brackets.

An opposing viewpoint was registered by the treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of Texas, Dr. R. A. Springer:

“We like to think people give to the church on principle, regardless of the tax situation.”

One current provision which would not be affected by tax reform encourages individuals to give stock to charities. Stock donations are deductible at current market value, even if the taxpayer bought the stock at a fraction of that value. If he sells the stock instead of giving it to charity, he must pay a capital gains tax.

A factor which keeps the deduction plan from becoming even more of an issue is the doubt that it will ever be enacted by Congress. Observers give the tax reform proposal little change of passage without major modifications.

Needed: More Vigor

Although White House encouragement was conspicuously lacking, a strong move was afoot in Congress to deal with the problem of obscene and pornographic materials.

A bipartisan group of 16 Senators introduced a bill last month to create a special federal commission to study the problem. Identical measures were introduced in the House.

A similar bill passed the Senate last year, but was not reported by the House Committee on Government Expenditures, headed by Democratic Representative William A. Dawson of Illinois.

The proposed 15-member commission would be empowered to investigate all types of indecent material circulating in interstate commerce, and would be directed to recommend legislation to Congress, as well as programs for more effective enforcement of existing laws.

As of the end of January, President Kennedy had not offered any recommendations on legislation to protect the public from indecent materials. In fact, he has had very little to say on the subject since he took office more than two years ago. His only specific action has been a “pocket veto” of a bill approved by Congress to strengthen the laws against obscene publications in the District of Columbia.

THE GOSPEL IN ORBIT

Alert communicators who hope to tap the potential of communications satellites for the cause of Christ got encouragement from the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee last month.

Democratic Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington challenged delegates to the 20th annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters to carry God’s message “throughout the materialistic world.”

“The scientific and technical means of communicating this message have reached capabilities undreamed of a few years ago,” Magnuson observed, “but I strongly question if their use for religious purposes has increased proportionately with this growth.” (An NRB survey showed that during 1961 its members had spent a total of $1,880,163.98 for the purchase of television time. That amount buys less than 15 hours of prime time on the NBC television network.)

He said that “our task is to increase the quantity of religious broadcasts and telecasts without diminution of the present high quality of many fine religious programs.”

Referring specifically to the missionary potential of communications satellites like Telstar, he declared: “What a weapon for the Christian and the free world if it is used right!” The Senator said the problems were “whether the content transmitted by communications satellites will include religious messages of significance and whether, once transmitted, the governments of certain countries will permit their peoples to receive them.”

His committee, Magnuson said, “will look to you for guidance and suggestions as to how best to achieve this objective.”

The Senate Commerce Committee has charge of legislation regulating radio and television. Magnuson and the committee have in years past fallen into disfavor with some religious leaders because of the committee’s perennial refusal to report out—favorably or unfavorably—a bill to regulate the advertising of alcoholic beverages on radio and television.

Another convention speaker, William J. Roberts of the Far East Broadcasting Company, disclosed that the U. S. government had taken over a missionary radio station during the Cuban crisis. The station, KGEI, which regularly beams Gospel broadcasts to Latin America from a transmitter near San Francisco, was on the air with President Kennedy’s crisis speech on 40 minutes’ notice. The government used the facilities of KGEI and nine other stations for another 23 days, until the crisis had subsided.

The Washington convention was also the occasion for the birth of a new federation which seeks “greater cohesion and closer cooperation among evangelical broadcasters.” The federation, to be known as International Christian Broadcasters, will embrace National Religious Broadcasters and the World Conference on Missionary Communications, both of which will continue to function as separate organizations as well. NRB’s field is primarily domestic, while WCMC is largely involved in missionary radio stations.

His veto after Congress had adjourned last fall killed the measure sponsored by Democratic Representative John Dowdy of Texas. At that time the President said:

“Although I am in complete accord with the Congress that the people of the District of Columbia should adequately be protected against the dissemination of indecent and obscene publications and articles, there are grave constitutional and other considerations which compel me to withhold approval.”

He suggested then that the 88th Congress consider the subject. There was no word from the White House as to whether Kennedy would favor the establishment of a federal commission on obscenity.

Amish Dilemma

An Amish farmer whose horses were seized because of his refusal to pay Social Security taxes apparently is not willing to pursue court action against the federal government.

The farmer, Valentine Y. Byler of New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, dropped a U. S. District Court suit after being caught in a religious dilemma. The Old Order Amish community to which he belongs does not believe in any form of insurance, but it also does not believe in court actions.

In view of the withdrawal of the suit, John Bingler, district director of Internal Revenue in Pittsburgh, said his department has no alternative but to attempt to collect back Social Security taxes from 76 other Amishmen who also have refused to pay.

The only hope for the Amish apparently lies with Congress, where bills have again been introduced to exempt from Social Security those who have religious objections against it. A similar bill was passed by the Senate last year, but was killed by a joint House-Senate conference committee.

Tax Appeal

The American Baptist Convention is appealing a local tax board ruling which places a $2.2 million assessment upon its new national offices and printing plant at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Under an agreement between ABC officials and local authorities, the convention has placed some $130,000 in escrow in lieu of a tax payment to Upper Merion Township. The money was placed in escrow pending the outcome of an appeal by the ABC to the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court. The convention maintains that the property should be tax-exempt.

Threatening Overture

A majority of Southern Presbyterian General Assembly moderators feel that inclusion of United Presbyterians in talks now going on with the Reformed Church in America would seriously threaten those conversations.

Eleven of the last seventeen moderators of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. responded to a survey conducted by the Presbyterian Journal, an independent weekly with editorial offices in Asheville, North Carolina. Nine indicated opposition to the inclusion of the United Presbyterians at this time. Another said he was not opposed but questioned whether the move was timely. The eleventh moderator favored inclusion because it would “keep the matter before the church.”

A Florida presbytery has already prepared an overture to the 1963 General Assembly asking that United Presbyterians be included in the talks. At the same assembly, to be held April 25–29 in Huntington, West Virginia, the first report will be presented from Southern Presbyterian members of a joint Presbyterian-Reformed committee exploring possibilities of common witness and service.

A Theological Gulf

Protestant denominations that participate in the ecumenical movement were urged last month to establish closer relations with evangelical groups that remain outside the movement.

The gulf that exists between these two groups in the United States is being exported around the world and is hurting the missionary effort, Dr. Eugene L. Smith told the Methodist Board of Missions’ annual meeting in Cincinnati.

Smith, general secretary of the board’s Division of World Missions, warned that any such approaches to evangelicals must be made in a spirit of humility and on a person-to-person basis.

He said the ecumenical denominations should recognize that “the evangelicals have something to teach us in the traditional churches in several areas of church life: missionary zeal, the invasive power of the Holy Spirit, Christian stewardship, the practice of expectant evangelism, and communal prayers.”

Calling for personal contacts with evangelical bodies, Smith said “distrust of the conciliar movement is so keen among many of the conservative evangelicals that organizational approaches only intensify the problem.”

He also declared that the “guiding concern of our approach to the conservative evangelicals must be Christian truth, even more than unity.” Many of the evangelicals feel that the ecumenical movement emphasizes unity at the expense of truth, and this objection must be dealt with, he added.

Evangelicals “feel deeply that they are not approached by ‘ecumenicals’ as brothers in Christ but as people to be used for organizational purposes,” Smith said.

In view of this, he cautioned that ecumenical denominations must make sure their motives are “entirely free from even a hidden desire that in the name of unity we should seek to bring them into our organizational structure.”

A Merger Stalled

A membership vote of the Missionary Church Association fell 42 votes short of a two-thirds majority necessary to effect a merger with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

The referendum was the last major obstacle standing in the way of a union of the two groups, which together would have a membership of about 80,000 with an overseas missionary task force approaching 1,000.

Although the General Conference of the MCA approved the merger last August, it stipulated a membership vote with a two-thirds majority of those voting necessary to carry. The referendum was conducted in the 120 MCA churches on Sunday, January 6. Final tally showed 3,405 voting in favor of the merger and 1,765 against. A total of 3,447 was necessary for passage. The MCA has a total membership of about 8,000, but only those over 16 were eligible to vote.

The General Council of the CMA, whose polity is not so autonomous as the MCA’s, approved the merger last May and was expected to have ratified it this year. No referendum was involved.

Dr. Nathan Bailey, CMA president, observed that “the original conversations and the merger negotiations were conducted in a most cordial atmosphere. We know these cordial relations will continue in the future in our close cooperation and fellowship in the major task of world evangelization.”

There is some speculation that a new merger attempt will be initiated at the next General Conference of the MCA in August, 1964.

Both denominations had their beginnings about 75 years ago. They are similar in theology, principles, and practices. Until 1945 most of the missionaries sent out by the MCA worked in CMA fields. Cooperative efforts will continue.

Ethics In The Social Dimension

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville opened its doors to the fourth annual meeting of the American Society for Christian Social Ethics last month. Unlike some such conferences which approach ethical problems from the circumference of concrete issues, the two-day gathering moved from the center outward: that is, the papers were ordered in such a manner that the ethical norm was the primary object of search, while the day-by-day applications were made in the light of the central and the normative.

Three questions engaged the meeting: What is the source of the ethical norm? What are its sanctions? How may it be applied in a complex world?

Consideration of the first question began with another query: What does natural law reveal about central ethical requirements? Careful thought was directed to the relation between the universal and absolute deliverances which some students find in natural law on the one hand, and the relational and the individual conclusions established by pragmatic and positive law.

Attention was given to the manner in which natural law seems at times to contradict divine law, with the conclusion that the classical Greek understanding of the “law of the gods” as subject to the claims of man’s interpretation of nature has passed with many other antique notions. It was noted that the Christian faith is intimately bound to a historical understanding of reality, which frequently brings it into conflict with the permanent structures which natural law presupposes. The conclusion upon which the discussions proceeded seemed to be that the ethical norm is not derived from some supposed analysis of the nature either of “natural law” or of man, but is derived from divine demands which focus attention, not upon rational investigation of the structures of creation, but upon God’s right to expect total obedience. This was regarded as providing two requisites: first, the fixity upon which man may seek to ground his moral action; and second, the flexibilities by which today’s man may meet the unpredictable facts arising from his involvement in social change.

This structuring of the moral norm guided discussion of the sanction(s) upon which Christian ethics must rest. Significant emphasis was laid upon the contribution which H. Richard Niebuhr made to the study of social ethics in his value-theory and in his view that God is primarily good in an intrinsic sense, the expression of His goodness in an instrumental sense being distinctly secondary. This view was set over against that of Charles Hartshorne, who held that to be love, God must have creatures to love and to love him. Obviously one does not solve all ethical problems by asserting that in God supreme power and supreme love are united. What was stressed was that belief in a self-sufficient God affords the best possible basis for derivation of a relational ethic.

The application of the revealed norm engaged the meeting at a number of levels. Granting that the Christian ethic is one of duty, of commitment, of obedience to authority, it remains true that there are variables involved in understanding the content of that ethic for the concrete situation. First of all, there must be a recognition of individual differences and of contingent events. These “contingent events” offer the tantalizing possibility of an ethical breakthrough by which a tangible norm of love can or should be made concrete. Those noted especially were the questions of race, automation, juvenile delinquency, and of licit and effective means for exerting Christian influence upon public policy.

The question of minorities, particularly racial minorities, found careful analysis in a paper entitled “New Configurations in Minority Group Social Action”; the differing attitudes of several groups within our society were brought to focus. On the one hand, the melioristic attitudes and programs to which Christian ethicists are generally committed were confronted with minorities’ more radical demands for prompt, activistic solutions to the problems of manifest inequities. “Tokenism” was seen as less satisfactory to aspiring members of minority groups than to hopeful members of majority groups. Significantly, the mentality of the minority groups was given prominence in the discussion; to the minorities the urgent demands for justice take priority, at this moment, at least, over efforts to “build love” in the hearts of men.

Genuine, searching effort was made to grapple with the problems inherent in automation of industry, particularly those touching public justice. Clearly, there exists to date no simple panacea, for such measures as retraining fail to meet the basic problems involved in high school drop-outs, in the relative abundance of unskilled labor, and in the lack of prior background by which unskilled labor might be brought to the level of skills at which they could be placed in the scheme of our complex society. The intimate relationship between automated industry and juvenile delinquency was noted; proposed solutions prompted the conclusion that the social ethicist faces a complex of problems and problematic situations which will engage and challenge him for a long time to come.

The question of the exertion of Christian influence upon public policy involved several related problems, notably the structuring of “publics” in our public life, and the mode of government’s response to these sometimes-diverse power groups. The discussion involved, of course, the so-called “radical right”—the denotation was changed at the outset to “resurgent right”—and accepted the view that those thus designated have at least some right on their side. On the whole, the treatment of those to the right of center was fair, with due recognition that while these persons may at times be confused in their ideology, they feel that they contend for action by principle in a world in which relativism underlies most of public policy. There was no downgrading of the right ad hominem, not any “condemnation by cliché,” but a serious quest for a re-relating of empirical ethics to the application of principle in public life.

The meeting was characterized by a degree of self-criticism which is not always easy for a new group engaged in a relatively new task. Particularly noteworthy was the emphasis upon the need for reinstatement, in the midst of the problematic and the pragmatic, of the claims of an ethical norm from a Source outside and above man, a norm grounded in One who is both intrinsically and instrumentally good.

H. B. K.

The Happy Confession

The Heidelberg Catechism, one of Protestantism’s most basic documents which is attracting new attention as a doctrinal median, was honored on its 400th birthday last month with ceremonies at Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Theological Seminary. The four-day observance embraced a seminary convocation and an annual meeting of the North American Area Council of the World Presbyterian Alliance.

Dr. Hendrikus Berkhof, a Dutch theologian, lyrically described the catechism as a “wonderful, radical, catholic, serious and yet happy confession.” Hailed as the “climax of the confessional literature of all Christian ages,” it was described by Dr. James I. McCord, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, as “the most ecumenical confession of the Reformation Period.” Dr. James E. Wagner, vice president of the alliance, recalled that “when Dr. Eugene Carson Blake made his now famous proposal for church union in an address in San Francisco in December, 1960, he … suggested that the Heidelberg Catechism might offer a good doctrinal basis on which the four denominations … could find satisfactory agreement.”

It was pointed out that when the Reformation came to the Palatinate of Germany, the region became enflamed over differences between Lutherans and Calvinists. Elector Frederick III, assuming the role of a peacemaker, appointed Ursinus, a Heidelberg professor, and Olevianus, a gifted preacher at court, to compose a confession of faith marked by biblical simplicity and free from scholastic subtleties. The product of these two men still in their twenties was a confession which has widely been hailed as the most sweet-tempered, the most devotional, and the most ecumenical of any of the confessions coming out of the Reformation—qualities doubtless interrelated.

The Heidelberg Catechism is still used today by Reformed churches in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Dr. Howard G. Hageman of the Reformed Church in America pleaded that the catechism be salvaged from its “colossal neglect” and be used again as an “instrument of Christian nurture.” In view of its large disuse, he asked whether the anniversary was really “a birthday or a funeral?” Hageman described the Heidelberg Catechism as a “spiritual biography,” free from the more “speculative theology” of the Westminster Catechism, and said the Heidelberg, unlike later catechisms, retained the thousand-year-old traditional schema of contents. He spotlighted the warm devotional character of the Heidelberg by demonstrating that with slight changes in language the catechism could be uttered as a prayer upon one’s knees.

The church in America which most honors the catechism in practice is the Christian Reformed Church. Among other things, it uses the catechism as a basis for one sermon each Sunday. It is not, however, a member of the alliance.

Additional celebrations are scheduled in Denver in July and in Heidelberg, Germany. The West German government plans to issue a stamp commemorating the anniversary.

J. D.

An Island Experiment

In 1930 a 35-year-old baronet and minister of the Church of Scotland left fashionable St. Cuthbert’s, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, to become minister of a thickly populated area in industrial Clydeside. There during the depression years George MacLeod (he does not use his title) came face to face with unemployment, hunger, and human need, and the older generation in Govan still remember his sacrificial work on their behalf. His services were well attended, but he sensed a missing dimension: “the urgent and imperative necessity for the Ministry of the Church to meet the clamant needs of men if ever it was again to re-establish that active relevance to the whole of life which formerly commanded the allegiance of their fathers.”

A fresh experiment was called for, which would bring together two groups of men: the worker and the minister. So in 1938 George MacLeod suddenly resigned his charge, and with a group of eight, craftsmen and young ministers, set off for the Hebridean island of Iona. Here in a place fairly inaccessible and offering few distractions was a worthy task and a spiritual challenge. Together, as they toiled to rebuild the abbey precincts, sharing the fellowship of work and of worship, ministers and laymen would seek to carry out what they regarded as the task of the Church: “to find a new community for men in the world today.” This year, with 150 regular members, 600 associate members, and more than 5,000 “friends” throughout the world, The Iona Community is celebrating its 25th birthday.

The task of rebuilding is virtually complete, and the present aim is “to prevent the decay of the fabric and to ensure an innkeeper winter and summer in all time coming.” The mainland center at Community House in Glasgow’s dockland is used as a place of fellowship and training, and is available also to groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous with whose aims the community is in sympathy. Formerly autonomous, the community is now under the jurisdiction of the Church of Scotland.

Four things are stressed: the constant commitment of the Church is to mission; parishioners must be trained to take responsible political action; the Church must recover the ministry of healing; worship must be related to daily life. The “political responsibility” injunction is coupled with a pronounced left-wing alignment and a pacifism which is no mere wartime profession: a large number of the 70 ministers who staged a ban-the-bomb parade in Glasgow are Iona men. MacLeod himself (winner of the Military Cross in World War I) remains a controversial figure. Known as “the Leader,” he is the only man in modern times whose election as moderator was challenged in the General Assembly.

The focal point of his theology is the Incarnation, which he aims to express in social terms. “Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves.” (At every stage of His life he was identified with mankind.) This “comprehensive” view, reminiscent of F. D. Maurice’s Christian Socialism, which flourished briefly a century ago, is reflected in a typical day’s program on the island: worship, study, work, a service of spiritual healing, a talk on Eastern Europe, and a dance.

Of evangelicals MacLeod says: “They are forever arranging the next revival campaign, so that more can ‘get Christ’ and so become involved, while they themselves who have ‘got Christ’ continue to escape involvement!” His voice was raised against the Kirk’s invitation to Billy Graham some years ago, in which cause his magnificent oratory was as unavailing as it is annually in the General Assembly when he seeks condemnation of the bomb. His pacifism and his politics, combined with a certain arrogance of manner, cause periodic eruptions in the correspondence columns of the Scottish national press, and ensure that his experiment does not lack publicity.

J.D.D.

Twtwtw

“I object to presenting religion as a joke and believers as being mentally deficient,” said a past president of the Catholic Stage Guild. Though lacking grammatical clarity, the message came through, along with 182 other complaints made by the normally phlegmatic British against BBC-TV’s satirical program “That Was The Week That Was.”

On this particular Saturday evening the producers presented a consumer report on comparative religions: Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Church of England, Islam, Buddhism—and Communism. The emcee, 23-year-old Cambridge graduate David Frost, who is also a Methodist local preacher, reviewed what the consumer had put into each religion, what he could expect out of it, and what it cost him. In advance, however, he slyly extracted some potentially critical teeth by pointing out that if in publicity and advertising the churches “used the values and methods of the world,” then they could expect to be judged by such values.

Roman Catholicism was examined as “a cradle-to-grave service from a priesthood unimpeded by family ties,” characterized by the slogan “confess your sins quickly before you do it again.” Communism came off worst under investigation, and the Church of England was recommended as the best buy (“you must believe that the Queen is the head of the Church, that the Prime Minister should appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in God”). A London Roman Catholic newspaper, giving it front-page space, didn’t like the program at all and sought to drum up opposition from the more famous faithful. At the top of the list was the curious comment by comedienne Bebe Daniels: “I think it’s disgraceful. It’s the first time I’ve walked out of my own living room.” Another comedian is quoted as having said: “The only consolation I derived was that the program will be lucky if it lasts two years, whereas the thing it was taking the mickey out of has already lasted 2,000 years.” It may be that the newspaper had not forgiven a previous program which allegedly featured a group of cardinals at the end of the Vatican Council singing “Arrivederci, Roma!”

TWTWTW was also the subject of a question in the House of Commons last month, after the program disclosed the results of research into Members who had seldom if ever said a word in Parliament during the past three years. One of them broke silence long enough to ask if this was not a breach of privilege. The Speaker took until the following day to decide that That Was No Breach That Was.

J.D.D.

A Reunion Plan?

As of late January, there was talk aplenty in Great Britain about the possibility of an Anglican-Methodist merger. A reunion committee was due to present findings of a detailed study report on February 26. One member described the report as “encouraging.”

Problems In The Sudan

The government of the Sudan found itself the target of many an angry accusation last month in the wake of missionary expulsions and alleged anti-Christian persecution. A high ranking Roman Catholic prelate met violent death under ambiguous circumstances so sketchily reported that any assessment of motivations seemed premature.

Twelve more American Protestant missionaries were forced out of the northeast African republic. Eleven of them were United Presbyterian and Reformed missionaries who had previously seen six of their colleagues banished. The other was a woman missionary of the Sudan Interior Mission, an interdenominational body which has more than 30 other missionaries still at work in the Sudan.

Most of the charges of anti-Christian persecution, however, have come from Roman Catholic sources. Vatican Radio asserted that about 100 Roman Catholic missionaries were expelled within two months.

Spokesmen for the government of the Sudan, however, insist that policies are not motivated by anti-Christian sentiment.

The Sudan embassy in Washington issued a statement challenging the accuracy of reports of anti-Christian persecution. The statement declared that “the policy of the Republic of the Sudan has always been, and shall always be, to guarantee and protect freedom of religion and worship for all citizens and all foreign residents without discrimination of any kind.”

The statement implied that missionaries had been expelled only because of “improper and illegal political activity.”

Other sources defending the government of the Sudan pointed to the fact that a number of Christians occupy influential posts whereby they can influence and implement national policies.

Avoiding A Test

Observers in Athens say that in “indefinitely postponing” its civil suit against a Greek Orthodox prelate, the national government may have avoided a politically embarrassing test of strength against the Orthodox Church in Greece.

Members of the Holy Synod, in a meeting just prior to the trial’s postponement, had gone on record as stating that the civil suit was, in effect, an attack upon the church and its prelates.

Metropolitan Ambrosius of Eleftherupolis—and five newsmen who printed his statements before the Holy Synod in November—was to have been brought to trial for “abuse” or libel of the government. The metropolitan, in discussing the government’s proposed clergy pay plan, had said the “Greek state behaves like a robber toward the Church.”

His comments were made during a Holy Synod session which had rejected the state’s recommendation, which, it charged, would have absorbed two church agencies within an organization that could be dominated by the state.

“Postponement” of the trial was interpreted in Athens by observers to mean that it would never be called and in time will be dropped.

It was revealed that at a session of the synod held five days before the scheduled date for the trial, Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens and All Greece charged that the civil suit was actually a persecution of the synod. He noted that if carried out it would mark the first trial of a bishop before a civil court since the establishment of the Greek state.

Archbishop Chrysostomos subsequently proposed a $6,130,000 pay increase to be distributed among some 8,000 priests. Based on education training, the recommended pay scale would provide 67½ per cent increases at the highest level and 70 per cent at the lowest. The highest class now receives $684 a year; the lowest, $360.

Now To The Vatican

A United Press International dispatch from Madrid reported last month that the Spanish Catholic hierarchy had agreed to a government bill that would grant Protestants equal rights with Catholics.

UPI quoted “reliable sources” which said that the Spanish bishops at their recent annual conference had decided to drop objections to a “bill of Protestant emancipation” prepared by Foreign Minister Fernando Maria Castiela.

The decision was to be reported to Rome by the Archbishop of Saragoss. No agreement will be published officially until it has received Vatican approval, the report added.

The bill would permit Protestants to have their own schools and distribute Bibles, and would give them certain other rights such as those relating to marriage laws.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, New York, the executive committee of the National Association of Evangelicals adopted a resolution commending Spanish government efforts to ease restrictions. The resolution called for “full religious freedom” and “not just … religious tolerance.”

In 1919 a group of English undergraduates met in Trinity College, Cambridge, to discuss the possibility of merging the Student Christian Movement with the 42-year-old Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. Eventually the vital question was put: “Does the SCM consider the atoning blood of Jesus Christ as the central point of its message?” The answer given was: “No, not as central, although it is given a place in our teaching.” Commented Norman P. Grubb, one of the CICCU men present: “That answer settled the matter, for we explained to them at once that the atoning blood was so much the heart of our message that we could never join with a movement which gave it any lesser place.” This was the real beginning of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions.

In the inter-war years, despite predominantly liberal influences in British academic circles, the fellowship established itself in all the universities of the United Kingdom, and was signally blessed of God in conversions and in the production of mature and able younger leaders in church and secular affairs. After World War II its influence rapidly increased. Liberalism was no longer the force it had been; a generation of older students arose whose Christian faith had been tested in the armed services, and student leaders of the pre-war generation were emerging as notable preachers and teachers. The work extended to technical and training colleges, and was consolidated in theological colleges where the age and maturity of students helped them stand up to liberal professors. IVF literature was gathering momentum, and filled a long-standing need for scholarly, up-to-date, evangelical works. Few of the books currently on the fellowship’s lists existed, or had any adequate counterpart, before 1945. Many of the new writers were young men, and they made an immense contribution also to the IVF’s New Bible Dictionary, which major project, with its largely British authorship, could not possibly have been produced two decades ago.

An increasing number of students entered full-time Christian service—for example, about one-third of the graduates now offering themselves for the Church of England ministry have IVF associations, in marked contrast to pre-war days. Moreover, this factor has given the lie to the charge that such interdenominational work cannot develop a proper church-consciousness. Ecclesiastical leaders of the larger denominations have even expressed horror at the prospect of what they usually call “a fundamentalist theology” returning on any extensive scale to British pulpits. At present IVF members, who sign a short declaration of faith on joining the local union, constitute about three per cent of the student population. (It is understood, of course, that in many cases evangelicals have a wider base than the IVF.)

From the start there has been a strong missionary spirit. The chief aim in creating the Christian Unions was usually to witness to fellow students. It is also true that many have gone abroad as missionaries, and in the last few years nearly ten per cent have gone overseas to less-developed countries as missionaries or in secular occupations. Another notable feature is that the work has always been strongest in the medical and science faculties. The fruits of this are now appearing in a number of prominent young professors and specialists in these fields who are definite evangelical Christians.

A new complicating factor has lately arisen. With the marked decline of the SCM, denominations are taking a hand and appointing more and more full-time chaplains, and establishing student centers. An unhappy corollary of this is that most chaplains fail to appreciate the value of student leadership, and smother the student with kindness and unnecessary facilities. The IVF practice of meeting in classrooms and residence halls reaches the unchurched much more effectively, by means of Bible study and informal opportunities for evangelism. A conflict of loyalties is deliberately encouraged by a few chaplains who say that one cannot be both a good church member and an IVF supporter, even though IVF specifically advocates support of a local church where students meet people of all classes. (Student church-going is now estimated at between one-quarter and one-half of the total—i.e., considerably above the national average.) The “denominational society,” if it isolates its adherents from normal church life, can be an even more damaging preparation for church membership than an interdenominational Christian Union which no one mistakes for the church. Some British denominations are dissatisfied with their own provision for work in the universities, but are unwilling to encourage the IVF. All too often their answer is to pile on staff and facilities, and so increasingly kill student responsibility.

That such a danger is by no means confined to Britain is acknowledged by Denis Baly in his book Academic Illusion (Seabury Press, 1961). He suggests that patronage by well-meaning people and churches in America is doing considerable harm. The effectiveness of the IVF type of work depends precisely on the fact that local groups are student-led and that it is essential to their well-being that members make their contribution. Many who are now doughty warriors for Christ were in their time given such tasks. Often there was no one locally to advise, IVF was small and only rarely available for more than correspondence, and a terrific spiritual load had to be borne by those barely out of their teens. Against liberal professors and chaplains they learned to stand up for their convictions, to appeal to Scripture rather than to human authorities, and to rely on the Lord for wisdom and grace to deal with tasks and situations far beyond their natural aptitude and experience. Where older people have tried to give too much help it has frequently resulted in a stifling of the groups and a limiting of their outreach to non-Christians.

In Britain the experience of years suggests that it is exceedingly doubtful whether problems inherent in the student world can ever be completely and effectively tackled by a task force from without. Even those missioners whose evangelistic campaigns have seen many won for Christ agree that in the last analysis it is Christian students who must bear the burden of witness toward their fellows. They and we, each in his vocation, may recall with profit the prayer of F. D. Coggan, a former editor of the IVF magazine and now Archbishop of York. He said 30 years ago in the book Christ and the Colleges: “May God grant that this present generation may strain every nerve to complete the task and evangelise to a finish to bring back the King.”

British Editorial Director

The infant of today is the young man or woman of tomorrow, leaving home to enter life with the equipment largely provided by parents.

You, fathers and mothers—what have they seen in your house? Have you prepared them to face life, or have you robbed them of those things which they should have seen and experienced?

Has your example been such that they might profit by it? Have your concerns been centered on time or on eternity? on material or on spiritual values?

Has your son been conditioned to regard the making of a living, a “success” in life, of primary importance, or do the kingdom of God and his righteousness come first?

Has your daughter learned the social graces at the expense of spiritual truth? Does she know the source of true beauty? Has she the built-in safeguards to purity, or are her standards those of the world?

Christian parents have the future of the world in their hands. The children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. Character developed in the home can be the safeguard of tomorrow. The compromises of parents can become the weakness of their children. The folly of parents can develop into the undoing of their children. The flaws of training develop into the weaknesses of mature life.

The responsibility of parents is such that only God can give the wisdom, firmness, and love which must characterize the Christian home. Nor can this responsibility be shifted to other shoulders. Teachers, whether in church or public schools, have their own responsibilities, but they must be supplemental to those of the home, not the sole source of child training.

Basic to child training are the disciplines which center in God and his Word. That we live in a time of undisciplined lives—lives of adults and children alike—is a frightening thing. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child,” we are told in the Book of Proverbs; we also know this by experience. Christian parents must exercise the wisdom of reproof, of restraint as well as of guidance, if their children are to learn the lesson of true discipline.

What do your children see in your home?

Is yours a home where prayer is given its rightful place? Do your children see you turning to God, praying for guidance and help? Do they sense that there is a divine power available to those who look to God for specific needs? Do you pray with and for the little ones God has given you? Do your children know that God is near and that he can be talked to as a loving Heavenly Father? Is prayer incidental, reserved for emergencies, or a way of life in your home?

What place has the Bible in your own daily living, and in the training of your children? Is it a pious ornament on your table, or the Book of reference and inspiration to which you turn daily?

No child has been properly trained until he knows that the Bible is God’s Word and that it speaks to the deepest needs of the human heart. What attitude toward the Scriptures are your children learning from you?

Do you have a family altar, a place of prayer, praise, and the hearing of God’s truth to which all resort each day?

Again we ask: What have they seen in your house? What have your children experienced at your hand?

Have they had the blessing of discipline? Have they learned that you can say “Yes” in love, and “No” with equal love and firmness? Have they learned the meaning of honoring their parents? Is your example such that they should respect you?

What are the basic concerns in your home? Do things have first place, or do spiritual and moral values come first?

What place has the Church for you and yours? Is it incidental or vital?

Is the cause of world missions kept before the boys and girls under your roof? Do they sense the prime importance of world evangelism, of the needs of those who do not know Christ?

Are the needy turned away from your door? Do the disasters, sorrows, and privations of others bring tangible reactions from your home? Do your children know the joy of helping others?

What have they seen in your house? What have they heard in your house? Bickering and strife? conversations taken up with trivialities? the standards of Hollywood and its latest movies—or the standards of Christ?

Is there a spirit critical of neighbors, pastor, or friends? What is the impression—of love or of carping criticism?

Do your children see compromise with wrong? Do they sense that your words and actions do not jibe, that there is some basic compromise with sin?

This is written primarily to you parents because your responsibilities are great, the privileges and opportunities of molding young lives for eternity.

Moses expressed this responsibility to the children of Israel, the passing on of a godly heritage: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deut. 6:7).

Such responsibilities carry over from one generation to another. Parents bear a priestly relationship to their children. Like Job of old they must pray for those God has given them. Like Joshua they must make the decision, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15b).

Your children will only too soon pass out into the world. With them will go the impressions and training of youth. They will go either equipped for life or unprepared to meet the temptations and buffetings which are inevitable. Their future is being determined today.

What have they seen in your house?

Ruleg

Education, that serious world of retention and detention, of stimuli and alumni, now offers Ruleg. Ruleg is a system of programmed learning. It presents the learner with a concept, or rule, followed by a number of examples, or egs. (If your Latin is up to Vatican standards, you will surmise that an eg is an e.g., which is short for exempli gratia.) Programmers are now counting responses to see which should come first, the concept or the eg.

If statistics show that we should begin by adding egs, a new recipe will be necessary. What this inductive approach should be called, I’m not sure. Since examples may lead a learner to formulate an abstraction, something like Extraction or Egnition might serve. Gelur is a possibility—Ruleg in reverse.

Pastor Peterson has long been practicing both Ruleg and Gelur in his sermons. Either way the egs abound. He insists that E.G. would be a better degree than D.D. to keep the practicing preacher down to earth. For every egghead who follows abstractions there are a dozen eg-heads who need an example.

But the Pastor regards the Ruleg-Gelur controversy as a case of Big and Little Endianism. Swift was satirizing theological disputes when he described the Lilliputian controversy as to which end of the egg ought to be broken. Today more people seem dead serious about education than about religion. Big and Little Endian movements rise where they are taken seriously.

“The Bible,” says the pastor, “is concrete and abstract at once. What statement could be more concrete or more abstract than ‘God is love’? Or, for example, take the parables.… By the way, do you know the Negro spiritual, ‘Set Down Servant’?”

“Certainly—‘my soul’s so happy dat I cain’ set down!’ ”

“What Scripture does it refer to?”

Since I wasn’t sure, the pastor read Luke 12:37: “Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.”

“There’s abstract concreteness for you; spend half an hour thinking about it. Read Luke 17:7–10, too.”

I did. I don’t know what to call the process, but those parables brought together project a rainbow of grace.

Pentecost

The article, “Plea For the Pentecostalists” by T. F. Zimmerman (Jan. 4 issue), left a great many questions in my mind about the biblical foundation of key Pentecostalist beliefs.…

Out of the list of passages quoted in support of the author’s position, not one will do. Surely it is unfair to quote statements from the Gospels about the future reception of the Holy Spirit as evidence for the author’s position, for these statements were made before there had been any outpouring of the Spirit (John 7:39), and any statement about the Spirit’s permanent work must be spoken of as yet in the future. Perhaps the most ironic point in the article is that the verse the author quotes as his climactic point proves exactly the opposite of what he intends. The verse (Eph. 1:13) is quoted from the KJV, which says, “in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit.” The Greek has no suggestion of a time interval between the “believing” and the “sealing,” but would be literally translated, “in whom also believing you were sealed.” The construction clearly indicates that the sealing was at the time of believing or as Abbott (I.C.C.) renders the phrase, “in whom when ye also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit.”

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a permanent fulfillment of God’s promises. It is only through the present work of this same Holy Spirit that any response can be made to the Gospel, as Paul so clearly indicates when he says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” We may respect the Pentecostalists for their enthusiastic evangelism and their concern for the reality of the Spirit’s work, but surely we cannot accept any notion about the Spirit’s person or work which lacks scriptural support.

First Reformed Church

Rocky Hill, N. J.

Acts 2:4 certainly tells us that all were filled with the Spirit, but can we be so certain that all spoke with tongues? They spoke as they “were given utterance”—but does this necessarily mean that all were given utterance?…

Further, the article states “that the initial physical evidence of speaking in tongues signals the infilling of the Holy Ghost.” Today then … speaking in tongues is considered to be an end in itself. On the day of Pentecost, however, it was a means to an end! Why has the pattern changed? Why do not people today, when enpowered to speak in tongues, go forth and preach the Gospel in that language …? If this is not done, do people really have the right to call themselves “Pentecostal”?

Vice Pres.

Nyack Missionary College

Nyack, N. Y.

I have found Pentecostalists choosing to disassociate themselves from the major orthodox denominations, not so much because they have “faced opposition from the community and established churches” as because they claim to offer the Holy Ghost (pronounced HO-lyghost) as a bonus to people already “saved.” A Christian aristocracy?…

Also, we question the accuracy of the author who reports Martin Luther’s having “spoken in tongues.” Next we will hear that Augustine, Calvin, the Wesleys, Jonathan Edwards, and Moody “spoke in tongues”.…

The Methodist Church

Walker, La.

I read with keen interest the Rev. Mr. Zimmerman’s excellent article.…

I have been a Pentecostal for a number of years and can say no experience on earth is comparable to it.… This Pentecostal experience can certainly be had for the asking—regardless of your denomination.…

New Haven, Conn.

The article by James Daane ought to be given wide circulation. It is excellent. In these days when there are reports of people within various evangelical churches who meet together with the express purpose to “conjure” up the Holy Spirit, an article such as “The Christ-centered Spirit” needs to be considered.…

Dept. of Sociology and Economics

Salem College

Winston-Salem, N. C.

It was somewhat paradoxical to find … Zimmerman’s [article] in an edition of CHRISTIANITY TODAY being so wholly devoted to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit, like the wind which bloweth where it listeth, manifests himself in spite of, even contrary to man’s will.

Former Pentecostalists everywhere rejoice at being released from prerequisite sanctimoniousnesses, which derive from carnal and soulish self-appeasement, into that objective spiritual peace which none can describe. And there are many spirits with which we may be filled; yet only one Holy Spirit of the Living God, which not only comforts, instructs, and edifies, but also reproves, rebukes, and convicts Christians.

Paul’s testimony, that he “spake with tongues more than ye all” (1 Cor. 14:18), immediately qualifies itself in verse 19: “… in the congregation I would rather speak five intelligible words, for the benefit of others as well as myself, than thousands of words in the language of ecstasy” (NEB).

Vancouver, B. C.

Surplus

As a reporter for a daily newspaper who covered a few Roman Catholic parochial school Christmas programs this past Yuletide season, I think the following subtitle would have been appropriate for such productions: Mary christmas.

One of them had two “Marys” on the stage at once.

Austin, Tex.

While the Bible quiz may have caught the attention of the people, Israel’s favorite game has been incorrectly identified (Nov. 23 issue). Israel’s favorite game is justifying her existence. For this she and her friends spend millions of dollars every year, while America subsidizes her. The names of the holy places said to be everyday places to the Israelis have been evervday places for most of them for only the last 14 to 20 years at the most. The people for whom they were everyday places for many years before that were forced out of their homes to make room for the new immigrants.… Many of these who had to leave their homes and all they owed are among our finest Christian and Muslim friends.

Many evangelicals seem to be playing this justifying game with the Israelis either because they view Israel as a fulfillment of prophecy or because they feel sorry for the Jews on account of the persecution they suffered in Europe. Neither is a correct foundation for justifying what has taken place in Palestine. The evangelical is called to stand for righteousness. For the Jewish Zionist terrorists to have been able to take over Palestine and set up a Jewish state in a multi-religious area was not righteous. To continue support of this state and to justify its existence is not righteous.

I am sure that Mr. Kent misspoke himself when he referred to Jericho as the name of “a bus stop, the address of a friend, a picnic area” for Israelis. However he is sort of ironically correct about the “address of a friend” for he could be referring to the hundreds of refugees living in the two huge camps near Jericho who used to be neighbors of the Palestinian Jews. Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews were and are rightly entitled to set up a free state in the land that is theirs. Zionism has called and is calling Jews from all over the world to come occupy the homes and the land from which they have evicted the rightful inhabitants. This is quite a game!

Instructor in Religion and Philosophy

Beirut College for Women

Beirut, Lebanon

Up, Ireland!

It was with a great deal of interest that I read “Review of Current Religious Thought” (Nov. 23 issue) by J. D. Douglas.…

It is the irony of our times that brilliant men, honest men, diligent men, men who have received vast blessings from the Reformation, should at such a trying time in the history of men and nations attempt to go back to that from which, by the grace of God, they through their ancestors were set free.…

You eliminate the Irish from Romanism and what have you left? Nothing else but the entire fall of Rome.…

Philadelphia, Pa.

Up, Scotland!

Ivan Bennett (“The Best There Is in the World,” Nov. 23 issue) is wrong in saying the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the Bible to Queen Elizabeth—it was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

London, England

In introducing Billy Graham to a gathering of 1,800 students at the University of Chicago last April, Dean Warner A. Wick remarked, “Dr. Graham brings something to this university which it may not or cannot give to you.”

The founders of American colleges and universities would have considered such a tribute most unusual; to exclude any area of life—the religious especially—from the university would have seemed strange to them. Today, however, either by general consent or neglect, the Saviour is considered out of place on campus. Experiential Christianity is often regarded as out of bounds for the university mind. It is this barricaded territory that evangelical student groups are attempting to open up once more on the American campus.

Statistics that purport to register growing religious interest and engagement among students are misleading. The average student is quite indifferent to the thought currents, religious or otherwise, that ebb and flow in his academic environment. And by and large he tends to ignore those individuals who either seek change or protest it. The liberals who refuse to accept present status symbols pursue their ideals with determination. The new conservatives show equal zeal for their particular goals. It is these students of one extreme or the other, rather than the 95 per cent uncommitted or mildly committed, who have the power to determine the future. The four American students responsible for the now famous Haystack Meeting of 1806 influenced the spread of Christianity far more significantly than did all their remaining fellows.

Last February students at Northwestern University held a three-day conference on “Personal Commitment in an Age of Anxiety.” While it was not what one would call a religious conference, it seemed to augur a new vitality for the American scene. These students were trying to discover how they as students could participate effectively in this world. The silent generation seems to have roused from its passivity.

The usual subjects such as Communism versus capitalism and individualism versus conformity that characterized discussions of the 1950s were absent at this and similar conferences. Student concerns have changed radically. Attention now centers on problems of race, hunger, injustice, ignorance, poverty, the struggle for freedom, and so on.

The present generation of students is the first to have been born and to live solely under the threat of total nuclear destruction. No other factors have made so great an impact on their conscious lives as the Supreme Court decision on integration and the launching of Sputnik. For older generations this time of ferment may seem incomprehensible, dangerous, and chaotic; for those who have known nothing else it may represent a fertile current of life. These young people, with their potential for creative achievement, are the ones we must strive to reach for God.

Where do students of the space age stand spiritually? In general, although they know little about either Jesus Christ or the Bible, they hold both in fairly high regard. This admiration they fail to transfer to Christ’s followers or his Church, however. For most students Christianity is an irrelevant heritage from the past rather than a valid way of life for today. One professor recommended quite matter-of-factly that his history students become acquainted with a local Inter-Varsity group; its members, he said, were the only persons he knew who indulged in the medieval practice of an all-pervading God-consciousness.

Ten years ago a fraternity bull session on Christianity involved questions on evolution and Genesis, the reliability of the manuscripts, theories of inspiration, the place of reason, and so on. Today this is not the case. Now students concern themselves with the relationship of science to religion, the validity of Scripture for life, God’s judgment of the heathen, and the psychology of conversion. For the most part, the religious solution to personal and international problems is not an acceptable option. While students do not equate Christians with medicine men, they consider Christianity inadequate for our troubles. After a three-hour discussion on the Gospel and the reality of the Saviour, one international student told me: “You think Christianity is big enough for the problems of my country. It will take more than Christ.” Like many others, he stumbled at the evangel’s fundamental insistence on personal and individual reconciliation to God. Because, unfortunately, they have seen so little demonstration of the Lord’s power to meet people’s needs, these students look elsewhere for help and hope.

Indifference to Christianity and assumption of its irrelevancy to man’s actual problems in modern society are only part of the story. Beneath the surface of campus life, affecting the left, right, and vast middle groups alike, and both Christian and non-Christian, is an emptiness which is difficult to define to those who have never experienced it. What is the meaning of life? is the major though perhaps unvoiced question. Many students simply assume life has no meaning. This meaninglessness, moreover, is something quite normal for young people; they have come to terms with it, and the absence of ultimate significance does not distress them at all. The frightening predominance of this concept and attitude is a definite barrier to communicating the Gospel.

There are not a few, however, who never seem to adjust to this sense of meaninglessness. They suffer from what Christians call the “hungry heart” and others call “angst” or anxiety. Tillich refers to the horror of nonbeing. Psychoanalyst Victor E. Frankl describes it as “existential vacuum” against which conventional psychoanalysis is helpless. Many people experience this absence of purpose, responsibility, and meaning as a misery to be endured, perhaps, but scarcely to be accepted as normal. Youth reacts in a mass move toward cynicism.

This inner dissatisfaction, which for some is the “quiet desperation” of daily life and for others a vague uneasiness, may erupt under the stresses of modern academic pressures. The strain of qualifying examinations and of competition for which high school has left them unprepared takes its toll. Lack of certainty as to life’s meaning, coupled with fear of failure, suggests the short way out. One eastern university had more than 60 attempted suicides last semester. Suicide seems logical and unusually attractive when life has no purpose.

Christian students are not immune to this mood of anxiety. In fact, especially on secular campuses, they must fight against the whole tenor of undergraduate life to maintain faith in God’s goodness and design. Often Christian friends fail to support each other at this point. There may be an insinuating suspicion of one who departs temporarily from “the Christian line,” or the doubt that Christ can or will meet a problem of any real magnitude—particularly in moral or emotional areas. Often their spiritual background is such that students do not know that Saviour whose greatness is sufficient for every problem. They judge the adequacy of Christ by their own limited experience.

One Christian student asked an Inter-Varsity staff member, “Can Jesus Christ help me from wanting to commit suicide?” To the answer, “Yes,” he replied, “How?” In the conversation that followed he showed neither unbelief nor doubt. But he simply could not see how Christ was sufficient for his present crisis. At first it did not help to point him to the Lord of the New Testament, because he thought he held the biblical image of Christ. The fact is that his sense of spiritual reality lagged behind the reality of his own developing maturity, a gap that required several months to bridge.

It is difficult for campus Christian organizations to cope with students’ fears and anxieties. This spirit of disillusionment handicaps the organized Church as well. Church leaders, say the students, have “let us down. They never have anything to say.” While this report is not necessarily valid, it does point the finger at student pastors, chaplains, and other professional student workers, Inter-Varsity staff not excepted. Yet it is just here, at the place of personal contact between Christians and non-Christians, that God is working. For convinced believers, be they students, faculty, or Christian workers, the campus offers opportunities for evangelism unknown for 45 years.

The wistful longing for commitment combined with the sense of lostness is what gives this new openness to the Gospel—provided, however, that students are convinced of its pertinence for their own lives. Usually it is the life of a Christian student or faculty member that provides the opening wedge to communication.

Whatever the current “student mind” may be, the content of the Gospel and the way into fellowship with God remain unchanged. Four major thrusts characterize the present campus approach to students:

1. The message which we proclaim is the message of the Bible. As a consequence, it carries unmistakable authority.

2. The person we preach is Jesus Christ, very God of very God.

3. The core of the Gospel is Christ’s sacrificial and atoning death for us. It expresses God’s love in response to human need by his free provision of his Son, the Redeemer.

4. The demand of Christ is commitment to total personal relationship with the triune God through the abiding presence and reality of the Holy Spirit.

The danger of college and university Christian witness is either to ignore academic-intellectual issues or to allow them to dominate. Although the final issue is moral and spiritual, the Christian student or faculty member who bypasses the intellectual issues of his campus not only abdicates a great part of his personal responsibility but also misses a most fruitful source of pre-evangelism. On the other hand, one who succumbs to the temptation to place all the issues within intellectual bounds frequently misses a seeker’s deepest needs. An evangelical Christian has responsibilities not only as a believer, but also as a scholar and friend.

Hundreds of students each year accept the Gospel, not just to “make a decision,” but to commit themselves to life in Jesus Christ and to the fellowship of his Church. Staff members of several student organizations, chaplains, student pastors, and Christian faculty who proclaim this message and who demonstrate its power are seeing what God can do. In recent months 5,000 students gave up their Christmas holidays for a conference to face God’s call to world evangelism. At a Colorado college last fall, half the entire student body heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Even the beaches of Fort Lauderdale were the scene of Christian witness and response. While this response may be relatively small in view of the extensive opportunities, in God’s goodness it could become a floodtide of spiritual power. If the Gospel is to penetrate the campus significantly, all students, student workers, and faculty members committed to Jesus Christ and his Word must dedicate their love and talent and lives as never before.

General Director

Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship

Chicago, Illinois,

A Student’s Prayer

Written by Professor Moeller of Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois, at the close of the first session of summer school on July 13, 1962.

Psalm 19:14

O God of book and printer’s ink,

Of pen and paper, scholar’s toil,

Of clause and phrase and substantive,

Of term paper and midnight oil,

Thou who alone canst give to learn,

Help me to learn!

O God of Truth, O God of Grace,

O Word Made Flesh, O Holy Dove,

Thou Wisdom, Glory, Righteousness,

Peace, Mercy, Patience, Hope, and Love,

Thou who alone canst give to know,

Help me to know!

O God of Moses, Samuel,

Of Jeremiah, Daniel,

Of Peter, James, and John, and Paul,

Of Michael and of Gabriel,

Thou dost for Thy work servants choose;

Do Thou me choose!

For sloth and petty prejudice,

For pride and willful ignorance,

For lack of zeal and will, and prayer,

For self-imposed incompetence,

For shirking at Thy work, O Lord,

Thy mercy, Lord!

My brain and hands dare bring to Thee,

Because Thy blood pays all my guilt,

This votive offering of my work,

Small thanks for precious ransom spilt.

Accept my thoughts and words, O Lord,

Accept, O Lord!

ELMER J. MOELLER