One Sunday night in October, 1961, the streets of Jerusalem, usually crowded with people, were empty. Restaurants, usually alive with diners, were serving no meals. Everybody was home, listening to the radio, for this was Israel’s most exciting moment—the night of the International Bible Contest.

In the United States, there is the World Series; in England, there are the Test Matches (cricket); in France, there is the annual bicycle race around the country, the Tour de France; elsewhere, it is football or golf or ski tournaments—but in this land of the Old Testament, the Bible quiz was the big sporting event.

Midnight struck and those people who go to bed early were still awake. The town was a blaze of lighted windows. At one o’clock, people were drinking coffee to stay awake, for the race was still on, with a Yemenite rabbi and a Protestant mother of four, from Brazil, tied for first place. Then, shortly after 1:45, the contest was over; the black-bearded rabbi had won. And with that there was a thud of feet on the pavements as several thousand rushed to the Convention Center to hail the winner.

A few minutes later the newsboys were crying the news. The morning newspapers had issued extras. Looked at with the eyes of the casual foreign observer, it was an extraordinary phenomenon: a Bible quiz arousing as much excitement as a World Series. For those who know the country, however, it is one readily understandable. You feel the Old Testament there all the time. To Israelis, it is not simply a religious document; it is living history, geography, a storehouse of national folklore, a personal literature, and a guidebook. The names of holy places—Beersheba and Jericho—are for us things far away; to them they are a bus stop, the address of a friend, a picnic area.

In school, it is a basic textbook, and up to college, nearly every child studies the Old Testament at least three hours each week, for here is language, literature, geography, history, in addition to the religious teaching. The teen-ager’s popular songs are from Solomon, and the Israeli equivalent of our corner boys sing: “Behold thou art fair, thou has doves’ eyes.…” “My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.…” And a common kindergarten song is also from the Bible: “Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.…”

A Biblical Zoo

Even the zoo in Jerusalem is a “biblical zoo,” containing only animals mentioned in the Bible and those indigenous to the land of Israel. On the cages one finds not only the name of the beast but with it the appropriate quotation printed in Hebrew and English. Here, for example, is a fox. The sign reads: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.” And before the bear’s cage: “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”

Some of the animals mentioned have become extinct. In these cases, a close relative of the beast has been substituted. There are, for example, no more lions in Israel. One from Ethiopia occupies a cage. The last leopard was killed in the 1930s, but, in the interest of accuracy, an Indian variety is on exhibition.

In the newly opened children’s part of the zoo, it is proposed to project Bible stories: Noah’s ark and a diorama of Isaiah’s prophecy of the animals living peacefully together.

Some Commercial Values

Not all is entertainment or education. There are a dozen practical reasons that make the Bible a guide and a help to the nation’s economic well-being and in their way explain the excitement of the contest. Careful reading has led scholars to the discovery of at least one of King Solomon’s mines—a deposit of copper. “A land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper,” it is written in Deuteronomy. The mineralogists looked and found. Another quotation led to a supply of natural gas.

Its agronomists have learned what to plant and where to plant it, using the Old Testament as a record of successful agriculture of the past. In the seemingly arid desert they have found it possible to grow grapes largely because the ancients grew them there. And the entire reforestation program is guided each step of the way by biblical references to trees that grew in each locality. But more dramatic than its help to the economy is how it has helped military commanders. In the first world war, a British officer remembered from his Bible reading a passage between two cliffs, one long since abandoned, and by using it outflanked and defeated the Turks.

Alive With Interest

The International Bible Contest is therefore more than a random quiz; it is an expression of a living interest, one which stirs the imagination of the people, whatever their profession or philosophy. Unlike our great sporting events which by their nature interest mostly men, this contest has something for all members of the family. It is the night when even the smallest child is allowed to stay up late.

It began, almost by accident, in 1958, as a device for celebrating the tenth anniversary of the country’s independence. Fifteen persons from 13 countries competed. It was so successful, both locally and internationally, that one was planned every three years. The 1961 competition which I attended was the second.

What dramatized the first year’s quiz was the winner, Amos Hacham. He had been paralyzed as a boy and still limped; in fact, he had to be helped on and off the platform. He had a speech impediment. He lived literally in a hovel, alone and with few visitors. He earned his living giving lessons in Braille and translating the Old Testament into this language of the blind.

When his victory was announced, some 3,000 people surrounded him, lifted him in the air, and bore him to his home. Out of neighboring homes came men with violins and drums and clarinets to make an impromptu orchestra, and in the humble street where Hacham had led his poor, lonely life there was dancing until broad daylight. The prime minister himself arranged for an operation that would enable him to walk with only a slight limp. Other surgeons labored successfully to lessen his lisp. The government made it possible for him to move into a two-room apartment of his own. Nor was that the end.

A newspaper engaged him at a good salary to write a daily column. And, at last cured of his physical defects, earning a comfortable livelihood, this boy who had looked forward only to an empty life found a girl who loved him and whom he loved, and they were married. The wedding was the social event of the year, held in the city’s largest hotel, and attended by the president, members of the cabinet, and the diplomatic corps. All of this fairy-tale sequence was directly due to his knowledge of the Bible, which was enough to make him a national hero.

The 1961 contest was announced early in the year, and religious organizations and radio stations sent the news into every home in the world. Each competing country held its own competition, stretching it out over several weeks, in some cases several months, of broadcasting, until a winner could be chosen. The lucky man or woman then received from Israel a free round trip to Jerusalem plus a week of travel.

The Bible is of course the best seller of all time, but the effect of the announcement was to increase its sales enormously. In Italy, for example, the number sold was three times normal, and in Uruguay the shops were completely sold out for many weeks.

The European Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters approved the contest; national chains in many cases sponsored local competitions. Elsewhere, sponsorship was undertaken by religious bodies. In Holland, for example, the Protestant Ministers’ Association was in charge, starting off with a written examination for 180 applicants. The 36 survivors were quizzed on the air for nine weeks, four at a time, until only nine were left. These were taken three by three until a victor emerged in the person of a civil aviation official.

The Sunday evening of October 3 Jerusalem’s Convention Center was filled with 3,000 people. In the front row sat the president (Ben-Zvi) and the prime minister (Ben Gurion), both of them with Bibles in their laps to check the answers. Flanking them and back of them sat cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and other distinguished visitors. The 18 national winners were seated in a long row, the width of the stage, beside each the flag of his country. They represented New Zealand, England, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, the Ivory Coast, France, Austria, Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Malta, and, of course, Israel. They were schoolteachers, artisans, engineers, lawyers. The American was an insurance man from Cincinnati, Ohio. Most of them were non-Jewish. One was a Seventh-day Adventist minister from South Africa. The Frenchman was a Roman Catholic priest.

Back of the contestants in a parallel row sat the interpreters. The microphone moved on a rail, pausing, let us say, before the Finn. At the same time another microphone in the row behind stopped before the Finnish translator. The question was put in Hebrew and at once was rephrased into the language of the competitor. His answer, in his own tongue, was in turn translated.

The audience was lively, full of enthusiasm, applauding every successful reply, but most of them, of course, were rooting for the home team in the person of the frail-looking rabbi with the black beard from Yemen, Yichye Alsheikh, who had been runner-up in the last national quiz.

As to the questions, they involved no interpretation, being simply a test of one’s knowledge of the so-called historical chapters: Judges; I and II Samuel; I and II Kings; Joshua; and the Pentateuch as well. In other words, not an exercise in philosophy but a memory test, like any other quiz. However, the sponsors felt that the Bible being a book which all nations of the West revere in common, the contest would have a universal meaning.

A pretty girl drew out the first question: “Who was it that said the temple was to be a house of prayer also for the Gentiles?” The Chilean answered promptly: “King Solomon.”

The first question to baffle the contestants was: “A foreign woman came to ask riddles in the land. A foreign man came to be cured. Who were they?” The interpreter recited the correct reply: “The Queen of Sheba and Na’aman, military commander of Aram.”

The microphone moved from flag to flag along the long row, and one by one, all but five were eliminated: Jacob Jacobus Combrinck of South Africa, Edmund Read of New Zealand, Tuvia Goldman of the United States, the Yemenite rabbi of Israel, and Senhora Yolanda Da Silva of São Paulo, Brazil, mother of four. Each now was given the same questions. The first was an easy one for all: “Name the Egyptian woman who was mother of two tribes of Israel.” The answer: “Aseneth, daughter of Potiphar, wife of Joseph, whose two children were Ephraim and Manasseh.”

The other two eliminated the American, the New Zealander, and the South African. Now only two remained: the rabbi with the black beard and the lively, attractive Senhora Da Silva. They had successfully weathered the ten scheduled rounds of questioning.

It was now a quarter to two. The judges decided to match them in an extra round. “Give seven verses mentioning Israel’s exile from its land and/or prophesying its return.” Senhora Da Silva, showing signs of strain, could cite only five. Rabbi Alsheikh knew all seven and was the winner. By the rules, he was to get a gold medal, the contestant placing second, a silver one, but by acclamation, the Brazilian was also awarded a gold medal. In addition she received a kiss on both cheeks by Premier Ben Gurion. There were no cash prizes. The 22-carat medal itself is three inches in diameter, bearing on one side a quotation from the Psalms: “I am the law”; the other side a vase such as contained the Dead Sea Scrolls. The American placed third and was awarded the silver medal.

The contest was now over, and the 17 contestants enplaned for home. Everybody was happy except the English-language Jerusalem Post, which mourned that the contest was not a challenge to one’s understanding of the Bible but only to one’s memory, and stated flatly that “as constructed at present, the competition could be won by an IBM machine.”

Whether or not this is true, the fact remains that this contest of an essentially religious nature has aroused enormous interest in Bible reading in countries everywhere, and who knows where this interest may lead? As it is written in Proverbs: “If thou criest after knowledge, … if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou … find the knowledge of God.”

END

HIGH TIME AND LOW TIDE

FOR OR AGAINST—The Oxford Union recently voted by a fair majority against belief in God. This need mean no more than that the slight boom in university religion is now over. We need not suppose that a harassed Gabriel is anxiously muttering, “Dear me! Another byelection lost—all these spoon-fed children of an affluent society out-talking the spoiled children of the modern Church.” … None the less, to vote for God or against Him is something; better, Dante says, than to be uncommitted.—Professor GORDON RUPP, in The Guardian.

LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE—A Catholic priest in Edinburgh has been saying that we live largely in a pagan land. That may be so but that is no reason why ministers of the Church should stoop to evangelise or proselytise.—From “A Scotsman’s Log,” in The Scotsman.

UNIVERSAL RELEVANCE—It is time for the Church to pay the unpaid bill which syncretism represents. It is time to show that there is inherent in the Gospel a universalism sui generis.—Dr. W. A. VISSER ’T HOOFT.

THE MAJORITY—Comparatively few Anglicans really hold that everyone who dies an atheist is for ever excluded from the vision of God.—DAVID L. EDWARDS, Director, S.C.M. Press.

SOCIAL RELEVANCE—The children were revising their homework on the morning bus. One little girl, wearing a blue beret with the badge of a Roman Catholic school, thrust an open book into the hands of her companion and began to recite. Through the bus noises I could hear enough to identify the Magnificat, followed by a prayer of blessing. The “hearer,” in the dark red cap of a non-Catholic school, checked conscientiously and then returned the book. “Can I hear yours now?” offered Blue Beret. Red Cap shook her head. “We don’t get prayers to learn for homework,” she explained. Blue Beret looked surprised, but accepted the explanation. Their friendship in no way impaired by this doctrinal divergence, the two little girls proceeded to discuss the colour of Elvis Presley’s eyes in an atmosphere of mutual respect and affection.—Life and Work, Church of Scotland magazine.

ANCIENT PRECEDENT—The most outstanding fetish and obsession in the present-day religious and ecclesiastical world is an uncontrollable and unappeasable itch for an outward organizational church union, miscalled Christian unity, which is neither Christian nor a unity. Nothing comparable to it has occurred in world history since the building of the Tower of Babel.—The Free Presbyterian Magazine and Monthly Record, Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

I had been out of seminary only two months and was serving a small church in eastern Montana when this article was born. My Sunday dinner was digesting as I stretched out on a creaky go-with-the-parsonage iron bedstead in an upstairs bedroom. While I was trying to unwind from the strain of the morning service, my mind fell on the sermon I had delivered. The text was the familiar words from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew: “I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”

Midway through my reminiscing on the third point of the sermon, my wife gently announced from the foot of the stairs that I had a visitor. I slipped downstairs to confront a middle-aged, shabbily-dressed stranger.

We both forced a smile, and then he began to recite one of the saddest tales of woe I had yet heard. He said that he had been called unexpectedly to his mother’s funeral in North Dakota, and in returning home to Sheridan, Wyoming, he had exhausted his meager funds and now needed some cash for gas and groceries.

I listened sympathetically, pushing to the back of my mind the inkling that his delivery seemed rather polished—as if it had been recited many times before.

The church had a small fund for such emergencies, and with the words of my morning’s sermon ringing in my ears, I made straight for the little cashbox which contained the emergency fund in the church office next door. While opening the box, I glanced out of a window and noticed the sleek tail fins of an expensive, late-model convertible protruding beyond one corner of the sanctuary.

“Is that your car?” I asked in a mildly astonished voice.

A hardened look crossed the stranger’s til-then-innocent-looking countenance. He wheeled around and walked brusquely out of the church without saying a word. As he flashed away in his convertible, my mind flashed back to the text of my sermon and I thought of the ironical twist the words had suddenly taken. The stranger almost took me in.

It was a rude jolt to an idealistic young theologue who had just spent three years learning a basic trust in mankind. But it was not to be the last.

In the five years that followed, I was “touched” for cash on the average of more than once a week. I soon learned that I was in a profession that is a special target for small-time con men, hucksters, beggars, and swindlers in general who try devious ways to relieve ministers of what little cash they have.

Few laymen know that their minister is subjected to this continual harassment that threatens not only his money, but his valuable time as well.

Of course, there are many legitimate askings and needs that confront a minister, and these can be deftly sensed as he gains experience. But the sad fact is that far too many people are making substantial livings off the softest touch they know—the Christian minister.

Every minister can relate many tragic and embarrassing episodes with unscrupulous people. This was revealed by a Chicago Theological Seminary survey which was begun in 1937 and is renewed periodically with spot checks. It was instigated at the request of the seminary alumni to determine the extent of the work of professional crooks, and to ascertain whether or not such thefts could be prevented in the future by warnings to those now in service, and by proper instruction to young ministers in training in theological seminaries.

While ministers are reticent to press charges against those who have buncoed them, they did pour out a general response to the survey. Letters came from every state, and one of the main conclusions of a leading clergyman who participated in the survey was that there exists a clearinghouse or bureau for the purpose of furnishing details at so much a case. Conventions of ministers where names and details are given are studied, he believed, and the swindlers are furnished the information desired from these resources.

I have had many experiences that would substantiate this—total strangers coming to my door, calling me by name, and stating that Rev. So-and-So in the next town back said that I would be able to “do something” for them. I soon learned that if the story sounded plausible and the needs seemed legitimate, the minor expense of a phone call to the neighboring pastor was a better investment than the risk of unwisely sinking ten or twenty dollars into a crook’s coffer.

A somewhat amusing incident once happened to me along this line. I was sitting alone in a parsonage living room in Spokane, Washington, where I was the guest of a fellow minister while attending a convention in that city. A man came to the door and with salesman-like quickness announced that he was a member of a particular church in Montana. I listened with interest and “baited” him on, because the church he claimed to have membership in was the one I pastored. After supplying accurate details about the church, he made some flattering remarks about his “good friend” the pastor and then launched into an emotional harangue about his desperate plight, ending with a plea for a $25 “loan.”

To prove what I was going to shock him with, I pulled out one of my business cards, handed it to him, and said, “The pastor of this parish is not in, but if you ever get over my way maybe I can be of some assistance.”

“A profession that is a special target for small-time con men, hucksters, beggars, and swindlers in general who try devious ways to relieve ministers of what little cash they have”—so this writer depicts the ministry in an informative and illuminating study of America’s least-publicized racket.

He stared comprehendingly at the small, white card, smiled, and said, “You preachers sure get around nowadays.”

Four Types Of Swindling

After studying the case histories in the Chicago Seminary survey and the countless ones collected on my own, I would say that there are four general methods of swindling the men of the cloth.

The first, and most common, is the “short loan” or the cashing of checks. This appeal is based generally on stereotyped stories, such as money lost or stolen; mother dying in nearby town; and out of work, but now have job in another place and need transportation money to get there.

The second method can be classified as the local business swindle. In this method, payments are made in advance on supposedly bona fide contracts, such as fake church directories, magazine and book subscriptions, and worthless correspondence courses.

The third and financially most dangerous method is the selling of worthless securities. The minister is invited to invest in oil wells, mining properties, fruit groves in Florida or California, fur farms, or real estate subdivisions in unknown places.

The fourth method is the offering of worthless, bargain-rate insurance. All types are offered, but health and hospitalization are most common.

Only a typically low-salaried minister, who many times must seek ways to augment and stretch his income, can know how appealing the last three of these appeals can be.

Cash is not always the target of the professional crooks. A ministerial friend of mine lost his brand-new typewriter to one of the clever boys. He was pounding out his Sunday sermon notes on the machine when a stranger appeared at his study door. The man asked if he would go to the hospital and baptize his dying uncle who the stranger said attended a church of the same denomination in another city. My gullible colleague made a posthaste exit, amid the stranger’s excuses that he could not go along as he was “late for work.” My friend returned from his fruitless mission to find his typewriter gone. The con man was kind enough to leave the sermon notes.

But cash is the prime goal. I have had countless people decline my offers to fill their gas tank, or buy them a meal or some groceries. Many go away in a huff at the mention of any assistance other than cash.

Encouraging Racketeers

To learn why ministers are special prey of the swindlers one has but to look at the encouragement the crooks are given. Never have I made application to the law, and I have yet to hear of a minister who has. What crook could resist such ideal “working” conditions?

E. G. Homrighausen, dean of Princeton Theological Seminary, believes the reason is that ministers “prefer to have an opportunity to talk with him [the swindler] and even reform him.”

Lack of business experience is another reason why the men of the cloth are approached and easily taken in. They do not work under the hard competitive laws of the business world, but rather are too often guided by sentimentality.

Ministers are not protected by business associates, either. They are usually found alone in their offices, whereas the businessman is somewhat protected by his private secretary and his associates.

What are seminaries doing to warn future ministers of this occupational hazard? To find out, I queried 20 leading and representative seminaries. While all of the schools contacted agreed that it is a real problem, they also concurred that it is unwise, academically, to devote an entire course to the subject. As it was put by Joseph D. Quillan, Jr., dean of Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist University, “For a seminary to teach a whole course dealing wholly with the problem of the swindling of ministers would be in itself an academic swindle of the first water.”

But almost every seminary makes an emphatic reference to the problem in courses dealing with practical theology or church administration. A West Coast seminary professor says: “I have two pages of notes on the subject and very carefully spell out the pitfalls that await the unwary.”

Robert G. Torbet, dean of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, maintains that proper guidance to the ministerial student, along with information concerning the swindler’s approaches, should be given in church administration courses, but then adds, “The ability to recognize swindlers cannot always be taught in courses. Experience and common sense must be drawn upon to fortify the young minister.”

It is heartening to know that the future men who shepherd the flocks will not be so easily fleeced. They are receiving some hard facts of the world and its ways that I did not get in my pre-ministerial training less than ten years ago.

Denominational Awareness

Denominations have awakened to the problem, too, and are doing something about it. Besides informing ministers in local, district, and state areas where swindlers are known to be operating, some denominational magazines carry warnings in a special section set aside for that purpose. Most of them read like routine FBI circulars on “wanted men.” Here is one of several listed in a recent issue of The Lutheran Witness, the official publication of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod:

“A man using the name Leo Dupre, Leo Cox, etc., has been obtaining money under false pretenses from Lutheran churches and organizations around the country. He claims membership in Redeemer Congregation, Alexandria, La. (among others), and carries a forged ‘letter of introduction’ from the pastor of this congregation. His usual story is that he is an active member of the Lutheran Church, is in need of financial help to get to a VA hospital, and will return the money as soon as he can wire his home church. This man is not a member of the churches in which he has claimed membership and should not be given financial assistance.”

Perhaps the greatest assistance laymen can give to their minister in alleviating this problem is to see that the church has a special fund budgeted for legitimate and worthy askings which the minister may draw upon, rather than having to reach into his own pocket. Several seminaries suggested this.

Better yet, the church could appoint a “hardheaded businessman” member to oversee such a fund, to whom the minister could refer all askers. The only caution here would be to find a man who would not have antipathy to every need.

Concordia Seminary in St. Louis favors a minister’s being the administrator of such a fund, with laymen being brought into the matter when the disbursement exceeds a certain amount.

By and large, the problem must be objectively accepted by the minister himself. Ministers must live with it and try to make the best of a potentially heartening or disheartening situation by developing a sixth sense of scrutiny.

Some ministers attempt to circumvent the problem by indiscriminately doling out to everyone who asks of them. The attitude was voiced by a clergy-friend who said, when I told him I was working on this article, “I would rather be swindled a dozen times than turn away one deserving case”—a noble attitude, but one that too often serves to encourage the swindler to keep the minister number one on his “sucker list.”

Many ministers also do not turn anyone away because of their interpretation of such Bible verses as: “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not away.”

If a Bible verse is needed in regard to these tricksters, perhaps it is the one all-inclusive warning Christ gave to his very first ministers: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

END

On the Apostles’ Creed

We live our fragmentary lives and sink in

fragmentary thoughts. We seldom see

reality as whole, a unity.

We smile on birth as part of life, yet shrink

from contemplating death; we see no link

between the two. That there may somehow be

a meaning which runs through nativity

and growth and pain and death we can’t forethink.

It therefore lends us comprehensiveness

to see that our belief in God’s design

swells from creation to the present day;

and that conception, birth and living, yes,

and death and resurrection, mark a line

of march for all who follow him, the Way.

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

THE PREACHER:

J. A. Motyer is Vice-Principal of Clifton Theological College, Bristol. Born in Ireland, he won many prizes during his studies at Dublin University, of which he is a graduate in Arts and Divinity. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1947 and was engaged in parish work for several years before joining the Clifton staff as tutor in 1950. Mr. Motyer is well known as a preacher and as a lecturer, and is the author of two books: The Revelation of the Divine Name and Introducing the Old Testament.

THE TEXT:

Ezra 7:10

For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.

THE SERIES

This is the eleventh sermon of our 1962 series in which CHRISTIANITY TODAY has presented messages from preachers in the United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe whose public proclamations God has greatly blessed. A sermon next month by the Rev. James Philip, Minister of Holyrood Abbey, Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, and known particularly in Britain to evangelical student audiences, will conclude the series. In 1963, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will publish sermons by Asian Christian workers.

It is the ambition of every citizen, whether God has placed on him the special responsibility of the ordained ministry or the inescapable responsibility of service and testimony, to know the power of God, honoring and blessing his work. This was the happy experience of Ezra. Did he seek to interest others in the work of God? God prospered him (7:6). Did he engage in some specific act of service? God prospered him (7:9). Did he require special endowment for special service? God gave it to him (7:28). Did he seek gifted colleagues? God called them out (8:18). Did he need the presence and power of God to face dangers in God’s work and to be brought through victoriously? God was with him and kept him (8:22, 31). The words the Book of Ezra uses to describe this experience of God’s power in life and ministry are these: the hand of God was upon him. As with us, so in the Bible, the “hand” is not vague power, but power specifically applied to chosen tasks. God saw to it—so we learn—that his power was deliberately made available to this man. He knew the reality which we covet so much for ourselves, and which we need so desperately for our Christian testimony.

The Precondition Of Blessing

The story of Ezra, however, is not set in the Bible merely to illustrate the fact of a divinely empowered life, but also to tell us the reason why Ezra was so blessed by God. The explanation is given in the words of our text. Reading through from verse 9, we see that this is indeed so: “… The good hand of his God was upon him. For [because] Ezra had set his heart.…” We are taught, to be precise, that the blessing of God resting upon a man is no accident. However much we rejoice in that independence of divine action which the Scriptures exalt (such that God cannot be coerced or cajoled into distributing his favors but, on the contrary, bestows them with absolutely sovereign freedom), nevertheless there is a “because” written into the story of Ezra in order to warn us that we are by no means permitted to relapse into any slothful complacency if we discern a lack of power evident in our service for God. We dare not sit back and say, “God will bless as and when he will”—true though that statement is in its own place. Ezra was blessed by God “because” certain things were true in his life, and this fact has been written by God in Holy Scripture for our learning.

The blessing of God, as Ezra knew it, was related, not to certain techniques, but to a certain character. In the work which he was called to do, it was open to Ezra to achieve his objectives through external equipment. A word to the king would have brought every needful worldly guarantee of power and security (8:22). Ezra deliberately rejected this procedure. It was not in terms of techniques or external methods that he was to know the reality of God’s power, but rather this truth proved itself in his experience, that the blessing of God attends a man of a certain character. We read of him (7:10), that he “set his heart.” The blessing of God which openly rested upon him, which gave him every ability for the task, which provided him with helpers, and protected him from foes—this all-embracing divine empowering was related to the hidden factor, the state of Ezra’s heart.

This is a general truth of Holy Scripture, and not an exclusive experience of Ezra, and it will be worthwhile to step aside from the history of one man to see the same principle at work on a broader canvas. Gideon was a man whom God blessed mightily. He was raised up by God to rid the land of a pestilential foe; he knew the power of God resting upon him to such an extent that an army too great to number fled in terror and confusion. And yet the latter end of Gideon was a personal disgrace, and a public tragedy. He made an ephod (Judges 8:27) which “became a snare unto Gideon,” and “as soon as Gideon was dead, … the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim” (Judges 8:33). The explanation is contained in the same passage. The people offered Gideon the throne after his great victory, and his refusal was a mighty testimony to the kingship of God (Judges 8:23). Outwardly there was not any reason why the power of God departed from this man, but inwardly? What of the state of his heart? Sometime after his refusal of the throne, Gideon had a son (8:31), and called his name “Abimelech”—“My father is king.” The testimony of the lips found no echoing response from the hidden man of the heart, apparently, and the power of God ceased to be a reality of experience.

Again, David was a man whom God blessed marvelously. But the same principle of divine working is evidenced. On the day of David’s initial anointing to be king, Samuel was impressed by other candidates, but he learned by what assessment the Lord measures a man: “… The LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.… And the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward …” (1 Sam. 16:7, 13). The Lord found David “a man after my heart” (Acts 13:22). Is it any wonder, therefore, that the wisdom of God commands a special watchfulness over the heart: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23)?

A Purposeful Heart

Returning now to take up the study of Ezra, we notice that it is specifically the purposeful state of his heart that is mentioned. We might rephrase the literal translation “set his heart,” and read as follows: “Ezra had adopted it as his deliberate purpose.” The “heart” does not stand only for the general character of the man in its inner aspects, but also and particularly for the whole set and direction of his life as determined by those inner factors. Ezra was bent to a deliberate purpose. It is definitely worth noting that it was because of divine approval of the purpose that the blessing followed. The hand of God was upon him because he so made it his determination. God does not bless people because of their accomplishments, but because of their aspirations.

What was Ezra’s purpose? The verse (Ezra 7:10) sets it out as possessing three facets.

1. Ezra purposed a mind instructed in God’s Word: “Ezra … set his heart to seek the law of the LORD.…”

We do well to pause when we see the Bible using a word which we would not normally employ in the given context. We might have said here, for example, that Ezra purposed to study, or to read, or to understand, the law of the Lord, but the Bible says “to seek” it. The same verb is used of people coming deliberately and purposefully to a certain place, and returning there time and again (Deut. 12:5, ff.); likewise it is used of people setting out to “inquire” into mysteries and to find the solution (2 Chron. 32:31); and also it is used of peoples “inquiring” of the Lord so that they may order their lives aright (1 Kings 22:5). This is surely all involved in Ezra’s attention to the law of the Lord: the time he deliberately and purposefully set aside in order to be found there; the intensity of enquiry whereby his reading was no superficial glossing of the surface but a penetration into its meaning in depth; the submissiveness whereby his life was ordered by its precepts. Ezra purposed to seek the law of the Lord. The same recipe for spiritual prosperity was given by the Lord to Joshua: “… Meditate therein day and night, … for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous …” (Josh. 1:8), and Scripture exalts it into a general principle of godly life, for we read in Psalm 1 that the “blessed” man not only possesses the negative characteristics of verse 1, but also possesses as his sole positive distinguishing mark that “in his law doth he meditate day and night,” with the result that (verse 3) “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

2. Ezra purposed a will submissive to God’s Word: “Ezra … set his heart … to do it.…”

We noted that, in principle, this submission of the will was involved in a true “seeking” of the law. But here it is plainly stated. Ezra triumphed where we so frequently fail. He possessed that true knowledge of God which, far from remaining a mere item in the contents of his head, powerfully conditioned his manner of life. How often our plea, on our knees, is that God will not allow his Word to return void, and how often our testimony is that the Word of the Lord is quick and powerful, and how often our lives are standing denials of this truth! The primary mark of the outward life of the man of God, the mark of obedience, was found upon Ezra. He purposed no trifling with God. He came before the law of the Lord to be briefed for the day, and he purposed solemnly and deliberately that what he found there he would practice.

3. Ezra purposed a tongue filled with God’s Word: “Ezra … set his heart … to teach … statutes and judgments.”

He apparently wanted to have the reputation for spiritual conversation. The statutes of the Lord, the categorical commands which God has set for the unconditional obedience of his people, and the judgments of the Lord, the particular applications of the law to special situations—these would exhaust the contents of Ezra’s vocabulary. On this he set his heart. The sequence in which Ezra’s ambitions are placed before us is notable: first, there is the mind stocked with divine truth, and then, secondly, the life conformed to divine truth, and then, thirdly, the testimony. The spoken word demands a double foundation: a hidden foundation in the biblically tutored mind; and a public foundation in the biblically framed life. Do we wonder that the blessing of God attended Ezra, and that the blessing of God is so often absent from our public utterance? Have we secured the necessary double undergirding for our testimony? We may say that these are the absolute essentials for authoritative and convincing declaration of God’s truth.

Dangers Avoided

We have concentrated so far on a positive examination of the text. We have seen that it sets out to explain why it was that God blessed Ezra as He did; we have noted that God’s scrutiny is directed towards the inner man of the heart; we have been taught that it is the purpose of the heart which, humanly speaking, explains the setting of the hand of God upon a person’s life and work; and the contents of that purpose have been Clearly stated for our warning and learning. But in conclusion we may profitably turn to a negative examination of the verse, and ask this question: By adopting this as his deliberate purpose, what dangers did Ezra avoid? They are three in number:

1. Ezra avoided the danger of neglecting what was familiar.

He had a great and covetable reputation, which is accorded to him six times over in this chapter (verses 6, 11, 12, 14, 21, 25): he was thoroughly versed in the law of God. This was the reputation which lived on, so that when the book of Ezra was written this was what the historian recorded of him; the same reputation was his in the presence of the king whom he served in Babylon. And it was this man, with all that store of knowledge of God’s Word, who made it his deliberate purpose “to seek the law of the LORD.” Without question, it would have been easy—indeed “natural,” according to the bent of our sinful nature—to say: I know all that; why bother any further with it? Not so with Ezra. He knew the Word, and he gave himself to the study and absorption and obedience of the Word.

It would be easy to overpress small indications here, but as a matter of fact the verses which speak of Ezra’s knowledge of the law of God also speak inferentially about the law itself: that it had its origin in the Lord (verses 6, 11, 21), and that its content was nothing less than the wisdom of God (verses 11, 14, 25), a book supernatural in its inception and in its teaching.

Was this why Ezra valued it so, and why, in the abundance of his knowledge of it, he yet “sought” it? Since this is our testimony about Scripture also, let us follow Ezra in avoiding the danger of neglecting what is familiar.

2. Ezra avoided the danger of mere head knowledge.

The Bible would refuse the name “knowledge” to anything which merely resided in the intellect and was not carried over into daily life. Ezra surely could have boasted of “head-knowledge” of the law, and even have contented himself with it. But he purposed for himself a knowledge properly so called, the knowledge which leads to “doing” the law. In a striking verse (1 Sam. 2:12) we read that “the sons of Eli were sons of Belial.” What a condemnation of the home of that godly man! What a challenge and warning to Christian parents! But why were they of such a character? We read that “they knew not the Lord.” Yet they were the priests of their day. They were full of information about the Lord; they were the teachers of their generation; they “knew” more than anyone else. But they did not know the Lord; they lacked that which the Bible would recognize as knowledge, for what they “knew” exercised no influence on their lives. When a man is not a hearer only but a doer, then he truly knows.

3. Ezra avoided the danger of novelty.

We read that he purposed to teach “in Israel” statutes and judgments. It was his earnest purpose to take to people who knew it already the same old teaching about God and his law. Ezra ministered in a critical day. The people of God stood at a real turning point in their history. They were an oppressed, downcast minority. They needed above all things some new enthusiasm, some injection of new vigor, some fresh vision. And Ezra came to apply the old balm. He purposed to say nothing new, but faithfully to minister “truth unchanged, unchanging.”

The spirit of the age, and the spirit of the carnal church, is always that of Athens, “to tell, or hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21)—surely this point of view did not lack exponents in Ezra’s time. If it did, then the moment was indeed unique! There are always voices crying out for a new law anew morality, a new God (e.g., Isa. 30:9–11); there are always those to urge that new situations cannot be solved but by new solutions. This is the constant pressure on the worker for God, and the constant danger he undergoes. Fail here, and we fail everywhere. Our message must never be dictated by the situation, or by pressures arising from the situation. Rather, like Ezra, and Ezekiel, and everyone who has stood in the succession of true servants of God, we must say, “… Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear” (Ezek. 3:11).

END

Speaking of the Bible, Woodrow Wilson declared that a man who has deprived himself of this has deprived himself of the best there is in the world. When the Archbishop of Canterbury presented the Bible to Queen Elizabeth II, he called it the greatest thing in the world. President Theodore Roosevelt made bold to say that if a man is not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered a loss which he had better make all haste to correct. Dr. Robert Millikan regarded a knowledge of the Bible as an indispensable qualification of a well-educated man, and was convinced that only in the Bible can a man come into contact with the finest influences that have come into human life. President Calvin Coolidge, a man of no reputation for extravagance in speech, told the American people that the foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if these teachings ceased to be practically universally known in this country.

Is this Book, once the principal textbook in our schools, and now generally excluded from the schools, as important as these great men have indicated?

I think so. I read both testaments through before my fourteenth birthday, and thought them the greatest thing I had ever seen.

Doubtless, many will disagree, for an estimated fifty million Americans have never read the Bible and make no effort to include its teachings in the education of their children.

Ernest Gordon, now dean of Princeton University Chapel, but once a prisoner of war, has related how under his eyes men reached great depths of degradation in a prisoner-of-war camp. On the point of despair, he experienced spiritual rebirth in prison camp when he was reading the Bible. At the darkest hour, when men fought one another for scraps from Japanese swill pails, stole from fellow sufferers, robbed the dead, and became almost indistinguishable as human beings, Ernest Gordon began reading to some of them the New Testament. It spoke to the smothered greatness so cruelly crushed within them; attitudes were changed, and they discovered there in their darkness the validity of the redemptive miracle. It was a new birth, but nothing foreign to the history of Christianity.

The Christian enterprise in its beginnings and in its later development needed and fortunately often had leaders who spoke with the boldness of conviction that comes of a personal encounter and commitment. Strange it is we have forgotten how many became such from reading the Scriptures. It was by reading the Scriptures that Justin Martyr (A.D. 114–167), Tatian (contemporary of Justin), and Theophilus of Antioch (second century), men a mere generation removed from the Apostles, became Christians. Hilary of Poitiers, Veronius, one of the earliest Western exegetes, and Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian, are among the men converted from paganism by the reading of the Scriptures. Their names have claimed large space in the Who’s Who of the social and religious history of the world for more than sixteen centuries.

What of moral and social reform? Wilberforce rose from reading the Greek New Testament and went forth, in an atmosphere of disdain and in the agony of ill health, to shame the British Empire into the abandonment of the slave traffic, and to be remembered as “The Attorney General of the Underprivileged”; he is in the long line of public benefactors.

Before I heard in any impressive way of Wilberforce, Justin Martyr, Tatian and his Diatesseron, Augustine and his Confessions, or Martin Luther and his theses, I read the Bible. Somehow during the reading, the Saviour appeared as an ever-increasing reality and in such a manner as to claim my loyalty. I became aware, overwhelmingly aware, that the love of God revealed in Christ was for me—an obscure little boy in a great world of important people. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience, vivid enough to me, but an experience that set me wondering how anyone else could believe that so obscure and immature a person could claim the personal attention of the Saviour of the World.

Then two years later, and while reading the first chapter of the Prophecy of Jeremiah, I was overwhelmed with the impression that Almighty God was speaking to me in that Book and indicating his purpose that I should be a minister. It has never ceased to overwhelm me, and seeing how little I have accomplished, it would not be surprising now, as it was not surprising then, that to others it might seem impossible to believe. In a tumultuous generation, in two world wars, the Korean conflict, and in the “piping days of peace,” it has caused me to make decisions my closest friends interpreted as “against interest,” and has caused some of them to confide to me that they thought I was a fool. But when I have “run with the footmen and they have wearied me” so that tasks ahead have seemed too prodigious for even God to undertake with so unlikely an instrument, and in anguish of soul I have cried out to him, “Ah, Lord, God! Behold, I cannot speak: for I am but a child”—there has been no discharge, but another “Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise … be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.” For those who are made of my kind of “dust of the earth,” the Bible can be a very disturbing book. It may be that you are in need of the disturbing Word that awaits those who search the pages of the Bible in earnest desire for the meaning of life. Well, for me this Word has been the enchiridion of disciplines and the charter of a blessed freedom.

The Bible is a word of release for victims of fear. One does not read far to discover that the problem of despair is not peculiar to the space age. Nor need one go far to discover that light penetrates the darkness. The pages are aflame with what a man can do when he allows God to direct his way. A thief in flight becomes a patriarch. A plowman becomes a prophet of social righteousness. A man of unclean lips becomes a herald of redemptive grace. A hated tax collector becomes St. Matthew the Evangelist. A woman whose days were dogged by dingy nights in dark streets becomes a city missionary. An afflicted slave girl becomes an instrument of healing. An intolerant bigot becomes the world’s most impressive apostle of brotherhood. The Bible is the world’s great storehouse of unfolding possibilities. It is a story of grace abounding wherein all people are important people. People who want to remain as they are will find it disturbing. People who want to fulfill their higher destiny will find it a lamp to their feet, and a light upon the way to “the glorious liberty of the Children of God.”

END

THE BIBLE AND MODERN LIFE

THE WARFARE OF IDEAS—In our efforts to compete with the Communists in the cold war, we Americans have not been sufficiently interested in ideas.… We have stressed, for example, our free enterprise system and the American market.… But these things do not reach the heart of the problem in the ideological warfare. It is necessary that we endeavor to inculcate the ideals of liberty, freedom, justice, equality and rule under law and faith in God.… The use of the Bible will determine what kind of Christian heritage will be passed on to this new age of rockets and astronauts. It will determine whether God will still remain in our lives; whether this is still his world that we are learning more about.… The peace and security of the nation—the hope of millions of people around the globe—is in the balance. We must accept the responsibility of leadership in giving them the strength they need, which will come from the guidance of the Holy Spirit as they study the inspired Word of God.—Judge LUTHER W. YOUNGDAHL, Vice-President of the American Bible Society, in an address given at the 146th annual meeting of the society in New York City.

HOLY SLANG—The Rev. H. Hartley, Rector of Solihull, said that a member of his congregation expressed her opinion of the Gospels in the new Bible “very cogently when she said to me: ‘I think The New English Bible is excellent for the Epistles, but when I read the Gospels I expect to turn over the page and find Our Lord saying O.K.!’ ”—Report on Canterbury Convocation meeting in the Daily Telegraph, London.

AFTER EDEN—The Church of Scotland, which was once the garden of the Lord, is now a howling wilderness.—Young People’s Magazine, Free Presbyterian Church.

IN THREE DECADES—Two aspects of this action concerning Professor Hick [who refused to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth] are of significance in indicating the changes of thought in the church [Presbyterian, U.S.A.] since the 1920’s. One is that this decision has stirred up very little controversy. The other is that it was a member of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary, fully defended by his institution, who was accused of heresy. This … clearly dramatizes changes in the theological map that have been taking place in the past three decades.—Dr. JOHN C. BENNETT, in Christianity and Crisis.

NEVER ON THE ADVENT—As far as I remember I have never written nor have I preached on the Second Coming of Our Lord.—Professor J. G. MCKENZIE, veteran Congregational minister, teacher, writer, in The British Weekly.

A DEEP ABYSS—Risking the danger of being considered doctrinal spoilsports, we must insist that the abyss dividing the belief of the Dutch Reformed Church and Roman Catholic dogma is deeper than many Catholic theologians think when they state that the Reformation can be integrated into the whole of Catholic truth.—Statement of the Dutch Reformed Church, quoted in The Universe, Roman Catholic newspaper.

That man Aristotle among others took the view that the learning process has to do with making distinctions—that is a dog and not a cat, and that there thing is an atomic weight. So it goes, and I should like to assay a distinction or two. One day hence, as I write, the General Council will open in the Vatican and will be the Roman Catholic version of the ecumenical movement in action. What we have to sort out are words like ecumenical and catholic, but especially Roman catholic.

The sorting process is simple enough and known to Everyman: the words catholic and ecumenical mean virtually the same thing, i.e., “universal,” with the word ecumenical having a more chummy sound to it because it includes something of the idea of one household. But the term Roman catholic is a contradiction in terms: insofar as a church is Roman, it is not catholic but limited; insofar as it is catholic, it goes far beyond Rome. We have used the term Roman catholic so long that we have blurred the distinction, but we can see it clearly if we try to talk about Roman ecumenical, or Pittsburgh ecumenical, or even Edinburgh catholic. We ought to try such terms on for size just to see the point, just in order not to forget it. This could give us a new sense of direction; we could invite the Romanists to join the catholic church instead of limiting themselves to Rome.

This could be great fun, inviting the Romanists to become catholics. They could lay aside strictly Romish questions, such as whether Peter really was the first pope in case he was ever really in Rome at all, or the infallibility of the Roman pontiff (that seems terribly Roman, doesn’t it, and terribly offensive to the true ecumenical spirit), or the Assumption of Mary, which is as unbiblical as it is incomprehensible. Not that this sort of thing is likely; not half. We are all so delighted that Rome is smiling on us, that they are so big about it all as graciously to allow Protestant “observers” as they go about their work. We have been so conditioned by the idea that Roman priests look like Bing Crosby and that nuns look like Audrey Hepburn (while Protestant missionaries are more like Katherine Hepburn riding down a river with Humphrey Bogart) and that popes are genial old gentlemen like the present incumbent, John XXIII, who would have been retired long ere since in Protestantism, but who will make a good appearance at the Vatican Council while “the boys in the back room” get the work done. How long ago was it that Protestants believed that Rome was the “whore of babylon” and the “antichrist”? Has something happened to Rome or to us since those awful terms were used? It seems to me the words arose when men were having their heads chopped off because they opposed Rome. Have we changed or has Rome changed, in Colombia or Spain, for example? There is a monument of repentance in Geneva because Calvin should not have had a hand in the burning of Servetus. That sort of thing we are ashamed of and the monument says so. Where is the monument which tells us about Rome repenting for the Inquisition?

The Chicago Daily News late in August reported on a pamphlet written by the Reverend James J. McQuade, S. J. (Society of Jesus: that ought to be a pretty ecumenical term!), in which he quotes Dr. Julius Doepfner, Cardinal Archbishop of Berlin, who has listed five ways in which Roman Catholics can help establish Christian unity. Three of these are worth comment as illustrative of where Rome really stands in matters ecumenical, i.e., catholic.

1. They must develop a “thorough love of the Catholic Church” (he means Rome, of course) and reject “indifference which leads to decay of Christianity and frustrates all genuine reunion efforts.”

2. They must practice “prayer and penance to win God’s grace.” If I may here interject, look at that statement as against genuine Protestantism. Just how is one supposed by prayer and/or penance to win God’s grace? How does one earn a gift, and if it is grace, how does one win it? This is one place where we can get all blurred up in failing to see the differences in our longing for unity.

3. There can be “clarifying talks” with non-Catholics (he means, of course, non-Romanists) conducted in “strict adherence” to instructions of the Holy See and the bishops, without “blurring the differences.”

I quote Dr. Doepfner with great approval. We cannot and we must not think about ecumenical movements which “blur the differences.” John Calvin, called by Karl Holl a Unionsmann, engaged in many colloquies shortly after the Reformation began in efforts toward union with Rome. So did Melanchthon and Bucer, and Calvin reports on them in one of his letters:

Philip and Bucer have drawn up ambiguous and varnished formulas … to try whether they could satisfy the opposite party by giving them nothing. I cannot agree to this device … for they hope that in a short time they would begin to see clearly if the matter of doctrine be left open; therefore they rather wish to skip over it, and do not dread that equivocation than which nothing can be more hurtful.

In the book review section of The New York Times for Sunday, October 14, Liston Pope of Yale Divinity School has an excellent review of Robert Neville’s book The World of the Vatican. Parts of his review seem relevant to what we have been saying. “One announced purpose of the meeting,” Liston Pope writes, “was that it should ‘constitute an invitation to the separated communities to seek for unity, toward which so many hearts in all parts of the world are yearning today.’ ”

Professor Pope suggests, however, that this original theme of unity “has been rather muted in later discussion of the council’s purposes.” The purpose now seems to be to study the inner workings of the Roman church. Meanwhile, as Liston Pope points out, “Radio Vatican has added that there is only ‘one road to unity’—the road to Rome. Certainly the doctrines of Papal supremacy and infallibility comprise the chief stumbling blocks to union between Roman Catholic and non-Catholic bodies.”

There will be no equivocation in Rome; don’t look for it and don’t build your hopes on it. The Vatican Council affects so many people in so many different ways; in me it arouses cynicism and a certain sadness as I watch all those goings-on and think on the Man of Galilee. Meanwhile, as I write, the radio is just announcing that the council had prayers this morning for the “Catholics behind the Iron Curtain.” And they meant Roman catholics, I presume.

A federal or state requirement of an oath of office is not only not violative of the United States Constitution but is expressly sanctioned by this “supreme Law of the Land.” Such an oath requirement does not constitute in any sense or degree a religious test for office such as is barred by the Constitution. This is true whether or not the oath expressly includes the usual closing words, “So help me God.”

The soundness of these conclusions is readily apparent from the words of Article VI of the Constitution requiring that members of Congress and state legislatures, as well as all executive and judicial officials, federal and state “… shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Here we find not only in the same sentence but immediately adjoining each other the oath requirement and the prohibition of any religious test. Any contention that such an oath constitutes the forbidden religious test would be to condemn the quoted text as making nonsense. Such a conclusion as to any part of the Constitution is, of course, impermissible. Each and every part of this basic law must be accepted as having equal value and full validity, according to controlling principles of constitutional construction. No provision of the original Constitution can soundly be construed as invalidating any other part thereof. No part of any Amendment can soundly be said to invalidate any part of the Constitution, as amended, unless accomplished expressly—as in the case of the Eighteenth Amendment’s repeal by the Twenty-first Amendment. No such invalidation can be assumed to have been effected by implication, much less accomplished by “judicial interpretation.”

Extensive research in the writings of the Founders, notably those who framed and adopted the Constitution in 1787–1788, supports the above conclusions concerning oath of office and religious test for office. Nothing to the contrary in these writings has been found to exist nor, it is believed, could it be found. Those conclusions are entirely in keeping with the governmental philosophy of the Founders as a group, as recorded in their writings, as well as with the historical records’ evidence of the intent with which the Constitution was framed and adopted.

As the “father of the Constitution,” Madison’s observation regarding Article VI is especially noteworthy by way of illustration in his letter of April 10, 1788, to Edmund Randolph: “As to the religious test, I should conceive that it can imply at most nothing more than that without that exception, a power would have been given to impose an oath involving a religious test as a qualification for office. The constitution [meaning creation] of necessary offices being given to the Congress, the proper qualifications seem to be evidently involved.” [Emphasis added.] Such “proper qualifications” include, for instance, those based on age and citizenship as well as the prescribed oath.

A most interesting statement concerning the oath requirement of Article VI was made by former President John Quincy Adams in his “Jubilee” address on April 30, 1839: “The Constitution had provided that all the public functionaries of the Union, not only of the general but of all the State governments, should be under oath or affirmation of its support. The homage of religious faith was thus superadded to all the obligations of temporal law, to give it strength; and this confirmation of an appeal to the responsibilities of a future omnipotent judge, was in exact conformity with the whole tenor of the Declaration of Independence—guarded against an abusive extension by a further provision, that no religious test should ever be regarded as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. The first act of the Congress, therefore, was to regulate and administer the oaths thus required by the Constitution.” [Emphasis added.] [Pamphlet copy, Library of Congress.] The words, “guarded against an abusive extension,” stress that—to the extent that such an oath has religious significance—this fact can never soundly serve as the basis for a claim that such an oath constitutes the forbidden religious test for office. These two things, oath of office and religious test for office, are—under the Constitution—mutually exclusive; and the requirement of such an oath and the prohibition of such a test are entirely compatible constitutionally.…

The acknowledgment of the existence of a Supreme Being in any oath-taking is implied with the same effect as if made express in the usual manner, “So help me God.” It invokes God’s punishment for oath-breaking. Whether express or implied makes no difference. This assumes bona fide oathtaking, not falsely pretended belief in God.…

The oath provision of Article VI has nothing whatever to do with—does not trespass upon—any freedom, or right, guaranteed by the Constitution, as amended; it does not violate freedom to believe or not believe in God, nor freedom of conscience, nor freedom of thought, nor any other freedom. It merely expresses the sovereign people’s mandate as to one important condition, or qualifications pertaining to the privilege (there is no right) of holding office, federal or state. As to “So help me God” in the prescribed forms for federal officials, see for instance U. S. Code, Title 5, Sec. 16; Title 28, Sec. 453.

A recent Supreme Court case merits special mention here: Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961). There the plaintiff, an applicant to be a notary public in the State of Maryland, sued the state on account of its denial to him of a commission as notary because he would not declare his belief in God as required by the state constitution, which expressly barred any religious test for office in Maryland “other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God.” The U. S. Supreme Court decided merely that this constitutes a religious test for office (as the Maryland Constitution itself expressly labelled it) which violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as made applicable—the court stated—to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The court’s opinion (in a footnote) expressly stated that Article VI was not considered in deciding the case; so the decision has no bearing upon the question being considered here.

In conclusion, an oath of office—expressly or impliedly including the words, “So help me God”—is not violative of Article VI or any other part of the Constitution, as amended. The oath requirement of Article VI is independently controlling.—HAMILTON A. LONG, member of the New York Bar (retired), in the American Bar Association Journal.

Those First Two Minutes!

The Duke of Wellington, it is reported, was once asked how one made a speech, and his reply was, “O just jump in and splash about!” Which, alas, is very much the manner of speeches made by most soldiers—and too many preachers.

If the same question had been put to an Edmund Burke, the answer, we may be sure, would have been sharply different.

True, sermons are more than speeches, but they are not less. They represent the highest form of the speaking art. In an age of speed and complexity, innumerable distractions, diminishing capacity for abstract thinking, abysmal theological ignorance, and progressively shortened attention-spans, it is more important than ever that the preacher get airborne without having to use too much runway. He must keep saying to himself, Sermon introductions are important.

This granted, what are the effective possibilities? From examples set by the pulpit masters we may sort out five or six introduction types.

1. Most familiar (though for our day not necessarily most successful) is what may be called the context or background introduction. John Hutton once remarked: “The only honorable way of dealing with a text is to give the context; otherwise it becomes a pretext for what you wish to say.” On each occasion the preacher must decide whether or not the historical setting of his theme shall constitute the first order of business.

2. There is the story introduction. This is the attention-capturing method that Nathan used when he “preached” to King David. Here the preacher may draw from a wide variety of sources: some experience of his own, an item from the newspaper, a conversation he has overheard, something gleaned from fiction or biography. This method of effecting a meeting of minds between preacher and congregation is particularly to be recommended when one can safely assume only a modicum of biblical knowledge or spiritual interest on the part of the listeners. It is, for example, admirably suited to the opening of a radio sermon. The preacher must be warned, however, that whatever story he tells must be in taste and have relevance. It has neither homiletical artistry nor excuse if it be but story for story’s sake.

3. There is the problem introduction. A distinguished pulpit craftsman has a sermon on “Life’s Most Dangerous Age.” Since this is a matter on which people are not likely to be agreed, he deliberately heightens curiosity by beginning with the query, “What is life’s most dangerous age?” He then eliminates the answers that some would give and, after doing this with a few deft strokes, arrives at the conclusion which he then adopts as the thesis of his sermon. Similar possibilities belong to many texts and topics. Raising a question about them may be one of the surest ways to gain a hearing for what we wish to say about them.

4. There is the quotation introduction. Let us suppose that out text is Psalm 107:27, 28: “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble.…” Perhaps our announced topic is: “Does The Atomic Age Need God?” The preacher might well begin with something said by (of all persons!) the late H. G. Wells: “Religion is the first thing and the last. Until a man finds God and has been found by Him, he begins at no beginning and works to no end.” One lays a confident guess that this would be an effective way of reaching for the minds of students gathered in a college chapel.

5. There is what may be called the striking sentence introduction. The sailing here can be difficult. There are shoals. Sometimes the impressiveness, the acutely arresting quality of the first sentence lies in its beauty, and sometimes in its oddity. The odd, startling ones are “dynamite” unless there is the sort of personality in the preacher that will see him safely through. One man took for his text the words of King Hazael to the rebuking prophet, “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing?” (2 Kings 8:13). Out came the first sentence: “Well, dog or no dog, he did it!” Another read his text from the Psalter: “If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?” He reached up to remove his glasses and said, quite simply, but with electrifying effect, “Why, go on being righteous, of course!” Such introductions are not every preacher’s “cup of tea,” however. If they don’t come naturally, they are doomed to sound too pretentious, too affected, too ridiculous.

Where introductions are concerned, two worthy ambitions should command the preacher: (1) he should strive for variety (especially when the same congregation hears him repeatedly), and (2) he should strive for brevity (since attention, once aroused, may be seen to subside unless the movement and structure of the sermon begin soon to appear).

Paterson Smyth, a trainer of preachers, used to say, “You can make them listen, if you will pay the price.”

God’s indispensable help will not be withheld, but there is, nevertheless, a price to pay.

PAUL S. REES

Occupy till I come (Luke 19:13c; read vv. 12–27).

The doctrine of stewardship for the servants of God is a part of the warp and woof of the Christian faith. [Here follows a clear explanation of two kindred terms in the Greek original, oikonomia and oikonomos.] Let us inquire about God’s purpose in calling us to serve as his stewards.

I. To Teach Us God’s Sovereignty. All things belong to God: your body, your business, your church. Dedicate them all to his service, and beseech him to consecrate them all to his glory. He does not treat us as slaves, but as sons. As such, great is our inheritance. Here is a grand truth: the interworking of his sovereignty and our stewardship, our oikonomia. Our earthly happiness and our heavenly privilege.

II. To Teach Us How to Use Money. At least half of the parables have to do with money, or its equivalent. They teach us that a man may take the crops from his farm, the gains of his business, and use them all for the glory of God. When we do so, He says: “You are smart. You are being rich toward God. You are laying up treasure in heaven.” You will be stewards of these things for a time. All the while they belong to God. To him you will have to give an account of your stewardship. “Occupy till I come.”

III. To Insure Our Own Development. If we let God alone do for us, and keep on doing so, we may become like lazy sea gulls, which depend on fishermen to feed them, and lose their God-given ability to forage for themselves. In Europe a large segment of the Church is supported by the government. While visiting in America one of the leading Continental theologians said to me:

“The most amazing thing I have noticed among the Churches of America is the great movement of Stewardship.… The Churches stand on their own feet.… Stewardship has done for the Churches of America what the Reformation did for the Churches of Europe in the sixteenth century, and what the great missionary movement did in the nineteenth century.”

The Christian reason for giving is gratitude to God for his “unspeakable Gift.” Oh, as you devote to him all that you have, bless his holy name! Your talents, great or small, belong to him. They have come from him, and are to be used for his glory. In his Kingdom, both here and in the world to come, every day is payday. So may every one of you become a good steward of God’s manifold grace.—From Special Day Sermons for Evangelicals, ed. by Andrew W. Blackwood, Channel Press, Manhasset, New York, c. 1961.

SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

W. A. CRISWELL, JR., The Stewards of God Today;MARIANO DI GANGI, The Gospel According to Jonah;PAUL S. REES, The Glory of Christlike Giving; and DR. BLACKWOOD’SThe Gospel in Favorite Christmas Hymns.

I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of theLORD (Jonah 2:9; read verses 1–10).

According to Spurgeon, prince of preachers, Jonah learned this theology in a strange college. When he uttered these words he was in the belly of a great fish. Here is the truth of God’s sovereign grace. Let us together consider this saving truth, and the personal consequences.

I. The Grand Truth. Simply stated it is this: though man is lost on account of his revolt and his fleeing from God, yet he can be saved. God has mercifully planned and provided salvation. Only when like Jonah a sinner becomes aware of his state and turns to God for pardon can he begin to worship aright. When once he is redeemed, worship consists largely of thanksgiving for salvation. Worship likewise calls for the making of vows, not least about the giving of money gladly as a token of gratitude for redemption. Such joyous worship with generous giving rests on sound Bible theology. Thanksgiving for redemption accords with the character of God. Let us therefore think of the response we should make to this revelation of God’s grace.

II. The Personal Consequences. A. Since salvation is of the Lord, we should be humble. We cannot save ourselves. In themselves all our noble intentions, all our high endeavors to do good works and to merit heaven, all our religious observances will not save us. First we must humbly surrender to God and let him save us. “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9).

B. We must be prayerful. No matter how learned and eloquent, how forceful and sincere, the preacher cannot save anyone. The Lord Jesus has asked us to preach and be his witnesses. But even Billy Graham must be prayerful that God will accompany his preaching with the convicting, converting, confirming power of the Spirit. Without him we can do nothing. Pray!

C. We should be confident. Were our salvation to depend on our own strength and wisdom, which of us could face the trials and temptations of the future with confidence? Alone we are bound to fail. But we need not depend on our feelings, which are bound to rise and fall like the graphs of the stock market, up one day and down the next. But we rest on God’s unchanging purpose, and that cannot fail. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

D. We should be grateful. If we are lost, we have only ourselves to blame, because God has freely provided salvation If we are saved, we have only God to thank, for he has done all this of his own grace. With our eyes open to the mercies of God, beholding his sovereign grace in redemption, let us give thanks to our Saviour, and show our gratitude by bringing others, one by one, to believe in Christ as Redeemer and King. “Salvation is of the Lord.”—Pastor, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.

Seven Facts About Tithing

The following statements on tithing were used by Dr. Rees in the adjacent sermon on stewardship.

The late Robert E. Speer was a strong advocate of tithing. The substance of what he wrote appears in seven points:

1. Before the Law Abraham tithed. Under the Law the Jews tithed. For Christians to do less would be a disgrace.

2. Men need a practical principle like the tithe to make sure that stewardship is a reality in their lives.

3. God does not need the tithe, but he needs the tither, and man needs to practice tithing for his own sake.

4. Tithing helps to protect us from the perils of money worship.

5. Our Lord approved tithing in his commendation of the Jews for their diligence in this regard.

6. The tithe proves to be a good way of securing regularly for God’s use the money needed for the extension of his Kingdom.

7. In addition to its good results, the tithe is fundamentally right.

Up to their ability, yes, and I bear them witness, beyond their ability, they have given (2 Cor. 8:3, Berkeley; read vv. 1–15).

Neither Jesus nor his greatest interpreter ever had the slightest embarrassment in talking to Christian disciples about money, and the right use of money in support of the Christian cause. Here the Apostle seizes on a case to make the Corinthians more stewardship-conscious, more Christlike in liberality. The glory of giving! Let’s look at it.

I. The Surpassing Measure. [Here a moving example from life.] Stewardship beyond the range of ability and beyond the call of duty! The glory of giving!

II. The Searching Meaning. In the Christian order the giving of money never comes first. It is the giving of oneself that is the first consideration. Here, then, is the central meaning of dedication: the giving of oneself to God.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

III. The Sensible Method. Christlike giving is faithful: not starting and stopping, pledging and defaulting; systematic, not left to impulse and whim; proportionate: those having more giving more, those having less giving less. What is most important of all is the dedicated will to tithe. “God loves a hilarious giver” (2 Cor. 9:7, Berkeley).

IV. A Supreme Model. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). In the light of his Cross, where all the glory of giving becomes dazzlingly luminous, can you quibble or complain for one split minute over the giving of tithes and offerings to the Church, which is his body?—From Christian: Commit Yourself, Revell, Westwood, New Jersey, 115–29, c. 1957.

A beloved evangelist and pastor, J. Wilbur Chapman, used to say that where one person comes to Christ because of the Christmas star, at least ten come because of Christmas song. So why not in December have an evening series of four or five sermons from that many hymns? According to the number of Sundays, have the people select four or five Christmas songs that appear in the church hymnal. Early in November the hymn titles should appear in the bulletin.

The four may be: “O Come, All Ye Faithful”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”; “Joy to the World.” This last has not a word about Christmas, and may come the Sunday before New Year’s. In any printed list these titles need not appear. In the sermons the stress should fall, not on the author and the composer, but on the Gospel message. Each hymn sings about Christ. Note four sermon topics:

The Call to Christmas Worship

The Quietness of Christmas Day

The Noblest of Christmas Hymns

The Afterglow of Christmas Joy

After the bloodiest of our wars, on Christmas Day, 1865, Phillips Brooks rode from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Four years later—at the request of the organist, Louis H. Redner, who composed the music—Brooks wrote the simplest of our Christmas hymns, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He did it for boys and girls, but his song appeals to older children of God, too. It sings about the Incarnation, ever dear to the heart of Brooks.

Let us look at the four stanzas, and the Good News that they sing, about the quietness of the Christmas Gospel:

I. The Place Where Christ Was Born

II. The Way that Christ Was Born

III. The Prayer for Him to Be Born

IV. The Hearts Where Christ Is Born “O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee!”

One year we had such a brief series in a church where the evening attendance was disappointing. The first evening more persons came than the officers had ever seen in church at night. Each evening the numbers grew. Afterwards the evening attendance never dropped to what it had been before. Also, the people began to think of a real hymn as Bible truth set to music. Later we followed the same plan before Easter, with an evening series, not long, “The Gospel in Beloved Hymns about the Cross.” Thank God for the Gospel that sings and for laymen who love to hear a sermon about a hymn!

Strange Bedfellows?

The Concept of Holiness, by O. R. Jones (Macmillan, 1962, 200 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by James Barr, Professor of Old Testament Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.

It is likely that this interesting work will be followed by many others as the theological interest in modern “linguistic” philosophy develops. Jones discusses the idea of holiness by starting from general and non-technical linguistic usage. Thus he tries to “place” holiness in its logical situation, and when this is done we see its relation to such other realities as power, personality, wholeness, and “the perfect vision.” On the one hand Jones writes with an eye to those whose thought has been formed by the new philosophical methods. On the other he cites and uses a variety of theologians, mainly those of the earlier twentieth century like Oman, Otto, and Farmer, and he makes much use of descriptions of biblical thought by modern biblical theologians.

In a very short review one can only raise some questions. (a) Does Jones avoid some of the misuses of linguistic evidence, e.g. in arguments from etymology, which have been so common? (b) Is it not necessary to see that part of this material must belong to linguistics and cannot meaningfully be called a “logic”? (c) I am not so sure that the author is working through “everyday use” (p. 13) as he himself thinks, or that we should do so, or that modern linguistic philosophy in fact does so. (d) Does he do enough to face and meet the feeling, which many theologians of recent trends may well have, that Christians just do not think this way about holiness, and that he is thus using to expound and justify it a system of ideas with which it will not fit? Or, in other words, can approaches like Jones’s hope to be successfully persuasive within the Church without more explicit confrontation with established positions like the Barthian?

Personally, my chief discomfort about this book is a sense of some incongruity, when the theological world of Oman, Otto, Inge, and Farmer, and the philosophical world of Ayer and Ryle, is found to lie so closely together in one argument with biblical word studies based on Hebrew and Greek, and with the accounts of biblical thought based upon them. Such accounts have in modern thought been used mainly for their incompatibility with that theological and philosophical world. It will take some readjustment to make them fit together again. Attempts to make such a readjustment in the present theological world will have to face realistically the extent of the probable opposition. On the other side, however, it should be realized that work like this by Dr. Jones is performing a real apologetic task, the benefits of which are often too gladly accepted by those who deny the need for them. The kind of discussion which he, with some others, has started will occupy a good deal more of the stage for the next decade or two.

The Hebrew and Greek words unfortunately contain many misprints.

JAMES BARR

Setting The Sights

Christian Faith and its Cultural Expression, by George Gordh (Prentice-Hall, 1962, 354 pp., $7.35), is reviewed by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In this book Gordh conceives of historic Christianity as a total faith having the following three aspects: “It is a vision of the world and its meaning, of man and his significance. It is a set of attitudes toward nature and self, toward others as individuals and in groups. Faith is also a set of expressions in worship and art, in literature and action, in association and thought. All of these together form the wholeness which is historical Christianity.” The discussion thus has as its three main parts “The Vision,” “The Attitudes,” and “The Expressions.” The first part consists, in the main, of a presentation of the basic theology of Christianity. The second part contains a discussion of typical Christian attitudes toward nature, toward the self, toward other individuals, and toward groups. In the third part we have a discussion of Christianity as expressed in worship, the fine arts, literature, thought, and so on.

Gordh presents his material in the form of a textbook designed for introductory courses in the Christian faith, whether the students in such courses be Christians desiring to have a more systematic knowledge of their faith, or non-Christians desiring to know what Christianity is. At the end of each chapter there are suggestions for further reading, as well as questions for discussion.

I found the first section of this book, “The Vision,” vastly more interesting and competent than the latter two sections. Much of the latter two sections is poorly focused. Sometimes this displays itself in the choice of formulations which are clearly inadequate to the thought. For example, Gordh defines private worship as the moment of the realization of faith, though at the same time he makes clear that faith has been realized all along, before the individual ever engaged in worship. Sometimes it displays itself in sentences which, so far as I can see, cannot be construed at all; for example, “The significance of worship in the realization is that, in it, the human being says ‘Thou’ to God the redeemer.” Sometimes it displays itself in contradiction, as, when speaking of corporate worship, he says that this is “the celebration of all of God’s acts,” though later on the same page he says that celebration is at best only one part of corporate worship.

I think Gordh has set himself various aims which almost inevitably make for a tedious book; that the first part is seldom tedious is a tribute to him. For one thing, this is an introductory book, and he construes this as demanding that it cover many topics generally, rather than a few in detail. Thus the book has a great deal of scope, but for this, the heavy price is paid of an abundance of truisms and generalities. For example, he raises the question of the possibility of an art which is Christian, yet neither liturgical nor religious in the usual sense. Whether or not there is such an art, and how we could recognize it, are certainly challenging questions, but Gordh has no time to discuss them.

Secondly, the author apparently intends for the most part to give a summary of the views of others and not to present and defend his own. Further, he wants to present the common core of what others have said about faith; if there is disagreement on a crucial point, he simply points out what the disagreement is and lets it go at that, or raises the matter in one of the discussion questions. Rarely are reasons given for the divergent views. Thus the issues which have really gripped Christians in their discussions with each other are played down.

Now I think that these aims—that of presenting a general introduction to the Christian faith, and that of presenting the common core of traditional and contemporary discussions of faith without probing controversial points—are by no means indefensible. Furthermore, given these aims, this is perhaps as good a book as could be written. Certainly Gordh’s broad vision of the Christian faith is admirable. But anyone wondering whether to use this book in teaching will first have to clarify his convictions concerning education. Calvin’s Institutes were also intended as an introduction to the Christian faith.

NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF

From Myth To History

Kerygma and History, A Symposium on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, selected, translated, and edited by Carl E. Braaten and Roy A. Harrisville (Abingdon, 1962, 235 pp., $5), is reviewed by James P. Martin, Associate Professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

This book focuses on the shift from myth to history which has taken place in the discussion surrounding Bultmann. It represents a voice, or better, a symposium of voices, speaking out of the heritage and context of Lutheran theology. This is as it should be because Bultmann himself is a Lutheran and cannot be correctly understood or challenged except within the Lutheran structure of thought. Yet with the exception of Braaten’s introductory essay and the concluding essay by Harrisville, all of the contributions in this book are translations from continental scholars. The result is thorough and solid discussion which throws into contrast that superficiality and fad approach which too often prevail in American discussion. We frequently fail to penetrate to the depths or to be aware of the full implications of a theological position because of the relative ignorance of the history of doctrine and biblical interpretation which persists in American theological education.

We are given in this book a series of essays by continental systematic theologians and New Testament scholars (Nils Dahl teaches in Oslo, and Regin Prenter teaches in Aarhus, Denmark; the rest are German). Although there is some reduplication, particularly in surveys of Bultmann’s own program, the essays approach the questions of kerygma and history from mutually supporting perspectives. As a result this book will prove helpful to both the expert and the beginner in this field. For those unacquainted with the complexities of the questions, it seems to this reviewer that they would be oriented best if they read first Nils Dahl’s essay on “The Problem of the Historical Jesus” and then turned to Günther Bornkamm’s essay on “Myth and Gospel.” From here they could read the essays in the order presented.

The systematic theologians stress the essential relation of kerygma and history in terms of the history of doctrine, and the place of the Church rather than a modern world view as the proper source of heuristic principles. The New Testament scholars discuss the familiar questions about the historicity of the New Testament materials and the proper methods of establishing historical fact. The title of the book accurately indicates the nerve center of all the discussion. All agree that the New Testament provides both kerygma and history. But no one succeeds in uniting these two concepts into one synthetic concept. We are left, it seems, with something like the problem of the relation of the two natures of Christ. As far as history in the New Testament is concerned, it appears that scholarship is still operating with the hermeneutics of the Enlightenment, existentialist historicity notwithstanding. Perhaps this “modern man” who is of such great concern to Bultmann and his followers is “modern” in an extended sense; that is, his intellectual roots are not truly in modern physics but in an obsolescent rationalism which permeates the substructure of his thought. On the other hand, it is clearly recognized by these scholars that the foundation of faith is not critical historical science (which is always an effort to conquer history and never be conquered by it) but believing personal response to the Christ proclaimed in the Gospel. This book indicates what it means to “walk by faith,” confessing at the same time that the object of faith is One whose historical manifestation to the world is datable. Christianity is a historical religion, not only in the sense that it obviously has its own history (like other religions), but also in the sense that the past historical life of its Lord reveals the meaning and goal of all history and not merely the individual’s historicity. Anyone who is able to take his Christianity as meat, not milk, will profit greatly from this book.

JAMES P. MARTIN

Reading for Perspective

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

★ On the Love of God, by John McIntyre (Harper, $4). An unusually valuable and provocative discussion of the meaning of God’s love; the kind of writing which at once is a theology and a personal confession of faith.

★ A Study of Communism, by J. Edgar Hoover (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, $3.95). FBI Director describes the origins, appeal, power structure, and world expansion of Communism and how to meet its challenge to freedom.

★ Historical Atlas of Religion in America, by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row, $8.95). A brilliant blend of fact and illustration tells the colorful story of three centuries of religion in America.

Call To Social Action

Saints and Society, by Earle E. Cairns (Moody, 1960, 192 pp., $3.25), is reviewed by Henry Stob, Professor of Ethics, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Professor Cairns, who is Chairman of the Department of History and Political Science at Wheaton College in Illinois, has written a good book. The book is chiefly concerned to set forth the social impact of the eighteenth-century English Revivals, but the historical survey is rounded out by a constructive account of how evangelicals can make Christianity socially meaningful in the twentieth century.

The author provides a setting for evangelical reform by depicting the state of affairs in England during the period 1648–1789. He then discloses the sources of this reform in the Wesleyan Revival and in the Evangelical Revival centered in Clapham Commons and at Cambridge. Thereafter an account is given of the role played by English evangelicals in the abolition of slavery, in prison reform, and in bettering the lot of the working man. The work of leaders like Wilberforce and Shaftesbury is highlighted, but the considerable contribution of Christians like Clarkson, Macauley, Buxton, Howard, and many others is recorded. An analysis is then given of the spirit in which these earlier evangelicals undertook their social tasks, and the book closes with an appeal to contemporary Christians to work for social improvement in the same spirit. Guidelines for such action, drawn from the historical survey and from the Scriptures, are provided also.

This reader found the historical sections enlightening and calculated to impress upon the mind the power of the Gospel to structurate society when servants of the Lord really try to give a social and political dimension to Christian compassion and concern. When the author at the close recommends that contemporary Christians meet their political, economic, and social responsibilities, he does so in a soundly biblical way and with practical good sense.

This reviewer is happy to recommend the book. Written in a simple style and unencumbered by technicalities, it is adapted to Everyman, and when taken in hand is bound to remind evangelicals of their obligation to relate biblical faith and ethics to the problems of society.

HENRY STOB

French Catholics

Catholicism and Crisis in Modern France, by William Bosworth (Princeton University Press, 1962, 407 pp., $8.50), is reviewed by J. D. Douglas, British Editorial Director, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

What would be the temporal impact of 40 million French Roman Catholics united in one great cause? Why is such a union unlikely? What is Catholicism’s real effect on French social and political life? These are some of the questions which Dr. Bosworth, teacher of political science at Hunter College, sets out to answer in this volume on French Catholic groups at the threshold of the Fifth Republic.

He shows the steady decline in votes cast for Catholic political parties (3.4 million in 1889, 0.8 in 1914), tells how a revolutionary new school law in 1959 ordered state-payment of teachers in most Catholic schools, and includes a useful section on Vatican policy-making which may make the thoughtful reader wonder about the source and accuracy of the inside information. Sometimes the uncritical quotation of Catholic pronouncements begs questions. “No Catholic,” we are told, “is permitted to consider a Papal document out of date because the circumstances that fostered it have changed.” This is shaky ground: what about the notorious Unam Sanctam bull of Boniface VIII, or the Syllabus Errorum of Pius IX?

There is an informative chapter on Catholic Action, and a particularly comprehensive one on the Catholic press, illustrating its range over widely differing aspects of community life and the hierarchical control exercised lest “Catholic editors or publishers … lack the required humility.” The church, having learned its lesson, says the author, “does not want to meddle in partisan politics”; but a few lines later he points out the hierarchy’s right to “comment” on political questions, without suggesting that for many of the faithful such comment has the force of a directive. Dr. Bosworth’s quotation from Msgr. Ancel on page 82, which states that the church has not intervened in the Algerian crisis, should be read in conjunction with his later references on pages 208 ff., and with the equally well-documented but startlingly different approach of Edmond Paris in The Vatican against Europe.

Dr. Bosworth finds the Catholic Church’s social doctrine incapable of precise definition—not surprisingly, for here surely is an area almost entirely neglected by popes till Leo XIII’s day 80 years ago. In such an exhaustive work as this, it is inexplicable that the Dreyfus affair, with its widespread impact on church and state relations, should be dismissed in a mere five lines.

Sometimes it is difficult to know whether the writer is paraphrasing Catholic views or expressing his own. The reader who reaches the last page by the legitimate route will readily acknowledge this to be no shoddy or incomplete work. Even the bibliography at the end supplies also most useful notes on authors and books listed. The book is very much a specialist’s project which makes heavy reading, and the reviewer found the undoubtedly erudite approach altogether too clinical, and with as much human warmth as the multiplication table.

J. D. DOUGLAS

A Vital Matter

The King of the Earth, by Erich Sauer (Eerdmans, 1962, 256 pp., $3.95; Paternoster, 16s.), is reviewed by Stephen S. Short, Evangelist, Weston-super-Mare, England.

Erich Sauer, the “Biblical Theologian” of the Wiedenest Bible School in West Germany, is well-known to Christian readers both in his own country and throughout the English-speaking world by such books as The Dawn of World Redemption and The Triumph of the Crucified. The present volume, published in German in 1958, has been translated by Michael Bolister. The subtitle of the work is “The Nobility of Man according to the Bible and Science”—a vital matter, particularly in view of the bestiality to which nations and individuals have descended during the two world wars of this century. The author, as the blurb on the dust jacket rightly asserts, “demonstrates the high purpose of God in and for man, the diabolical powers that encompassed his ruin, the renewal of that original purpose of God in and through the Second Adam, and the practical realization of man’s high calling through the redeeming and regenerating grace of God in Christ.” In an interesting and well-informed concluding section, the biblical account of creation is compared with the discoveries of modern science.

STEPHEN S. SHORT

Essays Of Merit

Vox Evangelica, Biblical and Historical Essays, edited by Ralph P. Martin for the London Bible College (Epworth Press, 1962, 75 pp., 6s), is reviewed by R. E. Nixon, Tutor at Cranmer Hall, Durham, England.

Here is a most diverse and interesting volume which does credit to the staff of L.B.C. First we have a good general survey of “The Greek and Roman Background of the New Testament” by C. Carey Oakley. There follows a short but suggestive note by Leslie C. Allen on “Isaiah 53:11 and Its Echoes” where the possible translation of the Hebrew term “by his submission” is shown to illuminate Daniel 12:4 and Romans 5:19. The editor has an important, up-to-date survey of “The Composition of I Peter in Recent Study” in which he exposes some of the ingenious nonsense which has been written lately on this theme. But his conclusion that “I Peter stands as a genuine letter but as including two baptismal homilies, one delivered before and the other after the rite,” may not command general assent.

Few conservative scholars are so well read as Donald Guthrie, who takes us with his normal judiciousness over the field of pseudepigraphy. He shows that many lightly made statements upon this subject just will not do. Finally we are edified (and possibly entertained) by Harold H. Rowdon’s comparison of the J. N. Darby-B. W. Newton quarrel in nineteenth-century Brethren circles with that between Cyril and Nestorius in the fifth century.

This is altogether a worthy volume. We look forward to more such from this source in the future.

R. E. NIXON

Book Briefs

Theology and the Scientific Study of Religion (Lutheran Studies Series, Vol. II), by Paul L. Holmer (T. S. Denison, 1962, 238 pp., $4.95). This book argues that there is a scientific language of religion which does not, as some think, displace the passionate, confident, unhesitating language of faith.

The Realities of Faith, by Bernard E. Meland (Oxford, 1962, 368 pp., $6.50). The author finds commonality between Christianity and non-Christian religions in man’s createdness; each man and religion is thus related to the depth of God’s being with the result that no one revelation is definitive, and revelation and creation are, in the author’s view, at bottom the same thing.

The Bible and Archaeology, by J. A. Thompson (Eerdmans, 1962, 468 pp., $5.95). Formerly appeared as Pathway Books: Archaeology and the Old Testament (1957), Archaeology and the Pre-Christian Centuries (1958), and Archaeology and the New Testament (1960). Now with added maps, photographs, and new information.

William Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” by Edwin B. Bronner (Columbia University Press, 1962, 306 pp., $6). The story of religious toleration and the utopian attempt of Pennsylvania to establish through its “holy experiment” a colony which would be an example to mankind.

Genesis and Evolution, by M. R. DeHaan (Zondervan, 1962, 152 pp., $2.50). The well-known radio preacher contends against evolution and finds the lessons of conversion, separation, spiritual reproduction, and the like in the Genesis creation story.

A Guide to Biblical Preaching, by Chalmer E. Faw (Broadman, 1962, 198 pp., $3.50). A substantial and practical discussion and guide on how to actually preach the Bible. The book oozes enthusiasm and challenge.

Jefferson on Religion in Public Education, by Robert M. Healey (Yale University Press, 1962, 294 pp., $6.50). Written in the context of the current controversy over religion in public education, here is the first book on the thought of the man who gave it so much attention: Thomas Jefferson.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early Church, by Lucetta Mowry (University of Chicago Press, 1962, 260 pp., $6.95). A study of the theme of redemption in the Qumran community and in the early Christian church.

Martin Luther: Hero of Faith, by Frederick Nohl (Concordia, 1962, 151 pp., $2.75). A brief, simple, and highly readable presentation of the life of Luther from boy to professor.

Beginning the Old Testament, by Erik Routley (Muhlenberg, 1962, 159 pp., $2.50). On the basis of composite authorship of the Pentateuch and an admitted uncertainty as to “what actually happened,” the author interprets the historical beginnings of the Old Testament.

Existentialism and Religious Liberalism, by John F. Hayward (Beacon Press, 1962, 131 pp., $3.95). A religious liberal faces the question of whether religious liberalism can survive existentialism’s assault upon its doctrine of man and emerge with a positive content in which it can still believe.

Oxford Bible Atlas, edited by Herbert G. May (Oxford, 1962, 144 pp., $4.95). An up-to-date and authoritative reference work; combines fine cartography and map printing with knowledge of the most recent archaeological discoveries. Poor binding.

The Epistles to the Galatians and the Ephesians, by Andrew W. Blackwood, Jr., and The Epistles to Timothy and Titus, by Paul F. Barackman (Baker, 1962, 211 and 155 pp., $3.50 and $2.95). Two more volumes in Baker’s Proclaiming the New Testament series. Not so much commentaries as comments calculated to aid Bible readers and preachers.

SUITABLE COMPROMISE—Judy Rae Bushong, Ohio teen-ager whose concept of modesty caused her expulsion from school, was back in classes. Judy attracted international attention by refusing to wear the short-legged gym suit prescribed by school officials. Compromise settlement provides that her gym suit can be extra long.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—United Church of Christ President Ben Mohr Herbster calls for systematic rehabilitation program for ministers who crack emotionally under strain of their work. Although only “a very small minority” of United Church ministers suffer severe psychological difficulties, says Herbster, “these men need help … desperately.”

Lutheran Church in America’s Board of Theological Education is considering a plan to increase seminary training from three to four years. LCA’s ten seminaries have been asked to make specific suggestions for an added curriculum.

A General Synod for the five Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa was officially constituted last month, culminating plans that had been discussed for more than 100 years. The General Synod will enable the five churches to present a united front, said Religious News Service, while preserving individual identities.

The Triennial Conference of the Baptist Union of Australia voted against affiliating with the World Council of Churches. Victoria was the only one of six state unions to recommend affiliation with the WCC. A majority of the state unions also voted against membership in the Australian Council of Churches.

New developments in Lutheran Scandinavia’s controversial issue of women in the ministry have lost much of their power to arouse intense debate, according to National Lutheran Council News Bureau. Press and people took little note, the bureau said, when a Swedish bishop ordained a pastor’s wife and a Norwegian bishop appointed a retired clergyman to minister periodically to dissenting members of a parish served by a woman.

Two more Protestant church bodies were accepted as members of the National Association of Evangelicals by its Board of Administration, bringing the total NAE constituency to 40 groups. New member denominations are the Evangelical Congregational Church with about 30,000 members and the Pilgrim Holiness Church with some 32,700.

Latin America Mission reports that its year-long “evangelism-in-depth” campaign in Guatemala has already produced an estimated 10,000 conversions to Christ. United evangelistic campaigns have been held in 33 Guatemalan cities.

At least 80 Christian natives are said to have been killed and another 76 injured in a five-day pillage and burning of about 80 small villages by pagan tribesmen in remote western New Guinea. Word of the outbreak came from the Rev. Charles Craig, field secretary of the Australian Baptist Mission, who said the victims did not include any missionaries. He reported that two chiefs led about 1,000 tribesmen in the attack which stemmed from fear of loss of power and prestige due to the mission’s growth.

DEPOSITIONS—The Rev. Edwin E. West, involved in a dispute with Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike, was deposed from the ministry at his own request so he could serve as minister of the schismatic Orthodox Anglican Church of the Redeemer in Palo Alto, California. The church withdrew from the Protestant Episcopal denomination, charging Pike with doctrinal error.

Dr. N. Burnett Magruder was discharged as executive director of the Louisville Area Council of Churches after the council’s executive board voted 21 to 7, with 8 abstentions, in favor of the move. Magruder, a member of the John Birch Society, said Protestantism was vigorous enough to accommodate conflicting points of view and observed, “I am sorry that this principle was not affirmed.”

Dr. Henry J. Stokes, Jr., who as pastor of First Baptist Church of Macon, Georgia, preached against segregation, will leave his pulpit January 1 following a request from the congregation’s Board of Deacons that he resign. He said he was asked to leave because “my preaching, particularly as it regarded justice to minority race groups, did not set well with some in the church.”

PERSONALIA—The Rev. John P. Donnelly. editor of the official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington, was named director of the Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference.

Dr. Robert E. Davis was named executive director of the American Baptist Division of Christian Higher Education.

MISCELLANY—Pacific Garden Mission, world’s most famous rescue mission on Chicago’s Skid Row, marks its 85th anniversary this month with a rally in the new International Ballroom of the Conrad Hilton Hotel.

The Evangelical Free Church of America dedicated a new $400,000 headquarters building in Minneapolis last month.

Northern Baptist Theological Seminary campus in Chicago is being purchased for a Baptist home for the aged. The seminary is moving to a new campus in suburban Lombard next summer.

A statement adopted at the Oxford Conference of Evangelical Churchmen said intercommunion among Anglicans and the free churches should not depend upon whether the free churches accept the Church of England’s traditional form of episcopal ministry.

Protestant churches in Greece appealed to Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis against action by local authorities in attempting to confiscate property belonging to a Protestant community in Katerini. A near-riot occurred when police tried to seal off the property.

Emergency aid for earthquake victims in Iran is being supplied by the World Council of Churches, Church World Service of the National Council of Churches, World Vision, and Seventh-day Adventist Welfare Services. In addition, Francis Cardinal Spellman, Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, presented $10,000 for earthquake relief to the Iranian U.N. ambassador.

WORTH QUOTING—“Any church is going to be useless and irrelevant unless there shall be in it the gospel’s clear and unmistakable call, the Spirit’s witness. People are hungry for that.”—Methodist Bishop Nolan B. Harmon.

“Although scores of Canadians conduct research in the breeding and care of poultry and livestock, there does not appear to be one full-time research person in Canada compiling data on marriage and its problems.”—From a committee report of the United Church of Canada General Council.

“I am a very lucky fellow and I certainly thank God for a second opportunity. You don’t often get another chance to prove yourself, in baseball or in life.”—Ralph Terry, who pitched the New York Yankees to victory in the deciding game of the 1962 World Series, recalling his loss of the seventh game of the 1960 series.

“Some say [God is] a little man with a long beard. I don’t believe that. I can’t believe he’s a small person. He must be BIG. I think of him as a sort of power—a big power.”—Teen-aged actress Hayley Mills, in interview with Youth magazine of United Church of Christ.

Deaths

ARCHBISHOP ATHENAGORAS CAVADAS, 78, Exarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Western and Central Europe and a former president of the World Council of Churches; in London.

DR. THORVALD B. MADSEN, 74, retired vice-president of Trinity College and Theological Seminary; in Chicago.

BISHOP ARNE FJELLBU, 71, who played a key role in the resistance movement by Norwegian Christians during the World War II Nazi occupation; in Trondheim, Norway.

DR. CHARLES S. DETWEILER, 84, retired American Baptist missionary who had devoted 50 years of leadership to mission work in Latin America; in Denver.

DR. CLYDE JOHNSTONE KENNEDY, 55, president of Shelton College and former president of the International Council of Christian Churches; in Collingswood, New Jersey.

While the blockade of Cuba exploded into world headlines last week, Evangelist Billy Graham was conducting the most successful crusade of his South American tour.

There were no anti-American demonstrations in Buenos Aires as in other Latin American cities, but extra police were stationed at the arena.

Dr. Graham answered questions on a telecast beamed to 60 per cent of the Argentine population and into neighboring Uruguay. Ratings in the city indicated that 46 per cent of television viewers at that hour were watching Graham.

Luna Park had capacity crowds of 20,000 each night of the crusade. Recorded decisions for Christ totaled 1,661 after four meetings. Observers promptly heralded the crusade as “the largest Protestant event” in the history of the city.

Thirty thousand heard Dr. Graham preach at Buenos Aires’ Luna Park at the opening rally. Police estimated that they had turned 5,000 persons away for lack of seating. The closing rally was scheduled on the city’s main football stadium grounds.

In a press interview preceding his final series of rallies, Graham told newsmen: “I find a great spiritual hunger in this country. People are deeply interested in religion.” He said his purpose in Argentina was “to bring people face to face with God,” rather than “to convert them to any one religion.” “I want them to come to Christ, whatever their religion,” he stressed. “After they have made their decision, I cannot direct which church they go to. That is up to them.”

The evangelist’s eight-day series of rallies in Buenos Aires was financed by local Protestant churches, which also provided a 1,000-voice choir. It climaxed a month-long evangelism tour of the southern portion of the Latin American continent. Rallies were held in six cities.

A full report on the impact of the Graham Crusade by News Editor Kucharsky, now in Latin America, will appear in the November 23 issue, with photographic coverage.

Earlier in the tour, Graham drew capacity crowds in the 60,000-seat Pacaembu Stadium at São Paulo, Brazil, at two meetings which closed a six-day campaign there.

On the last night at São Paulo, the huge throng sat out a drenching rainstorm. Meanwhile, a voodoo society which had engaged a dance hall adjacent to the stadium for a demonstration folded its gear and joined the Graham crowd.

The evangelist’s itinerary also took him to Asunción, Paraguay; Cordoba, Argentina; Rosario, Argentina; and Montevideo, Uruguay. In each city he was assisted by associate evangelists on his team who held up to a week of nightly meetings prior to his arrival.

In Asunción, Graham ran into a virtual boycott by mass media. Of 20 correspondents invited to a pre-crusade press conference, only one attended. Asunción’s newspapers carried no pictures, reports, or comment on the meetings, although paid advertisements of the crusade meetings were published. The evangelist said it was the first time in his career, after visits to 80 countries, that the local press had ignored him.

One report said that the media boycott had prompted a reprimand of the press by Paraguay’s President Alfredo Stroessner.

The crusade in Asunción, including eight services conducted by the Rev. Joseph Blinco, a member of the evangelist’s team drew an aggregate of 40,000. Some 800 persons were reported to have made decisions for Christ.

The Graham team made two trips to South America this year. The first, in January and February, was conducted in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Team officials said more than 250,000 persons attended 57 meetings, with 9,228 recording decisions for Christ.

NEWS / A fortnightly report of developments in religion

WCC CRITICAL OF U.S. ACTION IN CUBA

Although most religious commentators praised President Kennedy’s action in the Cuban crisis, officers of the World Council of Churches expressed “grave concern and regret” over announcement of a “quarantine” against shipments of offensive military weapons. Dr. Franklin Clark Fry of New York, chairman of the 100-member policy-making Central Committee, Dr. Ernest A. Payne of London, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, and Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft of Geneva, criticized the United States for taking “unilateral military action” against another government.

The WCC statement critical of the United States was delivered to the eleven members of the United Nations Security Council. It was accompanied by a message from Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the ecumenical movement’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, noting that “the United States has military bases on foreign soil closer to the U.S.S.R. than Cuba is to the United States,” and stating that military reprisal is justified “only if Cuba becomes a military threat” and even then should be ventured only under the United Nations charter.

Evangelist Billy Graham, in the midst of his South American crusade, expressed “full support” of President Kennedy’s action to bar the shipment of armaments into the Soviet-supported island. He called for prayers that President Kennedy might have wisdom in handling the grave crisis. “I did not come to Argentina,” he said, “to talk politics. I do not come to represent the United States government. I represent the Kingdom of God and I want a light to spark in Argentina that will become a flame to illumine the whole people.” He added that “the United Nations is not the hope of the world—Jesus Christ is.” But he suggested also that the U.N. call its delegates to prayer.

In its first convention, The American Lutheran Church seriously debated withdrawing from the World Council, and adopted the following resolution:

“Whereas a release by the World Council of Churches speaks out against the action of the government of the United States and the Cuban crisis, be it.

“Resolved that The American Lutheran Church inform the officers of the Central Committee of the WCC and its general secretary, the press, and President Kennedy that we disagree with the statement.…” (For news coverage of TALC convention, see page 35.)

Sidelights On St. Peter’S

A Vatican Council surprise came when two Russian Orthodox observers appeared belatedly. Regarded in some quarters as a triumph of diplomacy for the indefatigable Msgr. Willebrands, it met with obvious disapproval from the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Istanbul. The real fireworks, however, came from Archbishop Chrysostom of Athens, who said the Russian decision was “a body blow” to Orthodox unity, and saw in it the machinations of the Kremlin—a conclusion promptly repudiated by the Moscow Patriarchate. Nevertheless the idea persists that this is a maneuver to destroy both Istanbul and Rome. Having humiliated Athenagoras, whose influence the Moscow Patriarchate hopes to supplement in the Middle East, this theory adds, Moscow will soon humiliate Pope John also by finding some pretext for withdrawing in feigned indignation from the Vatican Council. The two Moscow observers are thought to have hinted at this in saying that they would remain at the council until recalled by superiors.

Comment by Italian Protestants (numbering about 100,000) was made at a meeting for observers and official guests organized by the Federal Council of Evangelical Churches. Its Waldensian chairman, Dr. Ermanno Rostan, pointed out that in 1948 the state had declared all religions equal before the law, but that this did not necessarily mean in practice a perfect equality on the juridical and moral plane. Welcoming the beginning of a new era in Protestant-Roman Catholic relations, Dr. Rostan continued: “But I do not wish to hide from you that courtesy visits to the Pope have not been approved by some Italian Protestants because, in spite of the intentions of those who make them, they have had the effect, in Italian public opinion, of homage to a primacy which we cannot recognize.” He made particular reference to the visit of the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Whatever the changed relationships, Dr. Rostan concluded, the truth of one church must not take the place of the truth of the Word of God.

J. D. D.

Talc Disowns Wcc Statement On Cuba

Four days after the First General Convention of The American Lutheran Church decided by 647–307 vote to remain within the World Council of Churches, it issued a resolution disowning the WCC’s criticism of the United States government’s action in the Cuban crisis. Although the assembly’s chairman, Dr. Fredrik A. Schiotz, suggested that no action he taken, the church by overwhelming vote adopted a resolution of Dr. Rudy Skogerboe to notify the press, the officers of the WCC, and President Kennedy that it disagreed with the WCC’s criticism of the President’s action, and reaffirmed its own earlier resolution of presidential support.

On Monday the convention had halted activities to listen in solemn silence to the President’s Cuba message, piped into Bruce Hall in Milwaukee Auditorium. Special prayer was offered and a resolution of support sent to the President.

Milwaukee’s lovely autumn weather, broken only by cold rains, chilling winds, and a touch of snow from darkening skies, hosted the 1,000 delegates to the convention. The ALC is the product of the 1960 merger of the old American Lutheran Church (German), the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian), and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish).

Early in its sessions The ALC, by unanimous rising vote, welcomed into membership the Lutheran Free Church. The 90,253 members of the Free Church enlarged ALC membership to 2,455,000. The Free Church had engaged in the ground floor negotiations in 1948 to form The ALC, but was forced to withdraw by member churches’ rejection of the merger proposals. After two referendums failed, a 1961 referendum resulted in 32 votes more than the required three-fourths majority. Dr. John M. Stensvaag, Lutheran Free Church president, told the convention: “For us, the way has been long, and in some respects full of anguish.… I must confess that we almost despaired at times.… That is why this is such a day of joy.”

One of the principal issues before the convention was a “review” of its 1960 decision to join the World Council. Dr. Schiotz strongly endorsed continuation of membership. He denied that Russian Orthodox presence in the WCC means that the council is now under the control or influence of the Russian government. “Nothing could be farther from the truth,” he said.

An entire afternoon was devoted to the “review.” In an atmosphere of noticeable tension, debate was spirited, yet controlled and decorous. Dr. E. C. Fendt of the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary at Columbus, Ohio, gave an impassioned address to retain WCC affiliation. With equal passion and force, Dr. Herman A. Preus of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, urged withdrawal.

Withdrawal would be sectarian and contrary to traditional Lutheranism, argued Dr. Fendt, who pressed the obligation to join the confession of the World Council and to converse on things that divide the churches. Dr. Preus urged that The ACL would better remain true to its religious tradition by withdrawing from a council which “has lost the concept of heresy and calls false doctrine a difference of opinion—yours as good as mine.” It is a “real question” he asserted, whether Lutherans are not closer to the Roman Catholic Church than to those affiliated with the World Council.

After a dozen ministers and laymen spoke to each side of the issue, a ballot decision revealed a 2 to 1 desire to remain in the WCC.

Later many delegates felt strongly that had the “review” occurred after, instead of before, the WCC’s expressed “concern and regret” over Kennedy’s Cuban action, the decision would have been different.

Dr. Theodore F. Nickel, Vice-President of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, brought the greetings of his church to the convention. He expressed hope that Lutherans will get to know each other better so that “we may confess that which is represented by the name Lutheran.” Declaring that “absolute” unity in doctrine and practice “has its roots in heresy,” he asserted that the founders of their church demanded only “fundamental unity,” one committed “to the Gospel in all of its facets and to the Scriptures in all their parts and in all their words as … centered in Christ and as … meant to be the only infallible norm for faith and life.” Nickel saw “evidence all about us” of a “new and genuine concern” for such unity.

The convention by unanimous vote approved a proposal to form a new cooperative agency which will replace the National Lutheran Council. The significance of the new agency lies in its provision of avenues of theological approach to the Missouri Synod and possible future merger.

A spirited two-hour debate arose over policy regarding acceptance of Federal aid for such projects as colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, and homes for the aged. While the policy of The ALC is congregational, permitting each institution to make its own decision regarding acceptance of Federal funds, the 55-member Joint Council of the church sought the adoption of a “guideline” statement. No issue received more complete floor analysis. A floor attempt to ban Federal grants while permitting loans was decisively defeated. In the end the convention adopted its Joint Council’s statement of policy. The policy was described as a mugwump statement, “a mugwump being a critter which sits on the fence with its head on one side and its wump on the other.” The statement realistically recognized that some church projects do receive such aid, but also warned that acceptance of Federal aid carries the dangers of funds being cut off, government restrictions, and the temptation to compromise the purpose of the institutions, and would condition one’s position on the whole matter of Federal aid to religious institutions and church-state relationships.

Criticism was directed against a jazzing-up of the church’s liturgy, and particularly against the Youth Activity Department’s Luther League theme manual, Called To Be Human, alleged by some delegates to contain statements about the doctrine of man that are highly dubious. By a vote of 609 to 137 the convention decided to make a “careful, objective investigation” to determine whether “any teachings contrary to God’s Word [are] contained in these publications.”

Delegates were informed by the Board of Theological Education that both seminary and pre-seminary enrollments are down. The Rev. Albert Heidmann urged the convention that “interest in the ministry must begin on the family and parish level.” Among The ALC’s 5,000 congregations are 186 pulpit vacancies.

A total budget of about $45,000,000 was adopted for the years 1963 and 1964. (The convention meets biennially.) Almost $5,000,000 of this sum will be devoted each year to the Boards of American and World Missions. Dr. William H. Nies of Detroit, chairman of the Board of American Missions, told of the sharply rising cost of mission efforts. He asserted that “it costs about $100,000 to establish a new congregation.”

Dr. Norman A. Mentor of Detroit was re-elected vice-president of The ALC.

Dr. Schiotz, The ALC president, chaired the church’s first convention with the surefootedness that comes with experience plus ability, and with apparent justice for all.

J. D.

Cbmc: Champions Of Man-To-Man Evangelism

A visitor stepping into the red-carpeted office of an Eastern business executive is apt to be asked, discreetly but unashamedly:

“My brother, have you ever made the most important decision in life?”

If the executive is unsatisfied that his visitor has had a regeneration experience, he is likely to pull a curtain cord seen by his Christian office help, who immediately take to prayer for the visitor’s conversion.

In Miami last month, this variety of businessmen marked a quarter of a century of organized life. From all indications at its twenty-fifth anniversary convention, the Christian Business Men’s Committee International was ready to claim title as the world’s largest and most active evangelical lay organization.

“The basic drive of CBMC is salvation,” said keynoter Andrew W. Hughes¹Named by CBMCI directors as chairman to succeed Hughes was George D. Armerding, West Coast manager of the Mojonnier Brothers Company, Lafayette, California., retiring CBMCI chairman and comptroller of Rheem water-heater manufacturers. “Man-to-man witnessing, introducing men, women, boys and girls to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Appropriately enough, the five-day convention proved an ideal opportunity for intense personal evangelism by the 600 CBMCI delegates and the 500 wives who came along. See-bee-em-see-ers fanned out into Miami’s palm-lined streets and parks distributing thousands of tracts and testaments and collaring passers-by to press the claims of Christ. Dozens of conversions were reported, among them a leading banker.

The convention program itself was largely evangelistic and devotional, and was dominated by recitation of personal testimonies. One participant told of pummeling his wife with beer bottles in his unregenerate days, another confessed to unfaithfulness, and still another asked permission to apologize from the platform for talking too long the day before.

CBMCI is a loosely-knit but tightly operated movement. Virtually all power is vested in a 15-member board of directors which meets twice a year. The international convention, which has authority to enact legislation, ordinarily prefers to leave the law-making to the directors (this year’s business was dispensed with in 42 minutes). The five directors who retire each year constitute a nominating committee for their successors, and there is an unwritten rule that two of these successors must have served before. A veteran CBMC’er says he cannot recall a director ever having been nominated from the floor, although opportunity for such nomination is given. A director cannot serve successive terms.

The well-oiled machinery at the top notwithstanding, local Christian Business Men’s Committee groups are answerable to no one after they have subscribed officially to the international movement’s nine-point statement of faith. They sponsor breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, retreats, radio programs, newspaper advertisements, and servicemen’s centers—all geared to present opportunities for Gospel witness. Some committees have even ventured into mass evangelism.

A charge often leveled at CBMC is that it is anti-church. In rebuttal, a poll was taken which showed that 100 per cent of committee members were active church members as well; 67 per cent were teachers, officers, or superintendents; 76 per cent attended prayer meetings; and 63 per cent were church officers.

Laymen have an advantage over clergy in Christian witnessing, according to R. G. LeTourneau, magnate of earth-moving machinery whose name is the most familiar among CMBC figures.

A key observer of the CBMC movement, Lieutenant General William K. Harrison, now retired, has said: “Unless there is to be a professional monopoly in witnessing for Christ, there seems to be no good reason why the layman, redeemed of the Lord, should not say so.”

Local Christian businessmen’s fellowships date back to 1930, but the CBMCI movement was not formally constituted until 1938, at a conference in Chicago. There are now some 550 local committees in 35 countries with a total of 15,000 members. The largest committee, in Pusan, Korea, has about 500 members. The international committee itself is a relatively small organization with a budget of some $160,000 a year. Its Chicago office employs an executive secretary, a director of publications, and five women helpers. Revenue is raised from dues assessed local committees.

Perhaps the thorniest of issues which have faced CBMCI is the clause in its statement of faith requiring belief in the premillennial return of Christ. Proposals to eliminate such a qualification have come before CBMCI directors repeatedly but have been defeated each time, even though some who are closest to the CBMCI leadership have campaigned for a change.

Even more significant is the issue suggested by retiring chairman Hughes:

“So often we are prone to concentrate on salvation that by virtue of the overemphasis we relegate God’s instruction regarding our Christian walk to a minor position.”

Hughes, one-time hockey pro, went on to list five rules of conduct for CBMC’ers: resist, escape, make no deals, love thy brother, and establish leadership.

But the problem goes deeper.

Exposition of the Gospel’s broader relevance in everyday life, including a Christian view of economic concerns, is largely avoided.

Part of the explanation may be that many CBMC’ers are relatively new Christians—or at least they have been converted in adult life. The dozens of personal testimonies voiced at the Miami convention indicated an almost invariable pattern: Brought up in a denominational church, where he attended Sunday school and other services regularly, the individual somehow never heard of the necessity of a personal commitment to Christ until his grown years—and then it was from a fellow layman. With regeneration he gains a great zeal to win others, a zeal exercised through the medium of CBMC activities.

Typical of this zeal is a Florida chiropractor who ordered all phones off the hook each morning at 8:30 while he and his staff meditate and pray. In Ohio, the owner of a chicken- and egg-processing plant called for a half-hour respite each afternoon for the same reason. Not as typical were the two CBMC leaders who asked for and received permission to conduct a Sunday morning service aboard a commercial aircraft in flight.

CBMC’ers come from all walks of business and professional life and represent virtually every principal denomination and religious affiliation. In CBMC terminology, a businessman is anyone who is not a minister, missionary, or other full-time Christian worker.

What has CBMC to show for its approach? Post-war growth on the edge of the general evangelical resurgence has leveled off, and Executive Secretary T. E. McCully reported that CBMC lost as many members as it gained during the past year. Some of this loss is due to relocation in cities lacking a local committee. Over the long haul, however, the picture is different. Director of Publications David R. Enlow, in his newly released book, Men Aflame, estimates that more than five million persons have been influenced toward a practical faith.

Church And State

The President’s annual proclamation calling for a day of prayer came out as usual this year, and some observers immediately raised the question whether it is a constitutional practice in view of the Supreme Court decision of last June 25 barring governmentally composed prayers.

The 1962 proclamation did not give Americans much time to prepare for a day of prayer. The proclamation set aside October 17 for the observance, but the date was not known until the White House issued the proclamation on October 11. In taking the action, President Kennedy implemented an act of Congress of 1952 requiring him to set aside a day of prayer annually. It is up to him to set the specific date, and the only restriction is that it not be a Sunday.

Kennedy urged Americans to “nurture our youth and give them the needed faith in God.”

“On this day,” he said, “let us all pray, each following the practices of his own faith.”

“Let us pray for our Nation and for other nations of the world,” the President declared. “May we especially ask God’s blessings upon our homes, that this central unit of society may nurture our youth and give them the needed faith in God, in our Nation, and in their future.”

Kennedy also asked for prayers for the world, “that this generation may experience the fruits of peace and may know the real meaning of brotherhood under God.”

Meanwhile, at the U. S. Supreme Court, appeals were filed asking the justices to declare baccalaureate services unconstitutional in public schools if conducted in the form of Protestant worship services.

The court was also asked to bar as unconstitutional the following practices of a school district: (1) the questioning of a teacher on whether he believes in God or attends religious worship as part of the examination of his fitness as a public school teacher; and (2) the taking of a census to determine the religious affiliation of public school pupils.

These issues—along with a new challenge to the practice of Bible reading and recitation of prayer in classrooms—are raised in an appeal from the decision of the Florida State Supreme Court in two cases involving public schools of Dade County (Miami).

The appeals were filed by Leo Pfeffer, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, on behalf of four complainants who are parents of children in Dade County schools.

Earlier the court agreed to give a hearing in this session to appeals from Pennsylvania and Maryland which involve the practice of Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Another development in the church-state field last month was a statement by Anthony J. Celebrezze, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, in which he said that he will campaign for Federal aid to public schools but added that he could see no constitutional method to provide such aid to church-related schools.

The Roman Catholic cabinet member said he was convinced, after study, that “aid to private elementary and high schools is unconstitutional.”

The Supreme Court, he said, “has made that clear, and we have no alternative but to follow its rulings.”

Celebrezze pointed out that the Supreme Court had not ruled out aid to private and church-related institutions of higher education. He asserted that there are many precedents for such assistance.

What Is Public Service?

The Federal Communications Commission is ordering radio station licensees to stop counting time given for free “spot announcements” of special church services, bazaars, socials, and other activities as part of their time devoted to “religious programs” in preparing required logs of broadcast service.

The FCC said that program log analyses submitted in connection with periodic license renewals and other matters could count such announcements as general “public service.”

Purpose of the program log analysis is to determine what kind of programs a station is broadcasting and how well it is fulfilling the proposed schedule it files when seeking a license, the FCC said.

Barabbas

Barabbas is a compound of the spectacular and the spiritual, with both ingredients in large amount. It will receive high praise and blasting criticism from both religious and dramatic critics. In view of the character of most religious films, this is a kind of tribute.

Although the scriptural record does not give Barabbas a single line of script and describes him only as a condemned thief, it does record that Barabbas broke dramatically into the trial of Jesus under Pontius Pilate as the man who, through the crucifixion of Jesus, was saved from a similar fate. In the high dramatic-religious possibilities of this event, Pär Lagerkvist saw more than enough warrant to write his Nobel Prize-winning imaginative account of how Barabbas lived with the knowledge that he was alive because another died, and Dino De Laurentiis also saw enough to create another huge cinema spectacular whose action sequence explodes like a chain display of exploding fireworks. It was enough, too, to provide Anthony Quinn with a powerful role which he plays superbly and to the hilt.

So exclusively is Christopher Fry’s script devoted to the violent external life of Barabbas and to his internal confusion, conflict, and disturbance at the memory of living through the death of another, that the roles of Pontius Pilate (Arthur Kennedy), Peter (Harry Andrews), and Rachel (Silvana Mangano), though well played, hardly achieve secondary status.

Barabbas differs from most current religious spectaculars by the almost complete absence of sex and romance and by its degree of spiritual sensitivity and perception of the meaning of the death of Christ for the life of another. Whether it does more than gingerly probe this meaning, or actually enters into the Kingdom of its truth, is doubtless a debate that will continue unresolved.

Judgment of the religious quality of the film will depend in large part on the nature of the religious commitment of the critic or viewer. They who reduce Christianity to a mere “love of neighbor” will doubtless classify Barabbas as a mere clod, too dull to understand the imperative of love. Yet spiritual and physical clod that he undoubtedly is, he is not so much clod as not to vaguely sense and be deeply disturbed by the central Christian affirmation that he lived because another died for him. Although the discovery that he cannot die, which he makes during the 20 years spent in a sulphur mine, is no doubt perverted by pride, this violent man living in an age of cruelty is more surprised and troubled by this tenet of the Christian faith than by the mere moral imperative of neighbor love. Yet the subtle employment throughout the story of the symbols of life and death, light and darkness, in spite of all their ambiguity, does not conceal the fact that Barabbas’ conflict is more of a probing action than an entrance into the Kingdom. He is mentally confused and disturbed, but never troubled by conscience. Twice he chides God for not making things plainer, but never does he cry for forgiveness.

Barabbas receives his freedom, yet returns to his former bandit-life; he sees light but is blinded by it; he receives his life, yet loses it on a cross for his bungling and erroneous way of bringing on the Kingdom.

The story begins with the release of Barabbas from prison by the decision of the people and the legal action of Pilate that made Barabbas the people’s choice and Christ the people’s reprobate. Emerging from his prison darkness, he is blinded by the light of day and that of Jesus and returns to his former life and to his Rachel, only to be disturbed in the midst of his pleasures by her commitment to Christ and the darkness of the Cross which at that moment covers the land. The sixth-hour darkness disturbs and draws him—but not for long. Soon he is again arrested for murder and thievery and sunk for 20 years into a sulphur mine where, again in the dark, he outlives experiences that should have killed him three times over, and he comes to the belief that he cannot the because, as he says, Jesus died his death. As a gladiator in Rome he dramatically seems to prove his point. Though a second-rate gladiator, he outlives the opposition and is awarded his freedom by the Emperor.

Declaring now that God will not find him failing this time, he helps burn the city of Rome, only to be informed by the Christians that his “Christian” effort to purge the world that the Kingdom might come was an error, one for which he later dies on a cross. As the darkness of death closes in, he recalls the earlier “darkness of the sixth hour” and hands himself over to God.

Because of the ambiguous character of the biblical symbols of light and darkness and of life and death, and particularly because of the subtle, ambiguous purposes to which they are set in the story of Barabbas, one could easily interpret his darkness and death at his end as the dawn of spiritual life and insight, were it not for the total absence of any struggle of conscience. Barabbas is always confused, but never repentant. All this suggests that the intent of the film is to present not a conversion but a tortured picture of the ambiguous struggle of men, ancient and modern, tossed endlessly between faith and doubt, freedom and fate, and meaning and purposelessness, and finally strangled by the ambiguities.

As a living parable of the significance of the death of Christ, Barabbas the man has tremendous religious-dramatic possibilities. Lagerkvist’s treatment is less than adequate from a Christian perspective but, to date, it is far and away the best.

Barabbas is for those who like their religious movies big and spectacular, and with such content as invites a later mulling over to discover nuances of symbolic meaning and subtle religious implications.

J. D.

Integrating Psychology

The Christian church is faced with the enormous need for Christian counseling services which are not being provided at present by the ministry itself. Recognizing this need, Fuller Theological Seminary is exploring the possibility of enlarging its own ministry by inaugurating an ancillary School of Christian Psychology.

As now envisioned, the school would offer the Ph.D. degree subsequent to collegiate and seminary training of the candidates. The school intends to meet requirements laid down by the various states for certification and also those of the American Psychological Association. A substantial 15-year grant has been promised, and foundations are now being approached to secure the additional funds needed before the school can be opened. Officials estimate the school probably will begin functioning in 1964.

The design for the school includes a plan which would provide for the integration of psychology with the Christian faith in an orthodox theological setting. It is recognized that the Gospel of Christ is relevant to the whole man and that many Christian people suffer from mental conditions which can be helped by a therapy employing the principles of the biblical faith and the clinical skills of psychology. Opposed to the Freudian orientation of much of today’s counseling and psychiatric theory, the school hopes to bring mental healing back to the Church where it belongs and where the Gospel can be the foundation on which treatment is based.

H. L.

A ‘Promising’ Plan

The Archbishop of Canterbury says that conversations between the Anglican church in England and the British Methodist church looking toward possible union are coming along “very promisingly.”

“We are working toward a plan,” said Dr. Arthur M. Ramsey during a visit to the United States last month, “where Methodists in England will accept the episcopacy and will integrate with us, and yet maintain many of their own particular customs.”

The episcopacy—commonly held to be historic succession of bishops from the Apostles—has been a roadblock in union talks between Anglicans and many other Protestant bodies.

Ramsey said the Anglican church is also having “exploratory” talks with the British Presbyterian church.

“My own particular effort has been with Eastern Orthodoxy,” he said. The Anglican primate has visited Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, supreme leader of Eastern Orthodoxy, in Istanbul, and the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate, as well as the Greek Orthodox primate in Athens.

Services For Suicides

Church services and burial in consecrated ground for suicides were recommended in a report approved by both the Upper and Lower Houses of the Convocation of Canterbury last month.

While suicide remains sinful, the report said, persons who kill themselves because of incurable diseases or because they face rape or torture as spies should merit no moral condemnation. Neither should the “altruistic” giving of one’s life be regarded as suicide, it declared.

“We see no reasons,” the Anglican Joint Committee on Suicide said in its report, “why the body of a suicide should not be brought into the church for a service, nor do we see any reason why it should not be buried in consecrated ground.”

To avoid judgment by clergy on whether the suicide was a sinful act, the report suggested a revision of the Anglican burial service, with two key phrases eliminated. These are: “forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed,” and “in sure and certain hope of resurrection.”

Before the recommendations become practice they must be approved by the Church Assembly and Parliament.