The thoughtful reader must be perplexed by the frequent use of such terms as post-Reformation, post-Protestant, and post-Christian as they are used as designations of our times. This usage is indicative of certain types of perspective which the evangelical should be able to recognize if he is to understand what is occurring in the thought-world of the church today. It is proposed to note here some of the pluses and minuses of the trend toward viewing our day in terms of these “posts.”

To designate a period of time as coming to an end, so that another epoch can be distinguished as supplanting it, is to show a keen sense for history and for historical placement. That this is a relatively modern tendency is clear to those who study history, for our familiar divisions of history into such periods as ancient, medieval, and modern reflect something which has been judged well after history has hardened.

Along with indicating a sense of history and of historical context, the designation of epochs “on the spot” reflects a strong tendency toward placing of value judgments upon historical periods. It is not usual for one who thus handles history to lament the passing of an era, and to view with regret the emergence of a post-era. At times, the one who thus judges seems rather to feel a sense of relief that an epoch is over and done with. In other words, this tendency may signify a lack of historical perspective, of perspective and of rootage. To a degree far greater than is generally recognized, history is a continuum; and those who fancy themselves to have generated a genuinely new epoch often succeed only in reviving an ancient error or a passing vagary.

To get down to cases: there are those who feel that we are now entering a post-Reformation or post-Protestant epoch. There is no agreed-upon elaboration of the exact form which Christianity would assume in a post-Protestant time. It might be a totally new doctrinal form; it might be, as a result of the acceptance of the extremely numerous adherents of the Orthodox communions into the World Council of Churches, a form of church-community which would have lost the characteristics of the modern non-Roman Christian movement.

A more radical form of “post movement” suggests that we are moving into an era which will be distinctly post-Christian. This mode of thought may stem from a number of concerns: it may operate in terms of William Ernest Hocking’s assertion that the day of “private and local religions is over” (The Coming World Civilization, page 80). This way of thinking assumes that anything which hopes to survive as religion in the new age must divest itself of any claim to uniqueness and to exclusivenes, and take its place among the religious manifestations of the universal human spirit. If this is what is meant by a “post-Christian world,” then it is time that those who regard themselves as evangelicals should know that this is an actual objective sought by a certain type of missionary endeavor. In all fairness, they have a right to know what they are asked to support, and should be permitted to decide whether such endeavor reflects their convictions or not.

Much is said in these times about the world coming of age. It is obvious that modern technological advance is altering both the face and the image of our world. What is not so clear is, whether a world which is “coming of age” demands a nonreligious outlook, and an essentially secularized theology. It should be noted that those who suggest that Christian supernaturalism has nothing to say to a world that has attained to adulthood are not propounding anything essentially new. A century ago, such thinkers as Auguste Comte and Ludwig Feuerbach felt that the idea of God was no longer useful as a working hypothesis in any area of human life.

What is difficult to understand is, that modern man, who teeters on the brink of annihilation, and whose ego has been bruised by the events which have unrolled in the West since 1914, should be so certain of his own capabilities. It would seem that two World Wars, and the brute empirical facts of Dachau and Buchenwald and of the slave-labor camps of Siberia, would bring thoughtful men to ponder again whether the message of the God of the Bible, revealed as Lord of history, might not have a genuine relevance.

What is really at issue is this: is the secularization of modern life which the alleged coming-of-age of the world has produced really a value? Does intellectual honesty demand it? Can men of reflection point with pride to it? Is it really a discarding of all idolatries? Or is the modern secularization of life in itself an ambitious and grotesque program of massive idolatry?

This is not the place to discuss the details of the thought of Rudolf Bultmann, with his general denial of classical Christian supernaturalism. It is probable that his de-objectifying of the New Testament message will have its day and run its course. His tolerance of one once-for-all Divine event (i.e., the Death and Resurrection of Christ) hardly constitutes a basis for a vital kerygma.

It is significant that formulations of a so-called post-Bultmann theological, of which that of Schubert M. Ogden may be regarded as typical, lead in the direction of a “liberation” of Christian theology from any appeal to any act of God. This is based on the assumption that man’s universal and general position before God forms an adequate basis for an “authentic existence.”

“What shall we say then?” The contemporary desire for a tidy systematization of history into identifiable and label-able epochs is, seen from one point of view, an expression of a deep tendency in man to bring order and system into the whole of life. Man’s historical sense stands on good ground, and we rejoice to see it at work. One is made to wonder, however, whether its legitimate limits are not being passed when too many thinkers stand at their own personal junction of time, and hang up their parochial sign “Under New Management” at the portals of the future.

HAROLD B. KUHN

On Speaking Terms Again

Christianity Divided, symposium ed. by Daniel J. Callahan and Heiko A. Oberman (Sheed & Ward, 1961, 335 pp., $6), is reviewed by John Frederick Jansen, Professor of New Testament and Acting Dean, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas.

In a time when some factors have widened the breach between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians (e.g., the dogma of the Assumption), it is heartening to see some signs also of increased openness and understanding. Not long ago appeared An American Dialogue, written by Robert McAfee Brown and Father Gustave Weigel, in which a Protestant interpreted Catholicism and a Roman Catholic interpreted Protestantism. The present volume brings together some significant Protestant and Roman Catholic articles under five major headings: Scripture and tradition, hermeneutics, church, sacraments, and justification. (A sign of the irenic spirit of the volume can be seen in the proportion of eight Protestant articles to five Roman Catholic articles in a book published by a Roman Catholic press.) The book aims to sample the kind of conversation that has been going on in Europe for some time and which only recently has begun in this country. The articles range in date from an early essay of Barth in 1927 to a recent one of Father Weigel in 1961.

(1) The discussion on Scripture and tradition is begun by Oscar Cullmann of Basel. First printed in the Scottish Journal of Theology, his article seeks to interpret the canon of Scripture in terms of the uniqueness of the apostolate and the manner in which the Church of the second century realized that tradition must be grounded on the witness of the “period of direct revelation.” Cullmann’s article is itself open to criticism (cf., the Protestant critique of Diem in Dogmatics, 1959), but he rightly insists that Protestantism does not mean to forget tradition or to isolate Scripture from Church.

Father Geiselmann of Tübingen undertakes to relate Scripture, tradition, and Church. His article will surprise many Protestant readers who assume that Rome teaches that Scripture and tradition have equal authority. Of particular interest is his analysis of the Council of Trent which, he holds, was going to take this “partim-partim” theory—only to avoid doing so at the last moment. He criticizes a good bit of catechetical training as a hindrance rather than a help toward a right understanding of Scripture and tradition. “God is no plumber who, so to speak, provides the Church with running water, letting the word of God flow out of two sources of faith, Scripture and Tradition, as out of two water taps marked hot and cold” (p. 48). At the same time, he criticizes a tendency in both Protestantism and Catholicism to adopt a theory of inspiration which “turned Holy Scripture … into a meteorite fallen from the sky, without relation to the life of the Church” (p. 50). The author reflects the increased openness of Roman scholarship to historical criticism. Throughout these two articles, the central points of difference are not blurred or overcome, but a great deal of misunderstanding is removed.

(2) Two Protestant scholars speak to the problem of hermeneutics. Ernst Fuchs of Marburg opens with a discussion of the “task of New Testament scholarship for the Church’s proclamation.” Many readers will be quite dissatisfied with his Bultmannian treatment of myth, but all will agree with his emphasis upon the necessity of adequate exegesis for authentic proclamation. “Measured against tradition, which immediately thrusts upon the preacher a settled interpretation of his text, New Testament scholarship may well be designated the theological conscience of the preacher” (p. 85). A. A. Van Ruler of Utrecht raises the questions posed by the development of dogma. If revelation is completed in Jesus Christ, how is the original apostolic witness related to the words of later dogma? In what sense are we the selfsame church? Throughout his discussion, the author emphasizes that the development of dogma needs to be related to our doctrine of the Spirit.

On the Roman Catholic side, Father Stanley, a Canadian Jesuit, deals with the Gospels as salvation history, and illustrates again the freer environment of Roman Catholic scholarship. He interprets the papal encyclical of 1943, holding that Roman Catholic exegetes are now permitted to voice opinions on many matters that even twenty-five years ago would have led to censure. Still, he allows that private interpretation may not conflict with Roman Catholic doctrine—and for a Protestant this is not yet freedom to follow the word of Scripture wherever it may lead.

(3) Karl Barth presents a Protestant interpretation of the Church by interpreting the Nicene phrase, “I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” His discussion points up the measure of agreement and the measure of difference. “Now for us to have in her the one handmaid and bride of Christ depends on our not making her into a grand lady and thus—for we ourselves are the Church—making ourselves into lords” (p. 164).

Father Weigel of Woodstock, Maryland, is well known in this country. He deplores some of the older Roman Catholic ecclesiology and apologetic, pointing to Karl Adam’s Spirit of Catholicism as setting a new tone in which the image of the Body replaces the image of the Kingdom to describe the Church. As one expects, he sees the Church as the extension of the Incarnation and he points up the reasons why this understanding of the Church is difficult for those in the Reformed tradition.

(4) Coming to sacraments, Max Thurian of France contributes two articles that show how the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation has too often obscured the more central concern for both Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians—the real presence of Christ. He points up the Protestant concern here by a description of Calvin’s view. Heiko Oberman of Harvard adds a chapter on “The Reformation, Preaching, and Ex Opere Operato,” which seeks to relate the word preached and the word enacted.

The Roman Catholic article on sacraments is written by Father Schillebeeck, now of Holland. His thoughtful essay emphasizes the sacraments as encounter with Christ. Christ himself is the Ursakrament—a statement that Protestants can certainly accept. Yet one senses a certain ambiguity in his thought reflecting again the view that the Church is the extension of the Incarnation, for the Church can also be called the Ursakrament. Nonetheless, the article is a valuable corrective to Roman Catholic tendencies to make the sacramental grace an “infused” stuff instead of seeing sacrament as a relationship of encounter.

(5) The doctrine of justification was the burning issue for the Reformation. Are we as far apart here as once we were? T. F. Torrance of Edinburgh gives us a clear essay that sees the Reformation concern best expressed in Knox’s Confession because it had no separate article on justification but saw it always and only as the cutting edge of Christology. Torrance suggests that this is brought out less adequately in the Westminster Confession of the following century. The Roman Catholic essay is a fine biblical study of justification and sanctification by Hans Küng of Tübingen. This is the kind of theological and biblical treatment that gives hope for the future.

What shall we say of the volume as a whole? Some will not be satisfied with the orientation of some of the Protestant spokesmen. Others will ask whether Roman Catholic practice sufficiently reflects what is here given as Roman Catholic conviction. But such criticisms miss the importance of the book. Basic differences remain—and they may prove irreconcilable. However, what is heartening is that responsible Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians are talking to each other, not past each other. What is significant is that the differences are not always where we think they are.

JOHN FREDERICK JANSEN

Pity And Criticism

John Wesley, by Ingvar Haddal (Abingdon, 1961, 175 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James Dale, Lecturer in English, United College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Mr. Haddal happily avoids both iconoclasm and idolatry, and presents us with a straightforward account which will probably be of considerable interest to those who know little of John Wesley. But the way of popularizers is hard, and there are a number of major defects in the book which are a direct consequence of the author’s simplified approach. There is no treatment of the great Methodist doctrine of Entire Sanctification, Wesley’s Calvinist opponents are dismissed too easily, the churchmanship of the Wesleys is not discussed, and the observations on the Evangelical Revival are inadequate and inaccurate.

It ought to be added that Mr. Haddal deserves our pity for the treatment accorded him by his translator, who turns his Norwegian into an English which is awkward and naïve.

JAMES DALE

Reading for Perspective

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

* Christian Church Art Through the Ages, by Katherine Morrison McClinton (Macmillan, $6.50). Widely experienced art instructor (University of California) and critic (San Diego Sun) indicates how art may interpret faith and enrich the experience of worship.

* I Am Persuaded, by David H. C. Read (Scribner, $3). Sermons from the well-known minister of New York’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church encouraging the reader to surmount the hard facts of life by faith.

* Word and Spirit, by H. Jackson Forstman (Stanford University Press, $4.75). A Stanford professor investigates Calvin and concludes provocatively that he unconsciously held two conceptions of biblical authority.

Help Not Hindrance

Special-Day Sermons for Evangelicals, ed. by Blackwood (Channel Press, 1961, 448 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Lloyd M. Perry, Professor of Preaching, Gordon Divinity School, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts.

Books of sermons are sometimes dangerous tools for the preacher. However, this collection of 38 sermons arranged by Dr. Andrew Blackwood, the dean of American homileticians, makes a serious attempt to provide helps rather than hindrances. The book provides the reader with a survey of modern preaching by presenting 37 biographical sketches, sermon evaluations and sample sermons. The 38th sermon was written by John Wesley and was selected because of its judgment-day emphasis. The selected preachers represent 17 denominations and four countries. In some cases the preacher prepared the sermon for the particular day to which it was assigned. In most of the instances, however, the compiler and editor selected the sermon which he felt represented the appropriate type of message to meet the challenge of the particular holiday.

Preachers in the nonliturgical churches will gain an acquaintance with the demands made upon the preacher by the special days of the church and civil calendars. The preacher in the liturgical church will appreciate the additional help which is provided for improving his ministry to those who look constantly to him for special help on these special days.

The introduction of 25 pages by Dr. Blackwood provides seed thoughts for additional sermons. The page of comments with each sermon summarizes the positive factors pertaining to the type of illustrative material, use of imagination, the recognition of tone and local color and the value of the content in light of the special day. The sermons are evangelical but often stress the day more than biblical exposition. Textual and topical preaching seem to be more highly regarded by the writers and compiler for use on special days than expository preaching. Rhetorically the value of these sermons rests more in the area of invention than in the area of arrangement. Their style is conducive to reading, but lacks the quality which would be helpful in oral presentation apart from a manuscript.

Rather than including some of the messages where biblical exposition appeared to be a minor factor, the book would have been more helpful to me if messages had been selected not just because of their relevancy for our day but also because of their direct exposition of the Word of God.

LLOYD M. PERRY

Helpful Exposition

The Lord’s Prayer, by Walter Luethi, trans. by Kurt Schoenenberger (John Knox Press, 1961, 103 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by J. Theodore Mueller, Professor of Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

This winsome little book contains 12 short sermons on the Lord’s Prayer by a prominent pastor of the Swiss Reformed tradition at Bern, Switzerland, who has authored several books, among them The Letter to the Romans and St. John’s Gospel. The author is allied to a group of theologians around Karl Barth, but his sermons are brief, intelligible, and appealing, while at the same time they profoundly interpret the precious thoughts enfolded in the great prayer which our Lord has given to his disciples for all times. The Lord’s Prayer is sadly neglected by many Christians because they fail to understand its significance, while others abuse it thoughtlessly by “vain repetition.” In a masterly way Pastor Luethi expounds and applies the important essentials of Law and Gospel in the prayer under the heads: “The Father,” “The Name,” “The Kingdom,” “The Will,” “Our Bread,” “Our Debts,” “Our Temptation,” “Our Distress,” “His Kingdom,” “His Power,” “His Glory,” “Amen.” Careful perusal of these sermons will benefit both pastors and laymen. The sermons are well translated and only in a few cases does the translation approach the German idiom too closely. Since the addresses originally were delivered in 1946 some of the references are in line with the trials of that time, though the general truths which the writer stresses apply to all Christians everywhere. A very earnest and helpful exposition of the Lord’s Prayer!

J. THEODORE MUELLER

Sunday On Friday?

Space-Age Sunday, by Hiley H. Ward (Macmillan, 1960, 160 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by William G. Reitzer of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S editorial department.

Because “the responsibilty of alleviating the blue laws controversies rests first with the church” (P. 102) Ward, Detroit Free Press Religion Editor, proffers the church a singular solution.

Beginning with a look at the latest encroachments upon the Sunday (e.g., rocket firing at Cape Canaveral), the author next discusses the foremost state versus blue law violator embranglements, the secular and spiritual meaning of rest, the origin of Sunday worship and laws, and the harmfulness of Sunday laws. Thereupon he advises greater flexibility upon the Church and stronger opposition to Sunday laws upon Christians. He concludes by propounding two imaginative but visionary propositions: (1) that in view of the significance of the Cross we ought perhaps to make Friday “the day” of the week, and (2) that perhaps we ought to spread the rest-and-worship obligation over a three-day period as not only much more utilitarian but also much less controversial for this eliminates the villain of Sunday legislation.

Ward fully presents his side, but overlooks strong arguments on the other side of the issue. He does not take into account that weekly (hebdomadal) cessation from occupation-work might be a “creation ordinance” which passes not away. He disregards the many strong Old Testament enjoinders to keep the Sabbath. He makes the New Testament abrogate the Fourth Commandment solely on the authority of Luther. Further, he ignores that America’s founding fathers in no wise viewed Sunday laws as unchristian or unconstitutional, and that doing away with them creates more problems for everyone than it solves. Finally, the author does not consider that Sunday might have been set aside not so much for Christians as individuals or families as for Christians as a church—to worship, to study the Word, to do good deeds as a body of believers.

WILLIAM G. REITZER

After Forty-Four Years

Brownlow North—His Life and Work, by K. Moody-Stuart (Banner of Truth Tust, 1961, 221 pp., 3s. 6d.), is reviewed by Donald English, Assistant Tutor, Wesley College, Leeds, England.

This book tells the remarkable story of a remarkable man. Of noble birth, converted at 44 years after a gay life, Brownlow North became an evangelist of great fame and influence in Great Britain during the nineteenth century. His personality, theology, preaching, zeal, are all impressive; as are his wide appeal and happy relationships with clergy. The book has its weaknesses. The pious phraseology of 1878 becomes tiresome, the author (awed by his subject?) seems reluctant to show North’s failings, and we never quite meet the whole man. Despite this the book and its subject have much to teach us.

DONALD ENGLISH

Religion: Good Or Bad

Christian Faith and Man’s Religion, by Mark C. Ebersole (Crowell, 1961, 206 pp., $5), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky.

The relationship between the nature of Christian faith and “man’s religion” or religion in general, is challenging today’s thinkers as never before. This is the result of several factors: first, the crisis of the times demands a more precise understanding of what is meant by Christian faith; second, non-Christian faiths are asserting themselves with new vigor; and third, alternatives to Christianity from within secular culture are making increasing claims to adequacy.

This author has chosen five writers in the field of recent religious study as expressive of the spectrum of thought with respect to the relationship between Christianity as distinctively understood on the one hand, and “religion in general” on the other. Erich Fromm, well-known author in the field of a psychological humanism, is analyzed by the author as expressing “Religion Without the Christian Faith”; and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famous for his opposition to Hitler on spiritual grounds, is selected as representing “The Christian Faith Without Religion.” Friedrich Schleiermacher seems to our author the major exponent of the view that Christian faith fulfills man’s religion, while Karl Barth is seen to possess, as a major thrust in his system, the motif of “The Christian Faith as the Judgment Against Religion.”

True to the synthetic method, Dr. Ebersole seeks for a man who will do justice to the valid features which each of the foregoing lifts into prominence. This man he finds in the person of Reinhold Niebuhr, whose system he feels to be an assertion of “The Christian Faith as the Judgment Against and the Fulfillment of Religion.”

Throughout the work, the author is seeking to arrive at an evaluation of Christianity by which he may judge the contemporary revival of interest in “religion.” In this quest, he sees both Schleiermacher and Fromm as so preoccupied with the human that the divine loses its essential significance by virtue of the surrender of God’s transcendence. On the contrary pole of the matter is the work of both Barth and Bonhoeffer, who emphasize the transcendent reality of God to a point which renders the Christian affirmation irrelevant to the man of today’s world. Both dissociate God from man too sharply.

One can anticipate the conclusion: Reinhold Niebuhr avoids both of these pitfalls, and combines in his formulation of Christian faith the essentials of a correct statement concerning the biblical understanding of the relation of faith to religion. This relation is, naturally enough, a dialectical one, involving encounter and dialogue between God and man.

The body of this work has merit as containing succinct and penetrating analyses of the systems of thought of the men which it analyzes. These surveys, particularly those of Schleiermacher and of Niebuhr, are rewarding to the reader who will go to the heart of what the men concerned taught. From the point of view of Christian evangelicalism, however, there is a disappointing lack of concreteness at the point of what role Christian faith is to play in the life of the believer.

HAROLD B. KUHN

Westminster Confession

Faith For Today, ed. by W. Martin Smyth (Mourne Observer Press, 1961, 107 pp. 3s. 6d.), is reviewed by Martin H. Cressey, Minister of St. Columba’s Presbyterian Church, Coventry, England.

This is a useful exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by some younger ministers of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. They commend it, especially to young people, by relating it to present-day thought and experience. The exposition is on the whole sound and lucid, though some parts suffer from over-compression and allusiveness (e.g., the discussion of the Genesis narratives, pp. 22–24). The Confession itself is printed at the end of the book.

M. H. CRESSEY

Kierkegaard For Today

In Search of the Self, by Libuse Lucas Miller (Muhlenberg, 1962, 317 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Arthur F. Holmes, Director of Philosophy, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

A variety of volumes have appeared on Sören Kierkegaard: brief introductions, critical studies, historical and philosophical works. The present volume, subtitled “The Individual in the Thought of Kierkegaard,” is noteworthy in several regards.

Sensitive to the style and intent of the Danish writer, it focuses on a well-chosen theme which effectively opens up the whole of his thought. Mrs. Miller faithfully expounds important segments of a large corpus of relevant literature, so as to confront the reader with both Sören Kierkegaard’s spirit and his thought and to suggest the excitement of reading him for oneself.

Beyond this, she suggests throughout Kierkegaard’s relevance for our day. The volume begins with a chapter “How to Learn Something from Kierkegaard.” It ends with “Concluding Remarks: Some Lessons for Today.” And such remarks range from the conscience of the intellectual to the poverty of modern humanisms, from parallels in recent personality theory to the popular American notion of the individual. The author ably but cautiously fulfills her Kierkegaardian role of social critic.

Finally, Mrs. Miller shows a wide acquaintance with Kierkegaard’s intellectual milieu, and a sensitivity to the theological issues of that day. Appreciative of historic Christianity, she employs the same kind of gentle severity she finds in her master. This is provocative and rewarding reading.

The author is the wife of a Kenyon College (Ohio) physicist, herself conversant with both physics and psychology as well as philosophy and theology.

ARTHUR F. HOLMES

Any Word For Today?

Prophetic Truth for Today, by John E. Dahlin (Beacon Publications, Minneapolis, 1961, 185 pp., $3.45), is reviewed by John F. Walvoord, President, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

“Is there any word from the Lord?” for such a day as this asks Professor John E. Dahlin of Northwestern College, Minneapolis. As historian, pastor, teacher, and editor, the author has a wide experience to serve as a criterion for his judgment. The answer to the question is found in classical fundamentalism and the premillennial interpretation of Scripture. The author believes that the end of the present age is rapidly approaching and that the rapture of the church is imminent. His treatment of eschatology, presented in 23 short pungent chapters, runs the gamut of important prophetical themes including critiques of a millennialism, neoorthodoxy, and ecumenicalism. His convictions are stated forcibly though somewhat dogmatically and constitute essentially a popular exposition rather than a formal defense of premillennialism. Taken as a whole, the work is a solid contribution, helpful alike to pastors and lay students of prophecy.

JOHN F. WALVOORD

From The Right Perspective

The Preacher’s Portrait, by John R. W. Stott (Eerdmans, 1961, 124 pp., $3; and Tyndale Press, 1961, 111 pp., 5s.), is reviewed by Herbert M. Carson, Vicar, St. Paul’s Church, Cambridge, England.

This expansion of the 1961 Payton lectures, delivered at Fuller seminary, is a refreshing handbook to preaching by one who is clearly gripped by the task in which he himself is engaged. Its further merit is that it is essentially a biblical treatment of the preacher’s task. The author does not try to deal with preaching techniques, or, to use the hackneyed phrase, with the problem of communication. These questions are, after all, secondary; and so with him the primary aim is to expound from Scripture the nature, aim and method of the preacher’s work. In thus endeavoring to let us see God’s purpose in preaching, he lifts the task to a new level—indeed the only level where justice can be done to it.

His method is to take some of the New Testament word pictures, and to expound their significance. He deals with the conception of the steward, entrusted with stores by the householder for the good of his household. By contrast he sees the herald in terms of the public proclamation. We might criticize in passing his distinction on p. 30: “We are stewards of what God has said, but heralds of what God has done,” for surely God’s action in Scripture is never a bare fact. It is always act plus significance, action in terms of revelation.

There follows a treatment of the analogy of the witness, who, like one in a law court, gives personal substantiation of the facts; and in this case the witness focuses his evidence on Christ. The picture of “the father” is set in its true context. This is not the authoritarian fatherhood of an unbiblical sacerdotalism. It is rather the attitude of affection and earnestness which is seen in the true home, and should be reflected in the pastoral preaching of one who loves the flock. Finally the preacher is the servant who calls attention not to himself but to the Word preached.

For any man embarking on the solemn task of preaching the Word, or for any who are rethinking their position or trying to assess their work, here is a book to be highly commended. It draws us back both to the source of our commission and to the theme of our message, namely Christ crucified.

HERBERT M. CARSON

Ecclesiastical Business?

Man in Rapid Social Change, by Egbert de Vries (Doubleday, 1961, 240 pp., $4.50); and The Churches and Rapid Social Change, by Paul Abrecht (Doubleday, 1961, 207 pp., $3.95), are reviewed by S. R. Kamm, Professor of Social Sciences, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

These volumes present the results of approximately six years of study and observation on the part of two commissions established by the World Council of Churches after the Evanston Assembly in 1954. Egbert de Vries, a Dutch sociologist with international experience, endeavors to synthesize the findings of the Commission on Rapid Social Change in the first. In it he follows a methodological approach involving such concepts as “prime mover,” “catalyst,” and “inhibitor” in a sociological interpretation of social change in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Professor de Vries recognizes the force of spiritual as well as material forces in his delineation of “prime movers,” and is quick to admit the role of Christian conversion as an important factor in stabilizing social change.

The second volume, written by an American social scientist now residing in Switzerland, brings together the findings of the World Council study group on “The Churches in Rapid Social Change.” Mr. Abrecht conceives of the church as so identified with the forces of social change that it cannot avoid taking certain responsibilities in assisting the peoples of the newly established nations to solve the problems which are confronting them. He is quite clear concerning the challenge which Communism presents to the church in these premises.

Even though one is inclined to agree with the necessity of Christians being aware of their responsibilities in the area of social change it remains a moot question whether these responsibilities can best be undertaken by organized churches, as such, or by groups of Christian laymen and ministers that are brought together to deal specifically with public issues. If the latter procedure is not followed, how long can the church be said to recognize the line of separation between civil and spiritual issues which has long been championed by historic Protestantism? This is one of the problems of social change which neither of the studies recognizes.

S. R. KAMM

Book Briefs

“Adventuring with Christ” (Gospel Light Vacation Bible School kit, $2.59 regular kit, $5.50 special kit). This VBS series shows careful attention to pupil age-group, staff, and administration concerns. Scripturally sound and relevant content, presented by educationally valid materials and methods, enforces the overall ministry of the church. No detail has been overlooked to encourage a spiritually fruitful VBS.

A Cloud of Witnesses, by Asa Zadel Hall (Zondervan, 1961, 88 pp., $1.95). Pen portraits and character sketches of the Apostle Paul’s contemporaries, both friends and enemies.

Modern Viking, by Norman Grubb (Zondervan, 1961, 206 pp., $3.50). The fascinating story of the International Christian Leadership Movement and its founder, Abraham Vereide, known especially for its sponsorship of the annual Presidential Breakfasts in Washington, D. C.

Gleanings in Exodus, by Arthur W. Pink (Moody, 1962, 384 pp., $4.50). Spiritual comment on subjective religious experience by one who was vastly unaffected by his own times and was in some ways a “return of the Puritan.”

Baptist Foundations in the South, by William L. Lumpkin (Broadman, 1961, 166 pp., $4.25). Extensive treatment of the Baptist phase of the Great Awakening in the South.

Evangelistic Illustrations for Pulpit and Platform, ed. by G. Franklin Allee (Moody, 1961, 400 pp., $5.95). Anecdotes and illustrations to drive messages home and keep audiences awake.

The Golden Path to Successful Personal Soul Winning, by John R. Rice (Sword of the Lord, 1961, 314 pp., $3). An exposition of what the Bible teaches about the duty, the doctrine, and the method of soul winning.

The Hidden Remnant, by Gerald Sykes (Harper, 1962, 241 pp., $4). An exposition of the leading psychological movements stemming from Freud, Jung, etc., contending that the remnant that shall survive in our atomic world are those who “retain a sure sense of the best that is in them.”

The Companion of the Way, by H. C. Hewlett (Moody, 1962, 159 pp., $2.75). A devotional treatment of the experience of 12 biblical characters to whom the Lord appeared.

Thinking Out Loud About the Space Age, by Chaplain Melvin T. Ostlin (Dorrance, 1962, 144 pp., $3). On the basis of a curious mixture of biblical truth and shaky theological positions, the author thinks aloud about the adequacy of the Christian Faith for the Space Age.

Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, by J. H. Eaton (Macmillan, 1961, 159 pp., $3; SCM Press, 12s. 6d.). Brief, informative commentary; with introduction. Torch Bible Commentary series.

Letter to Philemon, by Frances and Winthrop Nielson (Thomas Nelson, 1962, 250 pp., $3.75). A novel of passion and spiritual insight; traces the tale of the runaway slave Onesimus’ adventure and his journey through disbelief and doubt to a triumphant faith.

A Century in the Madura Mission, by Harriet Wilder (Vantage, 1962, 352 pp., $4.50). Story of Madura mission work from 1834 to 1934.

Arnold’s Commentary 1962, ed. by Donald M. Joy and Lyle E. Williams (Light and Life, 1962, 328 pp., $2.95). Sixty-eighth annual volume of the International Sunday School Lessons.

Paperbacks

Kierkegaard, by Walter Lowrie (Harper, 1962, 640 pp., $1.75 for Vol. I, $1.95 for Vol. II). Biography and mental development of Sören Kierkegaard by a lover of Kierkegaard. First printing 1938.

A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee (Oxford, 1962; Vol. I, 485 pp., $2.45; Vol. II, 454 pp., $2.35; Vol. III, 551 pp., $2.75). Volumes I and II deal with the genesis of civilizations and Volume III with the growths of civilizations. First printed in 1934.

Enter Into Life, by William Fitch (Eerdmans, 1961, 110 pp., $1.25). One message in six parts on the true Christian life.

Challenge and Response in the City, by Walter Kloetzli (Augustana, 1962, 156 pp., $2). A theological consultation on the urban church by the Division of American Missions of National Lutheran Council.

The Bible and Race, by T. B. Maston (Broadman, 1959, 117 pp., $.85). An examination of the biblical teachings on race relations. First published in 1959.

The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, translated by F. E. Brightman (Meridian Books, 1961, 392 pp., $1.65). Brilliant translation of F. E. Brightman (1903) and essay of T. S. Eliot (1926).

Marriage Guide for Engaged Catholics, by W. F. McManus (Paulist Press, 1961, 128 pp., $.75). Paulist Fathers present down-to-earth information for Roman Catholics about to marry, convinced that such “novices” need better schooling for marriage than they currently receive or really want.

Your God is Too Small, by J. B. Phillips (Macmillan, 1961, 126 pp., $1.10). Written to stretch our poor, niggardly ideas of God that we may see that he is so much bigger than our small-sized ideas about him. Reprinted.

Good Grief, by Granger E. Westberg (Augustana, 1962, 57 pp., $1). Description of what happens to us when we love someone, or something important.

A Manmade Hell

CONCEDED TO BE LOST-The fallout against which fallout shelters can provide some protection is … one of four effects produced by nuclear weapons. The other three, as the civil defense literature makes plain, are the “prompt effects”: initial radiation, heat, and blast, in order of their emission from a nuclear detonation. Against the latter three, the civil defense literature and the announced plans of the government offer no protection. The lives of those “close to ground zero” are conceded to be lost; it is the others—“all the others,” the official handouts say—that may be saved from fallout.

In estimating the relative hazard of the prompt effects one must ask: How close is “close” to ground zero? It is curious to note in the civil defense literature the continued mention of the “initial radiation.” This is the pulse of gamma radiation emitted from the nuclear reaction in the first instant of its ignition. At Hiroshima this radiation was a hazard to all who were within the range of heat and blast; for the ranges of the three prompt effects of the “nominal” 20-kiloton fission bomb are the same—about 1 mile.…

Translating these ratios into numbers, one finds that in the detonation of a 20-megaton thermonuclear bomb the blast effect—the “ground zero” of civil defense imagery—has a radius of 10 miles. But the radius of the fire effect reaches out 20 miles farther. In other words, the result is not a disaster somewhere downtown, with time to get the suburbs into fallout shelters. The result is the obliteration of the central city by blast and a conflagration that sweeps the entire metropolitan area.

When the weapon is employed to achieve these results, there is no local fallout. The weapon is burst at a carefully calculated altitude above the ground, just as in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (where there was no local fallout). For bombs of 20-megaton and larger caliber, the area embraced in the incendiary effect progressively overtakes and exceeds the area that can be covered by intense fallout.

The incendiary effect of a giant weapon can be greatly magnified by bursting the weapon at very high altitude. The thermal energy then needs to penetrate only the few miles of dense atmosphere closest to the ground on the way to its vast target. As footnote to this analysis, it may be mentioned that preliminary reports on the worldwide fallout from the 30-and 50-megaton thermonuclear bombs tested by the Soviet Union show them to have been relatively clean bombs.…

It has been estimated that the enemy would have to deliver a salvo totaling 300 megatons in order to knock out the 18 hardened Titan missile bases that surround the city of Tucson. By contrast, a single 20-megaton bomb, burst in the air over Chicago, would suffice to destroy the entire metropolis. The first conclusion pressed by this analysis is this: the civil population is far more vulnerable to prompt effect than are its defenders and is more likely to be exposed to these effects should it be chosen as the target of attack.

Each of the two sides in the present balance of terror is said to have a minimum of 30,000 megatons of weapons in readiness for use. This, in each case, is about ten times more than enough to kill the corporate body of the other. But, given the delivery systems presently available—still primarily manned aircraft—neither one is equipped to knock out the striking force of the other. The civil populations, therefore, constitute the target against which such forces would be directed and against which they could expect to deliver an attack with success. Such an attack by one side, however, exposes it to the certainty of the same kind of attack by the other. This is the essence of the present stalemate. A second conclusion, therefore, pressed by this analysis is this: if fallout is ever to be a strategic hazard and the fallout shelter a significant arm of civil defense, now is not the time. The fallout-shelter campaign makes sense only as a means for public education in—or public habituation to—the peril of thermonuclear war.

When the capacity for mutual annihilation mounts beyond the 30,000-megaton stage and as the number of contestants increases, the danger of war by miscalculation and accident must rise. At some point in the ever-less-distant future is the point of no return. As C. P. Snow has bluntly summarized it: “We know, with the certainty of statistical truth, that if enough of these weapons are made—by enough different states—some of them are going to blow up.”—Gerald Piel, publisher of Scientific American, “On the Feasibility of Peace” (1961 Duncan Memorial Lecture of the Mellon Institute), published in Science, Feb. 23, issue.

CREATION TO DOOMSDAY—I close with the analogy of a three-year movie, showing the earth from creation to the present, with every second in the movie equaling fifty years of time. The audience is bored for the first year of the film as it sees nothing but vapors floating about. It is not until the beginning of the second year that organic life appears. Half-way through the third year vertebrates are seen, and it is not until two years, eleven months, and three weeks of the movie have passed that man enters.

With two minutes and twenty seconds left, the movie arrives at the point where recorded history began. Then there is a terrific exhilaration of movement. Everyone seems to be supremely exercised. Tribes and armies invade and are pushed back. Castles are built and destroyed. Huge cities erupt onto the landscape. With forty seconds left, Christ is born, and with two seconds remaining, Lincoln frees the slaves. It is not until four-fifths of a second are left in the three-year movie that Communism makes its dramatic entrance. And then with one swoop, it covers one-third of the globe. In the last one-twenty-fifth of a second, man discovers the cobalt bomb, which scientists tell us can render the human race incapable of reproducing itself.

And then, suddenly, the lights are switched on. The members of the audience are sitting at the edge of their chairs biting their fingernails. ‘How does the movie end? What happens next?’ they ask.

The answer lies within ourselves. And the time is now.—Peter Grothe, To Win the Minds of Men, Pacific Books, 1958.

Please Print

In the last issue I wrote about writing, and to the distress of a friendly schoolmarm I expressed sentiments disloyal to Arm Movement. I hereby recant, on the ground that any movement that increases legibility strengthens democracy. To prove my sincerity I have founded a new right wing arm movement for writers of the Right. This new movement is to be known as the Society for Conservative Research in the Art of Writing Legibly (SCRAWL).

In order to investigate subversive tendencies in penmanship one of our first objectives is to analyze the writing of a wide selection of representative Americans. I have classified the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock’s well-known hand is a clear expression of the power of positive writing. So many others signed in a clear and elegant script that one is forced to conclude that good writing and patriotism are correlated. It is also rather obvious that none of the signers used a ball-point pen.

Of course I am particularly interested in theological calligraphy. It should prove much simpler to evaluate leading theoologians through their writing than through their writings. Renowned theologians may participate in this survey by writing a page or two to SCRAWL, in care of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. (This is the first time this offer has been made. To my knowledge, no article heretofore printed was originally submitted as a handwriting sample.)

From a full collection of scholarly autographa we propose to investigate the slant a man’s views give to his writing. Not long ago a leading evangelical editor suggested that certain temperaments are congenial to Calvinism and others to Arminianism. Does Presbyterian penmanship establish this thesis beyond reasonable doubt?

Dialectical script is particularly requested for analysis. Are horizontal and vertical strokes accentuated? A telling point.

Act now to support SCRAWL before handwriting becomes obsolete. Write, don’t print, “For depth analysis I prefer a blotter to a couch because.…” Please write plainly in black ink on white paper without concealing your slant. This will serve to simplify labeling you in our files.

Your pen pal,

EUTYCHUS

Music And The Evangelical

“Music in Christian Education” (Feb. 16 issue) certainly deserves warm praise as well as wide distribution. Our conservative evangelical contemporaries in the field of sacred music would do well to note that many of us wish to worship, not be entertained through our church music!

When one realizes that most orthodox Christian teenagers are exposed to and/or participate in superior sacred music in the public school systems in vivid contrast with our evangelical churches, something is radically wrong. Again, “The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.”

One cannot help but be disillusioned and disgusted when the Gospel is presented in night club “spotlight-and-gestures” style. Others who manage to achieve some sort of religious orgasm while singing from the keyboard need to be reminded that they are in church, not Greenwich Village.…

LEWIS P. BIRD

Grace Bible Church

Elmhurst, Ill.

Art And The Evangelical

Principally the creative process in art is a religious experience, whether it takes form as music, painting, sculpture, or poetry, in which the artist, especially when he is conscious of this—which only a truly Christian artist can be—is a “prophet” through which the Creator shows or speaks that which cannot be defined or described by mere words, but through the media described above.… We note the necessity of a definitive Christ-honoring witness in these fields, and … the practical impossibility for the serious Christian artist to engage in that to which he feels called, because of unacceptance by the evangelical “public” and the lack of an educational institution which deals adequately with the subject.

To insure a steady income many artists so burdened go into some sort of related work, such as commercial art, and so forth. However, and I know from experience, the compromise involved is too great a sacrifice.

Others find themselves totally unrelated work, but here are other aspects which make it practically impossible to devote time seriously to worthwhile creative work.… We do not know a solution to the problem apart from the kind of university you wrote about in CHRISTIANITY TODAY some time ago, which could support such a program.

The problem seems to be more acute in the visual arts than in music and even literature.

I am mainly speaking in terms of pure artistic accomplishment, yet even in the more applied forms, such as the printed page, illustration and such, but especially the monumental techniques (mural painting, mosaic, graffito, relief, sculpture, in cooperation with architecture) how little serious important work is currently being done, and what a waste of talents to the “world” which could be used more effectively for the glory of our Saviour.

HANK ZANDBERGER

Sansalito, Calif.

In Quest Of An Angel

Several times in recent issues I have read a plea for more evangelical writing, to compete with the secular and liberal literature of the day.…

Why has no one pointed out the reason that there is a shortage of such writing …? Why is most of our fiction coming from “ ‘Praise the Lord!’ exclaimed Mary fondly, as Ned went forward during the singing of the seventh invitation” type of writers?…

Writing, to be of quality, demands a fierce exclusion of other activities. The professional writer of the world is willing to pay this price.… He knows the public will exonorate his aberrations. He will abandon a wife, or several wives; will live on gin and crackers and slave at it. The result, a Lawrence Durrell or an Ernest Hemingway. But the evangelical writer, however willing he may be to labor, must also maintain a decent home life, be a father and a husband and a pillar of the community. He must earn a living to do all this, consuming time.

The only way I know out of the dilemma is for the evangelical writer to have money enough to support his family while he takes a leave of absence to do the writing. Alas, evangelicalism is almost synonymous with poverty in my experience.… The luxurious pastorates are in the hands of the liberals.…

There are sponsors at hand to help the writer of the world make his beginning. James Jones camped in the notorious boarding house for writers of his type, was supported and fed until he broke out into print. Houghton-Mifflin gives scholarships (in conjunction with Esquire magazine) to the types of writer they wish to develop. The evangelical writer has no help. Hence he works away his life, with the three or four significant novels or studies he might make waiting until his retirement, when it may be too late. Meanwhile the evangelical writers are represented by the descendants of Grace Livingston Hill (at best).

Why do not some of the fine evangelical businessmen sponsor some kind of fund which might alleviate this problem?

CARROLL R. STEGALL, JR.

Westminister Presbyterian Church

Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

On Matters Anglican

J. D. Douglas’ discussion of Anglicanism and the ecumenical movements in “Current Religious Thought” (Feb. 2 issue) reveals once more the basic misunderstanding, apparently almost universal among Protestant writers, of the position of the Anglican communion.…

Insofar as any change in the doctrine of the ministry and sacraments is concerned, the significance of the open letter to the archbishops by 32 Church of England clergy is exactly zero.…

The Episcopal Evangelical Fellowship has been saying the same thing in print for years, and with just about as much effect.

Regardless of the size of the group which is speaking, … its opinions cannot effect the doctrine of the Church. This was fixed by the interpretations of Holy Scripture in the tradition and General Councils of the Church during its first seven centuries, and only another General Council could change it.…

ROBERT V. LANCASTER

Trinity Church

Lancaster, N. Y.

I regret that the excellent articles demonstrating concern for the Gospel Faith in CHRISTIANITY TODAY are not always balanced by contributor’s regard for Christian Order.…

Mr. Douglas appears to draw comfort from his discovery that Scottish Episcopalians amount to only one per cent of Scotland’s population. I wonder if he would care to prove anything from the fact that evangelicals in Spain and Portugal comprise an even smaller ratio. The Anglican laity do not disguise their distress that our interdenominational-minded elements seem perfectly delighted to destroy Anglican unity to achieve their undefined ends.

EDMUND W. OLIFIERS, JR.

St. Boniface’s Church

Lindenhurst, N. Y.

The comment by Dr. Hughes (Jan. 19 issue) on my recent article “Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics” was timely and brought out the differences which exist despite our agreement on other matters. In two particulars, however, his statement about the Anglo-Catholic position is in need of refinement lest there be confusion with Roman theology. In saying … “The sacrament of Holy Communion is a sacrifice —the sacrifice of the Cross offered or reenacted through the minister in his priestly office” he has stated the Roman doctrine of the reimmolation of Christ in every mass. This is not the Anglo-Catholic position. Anglo-Catholics hold the Eucharist to be a continual pleading of the one sufficient sacrifice on Calvary, and not a reenactment thereof. Also, in saying … “To partake of it [the consecrated wafer] is to feed upon Christ in a literal as well as in a spiritual sense” the impression is given that Anglo-Catholics hold the Roman dogma of Transubstantiation. Such is not the case. The presence is held to be purely spiritual rather than carnal, but real none the less. Spiritually feeding on Christ is literally feeding on him, but is not the same by any means as the eating of dead flesh as the Romans claim to do. Dr. Hughes says that Anglicans would be powerful indeed if they “were united in loyalty to the worship and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer.” It is the contention of Anglo-Catholics that their theological position is both implicit and explicit in the whole of all Anglican Prayer Books. The purpose of this letter is to let our Evangelical brethren know what Anglo-Catholics believe, to the end that there be better understanding among us and less suspicion of Romish tendencies.

FRANCIS W. READ

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church

Inverness, Calif.

Dr. Hughes’ article left a profound impression upon me. How grand it is to read where someone has written just what one wants said and in such competent fashion!

JEAN STONE

Blessed Trinity Society

Van Nuys, Calif.

The Missionary Call

I … would like to comment on the excellent report (News, Jan. 19 issue) of the “Urbana” Convention.

The reporter states, “At least one inexcusable letdown did occur, however, when a student asked a panel of eight recognized missionary leaders to define a ‘missionary call.’ For ten minutes … the panel talked around the question; none attempted a clear-cut answer.”

I feel this is not only inexcusable. It could be, in many a student’s life, a little less than tragic. I speak as a missionary.… As a young person, I myself was greatly concerned because I did not feel the urgency of some divine mystic call to a foreign land.…

I think we must distinguish between a call and direction. I would attempt it in this way: A call is what you are to be. Direction is where you are to go. In Acts 13:2 the Holy Spirit said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

We note that call is not to a geographic location but to a work.… God has given to every member of the body of Christ a gift of the Spirit. That gift determines his call. That gift enables him to fulfill his calling.…

My call does not change, but my direction often does. If the gift … given me is that of teaching, that gift can be used equally in Africa, China or America. I first seek from God to understand my gift and then check with him for direction as to where that gift is to be used.…

DICK HILLIS

General Director

Overseas Crusades, Inc.

Palo Alto, Calif.

One Kind Of Evolution

In your January 5 issue (“An Anchor for the Lonely Crowd”), … you imply that belief in evolution has influenced Western man to believe that he has no father save “a biological process.” It has not worked that way with me. I have a far greater proof of the reality and greatness of the God of the Bible … because I accept the evolutionary process of creation.… God the creator of these laws of nature must be far greater than these laws, unspeakably greater than any traditional fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible says He is.…

A. M. WATTS

Chester, Vt.

From the standpoint of Christians and Jews alike, the most serious deficiency of the U. S. public school system has been its lack of emphasis on spiritual and moral truths.

Roman Catholics, plus an increasing number of Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, and others have sought to correct the deficiency by sponsoring competing parochial school systems.

But in recent months a bold, new plan has been winning serious consideration from some leading churchmen as well as public school officials. It is the “shared time” concept for educating children at the elementary and secondary levels. Very few influential leaders have endorsed the plan, but most have been quietly exploring it in detail and, on the other hand, very few have rejected it flatly.

Stated simply, the shared time plan would provide that children divide their time between public schools and church instruction. The unofficial leader of the shared time movement is Dr. Harry L. Stearns, superintendent of schools in Englewood, New Jersey.

Some evangelical leaders have joined in the discussion over shared time. Among the first to make a public statement was Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, headmaster of The Stony Brook School, who said that the Stearns plan “has some great strengths and some crucial weaknesses.”

“Perhaps the strongest point in favor of Mr. Stearns’ proposal is the fact that it tends to restore control of the child’s time to the parents to whom God has entrusted the child,” he declared.

In his statement, which appeared in Religious Education, Gaebelein added that “this is an important correction of the erroneous position to which the present situation almost inevitably leads—namely, that the state has the major claim upon the time of the child.”

Gaebelein warned, however, that “the proposal is open to serious philosophical objection.” He cited the compartmentalization of subject areas into “sacred” and “secular” as a violation of “the continuity of truth.”

On the other hand, he added, “it may well be that a compromise proposal such as shared time is the most that may be done to resolve the dilemma of public education in America today.”

The shared time compromise also may be the answer to the quandary of many Christian parents over whether they ought to send their children to Christian day schools or to public schools. Some feel that the value of the Christian orientation of the day school is offset by the effects of a withdrawal from realities of life.

What Is “Shared Time”?

The term “shared time” refers to a revolutionary new plan for educating children.

Basically the plan is that religious groups and the public schools “share” the time of students. Churches or other religious groups would take the responsibility of teaching those subjects where they felt that a religious perspective was necessary.

Presumably, religious groups would be willing to turn over to public schools, at the very least, such subjects as physical education, home economics, and manual training. The shift in responsibility would relieve religious schools of very heavy financial burdens for these are the subjects which require the most expenditures for facilities. The plan, moreover, would probably encourage establishment of many more Christian day schools, inasmuch as initial costs would not involve such things as gymnasiums, machine shops, and laboratories.

The plan is most closely identified with Dr. Harry L. Stearns, superintendent of schools in Englewood, New Jersey. Stearns, a layman, is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Englewood and serves on the United Presbyterian Board of Christian Education. He has a son who is a Presbyterian minister and a daughter who is a director of Christian education in a Presbyterian church.

Shared time is not to be confused with “released time,” which currently allows public school students an hour or so each week to receive religious instruction from the church of their choice.

Dr. George L. Ford, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals, says the shared time plan offers “certain possibilities but also some very real problems.”

Some observers are concerned about assigning to churches the responsibility for such subjects as the social sciences and American history. Shared time would give parochial schools the opportunity to indoctrinate many more youngsters in church-state viewpoints which are not shared by the majority of the American citizenry.

Proponents of shared time, however, say they are willing to let churches teach as many subjects as they wish—as long as they pay for the instruction.

The shared time plan has been advanced as a means of settling the dispute over whether the state should grant financial aid to parochial schools.

Roman Catholics stand to gain more from the shared time plan than any other religious group in the United States for the simple reason that they have more parochial schools than any other.

A big question is whether the Roman Catholic hierarchy would accept shared time as a compromise and thereby withdraw its insistence upon public funds for parochial schools.

A highly-placed Roman Catholic spokesman in Washington said this month that he doubted whether the American bishops would take a flat stand on shared time in the foreseeable future. At the same time, he pointed out that there is nothing to stop local church and school officials from going ahead with a shared time plan and that some have already taken steps in this direction.

The plan has been tried to a limited degree in Hartford, Connecticut, for a number of years. There is some talk of adopting it on a similar basis in Chicago and in Providence, Rhode Island.

Backers of the plan say it represents the only expression of genuine initiative, the lone creative idea, to be offered in the religion-in-the-public-schools questions. To critics who insist that it poses a dichotomy they cite (irrelevantly, some reply) Christ’s explicit injunction to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

Mandatory Baptisms

The perennial problem of baptism cropped up again at the February meeting of the Church of England’s House of Laity, when Mr. G. E. Duffield attacked the practice of indiscriminate baptism. It meant, he alleged, that the church was building on a foundation of nominal membership. (The Church of England reported in 1958 27,005,000 baptized persons, but only 2,877,080 on the electoral rolls.) Mr. Duffield added that baptism was a sacrament, not a magic charm, and suggested that there ought to be for the parents “an objective test” to ensure that they were really Christians.

Disagreeing, Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas said that what was of paramount importance was the interest of the child, not the slackness of the parents, and that what really mattered about baptism was its supernatural grace. Dr. Barbara Cawthorne urged the House to reject Mr. Duffield’s views, pleaded that no child should be “lost before he started,” and startled the House by quoting the words of a pop song:

“Mother’s playing bingo,

Grandpa’s in the Boozer,

Sister’s smooching on the sofa,

Nobody cares about me.”

The House weighed the arguments and by a large majority confirmed the canon which makes it mandatory for Anglican parish clergy to baptize all who come.

J. D. D.

The Border Problem

In Berlin last month, eight prominent members of the Evangelical Church in Germany created a minor sensation by making public a statement in which they called upon the Bonn government to renounce the eastern German territories annexed by Poland in World War II. They demanded that the German people be brought to realize that the reunification of Germany cannot be achieved in the forseeable future and that the present German-Polish Oder-Neisse River border must be recognized as permanent.

Signers of the document included Professor Ludwig Raiser, chairman of the German Economic Council and a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID); Dr. Joachim Beckmann, president of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland and chairman of the Evangelical Union Church; and Dr. Klaus von Bismarck, director of the West German Radio, largest network in the country, and one of West Germany’s outstanding lay leaders.

The signers urged recognition of the Oder-Neisse border because this “would improve German relations with Poland and make it easier for the Western powers to stand up for all other German interests.”

Although the Protestant leaders made no allusion to the fact, the German-Polish border issue is one of acute religious as well as political significance. It has long been a major bone of contention between the Vatican and the Communist government in Warsaw.

Taking place almost simultaneously with the issuance of the German Protesttants’ statement was a lengthy talk at the Vatican Palace between Pope John XXIII and Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, at which—according to unconfirmed Rome reports—the possibility of Vatican recognition of the disputed Polish-German border was a topic of serious discussion.

Cardinal Wyszynski has often insisted that the disputed territories be recognized as belonging permanently to Poland. Roman Catholic observers say there is nothing for Pope John to do but to keep hands off a political situation in which the national feelings of German as well as Polish Catholics are concerned. All the Vatican can do is mark time until German’s definitive postwar borders are drawn at a peace conference.

Bourgeoisie Morality

Commenting sarcastically on statements made by U. S. religious leaders concerning use of force to keep neighbors out of private fallout shelters, Chinese Communist writer Yuan Hsein-lu, writing in the mainland publication Hung Ch’i (Red Flag) says:

“God’s precept concerning the manner in which one must treat one’s neighbors has now come into conflict with [the] wicked conduct of the American bourgeoisie … [American religious leaders] think they can resolve the contradiction by merely ‘reappraising’ God’s precept … and calling an act ‘moral’ which has been considered immoral in the past.”

The comment was reported by Far East News Service. The writer apparently felt that the controversy was significant and asserted that it “shows people to what a shocking state of depravity the American bourgeoisie has fallen, and how hypocritical the morality of the bourgeoisie is.”

Protestant Panorama

• In a six-page “Letter on Freedom of Pulpit and Pew” directed to all sessions this month, the United Presbyterian General Council called upon the denomination’s 3,200,000 members not to be duped by “a campaign of anti-communism based on a distrust of our free American institutions.” Attacks from extremist anti-Communist groups have “resulted in the intimidation of our pastors and the disruption of our churches,” the statement said.

• The Canadian School of Missions and the Canadian Council of Churches plan joint establishment of “The Canadian School of Missions and Ecumenical Institute” in 1963.

• In Reykjavik, Iceland, services are again being held in the little peat church of Nupstad after a lapse of 50 years. The 300-year-old chapel is believed to be the oldest building in Iceland.

• Canadian Lutheran College of Thousand Oaks, California, won accreditation last month as a senior liberal arts college from the Western College Association.

• Youth for Christ International plans to dedicate its new headquarters building in Wheaton, Illinois, April 9.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod assumed control last month of Great Lakes College of Detroit, giving the city its first Protestant church-related college. The school was founded in 1937 by the late Dr. Clayton J. Ettinger, a Lutheran, who died last January and bequeathed the school to the church district. A change of name is expected.

• Dedication ceremonies are scheduled April 15 in Coventry, England, for the House of Encounter, a social center constructed by West German Christian volunteers as atonement for Nazi atrocities. The dedication will precede by only a few weeks the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which has been under construction since 1956 at a cost of $3,000,000.

Transfer From England

A professor at Princeton Theological Seminary was barred last month from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because of his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.

Dr. John Hardwood Hick, who is seeking transfer from the Presbyterian Church of England (Presbytery of Berwick), had previously been accepted into the Presbytery of New Brunswick. However, the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey reversed the presbytery’s decision by sustaining complaints from a group of eight ministers and ten ruling elders led by the Rev. J. Clyde Henry of Lambertville, New Jersey, formerly an assistant to the late, renowned Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney of Pittsburgh.

The action could affect Hick’s position at Princeton, inasmuch as all professors at the seminary must be members of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. There are indications that the case will be appealed to the General Assembly, which meets May 17 in Denver, Colorado.

Dr. James I. McCord, seminary president, observed that it was a matter which “would seem to involve the question of the presbytery’s integrity to receive its own members.”

Hick expressed confidence that the General Assembly will rule in his favor.

“The theological question at issue,” he said, “is whether every Presbyterian minister must affirm a biological miracle in connection with the birth of Christ, or whether this is a secondary matter about which it is possible for some of us to be uncertain.”

As a basis for its ruling, the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey cited the church constitution and previous decisions of the General Assembly upholding the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.

“The General Assembly has repeatedly passed upon the importance of clear and positive views regarding this doctrine,” the commission said. “It is the established law of the Church. The Church has not seen clear to alter it, and your Judicial Commission sees no reason for amending the Constitution by judicial interpretation.”

The case recalls doubts about the Virgin Birth expressed by Dr. Theodore A. Gill prior to his appointment to the presidency of San Francisco Theological Seminary. Gill’s appointment caused much controversy before it was confirmed by the 1959 General Assembly.

Hick’s appointment in 1960 as Stuart Professor of Christian Philosophy at Princeton was also approved by the General Assembly. The doctrinal issue did not come up at that time.

The objection to Hick raised by the 18 complainants was his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth, although he did not deny it.

The doctrinal issue came to a head virtually on the eve of a sesquicentennial lecture series at Princeton by Dr. Karl Barth, famed Swiss theologian, who is scheduled to make his first visit to the United States in April (he will also be lecturing at the University of Chicago).

Barth, although criticized by evangelicals for the incipient universalism of his theology, has championed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth and has even rebuked fellow theologian Emil Brunner on the point:

“Brunner’s denial of the Virgin birth is a bad business. As is also the case with Althaus, it throws an ambiguous light over the whole of his Christology.”

Barth has asserted that the doctrines of the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth “belong together.… The Virgin Birth at the opening and the empty tomb at the close of Jesus’ life bear witness that this life is a fact marked off from the rest of human life.… Marked off in regard to its origin: it is free from the arbitrariness which underlies all our existences.”

A Call On The Pope

Mrs. John F. Kennedy, America’s first lady, was received in private audience by Pope John XXIII on Sunday morning, March 12. They spent 32 minutes conversing in French, a language in which both are fluent. It was one of the longest private audiences the Pope has ever granted.

From Vatican sources it was learned that when the pontiff spoke of the Kennedys’ four-year-old daughter, Caroline, he commented, “A beautiful name.” He remarked that he was devoted to St. Charles Borromeo, sixteenth-century archbishop of Milan—an allusion to the fact that the Latin for Charles is Carolus.

Mrs. Kennedy presented the Pope with an autographed, red-leather bound copy of President Kennedy’s book, To Turn the Tide. The pontiff, in turn, presented her with medals of his pontificate and rosaries for herself, her husband, and her children. Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani, Vatican Secretary of State, gave her a doll—the replica of a Vatican Swiss guard—as a gift for Caroline, as well as a Bible.

Dealing With Delinquents

A gang of rowdy, beer-drinking teenagers made trouble this month for Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn and his minister, the Rev. Frank A. Erwin.

The incident occurred on a Saturday evening less than three weeks after Glenn’s three-orbit flight around the earth had made him a hero.

Glenn and his family had driven to a neighbor’s house to pick up his daughter, Lyn, from a party. Milling outside the house were some party-crashing youths who had been ejected from the home. Glenn heard one of them suggest that they go to the nearby Little Falls United Presbyterian Church. Glenn proceeded to the church and found a group of youths—apparently a different group—around Erwin, the minister. Inside the church a senior a high school “canteen” was being held.

The youths, who had been drinking beer, were challenged by Erwin as they made abusive comments about the church. There was an exchange of words and one youth lunged at Erwin.

Meanwhile, Glenn joined the minister and together they asked the youths to leave. When they refused, Glenn walked over to the youths’ car to take down the license number. One boy stepped in front of him and Glenn pushed him aside. The boy, unaware of Glenn’s identity, swung at him.

Glenn ducked the blow and pinned the youth’s arms against the car, noted the license number, and called police. The boys drove off, but were subsequently picked up by police. Glenn indicated he would file a formal complaint only if local authorities insisted.

‘Kidnap’ Charge

Mrs. Alice Ryan of Glen Head, Long Island, New York, is suing Roman Catholic authorities for $2,375,000. She claims the church had broken up her marriage to a priest by “kidnaping” him and forcing him into a monastery.

Walter A. Ryan, 57, said in San Francisco that his 41-year-old wife’s charges were “ridiculous.” Ryan said he left her “of my own accord, long after having told my superiors of my marriage.” The marriage took place secretly in 1950 while Ryan was assistant pastor at St. Patrick’s Church in Glen Cove.

Ryan said he had had “a drinking problem” which “I licked in San Francisco with the aid of friends.”

“My connections with the church had been cut long before I left New York,” he declared.

Evangelism At The World’S Fair

When the Seattle World’s Fair opens April 21, a pair of pavilions will beckon visitors to put aside thoughts of material achievement long enough to hear what God might have to say to them.

The pavilions hold the potential of a powerful Christian evangelistic thrust, inasmuch as 10,000,000 persons are expected to pass through the fairgrounds before the fair ends October 21. Both pavilions are products of cooperative Protestantism, and evangelicals are represented in the sponsorship of the Christian Witness Pavilion as well as the Sermons from Science Pavilion.

The Christian Witness Pavilion will include Sacred Design Associates’ son et lumiere (sound and light), a seven-minute presentation “thrusting you into the age-old Christian quest with new, dynamic methods of communication,” and a children’s center with two-hour sessions throughout the day similar to a vacation Bible school program. The idea for the pavilion was championed by a select group of Christian leaders who consider their territory a frontier for evangelism (only 30 per cent of the population of the Pacific Northwest are church members). They persevered for a Christian witness in the face of pressures by fair officials for an alternate exhibition which would have featured “the world’s great religions.”

The Sermons from Science Pavilion, which has an auditorium seating 300, will feature three live demonstrations daily plus seven film showings led by Dr. George Speake of the Moody Institute of Science.

Trained Christian counsellors will be on hand at both pavilions.

On Easter Sunday, a gigantic religious rally is planned on the fairgrounds and sponsors are hopeful of drawing some 100,000 persons. Featured will be an address by Dr. Louis Evans, minister-at-large for the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

The event also will highlight a choir of several hundred voices from Seattle Protestant churches directed by Cliff Barrows, musical director of the Billy Graham evangelistic team.

Graham himself plans to attend the world’s fair and to address another rally there on Sunday, July 8.

The leaders of Christian Witness in Century 21, Inc., sponsors of the Christian Witness Pavilion, see their task this way: “Around will swirl the activities of the fair: the exciting forecasts of man’s discoveries … the sound of people from all over the world … the dazzling panorama of entertainment.… The Christian Pavilion, as a symbol of ultimate values, will help the fair to tell visitors and the world that America’s greatness is due not only to science and technology, but also to moral and spiritual principles. Above the embracing arches of the pavilion arises a cross, reaching up into the sky … the Christian thrust with trust.”

Sermons From Science

Unlike most middle-aged ministers, Dr. Irwin A. Moon can fry an egg on a cold stove. Moreover, he does it while preaching. And to prove a point he will casually allow a million volts to flash through his body, a miniature bolt of lightning streaking from each out-stretched fingertip. With the help of such pulpit antics, Moon has captured the fancy of millions for the cause of evangelical Christianity.

With the opening of the Seattle World’s Fair, Moon will probably get around to reminiscing about his Sermons from Science exhibit. For it was under similar circumstances more than 20 years ago that the idea was born for his Moody Institute of Science ministry. Since then, he has seen it develop into a gigantic documentary film program the most remarkable aspect of which is its mode of reaching the outsider with the Gospel. In a day when evangelicals have largely defaulted in art, literature, and music, Moody films have used science as a medium for teaching divine truth.

Moon first gained public attention during the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition in 1941. A physicist and an ardent amateur movie-maker, he had been pastor of the Montecito Park Union Church in Los Angeles. He had used illustrations from science to point up his talks with the young people of his congregation and found them eager listeners. He finally resigned the pastorate to devote full time to presenting his “sermons from science.”

When the Golden Gate Exposition opened, Moon tried a daring experiment. He rented space and designed a special show to compete with the carnival attractions. More than two tons of equipment, most of it homemade, went into the production of a spectacle that covered various aspects of science.

The show drew great acclaim. Crowds came to look and to listen quietly to his insistent, thought-provoking refrain: “Can you believe these marvels are the result of chance of accident? Or are they part of a divine pattern? What do you think?”

One day a visitor to the exposition heard of the incongruous show on the midway and went to see for himself. He was Dr. Will H. Houghton, president of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, who immediately saw the evangelistic possibilities.

Moon told him how he had dreamed of a modern laboratory and of a movie-producing studio. The result was that in 1944 the Moody Institute of Science was born as a division of Moody Bible Institute. Headquarters for the new division were located in West Los Angeles. The film products found a ready demand, and soon they were being shown throughout the world—in churches, schools, industrial plants, civic clubs, and armed forces assemblies.

Among the best known of the films are “God of Creation,” “Dust or Destiny,” and “Red River of Life.” The institute has produced a number of full-length documentaries, as well as scores of television films and filmstrips with biblical-scientific themes. Thousands of prints with sound tracks in many languages are being used.

Among the most interesting of the film sequences is one dealing with the bat. A bat has its eyes covered with adhesive tape and is released to fly toward a line where vertical sticks are placed a few inches apart so that the passages are too narrow for its wing span. When the bat reaches this line of obstacles, however, it banks sharply and flies through one of the openings without touching a stick on either side.

In another sequence, the same bat has its jaws held shut with a thread. Then, with eyes open, it is released to fly through the upright sticks. This time it flutters helplessly against them.

Through sound amplification and photography, the MIS films explain why. Equipment made by the institute translates into a frequency audible to humans the sound that a bat makes when it flies. The picture shows several bats flying around the microphone, and as each comes near to it the loudspeaker records the humming sound. With eyes shut or open, and in darkness or light, the bat sends out this wave of sound as it flies. Whenever the sound wave hits an object ahead, it is transmitted back, enabling the bat to gauge the distance and direction of any obstruction in its path.

Actually, it is much like radar. The humming sound of the bat is a series of clicks which come from its throat, each lasting only about a hundredth of a second. When a bat is flying in the open and there are few impediments, the rate is only about five clicks per second, but as an object is approached or if there are close quarters, the rate increases to as many as sixty clicks per second.

Another creature featured in MIS films is the grunion, a silver fish about six inches long which is found along the shores of southern California. During the spring, thousands of them come up on the beaches to lay their eggs. The eggs must be laid at precisely the right hour each year in order for the fish to propagate, that is, during the highest tide in the spring and at night at the period of the new moon, or two weeks later during the full moon.

Not only must the grunion lay the eggs at this period, but at the peak of the tide, for these fish ride up onto the sand to highest point that the water reaches. Before the water attains that point, however, the female arches her back and buries her tail in the sand to a depth of several inches. She deposits her eggs while the male grunion emits milt around her. The female then wriggles herself free so that when the next wave comes she can be washed out into the water again, because from then on the tide will be receding.

As the film narrator points out, were the eggs to be buried an hour too soon, succeeding waves would wash the eggs out to sea, where they would be destroyed. If they were to be laid just an hour late, when the waves were receding and not reaching their fartherest point up on shore, the rising tide on succeeding nights would wash them out.

The narrator explains that the eggs develop in seven to ten days, but do not hatch unless the shell of the egg is dissolved by moisture. Consequently, the fish will not hatch unless a wave comes up over the sand in which it is developing.

Still another creature which the institute has put on film is the Pacific golden plover, a bird with a twelve-inch wing-spread which lives and mates off the coasts of Alaska and Siberia but which flies 2,000 miles in the wintertime to the Hawaiian Islands. If its navigation were but slightly off the tangent would widen so much in 2,000 miles that the birds would miss the small islands by a wide sweep. Yet thousands of the birds arrive at the destination each year.

Moreover, the infant birds hatched too late in the season to have the ability and strength to fly at the time the older birds leave stay behind a few weeks then fly to Hawaii by themselves. They set out for a destination where they have never been. They do not know where they are going or why. But they get there.

At the conclusion of a film, Moon briefly points out that the wonders just shown are evidences of a divine plan in the universe. He does this with restraint, however, and lets the viewer decide whether what is taking place is a grand coincidence or a divine plan.

The soft sell has enabled the films to remain free of a sectarian label and thereby to gain entry into unnumbered situations where religious films would be shunned. But the approach also has invited a measure of criticism from evangelicals who maintain that the films pound away at the obvious, that even the unchurched by and large will grant the existence of a divine order, and that an evangelistic appeal is incomplete unless it stresses the need for regeneration.

Other criticism points to the remarkable popularity of the films as having reshaped the Moody image, which for years was associated solely with the Bible Institute in Chicago. The identification which is now predominant emphasizes general revelation in nature rather than specific revelation in Scripture. Moreover, some observers say, the identification stops short of a definitive, theistic view of origins as over against naturalistic evolutionary theory.

Subtle Tyranny

“My resignation is a protest,” wrote the Rev. Max Morris. “A protest against the ‘mold’ into which the contemporary minister is expected to ‘fit.’ A protest against a concept of the ministry which forces the pastor to be an executive, an administrator, an organizational genius, a public-relations expert, a confessor to hundreds of people who have ‘stumped their toes’.…”

With these words Morris announced that he was leaving the South Miami Baptist Church this month to take up an itinerant evangelistic ministry. The statement was published in The Miami Herald. The 33-year-old Morris said his last act as pastor would be to break ground at the church for a million-dollar building program.

He said his resignation was also a “protest against denominational programs which require the whole week to be spent attending meetings, conferences, committees, etc., and leave Saturday night for sermon preparation. A protest against ecclesiastical machines which measure success by attendance records, larger budgets, and million-dollar building programs …

“A protest against a schedule which leaves no time for prayer, contemplation and scholarship. A protest against a system which makes out of the minister everything except what God expects him to be—a spiritual leader and preacher of the Word.”

Morris asserted that “modern churches are creating an ecclesiastical ‘Frankenstein’ that one day may turn on them and devour them. No man, forced by the prescribed program to spend all his time in meetings, can have a vital, relevant message from God. If our churches are filled with immature ‘pew warmers’ and spiritual ‘pygmies,’ it may be because they have been fed on a diet of sermons hastily prepared 30 minutes prior to their delivery …

“The layman, through a subtle brainwashing, has been led to believe that he can gauge his spirituality by the number of meetings attended, by faithfulness to a program of church activities. The more meetings attended, the greater the dedication is the standard of excellence.”

Morris recalled that “a comparable situation was developing in the first church at Jerusalem. The size of the congregation had increased to the point that the disciples, called to be spiritual leaders, found themselves engulfed in secondary matters. They were ‘serving tables’—arbiters, negotiating, seeking to establish good relations between the two factions in the church.

“Fortunately it was not long until these men realized the folly of giving priority to the secondary. Consequently they called the church into conference saying, ‘It is not right for us to forsake the Word of God and serve tables.’ This is a message desperately needed today.

“It is never right for any activity-even fine, noble activities—to take precedence over the study and proclamation of the Word. It is not that a pastor is above ‘waiting tables.’ Rather, to be continuously involved in ‘table waiting’ robs him of his primary task.

“In the face of this crisis the disciples requested that the Jerusalem congregation ‘set aside’ several men to settle disputes and attend to business matters. The disciples could then give themselves ‘continually to prayer, and the ministry of the Word.…”

“If a minister is to have God’s message he must recapture this concept of his calling.”

Later, Morris emphasized that “I am not opposed to taking care of the spiritual needs of my people. When one of my members has needed me, I have been right there … but what I was talking about was the piddling things which take up a man’s time when he should be studying.”

Morris says he will hold meetings as a Southern Baptist evangelist and that he already has more invitations than he can handle. He will do his own administrative work, but he said he will refer inquirers to the pastor of the church in which he is preaching. Morris had been an evangelist for 12 years prior to taking up the Miami pastorate two years ago. The church currently has a membership of about 1,600.

He said he is not opposed to organization as such, but to the “subtle tyranny” in organization “wherein you begin to give priority to other than God.”

The reaction? Observers said the reaction was divided quite sharply between clergy and laity. Clergymen tended to question the wisdom of his move, although sympathizing with the problem. Laymen by and large supported him.

Laurence W. Lange

Among victims of the March 1 crash of commercial jetliner near New York International Airport were Dr. and Mrs. Laurence W. Lange. Lange, who worked with the United Presbyterian Board of National Missions as a consultant to theological seminaries, was to have preached the sermon at Easter sunrise services in Jerusalem to be held by the Jerusalem Protestant Fellowship.

Lange and his wife were on the first leg of a two-month tour of missions in Asia and the Middle East. The 53-year-old clergyman had worked for a number of years as a personnel specialist. He was ordained in 1958 following study at Biblical, Union, and Princeton Theological Seminaries.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Pastor Philippe Poincenot, 76, prominent French Lutheran leader; in Montbeliard, France … Clyde H. Dennis, 48, founder of Good News Publishers; in Los Angeles.

Resignations: As executive secretary of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, the Rev. J. O. Percy … as director of the American Baptist Division of Christian Social Concern, Dr. John W. Thomas.

Appointments: As director of U.N.-U.S. Interpretation of the National Council of Churches’ Department of International Affairs, Dr. Vernon L. Ferwerda … as dean of the graduate school Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles C. Ryrie, who since 1958 has been president of Philadelphia College of Bible … as pastor of Charlotte Chapel (Baptist) in Edinburgh, Scotland, Dr. Alan Redpath, who for nine years has been pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago … as moderator-designate of the Irish Presbyterian General Assembly, Dr. John H. Davey.

Award: To Dr. James R. Mutchmor, secretary of the board of evangelism and social service of the United Church of Canada, the annual Upper Room Citation “for his contribution to world Christian fellowship.”

Elections: As president of the Protestant Council of the City of New York, Dr. Arthur L. Kinsolving … as bishop of Württemberg, Germany, Dr. Erich Eichele … as moderator of the Greek Evangelical Church, the Rev. Michael Kyriakakis.

One of the most pressing questions in the mission field today is the question of the relationship of Law and Gospel, or rather, Gospel versus Law. This is a real missionary problem in parts of Africa: we need to see it in historical perspective, because the problem has existed in the Christian Church since its inception.

The great battle which Paul fought against Judaic tendencies within early Christianity was part and parcel of a controversy which has continued through the Middle Ages to our own day. So violently did some early Christians react against those who expected pagans to become Jews, and to accept the laws of Judaism before they could be admitted into Christianity, that they discarded the Old Testament and everything that reminded them of Judaism or the Law. Marcion was but one among many. Groups within the church have always tended to convert the Gospel into a new law. This tendency may in some respects point to temperamental differences in individuals, but that does not explain the whole complex phenomenon of legalistic tendencies within the church in certain ages and in certain of its sections.

It is disquieting to read the Christian literature of the second and third centuries, because it soon evidences to what degree the liberty of the Gospel had been forsaken for legalism in all forms. In later centuries legalism at times reached such dimensions that the church shifted the Gospel far into the background. Man had to fulfill the detailed prescriptions of a new law in order to be saved.

The Apostle Paul was well aware of the danger of legalism and in some of his letters condemned it in strong language. On the other hand, he sternly censured those who would compromise with legalism and use the liberty of the Gospel to serve the flesh. The great apostle pointed to Christ. Everything belongs to us, but we belong to him. In him we are free. Our liberty is grounded in our loyalty to him.

The tendency towards compromise with legalism was also ever with the church. In every age and generation some have argued over Christian liberty to condone license in their own lives or that of fellow Christians, and this has resulted in an almost complete lack of discipline in many churches. The struggle between legalism, compromise, and the Gospel has gone on for 19 centuries. In ever new forms this age-old struggle has continued and is still being fought on many fronts in the church universal.

Some Problems in Africa

Any one conversant with the missionary activities in different countries is struck by this very struggle in our own day. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than among African Christians. How often the Gospel is overspread by a burden of new prescriptions and legalistic rules and regulations of so-called Christian “do’s and don’ts.”

I grew up in a section of Africa where Christian converts are taught to tithe. Sometimes they are expected to contribute one shilling per month to the funds of the church. Often one would see an African Christian, perhaps well-to-do, put a two-and-sixpenny piece in the plate and then re-collect one shilling and sixpence! He religiously honors the expectation that he give one shilling even if he is able to contribute much more. But to him it has become a law of the church. He has lost Christ in the act of giving. The Gospel has been superseded by a new law.

Churches sometimes even refuse Communion to people who do not contribute a fixed amount before partaking of Communion. And though the amount may be small, the African Christian somehow feels that he pays for the privilege of partaking of Communion. Missionaries sometimes try to defend this sort of thing on the ground that people have to be taught that they have financial responsibilities towards the church. They must be taught to give and not only to receive. No one disagrees that Christians have to be taught that we owe everything to Christ, but to do it in this way leads surely on the highway to legalism. It so easily becomes one more prescription of a new law one has to fulfill. If a man’s relationship to Christ is what it should be, he will contribute more to the church, but through the inward compulsion of love.

The question has often been asked: why are Africans so prone to convert Christianity into a new law? The answer is not easy to give. Missionary practices are to blame in at least some cases. But there is a deeper reason for this tendency.

Most African societies have been very static for many generations. Tribal customs have meticulously prescribed the whole life of the individual member of many tribes. The individual hardly makes any personal decisions. The tribe or community decides on all his matters by way of age-old traditions, and this system covers every aspect of his life from childhood to death. Even the choice of a life partner is not wholly a personal decision, but is governed by innumerable tribal customs and traditions.

Within this system the individual is rigidly bound even if he finds a great sense of security. By acting within or according to these prescribed customs and traditions he doubtless experiences a great sense of harmony and belonging. The moment he breaks away and makes decisions on his own or acts in an individualistic way, something snaps. He becomes an outcast or a stranger. Loneliness follows, and perhaps alongside this a sense of shame or guilt.

Now Christianity comes into the life of such a closely-knit traditional tribe. Individuals react to the Gospel. They have to act as individuals to accept Christ and in almost every instance those who do have to take a stand opposed by the tribe. It means a break with tradition, with most or all those “do’s and don’ts” under which they were reared since childhood. Traditional bonds are cut. Many tribal ties may linger on in the life and experience of such an individual but a great change has come—a loosening of old securities and of definite rules of behavior. The resultant loneliness in many cases involves also a vacuum of uncertainty.

Must we be surprised if such a convert seeks a new law, a new code of behavior with set rules and regulations whereby he may recover a sense of security and of belonging within his newfound faith and within the community of the church? At this very point legalism enters. If the church is not careful a pagan is soon converted into a Pharisee. I think this is the problem in many African fields. The supremacy and the wonder of grace are so easily lost!

Troublesome Marriage Practices

I want to illustrate this whole problem from another angle. The lobola or marriage practices, whereby a man may take more than one legal wife, are part and parcel of African tribal life in many parts of that continent. Every missionary is aware of the intricacies of the lobola problem when a polygamist accepts the Gospel. Different churches and missions follow many different policies, ranging from full acceptance in rare cases to exclusion from Communion, and so forth, until the convert sends his other wives away and clings only to his first wife.

I often ask myself whether this procedure is Law or Gospel. There can be no question that if a Christian, a member of the church, decides to take a second wife, he should be censured. But—and this is where the Gospel comes in—if a man as a pagan, without the knowledge of the Gospel or a Christian experience, as part of his tribal system takes more than one legal wife and builds a family, and subsequently comes to Christ, must we and may we refuse him admission to the full life of the church until such time as he has cast off all his wives save one? Does the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ not cover such a man with all the relationships he had contracted and the family he had built while without the Gospel? Without being dogmatic, it seems to me that if the Gospel is to prevail, such a man must be fully accepted.

BEN MARAIS

Professor of History of Christianity

University of Pretoria

South Africa

Whenever the word mystical is mentioned in Christian discourse, some people at once become apprehensive. Have not reputable theologians like B. B. Warfield or Karl Barth seriously warned against using this word in our Christian speech? Yet men like John Calvin, C. H. Spurgeon, and G. A. Barrois, all of them in the Reformed tradition, have unblushingly spoken of the mystical union of the believer with the risen Lord. Where, keeping all of this in view, shall we take our stand?

Let us from the outset be clear on this: mystical union with Christ does not describe the total absorption of the believer in Christ or Deity. No identity philosophy as expressed in Neo-Platonism or classical Hinduism is either possible or permissible in an evangelical Christian experience. Nevertheless we do affirm the possibility and reality of a highly personal and intimate union of the believer with the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord.

The word mystical in this context is used to suggest the wonder of our communion with Jesus Christ. For this union of a redeemed sinner with a pardoning Saviour transcends all human apprehension. It is created of God, a gift of his supreme love, not for selfish contemplation, but for the energizing, through the Holy Spirit, of the whole of man for fruitful service to God and man.

The Scriptural Teaching on this Union. The Bible testifies on every page to God’s longing for fellowship with his creatures. God created man for fellowship with himself and his neighbor. Man’s fall shattered his relationship with the Lord, but God unceasingly agonized in order to restore man to blessed fellowship with himself. Abraham like Enoch of old walked and talked with God, as friend with friend. God called Israel out of Egypt’s bondage to be his chosen people, a nation of kings and priests, to be the herald of his will. Moses communed with God face to face, and prophets like Isaiah and Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, knew something of this close and holy fellowship with Jehovah God. And yet it is finally in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, that God’s passionate longing for an enduring fellowship with his lost creatures comes to its highest expression.

The Four Gospels and this Union. The informed reader of the New Testament realizes at once that Jesus through concrete acts and explicit teachings aimed at the most intimate union of his followers with himself and God the Father. It is Jesus who calls, commissions and sanctifies his disciples. Linder various metaphors and pictures Christ illustrates the depth and scope of his relationship to his own. In Luke 12 and 14 as in Matthew 10 and numerous other passages, Jesus describes the strong bond between his disciples and himself in terms of the cost of discipleship. For his sake men are to forsake all—father, mother, brother, sister, house and home! For his sake they must be willing to endure the crucifixion of self to the point of martyrdom. And the apostles and early disciples forsook all and followed the divine Master. In fact, Jesus so completely identified himself with his disciples that he could say, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will the Father give unto you.” When Christ’s followers herald the gospel of grace and judgment, they do so with the assurance that “he that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth me and him that sent me” (Luke 10:1–16). Whether Jesus speaks of Nachfolge or following in his steps, endurance in affliction, of speaking in his name, of suffering for his sake, of sharing in his glory, or of always abiding in him, this intimate, personal, indestructible union of the believer with Christ is in evidence. Jesus is the light of the world: his disciples, in turn, are to be the light shining in darkness. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. He is the shepherd, we are his sheep. He is the Master, we are his servants. As our elder brother he is not ashamed to call us his brethren. As Christ is in the Father so are we in him (John 17). His glorification through cross and death involves our own glorification and ultimate salvation. What could be more holy than Jesus through his bloody passion purchasing our redemption and through his glorious resurrection making us eternally his own? In the explicit teachings of our Lord there is the joy of salvation, the gift of eternal life, fortitude in trial, and the promise of ultimate, culminating fellowship with God through the grace and power of his Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Mystical Union in Paul’s Letters. Critical scholarship has established the fact of the priority of the epistolary literature of the New Testament over the four gospels. Paul’s letters are no doubt older than either the Synoptic Gospels or that of John. Yet, there is a remarkable harmony between these two parts of the New Testament. While the imagery differs, the substance is basically the same. It is one gospel that is proclaimed, whether we study the Synoptics or the doctrinal or hortatory letters of the apostles. With regard to mystical union of the believer with Christ, Paul is explicit.

It was Adolf Deissmann, eminent New Testament scholar, who in 1892 pointed out the extreme importance of the Pauline formula “in Christ Jesus.” By this formula, which occurs 164 times in Paul’s writings, Paul sought to express the intimate, mystical union between Christ and himself and every true believer.

In Christ, thus Paul teaches, we were chosen (Rom. 16:13), called (1 Cor. 7:22), foreordained (Eph. 1:11), created unto good works (Eph. 2:10), have obtained an inheritance (Eph. 1:11), “being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory …” (Eph. 1:11, 12).

In Christ each believer is justified (Gal. 2:17), sanctified (1 Cor. 1:2), but also crucified as attested through the symbolism of our baptism into Christ’s death (Rom. 6:1–11), and enriched in all utterance and knowledge (1 Cor. 1:5). We are declared to be one in our relationship with men of all races and tongues (Gal. 3:28, 29). If American Christians, North and South, and Christians everywhere could realize the impact of this word of the apostle, racial pride and arrogance, antisemitism, and all non-Christian attitudes towards those of a different color from ours would be radically changed.

The apostle is deeply convinced that in Christ and in him alone we have redemption (Rom. 3:24), eternal life (Rom. 6:23), righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), wisdom for our folly (1 Cor. 4:10), liberty from the law (Gal. 2:4), and in Christ God, the Father, “has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3). Paul is sure that God causes us to triumph in Christ and that always, without failing (2 Cor. 2:14).

The intimacy of our union with Christ is also suggested in the Pauline writings through various suggestive metaphors. What could be more tender and personal than the relationship between bride and bridegroom, between husband and wife? Paul uses this picture both in Ephesians and II Corinthians. “For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). God’s family, the Church, has its existence in Christ, hence it must live a Christ-like life.

Still another figure in Paul’s writings which bears on our subject is that of the body and its members. Both in 1 Corinthians 11 and 12 and in his Ephesian letter Paul speaks of Christ as the head of the Church and of the believers as members of the body, i.e., the Church. Theologians have spoken of the body of Christ, the Church, as the mystical bride of Christ. And well they might. Ubi Christus ibi ecclesia! Where Christ is, there is the Church! Even though, as Luther intimated, only two or three simple folk are gathered in his Name! Moreover, believers individually and collectively are called in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians “the temple of God.” Here again our high calling and the holiness of Christ’s Church is set forth.

But the highest expression of the believer’s union with Christ is found in Paul’s passion mysticism. No one can read those moving verses in Colossians 1:23–28 without realizing how deeply Paul had understood the Master whom he had never known in the flesh. Paul rejoices in his sufferings for the Colossians. Daringly he speaks of filling “up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church” (Col. 1:24). All with the end in view that “Christ be formed in them” and that his readers might fathom the depth of the mystery hid from past generations, but now made manifest to the saints: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Some one else has said that in every age some part of the Church of Jesus Christ must endure suffering in fulfillment of God’s one increasing purpose. William Carey, pioneer missionary in India, had to sail on a Danish boat because the East India Company denied him passage on its ships. On arrival in Calcutta he was harassed for years. Later his own brethren in Britain severed their connection with Carey. Robert Morrison’s Chinese tutors carried poison on their bodies fearing torture if they were discovered by the authorities as teaching a foreigner the Chinese language. Robert Moffat in Africa, Nommensen in Indonesia, evangelical missionaries in Latin America in most recent times, Russian believers under Stalin, and Christians in Nazi Germany and now in East Germany—these and many others mark “the trail of blood” of the Christian witness through the centuries. The servant is not above his Master. If they have blasphemed him, so they will his followers. Yet where in our country is there a serious grappling with this side of the Church’s mission? There is instead far too much status seeking, compromise with the world’s standards and values, and often open betrayal of the Lord. Paul, Peter, John, and the early Church unite in this testimony: Unless we suffer with him, we may not be glorified together (Rom. 8:17b).

Was Paul a mystic? Galatians 2:20 comes to mind, for there the apostle writes: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me!” Let us remember that Paul is also the apostle of faith and of the infinite grace of God in Jesus Christ. His mysticism, to cite Deissmann, is a reacting mysticism. In it God ever has the initiative. And though Paul experienced such exaltation as being transported into the third heaven, he did not boast of visions or high revelations, but rather of the grace of God, whose strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:1–10). Not in ecstactic elevations is the Christian’s glory, but in the cross of Christ, and his own self-crucifixion, and his anticipation of God’s glory amidst the flux of time. Neither is the Church now a Church of glory, but a Church which through many tribulations must enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Conclusion. From the foregoing it becomes clear that the mystical union between Christ and the believer, Christ and the Church, is a unique relationship, incomparably wonderful, and bound up with the deepest intentions of God’s grace and purpose. It is also an inward, not merely external, union which under the influence of God’s Spirit and the Christian’s self-discipline may organically grow in scope and meaning. It is, moreover, a spiritual union since our being strongly and enduringly wedded and joined to Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit by whom we have been sealed unto the day of our final redemption. It is finally an indissoluble union which the believer sustains to Jesus Christ his head. For we have the promise that we shall never perish, provided we endure to the end. Nothing is ever to separate the believing soul from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:38, 39).

This doctrine of the mystical union of the believer with Christ ought to be a perennial source of strength in temptation, a clarion call to holy living in season and out, and a summons to realize an ever closer fellowship with our Lord. This doctrine also ought to make us realize our rich heritage of faith and love, of liturgy and praise, of missions and evangelism, of theology and Christian ethos, that we share with all those who in churches of Jesus Christ around the world are united with us in the one body of Christ, the Church. Moreover, as A. J. Gordon has well put it, “to be in Christ is not only to be in union with his divine nature, but also because He is the son of man as well as the Son of God, it is to be in truest union with human nature. We never get so near the heart of our sorrowing humanity as when we are in communion with the heart of the man of sorrows.” May our awareness of being joined with Jesus the Christ impell us to pray with John Woolman, “Lord, baptize me this day afresh into every condition and circumstance of men!” Let us cast aside all lethargy, put on the whole armor of God, and as those who have their very existence in Christ act, pray, live, witness, die, and triumph in his name until faith shall be sight, and the kingdoms of this earth shall have become the Kingdom of our Lord. Sursum corda! Lift up your hearts! Regem habemus! We have a King, even the King of kings, and Lord of lords. He will banish all our fears, conquer all sin and evil, for he has conquered it already on Calvary and on Easter morning. His purpose will yet be realized when a redeemed, united, and glorified humanity shall dwell, by his grace, on a redeemed and new earth.

Bibliography: J. Calvin, Institutes, II. iii. 2; B. B. Warfield, Biblical and Theological Studies; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; J. S. Stewart, A Man in Christ; G. A. Barrois, “Mysticism,” Theology Today (July, 1947); A. Wickenhauser, Pauline Mysticism; K. Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, iv, pp. 620 ff.

Professor of Church History

New Orleans Baptist Seminary

New Orleans, Louisiana

Because the heart of Christian missions, whether at home or abroad, has to do with the message it is inevitable that Satan will do everything possible to divert, distort, dilute or deny that message, and in its place substitute anything which omits the Cross and the Resurrection.

Christian missions have ever been in a state of crisis because of opposition, ignorance and indifference. There is always the wall of opposing forces, different and yet the same, forces which are totally opposed to the claims of Christ. The Apostle Paul confronted these forces on every hand. Many times there must have been those who looked on him and his efforts as having failed. Judging by worldly standards it must have seemed that his efforts were weak and pitiful in the face of established religions, cultures and national alignments.

The things of God, eternal in their implications, are not seen except with insight given by him. When the church ignores the power and work of the Holy Spirit it has always been possible for the world to belittle the missionary efforts of individuals and churches.

We may also err in looking for outward permanence as a token of evangelizing success. Dare we say that because today there probably are no more than 200 professing Christians in one area of Paul’s endeavors—the part of present-day Turkey where the “Seven Churches” of Revelation were located—that his work was a failure?

Or dare we say that Christianity has failed because the simplicity of the early Church has been followed by accretions of ecclesiastical pretensions, shifting of emphasis from the message to organization, and failures in every generation faithfully to follow the Great Commission?

Today world missions are in crisis while at the same time emerging churches in many lands bear active testimony to the power of the Gospel.

But the major crisis of today, as has always been the case, does not center in missionary methods and policies, as important as these always are, but in the nature of the message being preached, taught and lived. It is this vital point that must be guarded at all costs.

Methods become meaningless without the basic message. Policies but add to the confusion unless based on a clear understanding and faithful proclaiming of the message itself.

It is always necessary to distinguish between corollaries to and developments proceeding from the Gospel message and the content of that message; between the fruits inherent in Christianity, and those which have their roots in Christian doctrine itself. To confuse the fruits of Christianity (and this is frequently done) with the root from which these fruits proceed is a fatal error. Nor is it possible to produce fruit where there is no root.

It is for this reason that the essential Christian message must at all times be kept in view as we face changing conditions, meet new diversions, and appropriate new methods of proclaiming the message itself.

For missionary endeavor to remain static in a changing world would be tragic. For changes in method, policies and approach to be coupled with a change in the message itself would be more than tragic; it would be fatal.

The Apostle Paul was certainly the greatest missionary of the first Christian century. Fortunately for each succeeding generation not only are the accounts of his missionary journeys preserved but through his letters to the young churches we know the message which he preached, a message on which there rested the power and blessing of the Holy Spirit.

In his letter to the Corinthian church Paul gives a thumbnail sketch of the heart of that message: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Cor. 15:1–4).

In this short space Paul affirms man’s need of salvation; Christ’s death for sinners; the fact of his burial and resurrection—all in accord with the Old Testament plan and prediction.

A study of Paul’s message reveals his abiding conviction as to the uniqueness and exclusiveness of Christ and his claims. He did not doubt that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that man’s only access to God is through his Son. He did not question Peter’s assertion that there is no other way of salvation other than in the name of Jesus Christ.

In every generation there have been “other gospels” which deny the unique Person and Work of Christ and this generation is no exception.

Probably outstanding among the various types of divergence from the Christian message today is the siren voice of universalism, so appealing and at the same time so deadening.

If it is not true that those who believe on the Son have everlasting life while those who reject him shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them, then the heart of the Christian message has been removed and in its place a wishful, speculative philosophy substituted which cuts the nerve of evangelistic zeal and missionary endeavor.

Wherever the lost condition of the sinner is reduced to a mere ignorance of the fact that he is saved, the whole thrust of preaching is changed. Paul never made that mistake; salvation was on a “whosoever” basis but it was attained by faith and in no other way. To the Philippian jailer Paul used neither nondirective counseling, nor a warning to take care because he was confronted with an emotional crisis. To the question as to the means of salvation the answer was equally direct, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved …” (Acts 16:31).

Furthermore, both the integrity of the Old Testament record and its authority were held up to the early Christian Church. The Berean Christians were “more honourable” because by the Scriptures they evaluated the preaching they heard to see whether its message was true.

Humanitarianism, social progress, physical healing, educational advance and multiplied techniques have their definite place in Christian missions, but whether these shall serve the body and mind alone depends on the message behind such work.

The preaching of the Cross is still foolishness to the world in general, but the Cross and its implications are central to the missionary message.

It is a message of an occupied Cross and of an empty Tomb and they must come first.

L. NELSON BELL

FRANK E. KEAY¹Frank E. Keay was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England in 1908. He went to India that same year under the Church Missionary Society and was stationed at Jubbulpore as Principal of the Mission High School until 1922. He served in India intermittently until 1957. He holds the B.A., M.A., and D. Litt. degrees from London University.

The history of Christianity’s great expansion in early days and of the subsequent disappearance of the Church in Asia and in other areas has much to teach us in these days. But to most Christians it is not known. Few Christian people pay much attention to Church history.

Tradition has it that some of the apostles carried the Gospel to Eastern lands. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Christians who left their homes because of persecution “went everywhere preaching the Word.” It is probable that persecution drove many of them out of the Roman Empire and into the East.

Just when Christianity first came to Persia (Iran) is uncertain; but what was called the Church of the East centered there and spread all over Asia. Later it was called (by nonmembers) the Nestorian Church, for it accepted the views of Nestorius, who was condemned by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431. The Church of the East was certainly very active in spreading the Gospel.

Edessa, with its theological school, in northern Mesopotamia was the center of Christianity in the early days. During the Decian and Diocletian persecutions Christians left the Roman Empire, and a century and a half later the Nestorians fled into Persia. Here, under Sapor II (A.D. 339 to 379) there was fierce persecution and Christians suffered martyrdom rather than deny Christ. The price that was paid was heavy, but it purged the Church and deepened its spirituality, and led also to the spread of the Gospel to other lands.

Missionaries at this time had to support themselves by trade, as artisans or clerks, with some offering their services as skilled physicians.

By the end of the fifth century the area which the Nestorians had evangelized included Egypt, Syria, Arabia, the Island of Soqotra, Mesopotamia, Persia, Media, Bactria, Hyrcania, Turkestan, India, and Ceylon. Thus, by the seventh century the Church had spread far and wide in Asia, but its internal divisions greatly hindered an effective witness for Christ.

Christianity probably came to China about the early part of the seventh century or before, and spread throughout the land during the period of the T’ang dynasty (A.D. 618 to 906). At first the rulers favored it. However, in 845 persecution began, and the Church greatly diminished by the end of the tenth century. At the beginning of the eleventh century there was a remarkable mass movement towards Christianity among the Kerait Turks north of Mongolia. In the thirteenth century European friars, traveling in Asia, found Christian communities in existence all over East Turkestan and China, and the Mongol ruler of China, Kublai Khan, though not a Christian, was favorable towards them. Under the Ming dynasty Christianity was extirpated from China.

The advent of Islam in the seventh century was a setback to the Christian church. Much of the survival of the church depended on the rulers, and some of them were guilty of persecution. The church went on spreading, however, and became established in places as far away as Mongolia and Siberia, even Burma.

By the end of the thirteenth century Nestorian Christianity was so widely spread over Asia that one writer gives a list of 27 metropolitan sees with 200 bishops that extended over the whole of Asia from the River Tigris to China and from Lake Baikal to Cape Comorin. Today many of these areas are closed to Christian missionaries.

Tradition says it was the Apostle Bartholomew who first brought the Gospel to South Arabia. Churches were built and bishoprics established. In A.D. 523 a fierce persecution broke out. Under this trial the Christians showed great constancy and steadfastness. The Christian king of Ethiopia came to their rescue and a Christian dynasty came into power. The church emerged from the crisis too ready to take revenge on enemies—an indication of spiritual deterioration. In 570 Muhammad was born, and after his advent to power Christianity rapidly declined in Arabia. For 1,300 years the greater part of Arabia has been a land closed to the Christian Gospel.

We may mention here two other areas where there had been a Christian church that later vanished. In the Island of Soqotra the people were once Christians. But at some time Islam came in and today Soqotra is solidly Muslim.

In the north of Eritrea the Ethiopian church became decadent, ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, and superstitious. Then Muslim missionaries came in, and the Christians in that area all became Muslims. Today Christian missionaries are facing the uphill task of winning them back to the true Christian faith.

In North Africa there was a flourishing church in the early centuries of the Christian era, with great church leaders like Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. Within 10 years after Muhammad died (A.D. 632), the Muslims had mastered Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and then swept through North Africa. The church in North Africa, which had survived the previous shock of the Vandal invasions, was obliterated. Today North Africa also is a land of the vanished Church.

The Causes Of Decline

What led to such eclipse of the Christian church in Asia and North Africa?

One reason was the advance of Islam. In many Muslim areas Christians were given religious freedom on the promise that they would not openly propagate their faith and would agree to pay heavy taxes. However, this often resulted in wholesale secession to Islam or emigration.

Most of the ruin to the Christian church was due to the wars of conquest conducted by Mongol rulers. Genghis Khan, who first began his exploits in 1203, and died in 1227, was not a Muslim. In the dominions under his rule he was a good administrator and often favored Christians. But there was ruthless slaughter and destruction in his wars.

Still a greater blow to the Christian church in central and northern Asia was the devastation wrought by Amir Timur (Tamerlane). While still under 30 years of age he became ruler of Transoxiana with his capital at Samarkand. When he started his career of conquest, whole provinces were turned into deserts by the ravages of his troops. In 1390 he invaded Persia and brought about massacres and ruin. This destruction was spread over large areas. Churches and temples were destroyed wherever he went and the Christian church almost vanished from the greater part of Asia.

It was not, however, only the shock of ruthless invasions that brought an end to the church in such vast areas. Whatever may have been its pristine purity and zeal in early days, the church became sadly decadent. Again and again it had survived severe persecution, but in large areas it failed to arise after the heavy blows. Even in some of the areas not affected the church ceased to be, or fell away from the high ideals of earlier days and became ignorant and full of error and superstition. Many factors, including lack of real spiritual life and formal ecclesiasticism, resulted in its inability to stand up to the assaults made upon it.

In many areas of our world, missionaries do not seem to have given to the people the Scriptures in their own language. Services have often been held in a foreign language. Existing remnants of the Nestorian and Jacobite churches still use liturgies in Syriac.

Then in many cases churches relied too heavily on foreign missionaries. For example, of the 75 names of presbyters mentioned on the Nestorian monument in China, there are hardly any Chinese names.

In countries where Christians, with no sound biblical knowledge, came in contact with Buddhism, they let their doctrines become infiltrated with Buddhist ideas. Similar disintegrating influence occurred with Islam. For instance, Muslims do not believe that Christ was crucified because God would not have allowed his prophet to be so treated. Its rapid spread seems proof to Islam of its divine origin, for the Muslim accepts success as a main criterion of truth. There was also the tendency among Christians to rely on the favor of rulers.

Serious divisions within the Christian church also caused its weakness; often there were squabbles in the same church over the election of leaders.

We may observe then that where spiritual life has been weakened there has been a lowering of scriptural standards, and the church has become a prey to corrupting influence and therefore cannot stand up to persecution. Where people are not grounded in the teaching of the Bible, and where their Christianity becomes only a nominal adherence to a creed, they are easily overcome by carnal motives and become open to influences that draw them away from loyalty to Christ.

What lessons can Christians learn from all this? First, it must be said that we need to beware of a shallow optimism about the church. In many lands it is passing through a time of severe testing. Persecution in Communist countries is ruthless and subtle. It is well known that Communism is out to destroy faith in God. Young people are being indoctrinated in atheism, and there is an unending pressure on Christians to put loyalty to a Communist state above loyalty to Jesus Christ. Islam also is advancing in many areas, and even Hinduism is seeking to win back to its fold weak and uninstructed Christians.

Do we realize our responsibility to pray for these Christian brothers and sisters in lands where they are subject to pressure? The church in vast areas was obliterated in years gone by. We must face this as a real danger today.

There is urgent need in all lands for the Christian church to be established in God’s Word. Christian communities must be built up to meet the onslaughts of Communism and other ideologies. A mere nominal Christianity can never withstand the attacks that are being made against it.