Public concern for fallout protection is touching off an intensive debate among American churchmen. Contention is most acute over the question of whether the use of force can be justified to avoid overcrowding of shelters during nuclear attack. But the scope of the debate is raising many other ethical problems and these become ever more realistic possibilities in view of Soviet terrorist tactics as exemplified by the explosion of the big bomb October 23.

“Does prudence … dictate that you have some ‘protective devices’ in your survival kit, e. g. a revolver for breaking up traffic jams at your shelter door?”

The question appears in a widely-quoted America article written by the Rev. L. C. McHugh, S.J., who once taught ethics at Georgetown University.

McHugh maintains that the Christian view upholds one’s right (but not duty) to employ violence in defense of life and that the principle is applicable to the situation wherein “unprepared or merely luckless neighbors and strangers start milling around the sanctuary where you and your family have built a refuge against atomic fire, blast and fallout.”

He lists several conditions, however:

“The situation is such that violence is the last available recourse of the aggrieved party … The violence used is employed at the time of assault … The violence is employed against an attack that is unjust … no more violence than is needed to protect.”

Disagreeing sharply with McHugh was the Right Rev. Angus Dun, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Washington, who said:

“This business of preparing to push your neighbor’s child out of the shelter, or even to shoot down a neighbor who clamors for admission, is the most utterly immoral thing we could do.”

Among evangelicals, who tend to leave such questions to the area of personal conviction, some key churchmen sought to provide leadership and a basis for grass-roots thinking. Others uttered a frank and honest “I don’t know.” Still others avoided the issue.

First indications were that evangelical opinion would largely take a dim view of any civil defense program relying primarily upon private shelters accommodating an individual family only.

“This is no clear-cut statement in evangelical beliefs that would cover such a situation,” said Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“However, I think that a person ought to take into his shelter as many people as he could accommodate without jeopardizing the lives of his own family. His own life would be another matter. He might make a decision to endanger his own life to help others.”

Smile, Tear, Hand, And Heart

Christian believers ought to greet today’s almost morbid interest in fallout shelters with a smile, a tear, a helping hand and an open heart. A smile, because it challenges the popular fallacy that death is always a tragedy, that the essence of human life lies in mere physical survival. A tear, because man seeks refuge from atomic radiation more than from the fall of Adam and the fallout of evil.

And, of course, a helping hand and open heart. But how? By urging a government-financed shelter program? The very welfare statists who clamor to impose more “cradle to crematory” security seem silent about the state’s responsibility for the masses at the very moment when (if the alarmists are right) the peril of death is quite imminent. If government provision is no answer, how about Christian help?

First, believers can build regional shelters on their local church premises—multi-purpose structures that on a first-come first-served basis accommodate anyone in time of emergency. Surely such provision meets in principle the responsibility of neighbor-love. Should he choose also to build a private shelter, the Christian believer then has no obligation to harbor a neighbor who has failed to build his own, nor has such neighbor any right to demand or to share another’s private accommodations. Whatever additional or extraordinary course a Christian’s love may take is obviously a matter of individual conscience once he has provided for his own family. At any rate, the negligent neighbor admitted to a believer’s shelter is sure to find more than merely physical rescue, since the very first staple in a Christian’s shelter is likely to be a Bible.

C. F. H. H.

The Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, refused to comment.

So did Dr. Carl McIntire, president of the International Council of Christian Churches.

Said Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of National Presbyterian Church:

“Some very sturdy Christians will decide to live dangerously, to ignore preparation of shelters and to die with dignity as part of the brightly-colored cloud that will disintegrate thousands of feet above the surface of the earth. No Christian or any other citizen should be asked to provide an individual shelter for himself or his family. Even the widest possible development of this program would leave many people without adequate protection.”

Elson asserted that “only a program under public rather than individual auspices can be considered adequate. If a nation can conscript its men and its re sources to wage war, it ought also out of public resources to provide for the common defense by creating the best possible defense for the greatest number of people.”

The Rev. Peter Eldersveld, radio minister of the Christian Reformed Church’s “Back to God Hour,” said that it is impossible to predict accurately and comprehensively all the factors that would bear upon sound ethical judgments during a nuclear attack.

He suggested that it would be premature to specify a detailed course of action for a situation which has never before been encountered.

Evangelist Billy Graham saw it this way: “In the event of nuclear attack, restricted individual use of shelters would pose somewhat of an ethical dilemma. The dilemma might be avoided if the civil defense program would work on community shelters rather than urge personal shelters.” Graham added that “I feel a primary responsibility for my family. But I don’t believe I myself could stay in a shelter while my neighbor had no protection.”

Community shelters, he said, would also provide for people who cannot afford their own (“People should not have to die because of their poverty.”).

Lutheran-Reformed Talks

“Theological conversations” between representatives of Lutheran and Presbyterian churches in North America are scheduled to begin in January.

Plans for the discussions were announced jointly by Dr. Paul C. Empie, executive director of the National Lutheran Council, and Dr. James I. McCord, secretary of the North American Area of the World Presbyterian Alliance and president of Princeton Theological Seminary.

The announcement said that all major North American church bodies in both the Lutheran and Reformed traditions will be represented, including some which are not members of the National Lutheran Council or the World Presbyterian Alliance, for example, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

“Our discussions have no immediate purpose in view other than an examination of the subjects chosen,” the announcement said. “There is no proposal that these conversations are to be directed toward a goal of pulpit and altar fellowship or union or similar objectives.”

Many observers understood, however, that merger moves could well evolve from such “discussions.”

Officially, the conversations were arranged to explore the theological relationship between the Lutheran and Reformed churches “to discover to what extent differences which have divided these communions in the past still constitute obstacles to mutual understanding.” The proposal for the conversations apparently began with McCord.

“My colleagues and I have been following with great interest the Lutheran-Reformed theological conversations in Germany and France,” McCord said in a letter to Empie last February, “and we feel that the time has come for us to begin them here in the United States.”

The proposal was addressed to the NLC’s Executive Committee in its capacity as a U. S. committee for the Lutheran World Federation. It was tentatively accepted last March.

The executive committees of the parent international organizations endorsed the idea in their respective meetings last summer.

It is expected that the discussions will be conducted by sixteen theologians. Their names have not yet been disclosed, but they will include six representatives of the American members of the World Alliance, six from the American members of the LWF, two from the Missouri Synod, and two from any Reformed or Presbyterian bodies that choose to participate but are not members of the alliance.

According to the planning committee’s proposed agenda, the first session will be devoted to the following topics:

—An historical review of relations between Lutheran and Reformed churches in the past with special reference to the controversial issues which have divided them.

—A theological evaluation of these issues in the light of contemporary thinking in both churches.

Topics proposed for consideration at subsequent meetings (tentatively scheduled for the spring of 1963 and the spring of 1964) included “evangelical faith,” “the authority of Scripture,” “Christology,” “the church and the ministry,” and “the Lord’s Supper and its observance in the church.”

Member churches of the North American Area of the World Presbyterian Alliance have a combined membership of more than 6,500,000. American member churches of the Lutheran World Federation have a combined membership of nearly 5,600,000. The Missouri Synod has nearly 2,900,000 communicants and is the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.

Presbyterian Propriety

The United Presbyterian General Council issued a public criticism this month of six Presbyterian churches on the West Coast which had dissociated themselves from National Council of Churches pronouncements.

The 52-member council, in a unanimous action, expressed support of NCC policy but affirmed the right of individual churches to disagree. The council implied, however, that it was improper to adopt local resolutions of dissociation.

Involved are the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California, the First Presbyterian Church of Fillmore, California, the Wilshire Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, the South Hollywood Presbyterian Church, the First Presbyterian Church of San Diego, and the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma, Washington.

All have endorsed or adapted a resolution which states that “this Session does not recognize the authority or right of the National Council of Churches to make pronouncements or statements of policy in any form for (this church) or in the name of its membership.”

The council reply asserted that avoidance of political and economic particulars contradicts the belief that “Jesus Christ is the Lord of all life. He may not properly be walled into any smaller area of influence.”

The reply said that “the proper manner in which to register criticisms of, or suggestions for, actions or policy of our church in relationship to the National Council of Churches is not by dis-association, but in the manner prescribed by the form of government.” This was a reference to the practice of sending overtures to the General Assembly.

25-Year Honors

Boston’s historic Park Street Church, one of the foremost evangelical churches in America, will honor its distinguished pastor with a testimonial banquet November 15.

The event will mark 25 years of service at the Park Street Church by Dr. and Mrs. Harold John Ockenga.

Ockenga’s ministry in Boston has been characterized by the priority assigned to the missionary enterprise. Its annual missionary budget, now amounting to some $270,000, is the largest of any U. S. church.

Union Without Uniformity

Establishment of a “United Church of Christ in America” as a “union without uniformity” was proposed last month by Dr. Perry E. Gresham, president of Bethany (West Virginia) College and immediate past president of the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ).

“I would propose,” said Gresham in a talk at Park Avenue Christian Church, New York, “that we call together all denominational leaders and declare that the United Church of Christ in America is now in existence.”

He urged that “Christian leaders operating through the existing structure of a National Council of Churches of Christ in America work out a program whereby our common tasks of mission work be merged into a united body that could speak and witness to the whole wide world.”

Benevolent homes, publishing houses, and pension funds, should be merged accordingly, Gresham added.

He specified that under this plan, local congregations would be “left free to worship Christ in appropriate ways according to custom and preference.”

“Instead of a merger of one or two bodies with a pious hope of more to follow,” Gresham said, “we could accomplish the purpose at one bold stroke by recognizing the Lordship of Christ, the primacy of Scripture, the fellowship of all devout followers of Christ, and the genius of E. Pluribus Unum!”

“The duplication of competing systems,” he asserted, “would be reduced to a more efficient coordination of organized effort.”

Gresham added:

“I can already hear the excited protests from both theologians and ecclesiastics. Such a proposal is an affront to the person who demands a uniform statement of faith and uniform ways of worship.

“Yet we must remember that there has never been theological agreement in the history of Christendom except under the military threat of Constantine.

“Had Peter and Paul withheld their witness to Christ until they were in full agreement the church would have been stillborn. Ecclesiastical dignitaries who have become institutionally involved in certain offices and structure might feel threatened by such a reckless proposal.

“Yet the time has come for us to take seriously the prayer of Christ. A union of Christians is the only logical outcome of our ecumenical meetings.

“Union without uniformity is an approach which commends itself to the American ways of thought where the heritage of Jefferson and Lincoln can show the secular counterpart of what could happen to the church if the Holy Spirit could lead us toward a common witness and a glorious fellowship which is man wide and God high.”

Plea For Preparation

A Lutheran leader makes a strong plea for proper spiritual orientation of prospective draftees in the November issue of National Lutheran.

The Rev. Engebret O. Midboe, executive secretary of the National Lutheran Council’s Bureau of Service to Military Personnel, warned that the buildup of U. S. military forces may continue and accelerate, and urged that home congregations give their young men “some down-to-earth counseling on what this struggle is all about.”

The National Lutheran is a monthly publication of the NLC.

Midboe’s article stressed that “while the church cannot identify itself with any form of human government, the church must teach her people what the Christian faith has to say about the current atheistic communistic aggression.”

He urged immediate action, warning that “it is too late to begin to prepare for this after the ‘greetings’ from the President have arrived.”

The Rial Campaign

The 13th annual national public service campaign on behalf of “Religion in American Life” gets under way this month.

The campaign is aimed at boosting church and synagogue attendance across the nation. It is supported by 28 national, religious bodies and a like number of service clubs and civic groups. It is conducted by The Advertising Council, a non-profit, non-partisan business organization which aims to serve the public interest “by marshaling the forces of advertising to promote voluntary, individual actions in solving national problems.”

The problem in this case is that, according to latest available statistics, 60 million Americans have no religious affiliation.

Volunteer coordinator of the campaign is Robert W. Boggs, director of advertising for the Union Carbide Plastics Company.

A leading international advertising agency, the J. Walter Thompson Company, is contributing its creative services for the 13th consecutive year.

Origin Of ‘Protestant’

The 400th anniversary of the first major conference between Protestants and Roman Catholic clergy after the Reformation—the Colloquy of Poissy—was commemorated in Washington, D. C., last month with a special service at St. John’s Church (Episcopal).

The commemorative service was held under auspices of the French Protestant Congregation and the Huguenot Society of Washington.

Worshippers heard Dr. C. Leslie Glenn, former rector of St. John’s, declare that “it is fashionable in some circles to be ashamed of the word Protestant.”

“It is called a negative word,” Glenn asserted, “but we need never be ashamed of the negative. Men don’t fight for freedom, they fight against tyranny.

“It was at this small conference in the sixteenth century that the decision was made that the Roman Catholic church could be allowed in Protestant territories but that the Protestant Church could not be allowed in Roman Catholic territories. Against this, the Protestants protested and there they first got their name.”

World’S Largest Dome

A church convention hall in Anderson, Indiana, will lay claim to having the world’s largest circular dome.

Scheduled for completion in May, 1962, the 7,200-seat Warner Auditorium will accommodate conventions of the Church of God, which has its international headquarters in Anderson.

Construction of the 3,000,000-pound dome, twice the size of St. Peter’s in Rome, was hailed as an engineering feat utilizing a number of recent scientific and technological developments. The dome was made by pouring a four-inch layer of concrete over a huge mound of earth. It was lifted into place atop 36 steel posts by hydraulic hoists.

Builders say the unique method of construction saved the church nearly half a million dollars. The total cost of the auditorium, $400,000, amounts to about $6.50 per square foot, or less than what it would cost to build a warehouse of comparable size by conventional building methods.

The dome has a diameter of 268 feet. There are no interior supports. The auditorium eventually will have a capacity of 12,000 persons.

A Seven-Year Plan

Development of a seven-year uniform lesson cycle was announced to some 8,000 registered delegates at the sixteenth annual National Sunday School Association convention in Detroit last month.

The new lesson cycle is a product of years of research by an NSSA Christian education committee headed by the Rev. Ralph Harris of Springfield, Missouri.

An NSSA statement called it “the first major challenge by evangelicals to the International Council of Religious Education uniform Sunday School outlines.”

“It is the result,” the statement said, “of growing dissatisfaction by evangelicals with ICRE’s stress on social aspects of the gospel to the neglect of personal spiritual application and the neglect of certain portions of the Bible.”

The new cycle will begin in 1965. It will cover every part of the Bible. Sixteen quarters will be spent in the New Testament and 12 quarters in Old Testament studies.

One feature is the cycle’s treatment of non-narrative sections of the Bible. These are woven into historical portions in a way designed to make the history more meaningful.

The NSSA is affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.

Educational Roundup

Baylor University of Waco, Texas, was given a virtual city block of property in downtown Dallas last month. It will eventually amount to the largest gift in the Baptist school’s 116-year history.

A trust established in honor of Dallas insurance executive Carr P. Collins will handle the transaction and give Baylor ownership of the multi-million dollar development. A department store has announced plans for a sprawling building and parking garage on the property. The entire operation will be subject to the usual commercial taxation.

Other developments in church-related education:

—The new Houston (Texas) Baptist College is scheduled to open in the fall of 1963. More than three million dollars have been raised in a drive for capital and endowment funds.

—Calvary Bible College of Kansas City was named beneficiary of a bequest valued at $285,000 from the late Arthur W. Rehfeldt of St. Louis.

—President Urho Keleva Kekkonen of Finland was given an honorary doctor of laws degree by Waterloo Lutheran University at an autumn convocation.

Controversial Bus Rides

Four Protestant ministers are appealing to the central school district of Hoosick Falls, New York, to stop bus transportation of elementary public school children to week-day released-time religious education classes at a Roman Catholic academy.

The ministers say such transportation “violates the use of public tax monies in that these monies are used for the support of private interests” and is contrary to the church-state separation principle.

The school district was urged to reconsider its decision to provide the bus transportation.

Lifting The Mandate

Air Force chaplains are no longer required to use unified Sunday School curriculum materials, according to a report in the Chaplains News Bulletin of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Executive Secretary Floyd Robertson of the NAE Commission on Chaplains said the requirement was revoked during a September meeting of Air Force command chaplains in Washington.

Chaplain (Major General) Terence P. Finnegan was said to have acted when denominational representatives at the meeting indicated unanimous displeasure over the requirement.

“These men represent the denominations which we serve,” Finnegan was quoted as saying. “They tell me it should not be mandatory and it will not be.”

Finnegan amended the regulation regarding the unified curriculum by deleting the mandatory clause and inserting that it “is recommended for use in the Air Force.”

The new policy will enable chaplains to select their own Sunday School curriculum materials from any religious publishing house.

Exempt The Amish?

Democratic Representative Wilbur E. Mills of Arkansas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says he believes it would be unconstitutional to exempt any group from payment of a tax because of religious objections.

The committee headed by Mills is the unit through which any tax legislation in Congress is channeled.

Mills told Republican Representative Paul B. Dague of Pennsylvania last month that he would call a hearing on Dague’s exemption bill only if it is recommended by the President.

Dague has sponsored legislation which would exempt members of the Old Order Amish from participation in social security and payment of the tax.

He told Mills in reply that it should be no more unconstitutional to exempt the Amish because of their religious beliefs than it is to permit voluntary participation for members of the clergy because of their beliefs in church-state separation. Clergymen qualify for social security and pay the tax only if they file a waiver of exemption.

The Amish, in appealing to Congress, contend that they pay all taxes asked of them but that social security is a form of compulsory group insurance which they reject because of their belief that the Bible imposes an individual responsibility upon Christians to care for their own aged and infirm.

Broadening The Code

The Motion Picture Association of America amended its production code last month to enable filmmakers to deal with the subject of homosexuality on the screen.

The change was made after several prominent moviemakers had gone into production with stories involving controversial sex themes.

The MPAA statement specifies that the production code administration may “consider approving references … to … sex aberrations, provided any references are treated with care, discretion and restraint.”

Affected by the ruling are the following films, none of which has as yet been premiered: “Advise and Consent,” “The Children’s Hour,” and “Lolita.”

It was the world’s blackest hour. It was the world’s brightest hour. This is the paradox of the Cross.

It was the blackest hour because human hate came to its fiercest focus. It was the brightest hour because divine love came to its fullest flower. There hate was seen in all its heinous horror. But there also love revealed the heart of God.

Calvary stands at the crossroads of human history. All the divine paths of the past led to it. All the divine paths of the present and future lead from it.

At the Cross all the sin of the ages was placed on the heart of the sinless Son of God, as he became the racial representative of all humanity. From the Cross salvation flows to every believing soul. This is the Gospel, the greatest good news the world has ever heard.

The Departure. On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared to the praying Christ and “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). To us “decease” means death. But the Greek word is exodos—exodus, departure. Precisely it means here the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, by which three events he made his departure from this world back to the heavenly glory.

The Death. The death of Jesus differed from that of every other man. He “dismissed his spirit” (Matt. 27:50). His was a completely voluntary decease—“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:18). Death was not forced upon him. He accepted it as the will of God for the salvation of man.

What did Jesus’ death mean for Him? The answer is best suggested by his prayer in Gethsemane. There he cried out in agony of soul, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Then he bowed his head in humble submission and said: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).

What was this cup from which he prayed to be delivered? Carping critics have said that Jesus cringed with cowardly fear at the thought of death. But such cavilers are utterly ignorant of the true significance of that hour. Jesus was not afraid to die!

What was it, then, from which he shrank in anguish of spirit? It was his Father’s face turned away from him in the awful hour when “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21, ASV). Our Substitute took the torturous trail of a lost soul, walking out into the labyrinthine depths of outer darkness. He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). That means more than physical death. When Christ cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Mark 15:34), he was experiencing something far deeper. He was paying the penalty for sin—not his, but ours. The penalty for sin is separation from God. This was the price that Jesus must pay for our salvation. There was no alternative. The final words of Christ in the Garden were these: “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11). To secure man’s salvation the Son of God let the blow of divine justice fall on himself. He who could say, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29) had to endure the displeasure of the one he delighted to serve.

In those few but fateful hours on the cross Jesus tasted the unspeakable horror of eternal death. Spiritual darkness shrouded his soul. His cry of dereliction is the measure of his sacrifice. Olin A. Curtis has well expressed it thus: “And so, there alone, our Lord opens his mind, his heart, his personal consciousness, to the whole inflow of the horror of sin—the endless history of it, from the first choice of selfishness on, on to the eternity of hell; the boundless ocean and desolation he allows, wave upon wave, to overwhelm his soul” (The Christian Faith, 1905, p. 325). This terrific cost reveals God’s moral concern for sin. His holiness forbade him to treat it lightly. That he would forsake his Son shows the ethical intensity of the redemptive deed.

We have noted what Jesus’ death meant for him. What does it mean to us?

First, it means that a guilty sinner has access to a holy God. The writer of Hebrews speaks thus: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh …” (Heb. 10:19, 20). This Was symbolized by the fact that at Jesus’ death the inner veil, which closed off the Holy of Holies, was torn in two.

Secondly, it means the forgiveness of sins. At the Last Supper Jesus spoke these symbolic words: “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28). In the same vein Paul writes: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7). Both “remission” and “forgiveness” are translations of the same Greek word, aphesis. It comes from aphiemi, which is used for the canceling of debts, the remitting of a penalty, the pardon of the guilty. All these ideas are wrapped up in the thought of divine forgiveness. The essential thing in forgiveness is the separation of the sinner from his sin. This required Calvary. Only the Cross could meet the moral crisis.

Thirdly, it involves the crucifixion of self. Paul declared: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20, ASV). His crucifixion must become our crucifixion. What was potential and provisional at Calvary must become actual and experimental in our own lives.

The death of Christ seemed to be stark tragedy. But in it he triumphed over sin. The Cross, symbol of shame, has become the sign of victory. Ethelbert Stauffer states it thus: “The ignominious raising on the cross is really a majestic elevation to glory” (New Testament Theology, 1955, p. 130).

The Resurrection. “Biblical theology finds its clearest starting point and interpreting clue in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Thus Floyd Filson asserts the importance of this event (Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, 1956, p. 25). Alan Richardson makes a similarly emphatic statement: “Christianity is a religion of miracle, and the miracle of Christ’s resurrection is the living centre and object of Christian faith” (An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, 1958, p. 197). The doctrine of the Resurrection is not peripheral, but central. It is not secondary, but primary. Brunner asserts: “On the resurrection everything else depends” (Letter to the Romans, 1959, p. 131).

Without the Resurrection the Crucifixion would have been in vain. It was the Resurrection which validated the atoning death of Jesus and gave it value. Paul describes it strikingly this way: “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). The resurrection of Jesus proved that his sacrifice for sins had been accepted. The whole redemptive scheme would have fallen apart without it. For by his resurrection Jesus Christ became the first fruits of a new race, a new humanity.

It is no wonder, then, that the fact of the Resurrection has been vigorously attacked. A generation ago most liberal theologians scoffed at the idea of a literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus But the theological climate has changed a great deal in recent years. One need only note that the witness to the Resurrection is strong and incontrovertible.

Paul gives a brief summary, with some additions, in 1 Corinthians 15:4–8. In this same chapter he points out the importance of the resurrection of Jesus. He declares, “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (v. 14); “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (v. 17). Thus he affirms clearly that the Resurrection is essential to our salvation.

The Resurrection bulked larger in the earliest apostolic preaching than it does today. It was at times, at least, the central emphasis of the church’s kerygma. This is demonstrated abundantly in Acts. In the very first chapter we discover its primary importance. To take the place of Judas Iscariot, Peter proposed the selection of one who would “… be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1:22). It would appear that an essential, if not the essential, function of an apostle was to witness to the resurrection of Jesus.

In the first recorded sermon in Acts, that of Peter on the day of Pentecost, considerable space is given to the Resurrection (2:24–32). Peter also asserted it in his second sermon (3:15). The first persecution of the believers was due to their preaching of the Resurrection (4:2). When again arraigned, the apostles once more declared their faith in this doctrine (5:30). So on it goes.

In fact, one can say that the Resurrection holds a more prominent place in the New Testament as a whole than in modern preaching—even that of evangelicals. This obvious fact provoked Dr. Merrill Tenney to write his excellent little volume, Resurrection Realities. Alan Richardson asserts: “Every book in the New Testament declares or assumes that Christ rose from the dead” (A Theological Word Book of the Bible, 1950, p. 193). And Floyd Filson writes: “The entire New Testament was written in the light of the resurrection fact” (op. cit., p. 31).

One striking feature of early apostolic preaching is the emphasis not only on Christ rising from the dead but on the fact that God raised him. The Resurrection was a divine act. This is stated over and over again in Acts—“whom God hath raised up” (2:24); “That Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” (2:32; cf. 3:15; 4:10); “The God of our Fathers raised up Jesus” (5:30). Paul asserts the same thing. He says we should “believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:24; cf. 8:11). Because of this emphasis Arthur Ramsey writes: “Christian theism is Resurrection-theism” (The Resurrection of Christ, 1946, p. 8).

The Resurrection is the keystone of the Christian faith. Without it we have no salvation from sin and no hope of our own resurrection (1 Cor. 15:17, 18). It is one of the main proofs of the deity of Jesus. Paul says He was “declared to be the Son of God … by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). William J. S. Simpson rightly asserts: “All distinctively Christian belief in Jesus has been founded on a knowledge of His Resurrection” (A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, edited by James Hastings, Vol. II, p. 514).

The Ascension. Actual descriptions of the Ascension are very limited in number and scope. Only two specific passages can be cited, both written by Luke (Luke 24:50, 51; Acts 1:9–11). But, as Filson notes, “… eleven New Testament books, by at least seven different writers, refer clearly to this Exaltation. It obviously was a constant feature of early Christian preaching and teaching” (op. cit., p. 50).

It should be noted in this connection that the Resurrection and Ascension are very closely united in the apostolic kerygma (e. g., Acts 2:32–35; Eph. 1:20; 1 Pet. 3:21, 22). Together they constitute the exaltation of the crucified Christ.

Because of the paucity of description of the Ascension, some have questioned its historicity. Even such a moderate scholar as Alan Richardson can say: “The ascension need not be thought of as an historical event” (op. cit., p. 199).

Of course Bultmann calls for a de-mythologizing of much of the Gospel narrative, including the Resurrection. For him it is simply a doctrine rising out of subjective experience. It is not a historical event. But Barth warns: “We must not transmute the Resurrection into a spiritual event” (Dogmatics in Outline, 1949, p. 123).

To us it seems inconsistent to insist, as some others do, on the historical reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and yet deny the historicity of the Ascension, simply because one does not accept the three-story concept of the universe held long ago. The cosmic import of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ is not affected by differing cosmologies.

The significance of the Ascension is clear. It means that Jesus Christ was exalted to the right hand of the Father, there to receive his proper place as Sovereign Lord (Acts 2:33–36; 5:31; Eph. 1:19–23).

But it also suggests that he carried his humanity with him back to heaven. This idea is emphasized in Hebrews, where it is stated that since he shared our human experiences he is able to be a merciful and faithful High Priest (Heb 2:14–18; 4:14–16). To know that we have an Elder Brother in heaven is a great comfort.

Our Identification with Christ. The Death, Resurrection, Ascension—these were epochal events in human history. But have they become epoch-making experiences in our individual lives? Do we know Christ in the forgiveness of our sins, in identification with him on the Cross, in the crucifixion of self? Do we know him in the power of his resurrection? Have we accepted him as Sovereign Lord of our lives?

Bibliography: J. Denney, The Death of Christ (the classic in the field); F. W. Dillistone, The Significance of the Cross; W. Milligan, The Resurrection of Our Lord; Richard R. Niebuhr, Resurrection and Historical Reason; J. S. Simpson, The Resurrection and Modern Thought; B. F. Westcott, The Gospel of the Resurrection.

Professor of New Testament

Nazarene Theological Seminary

Kansas City, Mo.

Never have Christians needed more than now to keep a sane perspective. That the unregenerate are incapable of such perspective makes it all the more imperative that we who know Christ exhibit for the world a serenity which has its wellsprings in eternal truth, unrelated to conditions in the world.

To speak of world chaos and uncertainty is to speak of something so obvious that it has long since become trite.

That whic his disturbing is the overwhelming pessimism to be found among so many Christians. That this stems from a misplaced confidence in men and nations makes it all the more serious for, of all people, a Christian’s confidence should be centered in God who is sovereign and for whose purposes all history is inexorably being worked out.

We all are familiar with the story of Martin Luther, and of the period of dark brooding through which he went, and of the penetrating question asked him by his wife: “Is God dead?” By our attitude today the same question could well be asked some of us.

To counteract the wave of depression which has settled on the hearts and minds of so many Christians there needs to come a new understanding of the sovereignty of God and the eternal verities of his Word.

That present world conditions are a part of the prophetic picture is very evident to many who are thereby strengthened in faith and moved to look up to the One who said: “Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

Our hope is firmly fixed in God who is sovereign, in God who has never abdicated from his own central place in the affairs of men and nations.

We have every reason to be pessimistic so far as the acts of unregenerate men and nations are concerned. The Bible is explicit in its teaching that all stand under the judgment of God, for he holds them responsible whether they acknowledge him or not. The supreme folly of the ages is to be found in those who take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed.

There are no more solemn words in all of Holy Scripture than those which speak of the laugh of holy derision which comes from God as he views the scene. “He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord has them in derision,” and this is followed by the awesome statement, “Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury.”

Is this incompatible with a loving God? No. It is not only compatible but a necessary attribute of the One who is holy and just.

Why then do we go about our daily tasks with a load in our hearts and a cloud hovering over our minds? Have we not succumbed to the philosophy of the world which looks at the immediate rather than at the eternal? Are we not evaluating men and events in terms of this world rather than in the light of the One who is the God of history?

As we look at communism, atheistic in concept and in practice, we are prone to stand in awesome fear, and rightly so, for communism is a deadly ideology that enslaves the bodies and minds of men. At the same time we need to look beyond all the communism implies to the God with whom communism will eventually have to do.

Furthermore, if we appropriate to ourselves the statement of the Apostle Paul: “If God be for us, who can be against us,” then our problem is that we be found in the place of his approval and leave all else in his hands.

History shows us that nations rise and fall primarily because of what they do about God. Civilizations have come and gone, not because of outward attrition but because of internal disintegration, and spiritual and moral values have been neglected because men knew not God nor the saving power of his Son.

Today we see the dangers of a militant, aggressive, and ever-active godless ideology which we know as communism, but what we as individuals and as a nation have to fear far more is neglecting so great a salvation offered in Jesus Christ.

In other words, let pessimism be based in our failure as individuals and as a nation to live up to the privileges and opportunities which are ours.

On the other hand we Christians should exhibit for all the world an optimism which centers in Christ himself and in the knowledge that God never fails his own.

Only the Christian has the right to be optimistic. Only a Christian has just cause for light-hearted laughter. We know to whom we belong, and we have his presence now, and the certainty of living with him in the future.

Such confidence can bear its own mute witness to those who do not themselves possess it. This witness should not be an attitude of smug complacency. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,” are words that should be an impelling motive for Christian work and witness.

In fact, how can we keep silent when we know the One who not only knows the future but who also keeps the future in his hands? It is something too good to keep to ourselves. It is the “Good News” which is the Gospel itself.

Christianity demands of its followers that they maintain a clear perspective as to the sovereignty of God. That we often accord him absentee status, or make him small to fit our own puny minds makes of us timid, fearful, and despondent Christians.

One of the great lessons of the Old Testament is the picture of a holy God, deeply concerned about individuals and about nations. Through Isaiah he affirmed: “And I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless.”

That judgment has not yet fallen does not mean that God’s word has failed. Rather it is the evidence of his mercy. John tells us of God’s forbearing: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

World conditions should make us tremble because of the impending and inevitable judgment of God. We who are Christians should heed the words of the Apostle Paul: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Or, of the writer to the Hebrew Christians: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and, “For our God is a consuming fire.”

Nevertheless, for the Christian there is no such fear. We can come into His presence with holy boldness because we come in the name of his Son. And we serve him with love for those around us. If the Christian fails to bear testimony to the sovereignty of God, along with his yearning love for the redemption of mankind, who is there to witness?

Ongoing Ashram

Dear Eutychus,

India at last! Here you understand what a population explosion means. Many of the roads are splendid, but such traffic! If you dislike passing trucks, wait till you try passing an ox-cart whose driver knows no vehicle code. It gives one a new experience of involvement.

Our little caravan is making famous progress, however. The jeep has held up well while hauling our Cosmic trailer, and our battered Olds is mobile again after a long delay when the universal broke down. The three of us from Oikos house entertain guests almost constantly; we are conducting our own rambling ashram.

It has been a voyage of liberation. What horizons open when one gets beyond Bultmann! I am so indebted to Frank Sanatana who joined our party a week ago. He studied in California under a most stimulating professor of religion, and can gain immediate rapport with Hindus.

You know, I had actually wished to be a delegate to the New Delhi conference, especially to be a mouthpiece for the younger men in our church, but now I’m grateful that the ecclesiastical cabal chose the familiar pillars instead. My change of attitude began when I tried to explain to some Hindus the ecumenical symbol I had painted on the side of our trailer. They didn’t know Greek, and I had difficulty interpreting the term oikoumene. They didn’t recognize the boat in the symbol, either. When I told them the story of the ark, they first thought I meant it literally. Then they wanted to know what the flood meant as a symbol. It seemed to them that the saving of eight souls was not very ecumenical.

Sanatana finally came to my rescue. He reminded them of the Hindu myth of Manu who survived the flood in a boat tied to a divine fish. Such myths all express the human dream of salvation, he said. In the mythical depths all religions are one. Any god becomes an idol if he requires a loyalty oath. All creeds are relative understandings of myth; true religion understands that no religion is true.

The Hindus were most enthusiastic. They had never met a Christian who had gone so far beyond the historical Jesus. We painted over the symbol on our trailer, except for the wavy lines. They provide a perfect symbol for that open, fluid, cosmythology which must engulf the partial perspective of every parochial ecumenism. At last I feel open to outer space.

ALBERT IVY

P.S. The universal went out again. Three “mechanics” have tampered with it, but no one in this village knows anything about automotive design.

A. Iv.

Amplification Assured

It would be hoped that the splendid article “Tax Churches on Business Profits?” (Oct. 13 issue) will be made available to every member of the United States Congress, and that ministers receiving your magazine might share their copies of this article with members of the various state legislators.

FREDERICK F. JENKINS

The Presbyterian Church

Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.

• The essay is condensed and reprinted with credit to CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the November issue of Reader’s Digest.—ED.

Thank you for publishing the article …; the issue seems seldom to be discussed. For churchmen to seek ways of helping their church institutions circumvent tax laws in ways which would be illegal if not done by such institutions seems morally doubtful at best.…

Let’s get about the Master’s business, and not make it our business to seek first the treasure of special discounts and tax rebates.

JAY V. GROVES

Chairman, Dept. of Economics

West Virginia Wesleyan College

Buchannon, W. Va.

Divisions On Devotions

In his article on the Christian devotional life (Sept. 25 issue), taking “neo-orthodoxy” to task for failing to produce “a positive attitude in the devotional realm,” John W. Montgomery seriously mistakes a passage in my Basic Christian Ethics.

That was a book on ethics, after all; and in it, of course, I stressed the way in which Christians are theodidacti “taught of God” in moral matters. The passage itself, incidentally does not fail to emphasize faith, humility, obedience, and all other possible or actual relations we have to God, and not only our relations to man or morality. And, of course, I hold that we are theodidacti “taught of God”—to pray.… He who runs while he reads should have known that my statement that “the Christian church is not a community of prayer but a community of memory” simply asserts that the church is not a community of prayer rooted in nothing but the natural religious aspirations of the human soul.

Montgomery also cites Karl Barth on The Humanity of God, and makes no mention of his writings on prayer, or of what he says at great length on the love and praise of God in Church Dogmatics. The devotional life is a common and central concern of all Christians, of whatever theological persuasion.

R. PAUL RAMSBY

Dept. of Christian Ethics

Princeton University

Princeton, N. J.

Any uncommitted reader of Ramsey’s Basic Christian Ethics, which is deeply in debt to the Lundensian school of Motif-forschung, will see that it points up the central devotional weakness of such agape-motif thinking, namely, that when Christian love is defined as Nygren defines it, it can be exercised properly only by God (toward man), and by man (toward other men, not toward God, who obviously lacks nothing and is the source of all good). Thus the biblical emphasis on loving God goes by the board, and we become uncomfortable if the God-relation is thought of in any terms other than faith or trust, and the church becomes a group of theodidacti rather than “lovers of God.” Heaven knows, I see the danger of concentrating on man’s love toward God (this can swiftly turn into anthropocentric religion and the Gospel thereby be terribly obscured), but we don’t solve the problem à la Ramsey by agapizing God and running away from the clear scriptural injunction to establish a love and prayer-love relation with him.

As for my use of Barth’s The Humanityof God, and no mention of his other works: I thought that this was being the most fair to Barth, since The Humanity of God is his recently-published corrective to the hyper-transcendence emphasis in his earlier writings. No one denies that Barth is personally a deeply devotional man; the issue is whether the essential thrust of his theology really contributes to or detracts from the biblical conception of devotion.

I think it detracts, and the paucity of really great neo-orthodox devotional works, hymns, etc., is pretty good reason to question the devotional value of neo-orthodoxy. Basically, the neo-orthodox thinks of himself as a theodidactus and grinds out vast and prolix works of systematic theology and ethics—and devotional concerns are really not very germane to his basic interests.

JOHN W. MONTGOMERY

Waterloo University College

Waterloo, Ontario

The kind of devotional life urged by Dr. John Montgomery … seems to me to be unrealistic and self-centered. Too much devotional life has centered on one’s personal relation to God without a similar emphasis on practicing one’s faith in love towards the world.…

The real devoted “saints” are not those who bury themselves in their morbidness, but who go out into the world as He who said, “I have come not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

JOHN E. ELIASON

Greensboro, N. C.

The list of 100 select devotional books seems to me to be particularly outstanding.

DONALD T. KAUFFMAN

Managing Ed.

Fleming H. Revell Co.

Westwood, N. J.

In making your selections, were the writings of Dr. F. J. Huegel considered? His Wondrous Cross and Prayer’s Deeper Secrets are among my favorites.

CATHERINE E. BOUTERSE

Richmond, Va.

The Newsstand Criterion

David Kucharsky’s article, “Relevancy in Religious Journalism,” and its appended bibliography (Sept. 25 issue), I read with interest and appreciation. I am moved to comment on the third paragraph which said in part “that not a single religious periodical has enough popular appeal to be available on the average U.S. newsstand.”

Two disparate examples of religious journalism do appear on newsstands in southern New England, The Catholic Digest as a magazine and The Christian Science Monitor as a newspaper. Regionalism may contribute to this. Roman Catholicism is numerically strong in urban southern New England from Boston to the New York state line. The Mother Church of Christian Science is in Boston, where the Monitor is published. But is this the only explanation?

The Catholic Digest, similar in format to The Reader’s Digest, is sometimes quoted in the secular press. May it not be conceded that the material quoted has some merit in editorial opinion? And may it not be conceded that The Christian Science Monitor has won a distinguished reputation by its editorial policy, ethical standards, and journalistic competence?…

I am really concurring with Kucharsky. When religious journalism produces something which the secular world is willing to call good, it commands attention.

STANDISH MCINTOSH

Trinity Episcopal Church

Lime Rock, Conn.

I am most pleased to see this attention of an important magazine like CHRISTIANITY TODAY to the field of religious journalism and appreciate what has been done. I called the attention of my religious writing class to the material.…

In general I agree with the points you made, especially about the inferior character of the Protestant press, and I hope you will stick to your views on this.… We have a religious journalism program here … and in our small way are making a little impact.

ROLAND E. WOLSELEY

Chairman, Magazine Dept.

School of Journalism

Syracuse University

Syracuse, N. Y.

Deluge And Debate

If you have read our hook, The Genesis Flood (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961), you know that we have attempted a serious, carefully-documented investigation of the Deluge from the standpoint of the biblical record and its scientific implications. You must also realize that the review of this book by Donald C. Boardman of Wheaton College (Sept. 11 issue) presents a highly biased and misleading picture of the book’s content and significance.

While endorsing the right of a reviewer to write critically about a book he is reviewing, we maintain that it also should be his responsibility to convey a true picture of its character. This is especially true on an issue so important and so controversial as that of the relationship of the current scientific theories of uniformitarianism and evolution to the biblical doctrine of origins.

Except for the first paragraph, Boardman’s lengthy review could just as well have been written by one who had never heard of Genesis. He ignores the demonstration of the first four chapters that the Bible teaches a geographically universal and geologically significant Flood. One can only conclude that for him the biblical evidence is irrelevant. Furthermore, he ignores the documented evidence of the inadequacies and contradictions of evolutionary uniformitarianism, as presented in the last three chapters. And finally, he ignores the significance of the Edenic Curse for paleontology, as discussed in Appendix I.

He accuses us of quoting from men who disagree with our viewpoint, while using their quotations to support it. However, we made it quite clear that this was the actual situation; in fact, it is a universally-accepted principle of effective argumentation that the strongest support for a position, if valid, can be obtained from the perhaps unintended admissions of its opponents. We made a careful attempt not to quote out of context, and have given full documentation in every case for anyone to check if he wishes.…

The bulk of Boardman s criticism is directed at two very minor points, treated very briefly in the last chapter. Even if his objections to these points were valid (which we do not admit), they would not invalidate the weight of the evidence accumulated otherwise. This technique of ignoring the main line of argument, while searching for minor flaws, has become standard with evolutionary and uniformist writers. This fact led us to plead at several points in the book (e.g., p. xxi, note 3) against just this possible reaction on the part of the reader.

Finally, Boardman quotes seriously out of context the writer of our foreword. Therefore, we append the following excerpt from the foreword, taken from the portion immediately following that quoted by Boardman: “Nevertheless the authors have made a strong case and this volume offers a serious challenge to the uniformitarian position. They have in no way distorted this position, but have opposed it in a courteous, fair and scholarly manner. I would suggest that the skeptical reader, in like fashion, before he dismisses the biblical-literal view point of this book as unworthy of notice, should at least give it a careful reading and evaluation. He will find that the essential differences between biblical catastrophism and evolutionary uniformitarianism are not over the factual data of geology but over the interpretations of those data. The interpretation preferred will depend largely upon the background and presuppositions of the individual student.”

JOHN C. WHITCOMB, JR.

Professor of Old Testament

Grace Theological Seminary

Winona Lake, Ind.

HENRY M. MORRIS

Professor of Civil Engineering

Virginia Polytechnic Institute

Blacksburg, Va.

Holding Firm At Verdun

My appreciation for the article “The Holy Bible: ‘Verdun’ of Triumphant Christianity” (Aug. 28 issue).… As disturbing as it is to have men like Oxnam and Pike denying the very fundamentals of the Faith, … one could earnestly wish that their beliefs were confined to their two denominations.

Dr. Smith is indubitably correct in that a “return to, a full confidence in, and a loving obedience to the Holy Scriptures” is our only hope. This is not bibliolatry; … it is the logical confidence that all belief must be rooted in God’s infallible Word.… The Saving Jesus is known to us first only through the Bible. May God help us hold true to that which has pointed us to him.

GENE L. JEFFRIES

Harmony Heights Baptist Church

Joplin, Mo.

“Modern science … is today, for the most part, totally indifferent to the Christian faith.” This statement is certainly based on a lack of contact with many great scientists.… It has been my good fortune to have done graduate work in four great universities of this country and one foreign country, and I surely would say that I have discovered some great Christian souls among my teachers and other great scientists …

ROBERT E. MOHLER

McPherson, Kan.

Commentary On Pulpit

Dr. Carl Henry’s brief credo (Sept. 11 issue) leaves me with an uneasy feeling.… Surely many modem theatre productions and paperback editions speak more to the needs of men and women today than do many pulpits across the land. A life “attuned to glory” must be a life willingly submerged in the culture of our day seeking points of contact between Christian faith and daily living.

GEORGE BONNELL

Union Church of Bay Ridge

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Beautify And/Or Beatify

In reference to the article on the … beautification of women (Sept. 11 issue) … it seems nonconformity to the present day prevalence of provocative mode of dress and camouflage of bodily appearance makes a woman an oddity in the eyes of the world.…

Proverbs 31:30 tells us, “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

MRS. L. RAYMOND JONES

Swayzee, Ind.

Return To Geneva

Your article “Has Evangelism Become ‘Offbeat’?” (Sept. 11 issue) is typical of a lot of shallow thinking among evangelical Presbyterians (I’m one!) on this subject.… If a Reformed writer wants to grapple with this problem, he must first grapple with the doctrine of infant baptism, then speak historically of evangelists in the Reformed tradition.

Why not begin with William Farel, the apostle of Geneva? J. T. McNeill’s description of him as the “red-bearded hot gospeller” should whet our appetites.

R. N. CASWELL

Newtonabbey, Northern Ireland

I do not believe that Mr. Manning’s questionnaire presents the whole picture of Presbyterian evangelism.… In regard to the city scene, the … church is seriously rethinking its evangelism.…

The book: God’s Colony in Man’s World, written by a Presbyterian minister, George Webber, … is far from being “offbeat”!

RALPH G. PFIESTER

McCormick Theological Seminary

Chicago, Ill.

Challenging Limitations

I regret that your editorial on Professor Koch’s advocacy of premarital sexual intercourse, “No Academic License to Pervert Moral Standards” (July 31 issue), muddies the waters of discussion.… Your simplicity overlooks two basic and important considerations. In the first place, Koch’s own plea contains self-imposed limitations …; he suggests sexual intercourse only if it is engaged in by mature persons, only if it has no social consequence, and only if it violates neither of the parties’ moral code. This reduces the possible participants to a handful, if that many! Obviously Koch’s recommendation can and will be exploited irresponsibly and immature sexual intercourse accompanied by social consequences and guilt feelings will continue to be practiced. But on the basis of his initial letter to The Daily Illini, Koch should not be called upon to bear the blame for the sexual behavior of students who conveniently choose to overlook the built-in and very significant qualifications of his position. For speeches and articles since his dismissal, however, Koch must perhaps bear more blame, inasmuch as he himself seems to have often overlooked those initial reservations. But the university cannot build its case on the post-dismissal Koch.

The second consideration which your simplicity ignores has to do with the current public and responsible discussion about such topics as legalizing euthanasia, private homosexuality, etc.…

DURRETT WAGNER

Kendall College

Evanston, Ill.

Escape To Hell?

Greetings from an unabashedly “natural man” at whom Dr. Van Til sneers theologically in his article on original sin (Sept. 11 issue).… It is an attack on those who … do not agree with him.

If, as Dr. Van Til implies, God has loaded the dice of our existence against us before we are born, … then this position posits a god whom I frankly cannot worship or love.

Under such circumstances (to be blunt) one can only hope that there is a hell, after all, in which one may find salvation from such a god.

JESSE J. ROBERSON

Brooks Memorial Methodist Church

Phoenix, Ariz.

A Relative At Court

May I express a bit of disappointment over the recent exposition of the book of Esther (Aug. 28 issue)? Professor Verhoef did not emphasize the book’s illustrative value. I could not quite call it typical but simply illustrative—and illustrative value is not to be overlooked.

Esther is God’s kindergarten course on imputation which gives the mental furniture we need to comprehend the principles of representation. It shows the value of having a relative at court who is qualified to be a mediator.

WINN T. BARR

First Baptist Church

London, Ky.

The Preacher:

Born in Chicago just before the turn of the century, the Rev. Manfred E. Reinke has had long years in the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). He had to decline a scholarship to Columbia University due to the early death of his father, and went on to Concordia to graduate before the institution conferred degrees. He has ministered in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and La Porte, Indiana, where for 30 years he has served St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. He has added more than 1,000 converts.

The Text:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

What extensive preparations were made last year in the United States and Canada when word came from England that Queen Elizabeth, the ruler of the British Empire, would visit the North American continent. Human ingenuity left nothing undone to give her a royal welcome. Police were detailed to guard her safety; officials greeted her with pomp and parade; guns roared in a salute of her majesty; huge sums of money were spent on extravagant entertainment; and all along the streets, bedecked with banners and bunting, thousand thousands stood or sat on camp chairs in order to catch a glimpse of the Queen. Every word she spoke, every dress she wore, every step she took, every place she visited was carefully noted and minutely reported. Newspapers and magazines, radio and television, publicized every detail of her activities. Millions of people in our country, though far removed from the glitter and glamor of the sphere in which she moved, forgot everything else in their interest to hear or see or read the daily news of her social life. Such honor and homage were accorded the Queen of England!

“Behold, thy King cometh!” Advent nears, and this holy season tells us that a greater than Queen Elizabeth is coming! The epistles and the gospels, appointed from of old for the period before Christmas, are like trumpet calls. Again and again we hear the note;

Christ is coming!

He is coming soon!

Luke 21:25–28

The First Advent

And what kind of reception will He receive when in three weeks the Christian church will once again commemorate His first advent? When He was born in Bethlehem, the world greeted Him in sullen silence. Only a few shepherds and some eastern sages kneeled in adoration before His manger bed. The tragedy of that first Christmas is repeated over and over again in our age. With few exceptions, Christ’s Nativity—now as then—is ignored! Santa Claus has usurped the throne of Christ, our Saviour-King! The holy day, when angels sing again as once they sang in the fields of Bethlehem, has been turned by the world into a holiday of fun and frolic.

Be it not so with you. When the Advent trumpet sounds the glad note,

The Saviour comes,

The Saviour promised long—

May ev’ry heart prepare a throne

And ev’ry voice a song.

Decorate your homes with pine and spruce and holly, but oh! do not leave your hearts unadorned! Remember your family and friends with gifts, but do not forget to come to worship to thank God for His supernal gift! Show kindnesses and be rich in charity towards the less fortunate, but, above all, let the bright flashes of angel light that once came from the open heavens fill your soul, and let the joyous message of the angelic annunciation, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord,” direct your hearts toward Bethlehem, so that in the hustle and bustle of Christmas you will find time and thought for the manger-cradled Son of God:

for the mercy of His birth;

for the compassion of His life;

for the atonement of His death;

for the hope of heaven through His resurrection;

for the comfort and the consolation of His second Advent.

So to prepare your hearts will enable you, amid all the distractions and diversions of this season, to celebrate Christmas aright, and I can promise you that you will find your highest joy of that holy day in the birth of Christ

Who came with peace from realms on high;

And lowly came on earth to die.

The Second Advent

“Behold, thy King cometh!” The herald angels also trumpet another Advent of Christ when, in power and great glory, He shall come again to give an everlasting redemption to His people, to take them from the vale of tears, and to mete out to all their enemies and His the due reward of their deeds. Our world will not go on endlessly, like an ever-rolling stream. Not forever shall this earth continue under the dominion of sin, with men living their fleeting lives, momentarily happy, but often sorrowful, and always doomed to death. In majesty triumphant and in company of His holy angels, Jesus will return to this scene of turmoil and trouble to judge the quick and the dead. That you and I might meet and welcome Him aright when the arch-angelic trumpet sounds His second Advent, I should like to speak to you on the theme:

Christ is coming;

He is coming soon.

America was stunned when Russia triumphantly announced the successful launching of the satellite moon. And justly so! It was more than a stunt without military implications. Our President put his finger on the real crux of the achievement when he said, “The Soviets have in their possession a very powerful thrust in their rocketry that concerns us more than the orbiting of the satellite.”

Our government was not slack in its duty! The Civil Defense Office soon issued pamphlets with instructions what should be done in case of an atomic attack. Many bomb shelters were built; air raid centers were designed; and, from one end of the country to the other, evacuation routes were laid out. How often, in recent years, have we not seen signs telling us that, in case of war, this or that highway would be closed. After the collapse of the summit meeting, thousands eagerly scanned the horizon for some gleam of hope that might allay their fears of war. People are afraid-afraid of tomorrow. On every hand we see fear on the faces and in the hearts of men as to what the next day will bring forth, for the entire world is in the grip of uncertainty and anxiety. Never, I believe, were the words of the prophet Jeremiah truer than now: “Fear is on every side.”

We can understand this terror! Again and again scientists have warned us that if there should be a third World War “there will be no more history to write.” We are told that an explosion of nuclear bombs, set off in different parts of the world, could begin a chain reaction of radiation that would lead to man’s extinction. It is never without a shudder that we read of the terrible destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where steel girders melted like wax. Peter predicted that, when the day of the Lord should come, “the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” Some theologians have voiced the opinion that an atomic war “could bring about the end of the world!”

God forbid that any should be idiotic enough to deny the possibility of an atomic attack or think America invulnerable, or, at least, mighty enough to discourage any foreign power from launching an aggression! It could happen! However, I do not believe that men will bring about the end of the world. The Bible tells us that it is God who will one day wind up earth’s bankrupt affairs. A day is coming when the heavens shall roll up like a scroll and the earth and all the elements shall melt with the fervent heat of the fires of judgment day. The world’s time, like our time, is in the hands of God. Yet, incredibly enough, the very men who fear the end of civilization by an explosion of nuclear bombs sneer at the prophetic references of the Bible which speak of the final day of doom when this world shall come to an end.

If men admit the menace of nuclear bombs, reason must surely admit that the last judgment poses no difficulty with God!

I grant that the imagination finds it hard to picture to itself this tremendous collapse. For thousands of years the world has pursued its accustomed course, and we find it hard to conceive this altogether unparalleled catastrophe when “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” But let us not forget the lessons of history. They tell us that GOD has always made good all His threats as well as His promises.

Can God be trusted? Has He ever spoken, and failed to fulfill His Word? There has never been a godless people in the history of the human race that was not eventually destroyed.

Where is Babylon with her hanging gardens?

Where are Sodom and Gomorrah with their unspeakable immoralities?

Where are Tyre and Sidon with their sins?

Today they are no more than heaps of dust. The wild jackals make their dens where their magnificence once gleamed in the sunlight.

Where is the greatness of ancient Athens?

Why is it that Rome had the scepter snatched from her palsied hands?

Why did Spain, and France, and Germany, in the course of years, lose both their prestige and their power?

There is but one answer. The Bible tells us that “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” When their cup of iniquity was full to overflowing, His holy wrath fell on them to their destruction. And the “fullness of time,” of which the Scriptures speak, is applicable also to the Judgment. When the time of this world is full, when all the necessary probations are over, and all the measures of iniquity have overflowed, then the heavens shall open, and we shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory.

Signs Of The End

We can only watch and wait for the day of the Lord. But if the veil were removed from our eyes, I am sure that we would all take alarm at the many signs which shall precede the utter end and usher in the day of judgment. No matter where we look, we may see in all parts of the world unmistakable evidences of the great consummation which will culminate in the momentous issues of our everlasting destiny. The indications of the near approach of the final judgment should lead us to stand with our backs to the world, but with our faces turned towards the East, “looking for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which will be as blessed for God’s children as it will be terrifying to all who reject the Saviour.

Christ Himself foretold some of the signs that would unmistakably mark the beginning of the end. He pointed to the darkening of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars, and the shaking of the heavens, which should precede the appearing of the Son of Man. All these predicted signs, which have already appeared, oblige us to believe that He will come soon to judge us.

Because we know so little of the heavens, which declare the glory of God, we may not be too impressed by what takes place in the starry heights. But we can surely recognize the signs of the times in the wild commotions and calamities which have engulfed the nations of the earth. There is now as never before in the world “distress of nations with perplexity.” I need hardly tell you that we are living in very mysterious and critical times. Day by day the world is verging towards a great and trying crisis. Where can we find “peace on earth, good will toward men”? Everywhere there are social, or political, or religious disturbances that interrupt our former prosaic life. In Cuba, in the Congo, in Russia, in China, in South America, in Europe, and in our own country, people are living in a state of unrest, of apprehension, of suspense, of fear, of ferment, and of portentous trembling. It would carry us too far afield were we to consider “the distress of nations with perplexity” in other parts of the world, and so we shall confine our attention to the turmoil of our own country.

Crime of all sorts has increased by leaps and bounds, and the certainty and severity of its punishments have been diminished. The progress and the prevalence of the grossest forms of wickedness are facts truly frightful to observe. The reports of J. Edgar Hoover are awful enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Unsolved murders, colossal robberies, swindles, defalcations, embezzlements, election frauds, are common occurrences. Our nation is sin-ridden. Think of the narcotic addicts, the prostitutes, the juvenile delinquents, the racketeers, and the unscrupulous union leaders that rob our country of her moral strength. One trembles as he listens to the news commentators or takes up the morning newspaper. It verily seems to us that the days of Noah, “when the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence,” had returned to us. Divorces, dishonesties, drunkenness, rapes, frauds, kick-back practices, and every form of immorality make up the headlines of the day. How fearfully have the words of the prophet been fulfilled: “The child shall believe himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.” Our cities and our communities are sometimes manned by men who work in collusion with notorious gangsters. These verily are the days of which Paul prophesied when he said, “Men shall be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, without natural affection, incontinent, fierce, traitors, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” We need no prophet to tell us that disaster is ahead, and that we are surrounded with perils, the end of which no human foresight can penetrate. We may be sure, however, that the words of David, “The Lord is known by the judgment which He executeth,” will be fulfilled. God will have the last word: the word of justice and of judgment.

Comment On The Sermon

The sermon “Christ Is Coining!… Soon!” was nominated forCHRISTIANITY TODAY’SSelect Sermon Series by Professor Alex Wm. G. Guebert, Professor of Homiletics Concordia Seminary (Lutheran-Missouri Synod). His overcomment follows:

“Christ is coming” is the Advent theme for the four Sundays preceeding Christmas. It became customary in the Church to preach on this theme from these four angles: Christ’s coming in the flesh; Christ’s coming in the spirit; Christ’s coming into each believer’s heart; Christs final coming in judgment. To deepen the understanding of the people for a proper celebration of Christmas the church lets the note of repentance and an invitation to prayer pervade the whole Advent season.

Pastor Manfred Reinke’s sermon was preached on the Second Sunday in Advent. His emphasis is on Christ’s coming for the final judgment. He is eager to lead his congregation of 2,400 fellow Christians to realize that preparation for a Christmas celebration is a failure, if it does not open eyes to see the ultimate reason for Christ’s coming. Christ came to save people from sin, sin that is as tragic and destructive today as it always has been. Modern culture has crowded God out of human life. It has made moral laxity commonplace and sin quite respectable. The love of ease, the fear of standing alone, the subtleness of pride, the viciousness of selfishness tucked away under much of our social life are evidence enough of sin that few people are willing to recognize.

Pastor Reinke uses Christ’s words in Luke 21 to point to numerous events in life that are clear clarion calls to repentance and a powerful appeal to step to the crib at Bethlehem and accept Christ as Saviour.

His vivid, colorful words, his significant illustrative material, his use of familiar contemporary facts, all hold the hearer’s attention and help pave the way for the Holy Spirit to persuade him to reach out to Christ now and hold on to Him for a safe journey out of the present to the throne of grace.

A. W. G. G.

And what is the significance of the terrible calamities and casualities that have left their mark upon this year? With hardly an exception, a whole plane load of football players from the West Coast met with sudden death in a neighboring state. Earthquakes and tidal waves, fearful explosions and conflagrations, destructive floods and disasters from swollen streams, the many, many sudden deaths and losses of life in highway or airway accidents are almost daily brought to our attention. Do all these things signify nothing because they may not have touched our lives?

And what shall we say when we look at the religious state of the world? What a sad eclipse has come over the Christian faith, and what laxity and uncertainty have taken possession of the minds of men. Thank God, there are still many who believe, and believe the truth, and earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to saints. Never before has the Gospel been so widespread. True Christians are spending millions to “preach the Gospel of the Kingdom in all the world for a witness unto all nations.” Nevertheless, with only too many their religion is but a sham, and not infrequently we find worldliness, unbelief, dishonesty, deceit, gambling, and gross violations of Christian faith and practice in the lives of those professing Christians.

No one knows how soon the warnings of Christ will become a most solemn reality. As the days pass, however, the Judgment is coming nearer and nearer. Most earnestly, I say to you in the words of our Lord, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” You must abandon sin, or God will one day abandon you. Do not count on tomorrow as a more convenient season. When His trumpet call once sounds, it will be too late to seek salvation. In the twinkling of an eye, the whole question of our eternal destiny will be forever settled Well may we thank God, if we have not yet made our calling and election sure, that He who will judge us then offers to save us now. He has laid out for us an “Evacuation Route” by which we may escape all those things which shall come to pass. Knowing as we do, that the end of this world is not only possible, nor only probable, but close at hand, let us seek at once a refuge from the wrath to come. There is still time to take such fast hold upon His cross as to look forward without fear to standing before His throne. But, behold! Now is the accepted time. Now say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

That thou doest, do quickly!

Urgency presses on our heels.

There is so little time.

Christ is coming.

He is coming soon. Amen.

Soli Gloria Deo

Old Bach,

asking divine aid,

writing in praise of God

on brown sheets of wrapping paper,

what have you to say to a world

which is laid out and curled up

in complicated blueprints?

Beethoven bartering with his publishers,

living in himself, his deaf universe

with its romantic curse,

appeals more to our generation

than dedication

to something concrete like the love of Christ.

Old Bach,

what secret of technique

keeps your strange joy alive today

each time men play your music?

Can it be that we get more

giving our soul to God

than selling it to the world?

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

When the clack of the gavel begins to echo through New Delhi’s spacious Vigynan Bhavan Hall next week, it will resound presumably for the one-third of the world’s population which goes by the name Christian.

Assembled in the modern capital of India will be nearly 1,000 church men and women from throughout the world—devout, sincere individuals who are deeply concerned about fragmentation of the Christian witness. Their very presence at the third and most important assembly of the World Council of Churches will indicate hope that some kind of new posture can be attained, particularly for Protestantism, if not for non-Roman Christianity as a whole. Could New Delhi signal a much-needed ideological breakthrough, and a transcendence of existing diversities? Many Christians feel that such a breakthrough can come through a recovery of the Church’s authority and mission. Others hold that a demand for organizational unity exists as a near-term requirement, although pressing questions of doctrine and order remain for future debate.

In the New Delhi assembly hall, originally built by the government of India to house a UNESCO conference, the move for unity will manifest itself most acutely in the apparently-presumed integration of the International Missionary Council into the WCC. The proposal, already endorsed by the WCC’s Central Committee and a majority of the IMC’s constituent national councils, will see the IMC organization emerge within the WCC framework as the Commission and Division of World Mission and Evangelism.

“The assembly,” according to a WCC press release, “provides the major forum for Christian leaders to discuss Christian unity.…”

Spokesmen for the ecumenical movement are already heralding the New Delhi assembly as a major step in the reunification of Christendom. Far in advance of the November 18-December 6 meeting, U. S. ecumenical leaders list among the “assured results” of the ecclesiastical conclave the virtual reunification of the missionary task force with the organized Christian (non-Roman) community.

Critics of the movement deplore this representation as highly exaggerated. They readily concede that New Delhi will emerge as an important episode in the ecumenical dream of restoring Christian unity through the progressive merger of existing denominations along theological and ecclesiastically inclusive lines.

Yet the setting and scope of assembly debate troubles many. Will there be a free and representative exchange of views on fundamental issues, they ask, or does the very process of organizational delegation militate against it or confine the pro-and-con to a limited sphere? In the organizational propaganda and ecclesiastical power gathering in New Delhi many critics are prone to see human planning and ecumenical contrivance at work, more than the Spirit of God breathing obviously new life and unity into the Body of Christ.

Does New Delhi symbolize an ecclesiastical injection of new strategy into the sprawling ecumenical movement? Or does it neglect a divine work of the Holy Spirit in the world-wide Body of believers over whom the crucified and risen Christ reigns as Head?

The answer to this question is of paramount importance, and American delegates to New Delhi bear an important role in shaping that answer. Since the formation of the Federal Council of Churches, predecessor of the National Council of Churches, American churchmen have significantly influenced the shaping of the ecumenical perspective. Their leadership, often heavily dominated by liberal forces, supplied much of the supportive pressure for inclusivism in theological and ecclesiastical concepts. It also directly involved American Protestantism in politico-economic programs that provoked sharp criticism by European churchmen who assigned greater priority to Christian faith than ever.

What stake have U. S. churchgoers in the ecumenical movement? To what extent does the movement represent American Christianity? Do the delegates now heading for New Delhi adequately represent their own constituencies? Does the proportion between clergy and lay delegates supply evidence that American churchmen are eager to assign a larger role in ecumenical affairs to the laity at grass roots? To answer these and other questions, and to provide an overall perspective on the significance of the New Delhi assembly for the American scene, CHRISTIANITY TODAY conducted an intensive study of the views of the American delegates compared with those of the constituencies they represent.

Of the 625 official delegates representing 176 member churches in some 50 countries, 160 delegates—or more than one in four—will come as delegates from the United States. Despite the emphasis on a voice for the younger churches, the massive organization and sheer weight of numbers of the United States contingent gives it staggering power. The United States remains one of the great Protestant lands of the world, despite the tendency of religious minorities to speak of a “post-Protestant era.” It is also the chief manpower source of the world missionary movement (only 31 per cent of the 28,000 U. S. missionaries around the world are NCC-related; see interpretative chart). Important questions may therefore be asked about the American delegates, who now carry much of the responsibility for shaping the immediate course of the directed mainstream of non-Roman Christianity, but who are well aware that distressing cleavages remain unhealed in American Protestantism.

These percentages were established by a scientific poll of American clergymen, across interdenominational lines, by Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey, for CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The survey distinguished Fundamentalist and Conservative ministers in respect to their doctrine of Scripture; the former subscribe to total inerrancy, the latter either do not, or have doubts. Other historic Christian doctrines were not in doubt.

Do the delegates speak the spontaneous convictions of American grass-roots Protestantism, or is the slate otherwise slanted? From several considerations, their tilt toward prevailing ecumenical positions may be noted in advance. Of the U. S. delegates, all chosen by their respective denominational leaderships, 37 per cent come from within the influential inner circle of American ecumenism. At least 44 of the delegates are currently members of the policy-making NCC General Board; at least 14 others are past or present officers of NCC or paid officers of local church councils. Hence NCC official and staff representation may be said to bulk extraordinarily large in the list of U. S. delegates. The question naturally rises whether free and objective determination of the issues before the assembly can be expected from these participants. At any rate, critics who contend that the ecumenical movement’s ecclesiastical and theological pronouncements are largely shaped and controlled by an influential majority which holds strategic interlocking posts in NCC and its member denominations, seem to have an impressive case.

NCC General Board officers appearing as delegates are: President J. Irwin Miller (Disciples); Vice-President-at-Large Bishop J. Wesley Lord (Methodist); Vice-President-at-Large Mrs. J. Fount Tillman (Methodist); Vice-President, Division of Christian Education, Bishop Reuben H. Mueller (Evangelical United Brethren); Vice-President, Division of Christian Life and Work, Dr. Norman J. Baugher (Church of the Brethren); Vice-President, Division of Foreign Missions, the Rev. Earl S. Erb (United Lutheran Church in America); Past President, Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg (American Baptist); other members of the NCC General Board from the following denominations are among the U.S. delegates: African Methodist Episcopal Church—Bishop George W. Baber, Dr. R. W. Mance, Bishop Joseph Gomez, Bishop S. L. Greene, Sr.; African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church—Bishop W. J. Walls; American Baptist Convention—Dr. L. Doward McBain, Dr. John E. Skoglund, Dr. Edwin H. Tuller; Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church—Dr. Malvin H. Lundeen; Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ)—Dr. Gaines M. Cook, Dr. A. Dale Fiers, Dr. Virgil A. Sly; Christian Methodist Episcopal Church—Bishop B. Julian Smith; Evangelical United Brethren Church—Bishop Paul W. Milhouse; Greek Archdiocese of North and South America—the Rev. George J. Bacopulos, Charles Raphael; The Methodist Church—Dr. Harold A. Bosley, Mrs. Porter Brown, Bishop William C. Martin, Dr. J. Earl Moreland, Charles C. Parlin, Bishop Roy H. Short, Dr. Eugene L. Smith; National Baptist Convention U.S.A.—Dr. E. A. Freeman, Dr. C. H. Hampton, Dr. J. H. Jackson; Presbyterian Church in the U.S.—Dr. James A. Millard, Jr.; Protestant Episcopal Church—the Rt. Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger, Mrs. Theodore Wedel; Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America—the Rt. Rev. Bishop Valerian D. Trifa, Ivan Michelson Czap; United Church of Christ—Dr. Alford Carleton, Dr. Truman B. Douglass, Dr. Fred Hoskins, Dr. James E. Wagner; United Lutheran Church in America—Dr. Franklin Clark Fry; United Presbyterian Church—Dr. Eugene Carson Blake. Blake is a Past President of NCC. In addition Dr. Benjamin Mays (American Baptist) and Dr. Harry V. Richardson (Methodist) are past members of the General Board, and Metropolitan Athenagoras (Greek Orthodox) and Dr. George Florovsky (Greek Orthodox) have each served as past Vice-President-at-Large.

Besides these 48 delegates, the list includes 10 others who currently hold or have held strategic positions in the National Council or affiliated local councils of churches, including NCC General Secretary Roy G. Ross (Christian) and Dr. Irene Jones (American Baptist), associate executive secretary of the Division of Foreign Missions. Others are Dr. W. Barnett Blakemore (Christian); Church Federation of Greater Chicago, Chairman of Ecumenical Education Committee; Bishop F. Gerald Ensley (Methodist), President, Iowa Council of Churches; the Rev. Archie Hargraves (Congregational Christian), Brooklyn Division of Protestant Council of City of New York, Chairman of Racial and Cultural Relations Committee; Miss Frances Kaptizky (Evangelical and Reformed), Second Vice-President, Ohio Council of Churches; Dr. Ganse Little (United Presbyterian), Pasadena Council of Churches, Chairman of Community Worship Committee; Dr. Walter G. Muelder (Methodist), Massachusetts Council of Churches, Chairman of Church, State and Community Committee; the Rev. Robert W. Stackel (United Lutheran Church), Council of Churches of Greater Akron, Chairman of Evangelism Committee; Dr. Edward Ziegler (Church of Brethren), Virginia Council of Churches, Chairman of Evangelism Committee.

The weight of ecumenical organizational influence will not be limited, however, to the delegates; it shows up imposingly in the extended list of consultants. The Episcopal delegation, for example, will also include: the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, former Presiding Bishop, as one of the six Presidents of the World Council of Churches; the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, in a consultant capacity as Chairman of the Committee on Proselytism and as a member of the Central Committee; the Rev. Canon Theodore O. Wedel, in a consultant capacity as Chairman of the Working Committee of the Department of Evangelism; and Charles P. Taft, in a consultant capacity as Chairman of the Working Committee of the Department of Information.

An interesting question concerns the delegates from the world of Protestant education. Some influential ecumenists increasingly view seminaries as an indoctrination center for theological inclusivism and for service in the restructured Protestant community. Among the 25 delegates (almost one-sixth of the total) who are seminary or college identified, some are distinguished in the academic world, but these constitute a conspicuous minority. President Nathan M. Pusey of Harvard stands out in the list—and is a symbol of the Protestant call for religious revival that runs as wide as Tillichian theology while neglecting historic evangelical commitments. (The evangelical voice is virtually suppressed today in Harvard’s United Ministry to Students.)

While there may be an exception or two, the viewpoint of virtually all U. S. delegates from the Protestant academic world is squarely sympathetic to the inclusivist vision. Schools whose main influence is theologically liberal so heavily dominate the picture that aggressively evangelical centers seem to have been bypassed.

Taken as a whole, the list includes only a few of the outstanding liberal or neo-orthodox thinkers, but it is heavily weighted along with Pusey with delegates from schools that register an inclusive theological influence: Andover-Newton (President Herbert Gezork); Colgate-Rochester Divinity School (Dr. James C. Miller); Pacific School of Religion (President Stuart Anderson); Oberlin College Graduate School of Theology (Dr. Roger Hazelton); Disciples Divinity House (Dean W. Barnett Blakemore); Boston School of Theology (Dr. Walter Muelder); Perkins School of Theology (Dr. Albert C. Outler); Princeton Theological Seminary (President James I. McCord); and so on. Dr. Blakemore is a successor and disciple of Edward Scribner Ames, the humanist. Dean Donald C. Dearborn of Catawba College, also on the list, is a layman thoroughly inclusive in his views, who clings to the outmoded liberal view that Paul perverted the Christian Gospel.

RATIO OF DENOMINATIONAL DELEGATES TO MEMBERSHIP

Number of Delegates to Every Million Members

One can also find, here and there among these delegates, some who bridge between neo-orthodoxy and evangelical views, such as Dr. W. R. Cannon of Candler School of Theology (Emory University).

Not a single president is included as a delegate, however, from the aggressively evangelical seminaries within, the NCC structure. Others whose theological positions cannot be dismissed simply as liberal but who strongly favor the present development of the ecumenical movement are included, such as President Paul Eller of Evangelical Theological Seminary. Some, while declaring themselves evangelicals, such as President Walter N. Roberts of United Theological Seminary, show little sympathy for evangelicals not wholly enthusiastic over NCC.

Except for an outright liberal like Dr. Joseph Sittler (United Lutheran Church), formerly of the federated divinity faculty at University of Chicago, the Lutheran educators on the whole appear to be among the most sturdily evangelical. President Alvin R. Rogness of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, and President E. C. Fendt of Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, are widely regarded as conservative, the former somewhat more open to inclusive associations than the latter. Dr. Malvin H. Lundeen, the new president of Augustana, is a delegate, as is his predecessor there, Dr. P. O. Bersell, who has openly criticized the Blake-Pike proposal. President Alfonzo Rodrigues of Matansas Seminary, Cuba, a champion of evangelical evangelism, is considered one of the most conservative Presbyterian delegates. Nothing is clearer, however, than the predominantly inclusive theological and ecclesiastical temper of the great majority of the educators designated as delegates to New Delhi, and that institutions dedicated aggressively to an evangelical theological perspective within the ecumenical movement are left without great delegation strength.

Member Bodies Of National Council Of Churches

ECUMENICAL AFFILIATION OF U. S. DENOMINATIONS

MEMBER CHURCHES OF N.C.C.

(Mostly 1959 statistics from Year Book of American Churches for 1961)

The delegates include 112 clergymen and 48 laymen. While this represents a larger participation by the laity than in many ecumenical activities, American ecumenism has assigned the clergy about three times the representation given the laity in reflecting their constituencies to the New Delhi assembly. The division of lay delegates into men and women (31 male, 17 female) is more balanced. There is no lay representation whatever for the Church of the Brethren, Augustana Evangelical Lutheran, Christian Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Church.

When one looks beyond the statistical question, and inquires into the representative character of American lay leaders, some interesting facts emerge. Currently most influential is the NCC’s multimillionaire non-conservative lay president, Dr. J. Irwin Miller, whose radically liberal dissatisfaction with the conservative Disciples of Christ church in his home community led him to spearhead establishment of a rival church. American Protestant laymen who share his religious idealism mainly disavow Dr. Miller’s theological prejudices and his long-standing sympathy for church endorsements of specific politico-economic programs.

Nearly 24 Million Protestants Outside N.C.C.

MEMBERSHIP OF NON-ALIGNED RELIGIOUS BODIES …

(List of those with 100,000 or more members)

MEMBER DENOMINATIONS OF N.A.E.

The National Association of Evangelicals is not a centralized organization, but claims a service constituency of 10,000,000 through its affiliated agencies. The National Council of Churches has service lines also, but lists as cooperating agencies those related to various phases of its work.

MEMBER CHURCHES AND INDIVIDUALS OF A.C.C.C.

The list of lay delegates as a whole is theologically conglomerate and predisposed toward the ecumenical structuring of Protestantism. The list therefore reflects the stance of Protestant leadership both in the ecumenical movement and in many affiliated denominations. It does not truly reflect the temper of the Protestant laity at grass roots. A recent sampling of ministers in NCC-identified churches yielded their acknowledgment that not more than 10 per cent of the members in most of these congregations are enthusiastic over giant church mergers. Yet nine of the lay delegates representing American Protestantism in New Delhi are now serving as members of the NCC General Board, and most of the others are enthusiastic supporters of the merger trend. Inquiry among lay leaders and clergy in one circle after another evoked such comments about their denomination’s lay delegates: “liberal as regards ecumenism”; “an inclusivist by disposition”; “he rides with the tide.”

The Lay Viewpoint

Protestant laymen in America are overwhelmingly conservative in their theological views. Yet the New Delhi lay delegation is heavily sprinkled not only with aggressive liberals like NCC President Miller and Dean Dearborn of Catawba College, but with laymen whose ecumenical enthusiasm exists alongside theological illiteracy. Inquiry about doctrinal convictions elicited comments like these: “a conservative of limited theological discernment”; “has the theology of an en thusiastic Rotarian”; “theologically not oriented”; and so on. One delegate, for example, remarked that he doesn’t “know enough about theology to tell” whether he is “neo-orthodox, conservative, or whatever else. After all, he insisted, “I’m a layman.” Another refused “any theological label,” preferring to identify himself with the “social application of the Gospel” which he equated mainly with pacifism.

But that is not to say that the lay contingent wholly lacks a concern for theological fidelity or for a spiritual view of the Church. For inquiry about lay delegates also paid solid tribute to some of the denominational representatives: “a conservative of good balance”; “a conservative who understands the issues all the way”; “a good type to represent the American Baptist laymen—theologically sound, radiant testimony, dedicated to the person of Christ, loyal to the Convention.”

An overview of other clergy delegates to New Delhi raises the question whether they are more prominently representative of denominational life and mood than the lay delegates. Their New Delhi participation will be eagerly followed by denominational colleagues who know that American ecumenism has faced widening protest with every merger plan. While organizational influence has loomed large in the determination of delegates, the complaint of one churchman seems exaggerated: “They would not have been selected as delegates did they not represent the controlling leadership of the denominations.” Nonetheless, the delegates are mainly professional ecumenists.

Not a few Presbyterian ministers thought the denomination’s New Delhi contingent to be rather obviously weighted with ardent supporters of the (so-called) “Blake plan,” although some of the group are known not to share this commitment.

The delegation of the Christian Churches (Disciples) is heavily weighted on the liberal side, including extreme liberal and humanist delegates. A survey indicates that of the 10 delegates, two represent a fairly wide segment of the membership while most of the others reflect militant minorities.

Deploring Conservatism

The Episcopal delegation too is held to be heavily weighted for the liberal side. Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger, a delegate, not only has come out strongly for church union, but deplores the rising tide of conservatism both theologically and politically, whereas another delegate, the Rt. Rev. Stephen W. Bayne, Jr., has already become executive officer for the world-wide “Anglican Communion” which some critics declare to be a structural nonentity.

Several ministers long constructively active in the American Baptist Convention agreed that only two of their ministerial delegates represent the denominational image at grass roots.

Some of the conservative delegates, assuredly, were depicted as inclusively disposed: “seldom theologically objectionable in public utterances, but always counted with the liberals” (of an American Baptist delegate). Some of the liberal delegates were marked as intolerant of evangelicals. A denominational colleague noted of one: “tries to stay middle-of-the-road, but is violently opposed to interdenominational groups such as Young Life, Campus Crusade, and so on.” Another sharp judgment: “a clever manipulator of everybody for the program.” The driving commitment of many of the delegates, however, is ecclesiastical rather than theological, so that many of the New Delhi participants are viewed as “a vanguard of tomorrow’s togetherness.” Here are some comments by fellow clergymen of their denominational appointees: “The leading exponent of church union in our denomination”; “a council of churches’ man for many years”; “a typical church bureaucrat”; “he works for the hierarchy”; “he looks on theology only as a matter of ‘order’ ”; “a saintly man who has not given serious thought to theology for many years”; “a theology bounded on all sides by the nace question”; “his theology is best called ‘secretarial.’ ”

The American Lutheran Church’s delegation is viewed as sturdily conservative. Some observers thought the Augustana Lutheran delegation “more conservative” than its seminaries.

In many of the major denominations at least one delegate could be found who is a highly respected conservative, and here and there a delegate to whom ministerial colleagues referred as “a rebel in the camp of the organization.” Among tributes to conservative delegates: “a good composite of the average American Baptist Convention pastor—evangelical, evangelistic, positive and co-operative.”

Many churchmen are convinced “that resolutions passed at these well-publicized assemblies overcome fragmentation by merger”; remarked another, “but the Church cannot legislate itself into well-being.” “One doesn’t win ecumenical friends and influence Riverside Drive [NCC headquarters] by being candid,” said another, but “some of these leaders are busier remaking the Church today than remaking the world.”

Confident ecumenists, assuming in advance that WCC-IMC integration would be approved, have had on schedule for many weeks a two-day “first meeting” of the newly-emergent Commission on World Mission and Evangelism to be held at the Vigynan-Bhavan, beginning the day after the assembly closes. Ecumenical promoters clearly had little disposition to wait in New Delhi for a moving of the Holy Spirit. WCC leadership long ago asserted that this meeting on mission, as well as the first meeting of the newly-elected 90-member WCC Central Committee, not only would be held, but that it would be held in secret (a memo circulated to accredited correspondents underscored the words closed to the press). The pre-Miltonian motivation of such an edict, which extends even to the friendly Christian press, was sure to yield a harvest of regrets. Many observers will wonder how Christian leaders presuming to plot the course of church history dare to lock out their constituents from knowing how they arrive at their conclusions.

The Organizing Momentum

Future church history will judge the delegates not simply by who they are, but by what they do. Many laymen—and not a few clergymen—are bewildered by an ecumenical organizing process whose momentum they cannot stop nor effectively shape, and they are distressed at the bold ecumenical steps to heal world Christianity while these same leaders have been unable to heal the fragmentation of American Protestantism.

While the delegates deliberate in New Delhi, millions of Christians the world over will storm the way to the throne of grace, the way that is never closed, to gain presence with Him by whom they shall never be denied. They will beseech the Lord of the Church, who loved her and died for her, that he not forsake her now, but through the quiet workings of his mighty Spirit who cannot be contained will grant such blessing at New Delhi as shall surprise Christians everywhere, not least those who labor for the unity, peace and healing of the Church.

Each period of history leaves ample room for improvement. Let’s thank God, then, that the “good old days” are always changing!

What 15-year capsule of time has witnessed such devastating and explosive challenges as the present atomic era? Two global wars had exhausted the initiative and idealism of our fathers. Now new things were coming to pass: expansion of military might, exploration of space, new treatment for physical maladies, new approaches in sociological matters.

The religious world, too, has experienced its share of revolution since the 1940s. The latter part of that decade was a turbulent season of transition for the churches. On the one hand the excitement of the war and its concomitant turning toward God had subsided. Attendance had not yet begun its phenomenal surge. Empty seats, small budgets, narrow vision, and tremendous appeals for restoration monies faced returning servicemen as well as those who had in local parishes “stayed by the stuff.” Again the Church was a tolerated institution rather than a transforming agency of life eternal. Only if notorious, was news of religious matters noticed. Front page coverage was negligible. Items that found their way into print appeared in the back pages together with obituaries and want-ads. Newsmen grudgingly used quips about churches as filler somewhere between legislative foibles and the weather reports.

It would be unrealistic to assume that this attitude is now reversed. Yet to ignore the overall improvement would be equally erroneous. While some churches are struggling for stable memberships and balanced budgets, they are the exception. Prospects and programs of growing dimension are the general rule. The swelling demand for leadership is known in all expanding denominations. This need has been met in part by returning servicemen who have turned to the ministry with sober thought and prayerful commitment to Christ. While the quality of theology has not improved noticeably, its study is again deemed respectable by the erudite. Once again the press views the affairs of man’s spirit as being of interest and of influence in the community. Rather than being relegated to seasonal observance, topics of moral and spiritual value find all-year welcome on platform and forum.

Awareness of “one world” has so captured us that in spiritual things we have finally eliminated the false tags of “home” and “foreign,” “we” and “they.” At last we see the true division of mankind as the Church of our Lord regardless of whether race or country aggressively assaults the legions of materialism and unbelief. Here we must admit only a partial gain, however. Some of the strength of this new advance has been drained off to serve lesser causes. Widening vision has sometimes led only to more complex, expensive, unwieldy and frequently autocratic organization. Quick action on the part of smaller groups and “fringe sects” to meet immediate needs has often been misinterpreted; “poaching” or even worse has been charged. With little enthusiasm or optimism the “standard-brand” denominations have watched the new dynamism of these groups and their amazing success. Perhaps an awareness that they themselves once employed this vital force dampens their appreciation. The fact is that these small aggressive groups simply insist on the conservative theology and scriptural discipleship written in the constitutions and creeds of the larger church bodies. They simply implement the cry, “Jesus is Lord,” a claim which too often we are content merely to have engraved on our best quality bond!

All who are spiritually sensitive praise God for the privilege of sharing in this flow rather than ebb of the religious tide. With great thankfulness we acknowledge that these blessings result from the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit. From him we receive these tokens of grace. They do not issue from the ingenuity of man’s mind, the purification of his motives, or some new resolve of his will. Yet, as always, our sovereign God chooses to make men the instruments of his peace. Of every race and clime he has raised prophets in our time to testify of things eternal. From martyr’s cell and bishop’s chair, from professor’s study and pulpit throne “their line is gone out through all the earth.”

A Singular Ministry

As in so many categories, in things spiritual, too, God has chosen an American for the leadership of greatest impact. Billy Graham has been thus singularly chosen. Now in his early forties, he has already accomplished a ministry of evangelism spanning 15 years and touching every continent of our globe. In a culture both blessed and blemished by evangelists of various sorts, Graham has been heard with respect and response. In a time marked and marred by arrogant mishandling of things once held sacred, he has faced materialism in society and modernism in theology with conviction and compassion. In a world made small by fellowship of spirit and scientific invention, he has successfully hurdled barriers of language, precedence, and local custom all over the world with apparent ease and grace.

Statistics are often cold, bold, and misleading. Yet it is noteworthy that since November of 1947 this unassuming leader has labored about 275 weeks in 120 crusades. He has proclaimed the Good News to 30 million persons and has seen nearly 900,000 souls making decisions to yield themselves to Christ! These numbers, of course, must be taken with the proverbial “grain of salt.” Actually the recorded totals are probably too small! They cannot possibly and do not include the vast radio audience around the world which for years has so eagerly listened to “The Hour of Decision.” Nor do these figures estimate the persons reached by relay and television chain extensions that are frequently used in connection with crusades in metropolitan areas. In the providence of God surely some souls have made life-changing decisions through these media. Whatever the exact calculations may be, the fact remains that this single evangelist has addressed more of his fellow humans than any man in history thus far.

If we use the preacher’s yardstick—the size of the crowd—as evidence of the smile of God upon this herald, some interesting comparisons can be made. In his hometown, Charlotte, North Carolina, Billy Graham has on two occasions been heard with honor. In November, 1947, 42,000 attended over a two-week period, and 1,200 recorded decisions. In October, 1958, a five-week crusade attracted 420,000 persons of whom more than 17,000 responded to the earnest invitation. In September, 1950, a Billy Graham crusade was conducted in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the site of the Association’s headquarters. In three weeks about 280,000 attended and approximately 3,700 made commitments to Christ. In the summer of 1961 about the same response was experienced in just one week! In our nation’s capital two crusades were held eight years apart. For five weeks in early 1952 an aggregate of 300,000 attended in Washington and in excess of 6,000 came forward in yieldedness. In June of 1960, a total of 140,000 crowded Griffith Stadium and in one week 5,000 made decisions. It was the eight-week crusade in Los Angeles in September of 1949 which first brought this amazing young man into national prominence. During that season of harvest, 350,000 heard and more than 3,000 responded to the claims of Christ. A few months ago this enviable record was surpassed in the first two weeks of the latest crusade in Philadelphia. Similar figures could be assembled to suggest God’s care and direction in other great centers like London, Melbourne, Glasgow, Berlin, and New York. “What hath God wrought!”

What Is The Method?

In my mind, the greatest single asset in the whole Graham enterprise is the crystal-clear humility of this evangelist. This rare quality weaves like a golden thread through his entire being. He has said repeatedly in public that he has no power in himself; and in no way does he presume to share God’s glory in the crusade. In private, he strongly manifests this same self-denial. The warm welcome to old friends, genial attention to new acquaintances, deference to others even in small things, disavowal of any claims to superiority, acknowledgment of limitations, recognition of others’ gifts—these traits of Graham come readily to mind and reflect the exceptional grace that marked the Lord who humbled himself and became obedient. What has been the result? Just what God promised! He has been exalted! This lanky, earnest preacher has found reception as a welcome guest and minister in the chapels of royal palaces, in the offices of heathen potentates and diplomats, on the bases of military forces, in the halls of government, at the world’s seats of learning, amid the avenues of high finance, at the tables of service clubs, in the homes of lofty and lowly, and on the campuses of theological study. At the same time, this man is possessed with a spiritual insight and incisive approach to human personality which enable him quickly to appraise a situation. This evaluation he makes not so much with a view toward judgment, as with hope that he may in some way provide help. A few lines from Rudyard Kipling aptly describe Graham’s well-balanced approach to life:

If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or talk with kings, nor lose the common touch;

If neither foe nor loving friend can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much.…

This description is the garment worn comfortably by the most humble man I have ever known.

These crusades which have done so much to alter and improve our spiritual climate are not one-man-shows however. In this respect they differ from campaigns of famous predecessors. These crusades include the work of a team of devoted committee fellow laborers whose great mark is willingness to be used without fanfare. Wives and families who delight in this singular ministry deserve just recognition, too. Then there is a platform team of six or seven who from pre-service prayer to the helping of the last seeker night after night share an experience ever new and ever sincere. Years of working together have given these men unusual facility and sensitivity without robbing them of freshness and depth. Then, too, there is the corps of behind-the-scenes workers. Some arrive early to make campaign plans. Others do the necessary detail work during the crusade. A few remain behind to gather together all the fragments so that naught of the blessed outpouring be lost. Much of the smooth procedure results from careful and continued co-operation by the local committee. The clergy and lay people of the local committee often determine the atmosphere into which will come the evangelist and his helpers. More often than not, this committee’s general attitude is an accurate barometer that forecasts the climate of the services.

This summary brings us to the organization of the crusade, a matter that from the beginning has been an item of great concern. Very early in his experience Billy Graham made a careful study of great evangelists. Particular research was done to ascertain wherein each man’s strengths and weaknesses lay. Graham hoped to imitate the positive aspects and to avoid those practices that seemed fruitless or open to criticism. The result has been the most complete and efficient operation in the history of evangelism. Special committees on ushering, finance, music, counseling, property, arrangements for the handicapped and infirm, office management, publicity, foreign language groups, follow-up—these and other groups are carefully organized and trained. Strangely enough, this very efficiency has been a favorite target for the critics. “It is too professional, too much like a well-oiled machine, too much of a performance,” they say. Do these critics, we wonder, in their own small bailiwicks foster that which is careless and ill-planned? Do they feel that God puts no stock in efficiency, just so the motivation is high? We are inclined to agree with C. S. Lewis that any good works must also be good work on the part of the workman.

Another phase that is often criticized is that of follow-up. “They move in for a few weeks and are gone, and what benefits remain?” “What becomes of the converts?” Often these critics are preachers, pharisaical in nature. Actually, Billy Graham has done more to insure the continued care of the new-born Christian than any of his predecessors in this high calling of evangelism. Contacts are made in keeping with the convert’s stated church preference. Pastors are asked to call on these converts, and are given forms for reporting the calls. Only where no special church preference is indicated are contacts attempted at some nearby congregation of an evangelical nature. The real nurture of the convert, therefore, lies in the hands of the local Christian constituency, rather than in the evangelist’s. Any journey begins with a single first step. If the traveler does not continue his course with diligence and joyful persistence, this failure cannot be blamed on the one who gave the right directions in the first place.

Perhaps the most repeated and most groundless criticism of the crusades concerns finance. “How much will it cost?” “How much will they take out of the community?” are typical queries. These descendants of the Gadarenes who ask such questions still make the same infuriating choice as their ancestors: “When they saw the young man—and the bodies of the pigs—they asked Jesus to leave.” It costs too much! What, we ask, is the price of a soul? It would be interesting to learn what cost index these 120 crusades would provide. (In Oklahoma City in 1956, the price paid for each commitment was about that of a season football ticket at the university.) Even on the basis of dollars expended, 15 years of crusades have proved the fruits of these efforts to be real bargains. Finances are handled and audited locally. No “love gift” appeal, no wearisome squeezing by some team member plagues the visitors to the crusades. There is scrupulous avoidance of any suggestion of greed or avarice. This group of workers is a salaried team worthy of its hire.

Broad Local Support

One of the finest improvements made by Billy Graham over the course of time concerns his insistence on a broad base of local participation. The spotlighting of some particular personality has passed. Gone, too, is the unilateral approach to operations. I personally know that in more than one city Billy Graham has refused invitations offered by single strong denominations. Instead, he has waited with prayerful patience until some church council or federation has issued a joint expression of welcome. Though he seldom wears the badge of the much-labored word “ecumenical,” Graham demonstrates that spirit in its best sense. By the scope of his travels and the breadth of his attitude of co-operation, he manifests the meaning of the word more than many of its vocal champions. To insist on a broad base of support in local campaigns has been significant. Ministers have discovered a deeper spirit of fraternity; nonmember churches have found warm fellowship within councils of churches; nonco-operative groups have found opportunity to join in a concentrated effort to advance their most cherished doctrines. As one preacher of the Southern Baptist Convention confessed, “I found some other preachers believed the Gospel besides us.” By standing shoulder-to-shoulder in these crusades, weary, faltering pastors everywhere have gained needed encouragement of heart. A modern Jonathan, as it were, has sought them out “to strengthen their hand in the Lord.” This method of procedure has always been incorporated into the framework of the Church. Graham is no critic or competitor of the local congregation. He meticulously avoids entering ecclesiastical struggles for power. And he insists that his meetings in no way conflict with regularly scheduled services of worship. This practice is more than just good public relations. It represents the evangelist’s conviction that his mission is to strengthen and to supplement Christ’s work in the local church, to cause the body of Christ to leap rather than to limp because of his coming.

All in all, the method of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has made a major contribution to Christian witness in our time. Helpful tracts, syndicated question-and-answer columns, a respectable magazine, Bible helps and suggestions for Christian growth and service constantly augment the initial effort of the crusades. Such measures enable the babes in Christ to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

The Message Spoken

It is the message of the crusades that explains their success, for even the most efficient machine is cold and lifeless without proper fuel or power. What Billy Graham says is what God has honored. Others may preach the Gospel more eloquently than Graham, but they cannot preach a better Gospel! He has moved through the whole inhabited world with a Scripture-based message of man’s sin and need of Christ. Many of us rejoice over his repeated insistence on the authority of the inspired Word of God. “The Bible says” has sounded throughout the world, and on this firm foundation Graham has stood unafraid and unashamed. This basic conviction has given him a freedom of proclamation that many preachers have yearned to possess but which they find elusive. Graham has the same objectivity in declaring the whole counsel of God which the late Donald Grey Barnhouse used to express: “I’m just the messenger boy. If you don’t like the message, take it up with the sender, not out on me.”

This full conviction that God has spoken through the written and living Word has given this herald of our times the ready ear of the multitudes. His trumpet call is clear. The common people hear him gladly, even as once they heard the Lord. Here is confrontation in its simplest and most direct style. Whoever pauses to listen cannot say he has not been offered reconciliation.

One of Graham’s strong points is his interest in the individual. His sermons proclaim the worth and responsibility of each soul before God. This insistence on the personal approach is relevant because it brings variant human nature before the judgment of the constant truth of God. Such preaching is always up-to-date and always applicable to human experience.

It should be insisted, however, that the preaching of the crusades also has vast social implications and impact. Those who lament that Graham’s emphasis is too subjective and without social influence in our troubled world are simply and deliberately blind to the facts. Feature articles by Billy Graham in national magazines have discussed crucial issues of our times. Almost without exception he has met press interviews on “touchy” subjects with characteristic candor, directness, and modest restraint. Again and again he has publicly voiced considered opinions on both national and international crises. At times he has volunteered his services as an advocate of truth in situations that have sent others scurrying for cover.

The Call To Decision

In a time when life is more geared to feelings than ever before, “too emotional” is the broad umbrella under which nonparticipants have hidden from the crusades. Actually these meetings are less emotional than the average soap-opera or situation comedy. Like his Lord, Billy Graham begins his preaching with Moses and the prophets. In the light of the eternal law of God, he clearly interprets life as we know it. Then he invariably shows the grace of God in Christ as fulfilling the law for us, and offers the benefits of this work to all who will commit themselves to the Saviour by faith. This challenge to decision involves but a minimal expression of what might be called a froth of emotion. For me personally the most significant and sobering time of the meeting comes after the invitation. In the magnificent silence of that moment the truth of the message is stirring in men’s souls. Team members and other Christians are in prayer. Billy stands silent with head bowed in thanksgiving and intercession. Then with quiet strength he offers another “Come.” His appeal is to the will. Softly the choir sings the hymn, “Just as I am.” Then from everywhere come the searching souls. The waiting is over. From balconies and grandstands at arenas, ball-parks, and fairgrounds, they come to the altar with no tugging except that of the Holy Spirit of God. Enroute to the front they are joined by someone of similar age and sex who will give spiritual help when the meeting is dismissed. In the counseling room each person receives individual care, and faith is declared on the basis of God’s promises in the Book and not on feelings of the moment. Emotion: Only that of joy which the Spirit gives to those receiving the Good News!

To All Mankind

No one in our time has had greater opportunity to meet a cross-section of mankind than this traveling preacher from North Carolina. He has seen life from the vantage point of a door-to-door brush salesman and has stood before royalty as well. On all social levels he has shared the comradeship of humanity. He practices none of the artificial distinctions of age, race, financial or social status. The crusades therefore, appeal to all people. Graham speaks to youth without being maudlin, and a son of the manse responds. He speaks to the aged without special deference, and a gray-haired church trustee comes forward. He addresses the public without compromise, and both rich and poor yield themselves to Christ. He meets his critics without fear or rancor; some respond to his message, all respect him as a man. Liberty, authority, power, love, and humility are his arsenal as he battles for the souls of men. His compelling sincerity encourages all kinds of people to respond to the Gospel. We have seen the reporter who came to scoff, remain to seek. The young businessman who wanted success now trusts God for salvation. The sophisticated socialite now finds true beauty in holiness. The aggressive executive has brought his energies under the yoke of Christ. The hopeful seminarian who came to dissect remains to discover. The homemaker has the house of her heart set in order. “And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell.…”

We do not mean to suggest that these efforts have had unanimous support. Every community has had preachers blind and insensitive to spiritual needs and remedies. Such individuals have rejected the chance to co-operate, sometimes, as it were, disdainfully gathering their robes of righteousness about them. Almost without exception they have suffered, however, for their hungry, honest parishioners have bypassed them to find spiritual blessing. Some pastors who have been “too busy here and there” to accept the hour of opportunity have later matched their associates’ rejoicings with expressions of regret. There have been sincere opponents, too, of course, usually extremists. These groups have sometimes had their Goliaths who deliberately attacked Billy Graham as a preacher and as a person. It is sad indeed that they should thus prostitute God-given talents in futile and base conflict.

This total opposition is a rather small force, insignificant, really, from the larger view. Against these opponents the crusaders have used primarily the weapon of silence. Refusing to quarrel with some bumptious individual, magazine staff, or official, Graham has turned situations to his own advantage. Aligning himself with evangelical Christianity where the real thrust for God continues to be made, he allows his ministry to speak for itself. This it does, and with eloquence.

These crusades are serious ventures. Billy Graham knows that our era calls neither for the shadow-boxing of liberal, nor for the hair-splitting of fundamentalist leaders. He yearns to conserve and to cultivate the grass-roots interest which he senses. Here may lie the earnest of a true revival of spiritual power. These anxious days compel men seriously to consider eternal things and God’s eternal purposes. Seeing his hopes for world peace bum ever lower, man today may very conceivably turn his attention heartward. There, under the kindling and control of the sovereign God, he may find and nurture his own “little patch of peace.”

How Shall We React?

Let us rejoice, therefore, that God has privileged us to labor together with such an earnest and talented worker as Billy Graham. His efforts are singular but they are not restricted. The apostolic pattern still functions: “One planteth, another watereth, but God giveth the increase.” Sometimes Billy Graham is the sower; then again he puts in the sickle for the harvest after others have maintained faithful plowing and harrowing of the field. If everyone were a planter, the ripened grain would wither on the stalk. If all of us were harvesters, our scythes would rust in idleness awaiting the sowers.

Evangelism is the life-breath of the Church, and it has pleased God to equip some of his servants for the particular ministry of evangelism. Basic as it is, however, breathing is only one function of the body. It is a means rather than the end of operation. Evangelism and evangelists, therefore, are but means, also. They are to initiate rather than to consummate the vital activity of the Church. Repentance and renewal should stimulate rather than satisfy the Church. Those of us who claim bona fide relationship in the “beloved community” should seize our opportunity in evangelism with joy. That same Holy Spirit who brings life to a soul through the preaching of Billy Graham can build up that soul through the nurturing ministry of the congregation. This task is the challenge that awaits committed clergy and lay witnesses alike. While “our times are in his hands,” yet the quality of life depends on what we invest in these God-entrusted days. Let us all rejoice in God’s ministry through Billy Graham. Let us repent of our failure to accept the responsibility of supporting him and others like him. Let us faithfully intercede for all who sow, who water, and who nurture unto the harvest of God. Let us respond in depth to the continued desire of the Holy Spirit to indwell us to the exclusion of all else. Then indeed we shall thank God and take courage, “We saw one casting out devils in thy name” and we “thanked God and took courage.”

GRAHAM CRUSADE STATISTICS