The Western world is in danger of forgetting that education of the young is not just a matter of imparting factual knowledge and technical skills, but, if it is to be education in the true sense of the term, must concern itself with morality as well, and indeed primarily. Its proper task is to prepare the child to become a balanced and integrated adult and a responsible member of society. If this task is not faced and fulfilled, then education is a failure and even a menace.

To the peripheral watcher from the British side of the Atlantic one of the most startling contradictions in the American way of life is that a great people, who flourish the slogan “This Nation under God,” should, because of the interpretation they place upon the principle of complete separation between church and state to which they are dedicated, systematically exclude all religious instruction and worship (including the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer) from the state schools. This means in effect that America’s schools are godless institutions, or at least institutions which God is officially forbidden to enter. This would be understandable in an atheistic country, but in a country that professes to place itself under God it does not make sense. It can hardly be hoped that such a policy will be productive of God-fearing citizens.

For a spectator to make so radical a criticism is no doubt rash. Be that as it may, it is certainly not meant to imply that all is fair in the British pedagogical garden. Of this we have been forcibly reminded in recent days by both political and medical leaders. It is true that religious instruction is compulsory in the state schools of Great Britain by Act of Parliament, as is also the opening of each school day with a corporate act of worship. Nevertheless, in a notable speech in the House of Commons during the last session of the British Parliament the Minister of Education, Sir David Eccles, referred to the widespread anxiety about the conduct and behavior of boys and girls of school age. While emphasizing that the great majority of British school children are well behaved, he reminded his audience that this was not the case with “a small minority of teenagers attending the secondary schools.”

Speaking of the need for suitable discipline in the schools, Sir David observed that the teacher who deals reasonably but firmly with a pupil ought to be supported by the general public. (Cases of parents suing teachers for exercising disciplinary powers over their children are not unknown!) The problem, however, does not arise solely from the children and their backgrounds, for, as Sir David wisely pointed out, “the teachers themselves are subject to the standards of the age in which we live, an age in which it is widely believed that a decline in Christian morality is a fact and is a main cause of the growth of irresponsible behavior, especially among the young.”

Sir David asked what were the values that the teachers were trying to hand on, and how seriously was religious instruction taken in the schools. “These are questions often asked and seldom answered,” he said. “But they go to the root of our present discontents. If we concern ourselves solely with vocational education, then, vital as science, technology, and foreign languages are to the economy of the nation, we shall be like men who build a great ship and forget the compass and the steering gear.” This warning could hardly be more timely.

At exactly the same time the opening session of the British Medical Association’s annual representative meeting was being held in Sheffield. Grave concern was expressed by the doctors present over the alarming increase in venereal disease among adolescents. One of the delegates recalled that the acme of success in girls’ schools used to be the winning of one’s lacrosse, swimming, or hockey colors. But he had heard of a girls’ school in England where another achievement had now been added—the pinning of a certain mascot on one’s chest to indicate to one’s fellow pupils that one had lost one’s virginity. While he avowed the greatest respect for psychiatrists, he thought that, up to a point, they had had their day, and that what was needed to correct the loss of moral discipline which was sweeping round the country was the rod, adequately and properly administered. Another delegate stressed that it was “the most terrible tragedy in the community if young people ceased to feel that chastity and decency mattered.”

In an article in the Church of England Newspaper that same week Archdeacon Eric Treacy (now appointed to the suffragan bishopric of Pontefract) addressed himself to the question: What can we do about teenage morals? He suggested that those who write and produce plays for television, radio, and cinema should desist from glamorizing young thugs and dramatizing their youthful lusts. He deplored the fact that the call to idealism was so little heard nowadays. “To be told that we have never had it so good is all right as an election gimmick, but it is a pretty sterile philosophy to live by. We have expected too little of our young people, and we have got as little as we expected.” He blamed also the unsavory example in matters of morals and sex set by older people to younger people at their places of employment. “The road back is a long one,” he ended, “and there is no short cut. The problem will only be tackled effectively as it is seen as a matter of laying sound foundations; those foundations are those of Christian teaching as to the sanctity of personality and obedience to the Ten Commandments, which are all too rarely proclaimed in our churches today.”

Let the last word be with one of the great Christian educators of our time, the late Bishop Spencer Leeson, and let it be in the form of a catena of brief quotations from his Bampton Lectures on Christian Education: “We have to put the faith back again at the heart of education, and that means that we must put it back at the heart of the national life … (The teacher’s) work is in the highest and truest sense pastoral.… The relation of teacher and pupil, at whatever stage and whatever age, must be before all things pastoral.… The mind of a nation is reflected in its schools.… If Christian ethics are separated from the Christian faith, and the latter abandoned, the former will not long endure.” What, in short, we desperately need is genuinely Christian teachers, whose vital faith will be “caught” by the children under their instruction. The young men and women in our universities and training colleges should be encouraged to regard the teaching profession as a definite Christian vocation, and to respond to it with the same vision of faith and spirit of commitment as is expected of those who respond to the call of the mission field.

The Choice: Verbal Revelation Or Skepticism

Religion, Reason and Revelation, by Gordon H. Clark (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961, 241 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Systematic Theology, California Baptist Seminary.

In five clearly-written and incisively-argued chapters, Gordon H. Clark has given us his basic thinking about Christian apologetics whose function he conceives to be to give us a “rational worldview” (p. 111). Clark operates from two basic points of leverage. On the positive side he considers that only in special revelation do we have a religion capable of rational defense; on the negative side he uses the law of contradiction to show that all competing systems fall victim to the reductio ad absurdum.

There are several felicitous features to the book. The literary style is a model of English clarity. The logic of the book is beautiful! One had better have his logical house in order or Clark will make short work of him (and this makes reviewing his book difficult!). Time and again Clark uses the law of contradiction to decimate an opposing view. He challenges the logical positivists to state their philosophy in defiance of the logic of contradiction. In the past century there have been many theologians who have defended the notion of a finite God as a resolution to the problem of evil. Clark argues decisively (to this reviewer) that from the standpoint of logical form one can argue for a finite devil who finds too much good going on in the universe to suppress it all! The logical structures of the two arguments are isomorphic so we are left with no criterion to choose one over the other.

Furthermore a refreshing honesty pervades the entire book. Clark believes that all thinking starts from presuppositions. Therefore there is no real sense in trying to cover them up or introduce them covertly into the argument. Clark comes right out in broad daylight and forcefully announces his assumptions. For example, he affirms that he is out to defend Christianity, and Christianity in the form of Calvinism, and Calvinism as exhibited in the Westminster Confession of Faith (pp. 23 f.).

Clark’s basic procedure is to show first that alternatives to Christianity default at the point of consistency and fall victim to the reductio ad absurdum; and then to show that only in Christian revelation is there grounds for a rationally-consistent world-view. To accomplish this he discusses five different topics which are the chapter divisions of his book: religion, philosophy, language, ethics, and evil.

In chapter one he shows that all attempts to define religion in a general way result in a logical mess. The only way out is to define religion as Christianity and that in turn as Calvinism. In chapter two he attempts to show that the history of modern philosophy results in ignorance or contradiction or skepticism. Only in Christian revelation can reason find its way to true rationality. This is to this reviewer the most rewarding chapter of the book. In chapter three Clark shows that attempts to define theological language as in some way logically odd or as complete symbolism fall to the ground for they only manage to say that religious language is meaningless or senseless. Only in literal religious language (coupled with revelation, verbal inspiration, and innate logic, cf. p. 150) is there a resolution to the problems of religious language. In the fourth chapter Clark finds the solution to the fundamental problem of ethics in the expressed will of God which is the right in itself purely because God so utters it. In the last chapter the resolution to the problem of evil is not to be found in the so-called doctrine of the freedom of the will (which is customary) but in the Sovereign God who is the cause of all things but not the author of all things.

One of the clear statements of his position is found on page 87: “Therefore I wish to suggest that we neither abandon reason nor use it unaided; but on pain of skepticism acknowledge a verbal, propositional revelation of fixed truth from God. Only by accepting rationally-comprehensible information on God’s authority can we hope to have a sound philosophy and a true religion.” He also calls his view a Christian intellectualism by which he means the primacy of the truth (p. 105). In the traditional language of apologetics his formula is the Augustinian-Anselmic one that we must believe in order to understand.

Clark does not fear a frontal attack on any who may in some manner confuse the strong position of the Westminster Confession. Accordingly he frequently takes on the fundamentalists for their pietism or obscurantism or anti-intellectualism. He also crosses swords with Hodge, Carnell, and Berkouwer for at some critical point each of these has waivered from the Westminster Confession.

Clark is strongest in philosophy where his meticulous knowledge of the history of philosophy is used to the best advantage. And he is best in philosophy when he is engaging in refutation. How refreshing is his logical clarity in a day when truth, proposition and consistency are reckoned as spiritual and theological penalties. If any student or pastor or professor is low on apologetic ammunition, here is plenty for replenishing the arsenal.

Some of the points about which there could be further discussion and at which there is perhaps some difference of opinion between author and reviewer are: 1. It cuts down on the labor to define Christianity in terms of the Westminster Confession of Faith but this stipulation stands in need of considerable justification. 2. The Westminster Confession puts great emphasis upon the witness of the Spirit which is missing in Clark’s approach, which suggests not so much an oversight but an inability to see how this doctrine can possibly fit into his scheme of verification (Westminster Confession, I, v, vi.). 3. The equal ultimacy of reprobation and election (p. 238) seems to me to commit the Gospel to arbitrariness and not to the good news of love and redemption for sinners. 4. There is no development of the dynamic side of the Word of God as found in Isaiah 55 or Heb. 4:12–13 and as expressed in the Hebrew word, dabar. 5. With Clark’s basic theses about language I am in agreement. But I feel that his understanding of language is formed too exclusively under the shadow of logic and does not allow enough for what may be learned from literature and linguistics. In that he believes all metaphorical language can be reduced to propositions without remainder I suspect that his theory of aesthetics and mine are divergent. 6. His treatment of ethics sounds to me like an ethical nominalism. The right is solely, simply what God decrees. God is ex-lex and is therefore responsible only to himself. But what is this “himself?” Is God ex-love? ex-pity? ex-mercy? ex-righteousness? Can it really be that it is wrong to sacrifice Isaac on Monday, right on Tuesday, and wrong again on Wednesday? 7. Clark argues that the idea of God is innate. The Reformed tradition has been very cautious at this point. Warfield agrees that the idea of God is innate but says it is a doctrine to be treated with great care (Calvin and Augustine, p. 34, fn. 4) whereas Bavinck rejects the idea outright (Doctrine of God, pp. 48 f.). They (the Reformed theologians) did teach the sensus deitatis and the semen religionis but never in any traditional philosophical sense of an innate idea of God. It was rather a piece of general revelation speaking to God’s continuous witness within the creature but never as the creature’s “possession.” 8. The most difficult chapter is the last because it contains a number of precise, almost hair-splitting, definitions and distinctions as well as a very closely-reasoned argument which at times becomes very difficult to follow. It defends a traditional Calvinistic determinism (in contrast to a mechanical or Islamic determinism) in which God is the cause of all that happens but not the immediate author of all that happens. I do not think that this absolutizing of the sovereignty of God in theology really catches the heartbeat of Scripture. At this point I find more scriptural consistency in Christological Lutheranism.

BERNARD RAMM

Madison Avenue Regnant

The New-Time Religion, by Claire Cox (Prentice-Hall, 1961, 248 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Floyd Doud Shafer, Pastor, Salem Presbyterian Church, Salem, Indiana.

That the world has joined the church, at the church’s friendly invitation and to the conversion of the church to the world’s ways, is no longer news: all that remains is to record the results. Miss Cox, United Press International religion writer, documents the victories of Madison Avenue, the men in grey flannels and the keen executives in the best of brisk, gay, crisp, statistics-studded and quotation-filled reportorial manners. In 17 chapters, Miss Cox describes the “new look” and the new folklore of snappy American religion. She discusses: why religion is so popular and so irrelevant, the new genre of soft-sell evangelists, the frustrating effect of the burst of religious activity on the pulpit and manse, architecture as a symbol of confusion, conflicts regarding hymns, Bible translations, biblical illiteracy, the ambiguous situation in the church school, the cult of togetherness, the new religion and social issues, and the kind of theology required to fit the atmosphere surrounding the busy church office, swimming pool and coffee hour. Through it all we see a clergy busy with everything but essentials, immensely popular yet strangely unwanted except in the more frivolous aspects of “successful” religion, and here we see a religion whose volubleness on every subject is equalled only by an attending inability to influence itself or its society toward righteousness. Most of the big names of the popular leaders are present with their appropriate quotes. Miss Cox makes small effort to criticize and an air of happy accord with the whole business pervades her writing. She does, however, make a meek plea for the return of The Old Rugged Cross to the hymnals, and she hopefully suggests that religion’s growth to bigness through merger will lead to a complete reunion of all Christendom. Roman and Jewish churches are included in her survey; however, the Jews are omitted from the final merger. Surely, Madison Avenue will find some way to include them, if Romans 11 won’t work.

The serious omission of the work is the failure to take cognizance of the vast number of pastors and lay people to whom this new-time religion is not progress but apostasy, not theology but anthropology, and not soteriology but social acceptability. In sum, Miss Cox records the modern parallel to the popular religion of Jeroboam II; and, by a mere recitation of the successful facts, she unwittingly summons many Amoses to arise in the land. When we have all finished with these clever reports, the Amoses will come: will the official priests of the new-time religion have ready-to-mouth the rebuffs that greeted Amos?

FLOYD DOUD SHAFER

Christ And The Modern

Christianity and Modern Man, by Albert T. Mollegen (Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, 160 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary.

This is a book with some obvious merits. It is short and lucid. It covers some of the great themes of the modern age in simple and understandable terms. The development of recent thought is clearly and adequately portrayed, and the weaknesses in modern systems, both philosophical and psychological, are exposed with acumen. Good use is made of modern literature, especially Auden, Eliot, and Koestler. The main themes of Christianity are presented with general fidelity, although in modern terminology and not without a measure of reinterpretation.

This leads us to some no less evident defects. The phrasing might have been amended to avoid certain colloquialisms in the original spoken form. Again, an index would have been useful considering the many references and the relatively high cost. More seriously, one wonders if the balance of the work is really satisfactory. Does not the positive statement require more space than is given? I further query whether the constructive statement is materially so good as the preceding analysis. The intellectual content of revelation is unnecessarily depreciated on page 102. Again, the element of general revelation is overemphasized on page 105. There is a distinct demythologizing trend on pages 114 ff., and justifiable impatience with historiographical pedantry is carried too far on pages 120 ff. Even such great doctrines as the Incarnation and the Atonement, though maintained, seem to have suffered from a process of generalizing and trivializing which is hardly in keeping with the New Testament.

In short, we have here a work which is to be commended for its avoidance of jargon and its historical analyses, but which unfortunately falls short of the full and definite presentation of the Gospel which is primarily required.

GEOFFREY W. BROMILEY

Novelists And Religion

The Ark of God; Studies in Five Modern Novelists, by Douglas Stewart (Carey Kingsgate, 1961, 160 pp., 8/6), is reviewed by Arthur Pollard, Lecturer in the Department of English, Manchester University.

Mr. Stewart, who is Assistant Head of Religious Broadcasting for the BBC, considers his chosen novelists (from James Joyce to Joyce Cary) as representative of various religious allegiances. Within their limit, these 1960 Whitley lectures are a brave and quite successful attempt at a large subject. It is good to find a person so well aware of the literary presentation of contemporary religious problems.

Nevertheless, the chapter titles suggest some strange associations, Aldous Huxley and mysticism, for instance. Huxley can be classified as a mystic, but only in a very special sense. Similarly, Graham Greene’s is a particular kind of Catholicism. Mr. Stewart, be it said, pleads that we regard his linkages loosely; and he has made some effort to indicate the necessary qualifications. Again, Rose Macaulay’s Anglicanism (in The Towers of Trebizond) is only partial. Can there indeed be a comprehensive statement about a church itself so comprehensive? Certainly many Anglicans would prefer to be aligned with Joyce Cary’s Protestantism. And is Rose Macaulay important enough to be placed alongside the others? I should have preferred a fuller treatment of William Golding who gets a few paragraphs in a parenthesis, for he is certainly the most significant religious thinker among practising novelists.

Mr. Stewart intersperses in his chapters some theological comments, for example, on the ineffective, because antiquated, use of ecclesiastical and literary dogmatism (“the Church teaches,” “the Bible says”) in our day. But he has not quite recognized the essential relationship of a live dogma with the Pentecostal experience which he later eulogizes. There is also an enlightened comment on the Church of England’s obfuscated attitude towards divorce.

The criticisms above should not be misinterpreted. They have been provoked by the stimulating quality of Mr. Stewart’s book.

ARTHUR POLLARD

God’S Son: Light Of Light

Light Against Darkness, by Bela Vassady (The Christian Education Press, 1961, 176 pp., $3), is reviewed by M. Eugene Osterhaven, Professor of Systematic Theology, Western Theological Seminary.

The author of this volume is representative of one of the oldest members of the Protestant family of churches, the Reformed Church of Hungary. Responding early to reform once the movement got under way, the five royal free cities in Hungary became Protestant in 1525, and the whole country embraced the new faith and became a bastion of evangelical religion in Eastern Europe. Centuries of oppression and persecution by Hapsburg, Jesuit, and Turk were not able to eliminate it from the life of the people, so 4 million Hungarian Protestants remain today in Europe. Dr. Vassady taught in three of the seminaries of the Reformed Church of Hungary before coming to America after World War II as the official representative of Magyar Protestantism. Presently he is professor of systematic theology at the seminary of the United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

This volume, his second in English, represents the author’s “system” of theology. It is no closed system of thought but rather one in which all is seen in the light of God manifest in his revealed Word, the quintessence of which is Christ. The theme “light against darkness” runs from creation through the redemption promised in the Old Testament and declared in the New, to a chapter on the Christian’s walk and two additional chapters on the mission of the Church and the Christian. God’s command, “Let there be light,” marked the beginning of creation and is the reason that science is possible. Science needs religion; its two theories of the origin of the universe, evolution and the steady-state theory, are reminiscent of the Christian truths of creation and providence. Science is not sufficient to itself but must move out into metaphysics and theology (p. 22). Theology too is dependent on the physical world to express the inexpressible (p. 15 f.).

The fact that in the salvation of mankind light overcomes darkness shows that God is good and almighty (pp. 78 f., 164). In his light-bestowing goodness he binds his people into a partnership of repentance, gratitude, hope, love, and obedience so that they may discharge their light-bearing mission to the whole world (pp. 82 ff., 168).

The book employs much Scripture in establishing its positions. It is a happy blend of scientific and devotional writing, as all good theology should be, and stylistically it makes for pleasant reading.

M. EUGENE OSTERHAVEN

Titans Of The Church

Valiant For Truth, compiled and edited by David O. Fuller with biographical introductions by Henry W. Coray (McGraw-Hill, 1961, 460 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Earle E. Cairns, Chairman, Department of History and Political Science, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Few collections of documents cover the whole scope of church history. Hence, evangelicals will welcome David O. Fuller’s collections of letters, sermons, prayers, speeches, theological works, and autobiographical selections from the pens of godly men from Paul to Machen.

Not only do the selections reflect several types of Christian literature but the choices embody the main interest of each writer’s life. Carey’s otherwise not readily obtainable essay on Christian missionary obligation or selections from the diary of Brainerd demonstrate this. The hitherto unpublished “On the Trinity” by Jonathan Edwards adds interest. The inclusion of many fine specimens of expository preaching provide illustrations of that technique which is so much needed in the contemporary pulpit.

The selections are enhanced by accurate, relevant, and creative biographical sketches of each writer from the pen of Henry W. Coray. Biographer and compiler have co-operated fruitfully.

Ministers or laymen who feel at times that they alone are “valiant for the truth” or need encouragement to declare the “whole counsel of God” will receive encouragement and inspiration from the reading of these selections. The great Christians portrayed here valiantly upheld, even at the cost of life, such verities of the faith as the authority of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, and the atoning death and resurrection of Christ.

EARLE E. CAIRNS

Tragedy Reconstructed

On the Trial of Jesus, by Paul Winter (Walter De Gruyter, 1961, 216 pp., 22 DM), is reviewed by Palmer D. Edmunds, Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago.

A reviewer of a recent book dealing with the life of Jesus asked the questions, “How many lives of Jesus, I wonder, have been published in the last century? Is there, after all, anything to be said about the four Gospels?” Whatever may be the answer, there would doubtless be general agreement that the way should be left freely open for attempts to throw new light upon the life and death of the One who, to the Christian, is the most important figure of human history.

In his book, On the Trial of Jesus, Paul Winter undertakes a reconstruction of Jesus’ trial and execution. Manifesting, by copious annotations, familiarity with surviving pagan and Jewish records, the author recognizes these as being of supplementary value with reference to such matters as the character of Pilate and the workings of Jewish law and legal institutions. For his main source material, however, he goes direct to the Gospels and undertakes a historical analysis “of documents which were neither written for historical purposes nor by persons used to thinking in historical terms.” In the process, which involves frequent recurrence to the precise language of the original Greek texts, “editorial accretions” are separated from “traditional elements,” and distinction is drawn between “primary” and “secondary” traditions. The author admits frankly that some questions cannot be answered with certainty, but one following through his analysis becomes impressed with the reasonableness of the conclusions reached. The need of spreading the events described in the four Gospels over a period of several days is held to be obviated. Thus, instead of five descriptions of the mockery of Jesus, one emerges to correspond to the very earliest setting. Jesus is held to have been arrested by Roman military personnel for military reasons, and condemned on grounds of a political rather than a religious character. Concepts such as orthodoxy or heresy did not then exist. “Heresy in its modern sense is an achievement of Christian history.”

More readily meaningful to the one already well-grounded in biblical learning, the book is nevertheless readable by the layman who is interested in gaining for himself the greater insight into the Scriptures that comes from a workable understanding of their history and composition.

PALMER D. EDMUNDS

Creativity Enthroned

Intellectual Foundation of Faith, by Henry Nelson Wieman (Philosophical Library, 1961, 212 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by David Hugh Freeman, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Rhode Island.

Mr. Wieman asks the question: What can save man from his self-destructive propensities and most completely actualize the constructive potentialities of human existence? Wieman examines answers of Dewey, the Personalists, Tillich, Barth, the world community, education, and freedom in order to give his own answer in terms of “the faith of liberal religion.”

Liberal religion, as Wieman conceives of it, rejects deliverance by way of an infinite, omnipotent and perfect being and seeks it in a creativity in human life which is not infinite, omnipotent, and perfect “but which operates in human life under knowable conditions, many of which man can provide.” When creativity generates insights, creativity may be called “God.” God is not a person any more than a square is a circle. “God is found in the divine creativity empirically transforming man as he cannot transform himself, thereby expanding the range of what he can know and control, can appreciate as good and distinguish as evil, can understand evaluatively in the unique individuality of his fellowmen and himself.”

While Wieman’s analysis of the position of others is informative, his rejection of historic biblical Christianity is frequently written in language that is utterly meaningless. Such an expression as “creativity creates ex nihilo” is similar to a “grin without a cat.” God, the Creator of heaven and earth, has vanished in Mr. Wieman’s world. What remains is creativity without a creator. It is most curious!

DAVID HUGH FREEMAN

Need: Evangelical Toynbee

Prophecy for Today, by J. Dwight Pentecost (Zondervan, 1961, 191 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College (Illinois).

In the past 30 years there has been a noticeable decline in the preaching of prophecy due partially to a reaction against extreme positions that some of its advocates formerly held, and partially to the rise of other questions, such as the nature of revelation and the character of the church, which have shifted the focus of theological discussion in a different direction. Dr. Pentecost re-emphasizes the value of predictive prophecy for the modern church, while making allowance for the errors of the past. He attempts to restate its basic truths for the present situation.

In 17 short chapters, based on sermons delivered to an average church audience, he discusses such subjects as “The Next Event in the Prophetic Program,” “Israel’s Title Deed to Palestine,” “The Coming Great World Dictator,” “The Rise and Demise of Russia,” and others. He follows generally the premillennial scheme of predictive prophecy advocated by Seiss, Scofield, Gaebelein, and others—namely, the rapture of the church, a seven-year period of tribulation in which the world will be dominated by a revived Roman empire, the preaching of the Gospel by a small group of Jews who acknowledge Christ as their Messiah, the ultimate destruction of the Gentile forces by the armies of heaven, and the establishment of the millennial kingdom.

The most novel feature of the book is the statement that Russia will become the means of awakening a reconstituted state of Israel to its need of God, and that the attack upon Israel by the “King of the North” will take place in the middle of the tribulation period.

Whether Dr. Pentecost is correct in all of his interpretations only time will tell. He has endeavored to deal with broad trends rather than with petty detail, and to retain the practical evangelistic note that should characterize all preaching of prophecy. He does not attempt to set dates, though he believes that the chain of events associated with the advent of Christ could begin at any time. He makes the rapture of the Church an integral part of the total process of consummation rather than the “trigger” of the end-time.

It seems to this reviewer that the Christian Church today needs an evangelical, premillennial Toynbee who can analyze the world process in the light of prophetic revelation, and who can interpret the totality of past, present, and future in terms of God’s purpose in Christ. Such a man should be both historian and prophet—“A Daniel come to judgment.” Perhaps Dr. Pentecost or some other scholar can develop more fully the process of thought which he has initiated in this book.

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Pulpit Luminary Of Boston

Focus on Infinity, A Life of Phillips Brooks, by Raymond W. Albright (Macmillan, 1961, 464 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by T. Robert Ingram, Rector of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church and School, Houston, Tex.

Professor Albright has offered an entertaining diary-type record of the life of Phillips Brooks, the preaching star of both Boston and the Episcopal church of the post-Civil War era. It is 60 years, he writes, since the appearance of a similar but more lengthy work by Brooks’ close friend, Professor A. V. G. Allen, who like Dr. Albright, was at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Brooks was closely associated. The passage of time, together with the fact that the 125th anniversary of Phillips Brooks’ birth was marked on December 13, 1960, warrants a new study, says the author.

However, one wonders whether anything except a new and time-tested evaluation of Brooks could be added to the data available in the earlier biography. Unquestionably Brooks was not only a preacher of great power, but he also personified a particular and partisan Christian expression which was controversial in its day and has left an important mark on both the Episcopal church and the nation. One looks in vain for any attempt to come to grips with the issues which are hinted at, such as Brooks’ whole-hearted endorsement and propagation of the theology of England’s F. D. Maurice.

In view of the implications which time has effected in the development of Maurice’s views, as well as the current struggle over ecumenicity in which Brooks took a significant and interesting position, it might be hoped that a fuller analysis might be offered. Nonetheless, Professor Albright has portrayed Brooks much as he must have struck his contemporaries, with emphasis on a magnetic personality, the tweedy parson pleasantly dealing with the great issues of life while on a vigorous passage through the parlors of the great at home and abroad in the high style of the best of the nineteenth century.

T. ROBERT INGRAM

Athens And Jerusalem

The Memoirs Called Gospels, by G. P. Gilmour (Judson, 1960, 299 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Robert Mounce, Associate Professor of Biblical Literature and Greek, Bethel College.

With the publication of The Memoirs Called Gospels, Dr. Gilmour, president of McMaster University, brings to the broader reading public the results of more than a quarter century of lecturing to university freshmen on the gospel story. Approximately one third of the text itself is devoted to establishing an intelligent approach to the interpretation of the gospel record as literature and history. The rather extended section for footnotes and recommended reading will be of great assistance to the layman who desires to dig more deeply into the various areas discussed in the text.

Early in the book the author distinguishes between two views of life which predominate in the Western world: the Greek with its rejection of the childish myths of a primitive cosmology, and the Palestinian with its preoccupation with the religious ordering of life. It would seem to me that Dr. Gilmour is essentially involved in building a bridge between the two. At every point where the two perspectives would point to differing conclusions (such as the Virgin Birth, demons, miracles, nature of the Atonement, Resurrection, etc.) the author reaches for the best insights of Greece while never completely dismissing the less sophisticated faith of Palestine.

Dr. Gilmour writes as a litterateur rather than a professional New Testament scholar; thus while it is eminently quotable, the book never delves at any depth into the basic problems of gospel criticism, nor is it free from that type of incidental error that recourse to primary sources would have prevented as, for example, “the word saint never appears in the singular in the New Testament” (p. 152)—(but cf. Phil. 4:21, panta hagion).

ROBERT MOUNCE

In Philadelphia, where historic churches abound, many an old pew was dusted off this month as converts from the Billy Graham crusade sought out regular places of worship.

Some 15,000 persons recorded decisions for Christ during the four-week crusade, which drew an aggregate attendance of more than half a million despite an unseasonably hot September. It was unquestionably the most far-reaching religious endeavor ever seen in the three-state Delaware Valley area.

Ministers were especially jubilant over the grass-roots impact of the crusade.

“It’s going to mean additional members for us,” said the Rev. A. Scott Hutchison, pastor of Third Baptist Church. “But, more important, it has resulted in a kindling of spiritual fire which will continue to grow.”

A district conference superintendent of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the Rev. Carl M. Schneider, observed that church people were beginning to show new concern for their neighbors as a result of crusade participation.

“This is the wholesome thing,” declared Schneider.

Clergymen’s lives also were touched, according to the Rev. Robert W. Bringherst, minister of Leverington Presbyterian Church, who said that within evangelical ranks the crusade greatly strengthened cooperation among denominational and independent ministers.

At least four ministers were known to have made new personal affirmations of faith during the crusade, including a platform guest who stepped down during Graham’s invitation.

Personal workers said more than 50 per cent of those making decisions were 20 years of age or under. One teen-age convert, destined for the Jesuit priesthood, enrolled in the Philadelphia College of Bible instead.

Graham team members were gratified at the number of Negroes who turned out for the crusade, occasionally numbering up to 10 per cent of the audience, a record for American crusades, all of which have been integrated. Philadelphia’s population is estimated to be 28 per cent Negro, 42 per cent Roman Catholic, 6 per cent Jewish and 24 per cent white Protestant.

Graham’s next major U. S. crusade will be held in Chicago, beginning next May 30. During January and February he will tour South America, with rallies scheduled in seven key cities.

The Philadelphia evangelistic effort was augmented by a two-week follow-up seminar for ministers conducted by Charles Riggs, chief of counselling work for the Graham team.

Bypassing Doctrine

“The time has come,” said Dr. Truman B. Douglass, “when it is not necessary to wait for the solution of all problems of doctrine and form to begin to act together in fulfillment of the Church’s mission.”

Expressing skepticism that church union such as envisioned by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake can be achieved, Douglass proffered what amounts to an alternative: merge the mission boards of as many Protestant denominations as possible.

Douglass made the proposal in an address this month before the annual meeting of Ohio ministers of the United Church of Christ. He said he will recommend to the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, of which he is the designated head, that merger conversations begin immediately.

“I suggest that the way to get the ecumenical movement off dead center is to return it to the missionary movement which gave it its original impetus,” declared Douglass.

He cited several specific forms of missionary work which ought to be unified: television and radio broadcasting; the making of motion pictures; establishment of churches in new communities; publishing and distributing books and periodicals; development of curricular materials for child education; “work of the Church in the field of higher education”; health and welfare projects; and the education and training of ministers.

Douglass lamented Protestant “disunity.” He declared: “Lay people who are finding ways of living together despite wide differences of ancestry, culture, and race are asked to separate themselves within the church because of theological quarrels conducted by their ancestors over issues which few of us today understand and even fewer care about.”

Some observers countered to the effect that mission work is hindered most, not by denominational competition as such, but by competing messages (often within the same denomination) wherein the uniqueness and finality of Christ is asserted by some and rejected by others.

Protestant Panorama

• Construction of a $2,000,000 religious center next to United Nations headquarters was endorsed this month by the Methodist General Board of Christian Social Concerns. The building would house a chapel, meeting rooms, offices, and a cafeteria, and would rise some 13 stories. It still needs the sanction of the Methodist Coordinating Council.

• The first evangelistic campaign ever conducted in modern Rome drew hundreds of persons nightly to Brancaccio Theater in summer meetings addressed by the Rev. Harold Herman of the U. S. Assemblies of God.

• A neatly-designed magazine geared to YMCA members and employees made its debut this month featuring a congratulatory letter from President Kennedy who noted that “the YMCA has provided a significant service to our nation by establishing sound programs of healthy recreation for both young people and adults through the years.” Editor of The Y Magazine, which will appear monthly, is Robert W. Moore.

• Three California students returning from the National Methodist Student Conference in Urbana, Illinois, were among 78 persons killed in the crash of an airliner near Chicago this month.

• A professional school for the training of ministers beyond the baccalaureate degree will open on the Tennessee campus of Milligan College next fall. To be known as the Emmanuel School of Religion, it will have no organic relationship to Milligan, but co-operation will be maintained. The curriculum will include Bible, biblical languages, church history, Christian education, theology, and practical ministries on a graduate level.

• Observance in England and in Calcutta marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of William Carey, famed Baptist missionary to India.

• A $100,000 grant from the estate of Mrs. Amelie McAlister Upshur will enable Fuller Theological Seminary to begin construction of a new library building to accommodate more than 200,000 volumes, with room for expansion.

• The Sunday-School World, a Christian workers’ monthly published by the American Sunday-School Union, is marking its centennial.

The Negro Rift

Because of the controversy over racial integration, opening of the fall school term spelled more than a little strife in the United States in recent years. This year, however, while more schools were integrating peacefully, the battleground shifted to an unlikely site: the church convention floor, where the conflict was between the Negroes themselves over integration methodology and where a leadership dispute led to the death of a prominent delegate.

In a surprising turn of events, the presidents of the nation’s two largest Negro religious organizations denounced Freedom Rides.

“What do you produce when you are in jail?” cried Dr. J. H. Jackson, whose claim to the presidency of the 5,000,000 member National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc., was upheld in a court-monitored election in Kansas City.

“We want our rights, but we must assume responsibility,” said Jackson. “Negroes have got to learn that there is something else in the country besides civil rights.”

He said other Negro integrationists “want somebody else to solve the problem. They want the government to do it.”

In San Francisco, where the 2,500,000-member National Baptist Convention of America was holding its own annual sessions, President C. D. Pettaway affirmed “a better way” to integration.

“Of course I want all the freedom to which a law-abiding citizen is entitled and that includes the freedom to ride on a bus, if I have the money,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to go to jail just for a ride.”

The 75-year-old clergyman from Arkansas said his own formula to bring about integration was, “Just be a good citizen and a high-class man.”

In Kansas City, Jackson’s views were challenged by a strong minority group led by Dr. Gardner C. Taylor of Brooklyn, New York, past president of the Protestant Council of New York, and Dr. Martin Luther King, noted integrationist.

Taylor claimed to have defeated Jackson in an election for the presidency at last year’s convention in Philadelphia. Jackson, who had then been president for seven years, said he was re-elected when a convention assembly moved to accept a nominating committee’s recommendation to that effect.

After Jackson declared the Philadelphia session adjourned, however, a crowd stayed behind and held another election which Taylor won by 1,864 to 536. The convention was then stalemated when both sides obtained temporary court injunctions to prevent the conducting of business.

When the dispute went into the courts, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge ruled that he had no jurisdiction.

Then, in October of last year, the directors of the convention decided in favor of Jackson’s presidency.

Taylor, however, continued to declare that he was the rightfully elected president and he came to this year’s convention in Kansas City pressing his claim. His supporters stormed the convention speakers’ platform in an effort to obtain recognition and a near riot ensued.

During the melee, the Rev. Arthur G. Wright, a convention director, plunged headlong from the platform and was rushed unconscious to a hospital. He died of a head injury 17 hours later.

Wright, 64, was a wealthy businessman from Detroit and pastor of one of the city’s largest Negro churches.

Kansas City detectives said a preliminary investigation indicated that Wright had fallen accidentally—that he had apparently not been pushed.

Subsequently, Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle took the rostrum and warned, “If you came here to raise hell in God’s name, then we’ll have to cancel the contract.”

After the violence, a petition for an injunction filed in a circuit court resulted in the appointment of Dr. D. A. Holmes of Kansas City to monitor the election. The 84-year-old minister was accepted as monitor by both factions.

The polling of nearly 5,000 delegates to the convention took some five hours. Jackson was declared the winner by a vote of 2,732 to 1,519.

Taylor then acknowledged his defeat and urged delegates to support Jackson:

“The supreme court of the National Baptist Convention has spoken,” he said. “Let us all close our ranks behind the leadership of Dr. Jackson.”

In the fight for the convention leadership, both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and President Kennedy were brought into the dispute.

Taylor’s supporters accused Jackson of attempting to use a routine telegram of greetings from the NAACP to further his cause. They obtained a second message from Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, saying that the organization was supporting neither candidate.

Because President Kennedy did not send a telegram of greeting to the convention, Jackson’s supporters charged that Taylor’s camp had turned the President against their leader.

Convention Circuit

At Bethlehem, Pennsylvania—New regulations on the remarriage of divorced persons were approved at the 29th Synod of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in America.

The church’s previous rules had permitted remarriage only in the case of “an innocent party” in a marriage broken by adultery. Under the new regulations, a pastor is permitted to officiate in the remarriage of divorced persons if in his judgment, and the judgment of the congregation’s board of elders, the persons have met the following requirements:

Recognition of personal responsibility for the failure of the former marriage, penitence and an effort to overcome limitations and failure, forgiveness of the former partner, fulfillment of obligations involved in the former marriage, and a willingness to make the new marriage a Christian one by dependence on Christ and participation in his church.

In addition, one of the parties must be a member of the local Moravian congregation, and one year must have passed since the divorce.

The synod also went on record in favor of family planning. Some 110 delegates ended the eight-day meeting by adopting resolutions opposing capital punishment and federal aid to church-supported schools and reaffirming the 1956 synod’s call for racial equality in the church.

The Moravian Church in America (Unitas Fratrum) is divided into the Northern and Southern Provinces with a total membership of more than 60,000.

At Tyler, Minnesota—A warning to laymen against the tendency to let their pastors become “errand boys” was made by the president of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Rev. A. E. Farstrup told delegates to the AELC’s 84th annual convention that denominational congregations should organize themselves so that many more duties could be taken from the shoulders of their pastors. He said this was particularly important as the AELC moves into union with three other Lutheran bodies and pastors are busy with merger negotiations. Pastors, he advised, also must have time to study and meditate and to counsel with those seeking their help.

One of the actions taken at the AELC convention was ratification, by a vote of 260 to 7, of an agreement of consolidation with the Augustana Lutheran Church, the United Lutheran Church in America, and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod). The four groups are of Danish, Swedish, German, and Finnish background.

Vernon E. Nelson, AELC statistician, reported that latest available figures credit the denomination with a total of 24,201 members.

At Cape Girardeau, Missouri—A resolution adopted at the 56th annual General Assembly of The Church of God urged aid to the Russian and Chinese people. It called on President Kennedy and Congress to “feed all the hungry of Russia and China from America’s overabundance in the greatest diplomatic move ever proposed.”

Presiding at the sessions was Bishop Homer A. Tomlinson of Queens Village, New York, where the church has its headquarters. He has been general overseer of the church since 1943 when he succeeded his father, Bishop A. J. Tomlinson, who founded the body in 1903. Current membership is about 74,000. The church is not connected with any other group having a similar name.

At Tacoma, Washington—The 25th General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church, Inc., saw ratification of a proposed change in the name of the denomination to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The change had been proposed by the preceding synod and consequently approved by a majority of the 11 presbyteries throughout the country.

The reason given for the name change was to avoid confusion with the Bible Presbyterian Church, Collingswood Synod, made up of churches formerly associated with the General Synod.

The new name became effective immediately and involves about 70 churches in the United States.

Elected moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church was Dr. John M. L. Young. Stated clerk is the Rev. Robert Hastings.

At Cheyenne, Wyoming—Delegates to the seventh annual meeting of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches moved to establish the group as the official denominational body for Congregational churches that did not join in the merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

The group has been in existence since 1955 and has from the outset expressed opposition to the merger which created the United Church of Christ.

At the most recent three-day meeting, some 370 delegates voted to launch a $4,000,000-$5,000,000 fund-raising drive and to authorize establishment of a “Congregational Center for Graduate Studies.”

At Lockland, Ohio—Churches and mass media were urged to awaken America “to the danger of Communist infiltration of youth and student groups” at the 11th annual meeting of the Baptist Bible Fellowship.

In a resolution adopted by nearly 1,000 delegates, the group appealed to the country’s schools to educate “our youth in our glorious American patriotic heritage.”

The fundamentalist Baptist Bible Fellowship, founded 11 years ago with 64 co-operating churches, now claims a 1,200-church fellowship and a “total membership and Sunday School enrollment constituency” of more than 1,000,000. A missionary arm supports 160 missionaries on 27 foreign fields. Affiliation is maintained with the International and American Councils of Christian Churches.

In another resolution, delegates declared that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations if Communist China is admitted.

In other actions, delegates called for an investigation of the World Federation for Mental Health, a UNESCO agency, charging it with being “an instrument of socialism, subversion and an enemy of biblical Christianity.” Members were urged to avoid use of the recently-published New Testament of The New English Bible.

Among convention speakers was past president John W. Rawlings, who lamented “the new-time religion” as having “turned churches into recreation halls, nurseries, social service agencies and psychological clinics.”

“The new-time religion,” said Rawlings, “is just a new worldly Mother Hubbard movement that covers everything and touches nothing. It is not the old-time religion of the Bible at all.”

Call for Chaplains

An urgent plea for volunteer chaplains is being made by Major General Frank A. Tobey, chief of Army chaplains. Some denominations will continue to have more than their share, but the expansion opens up the quotas for a number of others. Tobey observed that there already was a shortage of Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and Jewish chaplains.

Moving Ministers

An Ohio Congressman is sponsoring a bill to provide that the amount paid to a minister for moving expenses shall be deductible for income tax purposes.

Republican Representative Jackson E. Betts’ measure provides an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that would exclude from taxable income “amounts received for moving himself and his immediate family, household goods, and personal effects to a place at which he is to perform duties as a minister of the Gospel, to the extent used by him for such moving.”

Betts pointed out that clergymen in many denominations are required to move from time to time by the custom or rules of their church bodies.

Moving expenses are ordinarily not deductible because the IRS holds that a person usually moves to secure a better position or avail himself of better environment and that moving, therefore, is a personal rather than a business expense.

The Ohio Congressman said the situation is different with regard to members of the clergy.

Brotherly Dispute

A new fight for control of the Lutheran Brotherhood, a billion-dollar fraternal life insurance society, is reported brewing.

A committee of 100 clergymen and laymen has been organized to attempt to call a special convention of society delegates.

Such a meeting, if called, would “review the conduct of the administration since the last convention and reorganize the administration if it appears feasible,” one of the leaders of the movement, Gordon A. Bubolz, said.

Bubolz, a director of the society for 18 years, supported the Lutheran Brotherhood’s management, led by Carl F. Granrud, president, when an attempt was made to unseat it at the society’s 1959 quadrennial convention. This time he is opposing Granrud.

One of the charges that will be made, Bubolz indicated, is that the directors of the brotherhood, on Granrud’s recommendation, set aside an action of the 1959 convention putting an age limit of 65 on company officials and department heads.

Bubolz claimed the board action meant that at least four of the society’s 12 directors, including Granrud, who were near retirement age, “voted to extend their own terms of office.”

The society has members from all Lutheran bodies, but has no official relationship with any particular denomination.

Mending Fences

On a cold day in 1778 British troops tore down a fence belonging to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and burned it for firewood.

The church, which is marking its 200th anniversary this month, never wrote off the loss.

In this case, the perseverance paid off to the tune of $18, recently paid by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Selwyn Lloyd—out of his own pocket.

Officially, the British government rejected the claim made by the rector of St. Peter’s, the Rev. Joseph Koci, for payment of the original debt plus compound interest of $756,000.

But Koci said that with receipt of Lloyd’s personal check for six pounds, eight shillings, and one penny, he would see that the account was closed.

“As for the compound interest,” he declared, “we can willingly forget it in the interests of Anglo-American amity.”

The $18 will he applied toward classroom renovation.

Holding Seats

The three Arab Christian members of the 120-member Israeli parliament were re-elected last month.

One was Elias Nakleh, Eastern Rite Catholic, a member of Premier David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai Party.

The others were Youssef Khamis, a Protestant Episcopalian, who is a member of the leftist Mapai Party; and Tewfik Toubi, a Greek Orthodox.

Communists increased the number of their seats from three to five. In Nazareth they gained almost half the votes.

More Angola Arrests

Portuguese secret police arrested four American Methodist missionaries in strifetorn Angola, according to an announcement from the Board of Missions of The Methodist Church in New York.

Two ministers and two laymen were taken into custody, the board said, adding that charges against the missionaries are unknown.

The arrests brought to five the number of American Methodist missionaries picked up by Portuguese police in Angola, where a civil war between white settlers and Africans has been raging for nearly six months.

The Rev. Raymond E. Noah of Palco, Kansas, was arrested July 14 and held for 28 days before being deported to Geneva.

Two of the missionaries, the Rev. Wendell Lee Golden of Rockford, Illinois, and Marion Way, Jr., of Charleston, South Carolina, were reportedly arrested in Luanda, capital of Angola.

The others, Fred Francel of Endeavor, Wisconsin, and the Rev. Edwin LeMaster of Lexington, Kentucky, were said to have been picked up by police in the city of Quessua.

Communist Cynicism

East German authorities, in a move branded by church circles in Berlin as one of unprecedented cynicism, barred Dr. Kurt Scharf, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, from returning to East Berlin this month after he had paid an eight-hour visit to West Berlin on official business.

The action was taken despite the fact that the East German officials, acceding to a request from the management of the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg, had issued a temporary pass to Scharf permitting him to cross the border barricades.

When Scharf, who has resided in East Berlin since 1951, returned to the border checkpoint, Communist police took away his East Berlin identity card and pass, ostensibly to investigate the documents. Thirty minutes later, he was informed that he would not be allowed to re-enter East Berlin and that the decision was “final and not subject to further discussion.” His identity card and pass were confiscated.

Reason given for Scharf’s expulsion was that he had retained his West Berlin identity card and thus failed to make clear his claim to East Berlin citizenship.

Fear was expressed that Scharf’s expulsion might result in a breakdown of German Lutheranism over the political barrier. The church is the only remaining major institution which operates on both sides of the divided Germany.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rt. Rev. Theodore Nott Barth, 63, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Tennessee; in Memphis … the Rt. Rev. Charles A. Clough, 58, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of central and southern Illinois; in Springfield … Dr. Thomas M. Johnstone, ex-moderator of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church … Colonel P. L. DeBevoise, former national secretary of the Salvation Army; in Atlanta … the Rev. Joseph Scott, 93, a founder of the Church of God denomination and an adviser to William Jennings Bryan in the historic Scopes trial; in Chattanooga … the Rev. Norman S. Townsend, 44, newly appointed chaplain of Gordon College and Divinity School; in Wolfboro, New Hampshire.

Resignation: From the editorship of the Ohio Baptist Messenger, the Rev. R. G. Puckett.

Appointments: As professor of Bible and religious education at California Baptist College, Dr. Cecil M. Hyatt … as general director of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, Vernon Mortenson.

Elections: As president of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in America, the Rev. Kenneth C. Hamilton … as moderator, National Assn. of Congregational Christian Churches, Laurance E. Frost.

The West is keenly aware of the terrible Nazi persecution of the Jews, but the story of Communist persecution of the Christians in Korea and mainland China remains to be told.

Glimpses of terror for North Korean Christians are given in the following interview with Dr. Kyung Chik Han, minister of famed Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Seoul. Founded in 1945 by refugees who fled the Communists in North Korea, where they hoped to return “after reunification,” this church today has a daily morning prayer meeting at 5 a.m. Its two Sunday morning services and its Sunday evening service are each attended by more than 2000 worshipers.

Dr. Kyung Chik Han ministered for 10 years on the Yalu River frontier. Born of Confucian parents, he had attended a small Presbyterian church school, and there made a Christian confession. He attended Soong Sil Presbyterian College (oldest in Korea); Emporia (Kansas) College; and Princeton Theological Seminary (where he studied under Professors J. Gresham Machen and Oswald T. Allis).—ED.

DR. HENRY: Dr. Han, what was the Christian strength in Korea at the end of World War II?

DR. HAN: The Christian community in Korea numbered a half million persons, two-thirds of them in North Korea. In the Yalu River frontier city of Sin Wiju, (pop. 130,000) one-fourth of the inhabitants were Christians.

DR. HENRY: Japanese authorities asked a small group of Christian leaders (of whom you were one) to organize the community and to maintain order until UN forces arrived. Is this so?

DR. HAN: Yes. That’s why we organized the new city council of Sin Wiju (the Yalu River frontier city). The late Ha Yung Youn, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, and I were vice chairmen of the new government. A Presbyterian layman was chairman. Ha Yung Youn’s church was then the largest in all Korea; it had 2200 worshipers.

DR. HENRY: You never expected, of course, that Russian Communists would arrive to stay, but rather that American forces would come in as representatives of the United Nations.

DR. HAN: That is right. When we first had the UN liberation, every church was filled and overflowing. And I think that if the American forces had come into North Korea instead of the Communists, the whole of North Korea would have become Christian, maybe.

DR. HENRY: So you all gave a great welcome to the Russians as representatives of the UN forces. Only 10 days later did you learn, I am told, that two forces would occupy a “temporarily divided” Korea—as you thought it would be at that time. When the Russian forces came into the city, what were the consequences for the Christian leaders who had been given the responsibility of organizing and restoring order?

DR. HAN: As soon as the Russians came in they began to recognize our city council, and they put Christian citizens and ministers out of the council and they changed many other members. They put in Communists in order to dominate the council.

DR. HENRY: How long was it before they organized the Communist party as such?

DR. HAN: As soon as they reorganized the council they organized the Communist party also.

DR. HENRY: Now what did the people as a whole do, inasmuch as so large a percentage of them were Christians?

Communist Techniques

DR. HAN: In those days we really didn’t know there were any Communists in the city. I think they brought some farmers from some outlying farms and they just more or less made Communists out of the tenants. They told the tenants that ‘if you join our Communistic party the land will belong to you’ and through some such word made a lot of ‘trick’ Communists out of them.

DR. HENRY: What did the people of the city do when the Communists organized their Communist party?

DR. HAN: Most of the leaders organized the democratic party to fight against this new movement which was contrary to the will of the people.

DR. HENRY: You said about 25 per cent of the people of the city were Christians. Did the Christians actively co-operate in this democratic party or take the leadership in it?

DR. HAN: Yes, Christians took leadership, and all co-operated—not only Christians but many non-Christians also.

DR. HENRY: Then how long was it before the Communists began to take active measures against this party?

DR. HAN: As soon as the Communists had organized, their Communist party dominated all city affairs and also provincial affairs and began to persecute all those leaders not in favor of communism. One morning they began to round up the leaders who opposed Communism.

DR. HENRY: What form did this persecution take?

DR. HAN: They interfered at all kinds of meetings. They made it impossible for those in favor of democracy to meet, and then they began to arrest the leaders of the opposition party. They would throw them in prison and leave them there on nebulous charges.

Fleeing the Oppressors

DR. HENRY: Were you also in jeopardy?

DR. HAN: Both Mr. Youn and I were no longer pastors. If we had been pastors in those days we couldn’t have escaped. I suppose we would have been arrested. One day in October, 1945, we learned that they were also planning to arrest Pastor Youn and myself. So we hurriedly had to leave our home and we rode by truck for about 50 miles down south, and then we took a train. When we came near to the separation line (38th parallel) we walked 50 miles over mountain paths through the night. That’s how we reached South Korea.

DR. HENRY: Did pressures mount against the Christians who remained behind in North Korea?

DR. HAN: When the Communists started to come in they proclaimed publicly that complete freedom of religion would be given the people. But they really didn’t keep their promise. Through many indirect ways they interfered with the Christian Church.

DR. HENRY: What were some indirect ways?

DR. HAN: Well, for instance, they would hold all kinds of meetings on Sundays that would interfere with church worship. Then they began to control the schools. They usually held meetings for the children so the children couldn’t come to Sunday school. And then later, of course, they almost systematically put Christians and democratic leaders out of jobs, especially from government offices. And that way gradually they shaped such conditions so that anyone opposing communism simply could not live in North Korea.

DR. HENRY: When did the Communists first show open violence and hostility toward the Christians—imprisoning them, and so on?

DR. HAN: Well, I think the persecution began about October of that year.

DR. HENRY: Already at about the time you left?

DR. HAN: Yes. Then later they rounded up practically all the leaders—I mean leaders in religious circles, leaders in the business world, and leaders in society.

DR. HENRY: All who resisted communism on Christian principles?

DR. HAN: Not only on Christian principles, but also on democratic principles. I mean, even non-Christian leaders were rounded up. And then they also began to hold those people who belonged, as they called it, to “the bourgeoisie.” For instance, usually business leaders who had fine homes were ordered to leave the home within two or three days. And landlords who owned land were sometimes ordered to get out within 24 hours. And the purge—the real crisis—began in late 1945. These leaders who lost their homes and who lost their business and did not know where to turn became refugees and began to move down from North to South, leaving everything behind.

DR. HENRY: What specifically happened to the Christians in Sin Wiju?

Persecution and Vitality

DR. HAN: In spite of persecution most Christian leaders remained in their position until they were imprisoned and sent elsewhere. Most pastors who had a church remained even if they knew what was coming. But some elders and most leaders, realizing that they couldn’t live in North Korea any more, just felt that they had to escape. Such people tried to come down to South Korea. Some succeeded and some did not. In spite of Communist persecution the churches in North Korea were going strong. They did fine until the Communist war. Then the Communists began to invade South Korea, and they arrested practically all of the pastors.

DR. HENRY: With the invasion of South Korea by the Communists, there seemed to be a systematic plan to get rid of the Christian leadership in North Korea?

DR. HAN: They arrested the Christian ministers and usually sent them off to coal mines and such places for hard labor.

DR. HENRY: Did they have a trial of any sort, or were they just removed overnight, or what happened?

DR. HAN: They just take you—they take you and nobody knows where you have gone, and no information whatsoever is given the family. In North Korea even today, if anyone disappears he just disappears; that’s all. Nobody knows what has happened with him.

DR. HENRY: What of the reports that many of the Christian leaders were summoned to a meeting by the Communists and that these Christian leaders vanished as a group?

DR. HAN: Yes, some such things happened in a good many places, I think. Now for instance, as I understand it, when the Communists temporarily occupied Seoul, during 1950, they called some kind of meeting for all Christian leaders. When they all got together in a certain place, they were ordered to ride in trucks and then taken some place.

DR. HENRY: How many leaders were there?

DR. HAN: Well, during the Communist occupation in 1950, during that summer, something over 500 Christian leaders were taken that way.

DR. HENRY: What was ever heard from them?

DR. HAN: We have never heard what happened with them.

DR. HENRY: Who were these leaders? Pastors and elders, and who else?

DR. HAN: Mostly pastors and elders. For instance, among them there was Bishop Yusun Kim who was bishop of the whole Korean Methodist church. Then there was Dr. Nankoong, who used to be the general secretary of the Korean National Council.

DR. HENRY: What do the Christians think the Communists did with these Christian leaders whom they removed?

DR. HAN: We do not know exactly. We believe that they were held in North Korea somewhere.

DR. HENRY: You think they are still alive?

DR. HAN: Yes, we believe that most would be alive. The most tragic thing that happened was, of course, when the United Nations forces marched up to North Korea. As you know, the Communists were defeated by MacArthur’s forces. The United Nations forces (UN soldiers and Korean national soldiers) were marching up to North Korea, so the Communists had to retreat. At that time, in many places, these retreating Communists would gather together Christian leaders and also civic leaders, and many cases of massacre happened. They would be gathered and shot down with machine guns.

DR. HENRY: Before General Mac-Arthur’s forces arrived, the Communists moved to destroy the Christian and civic leaders?

DR. HAN: Yes. In many places throughout all North Korea such massacres happened.

DR. HENRY: Why did they do this?

DR. HAN: That’s the way of a Communist.

DR. HENRY: Dr. Han, you managed to escape from North Korea. Now we want to learn some of your experiences in that process.

A Church Born in Prayer

DR. HAN: After I left, a good many young people followed me down to Seoul. We didn’t know what was happening and what was ahead of us. Everybody was lonesome, and naturally we got together for prayer meetings.

DR. HENRY: Did you go back to North Korea?

DR. HAN: No, except once. When the UN forces reoccupied Northern Korea, within a week I followed UN forces north. As soon as the way was open to go to North Korea, the churches in South Korea sent a deputation composed of Korean ministers and missionaries. And I think there were about 10 of us who went within a week of occupation to Pyongyang as a deputation from South Korea, in order to help those leaders who were in North Korea. When we got to Pyongyang many people who had been hiding under Communistic rule came out of their hiding places with long beards. We met many ministers who escaped death under Communistic rule. We had a great meeting, the one Sunday we stayed there. Everybody had some story to tell. It was a great experience which we can never forget.

DR. HENRY: What did these ministers say? How long had they been in hiding and what had they been doing?

DR. HAN: Some a few years; everyone was in hiding at least more than three or four months. They were the ones who escaped the Communist regime. And so the church was reopened, we had a big meeting with lots of people. We had a big Sunday.

DR. HENRY: Was this just in Pyongyang or was it duplicated in other places in North Korea?

DR. HAN: Many places. In fact, our delegation was planning to go further into North Korea. My object, of course, was to go to Sin Wiju, my old town. So in Pyongyang we planned to go further north. But at that time we were advised by UN authorities not to proceed to North Korea because the Chinese Communists were crossing the Yalu River and invading. Since they advised us not to proceed further from Pyongyang, we had to return to South Korea.

DR. HENRY: What did you think then of the Christians who still remained in North Korea, as the Chinese Communists pressed into North Korea?

Traveling 500 Miles on Foot

DR. HAN: At first we thought that these Chinese Communists could be resisted and could be driven out of the country. But they just came on, masses of soldiers, and at that time I suppose the UN authorities thought it best to retreat. And then, as you know, President Truman didn’t allow General MacArthur to bomb Manchuria. And so he had to fight only south of the Yalu River. In such a case, one can’t maintain an army in North Korea. So General MacArthur had to withdraw the UN forces from North Korea. And that, of course, gave all the people of North Korea a great scare, because they were so happy to welcome UN forces. Now they were bewildered. And when they realized that the Communists were coming back, they knew they couldn’t live under a Communist regime anymore. They tried to follow the retreating UN forces down to South Korea, most of them by walking. It was a very severe winter. Some of them had to walk 500 miles to reach South Korea, and many of them did.

DR. HENRY: Were you with a company of people who came to South Korea this way?

DR. HAN: No, we returned to Seoul rather early, while the UN forces were holding against the Communists. So we came back safely by mission jeep. But those who were following UN forces had to walk down.

DR. HENRY: Did you have great hardship? Were some lost on the way?

DR. HAN: Yes. One tragic thing was that the UN air force simply couldn’t distinguish whether they were infiltrating Chinese Communists or whether they were Korean refugees. So a good many of them were bombed on the way by UN forces.

DR. HENRY: Did some also die from the hardships of the trip?

DR. HAN: Yes. Later, when the Communists regained North Korea, there was also much loss of life as refugees sought to cross the 38th parallel. They had to escape Communist guards. They had to cross over by night. Some had to ride on small boats along the seashore. When they were found out by Communist guards, sometimes they lost their lives, and families got separated. That’s how we had so many orphans along the 38th parallel. And that’s how our orphanage was organized—to take care of these children coming to Seoul and not knowing where to go. Since our church was known as a refugee church, they would come to our church for help.

DR. HENRY: I understand that as some Christians died along the way from the rigors of the journey, they would commit their children to other members of their congregation to take care of them.

DR. HAN: Yes. There were many such cases. They usually would come down in groups. When they were found out by Communists and when shooting started, everybody just had to take care of himself as best he could. Then they got separated one from another.

DR. HENRY: Can you tell us about how many of the Christians fled the Communist persecutions and escaped from North Korea to South Korea? About how many remained, and what is the condition of the Christian witness in North Korea today?

DR. HAN: Of course, we have no exact figure; that is impossible. We wonder, maybe about 100,000 Christians might have come down from the North. But that means still the vast majority are still remaining in North Korea. But the tragic thing is after this Communist war they could not have open services in North Korea. And the Christian movement went underground entirely. So we have no open church whatever in North Korea. For 10 years many Christians, hiding in the different places and meeting in houses and in secret meetings, have prayed and cried to our Lord for the deliverance throughout North Korea.

A Land without Churches

DR. HENRY: There is not a single church, you say—so no pastors, no missionaries are at work there?

DR. HAN: That is right.

DR. HENRY: What lesson ought the events in North Korea teach the Christian community around the world about the attitude of communism toward the Christian religion?

DR. HAN: Well, we must tell to all Christians who are living in the free world that as long as Communists remain in power in any country, Christian activities will be almost impossible. That does not mean that you can’t have Christian faith. But as far as organized Christian witness is concerned, that would be almost impossible, unless the church is ready to compromise in some way to get along with the Communist regime—which is rather very hard for Christian conscience.

Prayer for the Brethren

DR. HENRY: What is the prayer of the Christian community in South Korea for the Christian community in North Korea?

DR. HAN: We always pray for our brethren who are remaining in North Korea, that God will strengthen them and give them courage to live through these dark days. But at the same time, we also pray for such a time when the Communists will be driven out of North Korea so that North Korea might be Christianized. We believe such a time will come.

DR. HENRY: What is the situation now in South Korea from a Christian stand-point?

DR. HAN: Since the liberation of Korea from the Japanese dominion, the Christian church has been greatly strengthened throughout South Korea. Such strengthening came from many sources. One of the main sources was the Christian refugees from North Korea. Wherever these Christian refugees came down from North Korea, the Gospel came with them. And through these refugees many new churches have been founded throughout South Korea, and many new converts made through them, because these refugees literally became evangelists wherever they went. So today you will find a large Christian community. It is said that there are about 2 million Christians in South Korea today—that means almost seven or eight per cent of the population in South Korea.

DR. HENRY: Dr. Han, you were born shortly after the turn of the century, and you are living through the clash between Christianity and communism. What do you personally expect as you look into the future of this generation with its terrible struggle between Christianity and the non-Christian faiths?

DR. HAN: I think a very hard, severe struggle is ahead of us. But I also firmly believe the day will come for the final victory of Christ. Until such a day comes, we Christians should fight the good fight of faith and give everything we have for the cause of Christ. There is always a sound rule in a time of trouble: preach the Gospel and cheer up.

The concept of the covenant might well be described as the normative idea of biblical revelation. It does justice to two important elements in that revelation, namely its unity and its progressive character. There is in Scripture a divine unfolding of the eternal purposes of God; but amid all the diverse modes by which that revelation is made there is an inner coherence, so that the complete revelation is the Word of God, the one perfect and fully coherent utterance of the Most High. Yet it is probably a fairly safe generalization to say that even in evangelical thought, which claims to be biblical, this normative concept has tended to become a peripheral idea.

A covenant is essentially a pledged and defined relationship. There are three main elements in it—the parties contracting together, the promises involved, and the conditions imposed. It is clearly possible to have a covenant between equals or one which is imposed unilaterally by a superior. It is obvious, however, that any covenant between God and man can never be as between equals, but must be imposed from above. The LXX translators clearly saw this point when they translated berith not by suntheke but by diatheke which still retained something of its original connotation of a sovereign disposition.

Grace after the Fall. In God’s dealings with man, the Fall presents a clearly-defined line of demarcation. Prior to that point it is with man in a state of innocence that God deals. Afterwards it is to man as a guilty rebel that God extends his free and undeserved favor. Hence the distinction has been drawn between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The former in so far as it is still a gracious act of condescension might be better described in Matthew Henry’s phrase as “the covenant of innocency.” It is true of course that the term covenant is not explicitly mentioned, but the elements of a covenant relationship—contracting parties, promises, and conditions—are all present.

With the Fall a completely new situation emerges. Man is now a sinner under God’s wrath and condemnation. The fellowship between the creature and his Creator has been severed; and he is estranged. Yet his changed condition is seen not only in his alienation from God, but in the corruption of his nature. Thus he is not only out of touch with God but is utterly displeasing to God and, further, is incapable of restoring the relationship. This means that if there is to be a renewed relationship it will be entirely due to the grace of God. God must take the initiative, for man in his rebellious state will not of his own accord turn Godward. But God must also enable him to return; for, because of his sin, he is in such a state of bondage that he cannot turn. The covenant then, if it is to be established, is inevitably a covenant of grace. It is one in which God freely, and without any constraint outside himself, brings men who are wholly without merit into fellowship with himself. The promises made are gracious ones, for man deserves not blessing but condemnation. The conditions imposed are also gracious, for it is only by the enabling grace of God that man can fulfill them. The guarantee of the blessings of the covenant, which is to be found in God’s own character, is a further token of his gracious activity. That God the sovereign Judge should pledge himself to guilty men in such a way that they should have claims upon him, is the supreme demonstration of his grace.

The One and the Many. The further question now arises: In what sense can it be valid to speak of the covenant of grace as if there were only one covenant when in Scripture there are a number of covenants? But it is surely at this very point that we find how essential the covenant idea is to an understanding of the structure of biblical revelation, for it is in terms of the oneness of the covenant of grace that we can trace the unity which is a fundamental characteristic of Scripture. And it is because of the diversity of administration of the one covenant, as seen in the successive covenants, we do justice to the progressive nature of God’s self-disclosure in his Word.

The Covenant with Abraham. Turning first to the diversity of covenants, we find a succession of these culminating in the one sealed by the blood of Christ. Prior to Abraham there are elements of a covenant relationship, but the terms are not explicitly formulated, unless one includes the covenant with Noah which does not however seem to fall within the main stream. But for the precise formulation of the covenant we must wait until the call of Abraham. Here the covenant is rooted in the electing grace of God who takes the initiative in calling Abraham. In the relationship, established by God in Genesis 17, he pledges himself to Abraham to be his God. He promises blessing to him and through his seed to the nations of the earth. He gives to him as a seal of the covenant the rite of circumcision, and Abraham’s acceptance of this rite and of the promises of God is his fulfillment of the demand of the covenant, namely, faith in the God of the covenant.

The Covenant on Sinai. That the covenant with Israel on Sinai is still a covenant of grace is seen in various ways. It is because of what God has done, rather than what they will do, that God establishes his covenant with them. Thus in Exodus 19:4 it is the redemption from Egypt which is the basis of the covenant. But this redemption from Egypt is itself the outcome of the covenant with Abraham. It is because God had pledged himself to be their God that he delivered them (Exod. 2:24; 3:16–17). Hence the law of Sinai must not be interpreted apart from the covenant of grace, for it is itself embedded in that covenant. Indeed it was this separation of the law, in an attempt to make it a means of salvation, which was the error of the bulk of the Jews and which was the target of the great polemic of the Apostle Paul. The law in isolation becomes a system of bondage. The law viewed within the covenant becomes itself an expression of grace, for by intensifying the awareness of sin and leading God’s people to self-despair, it intensifies also their longing for the promised deliverer and leads them to cast themselves upon the mercy of God. Obedience to the law then is not a means of establishing the covenant but of enjoying and retaining its blessings.

Further Covenants. This Sinaitic dispensation of the covenant really embraces the period from Moses to Christ. There are in this period further covenants, but while they fall within the terms of the one made with Moses, there is more of the Messianic element in them. Thus in the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12–17; Ps. 89:3–4, 26) the promise given is primarily in terms of the coming Davidic king (see also Isa. 55:3–4). So it is with the covenant with Israel after the Exile. While it looks back to God’s past mercies and while it insists on obedience as a condition for enjoying the fruits of this gracious covenant, it also looks forward to culmination of God’s mercies in the coming of the Messiah (see Hag. 1:13; 2:4–9; Zech. 12–14; Mal. 3:1–4; 4:4–6).

The New Testament Culmination. The New Covenant, inaugurated by the Messiah and sealed in his blood, is thus the culmination of the gracious activity of God already manifested in the covenants made with Israel. In it the blessings promised, and already received by faith, are fully realized. The prophecy of Jeremiah 31:31 is fulfilled. Thus in Luke 1:72 the coming of the Saviour is viewed as the outcome of the promises of God to the fathers. The law written on tables of stone is now written on the heart. The blood of the sacrifice by which forgiveness is effected is no longer in terms of a mere prefiguring by means of animal sacrifice, for the blood of the Saviour himself is shed that he might become the mediator of the covenant (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; 1 Cor. 11:25). The central affirmation of the covenant, so often declared in the Old Testament, is again declared; but now it is accompanied by a deeper assurance rooted in the full and final revelation of God in Christ and imparted to the believer by the Spirit of God so that it is with a deeper awareness of its wonder that believers now listen to the gracious word: “I … will be your God, and ye shall be my people” (Lev. 26:12; cf. Gen. 17:7; Exod. 19:5; chap. 21; Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10).

There is a development also in the character of the community with whom the covenant is made. Formerly it was with a particular family, the offspring of Abraham, and then with the nation of Israel. To participate in the blessings of the covenant involved membership of this nation. Of course not all those who were outwardly numbered among the covenant people were partakers of the inward and spiritual blessings of the covenant. But the new covenant breaks forth from this Jewish limitation. Now the promises of the Gospel extend to every nation. The covenant people in its visible aspect is now the Church of Christ dispersed throughout the world, while in its inward aspect it remains what it has always been, the elect of God.

The Unity of the Covenants. The attempt has been made in this brief survey of the various covenants within Scripture to stress the common element throughout, namely the gracious activity of God. But the unity of the covenants may be demonstrated in other ways. In the New Testament the men of the Old Testament are always reckoned as true believers, and the Church of God is continuous throughout both dispensations (Rom. 4; 11:17; Heb. 11; see also John 10:16; Acts 7:38; Gal. 3:29; 6:16). Nor is this some artificial reconstruction based on a romantic estimate of Old Testament religion, for it corresponds to what is apparent within the Old Testament itself. Believers there are promised not just material blessings but spiritual; Canaan, for example, is clearly not their final goal (cf. Heb. 11:13). Indeed, one could scarcely read the Psalms with their passionate aspirations for God and their exuberant delight in him without discarding the notion that such men were laboring under the bondage of a covenant of works. They are surely recipients of the rich blessings of the covenant of grace. That which distinguishes the covenants of the period before the Messiah, and the new covenant inaugurated by his coming, is not a difference of essential character but rather a diversity of administration. The former are administered in terms of promise, prophecy and type, the latter in terms of fulfillment. The privileged position of the New Testament believer is not that he lives by faith in contrast to those who tried to live by works. It is rather that while they rejoiced in the signs of the dawning day, he stands in the full blaze of the noonday of revelation, with a fuller knowledge, a deeper assurance, and a richer experience of the Spirit, yet at the same time sharing with them a common faith in Christ, the mediator of the covenant.

The Mediator of the Covenant. From the foregoing it may be seen that when we say the covenant of grace is the unifying theme of Scripture, we are not saying anything different from the assertion that Christ is the one who gives Scripture its unity. For Christ is at the heart of the covenant of which he is the mediator. We may view this from two different standpoints. We may speak of the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, which is the basis of the covenant of grace between the triune God and the elect. Or we may speak throughout of the covenant of grace made with the Son as the head and representative of his people. In either case Christ is the mediator in that his work is the foundation of the covenant, and union with him is the effectual means of membership. The Old Testament believer thus looked forward in hope to the Christ who was yet to come. We look back to the Christ who has already come. All alike are justified by faith in the one Saviour whose blood brings to us the blessings of the covenant.

Summary of the Elements. We may well follow Pierre Marcel in summarizing the essential elements of the covenant of grace. It is freely given by God himself and in this gracious activity the three persons of the Trinity are at work. The Father chooses those whom he will call into covenant relationship. It is with the Son that the covenant is made and it is his blood which establishes its basis. It is the Spirit who realizes the covenant in the life of the believer. It is an eternal and thus an unbreakable covenant. It is made with a particular people, formerly with Israel and now with God’s elect in every nation. Throughout God’s dealings, the covenant, while differently administered, remains essentially the same.

Privilege and Responsibility. A firm grasp of this truth is not only vital to a clear understanding of the unity of the biblical revelation—it is also an essential element in a healthy spiritual experience. So we study it, not merely to have a neat theological system, but as the great means of strengthening faith in the God of the covenant. Has he pledged himself to be our God? Then we can face whatever life may send, with calm assurance. Indeed, death itself can hold no terrors, for this is an everlasting covenant. But while it is a source of encouragement, it also brings a challenge and often a rebuke. It speaks of privilege but also of responsibility. It promises blessing but demands obedience. The inevitable corollary of the gracious promise “I will be your God” is the call to holy living implicit in the searching words “and ye shall be my people.”

Bibliography: J. Calvin, Institutes, II.x–xii; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology; P. Marcel, The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism; J. Murray, The Covenant of Grace; G. Vos, Biblical Theology.

Vicar

St. Paul’s Church

Cambridge, England