Sufficient time has elapsed since the publication of the New English New Testament in mid-March to allow an assessment of the initial reaction to this significant event. The reception with which it has met has varied from the uncritically laudatory to the hypercritically derogatory; but on the whole it has been acclaimed as a notable scholarly undertaking, excellent in intention, though not uniformly successful in execution.

In an article in the Church Times (Mar. 17) J. B. Phillips, renowned for his own New Testament in Modern English, writes: “Vital and commanding truths have been insulated from us by the familiarity of repetition, or frozen by sheer beauty into the immobility of jewels. For this reason I myself welcome this new translation with open arms, for there can be little excuse now for the ordinary man to say that the New Testament makes no sense to him.” Nevertheless, he devotes the major portion of his article to a discussion of “irritating blemishes on an otherwise splendid piece of work.” Among the examples of clumsy translation which he gives, he mentions John 1:1 where “we meet the extraordinarily infelicitous beginning, ‘When all things began, the Word already was.’ ” “I find it hard to believe”, he says, “that the team could not have improved upon this.” He gives instances of “the juxtaposition of words, some belonging to one century and some to another,” and of passages where the language is remote “from the English which is spoken today.” He draws attention even to examples where the English is bad or feeble or ridiculous, and declares that he “cannot understand how they could pass these lamentable expressions.” He deplores also “unhappy attempts to reach down to a current mode of speech” which “result in rather dated colloquialisms.” In listing instances of archaisms, he says: “I really cannot let the expression ‘robbers’ cave’ pass without comment (Mark 11:17). I wonder where we are now—in the Arabian Nights, in Pantomime, or in a game of Cops and Robbers?” He notices cases of “dubious paraphrase,” unwarranted insertions, and “questionable” and even “absolutely wrong” translations.

A serious instance involving the translation of hilasmos (propitiation) is found in 1 John 2:2: “He is himself the remedy for the defilement of our sins.” As Mr. Phillips observes, “You cannot translate hilasmos as ‘a remedy’ … and this is no way to speak of Christ’s action. In any case, you cannot have a remedy for a defilement!” Mr. Phillips does not fail to draw attention to “some pieces of especially live and illuminating translation.” “After reading and re-reading this translation,” he says, “I am left in no doubt but that it is a magnificent and memorable accomplishment.”

Professor Gordon Rupp advises (The Listener, Mar. 16) that we should “not pitch the new Bible too sharply against the Authorized Version, for it is not intended to replace it.” He thinks that freshness is “important for Christian readers, for whom the Bible can become so familiar that it ceases either to challenge or to shock,” and suggests that the strength of the new version lies in “plain narrative and clear argument.” It is his opinion, however, that “we must still turn to the Authorized Version for the rolling sonorous passages in Ephesians and Corinthians, for the eighth chapter of Romans, and the second of Philippians.” “As for the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel,” he adds, “and the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which come together as Gospel and Epistle for Christmas Day—I fear that the reading of these from the New Version will spread alarm and despondency rather than peace and goodwill.”

Dame Rebecca West, writing in The Times Supplement on the Bible in English (Mar. 27), finds that “it is better to read the Pauline books in the Authorized Version, which by the magnificence of its language proves that if our human habit of disputation burns up with fever it also irradiates us with glory, and though great men are men, and therefore part at least contemptible, they are also great. This new edition has not this revelatory power, and indeed it would be a miracle if that were attained twice in the span of a culture.” She complains that “it is often as if the translators were hostile to rhythm, like the misguided people who believe that when poetry is read aloud its metre should be disregarded.” There are, moreover, “a few phrases that are outside the pale,” which were “obviously used with an ingratiating intention, but surely the desire to please has taken a mistaken form. Many people call their houses ‘The Laurels’ or ‘Bideawee,’ but it would be useless to try to increase the enthusiasm for the monarchy by starting to call Windsor Castle by either of these names.”

This is but a minute selection from the great spate of appraisals which the new translation has called forth. Time alone will show whether it is to find a permanent place in the affections of the English-speaking peoples. Already it seems highly improbable that it will usurp the position of the Authorized Version—which, though also the production formally of a committee of scholars, was in fact mainly the fruit of the dedicated labors of one man of genius, William Tyndale. Not till God raises up another Tyndale is the Authorized Version likely to be supplanted. Yet Christian people can but welcome the universal interest, even excitement, surrounding this event, the extensive publicity it has received, and the phenomenal sales already achieved. Once again the Scriptures are in the hands of the crowds, and under God this could lead to a revival of true religion and a fresh reformation of the Church in our day. As J. B. Phillips says: “Striking and priceless truths, which have lain dormant for years in the deep-freeze of traditional beauty, spring to life with fresh challenge and quite alarming relevance to the men of the jet age. There is no need to argue about inspiration, for the Word of God is out of its jeweled scabbard and is as sharp, as powerful, and as discerning as ever.”

In East Germany, A War Of Attrition

God and Caesar in East Germany, by Richard W. Solberg (Macmillan, 1961, 192 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, Asbury Theological Seminary.

At no place is the contemporary struggle between the Christian Church and the forces of modern Caesarism more acute than in the so-called “German Democratic Republic,” this being of course the Russian-occupied area of Germany. The shifting of the attack which the masters of Pankow level from time to time against the religious life of East Germany is so frequent that it is difficult to keep pace with it. One of the outstanding merits of this volume is that it seeks to follow the tortuous paths of dealing by which the East German puppet government has sought to confuse the Christian leaders there.

The author indicates an intimate acquaintance with the melancholic series of events by which Soviet perfidy has accomplished the enslavement of the churches (predominantly Protestant) within its area of occupation. He not only traces the events of the years following 1945, but with even greater skill he analyzes the meaning of these events for the Church, which found itself closely involved in the “on again, off again” policies by which the Kremlin masters sought to condition the reflexes of the citizenry of East Germany. If Dr. Solberg seems to have devoted an unduly large section to the “Einleitung,” the value of his method becomes evident when he traces the successive stages by which the Pankow Reds sought to strangle the Lutheran church.

One’s first reaction to a reading of this volume is that he has been walking through a place of unreality. Can it be, one asks himself, that so-called bearers of civilization can engage in such a systematic and cunning war of attrition against the major agency (i.e., the Church) which offered to give any meaning to life in a devastated land? Yet this is precisely what has occurred: with the establishment of the so-called “autonomous” German Democratic Republic and the promulgation of the constitution on October 7, 1949, there began a policy of double-talk and double-dealing with respect to the “ample” guarantees of religious freedom. There came alternations—one day oppression, another the appearance of a relaxation of pressures and hindrances. Little by little, the ministration of the Church was shrunk. The renowned and beneficial “Railway Missions” were liquidated; the sacrament of baptism and the practice of confirmation of youth were insidiously replaced with secularized versions: for baptism there was imposed a secularized “naming ceremony”; for confirmation there was imposed the “Youth Dedication,” with its exacting of an obscene commitment to dialectical materialism.

The author does not manufacture Church heroes. In East Germany, he has found some ready-made. He is exceedingly fair with Martin Niemöller; he obviously admires Otto Dibelius; he recognizes the heroism also of Theophil Wurm and Heinrich Vogel. In his survey of the tribulations of the East German Church, he has overlooked no significant detail. He is in a position carefully to evaluate the short-sightedness and parochialism of Karl Barth vis-a-vis the East German religious situation.

To the knowledge of this reviewer, there is no other single volume which deals with the question in hand with such thoroughness, and in such a spirit of fairness. It is difficult (perhaps undesirable) that any Christian should be completely objective as he must stand by helplessly while modern Augustans make war upon the saints. And a war it is, a war in which the opponents face one another, prepared for a war of attrition, with each antagonist determined to wear the other down. Dr. Solberg has no illusions, he has no unrealistic expectation that communism will ever modify itself in the slightest in its hatred of the Christian evangel. To those who blithely thought that the excesses against the Russian Orthodox Church were due to the contact of Lenin and Stalin with a merely nominal church, he holds up East Germany as a warning. There the Red masters have met an enlightened Protestantism with a good measure of spiritual and social vitality, and at a literate and civilized level. There the savage hatred of the Church tops that manifested in the land of Muscovy.

This is not a comforting book. Its realism is vigorous, its message clear. It would be trite to say that it “belongs in the library of every thoughtful minister”—yet something equivalent should be said in behalf of God and Caesar in East Germany.

HAROLD B. KUHN

Protestant Crisis

The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, by Gibson Winter (Doubleday, 1961, 216 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt, Editor of Decision.

The very form in which the material of this book is presented makes it an important work. The author’s thesis is sound: the Protestant churches are in full flight to the suburbs and are thereby neglecting the downtown areas which also need Christ. After documenting this well-known trend with carefully-assessed sociological data, the author then drops a prediction that is a blockbuster: within about 20 years not only the inner city churches, but the suburbia churches themselves will be as dead as doornails!

Why? What is wrong? Implies Dr. Winter: the current church building boom is only a whited sepulcher to hide the rotting bones of a decaying spirituality. Christianity has become “privatized” into an “attenuated religiosity.” Congregational life in the suburbs is identified with “residential and familial interests” rather than “community” and “public” concerns. The churches’ ministry, “intended for the whole life of the metropolis, is increasingly fragmented to accommodate narrow enclaves.”

This, of course, is the jargon of the professional, and it is not to be confused with an attack on theological liberalism. The usual peppering of “individual piety” is to be found here. What is significant is the note of almost unrelieved despair, as the author contemplates the suburbs with churches flaked off into the upper crust, and the inner city with no churches at all.

The picture is bleak and, to a large extent accurate, but Episcopalian Winter and his Parishfield lay-center colleagues have missed a very important dimension in their study. That dimension is the Holy Spirit, who is still unentangled in the lines of the suburban church telephone. Wherever Jesus Christ is preached clearly from the heart and from the Scriptures, the church is alive, not dying, no matter how noninterdependent its membership may be. The secret of survival is not methodological adjustment but theological renewal. It was weak Nestorian theology, rather than sociological stratification, that succumbed to Islam in the seventh century.

Further, I question whether the American church (for in striking at suburbia, Winter is really talking about America) will be dead in a score of years, or that its hope lies in the direction of radial ministries, denominational breast-beating, interlocking ecumenism, and lay academics. It is really much simpler than that. Just let the church be the church!

There is an answer in the second chapter of the book of Jonah to the metropolitan crisis which, I submit to Mr. Winter, would “renew” the churches “to serve the whole life of the emerging metropolis,” if I may borrow his phrase. Every problem he mentions in his book can be met, imaginatively and forcefully, by a twentieth-century revival in the churches, and the creation of new men in Christ Jesus.

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Being Dead, Yet Speaketh

The Cross Through the Open Tomb, by Donald Grey Barnhouse (Eerdmans, 1961, 152 pp., $3), is reviewed by John R. Richardson, Minister, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

Donald Barnhouse was generously endowed with superb gifts of exposition. He knew how to explain biblical truth so that anyone in his audience could grasp the thought. As an illustrator of Christian teachings, he was without a peer.

The purpose of this volume is indicated in the title. It is to set forth the death of Christ in the light of his resurrection. Dr. Barnhouse labors the point that the climactic event in the life of Christ was not his death but his resurrection. He concedes the point that Christ had to die in order to forgive our sins and justify us before God. Then he insists, “But had He not risen from the grave, we could not have eternal life, nor could we live a life of holiness in a sinful world.”

The four divisions of this book discuss “Christ Risen From the Tomb,” “The Person of the Living Christ,” “The Grace of the Living Christ,” and “Marks of a Saint.” The 18 chapters blend Christian doctrines and Christian practice. The proper priority is given to Christian truth, and thus Christian living has a firm foundation upon which to flourish.

This book is a powerful challenge for Christians to confront their responsibility to walk as the sons of God among the sons of men. The possibility of realization lies in the fact that we have been planted in Christ’s death and raised to newness of life in him.

JOHN R. RICHARDSON

Tyndale Monographs

An Early Christian Confession, by R. P. Martin (Tyndale, 1960, 69 pp., 5s.), and The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century, by E. A. Judge (Tyndale, 1960, 77 pp., 5s.), are reviewed by James S. Cunningham, The Queen’s College, Oxford.

R. P. Martin is concerned with examining carefully (and critically) modern interpretations of Philippians 2:5–11. He agrees that this section is part of the early “kerygmatic confession” of the Church. With this basic assumption he is therefore committed to exploring the literary form of the section, its theological and linguistic affinities to the rest of the Letter. This is done thoroughly and with ample references in the manner made familiar by Kittel and the other writers of the Wörterbuch. The author is to be congratulated for his painstaking analysis—and for his exposition of contemporary continental theologians’ judgments on the passage.

Awarded the 1958 Hulsean Prize by the University of Cambridge, the second essay is the work of a scholar whose main interest is ancient history. He wishes to stimulate a new approach to the interpretation of ideas of social obligation. His method is to examine the contemporary institutions. Using the New Testament cautiously as a valuable non-Imperial source he outlines the Christian position, and the results are specially interesting as they are not the work of a professional theologian who has adopted positions on dogmatic grounds.

JAMES S. CUNNINGHAM

On The Atonement

Victor and Victim, by J. S. Whale (Cambridge, 1960, 172 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Samuel J. Mikolaski, Associate Professor of Theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

This book will enhance the growing appreciation of Dr. Whale’s contributions to significant theological literature. Dr. Whale’s subject is the Atonement (the title is from a phrase in St. Augustine), and he has made a splendid contribution to the growing and much needed literature on the work of Christ. Though brief (there are eight short chapters) the writer aims to combine the historic faith of the Christian Church in the sufficiency of Christ’s cross for the salvation of the world and her devotion to Him as God and Saviour, with a square facing of certain key philosophical and theological puzzles of Atonement theory.

Chapter one is titled “The Fullness of Time,” and in it the importance of time and the historical element for Christianity are set forward together with a contrast of the biblical and Hellenistic modes of thought. Chapters two, three, and four, respectively, are titled “Christ’s Victory over Satan,” “Christ Our Sacrificial Victim,” and “The Cross as Judgment and Penalty,” and show the line of interpretive thought followed by the author. These chapters glow with the glory of Christ and the finality of his work as the act of God for the world’s salvation. In chapter five, called “The Offense of Particularity,” attention is drawn to the uncompromising claims of Christianity for the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. The importance of the Church as “The Redeemed Society” is the theme of chapter six; next, “Baptism and Eucharist” (written concisely and with sympathy for differing viewpoints) occupy the reader’s attention in the light of the Cross; and in the final chapter the Christian hope as the life to come and as the life to come now present in the Church is expounded under the heading “The Body of Christ and the Resurrection.”

The central theme is that the Cross is God’s act for the world’s salvation. The ease with which Dr. Whale unfolds the thought of the ancient world will delight the reader, and our special thanks are due to both writer and publisher for the uncumbersome way in which the ancient languages and Scripture quotations are handled to the interests of the average reader as well as the scholar. Dr. Whale discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in authenticating the work of Christ in the believer’s life, but it is regrettable that an undue emphasis is laid on the shortcomings of individualizing evangelical evangelism. (It should be noted that Dr. Billy Graham, for example, insists upon church-centered cooperation in his crusades.) The Suffering Servant passage (Isa. 53) is a key feature of interpretation. Beyond its careful scholarship, the great value of the book is that the Atonement is “faithed”—it is written not primarily to argue theories but for the faith to express understanding.

Have I criticisms of the book? Yes, and these are not easy to state in view of the pleasure I experienced reading it. First of all, the Atonement is viewed from three perspectives: the battlefield, the altar of sacrifice, and the law court. Fuller apprehension of the Atonement awaits a study that will grapple with the complexity of the metaphors and images in Old and New Testaments and in historical theology, and will weave them together into the pattern of the whole. I wish that from his broad knowledge Dr. Whale had led us into this. Then, as I finished reading Dr. Whale’s exposition I felt myself still grasping after the rationale of the idea of victory over evil metaphor, of the vicarious element in sacrifice, and of the law court drama. I am convinced we shall find a rationale more in the moral and personal relations between God and man, and man and man (as Dr. Whale does affirm in part) than in a theology where doctrines of “being” predominate (where Dr. Whale seems to rest heavily upon Paul Tillich). The plain fact is that the “moral criticisms” leveled against the traditional penal and substitutionary language (which nineteenth-century British evangelicals voiced in self-criticism more incisively and cogently than did their critics) are as relevant against contemporary doctrines of Christ’s work being vicarious and expiatory. My point is that both sets of doctrines are true. The mystery of their truth as a whole still eludes us in dogmatic formulation. We do not know enough yet about either God or man.

Secondly, on the question of baptism and the Eucharist, Dr. Whale’s intention at this point is not to suggest that anyone is included in salvation by a logical, metaphysical, or soteriological necessity. If God is free to use external means in conveying grace (and this is freely acknowledged by most students), what is the meaning of man’s free response to God as personal? One could wish for a fuller discussion here. Baptists do not believe in “adult” baptism, but in baptism as the issue of faith on the part of the candidate whatever his age.

Thirdly, I would call to question what Dr. Whale calls the “two-beat rhythm,” the matter of grace and judgment: How clearly is the nature of evil stated, and the law of God in relation to it? Is evil defined as logically necessary to, or as the contrast of, good? Is Satan no more than a mythologized “accusative case” and the law of God no more than “Mr. Legality”? To what extent is the problem of evil put back into the being of God, or into the ontological structure of things, rather than in the tension between rebelling finite wills and the will of God? Dr. Whale builds his metaphysical case around the ontology of Paul Tillich: “actualized existence and estranged existence are identical.” A welcome emphasis is made upon the reality of the demonic, but one wonders whether the case is given away in the metaphysic he adopts. Further, what does Dr. Whale mean when he says that forgiveness comes through judgment? It seems that the ordered nature of things, or the structure of reality, means that finally all will be redeemed. Universalism is the necessary conclusion, he says, because “fulfillment is necessarily universal” (p. 164). Is the wrath of God then real or is it really an exchanging of coins from one divine pocket to another? Wrath in relation to grace is not just a form of the divine love; it declares the moral reality of the sinner under judgment. Why must we end up in a chain of being where personality and volition are finally overborne? The victory has been won, yet “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him.” We cannot plumb the depths or the extent of the divine mercy when we assess the relevance of the Atonement, but dare we by definition eliminate the possibility of a man saying “No” finally and irrevocably to God’s “Come”?

SAMUEL J. MIKOLASKI

Historiographer’S Delight

American Christianity: An Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents, Vol. I, 1607–1820, by H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, and Lefferts A. Loetscher (Scribner’s, 1960, 602 pp., $10), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, Professor of History, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.

This is truly the finest collection of documents on the history of American Christianity which has yet appeared. The three authors are to be commended upon their judicious selection of representative documents and on the excellent interpretation which accompanies each selection. Not only is every major denomination, including the Roman Catholic, represented with appropriate material, but major movements within the colonial and early national eras are given a fair hearing. This is an indispensable work for every serious student of American church history, and for any who would seek to understand the theological and ecclesiastical history of our country.

In the opinion of the reviewer, it is most unfortunate that at times the authors allow their bias to appear against the Calvinism to which at least two of them are supposed to be doctrinally committed. Certainly Jedediah Morse did not feel that he was “shackling” Andover Seminary to the Westminster Shorter Catechism (p. 483). It would also seem that the authors are guilty of making too sharp a distinction between the Christian liberals of the Revolutionary era and the deists. That the deists were more extreme in their denunciations of the Scriptures cannot be denied; but it is also true that the liberal position could, and often did, degenerate into that of the deists.

It is also difficult to justify the inclusion of selections from Jefferson and Franklin in this collection, inasmuch as the authors admit that they were deists. However, these are minor defects and the work as a whole must be viewed as a tremendously valuable addition to American ecclesiastical and doctrinal historiography.

C. GREGG SINGER

The prophet Haggai, who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and Joshua, delivered his first prophecy in the second year of Darius, 520 B.C.—the year when he suddenly appeared on the scene and just as suddenly disappeared. Haggai’s consuming passion was to inspire the returned exiles in Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple which Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed nearly 70 years earlier (586 B.C.) His prophecies reflect the wretched conditions in which the Jews were still living although 17 years had passed since they arrived in Jerusalem from Babylon in 537 B.C.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In 537 B.C. Cyrus permitted Jewish exiles to return to Palestine under Zerubbabel and Joshua (Ezra 1:2; 2:2). The former was to be governor of Judah and the latter the high priest. This seemingly insignificant event was in reality one that has shaped the destinies of the world.

Enthusiastic hopes were soon shattered. An altar of burnt offerings was set up in Jerusalem in 537 B.C. (Ezra 3:2 f.), and in 536 B.C. the Temple site was cleared of rubble (Ezra 3:8), and new foundations were laid (Ezra 3:10); but then the work was held up for 16 years, 536–520 B.C. (Ezra 4:5, 24). This delay has been variously explained. (1) In Babylon the exiles had been nourished on spiritual ideals and sentimental ideas about their far-off native land which the stern realities of a ruined Jerusalem falsified and destroyed. (2) For 50 years the exiles had lived in Babylon without altar or Temple, and they may have felt that delay in rebuilding the Temple would not materially affect their religious life. (3) A series of disasters also contributed to the delay: (a) There was the activity of the Samaritans who had been irked by the Jews’ refusal of their offer of assistance in the work (Ezra 4:1–5), although of course, acceptance would have exposed the already weakened Jewish community to the corrupting influence of paganism; (b) Cambyses, the Persian emperor, invaded Egypt in 527 B.C., and those military operations would involve Jerusalem in great hardship; (c) A succession of bad harvests due to drought and failure of the vintage, would also have a demoralizing effect upon the Jews (Hag. 1:9–11; 2:16 f.); (d) There are also hints of social abuses committed by the more fortunate citizens (cf. Hag. 1:4), and these would depress and discourage the community as a whole; (e) It is fairly clear also that the Jews did not receive the necessary lead from their rulers, and as a consequence ardor for the restored Temple quickly evaporated.

In addition to the above, important events were taking place in the Persian empire of which Judah formed a part. Cambyses was murdered, and his successor Darius was, from 521–515 B.C., struggling to prevent the empire from disintegrating. Province after province seethed with unrest and the whole pagan world seemed to be in a state of eruption. This is probably reflected in Haggai chapter 2 (vv. 6 f., 21 f.). And as in critical pre-exilic times prophets appeared in Israel who read the signs of the times to the nation, so in the chaotic post-exilic times the prophets Haggai and Zechariah appeared in Jerusalem proclaiming that God was active again in this “shaking of the nations.”

They began to anticipate the end of the Persian empire and the beginning of the Messianic age. Inspired by such dreams they used the chaotic political situation to rouse the returned exiles to religious fervor, and to undertake the rebuilding of the ruined Temple. Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries (Hag. 1:1; Zech. 1:1; Ezra 5:1), and with revived religious and political hopes they inspired a religious revival in Jerusalem.

They stabbed awake the conscience of the people by representing present misfortunes as God’s judgments upon their unfaithfulness, but they claimed that he would be gracious to them again if they repented with their whole heart. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua, the civil and religious heads of the community, the people responded to the prophetic call and in 520 B.C. resumed the reconstruction of the Temple. Four years later (516 B.C.), exactly seventy years after the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), the Temple was rebuilt and dedicated (Ezra 6:13–15).

CONTENTS

Haggai’s short book is of very great importance. His message and ministry profoundly affected the whole history of Judaism. This book is the only really reliable source which throws light on the obscure period between the fall of Jerusalem and Nehemiah’s arrival in Jerusalem nearly 150 years later. Haggai’s four prophecies are quite distinct from each other and are accurately dated. The first came in September 520 B.C. and the rest followed in the course of the next three months.

1:1–15. In his first message Haggai addressed Zerubbabel and Joshua (1:1) upon whose shoulders lay the main responsibility for the apathy towards the rebuilding of the Temple. He brushed aside excuses of inexpediency (1:2–4) and pointed to the bitter experiences of the past 16 years since the return (1:4–11). The people responded to his appeal (1:12), and inspired by assurances of God’s presence they resumed work on the Temple (1:13–15) after an interval of 16 years.

2:1–9. Unfortunately the initial enthusiasm soon waned. Discouragement was engendered by the insignificant dimensions of the second Temple when compared with the first (2:1–3). To combat this spirit of defeatism Haggai delivered his second prophecy (2:4 f.). The people must leave the irreparable past behind them and press forward assured that the latter glory of this second Temple would be more splendid than the former (2:6–9).

2:10–19. Half-heartedness and waning enthusiasm again afflicted the builders. Probably it was famine conditions that seemed to belie Haggai’s promises of brighter days. If God’s presence were really with the returned exiles why did fruitfulness not prevail? In this third prophecy Haggai exposes the falsity of this reasoning. The priestly robe does not impart holiness to what it touches (2:10–12) but a corpse communicates its uncleanness to what it touches (2:13). In other words, the contagion of holiness is weak (cf. Lev. 6:27) but the contagion of uncleanness is potent. The application is that neglect of God’s house produced uncleanness, whose more powerful contagion counteracts the weaker contagion of holiness. The truth Haggai proclaims is seen in the fact that repentance is not followed immediately by improvement in material circumstances. Good influences are outweighed by evil influence as, for example, the consequences of sin persist after conversion—this being a moral world. However, blessing will ultimately flow from obedience to God’s will (Hag. 2:15–19).

2:20–23. In Haggai’s fourth prophecy he announces to Zerubbabel an approaching day of judgment (2:20–22). However, since Zerubbabel was the representative of the house of David he would survive the catastrophe. The Lord had made him his signet ring (2:23; cf. Jer. 22:24); he was, therefore, God’s responsible vicegerent on earth, namely the Messianic king.

The Hebrew text of the book of Haggai presents only very minor difficulties. There is, therefore, general unanimity among Old Testament scholars on the date, authorship, and unity of the book.

TEACHING

Like that of the pre-exilic prophets, Haggai’s message and ministry were intimately related to the situation in which he prophesied. The message of the former prophets had largely been one of denunciation of Israel’s national sins that were involving her in judgment and retribution. Hence the pre-exilic prophets also demanded repentance and moral amendment of life in order to avert the impending judgment. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, however, had an entirely different message to proclaim. But this was because they were living in a situation which differed completely from that which prevailed in the eighth century B.C. In the latter part of the sixth century B.C., apostasy and idolatry were not burning issues in Jerusalem. What the returned exiles needed more than anything else was a Temple. It would act as an external symbol of God’s presence, and in the absence of a political government it would be both a bond that would hold the Jerusalem community together and a rallying point for the multitudes of Jews who were now living in the Diaspora.

Perhaps the chief danger of Haggai’s age was secularism. Hence he uses a new religious idiom when addressing himself to the new problems and needs which his generation faced. Inevitably Haggai’s main emphasis was upon the Temple, and organized religion centered in the Temple. On this he concentrated all his hopes (2:7–9). The Jewish community was passing into the era of Law and the legalism that went with it. Indeed, Haggai was really one of the founders of post-exilic Judaism, for which the Temple was indispensable. This is the origin of his passionate appeal for the Temple, which was completed in four years (520–516 B.C.). However, in the providence of God this important transitional period in the history of redemption really conserved the great principles for which the pre-exilic prophets had stood; and then finally Christ came in whom were fulfilled both the Law and the prophets.

Although Haggai concentrated his efforts on rebuilding the Temple, his prophecies are free from racial exclusivism or religious bigotry. There is a note of catholicity in his message. Part of the glory of the second Temple was to be found in the treasures with which the Gentiles were to adorn it, and in the peace and reconciliation which Jew and Gentile were to find when they worshiped there (2:7–9). The Temple would be a holy place in a holy land where the Lord would be worshiped in the beauty of holiness by both Jew and Gentile. In Zechariah this aspect of the significance of the second Temple is even more prominent than in Haggai (2:11; 8:22 f.; 14:16–21). However, these ideals which both Haggai and Zechariah proclaimed remained largely unfulfilled. The Gentile nations did not press into the second Temple, nor were they overthrown by the expected Messiah. Haggai’s vision tarried as did Isaiah’s when he dreamed that Jerusalem, beleaguered in his day by the Assyrians, would remain for ever inviolate and would become the focal point of the golden Messianic age.

But there are in Haggai’s prophecies distinct Messianic ideals. Zerubbabel is prominent as a Messianic figure. He was the son of Shealtiel (Ezra 3:2, 8; 5:2; Matt. 1:12; Luke 3:27), and grandson of Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah (2 Kings 24:15). He was, therefore, of the royal line of David. He was also governor of Judah (Hag. 1:1). He it was who supervised the first attempt to rebuild the Temple in 536 B.C. (Ezra 3:2, 8; Zech. 4:9). He is probably also to be identified with Sheshbazzar who is mentioned in Ezra 6:1, 12, 14; 5:14, 16. Under Zerubbabel the second Temple was eventually completed in 516 B.C. (Ezra 6:15; Zech. 4:9). It is true that along with Zerubbabel Joshua the high priest was given equal prominence (Hag. 1:1, 12, 14; 2:3 f.), but not in the Messianic reference in 2:20–23. Doubtless this was Haggai’s way of insisting that the returned exiles should be a religious-political community.

However, for Haggai, Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, restorer of the Temple, scion of the house of David, was above all a Messianic figure. As a “signet” on God’s finger (2:23) he was to be the leader in the divine victory over the Gentile nations in the Messianic age. Haggai declares that through Zerubbabel and Joshua God will overthrow “all nations,” and through the Messianic figure fill the new Temple with his glory (2:4–9). Haggai expects “the precious things of all lands” to pour into the Temple (2:7 f.).

But in the later prophecies of Malachi it becomes painfully evident that the hopes of the earlier Haggai remained unfulfilled. In Malachi’s day the Temple services were but a caricature of what Haggai had dreamed. His expectations that Zerubbabel would prove to be the Messianic king who would rule over the world from Jerusalem as God’s vicegerent (2:20–23) were also disappointed. Thus through the discipline of disappointment the best minds in Judaism finally abandoned their dreams of an earthly kingdom. The great hope finally emerged, but in a form undreamed of by Haggai.

Haggai’s hopes were neither of a spiritual religion nor a spiritual kingdom, but it was precisely under this form that his vision was fulfilled. “The desire of all nations” (2:7) is traditionally interpreted of Christ born of David’s line through Zerubbabel. In the Lord Jesus Christ and the Church those from every tribe and nation discover true oneness. In Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free. And in Christ they worship together because they worship God “in spirit and in truth.” And finally when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdom of God and his Christ, then Haggai’s vision will have received its perfect fulfillment.

PIETY AND PATRIOTISM

One final word. In Haggai there emerges a close collaboration between prophet and priest. He insists that it is the people’s duty and privilege to build and support the Temple. The Temple was a matter of life and death for Judaism. But Haggai’s concern for the Temple and its organization was no degradation of the prophetic office. The second Temple was of paramount importance for revealed religion. Doubtless in exile many Jews had learned that to obey was better than sacrifice; that the sacrifices of God were a broken and a contrite heart. But for Judaism to have tried to live without a Temple would have been spiritual suicide. And it was part of the greatness of the returned exiles that they were prepared to risk everything to ensure that Judaism should have its Temple. Piety and patriotism took precedence over security and comfort.

J. G. S. S. THOMSON

Author and Lecturer

Edinburgh, Scotland

When viewed in retrospect, Pentecost week end of May 21 probably will be associated with a religious spectacle in Jerusalem unparalleled almost certainly since New Testament times. In historic proceedings climaxed on Pentecost Sunday, more than 3,000 delegates to the sixth Pentecostal World Conference participated in what is believed to have been the largest meeting of any kind ever held in the Holy Land. Appropriately enough, the three-day meeting came on the edge of what its followers the world over regard as a twentieth-century revival of Pentecostalism in general and glossolalia in particular.

“We are under no illusion that merely sentimental associations with time or place guarantee a special blessing from God,” cautioned Pentecostal patriarch Donald Gee, “but we do believe that there cannot but be a unique effect upon the hearts and minds of those who gather at such a time and in such a place as they reverently recall the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit given there from the Lord of glory.”

Gee, editor of the quarterly review Pentecost, has had a big hand in each of the five previous world conferences (Zürich, 1947; Paris, 1949; London, 1952; Stockholm, 1955; and Toronto, 1958). He has seen them as a chief means in achieving a strong Pentecostal world fellowship.

The 1961 gathering coincided with the Hebrew observance of the Feast of Weeks (cf. Lev. 23:15–22) and the giving of the Law, but the only significant touchpoint came when both Gentile and Jewish worshipers went to Mount Zion.

Conference leaders contended with three impressive facts touching upon twentieth-century Pentecostalism.

One was the movement’s world scope. It has grown to represent a virile segment of Christianity which ecumenical leaders have described as “the third force.” As such, it operates outside classic Protestantism, is of relatively recent origin, and is characterized by unusual evangelistic zeal with a socio-cultural appeal reaching below the middle class. Some 20 world Pentecostal organizations have a combined membership of more than 1,600,000. In recent years Protestant ecumenical forces have made a bid for Pentecostal affiliation, and set up exploratory talks on the edge of the Jerusalem sessions with the Rev. David J. DuPlessis as liaison. Conference leaders had publicized in advance an official message by the World Council of Churches that “it is possible that they [ the Pentecostalists] have a central truth of the Christian religion at the heart of their success story.” Nonetheless, the U. S. Assemblies of God, whose more than 500,000 members make it easily the largest of the Pentecostal bodies, tends to look upon DuPlessis, whom it ordained, as a roving self-appointed ecumenical explorer, and stresses its identification with the National Association of Evangelicals. General Superintendent Thomas F. Zimmerman is also currently president of NAE. Although Pentecostal theology has not been codified, there is scant sympathy for an inclusive theological commitment.

Glossolalia: Then And Now

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1–4).

At the first Pentecost Sunday, tongues were divinely given in the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit sometimes called “the founding miracle of Christianity.” For all Christians, Pentecost has marked the Holy Spirit’s inscription of the Law upon the hearts of believers, and most Christians view the divine gift of tongues which enabled the apostles to speak to the multilingual assembly as a once-for-all outward sign of the birth of the body of believers whom Christ indwells by his Spirit. But Pentecostalists insist in a special way upon a continuance of spontaneous eruptions such as punctuated this month’s conference in the Israel sector of Jerusalem, largest assembly of any kind ever held in the Holy Land. Pentecostalists cite such utterances in support of their contention that the gift of tongues is still being divinely bestowed.

Ecumenical explorations, however, were merely a shadowland activity in Jerusalem; in the forefront of conference sessions was the staggering evangelistic and missionary responsibility devolving upon evangelical agencies, and particularly upon Pentecostal forces. And this priority set in clear view the fact that many Pentecostal leaders are restudying the movement’s distinctive doctrine of “the gifts” of the Spirit, and the tendency to view “speaking in tongues” as the criterion of legitimate Christian experience.

By “the Pentecostal experience” most Pentecostalists mean that in an experience of prayer a worshiper has spoken ecstatically in an unknown tongue. Whoever has this initial experience is described as “having received the Holy Spirit.” Doubt is widening among Pentecostal ministers, however, that this description is to be denied others, and that it is to be rigidly attached to the “experience of tongues.” Pentecostalists further hold that if the initial experience is repeated, the believer has “received the gift of tongues.” More and more Pentecostal leaders, however, while stressing the universal possibility of “the gift,” hesitate to consider it the crowning criterion of Christian consecration and to view other criteria as inferior.

These phenomena appear, Pentecostalists say, in private devotions or in open services. Pentecostalists do not insist that an interpreter be present, since they do not believe that new revelation is communicated by the Spirit, but view the Bible as the inspired authority. While tongues remain for most Pentecostalists the decisive experience of a Spirit-centered life, some regard them only as a mystical reassurance of salvation, while here and there a spokesman may be found who insists that the tongues-phenomenon of the first Pentecost has only a historic and sentimental significance and ought not to be regarded as repetitive at all.

In the background of this theological dialogue stands the deeper debate over “the gifts.” All Christian bodies insist on the work of the Spirit in the Church and the life of the believer, all insist on the Pentecost “gift” of the Holy Spirit, and some especially stress the Spirit-filled life.

But Pentecostalists insist on the continuing “gifts” of the Spirit. There is, however, a wide divergence in their uncodified teaching. In the earlier days of the movement, almost everywhere among Pentecostalists, the stress fell on specific gifts divinely bestowed on individuals. Now there is more emphasis, in some circles at least, that the Spirit’s gifts are “for the Church,” but are accessible for every believer’s immediate needs through his relationship to Christ. The claim of charismatic individuals specially to possess one gift or another is no longer recognized throughout Pentecostal circles as decisive for Pentecostal theology.

This divergence is also evident with respect to healing. Pentecostalists universally welcome the emphasis on divine healing. But they view with differing reactions the ministry of Evangelist Oral Roberts, whose mass campaigns and radio-television programs have shaped a national image although his Pentecostal group is rather small alongside the Assemblies. Ministers in the Assemblies of God do not as a rule hold that illness is to be attributed only to a lack of faith, and there is latitude in the particulars.

Within the Pentecostal movement, some leaders think Roberts gives a distorted impression not only through flamboyant methods but by his orientation of the ministry of healing to an individual rather than to the Church. And others doubt that dedication to Christ assures, as Roberts has emphasized, material-mental-physical as well as spiritual well-being.

What the Jerusalem conference made clear, however, was something more than evangelical commitment albeit theological exploration of Pentecostalists. The assembly provided new indications that the first emphasis for many Pentecostalists is salvation, not healing and tongues, which find a subsequent prominence. The first walls separating many Pentecostalists and evangelicals seemed rather low. As movements like the Assemblies of God looked ahead to codifying their theology, to establishing accredited schools, and to a divinity school for the training of ministers, a new era seemed to be dawning for theological conference with Protestant evangelicals.

C.F.H.H.

Prayer for the Dead?

President Kennedy was on the spot this month for using his office to promulgate distinctive Roman Catholic doctrine.

His official Memorial Day proclamation urged U. S. citizens to observe the occasion “by invoking the blessing of God on those who have died in defense of our country.”

Many interpreted the appeal as requesting prayer for the dead, a concept repugnant to most Protestants. It was Kennedy’s first faux pas on a religious point since he took office as the first Roman Catholic president in U. S. history.

“He has invited the people to do what the majority of the people will not do,” said Dr. Oswald C. J. Hoffman, radio’s “Lutheran I Hour” preacher.

Hoffman called the incident “unfortunate,” coming at a time when the country is watching the President to see if he will insinuate his Roman Catholic beliefs into national proclamations.

Southern Baptist Convention President Ramsay Pollard said the White House staff “should be more careful of phraseology.” Lie declared that no one would question the sincerity of Kennedy’s motive, that all Americans are thankful to God for those who have died in the cause of freedom. He indicated his displeasure, however, over confusing gratitude with prayer for the dead.

“We don’t want Roman Catholic superstitions made a national policy,” said Dr. Gordon H. Clark, religious scholar of Butler University.

A White House press officer said the proclamation had been drafted by a Protestant member of the President’s staff. Told that protests of the wording of the proclamation were being received, the press officer quipped: “Some of your Protestants are oversensitive.”

Some observers felt, nevertheless, that the White House might subsequently amend the proclamation or issue a statement of clarification.

Kennedy had acted originally in keeping with a Congressional resolution approved in 1950 which requests the President to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace.

The proclamation states:

“Now, therefore, I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, do hereby urge the people of the United States to observe Tuesday, May 30, 1961, Memorial Day, by invoking the blessing of God on those who have died in defense of our country, and by praying for a new world of law where peace and justice shall prevail and a life of opportunity shall be assured for all; and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o’clock in the morning of that day as the time to unite in such prayer.”

Protestant Panorama

• On the eve of its dedication, a new Baptist church in Howe, Oklahoma, was destroyed by a tornado this month. The Rev. Ron Lewis, pastor of the church, was inside with his nine-month-old daughter when the twister hit, but they escaped injury. Also badly damaged were a Methodist church and an Assemblies of God church in Howe.

• An Amish farmer from New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, lost three horses to the Internal Revenue Service this month for refusing to make compulsory Social Security payments. The animals and a harness were sold to collect a $308 federal lien filed against Valentine Y. Byler. The Amish take a dim view of insurance, preferring to trust God for needs.

• The 60-family congregation of Bethany Community Church in Fresno, California, is conducting a drive for trading stamps to raise funds for a new sanctuary and education unit. Their goal is 50,000 books—or 60,000,000 stamps. The Rev. Al Silvera, pastor of the church, says more than $1,000 worth of stamps already have been converted to cash for the building fund.

• The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is marking its 150th anniversary with the publication of a book of 366 true stories relating to missionary enterprise. They Lived Their Faith was compiled by Fred Field Goodsell, who headed the American Board for nearly 30 years after serving as a missionary in the Near East for 25 years. The board was originally an interdenominational Protestant agency, although it now serves the Congregational Christian churches.

• Nation-wide release of “Question 7,” feature-length film depicting the church-state struggle in East Germany, is scheduled in the fall. A second “test engagement” phase in the public release schedule was begun this month with showings in theaters in Wisconsin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. The film was produced by Lutheran Film Associates.

• The new Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was dedicated this month. Dr. Harry V. Richardson was installed as president of the pioneering Negro ecumenical institution. Four theological schools are part of the new center: Gammon Theological Seminary (Methodist), Morehouse School of Religion (American Baptist), Phillips School of Theology (Christian Methodist Episcopal), and Turner Theological Seminary (African Methodist Episcopal). The ITC plan permits the four co-operating schools to retain their denominational identity and autonomy while sharing a joint educational program.

Elizabeth in Rome

Scenes in which human warmth and sympathy mingled with ceremonies of rich pomp and splendor marked the call upon Pope John XXIII this month of Queen Elizabeth II of England, according to Religious News Service. Elizabeth was the third British sovereign in history and the first in 38 years to meet with a pope in private audience in Vatican City. They talked for 28 minutes.

Elizabeth was accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip. She was veiled and wore a black satin dress with a diamond tiara and necklace.

Catholic Growth

The rate of Roman Catholic growth in the United States is tapering off, according to the church’s own official figures.

Membership statistics for 1960 were released this month with publication of the newest Official Catholic Directory.

The latest increase, about three per cent, still is the highest among the larger U. S. churches, excepting the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, which boosted its membership by 3.2 per cent last year.

The new Catholic directory says that U. S. Catholic membership increased last year by 1,233,598 to bring the total to 42,104,900. The year before, the increase was 1,366,827, and the year before that 1,418,498 (not counting 2,000,000 reported for the first time by the Military Ordinariate).

Landlocked Laos

What is the extent of Christian witness in strife-torn Laos? How have hostilities affected missionary work?

For authoritative answers,CHRISTIANITY TODAYwent to the Rev. G. Edward Roffe, who as a missionary with 35 years of service has been in Laos longer than any other American. Roffe, who serves under the Christian and Missionary Alliance, plans to return to the field July 1. Here is his report:

Beginning in 1940, normal conditions disappeared from Indochina and, consequently, from Laos. Japan came in from both north and south, following the fall of France, while Thailand invaded Cambodia and Laos, occupying territory throughout World War II. Following the return of the French, guerrilla activity continued in the countryside, while terrorism recurred in city, town, and village. Then came the crisis of recent months. Thus for more than 20 years, Christian work in Laos has been complicated.

Missionary work began in Laos before the turn of the century when Presbyterian missionaries from North Thailand itinerated intermittently across North Laos. Resident missionaries of the Swiss Brethren Mission settled in South Laos in 1902 and have carried on active work there ever since with a few forays into the north.

World War I presented serious border-crossing problems to the itinerant missionaries from North Thailand. Eventually, official steps were taken to transfer responsibility for North Laos to the Christian and Missionary Alliance of North America. Thus the Alliance was given all territory included in the colonial complex then known as French Indochina, with the exception of South Laos, which continued to be the field of endeavor of the Swiss Brethren.

Until recently, the work of Christian missions in Laos has been severely handicapped by a shortage of personnel. For years the Swiss in the south operated only three or four stations, though recently they have opened up several others and their work now extends through four provinces. The Alliance has never been able to locate missionaries in more than four out of the seven provinces in the north. Beginning in 1929, it placed missionaries successively in Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Xieng Khouang, and Sayaboury. Deaths and withdrawals for reasons of health have depleted ranks, and replacements have been scarce.

Now two families of loosely associated Brethren missionaries from the United States have joined hands with the Swiss Brethren in the south. The Overseas Missionary Fellowship has accepted the challenge of the tribal areas of South Laos, hoping for 40 missionaries in the field by 1962. A group of Japanese bachelors, now augmented by a group of single women, is beginning work, also in the south, while a Seventh-day Adventist family recently opened up work in Nam Tha, North Laos. The Alliance has additional missionaries under appointment with the intention of increasing its present staff in the north.

Laos is essentially a Buddhist state, and the traditional tolerance of Buddhism has erected no barriers to the message of the Cross, unless it be that of indifference. From the inception of missionary work in Laos until recently, Laos was largely a protectorate under the French colonial regime, with considerable liberty automatically extended to the missionary. This was not the case, however, in the kingdom of Luang Prabang, an enclave existing in the north and a reduced remnant of the once proud “Kingdom of the Million Elephants.” Shortly after the arrival of the first missionary to North Laos, who settled in the royal city of Luang Prabang, royal edict made provision for religious liberty. Following language study, this missionary was readily granted authorization to preach the Gospel throughout the kingdom by the late king, H. M. Sisavang Vong. Cordiality has characterized the relationship between the Alliance and authorities in the northern kingdom and this has been extended to the work throughout the country as it ultimately became the kingdom of Laos, ruled over by the dynasty of the former limited kingdom of Luang Prabang.

Buddhists in Laos have not generally responded to the proclamation of the Gospel. In the south, however, more converts have been won from followers of Buddhism than in the north.

Buddhist Laotians live largely in the lowlands: on the plains, the limited plateaus, and along the river banks. Having reached these lowland peoples, Buddhist missionaries lost their pioneering zeal and, although Buddhism has been in Laos at least as far back as the eleventh century, it never made any attempt to win the upland primitives, who speak 40 to 80 languages and dialects.

Most of these minority groups, which represent about 50 per cent of the overall population of Laos (estimated at something less than 2,000,000 with a density of about 20 to the square mile), have never invented any writing system. They practice varying forms of animism and thousands of them have turned to Christ. In 1950 what amounted to a mass movement began in the vicinity of Xieng Khouang, and the converts of that period and region, from among the Miao and the Khamoo tribes, form the bulk of the church in North Laos today.

In 1957 the Gospel Church of North Laos was organized with its own constitution, electing its own slate of officers and assuming financial responsibility for its own clergy. This independent, autonomous body has received at least tentative recognition by the duly constituted government of the country. A second church, not as organized, exists in the south, the fruit of long years of devoted ministry on the part of the Swiss mission.

Linguistic analysis of two tribal languages has progressed toward providing them with alphabets, but opportunity and challenge still awaits the painstaking, plodding skill of the trained linguist, translator, and literacy worker.

An early emphasis on translation work on the part of the Swiss mission saw the New Testament in Lao published in 1926, followed by the Old Testament in the early thirties. Additional titles were translated and published subsequently. The center of translation and literature work has since shifted to the Alliance in the north and one current project is the retranslation of the New Testament under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In addition, much Christian literature has been made available to both north and south. In 1959 Christian missions formed a committee to co-ordinate and avoid duplication of publishing activities.

Radio programs, prepared in Lao on an inter-mission basis and sent to Manila, are beamed at Laos twice daily through the facilities and courtesies of the Far East Broadcasting Company. Laos and contiguous Lao-speaking areas are thus reached morning and evening with a Christian message.

A full-time Bible school has been operated variously in Vientiane, Luang Prabang and, currently, Xieng Khouang to provide the church with a national clergy trained in the Word of God.

Communism has now overrun the homeland of vast segments of the northern church and, significantly, it is in this Christian-oriented area that the most determined opposition is prevalent. Christian villages have been destroyed and their chapels burned. Believers have fled to the elevated highlands with what they had on their backs, leaving behind all their possessions, including their homes and harvested crops. Nevertheless, reports filter through of continuing faith and devotion.

The significance which this remote and otherwise unimportant little land-locked kingdom represents in political alignments and developments is matched by that which it holds for the world of missionary endeavor and for Christians everywhere.

THE PRESBYTERIAN U. S. GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The following report was prepared forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. John R. Richardson, minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

“A new commitment for a new century” was the 101st General Assembly motif of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., and from start to finish it challenged the 530 commissioners to greater loyalty to the central purpose of their church and their mission to the nation.

The centennial assembly met in the Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, April 27-May 2. In an opening sermon, the retiring moderator, Dr. Marion A. Boggs, pastor of Little Rock’s Second Presbyterian Church, elucidated the basic principles on which the Presbyterian Church, U. S. has prospered: the infallibility of Holy Scripture, God’s sovereign purpose in human history, the unrivaled Lordship of Christ in the Church and world, and the continuing reformation as the Church is subjected to the Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Wallace M. Alston, president of Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, was elected moderator on the first ballot. At a press conference during the assembly Alston said, “I am completely committed to the ecumenical movement.” He told the press that he favored integration in every department of the church, but acknowledged that Agnes Scott College has no Negro students in its student body. Dr. Alston served the Assembly with competence that contributed much to the fine spirit that prevailed in assembly debates.

The 98th General Assembly had appointed an ad interim committee to prepare a brief statement of belief setting forth the historic Presbyterian doctrines in the language of our time. The committee made its report to this assembly. One of the most spirited debates resulted from the report. Many commissioners felt that the brief statement was inferior to the one adopted in 1913. It was criticized as lacking in clarity and characterized by verbosity. On motion of Dr. Edward G. Lilly of South Carolina the report was returned to the committee for further study in light of the many objections raised.

The report on possible revision of Chapter III of the Confession of Faith that deals with “double predestination” or the negative aspect of predestination evoked extended debate. The committee recommended that the Confession of Faith not be changed because to do so would destroy the unity of the document. This elicited unanimous approval. But when the committee declared that the third chapter is not an adequate statement of Christian faith many demurred. Dr. G. Aiken Taylor, editor of The Presbyterian Journal, moved to delete the second part of the recommendation on the ground that to say so would threaten the foundation of the creed’s usefulness. Taylor’s motion lost by a vote of 309–120 and the report with recommendations was approved as a whole by the assembly. A protest was signed by a number of commissioners against the assembly’s approval of the recommendation that criticized the church’s official creed.

The ad interim committee, appointed last year to study “Non-Denominational Youth Movements,” presented a comprehensive report. The study included Youth for Christ, Young Life, Word of Life, Youth on the March, Inter-Varsity Fellowship, Navigators, and Child Evangelism Fellowship. Dr. Albert J. Kissling, chairman of the committee, said all of these movements have much in common: “All are theologically conservative, emphasizing individual conversional experience. They usually conduct their meetings on the local level in a loosely organized manner with programs in more or less informal manner. They often tend toward a somewhat critical attitude toward the work of denominational churches. They share a literalistic interpretation of the Scriptures. Nearly all center their programs around the personality of the leader. They tend to emphasize the negative aspects of personal morality, often implying that Christian character consists of ‘thou shalt nots’.”

The report further declared that the best way to come to grips with a movement in question is to engage in personal investigation at the local level. Leaders in Christian education were urged to study the effective techniques used by some of these groups that they may develop programs of greater efficiency in the fields of personal evangelism and Bible study. This report was received by the court as information by a vote of 256–207.

The assembly approved a record high budget of $9,617,180 for its benevolence operations in 1962, and authorized a special church-wide conference on benevolences. It reversed the recommendation of the General Council’s Standing Committee by answering in the negative an overture asking that some liturgical days not now in the official calendar be included.

The Church Extension Committee’s report included an answer to a resolution asking that the assembly accept its mission as being to the whole of the United States without regard to geographical limitations. This was answered by citing the fact that no geographical boundaries have even been established except as they may be established by presbyteries and synods, and these were encouraged to extend their work to the limit of their ability wherever there are contiguous unchurched areas.

In response to a resolution calling upon those who make “wholesale and irresponsible charges” of communism among the clergy as reported in the press in recent weeks, the assembly requested those with such information to “name names and produce evidence,” and promised swift action by church courts in any documented case.

Convention Circuit

Plans for a theological study commission authorized during the 19th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals last month are now in the hands of a three-man planning committee. The committee, appointed to chart the course and help determine who will serve on the commission, is made up of Dr. Merrill Tenney, dean of the Graduate School of Wheaton College, Dr. Robert A. Cook, first vice president of NAE and a vice president of Scripture Press, and Dr. Fred P. Thompson, Jr., pastor of Chicago’s First Christian Church.

Here are reports of other religious meetings across the nation:

At Pittsburgh—Thirteen U. S. church buildings won top awards for architectural design in the annual exhibit sponsored by the Church Architectural Guild of America at the National Conference on Church Architecture. The winners included five churches seating more than 250 persons (listed with architects): Bellevue Presbyterian, Bellevue, Washington, Mithun, Ridenour and Cochran; Church of the Holy Family, Orange, California, Criley and McDowell; First Presbyterian, Elkhart, Indiana, Wagoner, Wiley and Miller; Unity Church of Truth, Seattle, Washington, Young Richardson and Carleton; and St. Vitus Roman Catholic Church and Rectory, New Castle, Pennsylvania, P. Arthur D’Orazio.

At Green Lake, Wisconsin—Dr. Mary Steichen Calderone, medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the North American Conference on Church and Family that churches ought to include comprehensive sex education as part of their Sunday school curriculum for children from the time of puberty.

At Cambridge, Massachusetts—Delegates to the annual assembly of the Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church’s Diocese of North America learned that the denomination plans to establish its first theological seminary in this country. The site is still to be chosen.

At Wilmette, Illinois—A report read at the 53rd annual convention of the Baha’i’s of the United States cited “unprecedented growth” of the movement which now has 24 independent national assemblies in the Western Hemisphere. The report came from Baha’i international headquarters in Haifa.

At Washington, D. C.—Delegates to the Methodist National Conference on Christian Social Concerns rejected a proposed message on political and social issues after an amendment was introduced deploring “United States military intervention, direct or indirect, in the internal affairs of Cuba.”

At Chicago—Top awards made at the annual meeting of the Associated Church Press honored: Together, Methodist family monthly (for superiority in make-up, typography, and use of color), The Christian Century, undenominational weekly, and This Day, Lutheran family monthly (the latter two for excellence of content in keeping with their expressed purposes).

At New York—“Awards of Merit” were presented to four daily newspapers, a weekly newsmagazine, and a radio-television station at the 32nd annual meeting of the National Religious Publicity Council. Cited for their reporting of religious activities were The Washington (D. C.) Post, the New York Herald Tribune, the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, the Toronto (Ontario) Telegram, Time magazine, and station WFIL and WFIL-TV of Philadelphia. Named as NRPC Fellows were Jo-ann Price of the Herald Tribune, Kenneth Dole of the Post, Marianne Kelsey of the Times, Aubrey Wice of the Telegram, and Douglas Auchincloss of Time.

At Boston—An aggregate of more than 25,000 persons attended sessions and witnessed exhibits at the 22nd annual Missionary Conference of Park Street (Congregational) Church. The conference got a first-hand report on the African situation from its pastor, Dr. Harold John Ockenga, recently returned from a 22,000-mile trip through 14 African countries. The one-day drive for missionary funds which traditionally climaxes the annual conference reached $269,153. The church currently supports some 117 missionaries in 49 countries.

At Cicero, Illinois—Resolutions opposing federal aid to education were adopted at the 32nd annual convention of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America. Another resolution voiced support of capital punishment.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. E. K. Higdon, 73, missionary educator of the Disciples of Christ in the Philippines; in Manila … Dr. J. A. F. Gregg, 88, retired Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland; in Rostrevor, County Down … the Rev. Carl Alfred Bjornbom, 100, oldest minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church of America; in Chicago.

Resignation: From the presidency of Southwest Baptist College, Dr. John W. Dowdy.

Appointments: As general director of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Charles H. Troutman … as associate professor of historical theology at National Methodist Theological Seminary, Dr. Carl Bangs.

Elections: As president of the United Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, the Rev. John E. Bouquet … as chairman of the Methodist National Lay Committee on Evangelism, H. J. Taylor … as president of the Military Chaplains Association, Msgr. Patrick J. Ryan … as president of the Associated Church Press, the Rev. Edwin H. Maynard … as president of the National Religious Publicity Council, Dr. R. Dean Goodwin.

Retirements:Dr. Marion J. Creeger, executive secretary of the General Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel, effective June 30, 1962 … the Very Rev. C. E. Riley, Anglican Dean of Toronto, effective June 30, 1961.

Quotes: “The John Birch Society has stirred up a reaction that offsets the stated purpose of the society—in other words, it has to some extent defeated its own purpose … What disturbs me is the unwillingness of segments of Americans to allow the extreme right wing to exercise the same liberty that the extreme left wing has been granted … I am waiting to see whether the American Civil Liberties Union will now rise to the defense of Robert Welch and the members of the John Birch Society.”—Dr. William Sanford LaSor, writing in the Altadenan-Pasadenan.

Disclosure of the application by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox church for membership in the World Council of Churches was keyed to draw attention to an otherwise uneventful annual meeting of the WCC’s U. S. Conference in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, last month.

Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, chairman of the 90-member, policy-making WCC Central Committee, announced that a letter requesting admission had been received from Patriarch Alexei of Moscow. A similar announcement was made simultaneously at World Council headquarters in Geneva.

Fry said the request would be acted upon early in the council’s Third Assembly scheduled to begin in New Delhi, November 18, along with applications from eight or more other churches. The other churches include two Pentecostal churches in Chile, and a Moravian church in South Africa.

Patriarch Alexei, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, listed 30,000 priests and 73 bishoprics inside the U.S.S.R., plus 20,000 parishes and 40 monasteries. The eight theological schools maintained by the church in Soviet territory were said to include two academies and six seminaries. No figures on church membership were given (estimates range from 30 to 90 million).

Favorable action on the Russian request was forecast. Fry urged admission of the Russian Orthodox on the ground that this step has less risk now than when the church was invited to the First Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948. Places were reserved at that meeting for Russian delegates.

“Nothing has occurred in the Russian church to make it less acceptable as a member in 1961 than it was in 1948,” he said. “A reversal in the World Council’s position would reflect an alteration in our outlook on ecumenicity.”

Fry declared that the Russian church will now be entering a council with established characteristics and procedures. “There are abundant precedents out of the formative years; we are now sure that every study and activity will be based on biblical theology, not political casuistry.”

He considered the decision of the patriarchate to be the outcome of renewed conversations that began after the Russian Orthodox church received the Evanston Assembly declaration on world peace and disarmament. Exchanges of visits and information were agreed on in a meeting in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 1958. Out of this grew the visit of an international delegation of WCC staff to Russia in 1959, led by Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, WCC general secretary. Russian Orthodox observers have been present at recent meetings of the Faith and Order Commission, the Executive Committee of the Commission of Churches on International Affairs, and the WCC Central Committee. Representatives of the patriarchate have also studied the functioning of WCC headquarters.

According to Fry, no such thorough examination has ever been made by an applicant church. He asserted that the top cadre of the Russian church now knows more in detail about the WCC than do most of the member churches.

In reply to inquiries as to the possible size of the Russian delegation at New Delhi, Fry indicated that the assembly has been limited to 600 members, and that only a dozen seats were at present unclaimed. Perhaps as many as five or six seats might be assigned to the Russian Orthodox delegates, he estimated. U. S. churches will be represented by 161 delegates, although no one church will have more than four.

Mr. Ivan M. Czap, delegate of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, questioned the bona fide character of some of the bishops who might be sent to represent the Russian church. He suggested that WCC recognition of some representatives might be a disservice to Russian Christians.

Dr. Roswell P. Barnes, executive secretary of the U. S. Conference of the WCC, stressed evidences of vitality in the Russian church in the face of government pressure against religion. He declared that present Communist policy is to avoid making martyrs of Christians, and that the government has permitted the churches to accumulate funds. Fry endorsed the opinion that the application of the Russian church is tolerated rather than designed by the Soviet government.

Roman Catholic observers have also been invited, and optimism was expressed as to the likelihood of their attendance.

Public relations aspects of the move to admit the Russian church were discussed, in view of anticipated criticism from crusading anti-Communists in the United States. Inclusion of Orthodox Catholic churches in the WCC is not an issue, since the council is not a Protestant body. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and other Orthodox churches belong to the council at present. The opening worship service at the Buck Hill Falls meeting was conducted by Archbishop Iakovos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Prayers used invoked the intercessions of Mary and the saints.

In the concluding speech of the conference, Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, viewed admission of the Russian church as a step towards world peace. He declared that the position taken by WCC leaders in insisting upon the admittance to the United States of Evanston Assembly delegates from Communist countries was “a first and major step in breaking the rigidity of United States policy on people-to-people relations.”

Nolde weighed “the competing claims of fellowship and fidelity.” He recognized that “views which the member churches of the WCC hold and advocate about national and international life may be not only different but radically contradictory.” The more inclusive the WCC membership becomes, the more acute is this problem. According to Nolde, however, a unified witness must be continued on specific international and national issues. He cited withdrawal of two South African churches from the council after the Johannesburg race consultation as indicative of the price that might have to be paid in fellowship for maintaining a witness.

In the extension of fellowship to the Russian Orthodox church, problems for the WCC witness must be anticipated, Nolde said. “However, I am concerned with a Christian witness to the world of nations in behalf of peace with justice and freedom, and on that basis I come to an affirmative conclusion.”

Nolde then elaborated principles for maintaining unity in witness in this situation. “The ideology of Marxist communism must be opposed,” he said, “but victory is neither possible nor should it be sought by military means.” He deemed military defense against aggression justifiable, but declared military action against communism as “foolhardy as it is dangerous.”

He further asserted that while justice and freedom must be sought, “no economic or political system can be designated as exclusively Christian or even distinctively Christian.”

The proposed incorporation of the International Missionary Council into the WCC structure was rapidly reviewed. This action, to be taken at New Delhi, will create within the WCC a Division of World Mission and Evangelism. A parallel Commission on World Mission and Evangelism will also be set up. Church and missionary councils, unwilling to affiliate with the WCC, will be encouraged to enter a consultative relation to this commission. Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary, New York, reported that of the IMC member councils, only the Council of Brazil voted against merger. The Congo Protestant Council withdrew from the IMC, however, and the Council of Norway was also said to oppose the consolidation.

Van Dusen declared that two steps would be taken to bring mission to the heart of the WCC as a result of the integration. First, 25 additional persons were being nominated for seats in the assembly by the IMC, and five members were to be added to the Central Committee of the WCC from the Commission on World Mission. Second, mission emphasis would be developed in the WCC.

The Buck Hill Falls conference did not present or discuss questions concerning the biblical basis of missions or the missionary calling of the church. No information was furnished on the progress of reports on questions being prepared by the studies division of the WCC for the section on Witness at the New Delhi assembly.

Brief consideration was given to the revised basis of the WCC which will be proposed by the Central Committee to the Assembly. The present basis: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.” The proposed revision: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

It was pointed out that this revision is Trinitarian in a doxological setting. Some churchmen distinguish such contexts from factual prose. The placing of the phrase “according to the Scriptures” may vary in other languages. Each is to hear in his own language. The change from “our Lord” to “the Lord” is significant. The first phrasing was regarded as too restricted.

Objections to the new basis have been reported from the Swiss Protestant Church Federation and from the General Mennonite Society and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Netherlands. Certain individual objections may be sent by American churchmen to the WCC General Secretary, challenging the exegetical basis of confessing Christ to be God and Saviour and criticizing the omission of direct reference to the humanity of Christ.

Dr. Paul S. Minear, newly-named director of the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC, presented the theme of the coming Assembly, “Christ the Light of the World.” Describing the distribution of the study pamphlet, he said, “Never before in history has so gargantuan an effort been made to enlist congregations in every country and language to share in a study of the same biblical passages, the same problems of thought and action, during the same months.” The Buck Hill conference, however, included no discussion of these biblical passages. Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, asserted at one point, however, that American churches have gained from the ecumenical movement “a new dimension of theological depth, corrective of their own pragmatic temper.”

The conference displayed ecumenical statesmanship of a high order and zeal for definite positions on controversial political issues. But exposition of the gospel of Christ, the Light of the World, in theological depth was postponed—possibly for New Delhi.

The omission of a discussion of angels in almost every book on the philosophy of religion reveals the gulf between modern mentality and the biblical revelation. Philosophers of religion discuss God, the soul, and nature, but stop short of any serious discussion of angels. Skeptics will spend much time in refuting the proofs of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul but will not even wet the pen to refute the existence of an angelic host. In contrast to this treatment of angels on behalf of philosophers (religious or skeptical) are the profuse references to angels in sacred Scripture.

It must be admitted, however, that there are certain problems or ambiguities attending the discussion of angels, and Calvin himself expressed a great reserve and caution on the subject (Institutes, I. xiv. 3, for example, “It is also our duty cheerfully to remain in ignorance of what is not for our advantage to know”). It is this discrepancy between modern mentality and the biblical disclosure about angels that causes Barth to begin his discussion of angels with so much hesitation (Kirchliche Dogmatik, III/3, Sec. 51).

No Rational Objection. Mankind has no handbook titled, A Guide to All Possible Creations. It has no information about creation apart from the data afforded by this creation. The how and the why and the what of creation can be gained only from the concrete character and the concrete givenness of creation. Humanity has no a priori principles for judging the character or composition of a creation. And in that angels are creatures of God what applies to creation in general applies to angels in particular.

Whether there shall be angels or not cannot be determined by any concept of necessity or fitness of things. There is nothing in the constitution of the human mind which enables it to judge this issue. If there is any necessity or any fitness to the existence of angels, it is known and determined by the divine Majesty.

In a word, modern man can have no a priori objection to the existence of angels based upon some sort of principle of necessity or fitness. The existence or nonexistence of angels can be based only upon an a posteriori judgment arising out of the concrete character of creation itself.

The root of Christian theology is the knowledge of God conveyed to man through special revelation. This is the nerve of Christian theology and if it is cut, theology atrophies into mere religious chatter (even though it be learned chatter). This knowledge of God takes the concrete form of a canon, a Scripture, or in the technical language of the New Testament, a graphe. The New Testament uses this term graphe to indicate the ink and parchment embodiment of the revelation of God. It is this graphe which informs the Church of the structures of creation insofar as these structures pertain to our proper understanding of God, ourselves, and the character of our creaturely and spiritual lives.

It is from the graphe that the Church comes to know the reality of angels. The real conflict with modern man and Christianity concerning angels is not really whether the concept of angels is rational or not but whether the graphe bears an authentic knowledge of God which expresses itself with regard to angels. Modern man has no criterion within himself to judge this issue apart from Scripture.

No Divinely Given Sentiment. Furthermore, mankind has no divinely given sentiment whereby it can judge whether angels are proper or not. Why this refusal to discuss angels by the philosophers of religion if there is not rooted deeper than reason a sentiment which is antipathetic towards angels? Is there not here an unwritten or unspoken appeal to a sense of propriety, a sense of fittingness which boggles at the doctrine of angels?

In a universe of electrons and positrons, atomic energy and rocket power, Einsteinian astronomy and nuclear physics, angels seem out of place. They seem to intrude upon the scene like the unexpected visit of the country relatives to their rich city kinfolk. Atoms seem at home in our contemporary thinking but not angels! The prospect of some interplanetary Beagle cruising among the planets gathering scientific data surprises no educated man of today. But if such a man were called upon to comment upon angels he would either act very nervously or else he would pompously deny that angels existed. He knows the principles whereby he can reasonably imagine a scientific cruise of the planets by a space-age Darwin, but he has no principles whereby he may discuss angels. So he prefers to dismiss the concept of angels as mythological.

The serious question which confronts the Christian theologian in view of modern man’s squeamish attitude towards angels is whether or not there is a logical or theological justification for this attitude. Christian theology would be faced with a serious logical problem if angels and atoms competed with each other in natural law. It is true that God does make angels as winds and as fires (Heb. 1:7), but the angels are never part of the scriptural explanation of the order or ordering of natural things. Angels and atoms do not compete! There can be then no formal logical objection to the existence of angels.

Christian theology would be confronted with a serious theological problem if it could be shown that the concept of angels is inappropriate to the notion of God. But this could only make its case if mankind had an innate criterion by which to judge what is appropriate with reference to God. But as already indicated, man is not gifted with this sentiment and therefore the only possible mode of judging this question is by the revelation of the knowledge of God in sacred Scripture.

The root of modern man’s objection to the reality of angels is not logical nor theological but psychological. It is a psychological squeamishness which stems from the antisupernaturalism of modern mentality. The medieval theologian-philosopher Occam affirmed that no more principles should be employed in explanations than those which are absolutely necessary. This principle has been called “Occam’s Razor.” Modern man feels (for he cannot make his case from logic) that Occam’s Razor enables him to trim off all supernatural principles and all superhuman beings in accounting for the sum total of phenomena in the universe.

To frame this another way, modern mentality may be likened to a decorator’s motif. Only certain colors and styles harmonize in the house and furniture which does not harmonize is hauled out! Angels do not match the modern décor, so they are discarded.

Karl Barth has noted that there is one basis for modern man’s hesitations about angels. Angels are servants and have no reality or purpose in themselves. We can imagine people without servants, but we cannot conceive of servants without people. The rationale of servants is the rationale of people. There is no rationale for servants in themselves. We can imagine God as existing without angels, but it is meaningless to imagine a universe with angels but no God. The rationale for angels is that they are servants of God and man in the interest of the redemption provided by God.

The Structure of Divine Mediation. Creation is that order, that space-time reality, which is created by God and is thereby different from God. His omnipotent word spoke it into existence (Heb. 11:3). There is, therefore, an ineradicable difference between God and the creature. In the language of categories, it is the eternal contrasted with the temporal, the infinite with the finite, the uncreated with the created, and so on. The communication between this great God and finite, limited man must thus always be a mediated communication.

This is not a judgment about the “impurity” of the world which would force God to communicate indirectly lest he contaminate himself with the world. It is based upon the transcendence of Creator over the creature. Therefore when God comes to humanity in revelation, he comes through mediators. The prophetic word is a mediated word. The theophany is a mediated manifestation of God. The Incarnation is the glory of God mediated through the human nature of Christ (John 1:14). Angels are ‘part of the complex structure of the divine mediation.

With reference to this divine mediation man has no a priori understanding of it. Man does not know if there shall be one or a million mediators. He has no aesthetic power whereby he can evaluate one scheme of mediation over another. If man wishes he may reject the notion of angels. Barth cites Goethe as saying, “Let me name for you an appendage: What you call angels” (ibid., p. 436). But the necessity of mediation remains and if the divine Majesty shall say something to his creatures it must be a mediated word!

In this matter there is only one point of judgment. In the concrete data of revelation either the mediatorial role of angels is set forth or it is not. At this point the witness of scriptural record (cf. Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:7) is accepted or rejected. To speculate about angels apart from the concrete, historical, and specific character of revelation is like attempting to fly in a vacuum. We have no a priori principle to judge this matter; we have no innate aesthetic sense to assess its fittingness. We either rest upon the contents of revelation, or we pass the question by.

The Heavenly Servants of God. If angels function in the schema of divine mediation, their role is essentially that of servant (Heb. 1:14). The service of angels in special revelation and divine redemption is the second scriptural rationale for angels. Man is the earthly servant of God; Jesus Christ is the theanthropic servant of God (Phil. 2:5 f.); and the angels are the heavenly servants of God, for they are always represented as coming from heaven and returning to heaven.

Angels serve God in the administration of his kingdom and his redemption (Dan. 8:16; Luke 1:19, 26, and so forth). The range of their service is phenomenal. From the Old Testament incidents in which they appear like ordinary men (Judges 13), we move through the biblical record of their actions to the great dramatic pictures of the book of Revelation where angels assume cosmic powers. The association of Jesus Christ with angels is remarkable—compare his birth narratives, his temptation, his experience in Gethsemane, his resurrection, his return with great hosts of angels.

In this connection is the remarkable Old Testament revelation of the angel of the Lord. Because the angel of the Lord is both a representation and a type there is some obscurity attached to the subject matter which an honest exegesis will not overlook. But the angel-form of the Mighty One who comes in the service of God is a happy anticipation of Philippians 2:5 ff., where the exalted Son of God empties himself to take the form of a servant.

One other remark is pertinent to the servant-role of angels: everywhere in Scripture their worship or veneration is sternly rebuked (cf. Col. 2:18; Rev. 19:10).

The Glory of God. The third rationale for angels is to be seen in the manner in which they surround the throne of God (Heb. 12:22). One of the names of God is the Lord of Hosts. He is pictured in Scripture as surrounded by an innumerable company of angels (“numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,” Rev. 5:11). One of the primary means by which Scripture represents to us the glorious nature of God is always to surround him with an endless host of powerful and majestic angels, particularly the seraphim who cry “holy, holy, holy” day and night (Isa. 6:3). If the angelic hosts are deleted from our representation of God, then one of the strongest possible modes of representing the glory, the might, the majesty, and the holiness of God is lost. Just as the royal palace, the fabulous furnishings, and the royal court are all part of the means of expressing the dignity and royalty of an earthly king, so the visions of heaven and the majestic court of glorious angels are part of the biblical method of impressing the human mind with the glory of God. The abstract listing of divine attributes may be theologically precise, but such a list can never do for the human imagination what is done by the biblical presentation of God surrounded with an innumerable host of great, glorious, and powerful angels.

If men have entertained angels unawares (Heb. 13:2), theologians should be the first to attempt to make their visit welcome, and their stay desirable.

Bibliography: K. Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, III/3, Sec. 51 (the historical and theological materials found in remarkable fullness); W. Grundmann, G. von Rad, G. Kittel, “aggelos, archaggelos, isaggelos,” Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, G. Kittel, ed., Vol. I; W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich, “Angels,” A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament; G. W. Bromiley, “Angel,” Dictionary of Theology, E. Harrison, ed; “Angel,” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F. L. Cross, ed.; Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy (historically has played a fantastically large role); T. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Vol. I, 50–64, 106–114; Summa Contra Gentiles, Vol. II, 91–101; J. Calvin, Institutes, I. xiv (where he remarks that Dionysius treatment is “mere babblings”); F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (comments upon the abstract possibility of angels but of their religious dispensability); R. Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” Kerygma and Myth, H. W. Bartsch, ed., trans. by R. H. Fuller (rejection of spirits, good or evil).

Professor of Systematic Theology

California Baptist Theological Seminary

Covina, California