‘WERE YOU THERE?’

The records of those hours prior to our Lord’s crucifixion carry in them an inexhaustible source of information which is of vital importance to every Christian.

Confronted by the Cross, the great central event of all history, we are compelled to bow and worship.

The nature, magnitude, and implications of the death of the Son of God are such that two things stand out in clearest focus—the sinfulness of man and the love of God.

If my sins required the death of the Son of God for their remission, then how great are those sins!

This side of eternity none of us will ever know all that was involved in Christ’s death on the Cross. We speak of various “theories” of the atonement but all of these explanations, if proven to be valid, are summed up in one simple sentence which any man can understand and accept: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”

Take any translation of the New Testament and the meaning is the same: “Christ died for our sins.”

Before this statement which Paul gives as one of the two essential elements in the Gospel, man stands stripped of every pretense while God is revealed in the majesty of his love, mercy, and grace combined with his holiness, power, and justice.

What a tragedy that this great central truth of the Gospel is so often ignored, perverted, denied, bypassed, minimized, or made so complicated that men become lost in a maze of words.

To complete the simplicity of this message, let us remember the rest of Paul’s outline of the Gospel he preached: “and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

We live in a time when truths such as these, which are vital to man’s eternal welfare, become lost to men’s view in the quagmire of supposed theological profundities having their source in the minds of men and not divine revelation.

Christ’s death on the cross, this “dying for our sins” was not only the central drama of all time, but during those hours in human history when the Son of God was confronted by the physical event, there were other actors on the stage in whom we may discern our own likeness.

There is, of course, the central Person, without which nothing else could have had meaning—Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. In him we find eternal life, but from others around him we may take warning, reproof, or comfort.

Standing in the spotlight we see Judas. Even his name carries with it loathing as we think of betrayal, hypocrisy, avarice, double-dealing, remorse without repentance, and finally suicide.

But Judas was no outsider. He had been one of the twelve. He was a disciple and had lived with our Lord for three years. He had eaten with him and slept many nights not far from his presence. He had seen his miracles, heard him preach and teach, listened to him as he explained the Old Testament Scriptures. He had gone forth with the other disciples to preach in Christ’s name and to cast out devils. His had been an intimate, personal relationship with our Lord.… But he betrayed him.

How clearly this shows that the outward trappings of religious privilege save no one. The same fire which melts the wax hardens the clay.

What a warning to us churchmen, and church women! Religion can never save us and the more frantic we are in going about in Church activities the further we may be from the Lord.

It is the inward renewing, the new birth in which the Holy Spirit enables us through simple faith to accept the finished work of Christ, that makes us Christians. Otherwise we too may be potential Judases.

What about the disciples in that dark hour? They had shared the same privileges with Judas, but they were in a very real sense “babes in Christ.” Fearful, deserting, scattered, questioning, dismayed, and distressed, they had the capability to believe and only a few weeks later would go out, filled with the Holy Spirit, to turn the world upside down and give their lives as martyrs in the name of the risen Christ.

The spotlight shines brightly on one disciple, impulsive, warm-hearted, vacillating but lovable Peter. What a comfort to know that this disciple who followed afar off, who denied his Lord with curses on his lips, was brought to tears of true repentance through the crowing of a cock and the look of loving compassion from Christ!

How different were Judas and Peter! In them we see the great chasm of which Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:10: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

Mingling through the crowd and loudly demanding our Lord’s death were the religious leaders of the day. They had a form of godliness but were far removed from its reality. They were moved by envy and hatred. They refused to believe our Lord’s miracles, or his divine origin. They were zealous for the letter of the law but ignorant of the Spirit. They were “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” “whited sepulchers.” They were concerned lest they be defiled for the Passover feast by entering the judgment hall of Pilate but were oblivious to the defilement of their own crime.

Do not we all need to take warning lest our religiosity be something far removed from Christ and Christianity?

What of Pilate? He knew but one kingdom, Rome, and one ambition, to succeed in his office. Cynical, vacillating, and yet capable of decision; vaguely uneasy but more concerned with expediency than truth or right, he is typical of all world leaders who leave God out of account. He too failed to realize that God and his Truth are the eternal Stone on which the ambitions of an indifferent world will one day be broken.

Then there were the Roman soldiers—hardened, callous, indifferent to the point of gambling for the seamless robe of Christ while he died for their sins.

What warning for all of us! Judas obsessed with the love of money, men plotting the death of the Messiah whom they should have welcomed—and in the midst of it all our Lord voluntarily fulfilling his destiny.

When men sought to force him to take a crown and make him a king, he withdrew and hid himself.

Now, when men would force on him a cross he offered himself, submitting to all that man might do to him, even to death itself, and all for us!

On the Cross his work was finished, once for all. There salvation awaits for all who will believe. There the portals of heaven are opened for repentant sinners who, amazingly, become righteous in God’s sight.

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Yes!

L. NELSON BELL

PHILOMENA

At last Ecclesian has its patron saint. A niche will be rushed to completion in the revolving altar at the All-Faiths Chapel in Deepwell Heights. The saint is a former Catholic named St. Philomena.

News dispatches recently described the embarrassment she caused the Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cardinal Cushing, when he was about to name a church in her honor. The new red brick colonial-style church was already Philomena’s in the minds of loyal parishioners. Members of the Philomena guild had received 800 small statues of Philomena from the Cardinal.

Then, just as he was leaving for the dedication service, the Cardinal learned the truth about St. Philomena. She wasn’t a saint any longer. The Sacred Congregation of Rites at the Vatican had dropped her name from the rolls. In fact, Vatican sources went so far as to question whether she had ever existed.

The Cardinal had to face all those assembled people and tell them that St. Philomena’s couldn’t be St. Philomena’s. “It was a difficult job,” he said. “It was like telling the Irish there was no St. Patrick.”

Will someone tell the Cardinal that Philomena need not be forgotten? Ecclesian-speaking Protestants have long venerated any number of events which never happened, as they see it. It is no trick at all for them to preach on Abraham with the sure conviction that he never lived. Come home, Philomena. Ecclesian can demythologize your past and make you a contemporary event.

We shall also need some enterprising dealers in church goods to buy (at a sharp discount) surplus statues of Philomena. The ground swell for the new patron saint can be expected to spread to every contemporary chapel in exurbia. It may become a Philomenical movement.

EUTYCHUS

EDUCATION AND RELIGION

In your editorial of April 10, 1961, you again question the principle of federal aid to education. However, you fail to point out the values of such a program. One of the values seldom heard is federal control over public schools which will accompany or follow financial aid. Perhaps the control is more needed than are the funds. Our nation needs a public educated to national values rather than values modified by provincial interests. Federal control will maintain proper educational standards. Through proper regulation and control our schools can eliminate racial, religious and ethnic favoritism.…

ROLAND J. BROWN

Minister of Education

First Baptist

Oak Park, Ill.

Federal aid to any school is unconstitutional and there is no way to make it otherwise except by amending the constitution. The constitution does not mention the word “education” and therefore by its own provisions this matter remains under the exclusive jurisdiction of the States.…

JOHN B. COOLEY

Mountville, S. C.

When sectarian groups, whether ecclesiastical or lay, establish institutions of which the sole purpose is to render the kinds of services which in any event must be rendered, such as education and the care of the ill, aged, disabled, orphaned, etc., it would seem no violation of the principle of the separation of Church and State to allow these institutions to share with public institutions in certain kinds of public assistance.…

Now the only alternative to sectarian schools is public educational institutions all of which must be strictly secular.… But where, pray, has strict secularism proved to be a more desirable alternative for the life of a nation than Roman Catholic faith and morality, and where has strict secularism proved more congenial than Rome to Protestantism?… A nation containing a multiplicity of sectarian groups, each possessing equal rights and privileges, may yet proclaim itself to be a Christian nation and may yet possess a citizenry guided in its public and private affairs by a basically Christian morality. But a wholly secularized nation is worse than a paganized nation.…

JOHN H. STEK

Raymond Christian Reformed Church

Raymond, Minn.

I hate to think of what might happen if our public schools were abolished and we parents put the education of our children into the Tom, Dick and Harry hands of the 250 religious sects in our country many of which are mainly interested in educating our children in ignorance so they will hold certain traditional opinions about the Bible that have been handed down from the days of medieval ignorance and superstition.

A. M. WATTS

Chester, Vt.

Instead of asking if it is too late to remove the wedge of church participation in federal funds, I believe you should be pleading for Protestant Christians to take advantage of this God-permitted potential opportunity, which would remove the chief material obstacle to starting Christian day schools in individual localities.… We already have religion in the public schools, supported by public funds, and it is the religion of the humanists—deification of man.… And by pervading the education of the young and conditioning their impressionable minds, it not only unfairly advantages itself but insures its self-perpetuation logarithmically in succeeding generations.

MRS. TOM DODSON

Fairfax, Va.

Education is always given in a religious perspective: it is governed by a certain concept of man and his relationship to God and the world about him. No man can educate except in terms of some unifying perspective. This is as true of religious schools as of “a-religious” schools.

If this be true, then religious pluralism calls for educational pluralism. But pluralism in a free society implies equality of privilege. If the religious school, whether Roman Catholic, Jewish, or Protestant, is to have no public support, then neither should the a-religious.…

If Roman Catholicism is a menace, then let us do all we can to make Protestantism flourish. Instead of allowing millions of Protestant children to grow up and be trained in an atmosphere of religious neutrality, let us build virile Protestant schools. And let us demand equal support for these schools.…

If there cannot be an Established Church in a free society, how is it … that there can be an Established School? Certainly, the intrinsic connection between religion and education is more important … than the present “historical” connection between government and education.

JOHN VRIEND

Simcoe, Ont.

Where the Roman Catholic, or parochial schools, have become very strong, the public schools have become proportionately weak.…

The Roman Catholic schools exist to teach Roman Catholic doctrines. Why should three-quarters of the people be taxed to pay for the teaching of doctrines they oppose?

JOHN L. MCCREIGHT

United Presbyterian Church

Walton, N. Y.

The leaders of this church are really saying that the public schools, though the finest in the world, are not good enough for the children of Catholic parenthood.… The public school has been, by far, the greatest factor that has made America free, strong, and progressive. This “better than thou” philosophy is wholly un-American and selfish.

AUGUST H. WESSELS

The First Presbyterian Church

Watsontown, Pa.

You are to be commended for the fine editorials which have appeared recently concerning the grants of Federal funds to parochial and private schools. If only a vast number of people could read these to stiffen their spines against an invasion of our basic constitutional tenets.… One inroad softens the blow for the next one and it is this piecemeal invasion of basic democratic principles which could eventually destroy those very principles and our American democratic way of life.

PHYLLIS K. INGRAM

Massena, N. Y.

It is not correct that the Citizens for Educational Freedom is “campaigning for federal funds” (News, March 17 issue). The CEF has taken no stand for or against the idea of federal subsidy to education. Its position is limited to promoting the idea that, should federal funds be forthcoming, those funds should be distributed equitably for the benefit of all children whether they are in public or non-public schools. As a means to this end it supports the idea of channeling the funds through parents.…

The National Union of Christian Schools has taken no official stand on the question of federal aid to private schools.

G. A. ANDREAS

Pella, Iowa

PAUL AND MORONI

My thanks to Mr. C. S. Logan (Eutychus, March 27 issue) for “quoting” me in such fantastic terms that no rebuttal is necessary. How Paul could have “plagiarized” from a book written in the New World and the fifth century A.D. I am at a loss to explain. Incidentally I am not and never have been head of the Department of Religion at the Brigham Young University. But I do remember trying to explain to Mr. Logan that Paul sometimes uses expressions that were not original to him. In particular, his “Hymn to Charity,” as Harnack, J. Weiss, and Reitzenstein each discovered independently and with considerable reluctance, comes from an older source.… Mr. Logan has yet to show that Paul and Moroni could not have been drawing on a common source.

HUGH NIBLEY

Brigham Young University

Provo, Utah

When Mr. Thomas Stuart Ferguson states that the discovery of ancient cities in Central America is proving the truth of the Book of Mormon, he is contradicting the anthropologists of his own church.

Dr. M. Wells Jakeman, Mormon anthropologist at Brigham Young University, has said, “It must be confessed that some members of the ‘Mormon’ or Latter-day Saint Church are prone, in their enthusiasm for the Book of Mormon, to make claims for it that cannot he supported … not enough is yet known of the actual period of that [Book of Mormon] record in ancient America, or of the origin of the American Indians, for a final judgment at this time, scientifically speaking” (University Archaeological Society Newsletter, No. 57, March 25, 1959, p. 4).

Dr. Ross Christensen, also of B.Y.U., stated as recently as January of 1960, “As for the notion that the Book of Mormon has already been proved by archaeology, I must say with Shakespeare, ‘Lay not that flattering unction to your soul!’ ” (Ibid., No. 64, January 30, 1960, p. 3).

HAROLD H. HOUGEY

Church of Christ

Martinez, Calif.

ROLE FOR FAULKNER

Dr. Hazelton in no way denies that “the Christian view of man is specially anchored in God’s revelation in Christ and the Scripture,” to quote Dr. Henry’s review (Feb. 27 issue). He rather, I believe, comments on the sad fashion in which much of our contemporary preaching, for all its sanctified setting, fails to proclaim the Gospel. Simetimes a Faulkner or a Camus actually comes closer to basic religious truth, with or without Christ, than some of our preachers who piddle around Sunday after Sunday with pious moralisms and hackneyed, soporific platitudes.…

Let us also remember that the Holy Spirit can and often does work independently of the Bible whenever it suits His purposes. Read Romans 2:14–16 for amplification. Even admitting John 14:6, we cannot narrow the Spirit’s workings down to our favorite channels by saying that He gets through to us only via the Scriptures or any other authoritative medium. The works of men such as Faulkner or Camus are a praeparatio evangelica, a “preparation for the Gospel,” serving to call to mind certain religious truths for men who would never come near either Bible or church.

I leave to others to decide which is the greater heresy: what I have said or Dean Hazelton has said, or the fallacy of thinking that the Holy Spirit can only work through the literally interpreted Word, “conversion experiences,” certain creedal statements, or other channels which, after all, are merely human channels designed to lead men to Christ who is the only Way and the Truth and the Life.

EDWARD A. JOHNSON

Director of Alumni Relations

Carthage College

Carthage, Ill.

WHAT MUST I DO?

May I suggest that Dr. Ward [made] … one glaring omission in his sermon (Mar. 13 issue), which to me is so very important. It is an error found in much of today’s preaching, namely, what should the reader do about it? “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” is still the question so many preachers leave unanswered.

STANLEY H. WRIGHT

Kearney, N. J.

GETTING THEM RIGHT

Congressman J. Edward Roush is a member of the College Park Church of the United Brethren in Christ, in Huntington, Indiana, not the Brethren in Christ as reported in your Jan. 2 issue (News).

ROBERT H. MILLER

Smithfield Church of the United Brethren in Christ

Smithville, Ohio

• An earlier report on religious affiliations of Senators (Dec. 5 issue) also erroneously identified Clark of Pennsylvania (he is a Unitarian) and Long of Louisiana (he is a Methodist).

—ED.

What of communism now? Consider its conquest of Tibet; its invasion of Laos; its division of the Congo; its absorption of Cuba, its wrecking of the summit conference; its attack on the United Nations; and its blocking of the nuclear disarmament conference in Geneva.

Surely, these things should show the folly of those who talk co-existence, rapprochement, and understanding with the Communist state. These people have a basic misunderstanding of communism. Those who think that by inviting men like Mikoyan, Molotov, Koslov, and Khrushchev to America they are advancing understanding between the Communist and the free world are tragically misled. These Communists like to come to America; appearing to be genial human beings, they disarm us. The Communists would like to have us think of them in terms of cultural interpretation such as the ballet, the theatre, science, and literature. They do not want to have us think of them in terms of Poland, Hungary, Tibet, and North Korea. They want us to forget the brutal, bestial, and bloody things they have done. The error of too many people in the West is the presupposition that Communists think, act, and work on our philosophy and standard of morals when actually they act upon their own standard.

The recent picture of Communist advance is most disheartening. In Laos the Communists have conquered half of the country and are in a position to dictate their terms to the other half. Our position in seeking a neutralized Laos is very weak. If the Laotian government takes Communists into the government and terminates the importation of arms, the outcome will ultimately be that the Communists will take over Laos because of their present strength which has been due to the Russian, Chinese, and Vietnamese airlift and military mission. The order of procedure is exactly that which took place in China when Mao Tse-tung fought against Chiang Kai-shek and we thought we could neutralize China by compelling the Nationalist government to take the Communists into the fold.

Communists are advancing in the Congo. The Lumumba party, now directed by Antoine Gizenga, is definitely subsidized and armed by an airlift from Egypt. Gizenga claims to be the legitimate premier of the entire Congo and will not hesitate to launch civil war. The United Nations’ effort to disarm the Congolese will work in the favor of the Gizenga forces for they are being surreptitiously and unilaterally armed by the Communists. This is the reason Kasavubu, Tshombe, and Mobutu have turned against the United Nations.

Africa is being kept in a ferment not only through the spirit of nationalism but also through deliberate Communist activity. Thousands of Africans have been taken to Moscow to be trained and then to return to Africa to lead nationalistic movements. Jomo Kenyatta was advised that the elected leaders of Kenya have no part in the government until they have complete independence. He is one of these who has visited Moscow; he was the inspiring head of the Mau Mau movement and now is the uncrowned leader of the Africans in Kenya. The Communists are predominant in Guinea where their technicians, their teachers, their political advisers are present in great numbers. Ghana has evidence of the presence of the Communists in Pioneers for Accra, counseling centers, technical aid, gift of Illyushin planes, and an open affection for Tito’s form of government. As these colonial governments become unseated, the new African leaders who are unprepared for responsibility will be open for the new imperialism of communism.

Cuba is now in the Communist camp. Its economic life, its military preparation, its socialized form of government are all patterned after the Communist nations. Cuban agents are stirring a hate campaign against America throughout the poor and ignorant masses of Latin Americans.

The Communists are playing the game according to Communist rules. They alternate between soft and tough attitudes, between co-operation and competition, between offers of peace and threats of war in order to throw the West off balance and to achieve further advances for communism. They talk Peace and friendship when this will advance the Communist cause, but they will use force when it is valuable and necessary.

The purpose of the Communist is to wreck any disarmament attempt, promote confusion and conflict within the free nations, and discredit and weaken the United States and any other nation or organization which hinders the world revolution. Disarmament is not in the Communist program. Russia stalls on a plan of total inspection for nuclear warfare, delays and postpones the Geneva conference on disarmament, and seeks to maneuver us into a position whereby we shall lose any military advantage we now have and they shall have a preponderant military advantage by the numbers of soldiers, ground forces, they possess. The design of communism is world revolution and world conquest. This never changes. Whoever overlooks this is blind. Communism uses deceit as an instrument of diplomacy. Their pretended indignation over the U-2 incident points up their hypocrisy in the light of Communist spy rings, stealing of secrets, party activities, military movements in Tibet, Hungary, and Korea, and the record which they have made. It is a history of broken agreements, of aggression, of threats to peace, and of seizure of territory. It is strange, but people forget these things so quickly and because of their wishful thinking believe that the Communists have changed. Never believe a Communist statement except within the context of its own theory, goals, and strategy. We must recognize that it is impossible to co-operate with them and thus to dignify their leadership.

WHAT IS COMMUNISM?

The practice of Communist infiltration, allurement, and deception is well described in Proverbs 1:10–19. The admonition given to individuals who adopt these practices may be elevated and applied to any nation or group of nations. Against such we should be alert and active, and with them we should take no part.

Let us recognize the theoretical philosophy of communism. Communism is materialistic monism. It believes that ultimately there is nothing but matter in the world. Out of this physical stuff come all things of the material world and of human relationships. Materialism excludes the belief in the existence of God, of the soul of man, of the supernatural and of immortality. Materialists or naturalists are predisposed in favor of the views of communism. Since communism denies God, it denies absolute moral law and the infinite value of the individual. It denies the possibility of the change of an individual life by regeneration through the Holy Spirit, and therefore it necessitates a reliance on another method of change, namely, external control of force.

Communism believes in economic determinism. It believes that the economic process or the struggle for bread determines the form of society, the class government of society, and all the social relationships of men. It believes that ultimately history has destined that the proletariat will rule and shall liquidate all opposition.

Communism believes in class conflict. This concept was not invented by Marx but was discovered. Marx derived it from the Hegelian evolutionary viewpoint of ideas. He spoke of the thesis, the antithesis, and the synthesis. Marx declared that the revolutionary philosophy was a thesis, the reactionary capitalism the antithesis, and the world revolution the synthesis. This synthesis assertedly brings the victory of communism and ultimate peace. The concept of class conflict has dominated society throughout history and will dominate it until the process ensues in world revolution, consequent peace, and the establishment of a Communist society. The fourth concept is that of revolution. This revolution can be wrought by the ballot, the use of the franchise, through the rise of the labor movement controlled by the Communist party, or it may be brought about by violent revolution. The Bolshevik method is violent revolution. The masses must be taught by the Communist party that they are exploited, robbed and pillaged, and must be incited to revolution. They must use the methods of violence in order to overthrow class government and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The fifth item is that of the re-education of the masses. Those who are irrevocably corrupted by capitalism are to be liquidated and the remainder re-educated under the Communist system in “Communist truth.” Then it will be possible—so it is said—to build a prosperous, homogeneous society in which the dictum shall be to each according to his need and from each according to his ability. This is to be a warless, ignorantless, classless, governmentless utopia.

Communism holds before itself certain ultimate goals. The first and primary goal is world revolution. This is to be accomplished through individual revolutions within the separate states until the balance of power is obtained by the Communists, and then an all-out struggle is to be launched with the use of the Red armies of the Soviet states for the purpose of establishing world communism. The immediate goal of communism is to establish a socialistic society. The Communist society is an ultimate goal and cannot be achieved for four or five hundred years. Immediately there is to be a termination of all private property and private ownership of the means of production. All production and all income must go to the state and be used for the advancement of the Communist revolution, for the support of the Red army, and for the benefit of the masses. Simultaneously, the Communist socialistic society uses incentive and rewards for achievement on the part of individuals.

The Communist ideal is the homogeneous society in which government will wither away, all conflict will cease, and society will be marked by plenty, prosperity, and peace. This ideal should be contrasted with the 42 years of Communist history in which conflict, brutality, scarcity, and war have been instruments of Communist policy. Though the Communist excuses these on the ground that the end justifies the means, the realist should recognize that there is little probability of the Communist ever resorting to other methodology.

The strategy of communism is conquest through conflict, chaos, and confusion. The Communist seeks to divide his enemy through promoting race conflict, class conflict, and religious conflict. One wonders just how much of the nationwide conflict being stimulated over race questions is perpetrated by Communist money and influences today. The Communist seeks to corrupt his enemies through the press, through radio, through TV, through movies, through novels, through pornographic literature, through narcotics, and through every possible means. He seeks to weaken his enemies by confusing their convictions, by weakening their patriotism, by defecting them from their religion. The Communist seeks to infiltrate every movement and segment of the society of his enemy. Thus through Communist agents, cells, fronts, and stooges he seeks for control from within. Americans need to have very little fear about the ability of their army, navy, and air force to defend their country; but what they need to fear is that the defense forces of the nation will be rendered impotent by decisions of Communist sympathizers in places of importance and authority. One cannot help but wonder why so-called liberal Christians play the Communist game and adopt the Communist line in their pronouncements when they ought to know that this advances the Communist cause. The strategy also includes the promotion of stooge wars between puppet states and nations of the West which may be controlled by Communist forces without embroiling Russia herself. This is the present threat in Germany. Thus it may be seen that communism has a consistent theory, technique, and program, a part of which is illustrated in the attitudes of Mr. Khrushchev.

WHY IS COMMUNISM INCREASING?

The phenomenal growth of communism from a few thousand adherents in 1917 to the control of at least one-third of the human race in 1961, and its continuing growth may be conditioned on several matters. One is its capitalizing of certain movements.

Nationalism is the desire of indigenous peoples to determine their own destiny and to be independent. This may be illustrated today by the intense desire of Africans for self-determination. This was recently described under the clause, “Ready or not, here we come.” Africa is determined to have its “Uhuru”; hence, Nigeria, the Congo, Ghana, Senegal, Somali, and others, have gained their independence. Recognizing this justifiable nationalistic impulse, Communists have taken thousands of young Africans to Moscow to be trained in Communist education, doctrine, and technique. These students will return to Africa to become leaders of revolutionary activity. This may already be seen in the Congo. The deficiency of the knowledge by the mass of Africans concerning the true nature of communism will facilitate the leadership of these Communist-trained Africans in swinging some of the newly born nations into the Communist orbit.

The second tendency communism capitalizes on may be described as economic hunger. Frank Laubach has described the present situation of the world as a platform dividing one-third of the human race from two-thirds. The one-third is on top of the platform enjoying all the privileges of education, modern industries, sanitation, convenience, and leisure. Two-thirds are under the platform and enjoy none of these privileges. They do the hard, toilsome work with no rewards. The difference in the present situation and the former situation is that the platform is now become glass and the two-thirds may see the condition of the one-third on top and they are determined that they also will share in the privileges of the one-third—through technocracy, nationalism, and, if necessary, communism.

The third situation communism has seized upon is the vacuum left by the end of the colonial era. These many states which have gained their self-determination since World War II have not been adequately prepared to govern themselves and to develop sufficient economic independence. Consequently, communism has moved in and made puppet states out of some of them through the dumping of their economic goods, through political agitation, and through force. Communists have developed the strategy of subjugation. By use of the Communist party, secret police, prisons, slave labor, and propaganda, they have been able to develop a new international imperialism centering the control in Moscow. Their economic competition is favorable to them because they wring the products of the toil of slave laborers, sell them beneath cost in order to capture foreign markets, and then follow their penetration with political power.

The fourth condition seized upon by the Communists is that of the vacillation and weakness of the free world. For some unknown reason leadership in the free world has refused to believe that a Communist is a Communist. This leadership lacks knowledge of the purposes, techniques, and goals of communism. Moreover, it does not have a competing philosophy which is consistent and complete, and it fails in courageous action for the promotion of a competing program. The resort to expediency rather than principle, the demonstration of vacillation in reference to commitments, and the willingness to compromise has encouraged communism in its expansive and aggressive policies.

WHAT CAN COUNTERACT COMMUNISM?

To counteract communism we need a consistent theism. We need to understand the implications of the belief in God for every realm of human life. Kerzhentsev says, “A Communist cannot believe in God. He knows that religion is nothing but a means for duping the people in the interest of the exploiters.” So we know that a believer in God cannot be a Communist in the technical sense of that term. He who believes in God believes in absolute moral law. God is a just and righteous God; therefore, if he talks about love, it must be in the framework of justice, righteousness, and truth. He will not be sentimental, vacillating, or weak in his application of law. He will support righteousness and justice by force if necessary. A man who believes in God also believes in the dignity and value of an individual human being. This is derived from the fact that man is created in the image of God, and from the proclamation of the Christian Gospel that God himself came into the world to redeem individual man and remake him in His own likeness. The believer in God believes that man according to law may express himself in a free society. He has freedom of ballot, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of economic activity, and freedom of speech. It is time that we undertake to propagate these views in competition with the views of the Communists. We should exploit the natural desires of men for freedom. If an African calls “Uhuru” in defiance of all law and order, then we should cry “Freedom” with the framework of a theistic society. Actually, freedom is on our side. If we teach the truth in a consistent system, we may meet Communist theory. It is time to underscore the differences between the Communist and a free society. Instead of obscuring and depreciating the American dream which has built this noble society, we ought to exalt the elements of it over against it. We should be unafraid to reveal the condition of the captive nations and their degrading slavery.

To counteract communism, we need constant vigilance. There must be an alertness to the wiles, the devices, the fronts, and the deceit which are used by Communists and which are Communist inspired. The fact that so many good men have been taken into front organizations which have advanced the Communist cause does not commend our intelligence as patriots or as Christians. True vigilance would anticipate the Communist movements of advance throughout the world, whether in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, or in our own United States. It also would develop an aggressive diplomacy which would wrest the initiative from the Communists. The irritation of Mr. Khrushchev over captive nations’ week in 1959 reveals that such initiative on our part could actually hurt the Communist cause.

To counteract communism, we need courageous action. Firmness is the only thing which Communists understand. Firmness must be backed up by military strength and force. We may be thankful that our nation had courage enough to move into Korea, into Lebanon, into Formosa, and to declare that aggressive acts on the part of the Communists brought us to the brink of war. The same courage should be manifested in reference to Berlin. We should remind the Communists of their treaties and of our rights, and declare that we will maintain access to Berlin whatever comes, even if this means using atomic weapons. Courageous action demands diplomatic firmness in reference to a nation such as China which today threatens her neighbors, has invaded Vietnam, Tibet, and Korea. She should not be rewarded with recognition or admission to the United Nations. Courageous action means an alliance between nations that believe in moral law and in the freedom of men. Our defense dependence should not be placed upon the United Nations but on such an agreement among moral nations.

The faith and dedication of communism must be met by the faith and dedication of Christians. Communist adherents believe the Communist dialectic. They are convinced that it is their historical destiny to win. They have embraced an idealism for a better world. This view must be met by an equally consistent and virile faith. Such a faith, in my opinion, may only be found in evangelical Christianity. Liberalism, through its embrace of naturalism, has softened resistance to the intellectual aspects of communism.

The Communist dedicates self, possessions, family, and life to the cause. This must be matched by an equal dedication on the part of Christians. It is in this realm that our aging culture reveals itself. Too many so-called Christians are searching for security, for indulgence in pleasure, for profit even with the loss of integrity, and for ease displayed in the lack of discipline in study and work.

Communism is idealism. The students of our day are idealistic. The power of the students to change the social order has recently been shown in China, in Korea, and in Turkey. Students want the challenge of the ideal. Jesus Christ, Christian truth, and loving humanitarianism are that ideal. Let us accept the challenge and present this to students in our day. Communism can be counteracted and it can be defeated, but it will take Christian theism, idealism, and dedication.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Second in a Series by Evangelical Scholars

Bultmann’s theology sets out in opposition to the rationalistic and idealistic misunderstanding of Christianity by the earlier liberal theology. Two themes characterize Bultmann’s theological program, and he develops them thoroughly and applies them assiduously. They are:

1. The Entmythologisierung (demythologizing), the method whereby Bultmann proposes to open for modern thought a way (apologetic and pastoral) to the Gospel.

2. The existential interpretation of the Gospel, whereby he intends to disclose the true meaning of the biblical kerygma.

Though closely related and interdependent, these themes can be distinguished from one another, and we propose to deal with them successively.

Bultmann’s theology is often labeled with the catchword Entmythologisierung (demythologizing). The Entmythologisierung is, however, not the most characteristic aspect of his theology. Nor does Bultmann himself regard it as such (Bultmann sees the real theme of his theology rather in the motive of existentialism). The method of the Entmythologisierung had been applied before Bultmann, although under other names. Bultmann’s own application of this method does little more, basically, than to observe the great traditions of the Enlightenment. In this respect he follows the radical biblical criticism of the liberal and “history of religions” schools of which in more than one sense he is the executor. It is true that Bultmann criticizes these predecessors of his for their interpretation of the purport of the Gospel, but on the whole his program of the Entmythologisierung follows their line.

It cannot be said that Bultmann’s definition of “mythos” is lucidly clear. Nevertheless there can be no doubt about his intention. The “mythical” mind, says Bultmann, explains certain phenomena and occurrences by the intervention of supernatural, divine powers. Modern scientific thought, however, can only operate on the basis of a closed relation of natural causes and effects. It knows therefore the world around him, and himself also, to be a self-contained unity; it can no longer accept the idea of a divine or demonic intervention in nature or in the functions of the human being. Bultmann concedes that the prevalent concept of man and the universe in modern science is no longer that of the nineteenth century, but he rejects as naïve and unrealistic any pious attempt to justify belief in miracles on the ground of its modified concept of the law of causality. Nor can man accept both the miraculous and the scientific views. Every representation in the Bible that does not answer to the modern concept of a closed world order, Bultmann tells us, must be dismissed by the modern mind.

It is evident that this amounts to nothing less than a far-reaching a priori decision screening the content of the Gospel for what is and what is not acceptable to modern man. Not only is the concept of man and of the universe at stake, but also the concept of God. The God of Scripture and of the Gospel is the Lord of the universe, and that not only because he is its Creator and directs it from moment to moment, but all the more so because in Christ he acts upon man and universe, and enters into the history of the world. The coming of Christ constitutes the center of a whole history of redemption which encloses the life of man and world from beginning to end.

But as soon as a closed order of the universe is accepted, and whatever does not fit into this scheme because of its unworldly and transcendent origin is disqualified as myth, this biblical concept of God is immediately radically changed and destroyed. For God then becomes the absent and distant God, the inactive God of deism, not the God of Abraham, of Moses, of Isaiah, not the Father of Jesus of Nazareth. Something which appears within the closedness of the world order may indeed be understood by faith as an act of God, but such an occurrence is real only to faith. As object of faith it coincides only with the act of faith.

Not less drastic is the limitation which likewise is imposed on the concept of the coming and work of Jesus Christ, in order to conform the latter to the demands of the “Entmythologisierung.” Should an attempt be made to penetrate, by means of the formgeschichtliche method, to that which “lies behind” the Gospels, and to establish the “historical core” of the “mythological form” of the various components of the synoptic material, the investigation indeed strikes up the historic figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is conceded that he spoke and represented the Word of God in a decisive manner—and that not only for the faith of his contemporaries, but also of modern man. Modern man, however, must forego (so we are told) the “mythical attire” in which his contemporaries have enshrouded him; and this applies not only to his supernatural descent and to the miracles that were attributed to him during his earthly ministry, but to everything that is related about him after his death on the cross. The resurrection of Christ—to which the New Testament testifies so overwhelmingly—is, however, not altogether void of meaning (so Bultmann assures us) even for modern man. It is a proof of the importance (die Bedeutsamkeit) which the Christian Church from the very beginning attached to the decease of Christ, to his voluntary surrender into death. This witness of the resurrection is, however, proof only of the belief of the disciples in the resurrection, not of the resurrection itself. For since the resurrection cannot be accounted for according to the general law of science, it falls under the category of the mythical, the miraculous. It cannot be established as an “objective” fact by any number of witnesses whatsoever. Bultmann accordingly regards Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 (where the apostle gives a summary of the eyewitnesses of the resurrection) as fatal. For this implies that the truth of the kerygma depends on that which, according to the criterion of modern thought, could not have happened.

Inevitably the question arises whether this theology of Entmythologisierung still admits of any act of God in the history of the world and of man. For when, according to scientific thought, both the universe and the human personality can be conceived only as a self-contained unity, what remains of the essence of the New Testament preaching which (as Bultmann agrees) consists of the redeeming acts of God in Jesus Christ? Answering this question, Bultmann maintains that the acts of God should never be represented as intervention in the closed unity of natural, historical, or psychological life. Nevertheless, an occurrence in the natural sphere may be understood by faith as an act of God. This Bultmann calls the paradox of faith. He denies, however, that the acts of God—although being real only insofar as they are experienced by faith—are thereby wholly drawn into the sphere of subjectivity. He describes the acts of God as an encounter which takes place when the Word of God is preached, and which confronts man with a necessity for decision. Faith understands this occurrence to be such an encounter (of which the New Testament is the source and legitimation). In this way the act of God brings faith to decision and surrender, whereby the human existence attains its true destination. This happens when man abandons in faith those things which are visible and which he can control, and surrenders himself to that which he cannot control. Man, however, cannot bring himself to this surrender (which Bultmann calls Entweltlichung, that is, the act of detaching or disengaging one’s self from the world). For this, man needs the call which comes to him from the Word of God. And in this call God acts upon man by granting him the possibility of faith (which the New Testament calls “the Holy Spirit”).

It is this act of God (which is ever new, and by which man is ever again called away from the world and made to choose for the future) that Bultmann regards as the demythologized core of the eschatological Gospel and the authentic heart of the preaching of the Church. The Entmythologisierung is, therefore, necessary, and that not only as prerequisite to the acceptance of the Gospel by modern man, but also because modern man is confronted with the truth of the Gospel only in this way. Every preacher who takes the Gospel seriously—whether he accepts the Entmythologisierung or not—must, therefore, attain to this existential interpretation of the Gospel and of the acts of God described therein. For only in this way does he remain loyal to the Word of God.

IS THIS THE GOSPEL?

And so we have arrived at the very center of our question: Can we afford to follow Bultmann? It is really the question whether the existential interpretation of the Gospel (in the sense Bultmann describes it) indeed confronts us with the kernel of the Gospel. If this be the case, the Entmythologisierung and its limits can still be discussed, but as problems of lesser importance. Bultmann himself puts it this way: not the problem of the myth but the problem of hermeneutics and the existential interpretation of the Gospel is the basic motive of his theology.

We are of the opinion that a closer investigation of this basic motive is a sine qua non for a fair judgment of Bultmann’s theology. But at the same time it must be stressed that the theme of existential interpretation cannot in Bultmann be separated even for a single moment from that of the Entmythologisierung. It is impossible to review the former without the latter. It is an illusion to suppose that the Gospel speaks freely in Bultmann’s attempt to disclose the true core of the Gospel. It can speak only insofar as the a priori of the Entmythologisierung allows it to do so. The realm within which Bultmann allows us to decide what can (and what cannot) pertain to the true core of the Gospel is not that of the Gospel itself, but is limited and hedged in by the precepts of the Entmythologisierung. It is within this boundary that the existential meaning and purport of the Word of God must be determined.

It may be that an interpretation which depends on modern existential philosophy can thrive with these bounds. The principles of Bultmann’s hermeneutics are derived from this existential philosophy.

It is, however, quite another question whether these hermeneutical principles can provide an instrument that is adequate to bring out the kerygma of the New Testament. The basic question is whether this kerygma—in order to be really heard—does not require more room than the bounds within which existential philosophy operates. We ourselves are convinced that this existential interpretation of the New Testament amounts to a radical restriction and reduction of its content, both in breadth and in depth. God himself, the acts of God, and the kingdom of God are allowed on the scene only insofar as necessary in order that man may truly be man. The whole of theology and Christology can be expressed in categories of anthropology. What is theologically “useful” in the New Testament teaching of God and Jesus Christ pertain only to the right judgment and self-judgment (Seinsverständnis) of man.

Undoubtedly this approximates the important truth that true knowledge of God effects true knowledge of one’s self, and that God’s acts in Jesus Christ are truly understood only when they thrust into the very existence of man, convert him, and change him. If Bultmann’s desideratum of an existential interpretation of the New Testament were directed only at the rejection of a purely objective knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, and the maintenance of a practical “existential” appropriation of the salvation of the Lord, every Reformed Christian would have to bestow his full approval. Hoc est Christum cognoscere: beneficia eius cognoscere (to know Christ means to know his benefits). The big difference, however, between this maxim of the Protestant Reformation and the use Bultmann makes of it is the following. The Reformation—in line with the New Testament—places man in the realm and light of the great deeds of God in Jesus Christ, thereby bringing him to self-knowledge. Bultmann, on the contrary, places the acts of God in Christ in the light and within the limits of what he knows about man. This is his hermeneutic principle, his existential Vorverständnis (advance understanding). Within this human horizon alone does he allow room for the rise of divine light.

However much we wish to respect Bultmann’s lofty theological construction, we are of the opinion that his existential interpretation of the New Testament amounts to a reversal of the relation in which the Gospel speaks of God and man. For the redeeming knowledge of the Gospel consists of this: that the God who encounters us in Jesus Christ is the God of heaven and earth, the God of the kingdom in which he will make all things new, and who reconciled the world once and for all (ephapax!) with himself in the death and resurrection of his Son. In the light of this God, within the dimensions of this kingdom, and in the power of this reconciliation, the Gospel gives a place to man; and it is in this light, too, that man is to be known in his distress, in his guilt, and in the possibility of his redemption. This order cannot be reversed without injustice to the biblical kerygma, yes, without destroying the very foundation of the Gospel.

SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF MAN

The discussion with Bultmann is, therefore, not limited to the problems of true theology and Christology, but encompasses the biblical foundation of anthropology as well. Bultmann operates in the belief that he can express the New Testament teaching of man in the categories of Heidegger. The Pauline antithesis between “flesh” and “spirit,” for example, means, for Bultmann, basically nothing else but that man lives in a situation wherein he must choose between the visible and the invisible, between that which he can control and that which is out of his reach, and so on. But is this Entweltlichung (detachment) really what Paul designates by “life according to the Spirit,” and what is elsewhere described as conversion, surrender, love? Is Bultmann’s antithesis not derived from philosophical rather than from biblical thought? Is sin really described in the biblical sense when it is qualified as not being willing nor being able to decide against the relative, the visible, the available? Is it indeed the relativity of man’s existence on earth which threatens man in his essence? Does not sin become in this way a purely anthropological concept, that is, merely sin against man’s own destination?

The starting point of the New Testament concept of sin lies elsewhere: not in the analysis of human existence, but in the sovereignty of God over man, in the recognition of God’s law, and in the knowledge of God’s will. To surrender to this will undoubtedly also means for man to be truly free and to be brought to true human existence. But here man in his guilt and distress appears sub specie Dei; nor do redemption, reconciliation, and freedom appear sub specie hominis. The Vorverständnis does not consist of the knowledge of man, but of the knowledge of God and of the Cross and Resurrection.

FACING THEOLOGICAL DECISION

Can we afford to follow Bultmann?

When we answer this question in the negative, that is not because Bultmann’s Anliegen (his “translation” of the Gospel for modern man) leaves us cold. Nor is it because we are not concerned with the problem which arises when modern people hear the biblical kerygma. And still less because we cannot learn much from Bultmann’s enormous knowledge of the New Testament and its Umwelt (environment).

What prevents us from following him is the narrowness into which he drives us. And this narrowness is suffocating. When in the vital encounter of God and man the criterion of the reality of God’s acts is merely the question, do they bring man to his true “existence”?, the designation of anthropocentric theology is apparently not unjustified. Is this interpretation of the message of the New Testament legitimate? Is this not a total recension of the Gospel in terms of existentialist philosophy? It is an enigma to me how the Gospel (of which the Pauline confession, “For from him and by him and to him are all things,” forms the mainstay) can be identified with a program which ascribes to God no more power or activity than is necessary to “let man be man.” Does not the redeeming power of the Gospel—and this applies to modern man in his limitation as well—rest rather in this: that man learns to entrust the existence of the world and of himself once again to the hands of him who, in the death and resurrection of Christ, redemptively triumphs over all that is in heaven and on earth?

Psalm Twenty-nine

Give to the Lord, O ye mighty,

Give to the Lord strength and glory,

O mountain-glowing glory to His name!

Adore Him in spine-tingling beauty,

O sweetness of His rose-bloomed holiness,

O tender petals falling from His face!

I grasp and try to smell them all,

Plummeting down to me,

But ah! how myriad many

Fall through my fingers to the sea.…

CHARLES R. BACHMAN

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Much is being spoken and written about the present bourgeois, “one class” character of the Church, and biblical Christianity’s problem of reaching intellectuals and workers. To understand the relevant issues, I think, we must constantly be aware of four events in the 1930s, and their continuing results.

THE EVANGELICAL DRIFT

In the 1930s liberalism in the United States reached a point where it led to a division among the evangelicals. One group followed a historic emphasis, especially in Reformed churches, and separated when the liberals came into control in most of the major denominations. The other group did not separate. This event of the 1930s is still with us, and it seems to me one can find reason for sadness in what has happened to both groups.

In surveying the first group, one must distinguish between a strong acceptance of the principle of the commanded purity of the visible church and what has happened in the intervening 30 years among those who have separated. There is cause for sadness in the results of the separated movement. While the criticism does not apply to everyone who took this position, yet the organized leadership of “the separated movement” largely developed an expertness in preparing a kind of lawyer’s brief which has the end of “winning one’s case at any cost” by choosing that portion of the facts which is convenient to this end, and in using this lawyer-brief mentality against liberals and true Christians equally.

In surveying the second group, one must distinguish between staying in an ecclesiastical unit at any one specific point of history, and the surrender of church purity as a principle. There is cause for sadness in the historical results of the action of this second group of evangelicals. For their ecclesiastical contacts have tended to “bridge-building” in wider areas of co-operation, and then tended to theological contacts of a “bridge-building” nature.

THE LIBERAL SHIFT

In the 1930s a change in liberalism itself became clearly observable. From that point to this liberalism became Kierkegaardian. Prior to the 1930s Kierkegaard was still generally considered the “mad Dane”; in the past 30 years, however, Kierkegaardian thinking has increasingly dominated liberal thinking. It is to be noted that this change is neither theological nor exegetical in the historic sense of these words. It is a change which simply followed the general intellectual and cultural climate. The old liberalism was born by accepting the deterministic, optimistic philosophy of that moment as it had flowed up into Germany from the Italian Renaissance, and liberalism has constantly followed the cultural humanistic curve through the 200 years and more that have passed. Kierkegaard was considered the mad Dane because he was ahead of his time in regard to humanistic thought. He is now accepted because the cultural climate has caught up with him; it has found its old optimism intellectually and in practice untenable, and has passed into a relativism and general pessimism. Kierkegaard’s concept of faith, the stepping out on 50,000 fathoms, can be considered the avant-garde of this trend (though Hegel took the first steps) and he is owned by his children such as Sartre and Heidegger as their precursor.

Curiously enough, the art critics and literary critics seem to understand these implications better than the conservative theologians. The whole cultural curve shows the movement from a certain, deterministic, optimistic humanism, which broke down in both theory and practice, to a relativistic and generally pessimistic humanism. In twentieth century terms one could say that quantum in philosophy preceded quantum in the arts, preceded quantum in science, preceded quantum in morals and the general cultural pattern. As the old theological liberalism simply followed the old curve, so the new liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, simply follows the new curve. The new liberalism’s only original contribution is the use of theological terms to express the same concepts, thus giving an illusion of purpose, when logically this quantum thinking offers no base for purpose nor for justification of moral-rational, that is, significant life.

WAR AND RELATIVISM

The Second World War is event three of the 1930s. This did not cause the new relativism. The intellectuals had already taken this step, even before the First World War, because the old deterministic humanism had failed to answer intellectual problems. For example, in the field of art Van Gogh had clearly expressed this change by the time of his increasingly de-humanizing self-portraits beginning in Paris in 1886; Gauguin by the time of his painting “Whither What Whence” by 1898; and even Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon” was painted before 1910. And thus the Second War did not cause the new relativism. All it did was to speak loudly enough so that even the intellectual stragglers heard.

Since liberal religious thought had been following the general cultural curve since its birth in Germany, it too had to listen. And so the old theological liberalism became the new theological liberalism. One would have difficulty being sure who spoke more scathing words against the old optimistic thought—the new artists in terms of Dada, collé or abstraction, or the new liberal theologians in terms of Barth, Brunner, and Niebuhr. But in neither case was there any change of base. In both cases the base remained the same, the line unbroken; it was simply the old, confident optimism having to become the new nonconfident, relativistic expression. Thus World War II was the earthquake which brought down the house that the intellectuals had already condemned as unsafe for habitation.

In neither secular nor religious expression is the new thought anything more than the changed expression of the old. In all its expressions the humanism of the Renaissance could find no infinite reference point in the finite area of man or corporate mankind, and so had to shift to the relative and begin functioning on fragments of the circle. By Picasso and other artists, for example, the acceptance of the damnation of the permanent paradoxes of what man is in the humanistic concept was expressed in the tension of form versus freedom. Many of Picasso’s paintings of his mistresses simply say on canvas that man (to Picasso it is woman, for woman is his point of contact with the human race) is half angel, half devil. This is not a departure from what preceded, it is an innovation of the same theme, brought about, logically, by the nature of what humanism intrinsically is. To interpret the hard words between the old and the new as an expression of a real difference is to misunderstand the twentieth century; and to accept the new relativistic theology as intrinsically different from the old liberalism is naïve in total cultural understanding.

From Kierkegaard on, the thinking of the Western world has moved towards the thinking of the East. The activistic step of faith into the deep has become the justification of life, in much the same way that meditation is the justification of life in the East. And the language of theology in both East and West gives a connotation of significance of personality couched in terms of ideas, ideals, and myth.

The twentieth century relativism of the West discloses a constant tension between the logic of this position and the practical necessities of living in the world as it is. This is equally true both in its secular and theological expressions. Thus in art, when freedom is carried out logically, contact with the world is lost, and quite illogically, but for practical reasons, form must be re-entered. Thus Sartre is more logical than Camus on their common base, but for practical reasons Camus is nearer to the world of reality. We note in passing that Sartre is not living logically on his base either when he signs the Algerian Manifesto. Even Sartre must live in God’s world, the only world there is. But the main point is that Sartre is more logical than Camus on their common base, and equally Bultmann is more logical than Barth on their common base. It is not the other way round; on their common base, logic is with Bultmann as with Sartre.

Thus the problem returns to the old one of Romanticism, the functioning without a base. The new theological liberalism is merely one more form of Romanticism. And it is to be understood, in the total cultural content, not basically as theology but as a Romantic expression of “bottomless truth” in theological terms. Thus, out of inherent necessity, it must and does function outside the hard stuff of space-time history.

THE LOSS OF DIVINE LAW

Changes in the state since the 1930s mark the fourth significant sign. Not the interpretations of Jesuit theologians like John Courtney Murray (who assert the Thomistic view of natural law for an understanding of the American proposition) but the fact that Northern European culture was produced by the Reformation supplies the background of this transition. In the 1930s it became evident that the United States no longer had a consensus upon which to base its actions, internal or external. From Justice Holmes on, law moved from Lex Rex to a sociological and psychological base; this is part of man’s twentieth century relativism. Rutherford’s Lex Rex was a product of the Reformation; and when the Reformation was given up, no base existed for such a concept. In the old Swiss Supreme Court building in Lausanne the Christian Swiss artist Paul Robert has a mural. It is called “Justice Instructing the Judges.” The mural, in the foreground, pictures many types of human litigation; and behind this, Justice is pointing with her sword to a book, and on the book is lettered “The Law of God.” The Judges look on and learn. This is in painting what Rutherford gave in Lex Rex, and it is the base of Northern European law, including United States law. Originally the United States was based upon the framework of the Reformation consensus, even though certain of the founding fathers were not themselves Christians.

Beginning with the 1930s the results of the loss of the Reformation consensus began to be evident both internally in the United States and in its external dealings. And just as Van Gogh’s views of necessity led him increasingly to paint his self-portraits as less than human, so our giving up the Reformation view has led the United States to deal with men as sacks-of-potatoes. Since the 1930s the United States has had to bear a large share of responsibility for millions of human beings being placed under communistic rule. The logic of what we have given up does its work.

And where will we find our consensus to act in the future, when all forms of humanism have failed to find even a theoretical base? What is left to us as a nation is to live in practice before the time of Lex Rex, and find a relativistic consensus either in Roman Catholic humanistic thought, or some Marxian or non-Marxian materialistic thought, or some combination of these, any of which means some form of arbitrary rule.

Will Christians live in this moment of history and not speak of the judgment of God, when Northern Europe and the United States have given up the Reformation light, as the men of the Reformation spoke of the judgment of God with such clarity and at such great personal cost?

And is it not true that in giving the millions to communism, we have had a part in shaping a “razor” fit to shave us, if God does deal with us in justice using this instrument of judgment?

Our culture has forgotten that it is not possible to keep the cultural and social results of Christianity after Christianity is gone; and we evangelicals must not make the same mistake. It is not possible to keep the theological and ecclesiastical results of Christianity either, after biblical Christianity is gone.

Thus, it is worth considering that Christianity is not reaching the intellectuals and the workers simply because it is not saying anything distinct enough from the total twentieth century cultural flow, nor consistent enough to the concept of a totally personal, supernatural, moral universe, to be worth listening to.

In conclusion, it betrays a lack of understanding in regard to ecclesiastical and theological matters to speak of the “extreme right and the extreme left,” with the extreme “right” being the bitter ones and the extreme “left” being the old liberals. For the new form of liberalism is indeed also very much on the “left.” And there are some on the “right” who do love but weep both for their brothers in Christ and for the loss of our moment of history.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

In the magazine section of The New York Times for Easter Sunday, the editors featured a special article in the light of the fact that they accepted Easter as “a time of new life and hope.” Facing “a question that has a deeper meaning for mankind than ever,” and looking for a hopeful Easter answer, they pose to a cross section of American leadership this question: “What Is the World’s Greatest Need?”

Some of these experts are better known to me than others and I am sure that the readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY would know some better than I do but those that stand out for me are C. P. Snow, British scientist and novelist; Martin Luther King, Jr., the Atlanta pastor; Arnold J. Toynbee, the famous historian; Margaret Chase Smith, Republican senator from Maine; Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati lawyer; and James A. Pike who needs no introduction. Other authorities consulted are Maxwell D. Taylor, Gall G. Hoffman, Clarence B. Randall, and Mike Mansfield.

This is an imposing list; one should listen to such people with respect and I would think with hopeful expectancy. What is the world’s greatest need? Here are their answers, rather crudely and superficially put I must admit: Peace, Sense or Sensitivity, Proper Goals, Moral Ends for Living, Mutual Confidence, Control of Dangerous Tensions, Peace at the cost of Sacrifice, A Return to the Open Mind, Prompt Action, Accelerated Action, Communication, the Communication of God, the Dynamic Power of a lot of free consciences. So now we know from the experts what our greatest need is. Now what? It is interesting to observe that The New York Times, at the close of this feature article, giving answers to the world’s greatest need advertises itself with an eye-catching advertisement titled “Blind Man’s Bluff.” The ad might have given us another answer to our featured question.

As everyone knows, if a person doesn’t “get” a joke it is absolutely certain that he will not laugh at your joke after you have explained it; it is not analyzing that makes it possible for us to understand poetry; one either does or does not have an ear for music; and by analogy I suppose I must face the fact that if you do not understand what is wrong with all those answers there is no way I can make it clear. But I shall try.

It seems to me that in every one of these answers there is a misconception of the nature of the problem mankind faces because there is a misunderstanding of man and because also there is a failure to recognize in man the radical nature of sin, sin indeed which can be understood only as a fundamental rebellion in man against his Creator. Having lost the clue to man’s nature, people in general, even the experts in general have lost the clue to man’s deepest need and therefore have only superficial answers. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day “they heal the hurt of my people lightly.” We do not have to agitate for the old theological terminology—original sin and total depravity—so long as we see the point: what is wrong with man is profoundly and totally wrong so that until he becomes a new kind of creature (let’s just call it “new birth”) then even his best efforts are always being founded on vanity; “except the Lord build, they labor in vain that build.” What is man’s greatest need? So long as we see the problem superficially we shall have superficial answers.

Take for example the answer of C. P. Snow: “The world, of course, needs peace.” As he rightly points out we could hardly imagine what the human race could do in terms of the good life if we could only quit having war. Well, I guess we would all agree on this and almost anybody could have “thought it up.” How then are we going to train ourselves for this peace, for really this is the nub of the problem. Mr. Snow says “by sense, by sensitivity, by an appetite for the future.” If we only had sense enough to see that all these wars cost too much money which could be spent on nicer things, then we would quit doing this nonsensical thing. The only trouble is we know perfectly well that war does not make sense and we keep on waging wars anyway. Then what about sensitivity? If the rich were only more sensitive to the needs of the poor and if we were all more sensitive to other people just because they are human beings like ourselves, then we would not be so cruel and selfish. Snow admits “as for sensitivity, we are not too good at it.…” At the same time, we must start to learn sensitivity. But you see there’s the rub again. Granting that I am not as sensitive as I ought to be, nor as compassionate as I ought to be, the problem is that even with such sensitivity and compassion as I do have I fail to practice what I know and what I feel because of the kind of person I am. “The things I would do those I do not.” So the question remains what is wrong with me that knowing the good I still do the evil. As for “an appetite for the future” how much future does Mr. Snow have in mind? Does this life really have an eternal point of reference, or is our future all bound up with what still remains of our own personal allotment of three score years and ten? Is the fixed point here or hereafter? Do our problems have immediate relevance only or is there immediate relevance actually relevant in eternal values written in the heavens?

The answer of C. P. Snow is used, I insist again, only for our example. The lack of depth in his approach is typical of all the answers which I have listed above and which appear in The New York Times. If this is all that we can come up with, we are in worse shape than we thought we were and perhaps most disturbing of all is the fact that in all these answers, with the exception of the answer of Bishop Pike and somewhat indirectly by Martin Luther King, Jr., there is no suggestion that God is the answer or that Christ is the answer, and this, in a Christian land, by otherwise intelligent, decent and I suppose God-fearing people. The total irrelevance of the religious dimension is frightening.

End Of The Story: A Deepening Gloom

Religion in the Old Testament, by Robert H. Pfeiffer (Harper, 1961, 276 pp., $6.00), is reviewed by Oswald T. Allis, formerly Professor of Old Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pa.

With the death of Dr. Pfeiffer, critical biblical scholarship lost one of its ablest representatives. As archaeologist and especially as biblical critic, his pen had been exceedingly busy. The bibliography compiled by his widow covers nearly 24 pages and lists a truly amazing array of books, articles, and reviews. His magnum opus, the Introduction to the Old Testament, was first published in 1941; and the present work which may be regarded as in a sense its sequel or complement was two-thirds finished when he laid down his pen. It has been completed, so far as was possible, from his own papers by his friend and close associate C. C. Forman of the Harvard Divinity School.

As an Old Testament critic it may be said of Dr. Pfeiffer that in general he adhered more closely to the Wellhausen tradition than do many of the critical scholars of today. Like Wellhausen and Robertson Smith he sought the origins of biblical religion among the Bedouins of Arabia.

Of two possible ways in which the religion of the Bible can be presented, as “the record of man’s groping after God” or as “the record of God’s progressive revelation of himself to man,” Dr. Pfeiffer chose the former (p. 8). There are obviously quite serious difficulties involved in such a choice. If we take the Bible as it stands, it is quite plain that it is the divine side which is by far the more important. The Bible is the Word of God, because its great aim is to record the self-revealing words and deeds of God. To ignore this God-ward side completely would make the Bible, to say the least, a very impoverished book. Hence the tendency with those who adopt this line of approach is to treat the God-ward side as merely an aspect of the human side; to say with G. A. Barton, “From the divine standpoint God reveals truth; from the human, man discovers it” (The Religion of Israel, 1918, p. 1), which practically amounts to saying that revelation and discovery are merely two names for the same thing. The tendency is thus to substitute a pantheizing immanentism for the robust theism of the Bible.

The human account of the development of Israel’s religion as it is presented in this volume presupposes of course the acceptance of that rearranging and redating or down-dating of the documents of the Old Testament which is generally accepted in critical circles. That the account which results differs radically from the divine account which the Bible itself gives is too well known to require detailed statement.

The two sides of the picture do not synchronize or harmonize. For example, according to the divine side four of the five books of the Pentateuch record God’s dealings with Israel through Moses. According to the human side as presented here, “Only one verse, the song of Miriam (Exod. 15:21), may be regarded as a contemporary source for the life of Moses, no laws in the Pentateuch can be ascribed to him beyond a shadow of doubt” (p. 45). Deuteronomy is regarded as one of the greatest of the Old Testament books. But it is represented as the culmination or nearly that of a long process of development. We read of “the profound influence of the prophets on the Deuteronomic Code” (p. 163); and we are told (p. 171) that Deuteronomy 4, which is regarded as clearly monotheistic, is “a post-exilic addition based on the Second Isaiah (540 B.C.).” For those who accept Deuteronomy’s express claims to be Mosaic, this equating, theologically, of this early book, with the writings of one whom the critics regard as one of the last and greatest of the prophets is a remarkable justification of the words of Malachi: “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.” What the critics put near the end of Israel’s history, the Bible places near the beginning!

Significant of this human treatment of the religion of Israel is of course the claim that “the prophet was not concerned with predicting the future” (p. 117). According to Pfeiffer, prediction is a characteristic of apocalyptic, which arose as a late and debased form “after prophecy was dead.”

The three latest books of the canon are held to be Daniel, Job and Ecclesiastes. Daniel is an apocalypse, which places it outside the prophetic succession. The writer of Job “found refuge in agnosticism” (p. 222). The author of Ecclesiastes “is not only the most radical but the most original thinker in the entire Old Testament.” “Contemporary Judaism produced no orthodox philosopher capable of attacking the theoretical premises of the skepticism and eudaemonism of Ecclesiastes.” All it could do was to add “annotations,” such as 12:13, 14, in order to give a proper ending, as we may call it, to the book (p. 223).

So the story ends in frustration and “a deepening gloom” (p. 224). Yet we are assured that “the history of Old Testament religion is the history of a spiritual triumph.” It is to be noted, therefore, that in order to give this assurance the writer is obliged to bring in the divine side, which he has not set out to depict. To the hopeful words, “the dayspring will one day break,” he is forced to add, “For the God of Israel forever reveals himself and offers salvation and healing to his people.” A striking confession that without the divine side the human side must end in failure and despair! How much better it would have been if Dr. Pfeiffer could have devoted his great talents to giving his readers a picture which included both sides, with special emphasis on that divine factor which is wholly responsible for the unique history of ancient Israel and for its glorious fruition in New Testament Christianity!

OSWALD T. ALLIS

A Puritan On Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer, by Thomas Watson (Banner of Truth, 1960, 241 pp., 8s.), is reviewed by F. K. Drayson of Cheshire, England.

This volume is the last of three volumes completing the reprinting of the author’s A Body of Divinity. Those who know Watson value his pithy comments which are full of sound doctrine and practical common sense. The book is in note form rather than running prose; but it is not difficult to read. The danger is that it may be read too quickly, for it contains much worthy of contemplation. And incidentally, the use of illustrations is masterly.

Prayer, says Watson, is a sine qua non for the Christian: “All that have got to heaven have crept thither upon their knees.” Answers to prayer are gifts of God’s grace: “We have not a bit of bread to put into our mouths unless God give it us.” Watson here expounds and applies the doctrine which underlies the six petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

He wrote in seventeenth century language, but only rarely does the book suffer from out-dated ideas and flashes of scholasticism. If only we had a twentieth-century Watson! He is of excellent value.

F. K. DRAYSON

World Mission

Let My Heart Be Broken, by Richard Gehman (McGraw-Hill, 1960, 245 pp., $4.90), is reviewed by Edward James Caldwell, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, North Hollywood, California.

Let My Heart Be Broken reads like a contemporary chapter in the Book of Acts. It is an objective report of the way God has used a dedicated man, Robert W. Pierce, and the organization which he founded, World Vision, Inc., throughout the Far East. But since World Vision is a mission organization that cooperates with many existing churches and agencies, this is in a larger sense a report of the World Mission of many parts of the Church of Christ. An example of the wider emphasis and cooperative nature of World Vision is found in the chapter on Taegu, Korea, where “Bob” Pierce is quoted as saying, “The Presbyterian Church built this hospital in 1899.… Presbyterians have done wonderful things here in Taegu. They’ve got a college, they’ve got a high school for boys and one for girls, and they’ve got this hospital. It’s got a hundred ten beds in the main building, and there are between forty and fifty in the children’s hospital we built a couple of years ago. We now contribute about thirteen hundred dollars a month for the care of kids. We also pay the salary of a full-time missionary nurse, Kathy Cowan. It’s one of the projects I mainly wanted you to see.”

This book is a story about people, modern saints who are doing the work of Christ convincingly—such as, Irene Webster Smith (Sensei) in Japan and Mrs. Lillian Dickson in Formosa. Since it is a report of many who are carrying the witness of Christ to the Far East, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Formosa, and India, the book breathes a freshness and an excitement. It reminds us that World Vision itself is a modern miracle which reflects the dynamic and consecrated ability of its unusual founder and president, Bob Pierce.

The book is written in the style of a journal, recording the impressions of its author on his 30,000 mile trip with a World Vision team where he saw the work supported in whole or in part by World Vision and attended a series of pastors’ conferences under their auspices. Having had the privilege of taking a similar trip, I can attest the accuracy of his reporting. Of special interest is the fact that the author did not claim to be a Christian when he began his trip, but says at the end—“Lord, I came to this cause of Christ as something of a skeptic as well as a stranger. Except for my small technical ability to interpret events for mass audiences, I was hardly qualified or worthy. But through the instrument of the ministry of Dr. Pierce, and through what I observed of the people I met, I sit here now not as an alien but as a friend and, more meaningful perhaps, a believer.” And again—“ ‘God bless you.’ It is the first time I have ever said this phrase with sincerity. And as I say it, I realize that these people’s belief in Christ has changed my life. Something has happened to me which, as yet, I am unable to define or evaluate. But it has happened. It is tangible—almost as tangible as the flight bag over my shoulder, the reporter’s burden. The word burden makes me think of my new friends, and what I have learned from them, and how they literally have led me. I want to do something that will tell them what has happened to me, and then I realize that that is unnecessary. They know. All along, they knew it would happen. Bob Pierce punches my shoulder, then waves his hand. He is off again.”

The book is enhanced by photographs by the well-known news photographer, Richard Reinhold.

EDWARD JAMES CALDWELL

Favoring The Nonrational

The Limits of Reason, by George Boas (Harper, 1961, 162 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University.

George Boas “is highly skeptical of the claims of logicians and scientists [and] more sympathetic to the nonrational modes of thinking” (p. 15). In the first half of the book he uses clever and interesting examples, of varying value, to show that nature is flux, concepts are artificial, and science is oversimplification. The meaning of reason changes, however. On one page reason is logic; on another “reason would tell us to make any sacrifice in order to avoid” World War III (p. 61). Now, this may be Communistic propaganda to demoralize the free nations, but it is not reason.

Then turning to linguistics the author teaches that all language is figurative because the basic terms are spatial. Creation ex nihilo is a myth. To condemn euthanasia and approve capital punishment is inconsistent. The astrophysicist has pushed back the entrance to heaven and the atomic physicist has opened the gates of hell. A literal statement, then, is a statement whose metaphorical character has been forgotten.

In conclusion, reason demands that everything be expressed in differential equations; that everything be linked together in a causal chain; and that everything be caught up in an invariant network of relations. Reason therefore excludes art and religion because the law of contradiction is inconsistent with change.

GORDON H. CLARK

To Conquer Rebellion

The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life, by Edward John Carnell (Eerdmans, 1960, 164 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by W. Robert Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Bethel College.

As a commentary on the contemporary mood of life and thought, as a defense of the Christian faith, and as a suggestive guide to practical everyday living, this book is excellent. The author writes out of a knowledge born of diligence and a wisdom born of a humble walk with our Saviour. His breadth of understanding of philosophy, psychology, and theology is everywhere apparent, yet he writes in such a lucid and simple style as to be perfectly understandable to the general reader.

Taking as a starting point the admonition of Christ that we must become like a little child the author develops the conviction of the heart—“love is always kind and truthful.” This insight of a child is manifested in everything from his hunger for acceptance to his delight in the fairy tales where evil is defeated and love and kindness triumph. The book is woven around the narrative of John 11 where Jesus lovingly deals with the yearning concern of Mary and Martha by finally raising Lazarus from the dead.

The hunger of every soul for love, and the blessed reality of the Kingdom of His redemptive love need to be learned by all, including modern parents, the proud sophisticate, and the repentant sinner whose heart condemns him overmuch.

It is an antidote to the pride of life and power with which we are all afflicted, not excepting denominations and their leaders. As an apologist, the author does battle with the dragon of scepticism that lives in the cave of intellectual detachment and like David slays it with the smooth stone of the childlike conviction of the heart, kindness and truthfulness. The chapters titled “The Limits of Philosophy” and “The Limits of Science” need pondering by the philosopher who is prone to reject anything that cannot be conceptualized and by the scientist overly enamoured with the cult of objectivity.

How refreshing to read a book that is throughout tangent to life; that not only unmasks the pride of sophistication by speaking to the intellect but warms the heart through the insights of love; that not only stimulates the mind but brings one closer to Jesus Christ. Summing it up, here is a brilliant treatise for these times for classroom, church study, and home.

W. ROBERT SMITH

Religion And Law

Law and Civilization, by Palmer D. Edmunds (Public Affairs Press, 1959, 528 pp., $6), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, Professor of History at Catawba College.

The author, professor of law at the John Marshall Law School, writes with a clearly defined thesis, “that without law there cannot be civilization, and that civilization in its manifestations is geared to law” (p. 5). The author then develops his thesis by an appeal to history. Finding the origins of civilization in a synthesis between law and religion, he then examines the histories of Egypt, Babylon, ancient India, the development of Grecian culture, and points out the intimate relationship in each culture between law and religion. Rome developed the synthesis to new heights, and Edmunds places a great emphasis upon the contributions of Roman law to the development of Western civilization.

Of even greater importance is the role of Israel in the Old Testament, and the Church in the New Testament, in the growth of our modern conceptions of law. The author clearly recognizes the fact that religion gives to law and the whole legal structure a meaning and relation to justice which modern conceptions fail to achieve. But Edmunds makes little distinction between Christianity and the nonrevealed religions, and pays a higher tribute to Islam than is generally paid.

In a rather abrupt shift of emphasis the author then turns to the modern view that man is his own lawmaker, and that he no longer finds in religion the sanctions for his legal systems. The reviewer agrees that such a development has taken place, but the author makes a serious error in locating the origins of this contemporary conception of law in Hohenzollern Germany. He totally neglects the effects of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment on European and American legal theory, and he does not seem to realize that the belief that man is his own lawmaker lies at the very heart of the democratic philosophy. Edmunds is on much safer ground in his treatment of law in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Red China, and manages to bring to light a great deal of valuable insight on the legal systems of these countries. He is at his best in those chapters devoted to the common law in both England and the United States. However, in his chapter on constitutional evolution, the author comes dangerously close to a negation of his previous position in his seeming acceptance of a necessary relativism in contemporary jurisprudence in his defense of the position assumed by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education (1954).

The technical chapters are quite likely to overwhelm the average reader without giving him much insight into the relationship between law and civilization. Nevertheless, the book contains a wealth of information on ancient and modern legal systems that is not always available in one volume.

C. GREGG SINGER

God’S Covenant In Christ

God’s Unfolding Purpose, by Suzanne de Dietrich, translated by Robert McAfee Brown (Westminster, 1961, 287 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by William C. Robinson, Professor of Historical Theology, Columbia Theological Seminary.

Titled Le Lessein de Dieu, and first appearing in 1957, this book does for the French something of what Wilhelm Vischer has done for the German readers, namely, to interpret the Bible by its main message: the covenant of God in Christ Jesus. The author reads creation as the work of the Triune God and sees the restoration of Isaac to Abraham as a prefiguring of the Resurrection. “The Word of promise called him out of nothing into life, and only the Word which raises the dead sustains his life. The patriarch … still possesses his son only in faith.” In rapid review the story of the Bible is read as God’s dealing with the witnessing community.

With the main drive of the book we are in hearty accord. Questions arise concerning details. The statement on Jesus’ dealing with the Sabbath is better on page 173 than on page 170. Critical positions are largely relegated to the notes—a wise procedure. Such positions are generally those of the higher critical school. For a bird’s-eye view of the book, note the following on the Resurrection:

“The risen Lord appears to the incredulous disciples. He gives them his peace, and he commands them to evangelize the world. The assurance of the resurrection is the foundation of the Church. And the Church proclaims to all the world that by Jesus and in Jesus ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30). Everything that needed to be done has been done—that means everything for which Abraham and Moses were guided to the Promised Land; everything for which God had created a people for himself and entered into covenant relationship with them; everything for which the throne and the Temple had been built on Mt. Zion; everything that the prophets had believed and proclaimed; everything that the psalmists had believed and sung about; everything that God had prepared from the beginning of the world.… This assurance of fulfillment is the message of every page of the New Testament. All is fulfilled. The tomb is empty.”

WILLIAM C. ROBINSON

Irenic Survey

Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, The Nineteenth Century Outside Europe, vol. III, by Kenneth Scott Latourette (Harper, 1961, 527 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, Professor of Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Time has not dulled the pen of Dr. Latourette who brings his usual historical acumen to bear in this carefully documented survey of the Christian faith in the nineteenth century. About one half of the volume is devoted to the United States, and into this section of the book the author has woven many details of significance which cannot be found in other surveys of the same period. His writing is characterized by a warm evangelical spirit, and above all he is irenic in temperament.

For those who wish to have a fair treatment of movements and trends as widely different as Unitarianism and fundamentalism, they will find this book rewarding reading. Dr. Latourette has fairly appraised the Scofield Bible, Dwight L. Moody, Henry Clay Trumbull, George Muller, and J. Hudson Taylor. His treatment of the movement of liberalism is equally irenic. His excellent generalizations keep the reader from hanging in mid-air after the facts or the “stuff” of history have been recounted. There is a wealth of information contained in the pages of the volume, and minister and layman alike would profit by perusing it—a possible choice for one of the key books of 1961.

HAROLD LINDSELL

From the stately pulpit of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington last month came a public rebuke aimed at a new crop of Protestant cynics.

Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, who for eight years of the Eisenhower administration was “the President’s pastor,” scored the recently publicized “cynicism of some American religious spokesmen about religion, about the state of the church, and about American life and culture.”

In a sermon to an overflow congregation at the famous Connecticut Avenue church, Elson explained that he was applying the term “cynic” in the modern conventional sense, in the dictionary meaning of “a sarcastic, pessimistic person” or “one who sneeringly professes disbelief in sincerely good motives and altruistic conduct.”

He used the term to describe contemporary critics in American Protestantism who repeatedly decry the current wave of religious renewal as “unreal or even dangerous.”

“It is the mission of the church,” he declared, “to provide for confession of real sins, to admit and exteriorize genuine defects, to accurately evaluate and assess the quality of personal piety, personal conduct and social morality. All of this we must do to find forgiveness and new life, to know the deeper meaning of salvation and the amendment of life where we are feeble and ineffective.

“But to be chronically critical, to be constantly censorious, to perennially peddle disdain, to assert only negatives can lead to very serious sickness of the soul and eventually to the destruction of the whole fibre of our common life. If we become saturated with cynicism, we begin to wither away into impotency.”

Elson asserted that the Church must stand in the center of life and make its gospel and its fellowship relevant to all of life.

“Nor must the clergy be mere chaplains—the status quo,” he added. “They must be prophets who know in the depths of their being that they speak for God the word that is based upon his Word.

“But a vindictive disdain, a latent envy, a cynical slur is not prophecy. If everyone conforms to the processed pronouncements and ‘packaged prophecy’ so readily available, we may well blunt the creative insights and prophetic judgments which ought to be forthcoming from all of God’s prophets.”

What is the precise nature of the religious awakening of recent years?

Elson said it has come “primarily in the parish church through hard-working pastors and dedicated self-sacrificing laymen. Religious renewal comes by the work of the Holy Spirit and must be assessed in broader terms than individual leaders.”

How Cynicism Pervades Protestantism

Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of National Presbyterian Church, describes the cynical thought pattern in U. S. Protestantism as follows:

“Much has been said in recent years about the revival of interest in religion. There can be no doubt such has taken place. The evidence is all about us in the lengthening of church rolls, the church building boom, the rise of dynamic laymen’s movements, the earnest searching of youth, the sale of religious literature, the new translations of the Bible, the improved quality of the clergy, the revitalized Christian education curriculum, and the reappearance of effective mass evangelism.

“But there are those who say all this is unreal or even dangerous. A veritable torrent of cynicism has been poured out in the sadistic columns of some religious observers. To listen to some spokesmen you would conclude that American Protesantism is anemic if not completely impotent, that American laymen are spiritually destitute, that their faith is flabby and their morals inferior. The laymen, we are told, have become slaves to the evils of the ‘organization man,’ manipulated by the mob, directed by the climate and mores of suburbia, possessed only of a ‘religion-in-general,’ a do-gooder sentiment without do-good philosophy!”

He avers that the United States has experienced religious renewal despite a moral sag and cultural deterioration, and he rejects the contention that one cancels the other.

“In a nation of 170,000,000 people it is possible to have both negative and positive influences at the same time,” he said. “The truth is that we have had both—the moral sag and deterioration of culture have been real in a nation where at the same time religious activity has been real and for many persons very vital.

“By exaggerated attention to negatives,” he charged, “we accelerate a weakening process.”

Elson, who witnessed first-hand the transition of a traditionally Protestant White House to its occupancy by the first Roman Catholic president in history, voiced fears over the effects of “a torrent of chronic negativism.”

“It is a well-known law of the soul that if you become excessively morbid, if you dig up old sins or symptoms, petting or fondling defects and failures, you can produce illness.… The public self-flagellation to which some tend to submit us can produce only a crowd of national penetentes slashing at the veins where the blood of American life flows.”

The noted Presbyterian minister chose as a text Hebrews 11:1:

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

“How do you regain confidence in our spiritual heritage?” Elson asked. “Not by cynicism! Not by self-lampooning, not by self-flagellation, not by self-berating, not by self-denunciation. We cannot be anything great and strong on negatives.”

“Only by a robust and rugged religious faith can we stand up to the demands of this age. And the kind of faith America needs now is best mediated in and through the churches.”

Elson said that “in our society religious life is not an option; it is an imperative. For we cannot have our culture except as we have a central core of worshiping, witnessing, praying, serving, and sacrificing religious men and women. Is not the man who omits praying, neglects church-going, excludes God from his home and personal life until he is a religious ignoramus, though perhaps a pleasing pagan, a definite drag on our life? He derives from our society the richness it has produced without his contributing to its renewal. And is not the man who maintains a religious home, who says his prayers, studies his Bible, and gives to sustain the witness, is not that man, however imperfectly and humbly seeking to know God and do his will, contributing to the strength of America?”

The Controversial Bishop

Bishop James A. Pike seemingly is intent on going down in Protestant Episcopal history as one of the church’s most controversial personalities. A convert from Roman Catholicism and a member of the bar, Pike now is regarded as a foremost figure in the Protestant ecumenical movement. Unlike most key churchmen, he is well known at U.S. grass roots, primarily as a result of (1) a TV series and (2) his flair for the striking statement. The head of the California Episcopal diocese will readily ‘speak out” on most any subject, and his remarks usually are articulate and arresting. To newsmen, therefore, he is “good copy,” which makes for wide publicity. Recently he has challenged basic Christian doctrines, and the result has been still more publicity, but at this point ecclesiastical concern has developed over whether he has perhaps gone too far.

Until he voiced doctrinal criticisms, Pike’s fellow churchmen tended to dismiss his multiplicity of utterances with a shrug. It is now clear, however, that his stock has taken a plunge in the eyes of a number of high-ranking Episcopal officials. A number have chided him publicly for attacking scriptural precepts of his church. Still others are believed to be seriously perturbed, though they have not indicated it publicly. Last month Pike got an indirect rebuke from the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island in a pastoral letter ordered to be read in all 210 churches and missions of the diocese.

Bishop James P. De Wolfe declared that no bishop “has the authority to revise the faith of this church, either by adding to it or subtracting from it.”

Although the letter did not mention the California bishop by name, De Wolfe later commented that it “obviously” referred to Pike.

The letter declared that the definition of the church’s faith “is the responsibility of the church operating under the guidance of God the Holy Ghost. Up to the present time, the church has never interpreted the definition so as to negate the doctrine of the Trinity, the birth of incarnate God, the Son of a woman who was a virgin, the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, or the essential dependence of the structure and operation of the church upon bishops and the apostolic ministry. Despite misleading headlines and press notices in many newspapers and magazines, the faith declared by the church in the creeds is not in question by the church.”

Meanwhile in California, an Episcopal clergyman who opposed Pike’s election as diocesan bishop in 1958 found himself out of a job. The Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, fired as Episcopal chaplain for the University of California at Berkeley, charged that Pike is now “smashing the opposition.”

A diocesan spokesman gave this explanation: “There was a fundamental disagreement between Father Morse and the board for which he works—the Division of College Work of the Department of Education of the Diocese.

“There are two general philosophies about church work in colleges. One is that the church become a part of college life. The second is that it should draw students out of college life to the church.

The Vatican’S Desanctification Decree

Desanctification of one Philomena by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation of Rites prompted recollection that another “holy person” of the same name existed prior to 500 A. D.

In Washington, the National Catholic Welfare Conference’s Bureau of Information issued a statement of explanation by the Rev. Francis J. Connell of Holy Redeemer College, a leading Catholic theologian.

“There really was a holy person named Philomena and her feast day in the Roman Martyrology is July 5,” the statement said, adding that “the ‘St. Philomena’ ordered stricken from the roll of saints … was a young girl of unknown identity whose remains were found in 1802 under circumstances that misled many persons into believing they had found the relics of an early martyr.”

The Philomena of Roman Martyrology is even more obscure, however, than her nineteenth-century namesake, and the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites apparently rules out veneration of her as well.

The Vatican ruling was dated February 14. A Bureau of Information spokesman said he was unable to explain why it did not receive public notice until last month.

Connell reassured Roman Catholics of the usefulness of prayers and devotions during the last 150 years in honor of Philomena: “These countless prayers and novena devotions were directed to God, albeit through a nonexistent saint.”

“The church’s official position is the former and Father Morse’s position seemed to be the latter.

“The board, composed of laymen and clergymen, recommended the dismissal, and the bishop accepted the recommendation.”

Morse agreed with the explanation—as far as it went philosophically.

“I think the Episcopal faith is a democratic church that traditionally has encouraged differing philosophies and attitudes,” he said.

Morse added that he “felt the need of UC students for their own chapel. Because I have done this, he fired me.”

Pike contends that Americans ought to be allowed latitude in their views without having to invite smears. He told a Minneapolis audience last month that “the real issue is freedom versus totalitarianism. These people who call themselves patriots [a reference to the John Birch Society] want to destroy freedom of speech, of opinion, of association and of conscience.” Dismissal of Morse, on the other hand, gave some observers the impression that Pike regards freedom as a one-way street.

Sex and the Oscars

Hollywood’s preoccupation with the sordid side of sex reached a new high last month with the announcement of Oscar winners:

—Elizabeth Taylor was named best actress of 1960 for her role as the nymphomaniac model in “Butterfield 8.”

—“The Apartment,” a comedy-drama about extra-marital affairs in a West Side flat, was chosen as the best American picture of the year.

—Billy Wilder was cited for the best job of direction in connection with the film, “The Apartment.”

—“The Virgin Spring,” sex-studded production directed by Ingmar Bergman, was selected best foreign-language film.

—Shirley Jones was named best supporting actress for her portrayal of a prostitute in “Elmer Gantry.”

—“Never on Sunday,” another film featuring prostitution, was honored for producing the best original song.

The film industry’s vilification of the clergy was also acclaimed with the “best actor” award going to Burt Lancaster, the immoral evangelist in “Elmer Gantry.”

This sort of vilification gets a new twist in a film now playing across the country, “The Sins of Rachel Cade.” This time the errant heroine is a young missionary woman.

To an Unknown God

An interreligious center featuring a revolving “all-faiths altar” will be built on the campus of George Washington University, Washington, D. C.

Chairman of the center will be Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo, noted churchman who has been director of the university’s religious education program for the past 10 years.

The new center, of imposing modern design, will occupy almost an entire city block. The chapel will seat more than 700 worshipers and will include a revolving altar with three sides for use in Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish services, and a fourth side when programs are sponsored by those of other faiths.

Originally founded by Baptists as Columbia College, George Washington University is now a private non-sectarian institution with an enrollment of more than 10,000.

Holy Land Campus

Its campus situated atop the Mount of Olives, a new, Christian-oriented school of archaeological and biblical studies will open next spring in Jerusalem, Jordan.

A building already acquired is actually located on the Mount of Olives, just above the Garden of Gethsemane, providing a commanding view of the temple area and the walled city of Jerusalem.

Sponsored by the Near East Archaeological Society, the school will be open to college and seminary students, ministers, teachers, as well as laymen.

Students will have their choice of three terms: spring, summer, and fall-winter, with classes in biblical archaeology, biblical history, geography, and related subjects.

After visits to Pompeii, Italy, and Egypt, the students will be led on a two-week survey trip through the Near East by Dr. Joseph Free, executive director of archaeological studies at Wheaton College.

Opening of the spring term will begin with a week’s field trip to several Holy Land sites. Additional such trips will ensue on a weekly basis.

Students also will get a chance to witness an archaeological excavation process at Dothan, 60 miles north of Jerusalem.

Seminary Strategy

Officials of Chicago’s Northern Baptist Theological Seminary are understood to have turned aside a proposal for merger with Central Baptist Theological Seminary which would entail relocation at the latter’s Kansas City campus.

“Northern’s location in the strateoic Chicago area is not negotiable,” say seminary trustees.

The merger-relocation plan originated with the Board of Education and Publication of the American Baptist Convention, under whose aegis both seminaries operate. The board reportedly felt that nine seminaries are too many for the size of the convention.

The seminary’s own $2,000,000 relocation program, which will take the campus to a 50-acre site in suburban Lombard, Illinois, is moving along at an encouraging pace, according to Dr. Benjamin P. Browne, executive officer who will begin a two-year term as president September 1. He estimates that classes on the new campus will begin by September, 1963.

The seminary was founded in 1914 on Chicago’s West Side to counter the liberal theology then prevalent at the University of Chicago Divinity School, still affiliated with the American Baptist Convention also.

During the presidency of Dr. Charles W. Kohler, Northern attracted at one time the largest student body of the convention’s eight (now nine) seminaries in a theological college as well as a graduate divinity school.

There had been some support among Northern officials for a merger with Central with a consolidated campus at Lombard, but they decided against issuing a formal invitation.

Northern’s present campus is located in a neighborhood which has been deteriorating in recent years.

A New Start

Ground was broken last month for a new campus for Louisville (Kentucky) Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

First stage of construction will cost some $3,975,000, of which $2,500,000 has already been raised.

The move to the new campus is set for the fall of 1962.

Evangelical Students

Nearly 100 delegates from 22 U. S. Christian colleges assembled on the campus of Evangel College, Springfield, Missouri, last month for the third annual convention of the American Association of Evangelical Students.

The assemblage represented a task force of evangelical student leaders dedicated to social and political awareness alongside their personal spiritual commitment.

Dr. J. Robert Ashcroft, president of Evangel College, told the students that the evangelical distinctive must be vital, not merely verbal.

“We must come to grips with human need,” he said. “Jesus touched mankind at its sorest points.”

Ashcroft said that in trying to dissociate themselves from the social gospel, the fundamentalist movement lost also a social consciousness and awareness.

The association represents more than 10,000 students across America. It was formed in 1956, and its first national conference was held at Wheaton College in 1959. The second took place last year on the campus of Houghton (New York) College.

The ‘Good’ Work

Russian Orthodox theological schools in Stavropol, Kiev, and Sarato have been closed “for lack of students,” Moscow Radio reported last month with undisguised satisfaction.

It said meanwhile that the number of students enrolling at seminaries in Moscow and Leningrad had dropped sharply as a result of the “good work” done by the antireligious Komsomol, Communist youth group.

The Moscow Radio broadcast included statements by a former student at the Leningrad seminary who claimed that he had been induced to “give up religion” because of the “immoral life” of the teaching staff.

The Miami Ruling

Two years ago an atheist, Harlow Chamberlin, filed a law suit in Miami asking that Dade County public schools be prevented from requiring or permitting recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, saying of grace, and classroom observances of Christmas and Chanukah.

A few weeks later three Jewish parents and a Unitarian, with the aid of the Florida Civil Liberties Union, followed suit with a demand that the daily reading of the Bible in the schools—required by state law—be discontinued. They also asked an end to baccalaureate services and other school practices with a trace of religion in them.

The issue grew into a bitter community battle which saw animosity expressed between the Greater Miami Council of Churches and the Greater Miami Rabbinical Association. It was the highlight of last November’s school board election in which a liberal Jew, related to one of the litigants, barely won a seat over a retired businessman backed by leaders in the Council of Churches. It attracted Dr. Leo Pfeffer, constitutional authority of the American Jewish Congress, as one of the attorneys in a tumultuous trial which monopolized local newspaper headlines for weeks.

Finally, last month, Circuit Judge J. Fritz Gordon issued his ruling. His decision did not completely satisfy anyone involved, but the reading of the Bible was given his hesitant approval.

In an 18-page opinion which at least one of the plaintiff attorneys has declared will be appealed all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court and school board attorneys have indicated they, too, may appeal, Judge Gordon held that daily Bible reading in the public schools does not violate either the federal or state constitutions.

The judge, a deacon in a Christian (Disciples of Christ) church, emphasized that the law was not unconstitutional because as applied in the schools students are excused from the Bible readings upon request. He hinted, however, that perhaps it would be well that students not be told that what they are hearing is from the Bible.

Judge Gordon decided that after-hours Bible courses conducted in the schools by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, religious holiday observances depicting the birth or crucifixion of Christ, and movies which “depict various religious happenings” are taboo.

But he upheld such other religious practices as baccalaureate programs, display of religious symbols, and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

The whole list of religious issues was included in the combined suits in a deliberate effort eventually to get a U. S. Supreme Court ruling covering the whole field of religion in the public schools instead of the existing hodgepodge of single—and somewhat conflicting-decisions on such issues as released-time programs of religious education for public school children.

A. T.

Cancer and Religion

Evidence that death rates from various types of cancer differ remarkably among the three major religious faiths in the United States is shown in a study published last month by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Statistics are based on 84,431 cancer fatalities in New York City hospitals over a five-year period and represent the preliminary findings of Dr. Vaun A. Newill of the department of epidemiclogy of Harvard University’s School of Public Health. The Journal is published by the National Institutes of Health and the U. S. Public Health Service with funds voted by Congress to promote research.

Initial purpose of the study was to gather evidence of a phenomenon long observed by cancer research—that cancer of the cervex (neck of the womb), a common cause of death among women, is found much less often among Jewish women than those of other faiths. The study strongly confirmed this, showing the death rate for that cause among Jewish women to be only 9 per 100,000, compared with 22 for Catholic women and 24.8 for Protestant women.

Newill and other scientists believe this may have some connection with the Jewish custom of circumcision, for the study also showed that while cancer of the genital organs is rare among males, it is only half as common among Jewish men (0.5 per 100,000) as Catholics (1.1) and Protestants (1.3).

On the other hand, Jews were found more subsceptible to some of the other forms of cancer to the extent that their over-all cancer death rate is estimated at 543.5 per 100,000, compared with 533.9 for Protestants and 504.4 for Catholics.

By sexes the over-all cancer rates of all forms were put at: women—Jewish 516, Protestants 450, Catholic 430; men—Protestants 623, Catholic 578, Jewish 572.

Meanwhile, other medical studies are being made among religious groups. Preliminary reports of a study among Seventh-day Adventists, a vegetarian group that eschews smoking, show that lung cancer and stomach cancer are very rare. A survey among Trappist monks, however, shows surprisingly that they are prone to sudden heart attacks despite their tranquil life and austere diet. A study of Mormons, who reject tea and coffee as well as tobacco, indicates they suffer less from high blood pressure than other groups.

A Kennedy Choice

James W. Wine was nominated last month to be United States Ambassador to Luxembourg. He was formerly associate general secretary for interpretation of the National Council of Churches, having resigned the post last year to join the Democratic campaign staff as assistant to the chairman of the party’s national committee for community relations. His particular assignment was to answer questions on Church-State issues. Wine is a Presbyterian layman.

Mackay’s First Love

Having recently returned home from a lecture tour around the world which included ten countries in Asia, Dr. John A. Mackay, president emeritus of Princeton Theological Seminary, has assurances for the Christian community-at-large that he is by no means “retiring”—not really.

Forthcoming visits to several Latin American countries reflect Dr. Mackay’s intention of devoting his remaining years to his “first love,” Christianity in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America.

Currently delivering a series of lectures on “Christianity in the Hispanic World” at American University, Washington, D. C., which has elected him Adjunct-Professor of Hispanic Thought, Dr. Mackay challenges the contention that Protestantism never appealed to the Spanish mind. He seeks a rediscovery for the Christian world of the lost evangelical tradition of sixteenth-century Spain. This tradition embraced Catholic mystics who remained within the church and Spanish Reformers who broke away from it. Spain was “on the point of becoming Protestant,” asserts Dr. Mackay, but the political situation was most unfavorable. Ecclesiastical force was brought to bear upon the Crown in the form of the notorious Inquisition, and among other things a great evangelical literature, much of it produced in prison, was lost for 300 years.

Dr. Mackay has been accumulating certain of these little known sixteenth-century works, which he describes as “evangelical and Christocentric.” He notes, moreover, that “thoughtful Roman Catholics in France and the United States have become very critical of their church’s tradition in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America.” They affirm that the Spanish form of Catholicism lacked an incarnational quality. It has failed to relate itself to life.

Roman Catholicism has made no creative impact upon Latin American reality. Its detachment of religion from life issued, for example, in a violent reaction against the church in Mexico and in religious cynicism in Uruguay—where “God” is often spelled without a capital letter (dios). Latin American Catholicism has never challenged the intellectual life, nor has it developed a worthy religious literature. Its emphasis has been upon ritual and upon authoritarian institutionalism. It has manifested no transforming spiritual power, declares Dr. Mackay, but rather has shown more interest in maintaining earthly grandeur and prestige. Thus it loses ground. It now discovers, for example, that Brazil’s native-born clergy includes more Protestant ministers than Roman Catholic priests.

It is to this total situation that Presbyterian Mackay addresses himself, through traveling, writing, and lecturing, to “enlarge evangelical horizons in the Hispanic world.”

F.F.

Pat on the Back

Protestantism gets a pat on the back in an article in Fidel Castro’s Revolution which appeared prior to last month’s abortive invasion.

The article contrasts Roman Catholic approaches with the Protestant “sense of community” and cites fruits of conversion.

“It is a well-known fact,” the writer declares, “that a Roman Catholic who drinks too much stops drinking when he becomes a Protestant. This spectacular conversion impresses his wife and family, and they all adopt the new faith.”

The article continues: “But the change can be noticed in other matters as well. He is a more punctual and better workman, and more honest and clean in his business dealings.”

Observers raised some eyebrows upon reading the article, for the writer apparently is an unbeliever.

Enter the Hierarchy

Roman Catholic intervention is blamed for the Costa Rican government’s decision to revoke a permit for a parade which was to have climaxed the Latin America Mission’s eight-month “Evangelism-in-Depth” program April 16 in San Jose.

The government explained that it had feared a parade would create disorder inasmuch as this is an election year.

Protestant missionaries countered that the parade was to be a purely pacific gesture in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the evangelical church in Costa Rica. They pointed out that Roman Catholic Holy Week processions were held as usual this year, as were patriotic parades and demonstrations.

The parade was to have been staged in connection with the windup of an evangelistic series in an 8,000-seat auditorium in San Jose.

A Dominican friar in a published protest called the meetings “a serious insult to the Catholic religion and an outrage against our political constitution.” He also accused the Roman hierarchy of “pusilanimity” for not combating the evangelistic rallies more vigorously.

The Manchester Story

It began as a Manchester crusade, designed to reach the laboring class in the city that is the heart of Great Britain’s industrial region.

As interest mounted it became the North of England Crusade, drawing support from churches in Sheffield, Preston, Liverpool, Stoke, and Leeds.

By the spring of 1961 it had become the All-Britain Crusade, and when Billy Graham steps to the platform in Manchester’s Maine Road stadium on Monday evening, May 29, the most far-reaching evangelistic effort in the thousand-year history of the British Isles will be launched.

The largest number of counselors and personal workers ever assembled for a Graham crusade—over 10,000—are being trained by Dan Piatt.

So vast and intricate is the system of land-line relays that has been set up for all over Britain and Eire for the meetings, that it is expected that more people will be hearing the crusade services through the “relays” than will be in Maine Road stadium. Yet the stadium was expected to be packed throughout the four weeks of the crusade. Some 30,000 seats are under overhead protection, and there is space for 20,000 more persons.

Film Milestone

The film arm of Billy Graham’s evangelistic ministry is marking its tenth anniversary with release of “Decade of Decision,” which traces his crusades in the United States and abroad. The film ministry, currently operating under the name of World Wide Pictures, has thus far completed 155 productions.

Total attendance at film showings in the United States is estimated at more than 20 million for the 10-year period. Additional hundreds of thousands have seen the films overseas.

Production offices are located in Hollywood, and are under the direction of Dick Ross. Distribution offices are located in Minneapolis and in England, Australia, and Canada.

Graham will speak by radio to the entire British nation on Sunday, June 4, over the BBC home service. The following Sunday he will be seen on a nationwide BBC telecast. A similar nationwide telecast during the Glasgow Crusade of 1955 was watched by Queen Elizabeth II, and resulted in Mr. Graham being invited to Windsor Castle subsequently to preach to the royal family.

On Sunday, June 18, Graham has been invited to participate in the annual civic service in Birmingham, England. After a procession led by the lord mayor, the evangelist will preach at St. Martin’s-in-the-Bullring, where Canon Bryan Green, internationally-known Anglican preacher, is rector. The service will be relayed to the public market and a nearby theater.

At least 300 relay centers have been set up, each serving four or five separate meetings. At one point in the crusade, it is estimated that there may be some 2,500 relay meetings tuned in simultaneously.

The All-Britain Crusade officially opens May 23 with a ministers’ meeting in the late W. E. Sangster’s church, Central Hall, Westminster, London.

In Wales 40,000 ticket applications were reported for tickets to a rally at Swansea, May 24. It is expected to be the largest evangelistic rally in the history of the country known for its 1904 revival.

The current British evangelistic series will close in Scotland with a public rally on June 24 in Glasgow’s Ibrox stadium, and another in Belfast June 26.

Linguistics Links

Accra, capital of Ghana and scene of many a rowdy nationalist conference affecting the course of current history in Africa, was the venue this spring of a linguistics conference that will help missionaries to press forward with the Gospel message.

Eighty-five delegates from West African countries, the United States, and Europe, took part in the West African Linguistics Congress sponsored by Columbia University, New York, and the Ford Foundation.

Professor S. Greenberg of Columbia, chairman of the congress, paid tribute to the work of missionaries who have done the bulk of linguistic work in West Africa. Forty per cent of the delegates were missionaries.

Main interest of delegates representing educational institutions was to fill in the gaps of man’s history by relating language patterns. Some looked upon the findings as support for the theory of evolution, but missionaries was the evidence in a different light.

“If I weren’t already a convinced evangelical, what I’ve seen of language patterns would convince me more of the Bible’s historical accuracy,” declared veteran missionary R. T. Dibble, who has been engaged in linguistic work with a Brethren group in Nigeria since 1921. He has just completed translation of the Bible into the Igala language, spoken by 400,000 people.

“We find extremely backward, primitive tribes with distinctive, perfect tonal patterns, which convinces me that man has degenerated, not evolved.”

Two new journals were proposed at the congress, one to aid linguistic workers through publication of reports of their work, the other to give technical help by providing findings in tonal patterns, orthography, and related matters.

Delegates saw the Vernacular Illustrated Publications project developed by the Sudan Interior Mission as one immediate answer to the need for suitable materials for new literates. “VIPs” are Christian leaflets written simply and highly illustrated. Advantage for missions working in small language groups is that costs can be cut by translating a basic edition into other vernaculars, keeping the same layout and illustrations throughout.

W. H. F.

Bold Venture

The month-long Tokyo Christian Crusade which was scheduled to begin May 6 promises to emerge as one of the boldest evangelistic ventures ever undertaken in a non-Christian country.

Nightly rallies at the 10,000-seat Meiji Auditorium are expected to attract throngs from all over Japan to hear Evangelist Bob Pierce, president of World Vision, Inc., crusade sponsor.

The rallies are putting a high premium on quality music. Included in the program are a 1,000-voice choir, an 85-piece orchestra, and top U. S. gospel musicians.

Christian leaders who will be on hand to aid in the crusade include Dr. Wilbur Smith, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, Dr. Carlton Booth, Dr. Paul Rees, Dr. Richard C. Halverson, Dr. Dwight Ferguson, Dr. Ralph Byron, Armin Gesswein, and Bill Bright.

Crusade leaders report cooperation unparalleled in Japanese Christendom, but some protests have persisted. Leftist groups have attributed political motives to the crusade, while a few independent church groups have objected to the cooperation of clergy known to have favored preservation of Shinto shrines as national symbols.

A sentence must never be interpreted out of context, as any scholar knows. It is pointless, furthermore, to suggest that separate sentences are true out of a context of linguistic and nonlinguistic experience. Recently, however, some theologians have claimed that no separate sentence can be wholly true even in context.

I refer specifically to William Hordern’s The Case for a New Reformation Theology (Westminster Press, 1959). Hordern takes two approaches to make his point. The first starts from affirmations concerning the social function of language. The second deals with the presence of areas of meaning—of ambiguity—represented by the words of a language.

Information, Understanding, and Truth

As for the first, Hordern adopts the point of view that a “proposition is a tool; it has a task to perform, and to perform its task it must be spoken and it must be received” (p. 58). Language, as a tool, must therefore—he implies—do its job of affecting someone exactly. Inerrant propositions must “come into the understanding of the hearer, meaning precisely what the speaker meant by them” (p. 59). This linkage from speaker to hearer must be so tight that “to express infallibly what the speaker wants to say, we must also say that it is impossible to hear it otherwise than the speaker intended it to be heard” (p. 59). He would conclude that “An objective revelation is not inerrant unless it is inerrantly received,” since the “subjective receiver of revelation is an indispensible link in the chain,” and, following Kierkegaard, Hordern maintains that “there is no truth unless there is truth to me” (p. 59, italics added). Thus “If there is to be inerrant revelation of propositions, the hearer would have to be as inerrant as the speaker” (p. 59).

If we ask for the reason lying behind the adoption of this view of language we find in his book that it developed as a challenge to what he considers the “basic premise” of “fundamentalism or conservatism”—“that what God reveals is information” (p. 57). He maintains with “modern theologians” that “what God reveals is not propositions nor information—what God reveals is God” (pp. 61–62; see also pp. 55–57, 68). Hordern rejects the fundamentalist view that information has been revealed to us by God since—he tells us—if he accepts information as being revealed this implies “with stunning logic” (p. 57) that the Bible and the interpreting church must both be considered infallible—which he considers impossible. He then replaces this informational concept of revelation with that of revelation as being composed of the knowledge of God directly.

We have no objection to treating the contact of man with God in Christ as being part of—or one kind of—revelation. We object rather to the elimination of information from the total amount or kinds of revelation available to us.

Furthermore, we do not deny that language has social relevance and purpose, or that language is designed to communicate with and affect other people. What we deny is that language has only the one function of linkage from one person to another. We claim that it includes also the purposes of man talking with himself; of formulating ideas for himself; of storing ideas in sayings, legends, or libraries; the presentation of information or truth in such a way that it is available for others who then or later are or will be prepared to receive it. It is the pair of concepts of availability on the one hand and preparedness for reception on the other hand which seem to me to have been overlooked (or perhaps rejected?) by Hordern.

These omissions may lead to ultimate skepticism if pushed to their logical conclusion. Let us assume, for example, that a teacher of very great scientific competence gives a lecture today to an audience of young graduate students. A tape recording is made of the lecture. Members of the class are asked to comment on or to repeat the day’s lecture. Let us suppose that none of them understood the lecture. From the point of view of Hordern this would not be mere failure to understand truth—it would be evidence that the lecture was not inerrant, specifically, and by implication would also be evidence that the lecture is not wholly true.

Three years after, when these same students have had further training, they listen to the old tape again. They now understand it. The material, which formerly was not truth, by Hordern’s treatment would now become truth because it would have done what propositions are meant to do.

In order to avoid this conclusion, I would claim, on the contrary, that the initial lecture was in fact true, and was in principle available. It needed, however, prepared receivers for its adequate reception.

Availability would imply that in order for material revealed to be at least in principle understandable to adequate receivers, it could not be phrased in a heavenly language which was permanently opaque to all human beings. It might, on the other hand, be interpreted as being available only to persons with the proper experience. One component of such experience is available to people, on a natural level, if they can read easily.

Preparedness may involve a delay while further data is being made available through succeeding events. Understanding—but not the presence versus the absence of truth—would then be retroactive.

Understanding is not in the same dimension with truth. Jesus had some things to tell to his disciples which they were not prepared to receive fully at the moment, and which they would understand only in retrospect, but which I consider to have been fully true even before the disciples were able to understand these teachings. He stated that the Son of Man was to be killed, and was to rise the third day. The disciples did not understand this (Mark 9:31–32; Luke 9:44–45; 18:31–34), even though we now do. The written Scriptures were also at times understood in retrospect—as concerning the triumphal entry (John 12:16), or prophecies of Christ’s coming (Luke 24:45). Similarly, lack of belief does not invalidate the truth of an utterance—as when Christ warned Peter about denial before the cock crew (John 13:38), or when the Jews did not “understand” because they did not “hear” (John 8:43). Nor does teaching in parables, partly hidden (cf. John 16:25), make an item false.

Christ, furthermore, claimed that truth came through human language. Even though “they understood not,” He insisted that “he that sent me is true” and “I speak … those things which I have heard of him” (John 8:26–28). And “they have kept thy word.… For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee.… I have given them thy word.… Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth” (John 17:6, 8, 14, 17).

Language, Ambiguity, and Truth

Hordern’s second objection to considering revelation as containing true information lies in the fact that sentences can be ambiguous.

Specifically, he suggests that the sentence “God is love” (1 John 4:8) is such that “we cannot consider it infallible” since “To many a hearer it will convey the wrong impression, because the word ‘love’ today has many connotations that cannot be applied to God” (p. 64); to get the desired specific meaning of love from this context many other acts of God in the background history of the situation must be pointed out. Similarly, in reference to the sentence “Thou art the Christ” (Matt. 16:16–23) he states that “Far from being an infallible statement, even to the man who spoke it, the statement had an ambiguous meaning” (p. 69), since Peter was rebuked for his further statements that seemed to have grown out of the immediate situation. Thus, for Hordern, ambiguity in a statement implies error in the statement itself.

If this were to be granted, it would follow inevitably that no statement is ever true. Every word has several different meanings—or, in technical terms, it covers an area of meaning—even though the differences be small. Each context in which the word occurs forces a slightly different meaning to that word—even if it be by an infinitesimal amount—in a way that the nonprofessional observer would not suspect. With a bit of thought, however, he can see that the exact physical activity implied by the word “drive” differs sharply in the phrases “to drive a car,” “to drive a horse,” “to drive a nail,” and “to drive a point home.” The ability of various contexts to force such changes of meaning is vital to the function of language itself. Without it, no learning could take place, no translation could ever be made, and communication would cease.

Since scientific statements, as well as statements of the man in the street, are all subject to analysis of the words contained in them as having a breadth of meaning, it would follow clearly that Hordern has in fact rejected the possibility of any wholly true science. The turn of the wheel is curiously complete. Having, along with the liberals, rejected fundamentalism because it “seemed to require intellectual hari-kari” (cf. p. 108) in its relationships to science, etc. (cf. also pp. 53, 60, 86, 92, 113), Hordern has in fact adopted a position which, in my view, in turn breeds intellectual hari-kari through denying full truth value to any of the statements or summaries or propositions of science.

Dimension of Truth versus Error

We now ask: How can we avoid Hordern’s conclusion that ambiguity implies error? We can do so if we view statements as containing dimensions—as we hinted in the first section of this article.

The first of these dimensions of statement has truth at one pole and error at the other. We have in mind the ordinary meaning of the words true and false: Truth in a statement is based upon information which can be relied upon. Error and falsehood are reports of observation, information, or judgment which cannot be relied upon.

In this view a true statement about weather reflects the measurable facts of humidity, temperature, and so on. A person who operates on the basis of such a report will find himself acting adequately. As Edward J. Carnell says: “The true is the quality of that judgment or proposition which, when followed out into the total witness of facts in our experience, does not disappoint our expectation” (An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, 1956, p. 45).

The Dimension of Magnification

A second dimension of statements differs sharply from the first: We do not wish to apply directly to this characteristic of statements either the term truth or the term error. The contrast referred to is rather a difference which may be called high magnification versus low magnification, using the optical term metaphorically. If we look at a fly under a low-powered magnifying glass we may be able to see the whole fly with considerable detail involved. If we wish to see much more detail about the structure of the fly, we must use a higher-powered microscope. The price we pay for this fine detail, however, is very great—the fly as a whole cannot be seen all at once. The pattern of the fly as a whole has disappeared from view. As others have said, one cannot find a face with a microscope. Similarly, as regards language, if one writes for a beginner an extremely intricate textbook on the laws of physics, including elaborate details, illustrations, reservations, implications, and the like, the beginner cannot adequately get information from the book.

Neither the detailed treatment nor one showing the over-all pattern should be called true as such, and neither should be called false as such. Truth and error may both be found at each pole of this kind of contrast. A detailed statement may be true or it may be false. Degree of detail in a statement is not of itself either true or false.

Language is adequate to accomplish the aim of communicating information at any level of magnification. One must not, however, demand that simultaneously both exhaustive detail and general pattern must always be presented. It is only God who is able to grasp simultaneously ultimate pattern and infinite detail.

The Bible, in general, chooses to have a low amplification in order to have a high concentration of meaningful pattern present.

No scientific statement, on the other hand, can ever reach an ultimate degree of magnification. If one wishes to claim that a true statement must have the highest magnification, then no scientific statement can ever be true—there is always more detail possible. To equate truth with magnification is to abandon scientific discourse.

The Dimension of Relevance

Degrees of relevance lead to a third dimension of statement.

Contextual resolution of ambiguity can be viewed in this light. Contexts cause changes in the meanings of words, as we indicated above, but they also force the hearer’s selection of those specific meanings which are relevant to the intention of the writer. In the phrase “to drive a nail” one cannot rationally assume that the writer means “to control the direction of movement of a nail by moving it with reins.” Context provided by a sentence, therefore, can—and often does—eliminate the irrelevant ambiguity inherent in an isolated word. Context provided by a paragraph—or a whole book—can also eliminate ambiguities inherent in isolated sentences. The sentence “God is love,” interpreted in the context of the Bible, is narrowed in the possible range of its meanings. Language, by context, is adequate to portray truth by using words each of which by itself would be ambiguous.

The technique by which language carries out its business of selecting specific, relevant, components out of multiple-available components has reference to the way in which words in context influence one another. The process is extremely powerful. Without it, no language could ultimately function, even though the process is not yet too well understood. (Compare Robert E. Long-acre, “Items in Context: Their Bearing on Translation Theory,” in Language, 34.482–91, 1958.)

Sharpness of focus on some one relevant part of the meaning of a word (or sentence) can always be increased if one chooses. Sharpness is often achieved at the cost of more words, by a longer explanation. Yet, relevance is not magnification. Technical formulas, such as those of symbolic logic, have a kind of precision achieved by brevity, not amplification, since irrelevant words are pruned away. An artistically sharp-cut verbal sketch of a situation may make clear more effectively those parts of a person’s character relevant to the author’s interest than can a rambling ten-year diary.

We must keep truth tied to the power of language to reveal relevant pattern rather than tying truth to an unattainable infinity of irrelevant detail. One might assume that a story could be told with all details made explicit. This is impossible. The hare could then never catch the tortoise. Billions of molecular details would have to be specified, the story would stop, communication would cease, and truth could not exist in any way known to us now. Problems of round numbers, summaries of sermons, the use of “son” in the sense of “descendant,” and so on, take place in a perspective of the nature of language as adequate for truly communicating relevant information—relevant on different levels of magnification.

Can any statement then be true? According to Hordern, as the logic of his position would seem to me to lead him on, the answer must be “No.” According to my view of the nature of language, the answer must be “Yes.”

I end, not with proof, but with a statement of one component of my personal faith: Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements. Man must, sometimes, act as if he believed it—or die.

Professor of Linguistics

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan