REMEMBER

The memory course I am taking will soon make me the envy of Cloverleaf Vista. Already I have mastered my telephone number, my car license, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. No longer will I have to stage violent coughing fits on those dismal occasions when I stand between two life-long acquaintances who have not been introduced. Names will pop up like toast at fellowship breakfasts, alumni dinners, and business luncheons.

I know it will work this time, because the course was written by a psychologist who won fame on a quiz show through sheer concentration and association. After all, it doesn’t help to get the answers in advance if you can’t remember them in front of the camera.

There are still a few wrinkles to be ironed out. It was disconcerting to greet Dr. Pike so warmly as Bill Mackerel. Understandably, the proper fish slipped off my memory book, but the switch from Doctor to Bill was more disturbing. Unfortunately, I had visualized a pill to associate Pike with his profession. However, the course has three more days to go and by then I should be ready to develop applied mnemonics for pastors. If your minister can’t remember your name at the church door, and has forgotten the date of the Sunday School picnic, just send his name to me.

I have already approached Pastor Peterson on the subject. He has agreed to try it out if it works for me.

He says that memory is very important in the Bible, but the scriptural emphasis has more in common with Memorial Day than with memory systems. God remembers his people in his covenant faithfulness and calls on them to remember him. The aids to memory in the Bible are the memorials of God’s promises, among them the rainbow and God’s own memorial Name. Scripture itself is a memorial record of God’s purposes, a book of remembrance pointing to Christ. In the Lord’s Supper the death of the Saviour is commemorated in our memorial feast.

There was much more that the pastor said, but I don’t remember it all. It was so fascinating I almost forgot why I had come.

EUTYCHUS

WESLEY’S ANSWER

In “Jazz in the Churches” (March 28 issue), CHRISTIANITY TODAY reported that one jazz setting was to accompany John Wesley’s “Order for Morning Prayer.” It is then asked, “Would Wesley’s heart be warmed anew to hear the syncopated accompaniment to his service, or would it leave him cold?”

We need not wonder. John Wesley’s own observation was, “I have no objection to instruments being in our chapels, provided they are neither heard nor seen.”

T. R. HUTCHESON

Superior, Neb.

If there is this sincere desire to witness and worship with such accompaniment, why not conduct these services where these combos usually perform—night spots, clubs, and bars? They may be serving the church more effectively in these neglected areas than in the quiet beauty and dignity of the sanctuary.

R. A. MACASKILL

The Presbyterian Church

Gettysburg, Pa.

I have been asked, “How come?” appertaining to [the] picture which … appeared.… The question arises because of the obviously incorrect position of the altar boy in relation to the missal; and the notable absence of the sacred vessels.… The fact is that I am not involved in a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The picture was taken during a concert during which we sang the Beaumont “Twentieth Century Folk Mass” as one half, and our traditional musical setting of the Mass as the other half. I vested, used an acolyte, and sang the priest’s part in both versions in order to demonstrate how they work out in actual practice.

ALAN HUMRICKHOUSE

Trinity Episcopal Church

San Francisco, Calif.

NCC AND THE AIR FORCE

Congratulations for your editorial of March 14 regarding the National Council of Churches and the Air Force manual. I want to underline your statement that “What NCC needed was self-examination, not self-justification”.…

Much of the leadership of the National Council, time and again, has attacked the free enterprise system, directly or indirectly, through speeches, books, etc. Ironically, the money to finance this propaganda was provided through the American free enterprise system—the system under which ours has become the world’s most prosperous nation and the nation from which nearly all others are seeking help in one way or another.

… The NCC … makes little or no effort to keep the Church free of Communist pastors and appears to be vehemently opposed to anyone who even suggests that it should, or that smaller church organizations should. It has been my observation over a period of years that, more often than not, the positions of the NCC on matters of national and international policy coincide with those promoted in The Worker (a Communist weekly) and encouraged on Radio Moscow. Of course, this does not prove that the leadership contains Communists, but it does prove that a very influential organization, to an alarming degree, has aligned itself with the Communists to promote their line and to work for their objectives. For the time being, what more could they ask?

STUART W. EPPERSON

Ararat, Va.

Let Rep. Walter be summoned before the National Council for investigation of demagoguery in Congress, and let it be ascertained whether the Air Force is soft toward communism since it has permitted communism to forge ahead in the missile race.

HENRY RATLIFF

Hartford, S. Dak.

Does as much as six weeks go by without Air Force scandal erupting in the News?… I have 22 years of service in the Federal Civil Service and the two years I was in the Air Force was like being in a foreign country, so greatly did they ignore all Civil Service and state regulations.

LEON H. KELSO

Washington, D. C.

In comparing the text of the Air Force Manual with the letter of Associate General Secretary Wine, I noticed that the Secretary completely avoids the issue. The manual does not say there is a relationship between the R.S.V. and Communism, but that there is or was a relationship between some of the translators and Communism. This is something he cannot deny for some of them were members of “front organizations.”

ROBERT B. DEMPSEY

Carlisle Congregational Church

Carlisle, Mass.

I would like to see the [author of] the manual promoted.

FRANK P. STELLING

Oakland, Calif.

Now the member churches of NCC as well as that organization are flooding us with materials through which we are to instruct our people and make them believe that it is the “hate-mongers” and Communists who are causing all this trouble, etc., etc.

S. MCMASTER KERR

First Presbyterian Church

Onarga, Ill.

An investigation into the NCC would reveal that what the manual gave was not too far off.

FRANCIS M. BRILL

Summit Mills Brethren Church

Meyersdale, Pa.

Obviously, not every minister who swallows the Communist line is a Communist—or even a fellow-traveler. Neither is the RSV Bible a Kremlin manual. But it is high time that the “inviolability of the church” was set aside. A thorough, careful, responsible investigation of Communist infiltration of the churches is long overdue.

NED E. RICHARDSON

Center United Presbyterian Church

Slippery Rock, Pa.

CHURCH TAX

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has performed a service by opening discussion on issues raised by the tax exempt status of the churches. Full treatment of the problem would demand that our whole tax structure be scrutinized for inequities, and perhaps overhauled. But as a first step one is led to ask just what it means for churches to claim tax exemptions.…

The churches in this country alone count their property in the billions of dollars. This includes land and buildings used primarily for worship and education, and also stocks, bonds and other property held mainly for income. By their specially privileged position, tax-wise, churches are beneficiaries of indirect financial assistance from local and state governments, as well as from the national government. Their properties escape local taxation, and contributions to the church are deductible for income tax purposes. Such privileges as these are undoubtedly reflected in the large budgets of today’s churches, and more visibly, in the impressive church architecture rising in all parts of the country. But some questions arise. Is this the high level of stewardship we are entitled to expect from an institution claiming divine sanction? Does the church impair its spiritual power by a too-calculating concern for its material advantage?

The proper use of material possessions is an important part of Christian duty; men are stewards of their income and property. Legally, a man may claim exclusive possession of an economic good but, the Christian has an obligation to use it for the glory of God and the service of man. What the churches preach they must also practice. No one, I am sure, believes it ideal that churches are given preferential position in the government’s treatment of their income and property. Everyone would be happier if churches, and colleges as well, could remain financially solvent without the help of political grants of economic advantage—which is what their tax-exempt status amounts to. But we must, as we say, be realistic.

My mind goes back to an incident recounted by Edward Gibbon in his history. A certain Prelate of Cologne gloats over the results of two of his vows. “My vow of obedience has made me a Prince Bishop,” he says, as Gibbon translates him, “my vow of poverty has given me an income of thirty thousand crowns.” Gibbon’s savage comment had better be read in the original, but every earnest Christian must at times have wished that he didn’t have to defend his faith against institutional corruptions—secular power, wealth, a privileged position in the state, and the like.…

Churches are not producing-units as are factories and stores. Therefore, it is argued, tax exemption is justified. But if “no production-no taxation” as a principle is to be applied across the boards it will exempt many homes from the assessments now levied on them.…

When is a religious body not a church? Such a question rarely arises, of course, but, when it does, it is unfortunate that it is decided by the tax collector. Government, under the American scheme, is not supposed to be in the “religion defining” business. But if the state grants any kind of tax exemption it must set itself up as the final arbiter of who is to receive the privilege. This is just what it did, in a limited way, in the District of Columbia Tax Court in a suit filed October 22, 1956. The petitioner was the Washington Ethical Society, the respondent, the District of Columbia.… Leaders of the Society perform weddings and conduct funeral services. They hold Sunday morning services and otherwise conform to many of the practices of the more common religious bodies. The court, nevertheless, decided that the Washington Ethical Society did not qualify for tax exemption. This decision was hardly epoch making, but it does give one pause: The power we have allowed to the state to tax or exempt from taxation is the power to penalize, if not destroy, deviations from the orthodoxy it accepts.…

In the matter of tax exemption, as elsewhere, the churches are certainly abiding by the law. But does this fully discharge their obligations? Is something more required?

EDMUND A. OPITZ

Irvington-on Hudson, N. Y.

THE LAST DAYS

One thing disturbed me both as I saw the movie and read the book [about Peter Marshall]. It seemed to me that, in the final analysis, Peter Marshall committed suicide. Not death by a gun, or poison, but death that came by deliberately disregarding his doctor’s advice and working himself into an early grave. Was Peter Marshall such a martyr?… Or was he just a totally selfish and thoughtless man, paying no regard to anything but his own personal interests, however noble these were, neglecting his family …?

The years have passed. Times have changed. I have grown older (“more mature” is the expression I prefer). Now it seems to me that Peter Marshall was right. Now I see what the alternatives were. Had he heeded the doctor’s advice and lived, he probably would have been a permanent burden to his family, only half a man in the pulpit, unable to work more than a few hours a day, terribly discontented at his inability to do everything he thought necessary, living constantly in the shadow of hundreds of bottles of vari-colored pills, and dreaming at night about doctors with stethoscopes shouting, “Watch your blood pressure! Watch your blood pressure!”

I have watched many people, particularly the aged, for whom just hanging onto life is a full-time job. It is sad to see human beings turn into vegetables. That way of living is not for me. I want to go down swinging, not just standing there when the third strike is called. To do this, I will some day have to make a hard and dangerous decision. The day will come when, as I observe doctor and medicine bills mounting like inflation and listen constantly to the advice which says, “Slow down! Cut this out! and that,” I will say:

“To hell with the medicine! The doctors have done the best they can for me. I’m grateful to them. But now I’m going to forget all of this and walk out of life like a man!”

After all, as Paul writes, “We arc of good courage, and we would rather he away from the body and at home with the Lord …” and, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

LINDSAY RONALD

St. Louis, Mo.

THE MODERN TEN

Sentimentalism and a lack of appreciation for the authority of the Word of God have wrought some changes in modern attitudes toward principles for living covered by the Ten Commandments. The commandments come out something as follows in our day:

I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. “Religion is all right, but you can’t be fanatical about it.” II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. “Every man has his own religion; it is all right just so long as he is sincere about it.” III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. “I’m sure the Lord knows how vexed I was, for it was enough to make anyone say something.” IV. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. “You ought to go to Church when you can, but I need rest and relaxation and this is the only day I can get them.” V. Honor thy father and thy mother. “Parents shouldn’t force their children to do something; they may warp their children’s personalities for life.” VI. Thou shalt not kill. “It’s a big world that runs fast and hard; so, someone’s bound to get hurt.” VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery. “Love will triumph in the end.” VIII. Thou shalt not steal. “Everyone else is getting his. You have to make it for yourself any way you can; just be sure you don’t get caught.” IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness. “We were all just sitting around and talking. You know how one word brings on another. No one meant anything by what he said.” X. Thou shalt not covet. “As soon as we can trade for a new hardtop and move into that new ranch house, then people will have to look up to us too.”

RUSSELL L. JABERG

The Westminster Presbyterian Church

South Bend, Ind.

It is becoming evident that Christianity in the Western world is going through some sort of change or crisis. New patterns of spirit are rising. The state of religion in America at mid-century has been discussed recently and excellently by Will Herberg (Protestant, Catholic, Jew, 1955) and by Martin Marty (The New Shape of American Religion, 1959). Both use a sociological approach. The gist of their message is that a new religious outlook is rapidly emerging, based essentially on conformity to “the American way of life,” and that this new outlook poses many problems for any vital religious message.

These new patterns, we would suggest, seem to imply a general shift of values, a change in man’s view of Reality, so far-reaching in nature as to reflect the emergence of a “new mind,” a new outlook on man and the cosmos. Its startling significance may be gauged from a remark by C. S. Lewis: “Christians and Pagans had more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian” (Time Magazine, May 2, 1955).

Those who subscribe to this “post-modern” mind do not always do it consciously; nevertheless, their behavior and half-formulated assumptions make sense only in terms of it. A philosopher like Jean-Paul Sartre will explicitly formulate his view of why man is not bound by history; a novelist sympathetic to the “beat” position, like Norman Mailer, will approvingly define a hipster as “a man who has divorced himself from history, who does not give a (blank) about the past” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 28, 1960); the teen-ager will seriously look with contempt upon history as neither true nor valuable.

This “post-modern” mind, however it appears, does indeed pose new problems for the Church, and problems with which it is ill-equipped to deal. The average evangelical can perhaps bring forward several arguments against atheism; can he, however, answer a man who seriously argues that all religions are true?

BASIC SHIFTS OF PERSPECTIVE

There have been such shifts of mind before; for example, around 300 A.D., when the classical or Graeco-Roman mind yielded to the Christian mind; or, around 1650 A.D., when the Christian mind expressed in the Middle Ages and the Reformation gave way to the “modern mind”—which, if our suggestion is correct, is now in its turn dying. The mind of a society does not, of course, shift all at once. Many classical influences carried on into the Middle Ages and Reformation; many Reformation influences extended on into the modern mind; and many modern influences doubtless will carry over to the “post-modern” mind. Nor does the mind of a society change completely. Augustine’s contemporaries were, many of them, pagans, though they lived in a “Christian” society. Darwin’s contemporaries were, many of them, Christians, though they lived in a secular society.

What, then, is meant by “mind” here? We use the term for the ideas which shape society, or the outlook which shapes society’s institutions, or the basic assumptions which form a “way of life,” or the world-outlook which is reflected in the real goals of a society. Ethics reflects metaphysics; and the aims of a society reflect a view of Reality which the society has formulated.

Thus, if a society view’s Reality as “that which Reason contacts,” then it will be concerned to encourage the free play of Reason. If one of the ideas shaping society is, say, that freedom is a basically important thing, then freedom will be part of that society’s way of life, and that society’s institutions will be set up so that freedom will be gained. Or, if one of the basic components of the society’s outlook is the idea that salvation is essential, then that society’s institutions will be set up so that salvation is available. Or, if one of the basic assumptions of a society is that a high standard of living is highly valuable, then a high standard of living will become a primary goal. In this sense, then, we can suggest that the classical mind was different from the Christian mind, which was different in turn from the modern mind, which is different from the new mind now emerging. And that fact means, among other things, that: the classical outlook is different from the Christian outlook, and so forth; that the classical institutional patterns are different from Christian, and so forth; that the basic assumptions are different; that the goals are different; and that the view of Reality is different. And, using “mind” in that sense, we can repeat our suggestion: the modern mind is dying, and a “post-modern” mind is emerging with which the Church must reckon.

EARLY MODERN ASSUMPTIONS

The modern mind flourished from around 1650 to 1950, more or less, or loosely from 1600 to 1900. It was not born overnight, obviously, but emerged only after centuries of gestation. While it flourished, it shaped many dramatic developments: science, representative democracy, religious toleration, factories, capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, socialism, a vast increase in knowledge, great wars, and much more. Their modern development was no accident; they are tied into the basic assumptions and consequent goals of the modern mind. Aquinas could hardly hold, for example, religious toleration; Huxley could hardly avoid advocating it. What, then, were some of the controlling assumptions of the modern mind?

Reality in the basic sense, independent of ourselves so the modern mind held, is the Patterned Reality of nature. This Patterned Reality can be found by Reason, and Reason is therefore that in man which defines him, which puts him in touch with Reality as no animal can be. “I think, therefore I am”; I am defined by my Reason—which contacts the Patterned Reality “out there,” which shows me the Patterns; which shows me the scientific laws that govern Reality. Reason comes to mean the use of the scientific method. Science gives an “ever-increasing understanding” of Reality, so that man is progressing constantly. Progress means an advance towards greater knowledge, more science, more understanding, and more use of understanding to gain ever-increasing control over Reality, nature’s Patterned Reality. Reason obviously implies an efficient and rational government, and it probably implies, further, a rational democracy as the best form of government, and that the State’s concern should be in areas such as progress, advancement of science, education for all along rational lines.

Religion, in the modern outlook, played a minor role. Any educated modern would view it with suspicion unless it was accommodated to the modern mind. And this, of course, could be done. If God was viewed, say, as the rational Watchmaker and Creator who started the universe and set up its scientific laws (as by Franklin), or as the cosmic Spirit revealing Itself in history (as by Hegel); and if Jesus was looked on as a great Teacher, worthy to be ranked with Socrates and Buddha—then there would be no objection. If God was viewed as nonexistent, that was all right too. In any case, God lost any significance for decision-making in the areas of politics or economics or education or science or, indeed, anything important.

Such, in oversimplified form, was the modern mind (now dying). Protestant orthodoxy had a difficult time with it. Giving up the notion of a “Christian society” in the older sense (its last supporters were perhaps the Puritans), the churches generally either adopted the modern mind and salvaged what religion they could (roughly the “modernist” answer) or, while accepting many modern assumptions, tried to hold emotionally to personal salvation (roughly the “fundamentalist” answer). Catholic orthodoxy retreated behind its Roman bastions and hurled excommunications, anathemas, and fulminations (freedom of conscience was “madness” flowing from the “corrupt fountain of indifferentism,” as Gregory XVI put it). But the modern mind did not listen.

The modern mind, with its view of Reality as the Patterned Reality which Reason and science contact, with its natural laws governing the physical world, and its rational laws of human nature governing all men, came under increasingly severe attack after 1850 from thinkers who may be regarded as transition figures to the post-modern mind: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and many others. Today, we would hold, the post-modern mind has actually begun to emerge—not only in the ivory towers, not only in Europe, but in the assumptions of the American man on the street.

What is this “post-modern” mind? It has, in brief, a different view of Reality. If the Christian mind held that the highest Reality is the Triune God, and that the Self is defined in terms of relation to Him; and if the modern mind held that the highest Reality is the Patterned Reality of nature, and the Self is defined by its having Reason and contacting that Patterned Reality; then the post-modern mind, denying both the Triune God and Patterned Reality, holds to the Self and the Unpatterned Reality. The Self creates whatever value and meaning there is; the mysterious Unpattern lies outside, impenetrable and awesome.

Many things follow. The task of philosophy becomes the task of considering the relation between the Self and the Unpattern (is the Self completely free of the Unpattern? Is the Unpattern an enemy or a friend or neither? Is the Unpattern completely impenetrable or can we intuit or envision something of it?). Art and literature picture either the Self or the Unpattern: else they do not portray the Real. Objective values (that is, values existing independent of the Self) do not exist, and to pretend that they do is unreal, is nonsense. The question becomes what kind of subjective values (values freely created) to choose (for example, are all subjective values equally valid? Or do some choices limit the freedom to create, which is the definition of the Self? or limit the freedom to live always “open” to the Unpattern, another possible definition of the Self? Do values developed by a Group help or hurt the Self?). In any case, on this approach, to hold that values exist out there, objectively, is nonsense. (There is a connection between the philosophers’ criticism of objective values, and the sociologists’ stress on the social relativity of values, and the beatniks’ love for Margaret Mead [see Time, June 1, 1959, citing Lawrence Lipton, The Holy Barbarians], a sociologist who has “demonstrated” cultural relativity. Each in his own way reflects the emerging “post-modern” mind.)

Religion in consequence, it would seem, would hold a different place than in the modern mind. But it will be a curious place. For Reality is the Self and the Unpattern. And thus God must either be somehow created by the Self, or be the Unpattern; else God won’t be Real. If it can be shown that God is a creation of the Self (for the Self creates all pattern and value and meaning), then let’s have God; or, if we wish to call the Unpattern by the name of God, then let’s have God. In either case, God will then be Real (for Reality is Self and Unpattern). But if we think God exists outside these two alternatives, then we err; or better, any such God would be unreal, not Real, not existing in the Real world!

Now, a broad definition of Reality obviously does not immediately answer all the burning questions. Defining Reality as Patterned Reality which Reason encounters still left many questions confronting the modern mind. Defining Reality as Triune Personality which the soul encounters bequeathed many knotty questions to the Christian mind. Defining Reality as Self and Unpatterned Cosmos leaves many problems for the post-modern mind. Since our concern is to tie in the post-modern mind with the actions of the man on the street, we now consider the question of “how I must act,” which the post-modern mind’s broad definition of Reality still leaves open.

This question of action can be viewed as implying a prior question: what is the relation between Self and Unpattern? If the Unpattery is seen as a wonderful, mysterious thing, then we should act so as always to be “open” to it (Heidegger). If it is viewed as the meaningless blind enemy (Sartre), then we must maintain our freedom against it. Thus, we would find our Self in either being “open” to Unpattern, or being free from it.

But we can also take a third alternative and say that the problem is, more basically, giving the Self security against whatever threats it faces. And, since whatever the Self freely creates is real, the problem would be for the Self to create this security; and this would be done if the Self could create a feeling of security.

The most obvious way to gain this feeling of security is to identify in some sense with a Group. (What does “identify in some way” mean? Answers may vary: Dewey’s “adjustment” is one possibility, and Ernst Junger’s justification for Nazi ideology is another.) Another way is to be accepted by something other than the Group; but this may seem difficult, since the Unpattern seems remote to most, and nothing else besides Self (and Selves like us, the Group) and Unpattern is Real. However, if we freely create something else, it will be Real, since it is tied in with the Self; and thus if we create, say, a kindly Person who likes us, he will be Real (because we believe in him); and this too would tend to give emotional security. Thus, ideally, to gain this security for the Self, we should belong to a Group which creates a kindly Person who likes all Group members.

This third alternative, though it draws (largely unconsciously) on several philosophers, has not yet, to my knowledge, been worked out philosophically. It does seem to me to be a variety of post-modern mind which is of importance, not only in the semi-worship of the Leader elsewhere (Hitler, Lenin, Peron), but also in the thinking of the post-war generation of Americans. It is, among college students, perhaps more important than the other two ways of acting (being “open to” or “free from” the Unpattern) mentioned above, though these do exist and are followed, and are closely related to this third alternative.

Here we might well pause, for it is necessary to introduce at least some evidence. For the foregoing analysis may well seem extreme, and therefore be dismissed as merely a series of completely unfounded generalizations. By way of supportive evidence, consider two statements: ‘We are living in Rome at the time of the barbarians,” according to Henri Petoit, a leading French Catholic intellectual (Time, May 7, 1956); and, if that can be dismissed as European hysteria, consider C. H. Greenewalt, president of DuPont Corporation: “I know of no problem so pressing, no issue so vital, [as the] growing emphasis on group conformity” (New York Times, April 27, 1956).

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

The year 1959 was one of philosophic celebrations. Many volumes, monographs, and papers marked the centennial of John Dewey. France, rather more than the United States, similarly celebrated Henri Bergson’s birth. And all over the world scholars commemorated the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. One is tempted to see in all this the end of an era and to expect new beginnings in the next decade.

However, the fortunes of philosophy do not change with football game rapidity. No evidence exists to support predictions of any great upheaval. Provided that the political situation permits a continuance of civilized living, the sixties will not differ much from the fifties. No doubt an old era has ended; but it did not end abruptly in centenary celebrations. Somewhat of a new era may well be upon us; but it did not commence January 1, 1960. Rather, the situation calls for an estimate of the coming success or failure of philosophic trends already under way.

To dispose of some preliminary matters, I would say that neo-realism, despite the protests of its aging exponents, as well as the older neo-Hegelianism, has no future. Marxism is indeed a serious political threat, though not an intellectual one. The movements now in existence that promise to exert influence in the next decade are instrumentalism, logical positivism, existentialism, and neo-orthodoxy. The first two are definitely secular, the fourth is clearly religious, while existentialism, though sometimes atheistic, is so closely related to neo-orthodoxy that it fits better into the second classification.

INSTRUMENTALISM

John Dewey was fundamentally disturbed by the nineteenth century scientism which reduced the universe to “nothing but” atoms in motion. Since atoms alone were real, the real world was devoid of colors, sounds, enjoyments, and human values. Traditional philosophy, with its theory of values based on medieval metaphysics and theology, was unable to meet the scientific viewpoint. According to Dewey therefore the main problem of modern philosophy is to formulate a single method by which both the values of daily life and the advances of modern science can be harmoniously handled.

Dewey’s solution begins with the instrumental role of ideas. Despite common sense and almost universal acceptance, the Newtonian view that science gives knowledge of the real world is discussed as thoroughly mistaken. Ideas are not descriptions of what is or has been; they are plans for future actions. Science does not discover antecedent reality; it constructs new realities. To give an example: water is wet, water is good to drink, but water is not H2O. The chemical formula is part of a laboratory method for producing wet water or explosive hydrogen. In other words, scientific concepts do not define natural objects; they specify laboratory operations.

Therefore science cannot render void the real world of colors, sounds, wet water, and human values.

Just as chemical concepts are the directions for experimental procedure, so the same scientific methods can be used to formulate moral concepts for moral experimentation. The concepts of physical science change decade after decade. So too, according to Dewey, moral concepts must change when we want new results. There are no fixed, absolute, divinely given norms. New moral principles must ever be devised to manage new problems.

What is true of physics and morality is also true of logic. The Aristotelian law of contradiction was based on Aristotelian science and must with it be discarded. The laws of logic are like civil laws. They are devised to meet specific problems and as the problems change, quickly or slowly, so must the laws of logic.

LOGICAL POSITIVISM

The technical nature of logical positivist publications makes brief discussion difficult and misleading. Logical positivists are much more interested in the details of science than Dewey was, and their contributions in these special areas are correspondingly better. For this reason it seems likely that logical positivism, even if its most general theses are untenable, will continue in existence for a longer period of time than Dewey’s philosophy. Both schools, for example, accept the opertional definition of concepts. But Dewey’s system tends to fall apart because the connection he makes between science and morals is not firm. Logical positivism, on the other hand, with its tendency to dismiss morality as emotive nonsense can tie its future to operationalism in scientific isolation.

Similarly both schools are behavioristic. Dewey traces all knowledge back to sensori-motor co-ordinations; mind, he says, is a complex of bodily habits formed in the exercise of biological aptitudes; and “knowledge … lives in the muscles, not in consciousness.” Logical positivists assert, “Methodological physicalism and operationism are part of a general positivistic tradition. Their psychological counterpart is the school of behaviorism” (International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 671–672).

Now, although behaviorism is untenable wherever found, it can maintain itself longer as a narrowly scientific method than as a part of a general system. Then too, at the expense of some consistency, Herbert Feigl accepts the “methodological outlook of behaviorism but … certainly not with any unqualified rejection of introspective techniques.” Philosophically objectionable as this may be, it is scientifically more viable.

Where logical positivism extends beyond the confines of science and ventures into the realm of epistemological generality is in its theory of meaning and verification. Propositions that cannot be verified by sensory observation are meaningless. Therefore moral principles are emotive nonsense. There is, however, one important exception to this theory of verification. Logical and mathematical principles are neither meaningless nor verifiable. They are formal, definitional, tautological; they are stipulated methods of procedure. Although Dewey is not in complete accord with the logical positivists (cf. Dewey, Logic, pp. 284–289), their view of logical and mathematical principles is similar to Dewey’s position that we must alter the laws of logic as our problems change.

EXISTENTIALISM AND NEO-ORTHODOXY

If Marxism has a bright future because of subversion backed by military might, neo-orthodoxy to a lesser extent depends on nonintellectual factors. These are chiefly the social power of the large Protestant denominations, and, with existentialism, the great fear which the international situation excites. If this fear subsides, existentialism most certainly and neo-orthodoxy most probably will lose ground to a more reasonable viewpoint. At the same time, the latter can count on the growing influence of Karl Barth, who may yet overshadow Brunner, Niebuhr, and Tillich.

Specific theological details are not within the scope of this article. Attention is directed rather to the philosophy which neo-orthodoxy and existentialism have taken in common from Sören Kierkegaard. Its distinctive feature is the repudiation of reason and logic.

Throughout the history of Christianity there has always been a certain amount of anti-intellectualism. An extreme form is found in the negative theology of mysticism. Less extreme forms are found in devout and well-intentioned (but mistaken) distinctions between our poor finite human logic and God’s transcendent thought. “Rationalism,” of course, has always been opposed by the most learned and orthodox theologians; but a misunderstanding of what they meant by rationalism has aided the rise of irrationalism.

In contrast with the statement of the Westminster Confession that “The whole counsel of God … is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture,” the neo-orthodox (for example Brunner) assert that faith must curb logic and that “straight-line” implication will lead us astray. In other words, we may accept certain statements but we must reject their necessary consequences. Not all the neo-orthodox are so explicitly radical as Brunner, yet the Kierkegaardian—neo-orthodox—existentialist complex must be judged to be basically anti-logical.

CRITICISM

When the repudiation of necessary implication is pointed out and the consequent inconsistencies of detail are listed, the straight-line path that criticism will follow hardly needs explanation.

The indispensability of logic for all intelligible communication is also the basis of criticism against Dewey and the logical positivists. They are all wrong when they allow for a replacement of the law’ of contradiction. This law is not a formal stipulation that can be changed by mutual consent. It does not grow out of scientific procedure in such a way that a different procedure would produce a different logic. On the contrary it is eternally a fixed requisite to rational thought and intelligible speech.

Against Dewey it might be added that he never shows how scientific procedure can generate his human values; while against logical positivism there is the particular point that its principle of verification is self-destructive. For there is no sensory observation that would verify the assertion that sensory observation is the only gateway to knowledge. Either then it is nonsense, or it is a stipulation and definition. But in the latter case there is no compelling reason for stipulating it. Surely we can all the more dispense with the verification principle, if we can dispense with logic.

For similar reasons, those linguistic theories, often conjoined with the four philosophies under discussion, also fail which hold that language (or only religious language) is all symbolic and never literal. The exclusion of literal meaning guaranteed by the law of contradiction precludes a rational decision as to the significance of the symbol. A cross could be the symbol of the crucifixion; the crucifixion could be the symbol of the wrath of God; but then the wrath of God would have to be a symbol of nobody knows what.

These philosophies with their inherent difficulties, all so briefly explained, must pass away—Dewey’s perhaps first. They will probably survive the decade and neo-orthodoxy may last even longer. But insofar as there will always be some desperate people, and insofar as a nonmetaphysical science of verifiable fact will always have an appeal, similar types of philosophy will continue to occur. And, insofar as all men are by nature prejudiced against the biblical concepts of revelation and free grace, the passing of instrumentalism and neo-orthodoxy will not inaugurate the millennium.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

A careful look at our subject, “The Word of God in Education,” will provide a clue to the manner in which it ought to be treated. Quite evidently, two things are placed side by side—the Word of God and education—one in relation with the other. The first of the two, “The Word of God,” needs close definition; the second, “education,” must be brought to focus upon the particular kind of education with which we are here concerned, namely, the Bible college or Bible institute. This is a specific type of institution, to be sure, but the principles that will be discussed apply as well to other fields of education.

Consider the first phrase, “The Word of God.” Though a synonym for the Bible, this by no means exhausts the meaning of the phrase. In a Supreme Court opinion, Justice Holmes once wrote this sentence: “A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content, according to the time when, and the circumstances under which, it is used.” Here we have one of the first principles of exegesis of any book, the Bible included.

Viewed then in its scriptural usage as “the skin of a living thought,” we may identify three aspects of “the Word of God” in its relationship to education. They are: first, the written Word of God, the Bible; second, the Word of God manifest in creation; and third, the Word of God incarnate in our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE BIBLE AND AUTHORITY

We begin with the Word of God as Scripture. Among Christians in general and evangelical Christians in particular, the Word of God is synonymous with the Bible. The equation is fully justified because it is made again and again in the Old and New Testaments. Here, as the names “Bible college” and “Bible institute” imply, is the central point of integration. But why so? Why not theology, as in many seminaries? Or why not the officially sanctioned philosophy of a great doctor of the church, as in the Roman Catholic institutions with their Thomism?

Before dismissing the question as being so obvious as not to require an answer, let us look beneath the surface to see some reasons why this Book, and no other, must be central in Christian education.

The first reason is the sheer, unapproachable greatness of the written Word of God. Considered just as a book, it holds the first place by reason of the criterion voiced in the classic treatise On the Sublime, in which Longinus declares, “That is really great which bears a repeated examination and which it is difficult or rather impossible to withstand and the memory of which is strong and hard to efface.… For when men of different pursuits, lives, ambitions, ages, languages, hold identical views on one and the same subject, then the verdict which results, so to speak, from a concert of discordant elements makes our faith in the object of admiration strong and unassailable.” This is the doctrine of literary criticism known as the Law of Universal Consent and it applies to the Bible as literature. It is a fact that over and above any other piece of world literature from Homer down through Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe, no book has been more fully acknowledged as great simply as a book than the Bible.

Let no Christian educator ever apologize to the sophisticated of the educational world for such a designation as “Bible College.” It should be for all who are committed to this kind of education a badge of honor. To take as the center of the curriculum the one book to which alone the superlative “greatest” can without challenge be applied—this is neither narrow nor naive. It is just good judgment to center on the best rather than the second best.

But there is a deeper reason why the written Word of God must be at the heart of our schools and colleges, and that is its authority as the inspired, inerrant Word of God. At this point plain speaking is in order. The current movement to express in contemporary, understandable terms the eternal verities of the faith, so that the people whom we must reach for Christ will know what we are talking about, deserves support. We should rejoice at the renaissance of good and enlightened scholarship among evangelicals which is sometimes called neo-evangelicalism. But at the same time we must not blink the evidence that there is current among some evangelicals a subtle erosion of the doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture that is highly illogical as well as dangerous.

It is illogical for this reason. We live in a day when archaeology has come into conformity with Scripture to such a degree that the number of alleged discrepancies used by destructive critics of the past in their effort to discredit Scripture has been greatly reduced. Today scholars are writing such chapters as “Reversals of Old Testament Criticism” and “Reversals of New Testament Criticism” (see the recently published symposium, Revelation and the Bible). Those who over the years have held a suspended judgment regarding Bible difficulties, while still adhering to the inerrancy of the Book, have found question after question cleared up by new knowledge. Therefore, with all our openness of mind and emphasis on scholarship, we need to be careful to maintain the historic, Reformed view of a Bible infallible in the autographs (a view not to be equated with the dictation, mechanical theory of inspiration, but one held by our Lord and the apostles). And we need to maintain this position against neo-orthodox views of the Bible that may infiltrate even the Bible college and Bible institute. Let us by all means redefine and restate the evangelical position, but never at the cost of yielding any essential part of the authority of the Bible.

CRITICISM AND EDUCATION

The second reason why Scripture must be at the heart of education concerns its indispensable critical function. In a day of debased values and satisfaction with the second and even third rate, education requires a standard and point of reference by which the cheapened standards of our day may be judged.

Writing at the beginning of the industrial revolution in England, the poet Wordsworth declared: “… a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.” And he went on to speak of the literature of violence and sensationalism of his day. But now, under the impact of far greater changes and forces than any industrial revolution, and beset with the debasement of plain, everyday decency, this violent age in which we live has far more need of discriminating judgment than that of Wordsworth.

No other book can fulfill this critical, discriminating function like the Word of God. As the writer of Hebrews put it, “the word of God is quick, and powerful, sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner [Greek, kritikos] of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” In a time which Sir Richard Livingstone has rightly called “The Age without Standards,” the Bible alone qualifies as the supreme critic of life and thought.

Dr. H. Langmead Casserly has called our world “The Bent World.” The “bent” refers to the distortion of sin that stems from the fall and runs through all of life. And from this “bent,” even Christian education is no exception. We do not always realize that this distortion affects areas of knowledge and education to different degrees. As Emil Brunner has pointed out, the twist resulting from sin is most marked in the humane subjects like theology, philosophy, history, and literature. It is less marked in areas like physics and chemistry, and in mathematics it approaches zero. Thus there is Christian theology, Christian philosophy, or Christian literature, but not Christian mathematics. It is in the humanities that the curricula in our schools and colleges have their strongest emphasis; and it is here that the critical, penetrating, revealing function of the Bible is most needed.

Now true as this principle is in practice it needs care and courage. Let us in Christian education be fearless enough in our reliance on Scripture as the critic to subject even our cherished formulations of the Bible to its own divine, discriminating judgment. Let us see in searching scrutiny of the Bible that some of the neat and pat outlines and schemes we taught a former generation may need revision. For God has yet more light to break forth from his Word. Let us therefore seek to the glory of God to develop in our students a proper critical-mindedness that subjects all the thinking and formulations of men to the ultimate principles and judgments of the divine kritikos, the Word of God.

Acts chapter 17 gives us a significant example of this function of Scripture. The Christians at Berea, we are told, “were more noble than those at Thessalonica, in that they received the word [in this case doubtless the kerygma or proclamation of the Gospel] with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” In other words, these Christians subjected even the apostolic preaching to the test of the Scriptures. And, it should be pointed out, there is an extension of this Berean principle beyond even doctrine. I am not saying that technical knowledge in science or any other field must be checked point by point with the Bible, but that in respect to ultimates, to the comprehensive frame of reference in Christ by whom (Col. 1:17) “all things consist [hold together],” the Bible is the final critic.

There is a third reason why the Bible must be at the heart of Christian education. This relates to the all-important matter of knowing and finding the truth. The natural tendency of man (very evident in secular education) is to go it on his own. He is prone unwittingly to slip into the error of assuming that human effort, working independently, leads to the truth. Thus man tends to become in relation to knowledge what Emile Cailliet calls “a pseudo-maker,” with truth coming at the end of a process of human rationalization.

TRUTH IN EDUCATION

On the contrary, the whole thrust of the Bible is different. It does not give us truth by way of rationalization but by way of revelation. Truth is not something worked out by men; it is received by faith and then acted upon. Here the biblical method of knowledge is what Anselm of Canterbury expressed in three great words—“Credo ut intelligam” (“I believe that I might know”)—a principle voiced also by Augustine some six hundred years before Anselm, when he wrote, “Nisi crederitis, non intelligetis” (“Unless you believe you will not come to know”). This great insight, so thoroughly biblical, is not, as Professor J. Harris Harbison of Princeton University points out, any “advocacy of blind faith, but the testimony of one of the greatest minds in Christian history to the fact that truth can never be grasped by man’s mind alone.” Going back to Solomon, we must add this: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;” for there can be no “fear of the Lord” without humble belief and reverential trust.

Moreover, basic knowledge in any field, including scientific insight, has this ultimate revelational factor. As Cailliet in his recent book, The Recovery of Purpose, again reminds us, reality was “there in the first place and then literally happened” to man. Witness, among many instances, Archimedes with his unexpected discovery of the principle of hydrostatics and Newton’s experience that led to a comprehension of the law of gravitation. In the deepest sense, knowledge is something that “happens to man” by way of faith acting upon faith; it is not “spun out of the human self.” And the Bible is the book of faith leading to truth.

THE WORD AND NATURE

But the great phrase, “The Word of God,” has two other meanings aside from Scripture itself. These also must be seen in relation to the Bible college. Consider creation as the Word of God, or nature as God’s other book. The Psalmist says: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.… For he spake, and it was done” (33:6, 9). And the prologue of John’s Gospel declares: “In the beginning was the Word.… All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” So also, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psa. 19:1); and, looking about us in the natural world, we may see “the invisible things of him … even his eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20).

Now this aspect of “The Word of God” has its clear implications for the curriculum of the Bible college or Bible institute. We are living in an age of science and mathematics. Therefore, we must, if we are to communicate with those about us, speak their language. For obvious reasons the schedules of most Bible colleges are preponderantly loaded in the direction of Bible, theology, language, philosophy, music, and the like. However, must not room be made for science and mathematics, not so much in the way of technical laboratory courses (most Bible colleges have neither equipment nor time for such) but rather through setting up good survey courses in these fields so that Bible college graduates will be to some degree literate in contemporary, world-changing concepts of science and mathematics?

Caution should be given at this point. The Bible college must be a Bible college. Even though the trend towards its becoming a liberal arts college is clearly discernible, a Bible college should never be regarded as just a half-way house to the regular college. It is an institution in its own right, and it has its own distinctive contribution to make. The crying need to include in the curriculum something of science and mathematics should not be pressed to the extent of making the Bible college only an attenuated form of the liberal arts college. If God leads a school towards liberal arts, well and good; let it cease being a Bible college. Otherwise let it stay what it is.

I have one other comment about broadening the curriculum. There are those who charge Christian education, centered in the Bible, with narrowness and provincialism. In his book, Christian Faith and Higher Education, Nels Ferré says, “Some writers … advocate the teaching of the Bible as central to the Christian curriculum. When this suggestion is understood … namely, that the Bible is the source book and standard of all other truth, the Bible is wronged and higher education is imperialistically attacked. This is parochialism of the first order.” But if Dr. Ferré had read his reference, Christian Education in a Democracy, carefully, he would have seen that nowhere is the Bible set up as the source book of all other truth. Instead he would have seen that the Bible invites Christian education “to range over the realm of science in all its forms, over the treasures of literature, the mansions of philosophy and theology, and the beauty of music and art; according to its [the Bible’s] warrant, all the best that has been thought and said and done by men through the ages … comes within the province” of Christian education. By this token, the Bible college has a right and obligation to graduate men and women with some degree of literacy in fields of science and mathematics.

We look again at the phrase, “The Word of God,” to see its third meaning. While the Bible is assuredly “the Word of God” and while creation is God’s other book, the Word of God is something even greater than these. As every Christian knows to his soul’s salvation, the Word of God is also Christ. To the first two meanings of the phrase, “the Word of God,” He sustains an indissoluble and pre-eminent relation. In Hebrews 4:12–16, we see the writer’s thought moving from what most commentators take to be the written Word, to the Son of God, the incarnate Word. The plain fact is that Christian education must always see the Bible not as an end in itself but as pointing to Christ who is its theme and subject from Genesis to Revelation.

THE INCARNATE WORD

The moment we lose sight of the fact that the incarnate Word, the eternal Son of God, is greater than and above the written Word which with all its inspiration and infallibility, is still a product of the Holy Spirit, we are in danger of bibliolatry. As Adolph Saphir said, “By bibliolatry I understand the tendency of separating in the first place the Book from the Person of Jesus Christ, and in the second from the Holy Spirit, and of thus substituting the Book for Him who is alone the light and guide of the church.”

For a school to be called a college or school of the Bible is in itself no guarantee of power. It is even possible for the orthodox to become so devoted to technicalities of biblical scholarship as to lose sight of Him whom the Bible is all about. Said D. L. Moody in his forthright way, “The key to the whole Bible is Jesus Christ. You remember that on the way to Emmaus with those two disciples, ‘beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he [Jesus] expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.’ Notice those two ‘alls.’ The one theme of the Old Testament in type and prophecy is the Messiah; and the New Testament deals with his life on earth, and with the Church which is his body, and with his coming glory.”

When the Bible is really at the center in education, the one chief subject is not just the Bible in its linguistic and historic or even doctrinal sense. It is, over and above this, Jesus Christ. As Professor T. W. Manson remarked in a comment on Ephesians 4:20 (where Paul says by way of exhortation, “You have not so learned Christ”), “The writer speaks of learning Christ as you might learn algebra or French. It is an extraordinary statement and one, I think, that goes to the heart of the matter.” Spencer Leeson, Bishop of Peterborough in England, in his Bampton Lectures at Oxford, titled Christian Education, heads his chapter on “The Content of Christian Education” with the eighth verse of Hebrews 13: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” And how does a Bible college or any educational institution teach Christ? In the classroom, yes, but also by the kind of administration and teachers it has. By its ethical, disciplinary, and social tone, and by all that it is and stands for, it teaches Christ.

THE CURSE OF MEDIOCRITY

In conclusion, consider the implications of what we have been discussing. The implications for the Bible college, as well as for all Christian education, commit us in one direction, namely, toward the continuing obligation of excellence. At the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Cum Laude Society in 1956, one of the country’s distinguished educators, Dr. Claude Fuess, Principal Emeritus of Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, spoke on the subject, “The Curse of Mediocrity.” In his comment on the prevailing satisfaction with the average and second rate in our schools and colleges he quoted this evaluation: “Dismal and hopeless mediocrity is the most serious menace to present-day primary and secondary education in America.” And, we might add, it is the most serious menace to college education also. If mediocrity will not do for public and secular education, it is doubly a curse, even a scandal, for evangelicals contentedly to tolerate it in education that is committed unreservedly to the Word of God with all the depth of meaning that accompanies such commitment.

Someone will say, “But we in Christian education just do not have resources in equipment and endowment that secular institutions have.” That is true. In this world’s goods Christian education is comparatively poor. But good taste and excellence and high personal standards and lofty intellectual achievement are not confined to the rich. Granted that the quest for excellence is a continuing one and that humility forbids anyone a feeling that he has arrived, the Bible college, along with every other part of Christian education, cannot evade the unremitting pursuit of excellence to the glory of God.

Hudson Taylor once said: “Every work for God has three states—Impossible, Difficult, Done.” Most Christian schools and colleges have been through the “Impossible” stage, when it hardly seemed that they could ever begin. All of them are in the “Difficult” stage right now, and here they stay; to make the Word of God central in education, and to do this without mediocrity and with a growing attainment of excellence, is a day by day adventure. Only at the final time of accounting, when we stand before the throne of him whose Name is called “The Word of God,” will “Done” be written over our endeavors to make the Word of God the center of education.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

To solidify recent gains in evangelism, missions, and literature, ought evangelical forces to rally cooperatively to the high vision of an accredited Christian university? Has the providential hour struck for American evangelicals to establish a major supradenominational university strategically located near a great metropolitan area? To lift the Christian college movement to new levels of academic effectiveness in liberal arts and graduate studies, should dedicated scholars now shape a new enterprise to state the Christian claim in the major fields of learning with fresh power, and in this time of secular challenge voice the Christian answer with new relevance?

We think the providential moment is here. The tide of American thought and life makes imperative a Christian university devoted in depth to the biblical revelation of God, of man, and of the world; aggressively challenging pagan and secular theories of reality and history; and supplying a steady stream of spiritual leadership to all professions and vocations, including diplomacy, business, and communication.

THE BASIC IMAGE

What should be the basic image of a Christian university in the modern academic world? If worthy of the name, such a school must deal with the foundational issues of thought and life in the rich context of the Bible. It must be evangelistic in relevance, evangelical in doctrine, and committed both to high academic standards and to moral purity. But unless it is much more, it cannot qualify as a genuinely Christian university.

Besides a deep sense of personal devotion to the Lord, the faculty must grasp the history of thought in systematic orientation to Jesus Christ as the revealed center of history, nature, conscience, and redemption, and thus bring the “ancient mind,” the “medieval mind,” the “modern mind,” the “contemporary mind” under the judgment of divine revelation. To integrate the totality of life’s experiences, qualified teachers must be concerned to unify campus disciplines within the perspective of the Christian world-life view. Aware of the tragic cultural crisis of our times, moreover, they must delineate the political, economic, and social implications of Christianity, and expound a consistent criticism of and alternative to collectivistic revisions of the social order which invariably downgrade the biblical view of man.

In addition to individual projects and literary excursions, members of a Christian university faculty must engage in corporate conversation, research, and writing, each contributing toward the production of textbooks to penetrate the collegiate world and to challenge the monopoly now held by secular scholars. Were such a university to realize its greatest potential, it could be a platform for the ablest evangelical scholars of all traditions, and could encouragingly solidify the international witness of conservative Christianity.

EXISTING PROGRAMS

To surrender any of these high objectives will necessarily weaken the full potential of a Christian university. The present status of one or other of these imperatives in existing evangelical institutions makes doubly imperative the establishment of a Christian university devoted primarily to these objectives. For a variety of reasons, evangelical colleges have had little corporate faculty research and writing to advance the Christian view of God and the world over against non-Christian expositions, and therefore have posed less serious academic challenge to secular thinkers on the modern scene. With a vested interest in his institution, an administrator of an existing college may be tempted to view the proposed university as competitive. But such a fully accredited university would operate at a different level from unaccredited schools. (Excluding Bible colleges and junior colleges, 22 out of 36 well-known evangelical colleges have no regional accreditation, in many cases due to lack of finances.) Actually, educators in these schools can benefit from the new enthusiasm a Christian university project will create for the whole cause of evangelical education. Presently accredited colleges have not aggressively fostered the university ideal, however. The envisioned university would not replace nor could it be superimposed upon the existing structures.

In three specific areas a Christian university must aggressively press beyond much of contemporary evangelical education. While a supradenominational institution cannot commit itself to specific denominational creeds, a Christian university ought to seek in this day of doctrinal decline an undergirding statement both biblically authentic and intellectually adequate for depth of faith and a comprehensive world-life view. Equally important, a university’s academic priority and efficiency ought to be guarded so that faculty and students are not deviated into constant preaching or promotional activity, since a worthy graduate school must be devoted to study and research and writing. Moreover, the sphere of campus morality ought to provide a strategic opportunity to dramatize, in personal as well as social ethics, Christian dedication primarily to the commandments of God rather than to the regulations of men.

THE WIDENING DILEMMA

Launching an institution of higher learning is always a colossal venture—the more so in our generation—and the more difficult in the case of a Christian university. But dedicated men who have seen the warmth of Christian vision melt huge twentieth century odds against a new advance in evangelism, in missions, in literature, will have faith, too, for a new era in Christian education.

1. The evangelical penetration of American Christianity, since the theological breakdown of liberalism, has itself turned young people in search of Christ-centered collegiate studies at a remarkable rate. There is limited room for them, if any, in accredited Christian colleges now existing; the enrollment problem worsens by the year, and these institutions now annually turn away thousands of eligible students (Wheaton College alone receives almost 7500 inquiries a year).

On most secular campuses students find an atmosphere repressive of Christian faith and life; where Christian concern survives, it does so often at the evangelistic level, and even in this respect students are far ahead of most faculty members. The classroom tendency is to disregard Christianity as a relevant world-life view. Consequently, many first-rate Christian students are subjected to second-rate education regarding spiritual and moral realities.

2. Most evangelical missionary candidates come from Christian colleges and Bible institutes. The number of candidates for missionary service from secular schools is steadily declining. With the impending population explosion, rising literacy rates, and the earth shadowed by Communist propaganda and aggression, the need for a virile Christian thrust by well-trained workers is apparent. They will require the very best education.

3. Since the number of college students will rise (according to current estimates, from 30 per cent of the college age group five or ten years ago, to 50 per cent in 1970), the need for teachers will be fully as urgent as the demand for classrooms. Dr. Enock C. Dyrness of Wheaton College warns that “unless we are willing to see our educational system completely secularized, we must start to expand the facilities in existing Christian colleges and build a Christian university where teachers and leaders may be trained.” News commentator Paul Harvey prophesies that “such an institution can be the lighthouse for the cause of freedom,” and adds, “the whole atmosphere of the front page reminds us of the acute urgency of the hour.” Leadership of the left-wing movements in our generation has come largely from the great Eastern universities that surrendered their evangelical heritage and now assail the Christian view. Many Christian laymen agree that now only a Christian challenge in depth can rescue an America already hurtling over the Great Falls of secularism. Some have called the Board of Trustees of a Christian university the veritable shock troops of a vast army facing with new courage the enemies of faith and freedom. While a great many Americans are noble and God-fearing, they are disorganized at grass roots and in need of leadership.

4. Although evangelical educators have established vigorous academic ventures through the years, no interdenominational institution launched on a conservative basis compares favorably in reputation with the big-name universities. If they take accredited education seriously, the so-called evangelical universities today are almost all embarrassed by the promotional enthusiasm that generated their past designation as “university” rather than college. Not all have a strong undergraduate liberal arts program, even less do they penetrate the large graduate sphere, and stress primarily, if not exclusively, the ministry among the professions. In view of this void, some leaders feel it would be culpable not to launch a Christian university if the necessary funds can be attracted. Were the plan projected by a company of responsible and respected leaders, it is thought, one source might be interested in providing a library, another a chapel, and another a dormitory, dining hall or gymnasium. The underwriting of faculty chairs and other aspects of the university could attract other participants, while hundreds of thousands of churchgoers, it is hoped, would rally smaller gifts.

GRAHAM’S ENDORSEMENT

Evangelist Billy Graham’s far-reaching vision has brought new courage to the evangelical enterprise at many levels, and it has also revealed an enlarging burden and responsibility for the thousands of teen-age converts in big city crusades. Many have no opportunity in these areas to be graduated from an accredited Christian college. A case in point was the Madison Square Garden Crusade. Here New York laymen were deeply troubled to abandon college-age converts to secular schools and educators for lack of an effective metropolitan alternative. Some of these very laymen are now pleading the cause of a Christian university in the Gotham area and have implored Dr. Graham to gather together evangelical leaders who share this academic vision. There must be action, they feel, before mounting taxation puts to flight the vast resources of private wealth and income necessary to the venture. Insisting that he must be free to give himself to the great task of evangelism, Dr. Graham has refused to entangle himself with academic responsibilities. He has, however, given much encouragement to the plan, though disallowing use of his own name in the naming of an institution. Dr. Graham clearly shares the burden for a Christian university that brings classical distinction to evangelical education, and has encouraged discussion and planning by interested leaders. He has met with such groups when possible and has prayed with them for a breakthrough in terms of site, funds, and, above all, divine guidance.

Present discussions favor a New York area location. Not only is that community of obvious strategic importance, but no accredited institution of the anticipated kind exists among its 12 million inhabitants. The evangelical movement now lacks a firm foothold in the area, and some financial enthusiasm is evident. Others contend that location is relatively unimportant. What is equally important, they insist, is not to encumber the university vision by needless restrictions which will tend to impede academic virility.

IS IT TOO LATE?

This dream of a great Christian university may seem unrealistic. Many liberal arts colleges (let alone private universities) are in financial trouble. Public institutions increasingly dominate the educational scene. Private colleges are becoming quasi-public through dependence on programs like the National Defense Education Act. Church giving is “a drop in the bucket” of private college needs, tuition charges are skyrocketing to meet professors’ salaries, endowment funds are sapped by heavy government taxation that reduces the capacity for philanthropy.

Self-educated men, moreover, seldom weary of pointing out that 85 per cent of Americans over 29 years of age have never entered college, and that some who have plumbed the Great Books, like Charles Van Doren, can graduate to a career of intellectual prostitution. Others complain that of every 10 college students, two are helped, two are hurt, and six waste time.

Even church colleges have a disappointing history; many have lost their early Christian vision, and evangelical conviction often struggles for expression and even survival on campuses to which it once imparted life. Among approximately 600 of the 750 liberal arts colleges in the United States that are church-related, some have not attained high academic ideals, many more neglect the implications of the Christian faith. The founders have had a great vision, churchmen and laymen have given sacrificial support, the campus has a great beginning and tradition. But often when professors in these same schools today close the classroom doors to lecture, they resurrect Aristotle and Hegel, Darwin and Dewey, Kant and Kierkegaard, only to leave Jesus Christ hanging on the Cross, unrecognized and unwanted.

Where evangelical ideals prevail, the problem of funds often predominates. The woeful lack of support for Christian colleges, many of which operate “on a shoestring,” is one of the strange ironies of the evangelical resurgence. In some measure, this situation doubtless reflects the reluctance of donors to establish permanent endowments because they have seen large gifts perverted to alien points of view. More and more it is apparent that no legal device can keep a school doctrinally sound or spiritually alive; the intellectual and spiritual integrity of the Board of Trustees, the administration and the faculty remains the key to institutional integrity. One fact is sure: no provision for a Christian university will be adequate without extensive endowment.

Perhaps it is too late for a Christian university. But of the need, the staggering need, there can be no doubt. To venture or not to venture the project in faith may determine more than the spiritual temperature of the nation; equally much the decision will gauge the nature and depth of evangelical resurgence of America today.

We Quote:

EDUCATION AND MORALS—“Many a divorced professor is teaching in our colleges; some of them are even regarded as authorities in the fields of marriage, sexual adjustment and family. We have legions of divorces and divorcees among our most prominent citizens, including captains of industry and finance, journalists and writers, doctors and lawyers, civic leaders and politicians. Sexual infamy is almost a necessary condition for becoming a star of stage, movie or television; sometimes, it is found to be the only talent possessed by these performers, who are otherwise perfectly innocent of the art of artful acting. Among our public officials, there is a vast legion of profligates, both heterosexual and homosexual.”—Dr. PITIRIM SOROKIN, in The American Sex Revolution, p. 44.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.