The penchant of the Roman Catholic for politics is well known. It extends both to laymen and clerics. The nexus of many a municipal political machine has been a close liaison between parish priest and diocesan bishop, on the one hand, and the boss, on the other. New York City, Boston, and Chicago offer ready examples. In New York City where 80 per cent of the Catholics regularly vote the Democratic ticket, no Protestant would have a chance to be mayor. In Massachusetts, from Boss Curley’s time, the dominant political power has been Roman Catholic. It is axiomatic that no man can be nominated on the Democratic ticket without the nod of Cardinal Cushing. No Protestant could possibly be elected mayor of Chicago today because of the large “Catholic vote.” In 1959 the Mayoral race featured Catholics on both major tickets and another Catholic on a third party ticket.

On the national scene Roman Catholic political power is a formidable front unparalleled by organized Protestantism. The Catholic role has been that of king maker rather than king. While there has been an unwritten rule that the presidential nominee of the Democratic party must not be Catholic, there has been an equally prevailing rule that the chairman of the national committee must always be Catholic.

Now the Catholic genius for politics is taking a new direction. It turns from king-maker to king. It would like, perhaps, to achieve in the nation what it has already achieved in New York, Boston, and Chicago. It is challenging the prevailing rule (disastrously disregarded once) that no major party nominee can be of Roman Catholic faith. A ground swell within this communion advocates abandonment of the traditional taboo. This sentiment converges on Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose assets in seeking the Democratic nomination are his youthful charm and his father’s unlimited financial resources.

The Laity Want It

The inspiration beyond the Kennedy drive is lay rather than clerical. Catholic clerics have thrived so notably as political king makers and deployers of political influence that they have seen little need to change the role. They have not forgotten the Al Smith debacle of 1928. Clerics who have traditionally preferred a “cooperative” Protestant to a Catholic in office have been moved by the enthusiasm among the laity. The late Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop William C. Brady, and Bishop John J. Wright all have urged the desirability of a Catholic candidate for President. Cardinal Cushing has long been pleading for Kennedy’s nomination. “Prejudice Has Disappeared,” “Religion No Factor in Election”—so run the headlines. The Jesuit publication America has even argued that the desirable 1960 candidate for President, if not a Catholic, ought to have a Catholic as running mate. This applies to both parties, America contends, for if the Democrats nominate Kennedy, the Republicans will need a Catholic on the ticket to offset Kennedy’s appeal to Catholic voters. Many published comments seem designed to throw an aura of invincibility about a Catholic candidate, as though mere nomination of a Catholic—any Catholic—would assure election.

The reaction of Protestants to this drive for a Catholic candidate appears confused. It seems to waver between panic, on the one hand, and slobbering sentimentality, on the other. Some Protestants appear determined to vote for a Catholic candidate just to prove how unbigoted and tolerant they are. Others are determined to vote against any nominee who is Catholic just because he is Catholic. One wonders about the sensibility of either attitude. All candidates, of course, should be analyzed on the basis of their record, ability, and integrity. The well-groomed effort to run a Catholic for President is understandable. The Catholic ambition to attain to the Presidency represents an emotional drive. Many Roman Catholics have suffered from inferiority feelings because of immigrant backgrounds and traditionally lower educational and economic statuses. For many Catholics the idea of a fellow member as President undoubtedly represents a “compensation” feeling. Such a distinction would help “prove” to themselves that they really belong. It has been estimated that as high as 85 per cent of Catholic voters might support any Catholic candidate.

Well, Why Not?

Well, why not? Perhaps a Catholic in the White House would contribute to Roman Catholic political maturity. This would be to the good. There is, however, another factor to be considered where a candidate of Roman Catholic faith is concerned. This is the “conflict of interest” issue involving church directives and United States civil practice. The Roman Catholic church claims absolute obedience of its members on all moral and spiritual issues. (This sphere, of course, includes virtually everything, or can be made to.) We must note also that the hierarchy of this church does have a political program for the United States which it is striving by political means to achieve. This political program envisages state subsidies for its educational operations. The hierarchy defines this as a “moral issue” by stating that it involves “freedom of choice” in education for Catholic parents. Practically all the highest leaders of American Catholicism, including the bishops, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and all official journals, have supported the drive to obtain these subsidies.

The First Amendment to the Federal Constitution, as repeatedly interpreted by the courts, and the constitutions and statutes of most states, stands squarely athwart this ambition of the church. The whole weight of Catholic Action has been squarely thrown into this struggle to change traditional Church-State pattern in favor of a new arrangement which would bring a billion and a half dollars in tax funds annually into the coffers of the Roman church.

A candidate of Roman Catholic faith is uniquely suspect on this issue. Would he not be inclined, if elected President, to further this subsidy program for his church more than a member of some other denomination in the same office? Would not the Catholic be less inclined to uphold the Constitution and the laws which forbid such expenditures? Would not a Catholic feel morally obligated as a Catholic to favor his church’s clearly articulated program on such an issue?

Catholic Action In Congress

Credence is lent to these fears by such activity as that of Catholic Congressman John W. McCormack (Dem., Mass.) who unabashedly uses his great power as majority leader of the House to secure financial grants for his church. It has been estimated that McCormack is personally responsible for legislation which, under various categories, has brought public funds of more than $30,000,000 to the institutions of his church. As one observer put it: “If a mere Congressman can do what John McCormack has done, what could a President accomplish?”

It should be pointed out, however, that the situation of a Catholic in the White House is substantially different from that of a Catholic in Representative McCormack’s position. McCormack lives among priest-minded Catholics. He needs no Protestant votes, and never gives them a thought. Quite otherwise would be the situation with a President. How well Senator Kennedy realizes this is demonstrated by his Church-State credo proclaimed in Look magazine, March 3, 1959. The senator asserted that his civil responsibilities as an office holder would take precedence over the demands of the leaders of his church, should there be a conflict. He even spelled out this conflict in the specific instance we have cited here. He said that he would uphold the Constitution and the courts’ interpretation of it in the matter of public subsidies to parochial schools. He went still further by saying that in no case would directives of his church “take precedence over (my) oath to uphold the Constitution in all its parts—including the First Amendment and the strict separation of Church and State.”

These statements are clarifying—even more so than Al Smith’s famous credo in 1928. There remains, nevertheless, this fact—that any Catholic as the nation’s chief executive would be under implicit but sustained pressure from his church where “conflict of interest” is involved. To be sure, every man in the White House operates under pressures. The Catholic official would have all the regular pressures, plus. He would have, in addition, the constant pressure of his church on the school issue, on issues involving birth control, procedures in public hospitals, family welfare measures, and all issues involving “natural law” (that is, Roman Catholic law) and, indeed, on any issue of the church’s choosing. The rather grim aspect of such pressure is the fact that back of it there always lies the silent threat of those terrifying penalties which their church has the power to inflict upon the faithful.

The grave view which the Roman church itself takes on the matter of a layman’s independence is to be noted in its instantaneous critical reaction to the senator’s attempt to proclaim his independence of clerical pressures. Senator Kennedy was almost unanimously assaulted by the Catholic diocesan papers and even by the so-called “laymen’s publication,” Commonweal. There was marked bitterness because of his stand on the church school subsidy. As The Monitor put it, Senator Kennedy will not “succeed in sweeping under the rug the question of a square deal in distribution of tax aid to education.”

Pressure And Counter Pressure

While not so formidable as the pressure from his own church, there would certainly be counter pressures on the Catholic President. There would be prompt Protestant and Jewish resentments were he to appear to be “doing too much for the Catholics.” Publicity as a Catholic Actionist, which Representative McCormack has almost miraculously avoided, would be impossible for a President to escape. Suspicious eyes would be focused on his every act. The hierarchy understand this and have not been eager to have a Catholic in the White House. But now they are committed. They are committed to Kennedy, who, if nominated, will get “the Catholic vote” no matter what the diocesan papers say and no matter who is on the other ticket. They have apparently decided to sacrifice something in the way of financial benefits for the prestige of having a Catholic in the White House.

This does not mean that a Roman Catholic President would have vetoed such church benefit bills as the nearly $1,000,000 “war damage” bill to refurbish the Pope’s summer palace, or the various “war claims” that have poured millions into the Catholic parishes of the Philippines, or the special benefit bills for Catholic hospitals. It is not inconceivable, however, that a Catholic President might have quietly discouraged such legislation because he would not want to be embarrassed by it. A Protestant such as Mr. Eisenhower, could not do such a thing without being castigated as “anti-Catholic”—a designation which a Catholic President would avoid by definition. Some maneuvering of this kind would actually benefit a Catholic President who could thus gain stature as “being fair.”

The shoe must also be tried on the other foot. If a Roman Catholic as President might be suspect on the matter of “helping the Catholics,” why would not a Protestant as President be suspect in helping the Protestants? The answer is simple: he would not be helping them because there is nothing he could help them with. Protestants have no designs on the public treasury. They are not out for an ambassador to their chief. They are not trying to “get something” from the government as Protestants. So far as “Protestant interests” are concerned no more financial benefit would ensue were a Protestant a President than if an atheist were President.

It does, of course, help the Protestants to have in the office a man of genuine personal faith and holy habits. President Eisenhower’s consistent church attendance has been a stimulus to the church enterprise. But this involves no program of political action and helps Catholic churches as well as Protestant.

Chain Reaction

The stimulus which a Catholic President might lend to Catholic subsidy demands could well be quite indirect. In 1954 Edmund Muskie was elected governor of Maine, the first Catholic to hold the office. Of five major places on his ticket four were filled by Catholics. The Democratic Party in Maine has become identified as the party of Catholic Action. No sooner had Governor Muskie been inaugurated than Bishop Daniel J. Feeney of Maine launched a political attack on Senator Margaret Chase Smith concerning an issue, two years old, over which she had no jurisdiction.

Shortly after Muskie began his term, demands for bus transportation to Roman Catholic schools at public expense began to echo over the state. In Augusta, priests, angered because their demands were not immediately met, threatened to “dump” 900 parochial pupils on the public schools the following Monday. Governor Muskie was not back of this intemperate drive, but it did develop coincident with his election.

In the state of Washington Albert D. Rosellini was elected governor, the first Catholic to hold that office. Swept in with him were a lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, insurance commissioner, speaker of the House, majority leader of the House, president pro-tem of the Senate, and majority floor leader of the Senate—all of Roman Catholic faith. Campaign literature and marked sample ballots had been handed out in some Catholic churches. Following the election, the Catholic lobby descended on Olympia with a Catholic Action legislative program calling for various kinds of subsidies to parochial schools and a proposal to revise the state constitution so as to remove barriers against the use of public funds for church activities.

In Ohio, the successful campaign of the second Roman Catholic governor in the state’s history, Michael V. DiSalle, quickly benefited his church. Two days before the voting, a Protestant attorney general handed down an opinion which approved placing garbed nuns on the public pay roll as teachers in public schools. Hardly had the new regime taken office when another ruling, rendered by prosecuting Attorney John T. Corrigan of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), gave the green light to bus transportation to church schools at public expense in that area. These big breaks for parochial schools were not Governor DiSalle’s work, but was his triumph the occasion for them?

Election of David Lawrence as the first Roman Catholic governor of Pennsylvania was followed by demands for revision of the state constitution to make possible use of public funds for sectarian hospitals. A movement supported by “citizens’ committees” was clamoring for a further constitutional amendment which would permit parochial bus transportation at public expense. In Colorado the victory of Stephen L. R. McNichols as the first Roman Catholic governor had as one of its first consequences a bill for transportation to parochial schools supported by tax funds.

Would the election of a Catholic as chief executive set off a chain reaction of Catholic demands throughout the nation?

Collateral Results

There could be further collateral results that would not make Protestants happy. Catholic Action would undoubtedly attempt to parlay the first Catholic nominee (in either the first or second place) into a concept of religious “parity” on major tickets. This concept has already been established in New York where, in 1958, the logical nominee, Finletter, had to be passed over because the Protestant, Harriman, had to have a Catholic running mate on the ticket. So the implication well be made that in order to present a “balanced” ticket there must be a Catholic in one of the places. Catholic Action has worked hard and long to achieve this concept in the military chaplaincy. With only about 25 per cent of the personnel they are now within sight of attaining 50–50 parity in the top jobs. The idea is gaining that either the chief or his deputy must always be Catholic.

Still another result which Protestants fear in a Catholic President is a sympathetic explosion of public displays of the Roman Catholic faith. Most Catholic politicians do not seem to understand the subtleties of a system like ours. They dote on public demonstrations of their denominational symbols and observances. Roman Catholicism is a majority faith in many areas of this country. As a majority faith Catholics frequently show insensitivity to the religious sensibilities of those who do not share their faith. They may flaunt their religious practices and virtually force them on the entire community. They have an astonishing faculty for never suspecting that the symbol or observance which inspires them may be shocking and abhorrent to persons of another faith.

A Catholic Actionist in an official position may arrange for a denominational statue to be placed in a public site—on the highway, on the river, in a park. Catholic Actionists of the Holy Name Society have embarked upon a program to dedicate various branches of the United States armed forces to patron saints of their denomination—St. Maurice, St. Barbara, St. Michael, St. Sebastian and so forth. No doubt they were amazed at the hostility their program evoked among service men. A Catholic Actionist in charge of a satellite launching attached to it a sectarian medal to publicize his church. In various areas where they predominate, Catholics have seized control of the public schools, staffed them with nun teachers and introduced the catechism and practices of the Roman Church.

Catholic Actionists who head departments seem to regard it as a part of their religious practice to load the department with their co-religionists. This is a performance which Protestants neither duplicate nor comprehend. Finally, as we have already seen, the election of a Roman Catholic to a responsible post tends to send his co-religionists rushing to the legislature with a pack of subsidy bills for their church.

It is an immature concept of public function which Protestants fear in a Catholic President. They fear, too, a daily circus of priests and nuns parading in full regalia in and out of the White House to the accompaniment of endless photos on the front pages, the back pages, and the middle pages. Many of these matters involve no exercise of presidential prerogatives at all. They are matters of taste, matters of restraint on the part of the Roman Catholic church and its press agents. This is a large area in which Catholics, both lay and clerical, have much to learn. Evidence that they have learned and are learning would ease the ways to fulfillment of what is apparently a consuming Catholic ambition—a Roman Catholic President.

END

C. Stanley Lowell is Managing Editor of Church State Review and Associate Director of Protestants and Other Americans United. A Methodist clergyman, he holds the B.A. degree from Asbury College, M.A. from Duke, and B.D. from Yale Divinity School. His article in Christianity Today, “The Rising Tempo of Rome’s Demands,” reached a million people.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not definitely affirm that Christianity is the ultimate religion, but the thought flashes and shimmers between the lines. What he sets himself to prove is that Christianity is better than Judaism, which was better than any other religion of that time. It follows then that Christianity was the best religion yet to appear. I think the author of Hebrews would go further and affirm that Christianity is absolute, and that no religion superior to it can ever arise.

What is the author’s conception of religion? What end is in view, as the central idea and object of religion? Is it not that of union and communion with God, access to and fellowship with divine reality? Is not religion, every religion, meant to be a method of escape and a method of access? Escape from what? Access to what? It is an escape from sin and evil of every sort, and an access to the source of life and all blessings.

The real test of any religion is this: Does it answer the purpose of religion? Does it enable its votaries to arrive? Does it bring the worshiper to a state of rest at the seat and center of reality? Does it lead to the perfect life and establish the perfect fellowship? If so, it is the true religion, the absolute and final, the religion of truth. It can never be superseded, nor have a successor in the purpose of God or the experience of man. For it realizes the idea of religion by accomplishing fully, finally, and forever the object for which religion exists. No one will question the ultimate supremacy and finality of the perfect.

Perfect Revelation

Can it be shown, therefore, that Christianity is this perfect religion? Does it give satisfaction and rest of mind and soul by bringing the seeker into possession of the object of his quest? We believe it does.

How does it do this? 1. By a perfect revelation of the object of man’s quest. 2. By a perfect removal of the obstacle in the way of approach to that object. 3. By a perfect reconciliation and renewal of man’s soul after the image of God.

First, the object of quest in religion is God. God cannot be found out by searching on the part of man. He can be known only as He chooses to reveal himself. God has been pleased to reveal Himself. He has come out of eternity into time, has appeared in human form, and has spoken in human language.

The Epistle to the Hebrews opens with this arresting statement: “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son.” “Hath … spoken.” How formerly? Partially, variously. How finally? At the end of these days in his Son—that is, fully and finally. The Son knoweth the Father perfectly; no one else does. What could one do or say after all that was said and done by the Son? God’s Son is God’s last word to man, because there is nothing lacking. The revelation is complete, and therefore final.

Perfect Removal

The obstacles in the way of approach to God is sin. Jesus came to take away that obstacle. “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Judaism did not take away sin; it could not. No other religion besides Christianity can. Why? Because the mediators and means in other religions are unsuitable, insufficient, and ineffective. For example, the agents of Judaism—the prophets, priests, psalmists, and kings—were imperfect, by their own admission were imperfect in themselves, in their offerings, and in their service. What was true in these respects of Judaism is even more true of other religions. These systems, in their total sum and service, come short of perfection. Their agents and agencies are of the earth and of time, being shadows, symbols, types, unreal, and without effect in the sphere of the spiritual.

Of every high priest (except One) it is written that he is bound by reason of infirmity, as for his people, so for himself, to offer for sins (Heb. 5:3). As to the value of such offerings, this is the writer’s testimony:

For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they have not ceased to be offered? Because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins (Heb. 10:1–4).

Turning from these things which belong to the realm of the shadowy and unreal, let us consider the author of the Christian religion, the Apostle and High Priest of our religion, even Jesus.

According to the Book, He was and is perfect, having been made perfect (by divine appointment, by the constitution of his person, and by his experience in life) for the thing he came to do, namely to bring many sons out of sin and shame to God and glory. He was perfect in relation to God, being himself God; perfect in relation to man, being himself man; perfect in character, being sinless, holy, undefiled; separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens (Heb. 7:26); perfect therefore in his qualifications to reveal God and remove sin to reconcile God and the sinner and to renew the sinner unto the image of God.

The perfect efficacy of his mediation, revelation, expiation, and sanctification is due to two things:

The nature of his priesthood. It was not an official one, made by law of carnal commandment, inherited, and shared with others as was Aaron’s; rather, it was personal, original, eternal, without beginning or end like that of Melchizedek. His priesthood was grounded in his only and eternal Sonship. “Thou art my son,” said God (Ps. 2:7); “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4). Jesus was priest by virtue of inherent and inalienable right. His priesthood was not passed to him by a predecessor, nor passed by him to a successor. His priesthood, by virtue of its nature, was solitary in its exercise and sovereign in its effectiveness.

The nature of his offering. Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; wherefore, it was necessary that this high priest also have somewhat to offer (Heb. 8:3). Our heavenly high priest offered the Lamb of God, which was himself, the antitype of all the lambs slain on Jewish altars. This Lamb did what all other sacrificial lambs pointed to, but could not reach, namely, the removal of sin. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” For “once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).

The great High Priest of Christianity, royal and righteous, holy and undefiled, of God divine, of man human, a Son perfected forevermore, hath, by one offering of himself, perfected forever them that are sanctified (Heb. 10:14). Why? Because of the nature of his offering. It was personal, not animal; rational, not irrational; free, not forced; voluntary, not compulsory as were the offerings of Judaism; therefore, it was ethical and possessed of moral worth and power.

In the Christian religion, priest and victim, offerer and offering, sacrificer and sacrifice, are one and the same, together making a complete transaction, exhausting the idea of priesthood, and filling full the whole intention of religion. This consummate sacrifice accomplished perfectly the aim of all sacrifice and so made an end of sacrificial offerings. For where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for sin (Heb. 10:18).

It is noteworthy that within a few years after the death of Christ, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the sacrificial offerings of Jewish worship came to an end. Those who looked upon Christ as a sacrifice soon ceased to offer to God any bloody sacrifice at all. And wherever the Christian message penetrated, sacrificial altars were deserted and dealers in sacrificial beasts found no purchasers. If there is one thing that is certain in the history of religion, it is that the death of Christ put an end to all bloody sacrifice in the worship of God. Why? Because the aim and object of such sacrifices had been fully accomplished. To continue them would have been useless, even sinful. Here is an illustration of the truth: “When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Cor. 13:10).

What have we shown in all this? Two things, namely that the revelation of God in Christ is complete, and therefore final; and that the removal of sin by Christ is complete, therefore final. “When he had made purification of sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). He sat down because this phase of his task had been finished.

Perfect Reconciliation

A third thing follows: the reconciliation of God and of man. With sin removed, a way, a new and living way, has been opened into the presence of God where there is favor and forgiveness and fellowship forevermore. Since Christian religion accomplishes these three things, it is rightly called the perfect religion and, therefore, the final religion. Finality is equivalent to eternality. The everlastingness of Christ’s work is abundantly asserted in Hebrews. Thus: Christ’s blood is the blood of an eternal covenant; he offered himself through the eternal spirit; he obtained eternal redemption; he has become the author of eternal salvation; and he enables men to get hold of the eternal inheritance. Finality belongs only to the complete. Permanence is the property of the perfect.

In confirmation of this argument from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we should consider these questions:

Is not the incarnation of the Son of God the final step of God’s approach to man? Can you imagine a closer relation between the divine and the human?

Is not the death of the incarnate Son of God for sinners the final expression of God’s love?

Is not the resurrection of Christ the ultimate disclosure of life and immortality, the perfect proof of the power of life over death?

Is not the sinless manhood of Christ the ultimate goal conceivable of human life? Can you conceive of a higher destiny for man than Christlikeness?

The ascension of Christ and his session at the right hand of the Majesty on high is a symbol of his finality. He ascended to the throne of God over the world. Two corollaries follow from the finality of Christianity:

It is the only true religion, the one and only way to God. If there had been a religion before Christ that brought men and God together in holy and happy relationship, there would have been no need for his coming. Had there been another way than Jesus, Peter never could have said, “There is none other name under heaven that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The notion so common today that all religions are ways to God is thoroughly unscriptural.

The Christian religion is destined to replace all so-called religions. Since Christianity is the only true religion, it is clearly our duty to give Christianity to all mankind. And we may undertake the great enterprise in full confidence of ultimate success. The real must displace the unreal, the true must triumph over the false, the best must in the end prevail.

END

James Benjamin Green served 1921–50 as Professor of Theology in Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, where the chair of theology has been endowed in his name.

The ancient Greeks knew that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Over the Greek Temple at Delphi the words were inscribed: Know thyself. They knew the importance of self-knowledge as the key to all other knowledge. A number of theologians have recently drawn attention to the need for serious self-examination in relation to the work of the Church in general and the work of theological training in particular.

David Paton has edited an important volume entitled, Essays in Anglican Self-Criticism. Its purpose, he says, “is to draw attention to some of these intractable longer-term issues which lend themselves so well to formulation on the agenda of a committee or a conference, but which can be seen sooner or later to be of central importance.”

This attitude of self-concern is a healthy and encouraging sign. Reformed Churches are aware of the necessity for continual reformation according to the Word of God, and this activity demands self-scrutiny and self-examination. If it is necessary in relation to the activities of the institutional church, it is even more necessary in relation to the task of theological training, for the kind of ministers we get will depend to a great extent on the kind of training we give.

It was Richard Niebuhr who set the ball rolling by his study of The Purpose of the Church and Ministry (Reflections on the Aims of Theological Education)—a study which was sponsored and financed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York at a cost of 65,000 dollars. This study was simply a factual record of an existing state of affairs. It underlined the fragmentation which has occurred, and the fact that the curriculum “is a collection of studies rather than a course of study.” Niebuhr endeavored to analyze the nature of the malaise which at present afflicts theological training. “During the course of the last two or three generations the theological curriculum has been ‘enriched’—like vitamin-impregnated bread—by the addition of a long series of short courses in sociology and social problems, rural and urban sociology, the theory of religious education, educational psychology, methods of religious education, psychology of religion, psychology of personality, psychology of counseling, methods of pastoral counseling, theory of missions, history of missions, methods of evangelism, theory and practice of worship, public speaking, administration, et cetera, et cetera.” The inevitable result has been the neglect of the more traditional subjects of biblical studies.

The process of self-scrutiny has been carried a stage further by John McIntyre who succeeded John Baillie as Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. His contribution has added interest for those of us who live in the Antipodes, for McIntyre was Principal of St. Andrew’s College, Sydney, prior to his appointment to Edinburgh. He draws heavily on his experiences in Australia in the formulation of his conclusions.

McIntyre asks the pertinent questions: where are we going? what are we trying to do? He points out that there are two distinct kinds of theological training: the American, designed to produce in the student certain specific skills and techniques; and the British, concerned not with skills or techniques, but with “disciplines and discipline necessary in every ministry” (The Expository Times, April 1959). “The disciplines are those of the four or five basic academic subjects; and the discipline is that of a well-trained mind, which can discern the problem and make reasonable efforts to solve it.”

The courses provided in an American seminary “have in themselves no structure whatever; they are a list of classes. The student imposes order upon the chaos and he does so in terms of the kind of skills which he is likely to require in the type of ministry which he intends to perform.”

McIntyre makes it clear which system he prefers: “My own judgment is that the linguistic basis of our curriculum provides the disciplines and the discipline in the prime instance; and that with the disappearance of seriousness on the part of many of our students in this regard, the re-enforcement, the strengthening, has gone from our structure. The result of this is not just that these students are lazy about Greek and Hebrew: they are just so much slower in coming to terms with a complicated piece of Trinitarian theology or Kantian philosophy. The lack of discipline induced by the ambiguous relation in which they stand to the basic disciplines has produced what I can only call a fluffiness in their attitude to other subjects.”

McIntyre points out that the principle of a thorough academic training as a necessary prerequisite for the mastery of particular techniques has been adopted in other spheres. He states: “Certain of the larger industrial houses have invited to join their executive staffs Honours graduates in Arts with literally no knowledge of the techniques of the industry, solely on the assumption that a trained mind will make its contribution whatever the sphere in which it operates.”

Australian theological colleges have not resolved this problem. (Some colleges are not even aware that a problem exists.) The British system has been transplanted to Australia, but there is an increasing hankering after the American system. The consequence has been the addition of techniques to the heavy demands of a traditional course. Many colleges, concurrently with lectures on biblical and historical theology, biblical languages and church history, now provide courses on pastoralia, pastoral psychology, practical psychiatry, religious education, group dynamics, elocution, and so forth. The result is a conglomerate course over-weighted with the demands of assignments and “practical work” in the techniques of various specialties.

In one college the awareness of these tensions has led to a drastic redrafting of the whole theological course. In the future, during the first three years of training, students will be required to address themselves, without distraction, to the acquisition of theological learning: to the study of biblical languages, the study of the Old and New Testament, the study of theology, the study of Church history. From this three year course all so called practical subjects will be rigorously excluded. The final year or years will be devoted to the application of the knowledge already acquired to the several spheres of social life and ministerial responsibility. The study of these several specialties will be theological rather than sociological: the theological knowledge gained and the insights learned will then be applied within the context concerned. In this way the sovereignty of God will be rightly acknowledged, and God will be seen to be the Author and the Giver of every good and perfect gift.

Depth Psychology

Theology of Culture, by Paul Tillich (Oxford University Press, 1959, 213 pp., $4), is reviewed by Edward John Carnell, Professor of Apologetics, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Tillich has synthesized German speculation and American pragmatism. Depth psychology, with its roots in the Viennese school, is the key to this synthesis. Freud recovered the symbolism of common grace by accepting people who were unacceptable. Grace communicates a sense of worth. “You cannot help people who are in psychosomatic distress by telling them what to do. You can help them only by giving them something—by accepting them.”

Within this pragmatic climate Tillich dilates the more speculative aspects of his system. Christology, for example, answers to man’s search for self-realization. “There is a power from beyond existence which for us is verifiable by participation. This gives quite a different type of Christology. Christ is the place where the New Reality is completely manifest because in him every moment, the anxiety of finitude and the existential conflicts are overcome. That is his divinity.” To separate the threads of Biblical truth from this skein of speculative error will require considerable patience and theological skill.

Philosophy’S Autonomy

Tillich evacuates Scripture of its dogmatic rights by contending that philosophy enjoys autonomy in “the description of the structures and categories of being itself and of the logos in which being becomes manifest. Any interference of theology with these tasks of philosophy and science is destructive for theology itself.” One could only wish that the matter were this easy. Tillich, it would seem, has made an unfortunate concession to worldly wisdom.

Relieved of dogmatic theology, Tillich seldom misses a chance to depress those elements in Scripture that fall outside his system. The account of the virgin birth, for example, is “a most obviously legendary story, unknown to Paul and to John. It is a late creation, trying to make understandable the full possession of the divine Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.” This hypothesis may be fashionable in critical circles, but it is void of accuracy. Some enterprising reader ought to send Tillich a copy of J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ. If we neglect the historical elements in Christianity out of a zeal to defend the transcendent elements, we exhibit a very poor understanding of Christianity.

Culture’S Influence

When we ask Tillich why he builds his system on those parts of Scripture that he himself considers important, he replies in a somewhat disarming tone. First, he takes refuge in Protestant liberty. “There is no pope in Protestantism, and if the Bible speaks, it speaks to us. Not only is there no pope, there is no council of bishops, no presbyters, no voting of church members on these matters.” Second, he appeals to the way in which the church has conducted itself in previous cultures. Culture, he believes, dictates the church’s attitude toward the Gospel. “Easter is by far the most important festival of the Russian church. In the medieval church, it was the anxiety resulting from the social and spiritual chaos following the breakup of the Roman Empire which produced the transcendent-sacramental foundation of a hierarchical system to guide society and individuals. In the Reformation it was the anxiety of guilt and the message of justification which was decisive for every formula of all the Reformers. In modern Protestantism it has been the message of a religious cultural unity in view of a more personalistic—and in America, more social—conception of the Kingdom of God as a religious cultural unity.”

Critical Attitude

For the benefit of readers who are nervously waiting to learn whether Tillich is propagating heresy, a consolatory announcement can be made with dispatch. By no stretch of Christian charity can Tillich’s theology be considered consistently Biblical.

When we place Tillich on the Index, however, have we really accomplished anything constructive? Hardly. Christ did not shed his blood, that we should spend our days as spiritual vultures, feeding on the carrion of other people’s shortcomings.

The fact remains, and no orthodox remonstrance can change a line of it, that cultured people will continue to read Tillich, and with no small profit, either. Tillich, for example, defines sin as estrangement—“estrangement from oneself, from the other man, from the ground out of which we come and to which we go.” At first blush this seems to contradict the confessional definition of sin as “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” But it may turn out, on more careful inspection, that the two definitions are quite friendly. Estrangement is a want of fellowship, and a want of fellowship is sin. Love is the law of life.

Although Tillich prefers speculation to exegesis, he yet is one of the most stimulating thinkers of our day. He is energetically trying to make faith relevant. And that is more than can be said of many who boast possession of the divine oracles.

Being Accepted

Tillich challenges culture on the analogy between the gift of God’s grace and the expressions of kindness in therapeutic psychology. God accepts people who are unacceptable. “This, of course, includes the reformation point of view, a view which has also been rediscovered by medicine, namely, you must feel that you have been accepted. Only then can one accept himself. It is never the other way around. That was the plight of Luther in his struggle against the distorted late Roman Church which wanted ‘that men make themselves first acceptable and then God would accept them.’ But it is always the other way around. First you must be accepted. Then you can accept yourself, and that means, you can be healed.” The church has been culpably tardy in applying Freudian insights to the biblical doctrines of original sin, common grace, and justification.

Since confessional Christianity tends to be anachronous in its thought forms, Tillich may seem more radical than he really is. In any event, Tillich is here to stay. Even if a critic rejects everything Tillich says—an almost impossible situation—Tillich will nonetheless force the critic to do some very serious searching of soul. And who knows what may come of this? For if the critic were to show a little more concern for Tillich’s truth, Tillich might show a little more concern for Tillich’s error.

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL

Witness To Others

The Gospel in Dispute, The Relation of Christian Faith to Other Missionary Religions, by Edmund Perry (Doubleday, 1958, 230 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Paul R. Pulliam, Minister of Christian Education, Gray-stone United Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pennsylvania.

If all the authors writing these days were to handle their material the way Edmund Perry does, fewer books would have to be read. One of the refreshing things about The Gospel in Dispute is that while a mass of information is treated, broad problems and their solutions are never overlooked. Furthermore, it is a book which can be read with great profit whether the reader agrees with Dr. Perry’s theological bias or not.

Quite rightly Dr. Perry begins his book by justifying the need for it. Why raise the question of missions? Perry states: “As much as we may reluct to admit it, the Church in the West is environed and defied by a culture as hostile to Christian faith as any in the world … multitudes … refuse to consider the Christian faith as still in any sense a living option” (p. 4). He further asserts that the Church, in a time of crucial missionary opportunities, is being sapped by inward confusion as to her nature and purpose. Finally, Christianity can no longer rest at ease as the single missionary effort in a pagan-darkened world; she is in competition with indomitable faiths which are unwilling to “take” the blows of Christian missions but are ready to “deal” a few themselves.

Chapters two and three comprise a perceptive summary of modern biblical theological studies on the message of the Bible. That message maintains that the people of God have in all times and places been called upon to abandon the haunts of their own “native” faith and repudiate those of other peoples; but this has been to the purpose of discovering themselves so related to other peoples that they are not authentically the people of God unless they are first and foremost missionaries! These chapters will make helpful reading for any who will be following the discussion proposed for the forthcoming Brazil meeting of The World Presbyterian Alliance under the theme, “The Servant Lord and His Servant People.” Dr. Perry’s digression into biblical theology has sharp relevance to his conclusion that the nature of our biblical faith will define our motive and method for approaching other religions.

To this method of approach chapter four is devoted, and it forms the most significant contribution of the book. Dr. Perry’s stress is that before we can effectively witness to a non-Christian religion we must understand what makes the non-Christian tick. Until we have vitally entered into an understanding of another religion so that it has had opportunity to lay claim to our own lives, just as it has claimed the lives of its sincere devotees, we cannot honestly witness to it. “We must allow ourselves to be tempted, really tempted, by the claims of their faith.”

Two questions at once arise in this regard. First, how can a Christian seriously consider another religion as an alternative to the Gospel without compromising his faith? Dr. Perry answers that no one can study a religion scientifically who has not already settled the question of ultimate truth to his own soul’s satisfaction. For that reason, the Christian, above all persons, is capable of seriously and sympathetically studying other religions (pp. 83–87). Dr. Perry’s brief analysis of the scientific method in these pages cannot be lightly brushed aside. He reaffirms what Alan Richardson (in his book, Christian Apologetics) and others have suggested that knowledge of immediate and present facts is attained by means of different categories than knowledge of ultimate pattern and purpose. The former comes through the category of the scientific method, and the latter through the category of revelation. “Therefore, the man of Gospel faith for whom, by virtue of his faith commitment, the concern for ultimate meaning and purpose is a settled matter, is the best possible prospect for accomplishing an impartial scientific investigation of religions” (p. 86).

Secondly, assuming then that a Christian can take another “faith-stance” without compromise, how is it possible for a Western Christian to bridge the great chasm that separates him epistemologically, psychologically, and culturally from Eastern religions? Perry believes it can be done. We need to realize that while our culture gives priority to logical concepts, other cultures give greater credence to psychical experience and concrete relationships. Strange as these approaches sound, they are nonetheless present (though suppressed) in our own culture. We need to rediscover the artistic and mystical outlooks that exist in our own culture and to cultivate these until we can “stand beside the man of that other culture and very nearly share his point of view and his way of viewing.”

Some readers will quarrel with Dr. Perry’s theology. He enthusiastically embraces critical views of Scripture. His acquaintance with existential thought has colored his views of revelation and salvation. Still it is refreshing to hear his ringing affirmations on the absolute uniqueness and necessity of the Gospel. The basic assumption of the book is that “there can be no reconciliation of the Gospel with other centers of faith except as those other centers abdicate and acknowledge the sovereignty of God in Christ” (p. 220). With this conviction as the foundation of his book, and the Gospel as his point of orientation, Dr. Perry has moved into the realm of methodology with his own contributions. Evangelicals will do well to ponder and discuss his conclusions.

PAUL R. PULLIAM

Theological Reflections

The Riddle of Life, by J. H. Bavinck (Eerdmans, 1958, 128 pp., $2), is reviewed by Wick Broomall, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia.

This small volume, translated from the Dutch edition into English by J. J. Lamberts, Assistant Professor of English, Northwestern University, is replete with philosophical and theological reflections on the great mysteries of human existence. For fear that such a description will intimidate the timid reader, let me hurriedly add that this book will invigorate the reader’s mind with its scintillating insights on basic problems of human life.

Understandably, a work that is designed for popular reading will not use the language of the pundit. Nevertheless, though it is simply written, this volume considers and solves some of the great issues that face the soul of man in his transit through time to eternity.

The Bible is rarely mentioned to substantiate a position presented and defended; yet, in spite of this, one feels instinctively that the author is leading him along biblical lines.

The evangelical reader will take few exceptions to the conclusions arrived at in this little volume. There is, however, one instance where the author speaks of “a long course of evolution [that] stretches before us,” a statement which seems to imply a belief in evolution. In view of the agitated state of the Christian mind today on that subject, it is regrettable that Dr. Bavinck did not unequivocally repudiate such a theory.

This book illustrates the fact that a scholar can still write in understandable language. Perhaps a good part of the credit here must go to the translator himself, for the reader would hardly be aware of the fact that he is reading a book originally written in Dutch.

WICK BROOMALL

Influence Of Missions

Wai-wai. Through the Forests South of the Amazon, by Nicholas Guppy (John Murray, 375 pp., 28s.), is reviewed by Frank Houghton, Bishop, St. Marks, Warwicks.

Nicholas Guppy studied botany and tropical forestry at both Oxford and Cambridge. He spent four years in British Guiana, and led expeditions into the largely unexplored territory on the boundary of Guiana and Brazil. He acknowledges his indebtedness to the New York Botanical Garden which was the point of departure for at least two of his expeditions. From this fascinating story one gets the impression that Mr. Guppy is a first-rate botanist whose discoveries have added not a little to the sum of human knowledge. One admires the spirit with which he faces incredible dangers and privations for the sake of science. He is an anthropologist as well as a botanist, investigating the conditions under which many small forest tribes are rapidly becoming extinct, and obviously enjoying the company of Wai-Wai, Wapisianas, Mawayans and others too numerous to mention. This reviewer read the book with growing interest and increasing respect for its author. But it is entitled to a review in CHRISTIANITY TODAY because Mr. Guppy met a group of Christian missionaries and makes illuminating, not to say caustic, comments upon them and their work. He regards them, on the whole, as “the most destructive of all those who form the vanguard of civilization.” He sees their coming as the end of artistic productivity among the tribes. If they become Christians, we are told, “the joy goes out of their existence.” The breakdown of tribal laws “often liberates the natives from moral restraint,” and they accept the standards of behavior of many who profess to be Christians. He appears to have no belief in a God who has revealed himself in the Scriptures—“the only reality we can ever know is a model in our minds constructed on the model of our minds.” Of course, if there is no God to whom sin is abhorrent, who has found a way whereby sinners everywhere may be forgiven and find abundant life in him, then the whole enterprise of missions is unnecessary. As one gradually discovers Mr. Guppy’s general attitude to the God of the Scriptures, one wonders if he may not have misunderstood those missionaries of whom he asked the question: “Do you respect these Indians as people?” Thus challenged, they replied (according to Mr. Guppy): “That is completely beside the point. We love them—we love them in Christ. Our object is to save souls. Nothing else matters.” Well, there have been missionaries in other lands than British Guiana who have failed to respect people as people. But surely such failure is uncommon today. One would like to assure Mr. Guppy that our Master loved people as people, and not merely as “souls,” and that we misrepresent him unless we do so too.

FRANK HOUGHTON

Fading Convictions

The Colgate Story, by Shields T. Hardin (Vantage Press, New York, 1959, 244 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Frank Farrell, Editorial Associate of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The story of five generations of one of America’s great families is an interesting one which survives the undistinguished style of this account.

William Colgate (1783–1857), founder of the Colgate Soap Company, was a devout Baptist layman who took a benevolent interest in missions, Bible translation work, and Christian education. He and his progeny gave millions of dollars to Colgate University which was originally a training school for ministers—as were many of America’s great universities. Mr. Colgate’s pastor characterized him as a believer in the “divine authority of the Bible.” Another said, “A pure Bible was as dear to him as his life, and few men have done more to give it to the world.”

Samuel Colgate (son of William) and his family after him were most generous in their support of the YMCA—the result of a suggestion by Evangelist Dwight L. Moody.

The Colgate Story embodies an unstated lesson. Historian Robert Moats Miller has declared “the tragedy of religion” to be this: “Institutionalized it becomes corrupt; without the churches it dies.” There are so many cases of consecrated men giving large sums to worthy institutions which then live to dissolve the convictions of their founders. Perhaps the tragedy is mitigated somewhat by the accruing deterrent to the worship of institutions and the realization that these, as well as men, are worthy only so long as they derive their life from Jesus Christ.

FRANK FARRELL

Ritual And Doctrine

The First Evangelical Bishop, by G. C. B. Davies (The Tyndale Press, 1958, 19 pp., 1s.6d), is reviewed by Talbot G. Mohan, Secretary of Church Pastoral Aid Society, London.

This excellent monograph of 19 pages is the substance of a lecture delivered by the author in Cambridge at a meeting of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research. The appointment of Henry Ryder to the Bishopric of Gloucester was resented by the whole church and illustrates the contemporary attitude towards evangelicals. Any one who attempts to analyze the opposition today must bear in mind that what caused this resentment was the faithful proclamation of the whole counsel of God.

Today there is a much more tolerant attitude toward evangelicals (and in any case the foresight of Charles Simeon and others in securing and establishing patronage has prevented their exclusion from spheres of influence in the parishes). But there are, however, limits even today to this toleration, and those limits are measured by the distance a man is prepared to go with the ritualistic movement of the times. It may be said without fear of contradiction that a clergyman who was not prepared to depart from the rubrical direction of the Book of Common Prayer to stand at the north side of the Table for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, would be considered an unsuitable person to be a diocesan bishop, notwithstanding that he has on more than one occasion in his ministry given a solemn and public undertaking to do so.

Ritual and theology are conveniently believed today to have no relationship to one another, but it was the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith which inspired the Reformation bishops (were they not the first evangelical bishops?) in the altered ritual of our Prayer Book. Henry Ryder, the subject of this booklet, expatiated on this doctrine in his Visitation Charge of 1828 taking for his definition the Anglican Articles and Homilies. To him the setting forth of the doctrines of grace was the primary purpose of his ministry. “Believe me,” he wrote, “any little good I may have done at Lutterworth, Claybrook, or elsewhere, has been entirely owing, under God, to my preaching in public and in private the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel.… And the most moral, respectable, and truly valuable parishioners I have ever had have been those who have embraced most cordially and fully the views of our own thorough sinfulness and helplessness, and of our unqualified need of the atonement of Christ, and the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit—the views which I, and more especially those connected with me, have endeavoured to inculcate. The Articles, the Liturgy, Ordination Services, all seem to me to breathe the same spirit and require the same conduct.”

Fundamentally it is this doctrine which is the cause of the cleavage between evangelicals and those who do not claim this description in this or in any age.

TALBOT G. MOHAN

Christology For Pastors

The Trinity, by E. H. Bickersteth (Kregel, Grand Rapids, 182 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by the Rev. Eric Edwin Paulson, Minister of the Lutheran Free Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This book should be required reading for all theological students, and would well serve as a refresher course in Christology for pastors. It furnishes conclusive refutation of Unitarianism, the garbled conclusions of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the vacuous verbiage of Christian Science, and the teachings of other cults which reduce Jesus Christ to the status of a created being.

The following paragraph illustrates the author’s originality of expression, clarity of style, and unanswerable logic: “The very texts which most strongly declare the humanity of Jesus are sufficient to refute those who would deny his deity. How could a mere man, without absured presumption, solemnly announce that God the Father was greater than he? How could he be made flesh? How could it be proof of his humility that he was made in the likeness of man?”

A complete index of Scripture references is provided which enhances the value of this book.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

Ireland Revival

God’s River in Spate, by John T. Carson (Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast, 1958, 138 pp., 9/6), is reviewed by S. W. Murray of Belfast, Ireland.

The Revival of 1859 in Ireland had a profound influence on the life of the Northern counties in general and the churches of those areas in particular. The account of the revival now published in the centenary year is a record of the origin and progress of the working of the Spirit of God, compiled for the most part from contemporary sources.

The beginnings of the revival are traced in the country around Ballymena, Co. Antrim from which the work spread into Ballymena and then further afield. Mr. Carson follows the progress of the revival from district to district with well-documented accounts of the effects on communities and churches. He tells, for example, how the new town hall at the port of Coleraine was used first as a place of inquiry by anxious souls following a number of large open-air meetings in the vicinity.

Among the results instanced in the volume are the accession of new members to the churches, social purity and sobriety (a better standard of living following in the families affected), greater sense of responsibility by the ordinary church member, marked increase in the numbers of candidates for the Christian ministry, a new spirit of Christian liberality and a forward movement in philanthropic and missionary enterprise. The use of lay preachers in assisting inquirers, too many for the ministers to handle, had much to do with the tradition of evangelism for which the North of Ireland is noted. The charges against the movement by various detractors are examined, including the physical prostrations which attracted much attention.

The year before the revival, note was taken of the American Revival of 1858, described by one religious editor in these words: “A revival is now passing over the churches in America such as has not been known since Apostolic times.”

A bibliography and an index increase the usefulness of this volume which warms the heart as well as informs the mind.

S. W. MURRAY

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me (John 17:21).

“In their glasses men are brethren—when those are empty the union breaks up.” This holds good of the intoxicating cup of vanity and delusion, over which men imagine a brotherhood of mankind independent of Christ—Pantheism, Communism, and the like. But where those believers in me are, of whom Christ speaks, there is already unity, on the ground of which a further and more perfect unity will follow.

Whatever be the bonds tying Christians together and whatever prudential considerations and motives they have to induce them to obey the command of God in keeping together in unity: yet it is only the power of God that can keep the bond of unity inviolable; and unless he keeps them near him, and free from the evils of the world, their union will break, and their being overpowered with flesh will break out in the bitter fruits of strife and division. Therefore saith Christ, “Holy Father keep [them] … that they may be one even as we are” (vs. 11).

United In Truth

His prayer for the unity of his people was in the context “that they know thee, the only true God” and “that they may be consecrated in truth.” But this unifying truth is nothing abstract or speculative. It centers in Him who is the truth, and who gives men new life in faith.

T. A. KANTONAN

This unity has its true and only ground in faith in Christ through the Word of God as delivered by the Apostles; and is therefore not mere outward uniformity, nor can such uniformity produce it. At the same time its effects are to be real and visible, such that the world may see them.

HENRY ALFORD

It may be further remarked, in order to disencumber this subject from everything which tends to destroy or impair the spirit of true Christian union, that does not require the surrender of any essential point of belief, in order to effect a compromise of doctrinal views, and thereby seek to remove all denominational distinctions.… Union based upon the surrender of any esential evangelical doctrine would be like the union of Pilate and Herod at the crucifixion of Jesus. The spirit of our Lord’s petition is however aimed against those sectarian prejudices and animosities, those ecclesiastical strifes and divisions, those assumptions of prelatical superiority and exclusive church polity, which have so often brought dishonor upon the religion of Christ, and which must all disappear before the bar of truth and righteousness, for which the disciples are laboring.

JOHN J. OWEN

Nature Of Unity

As doth not imply an exact equality, but only a similitude or answerable likeness. In the mystical union there is a kind of shadow and adumbration of that unity which is between the persons of the Godhead. So when man is said to be made after the similitude and likeness of God, it doth not imply a universal and exact equality, but only some conformity and similitude of men to God. So, “Be ye holy, as I am holy”; “Be ye … perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It is good to note that in the letter of the text Christ separateth his own unity with the Father from that of the creatures. He doth not say, “Let us be all one”; but “Let them be all one.”

THOMAS MANTON

It is by being in Christ and through him in God (in us), that believers find themselves living in each other. That which separates them is what they have of self in their views and will; that which unites them is what they have of Christ, and thereby of the divine in them. It is clear that this dwelling of Christ and consequently of God in them is the work of the Spirit, who alone has the power to cast down the barrier between personalities, without confounding them.

F. GODET

That all (all my believing ones, the apostles and the others) may be one (ethically, in likeness of disposition, of love, of endeavour, etc., on the ground of faith, comp. Eph. 4:3 ff.; Rom. 15:5,6; Acts 4:32). This ethical unity of all believers, to be specifically Christian, must correspond as to its original type (as) to the reciprocal fellowship between the Father and the Son (according to which the Father lives and moves in the Son, and the Son in the Father).… This ethical unity of all believers in fellowship with the Father and the Son, however, shall serve to the unbelieving world as an actual proof and ground of conviction that Christ, the grand central point and support of this unity, is none other than the sent of God.

H. A. W. MEYER

The exemplary or pattern-union, here mentioned, between the Father and Son, is but a union in mind, in love, in design, and interest; wherein he prays, that saints on earth might visibly be one with them also.

JOHN HOWE

Christ’s disciples shall be one with each other, even as the Three who are most high in the unity of the blessed Godhead. They shall be one in heart and will, in righteousness, holiness, and love, in the unity of one new nature in Christ, and yet with no loss of personal identity, with no obliteration of the diversity of personal character, even as there are high and mysterious differences between the Three who are One upon the throne in heaven.… The unity of believers now and in all future generations rests on their inward real union with Christ and with God in Christ; but it is to show itself outwardly, so as to bear with victorious power for spiritual ends upon those who have hitherto been standing without the Church, upon the world.

D. DOUGLAS BANNERMAN

The union of churches consists in their relation unto God as their Father, and unto Christ as their only immediate head of influence and rule, with a participation of the same Spirit in the same faith and doctrine of truth, the same kind of holiness, the same duties of divine worship, especially the same mysteries of baptism and the supper, the observance of the same rules or commands of Christ in all church-order, with mutual love, effectual unto all the ends of their being and constitution, or the edification of the church catholic. There may be failures in them; there may be differences among them, about them, arising from the infirmities, ignorance, and prejudices of them of whom they do consist, the best knowing here but in part; but whilst the substance of them is preserved, the union of all churches, and so of the catholic church is preserved.

JOHN OWEN

Special Report

Facing mutual concerns in shaping a Christian philosophy of science, evangelical scientists and theologians gathered June 9–11 at Trinity Seminary (Evangelical Free Church), Chicago, for the third biennial joint meeting of American Scientific Affiliation and the Evangelical Theological Society. Of 800 ASA scientists (all professing theists) and 350 ETS divinity scholars (all acknowledging the Bible’s authority), more than 80 members from Massachusetts to California shared views touching the modern cleft between religion and science. More than ever they reflected determination to avoid “loophole approaches” and “dichotomies between science and revelation.”

From the outset the sessions bristled at times with candid exchanges by speakers, discussants and delegates. When discussion turned metaphysical, a “practical-minded” scientist divided delegates into sheep who “get things done” and goats (philosophers) who “merely talked about it.” And when idealists and realists debated the existence of “a world independent of consciousness and its contents,” another scientist pleaded that the kingdom of heaven requires more fruitful pursuits.

But the philosophers nonetheless finally exacted one important concession from reluctant scientists: that science does not give us truth about nature, but only useful symbols—a daily alterable set of logical constructs—whose purpose is the control or reconstruction of physical entities. This emphasis—that science is interested in what works rather than what is true, and the scientific methodology can never achieve fixed principles beyond revisability—at first seemed to many evangelical scientists to demean their vocation. But this seeming indignity was removed when theologians and philosophers stressed the importance and legitimacy of the scientific task—both its curbing of diseases and invention of useful devices, and its status as a Christian “calling” equal in dignity with that of the evangelist and theologian.

Theologians acknowledged that conclusions are not to be ecclesiastically “forced” from the scientist in his specialized field, and that the scientist is not responsible for deriving Christian results through experimental techniques.

In fact, the way in which scholars drew the line between science and metaphysics proved one dominant—if not unanimous—development.

In recent decades, evangelical circles have reflected a curious contrast in apologetics. While many influential theologians have stressed the weaknesses of so-called “theistic proofs” (from nature to God), many influential scientists have stressed the cosmological and design arguments, and have frequently sought to invest these arguments with power through their scientific researches.

But the current tendency of evangelical philosophers is to approve “operationalism” as a scientific method, that is, to define what the scientist does as simply providing a statement of operational procedure. This strips the physicist of any right to speak of the “real” world, “natural laws” and “uniformity” on the basis of his methodology. All the physicist has are revisable mental constructs useful as manipulative symbols that he continually abandons in the interest of more workable constructs. Hence, the scientist’s methodology yields no truth about nature, let alone the supernatural.

At the Chicago conference Dr. Gordon H. Clark of Butler University and Professor Thomas H. Leith of Gordon College stressed this limitation. Dr. Clark insisted that no “laws of nature” have ever been discovered by science, and only “unbounded optimism” could encourage one to think such laws will now be discovered. Science is simply a statement of operational procedure, he stated, although admitting that in biology the operational viewpoint is least plausible (although not irrelevant). Does this imply—he asked—that not all scientific material is to be handled by the same concepts, and that the ideal of unified science must be relinquished (insofar as it is postulated in view of scientific methodology alone)?

Alongside this widening approval of scientific operationalism, evangelical theologians stress the Bible as the source of revealed axioms for metaphysics. Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, noted that the scientist seldom stops with the agnosticism demanded by his methodology. He falls prey either to scientism, absolutizing his method as the sieve through which to screen the whole of reality, or to myth-making, postulating false gods (in the last century, the Law of Causality, or Ether; in this century, the Intelligibility of Nature, Free Will, and so forth) which his methodology really does not vindicate. The scientist is locked up to revelation for assurance that nature is an antecedent creation, and is rational and purposive.

Professor Oscar Walle of Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, stressed that scientific principles are derivative rather than determinative. An evangelical philosophy of science, he said, will include biblical teaching regarding the past, present and future relations of God to man and nature; will incorporate fundamental axioms and procedures of science that do not contradict these; and which must also apply and relate the foregoing into a consistent pattern of thought and procedure that tests the latter by the former, and uses them to show the relevance of the former.

Dr. R. Laird Harris of Covenant Seminary, St. Louis, emphasized the Bible’s truth “when and as far as it speaks on scientific matters. There is not a general conflict of science and the Bible. Christianity does not object to the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment and generalization. Neither does Christianity base itself on that method.”

Alongside the emphasis on the Bible as the source of authoritative guidelines for an evangelical philosophy of science, speakers also emphasized the reality of God’s revelation in nature, history and conscience. While scientific method restricts the approach to nature to quantitative questions, the scientist himself is a bearer of the image of God, even if that image is distorted, and he is addressed by a divine revelation in nature. Dr. Albert J. Meyer of Goshen College emphasized this revelation in nature, but noted also the dual fact of “fallen man” and “fallen nature.” Dr. Henry warned against minimizing the significance of general revelation; the scientist’s failure to acknowledge it is due primarily to the science, not to the evidences of God. He noted that the Apostle Paul both in Romans 1 and in his Mars Hill address set creation alongside redemption in speaking of divine revelation. Dr. Henry stressed that the rational integration of life’s experiences and the unity of culture are tied up with “the great fact that the God of creation and revelation and of redemption and of sanctification and of judgment is one and the same God.”

In the closing session, Dr. Stanley W. Olson, dean of Baylor University College of Medicine, presided over a panel comprised of speakers and discussants. A competent summary of the conference was presented by Professor Leith. Delegates went their way recalling the words of Dr. Clark: “The problems we face are both difficult and important, though the results of this meeting may seem meager. That these two societies should hold joint meetings to discuss them is an encouraging sign.”

C.F.H.H.

Names In The News

A Little Crack

Back from a five-day visit to Russia, Billy Graham said “the door has been opened a little crack.”

Asked about the possibility of an evangelistic crusade in Russia, Graham said: “God leads one step at a time. We don’t push. The door has been opened a little crack. Perhaps it will be opened further later.”

The evangelist flew to Moscow as a tourist, having stopped in Europe while en route home from his Australian meetings. He attended a two-and-a-half-hour Sunday morning service in the Russian capital’s First Baptist Church, where he was greeted warmly but not asked to preach. He also visited a Russian Orthodox monastery 40 miles from Moscow.

Whose Voice?

A storm of protest raged on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line following dismissal last month of the Rev. Robert B. McNeill as minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Georgia. In a national magazine article two years ago, McNeill urged “creative contact” between whites and Negroes.

McNeill suffered a heart attack following his dismissal. Two weeks later, he was still in “serious” condition.

Opinion in the North was largely critical of a Southwest Georgia Presbytery commission which ousted McNeill. The commission found dissension within his 1,200-member congregation and asserted that “the voice of the pulpit should be the voice of the congregation.” The commission chairman said the dismissal was “in no sense a rebuke to Mr. McNeill.” One report said the issue involved more than the minister’s racial stand.

Some in his own denomination rallied to McNeill’s support, including Ernest Trice Thompson, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and a bloc of parishioners.

McNeill was subsequently offered a position with the Mt. Lebanon (Pa.) Presbyterian Church, where Dr. John Calvin Reid, McNeill’s predecessor in Columbus, is minister.

Carnell Resigns

Dr. Edward J. Carnell, who at 40 is one of evangelicalism’s top scholars, resigned last month after five years as president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

In face of failing health believed attributable to excess strain, Carnell was given a sabbatical leave until next January, when he is scheduled to return as professor of apologetics, the position he held prior to being named president.

Dr. Harold J. Ockenga will be acting president until a successor is named.

Carnell, a Baptist, was the nation’s youngest seminary president when he took the Fuller reins. Under his administration, the seminary received accreditation in 1957 from the American Association of Theological Schools.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rev. James C. McCoy, 74, charter member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, in Memphis … Dr. Rees Edgar Tulloss, 77, prominent Lutheran churchman and president of Wittenberg College, in Springfield, Ohio … Dr. F. W. Boreham, author and distinguished Baptist preacher, in Melbourne.

Elections: As president of the Reformed Church in America, Dr. Howard G. Hageman … as president of the Augustana Lutheran Church, Dr. Malvin H. Lundeen … as moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Dr. Alexander Nimmo … as president of the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches, Anglican Archbishop R. C. Halse … as chaplain-general of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Rev. Willis Bergen … as second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Henry D. Moyle.

Appointments: As president of Marion College, Dr. Harold K. Sheets, head of the Department of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America … as professor of archaeology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. J. Morris Ashcraft; as professor of church history, Dr. G. Hugh Wamble; as professor of religious education and church administration, Dr. Frank E. Royal … as professor of church history at the Southern California School of Theology, Dr. Leland H. Carlson.

Resignation: As president of Colby College, Dr. Julius S. Bixler.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Religious Assemblages

Climaxing 100 years of California Lutheranism of the Missouri Synod variety, some 900 delegates and 300 board and committee members and advisers descended upon San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium for their 2,500,000-member denomination’s triennial national convention June 17–26. The City of St. Francis, boasting about as much color as one city can bear, gave a warm welcome to heirs of Martin Luther with floral decorations and excellent press coverage despite headline competition from offshore sharks and the National League’s pennant-aspiring Giants. Nature’s own air conditioning startled some of the thinly-clad Midwesterners representing the heartland of Missouri Synod Lutheranism, but the traditional fog obligingly trod lightly to allow a Golden Gate envisioning of the Oriental setting of the greater part of the synod’s foreign missionary work. Mayor George Christopher was on hand and President Eisenhower wired acknowledgement of the synod’s “concern for the welfare of mankind.”

This is the Western Hemisphere’s largest Lutheran group, yearly adding more members than any other. This is the “Church of the Lutheran Hour,” world’s most widely-broadcast, regularly-scheduled radio program, which for a quarter of a century has been “bringing Christ to the nations.” One hundred and fifteen nations contribute weekly some 20,000,000 listeners.

From the impressive liturgical Communion service which opened the convention and on through the proceedings, an observer could not miss the dual emphasis—sound doctrine and impassioned outreach. The orthodoxy found here was not the sort against which a Sören Kierkegaard might inveigh from his European state church setting. But these Lutherans are well aware of the ravages of the rationalism and destructive higher criticism on loose in the land of their fathers. On the other hand, they avoid the European reaction to this, all the while manifesting a warm devotional spirit, by guarding against the vapid results of an undefined pietism.

Setting and sustaining the mood was convention President John W. Behnken who followed Isaiah in urging the church as a tent to “lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes.” Intensive evangelism, to be distinguished from “sophistry” and “rationalism” of many “modern pulpiteers,” must be properly grounded through driving “the stakes supporting God’s tent ever deeper into the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God.”

Giving scholarly support to this ideal was Professor Paul M. Bretscher of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who delivered four lectures on the theme “Take Heed unto the Doctrine.” He spoke of widespread modern Protestant indifference to doctrine, warning against this but also against “dead orthodoxy.”

The convention produced one long debate around doctrinal matters, but its crux appeared to be functional rather than strictly doctrinal. In question was a resolution reaffirming the content of a “Brief Statement” of Lutheran doctrine adopted by the Missouri Synod in 1932 (likewise by The American Lutheran Church)—to be “public doctrine in Synod.” Pastors and professors would be held to teach them, or consult with appropriate church officers concerning a contrary conscience on any of the doctrines included. Among these were: the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, the Trinity, creation as against evolution, “single” rather than Calvinistic “double predestination,” and the fulfilment of the prophecies of anti-Christ in the papacy.

Fears were expressed as to the careers of certain professors, but assurance was given that a “club” or “sword” was not intended. The aim was rather a unity of conviction upon historic Lutheran doctrine. The “Brief Statement” was not elevated to the level of the Lutheran Confessions.

The resolution passed easily, as did the “Statement on Scripture” which also attested the verbal inspiration and authority of Scripture (while opposing “mechanical dictation”). This doctrine was reaffirmed many times in the course of the convention, leaving no doubt as to the historic stand of the Missouri Synod.

The convention also: invited representatives of The American Lutheran Church (TALC) to meet with its doctrinal unity committee “for the purpose of seeking a God-pleasing unity and fellowship”; reaffirmed its opposition to lodges; and spoke out against racial discrimination.

Much convention time was taken up with education, inasmuch as congregations of the Missouri Synod maintain the largest system of parochial schools in U.S. Protestantism—1,418 elementary and 16 high schools. It was voted to build a new six-million-dollar junior college in the Detroit area. College and seminary expansion alone in the next six years will cost about $30,000,000. The synod’s programs for that period will cost $144,500,000 apart from congregational expenditures.

The Missouri Synod has more foreign missionaries than any of the world’s Lutheran bodies. The stress is upon indigenous church growth. Medical missions are prominent. Perpetuating the missionary emphasis, the convention voted to begin new work among Moslems of the Middle East.

And in early 1960, the 112-year-old Missouri Synod anticipates “what will probably be the largest single evangelism effort by any church body.”

F.F.

Lutherans And Ecumenism

The San Francisco convention of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod “may prove to be one of the few great ecumenical events of our day.” Such a statement provokes demand for explanation in several quarters, for the Missouri Synod had declined invitations to become a member of the National Lutheran Council, which embraces about two-thirds of U. S. Lutherans, and the Lutheran World Federation, composed of 50 million of the world’s 70 million Lutherans.

But an explanation was readily forthcoming from the author of the statement, Dr. Herman Sasse, formerly a professor at the University of Erlangen, and now a professor of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church seminary in Adelaide, Australia. An eminent scholar in the field of historical theology, Sasse was addressing the Missouri Synod convention on “The Ecumenical Movement in Lutheranism.”

“True ecumenicity,” he asserted, is a “quest for truth, for the true church.”

“The ecumenical movement is essentially not a union movement as it is being interpreted, though it may become such in the future.” He cited the Lausanne Conference of 1927 which was confessedly concerned with truth and not with church reunion.

Describing broad, historic movements which sweep across church borders, Sasse pointed to the pietism and rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nineteenth century’s Great Awakening, and the twentieth century’s ecumenical movement, which is “penetrating all churches, including Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.” Its effects may be as “far-reaching as those of the sixteenth-century Reformation.” The great post-Reformation era “seems now to be drawing to an end.” The ratio between Christians and non-Christians is rapidly changing in favor of the latter. “Old Christian countries” are becoming “mission fields.” Asiatic religions revive and atheistic communism grows, Protestants and Roman Catholics enjoy friendlier relations in some areas. The “Pilgrim church” of the United States disappears into a united church. Sects grow rapidly.

The prominent position occupied by ecumenism on the present scene, Sasse attributes to American church life, and cites two formative factors. The first of these is the federation programs of Reformed Protestantism. A nineteenth-century Lutheran, Samuel Schmucker, considered all Protestant churches “as essentially one,” but confessionalism was then too strong for his move toward unity to succeed. Likewise, the Disciples of Christ effort failed. “You can’t reduce the number of denominations by adding a new one.”

But a change has taken place, Sasse avers. The Protestant Episcopal and United Lutheran churches had not been able to join the Federal Council of Churches but subsequently joined the National Council. The crucial change was not within the councils but within the churches. “I cannot understand how a Lutheran leader could participate in the inauguration of the NCC with only the formula, ‘We believe in Christ as Lord and Saviour’ ”—this is subject to “such varied interpretations.”

Sasse cautioned his listeners against pharisaism, suggesting that non-creedal groups such as Baptists, Disciples, and Quakers could not understand the Lutheran position. And Presbyterian and Episcopal creeds have a “different content and function,” while the standards of the Church of South India allow for contradictory doctrines of the sacraments. For the Lutheran, his historic confessions “express the eternal truth of the Gospel.”

The other big boost to ecumenism has been, said Sasse, the Anglican insistence upon the visibility of “one holy ecumenical church,” this idea being found in “The 39 Articles” and affirmed by the Lambeth conferences. For the Lutheran, the “only holy church” is hidden. The visible church was divided even in “ancient Christendom.” Origen tried to explain the divisions to Celsus, not deny them. The New Testament gives evidence of false church leaders as well as the existence of Greek and Hebrew churches.

The pagan in Rome had to make up his mind as to which church was the true church as claimed. The Lord’s prayer for the oneness of believers “included the different churches of all ages, not just one.”

Sasse called the Missouri Synod “perhaps the last fortress of world Lutheranism,” and counseled hard study of the Scriptures and Confessions of the fathers.

Toward this end, Missouri Synod theologians had gathered with Lutherans of like conviction from many countries in a pre-convention theological conference, which will probably be repeated.

The Missouri Synod was represented at the 1957 Lutheran World Federation meeting but could not endorse a confessional statement prepared there due to lack of “clear-cut Scriptural statements on such important issues as the Word, the Lord’s Supper, the total depravity of man, and other basic doctrines.”

Improved relations with the synod’s fellow members in the Synodical Conference—the Wisconsin Synod, Slovak Church, and Norwegian Synod—were reported.

The convention voted to invite the National Lutheran Evangelical Church (of Finnish origins) to unite in the Missouri Synod.

First-named objective in the constitution of the Missouri Synod is: “The conservation and promotion of the unity of the true faith (Eph. 4:3–6; 1 Cor. 1:10) and a united defense against schism and sectarianism (Rom. 16:17).”

A 25-Year President

During its 112-year history, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has known only six presidents. But despite the commonplace of lengthy tenure, President John W. Behnken still managed to shatter all precedent as the 1959 convention elected him to serve a ninth three-year term.

Capably presiding over convention activities. Behnken appeared to carry his 75 years lightly. His margin of victory was not overwhelming as formerly, due in part to a previously-announced decision not to seek reelection, which he later reversed. But he saw the delegates bury a resolution to limit tenure of the presidential office.

Synod elections for president and four vice-presidents feature a wide-open primary ballot with no advance nominations. In subsequent balloting a majority of votes constitutes election. Chosen to be first, second, third, and fourth vice-presidents, respectively, were: Dr. Oliver R. Harms, Houston; Dr. Roland P. Wiederanders, Corpus Christi, Texas; the Rev. George Wittmer, St. Louis; and the Rev. Arthur C. Nitz, San Francisco.

Behnken defeated Harms for the presidency by a vote of 377 to 311 on the fourth ballot.

Only one other man has completed eight terms as president of the Missouri Synod. He was the late Rev. Frederick Pfotenhauer, whom Behnken defeated for the office 24 years ago.

A native of Texas, Behnken was pastor of Trinity Church in Houston from 1908 until 1935.

Decision: Study

Delegates to the 153rd annual General Synod of the Reformed Church in America went on record against committing themselves, for the time being, on whether Red China is entitled to diplomatic recognition from the United States and the United Nations.

The delegates decisively defeated a move to repudiate the Red China recommendations of last November’s Fifth World Order Study Conference, sponsored by an agency of the National Council of Churches. (The Reformed Church in America in an NCC constituent.) Instead, they adopted an overtures committee recommendation that the denomination “give serious consideration to the issues and make a concerted study of the matter throughout the Church before coming to any official decision.”

Delegates to last month’s synod at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, defeated an overture which would have forbidden the body from making public pronouncements “involving the entire Church, especially on non-ecclesiastical matters,” before submitting them to the denomination’s classes (regional groups) for approval by two-thirds majority.

The synod approved a six-point statement on the “theological basis for Christian concern and action.” Here are beliefs expressed in the statement, which was written by Dr. Jerome De Jong, chairman of the church’s Christian Action Commission:

“1—Absolute sovereignty of God. 2—Man was created in the image of God. 3—God’s sovereign love and concern for man is clearly revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. 4—Man was created to live in community. 5—The Redeemed community (the Church) stands within a paradox. Scripture indicates that Christians are to separate themselves from the world and also indicates God’s love for the world, and the Christian’s duty to witness. 6—The authority of the Church is rooted in the authority of Christ Who rules as sovereign Lord today through the Word and Spirit.”

In other action, the synod: (1) called for extension of minimum wage legislation to include groups not now covered; (2) reaffirmed its position of voluntary total abstinence for the denomination; (3) defeated a proposal to change the denomination’s constitution so that women could be ordained or hold congregational offices; (4) disapproved a proposal that the church’s office of evangelism be moved from Holland, Michigan, to New York; (5) put off creation of an executive council for the denomination (a proposal which had won approval of last year’s synod and two-thirds of the church’s classes); (6) formed a national youth organization as a church agency to be known as the “Reformed Church Youth Fellowship”; and (7) authorized Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, to explore the possibility of developing its curriculum so that it could grant masters degrees in theology and Christian education.

Delegates were told that the membership of the Reformed Church in America increased by 3,338 in 1958 for a record total of 219,131. Out-going President Marion DeVelder said the membership gains were “not impressive.” He interpreted the figures as pointing up needs for “complete commitment and inner revival in the local congregation and person-to-person lay witnesses and evangelism.”

A record benevolence budget of $4,334,870 was adopted for 1960, an increase of $519,670 over the previous year.

A ceremony held in connection with the synod marked the 175th anniversary of the denomination’s New Brunswick (N. J.) Theological Seminary, oldest Protestant theological school in North America.

Later, the synod established the John Henry Livingston professor of theology chair in honor of the seminary’s founder. The professorship will be held only by presidents of the school. First occupant is Dr. M. Stephen James, soon to be succeeded by Dr. Justin Vander Kolk.

Another ceremony commemorated the 400th anniversary of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.

True Destiny?

President John Stensvaag urged before the 63rd annual conference of the Lutheran Free Church a “special effort to deepen the inward life” of members.

“Stress needs to be placed on group Bible study, prayer fellowship, witnessing to others, and private and family devotions,” he said. “The call to repentance, faith and dedication needs to be constantly sounded.”

Stensvaag’s plea to the conference, held June 10–14 in Minot, North Dakota, also had an ecumenical twist. He reported that he had become “more convinced than ever” that “the true destiny” of the denomination lies in becoming part of a proposed Lutheran merger. Two previous referendums have defeated such a move.

At Stensvaag’s urging, delegates adopted a recommendation that congregations pay their pastors a minimum salary of $4,600 to $4,800 annually plus parsonage.

Marking 75 Years

Among greetings addressed to last month’s 75 th anniversary convention of the Evangelical Free Church were words of congratulation from President Eisenhower. The greeting was conveyed to the delegates by Dr. Arnold T. Olson, president of the church. A few days before the convention, Olson had visited the White House to present the President with a copy of a newly-published history of the denomination which Mrs. Eisenhower’s grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Carl Carlson, helped to found in Boone, Iowa, in 1884.

The parents of Mrs. John Sheldon Doud, Mrs. Eisenhower’s mother, whose maiden name was Elivera Carlson, were present at Boone when the Swedish Evangelical Free Church of America was organized. This church merged with the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church in 1950 to form the Evangelical Free Church. Founders were Scandinavian immigrants who had broken away from state Lutheran churches over ritual and doctrine.

Olson spent 25 minutes with the President. He was accompanied by Representative Elford A. Cederberg, lay member of the Evangelical Free Church of Bay City, Michigan.

Cautious Optimism

Canadian Presbyterians met in a mood of cautious optimism last month, feeling that a financial crisis aggravated by the recent recession was passing, but that greater liberality and deeper commitment to Christ were necessary for fulfilment of the church’s mission.

The 85th annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, held in Toronto, asked presbyteries to study within the coming year a reorganization plan for the denomination prepared by a special committee and based on the survey of a firm of management consultants. After studying the financial and administrative structure of the church, the committee had recommended top-level consolidation and creation of a “Church Council” representative of all the denomination’s departments. The church had a deficit of $31,261 last year despite increased revenue.

For the first time since 1925, the assembly named a full-time executive secretary for the church’s Board of Evangelism and Social Action, the Rev. A. J. Gowland. Chairman of the board is the Rev. Mariano DiGangi.

The assembly rejected an overture asking a reversal of the church’s position which recognizes the right of a civil magistrate to impose capital punishment.

Appointment of women to standing committees of presbyteries was recommended by the assembly. Commissioners adopted a report which asked that women be given increased responsibility in administrative work. The Presbyterian Church in Canada does not ordain women either as clergy or elders.

A lay delegate, Justice A. M. Manson of the British Columbia Supreme Court criticized clergymen whose lack of conviction and other pulpit faults “put their congregations to sleep.” Loud applause greeted Manson’s call for graduate homiletics courses for preachers.

Protestant Panorama

• Education Minister Geoffrey Lloyd told the English House of Commons last month that the government is introducing a bill to increase state aid for financially hard-pressed confessional schools. Of 29,145 primary and secondary schools in Britain, 8,210 are run by Anglicans and 1,964 by Catholics.

• A new law authorizes clergymen in Guatemala to perform civil as well as religious marriage ceremonies. Supporters of the law say that previously, when only mayors and notaries could effect civil weddings, a great percentage of Guatemalan children were born out of wedlock.

• Louis de Rochemont Associates, producers of the most widely-distributed film on Martin Luther, plan a motion picture on the struggle of East German Christians against communism.

• At its annual meeting last month, the American Baptist Convention presented citations to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (for identifying themselves “with the Christian way of life on radio and television”) and to Eugene W. Roddenberry, writer for “Have Gun, Will Travel” (“for skillfully writing Christian truth and the application of Christian principles into commercial, dramatic TV scripts”). An award also went to the Rev. John DeBrine, associate pastor of Boston’s Ruggles St. Baptist Church, “for producing ‘Songtime,’ a radio program unique in its presentation of a Christian message through the disc jockey technique.”

• The North American Baptist General Conference is erecting a $225,000 national headquarters building in Forest Park, Illinois.

• Archaeologist Joseph Free of Wheaton College returned from Jordan last month with a trove of relics, some of which date back 3,000 years. A staff of nine from Wheaton made up Free’s exploration team.

• Boston’s Tremont Temple Baptist Church is sending five young people for 10 weeks of missionary service in Latin America this summer.

• Cornerstone-laying ceremonies were held last month for the Methodists’ $5,000,000 Southern California School of Theology in Claremont.

• The Birmingham chapter of the Southern Negro Improvement Association of Alabama, which claims to represent 15,000 Negroes, adopted a resolution last month which criticizes “self-styled Negro ministers abandoning the gospel and substituting integration and other social doctrines.”

• A Southern Baptist group is holding its first services in Rochester, New York. The services are classified as a mission work of the Ohio Baptist Convention. Area missionary Arthur L. Walker is spearheading the project.

• The Evangelical Welfare Agency now holds a child placement license in California.

• A “Christian Writing Center” was dedicated at Green Lake, Wisconsin, early this month. The building is located on a site where summer conferences have been held for the past twelve years for Christian writers and editors.

• Allen C. Thompson, former engineer and program director for the Voice of America, was ordained to the Lutheran ministry last month. Thompson, 42, plans to go to Africa to set up and maintain a radio station for the Lutheran World Federation.

• KHOF, Christian FM outlet in Los Angeles, has Federal Communications Commission approval to operate on 100,000 watts which makes it the second most powerful station west of the Mississippi River.

• The Protestant Council of the City of New York will move its West 46th St. headquarters to the $20,000,000, 19-story Interchurch Center now being built for occupancy this fall. The council has a 45-member staff.

• The United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. dedicated a new “Ecumenical Training Center” for overseas mission candidates last month. The four-building center is located on Long Island.

Gains And Losses

U. S. Illegitimacy

Newly-released figures show U. S. illegitimate birth rates at a record high. Nearly one out of every 20 babies are born out of wedlock, according to Department of Health, Education and Welfare figures for 1957 (the latest available because of time required to compile and analyze birth statistics).

The statistics show that at least 201,700 unmarried mothers in this country gave birth to live babies in 1957. The total was said to represent an increase of 8,200 over the previous high set in 1956.

Here is a breakdown of the ratio of illegitimate births per 1000 registered live births (from figures of states¹Not all states report illegitimate births. In the case of these states, the Federal government makes estimates in formulating national figures.):

The illegitimacy rate climbed in 1957 for both white and non-white mothers. It was more than ten times higher for the Negro population than the white.

A total of 70,800 children were born to unmarried white mothers, and 130,900 to non-white mothers in 1957. This represented a rate of 19.6 per 1,000 births for white mothers, or about one in 50, and a rate of 206.7 for non-white mothers, more than one birth in five.

The total rate for the U. S. population was 47.4 per 1,000 births, or nearly one in 20. This compares with 39.8 per 1,000 births recorded in 1950.

The increase in the rate of illegitimacy since 1950 amounts to slightly more than 10 per cent for both Negro and white.

More than 80,000 illegitimate babies were born to teen-age mothers in 1957, the government reported. Some 4,600 babies were born to unmarried mothers 14 or under, 60,000 to those 20 to 24, nearly 30,000 to those 25 to 29, and 28,000 to those 30 to 39.

Highest rate of illegitimacy was in the District of Columbia, with 188.1 children per 1,000 born.

A Session’S Reply

From New Jersey last month came one of the first internal reactions to business conducted by the 171st General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. The session of the First Presbyterian Church of Lambertville unanimously adopted resolutions which said: (1) “We deplore the action of the [assembly] in confirming a man in a high ecclesiastical and educational position who is unwilling or unable to give an unequivocal statement of his belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.” (2) “We dissociate ourselves from our Christian brethren who call upon our government to recognize Communist China and urge that it be admitted to the United Nations.”

Worth Quoting

“He has not denied the virgin birth … he has not abrogated his ordination vows … he stands in the center of Reformed theology.”—Dr. W. Paul Ludwig, chairman of Standing Committee on Theological Education, United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., to the 171st General Assembly during discussion of the theological views of Dr. Theodore A. Gill, president of San Francisco Theological Seminary.

“After the wrangle, the assembly went ahead and decisively confirmed Dr. Gill in his new job. Back in California, he willingly explained his firm stand. ‘I cannot pledge allegiance to the doctrine of the virgin birth,’ he said. ‘I believe in the Incarnation of God in Christ. You cannot discuss the fact that He was Christ, but you can discuss the how of the fact that He was in Christ.’ “—Newsweek, June 8, 1959, issue.

Visit From Moscow

Two representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church came to Geneva, Switzerland, last month for two weeks of talks with officials of the World Council of Churches.

The visitors were Archpriest Vitalii M. Borovoi, described as a lecturer in early church history at a Leningrad theological academy, and Viktor S. Alexeev, lay worker with the patriarchate.

Metropolitan Nikolai, second-ranking prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church, went on record in favor of joining the WCC after a meeting with ecumenical leaders in Utrecht, The Netherlands, last summer. The Russian church in 1948 turned down an invitation to join the WCC at its organizational meeting at Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Religious Honors

A Jewish clergy leader was selected last month as “clergyman of the year” by a national organization which seeks to promote, on an inter-faith basis, the concept that America is undergirded with a strong religious foundation.

Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (the national congregational body of Reform Judaism) was cited by Religious Heritage of America, Inc., as a “dedicated prophet of the Holy One.”

The group also honored former Democratic Representative Brooks Hays, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, as “lay churchman of the year”; Mrs. Theodore O. Wedel, wife of the Canon of Washington Cathedral, as “church woman of the year”; Willmar Thorkelson, religion editor of the Minneapolis Star, as “the year’s outstanding journalist in the field of faith and freedom”; Life magazine, for “comprehensive presentation of major religious faiths of the world, keen perception of the basic principles of the religious life of America, and faithful attention to events of ethical and spiritual significance which add to our national religious heritage.”

The awards were presented at a dinner sponsored by Religious Heritage of America as part of its annual “Washington Pilgrimage.” The “pilgrimage” brought to the nation’s capital 250 Religious Heritage associates representing 27 states for a sightseeing tour and participation in ceremonies hailing “this nation under God.” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was honorary chairman of the pilgrimage.

OUT OF SEASON

All the “season control” of air conditioning, automatic heating, and refrigeration has not made us forget the seasons. No aboriginal American tribe followed seasonal game more diligently than we follow our seasonal games. We dutifully conform to the rites of the Vacation Pilgrimage, and any unseasonal behavior is promptly squelched by the combined forces of suburban opinion, teen-age scorn, and retail advertising.

We are also increasingly sensitive to the climate of opinion. Psychology has replaced astrology in determining the auspicious moment for political moves and business ventures. Instead of reading livers to discover when the Fates are propitious, it is now the custom to consult a market analyst to estimate consumer motivation. Both merchandise and propaganda must be moved at the psychological moment. A preseason clearance has its place, but the basic principle is, sell it in season!

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes is often quoted in support of seasonal living. He asserts roundly that there is a time for everything. The difficulty is that he also concludes that the changing seasons cancel each other out, so that the grand total is zero: all is vanity! Opportunism is the name for the way of life that has no value above timeliness.

The Apostle Paul preached with timely relevance. Yet it is remarkable that he charges Timothy to be urgent in season and out of season. God’s time of grace does not wait for the sinner’s convenience. Judas found a suitable time to betray Christ, but Felix never found his “convenient season” to accept Him.

Seasonal preaching may mean none at all, especially in the summer! We need more preaching out of season, and against the climate of opinion—outlandish preaching about death and the judgment.

This was Paul’s perspective when he charged Timothy to urgent preaching. He knew that the time of his departure was “at hand,” and he uses the same term in urging Timothy to be “at hand” with the Gospel. We can’t be leisurely and seasonal when the Judge of the living and the dead is standing at the door!

BARRIERS TO REUNION

Your editorial entitled “Rome’s Unity Plea”, etc. (May 25 issue), contains a quotation to which I must take exception: “Jesuits had noted that … the Greek Church accepts church tradition alongside the Bible, and also the immaculate conception of the Virgin.”

While tradition has a very important place in Orthodox thought and practice, the Church does not accept it “alongside the Bible,” and most certainly has not elevated tradition into dogma as the Latin Church has done.

Definitely the Orthodox Church has never taught that the Blessed Virgin was without sin, original or actual. On the contrary they condemn the Latin dogma of the Immaculate Conception as heretical.

It is also misleading to say that the Filioque controversy “had old political and theological facets now reconcilable.” The Orthodox Church holds that the unauthorized inclusion of the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed is a definite barrier towards reunion with any of the Western Churches.

This priest in reciting the Nicene Creed has always repeated the filioque clause with a mental reservation, and hopes it will one day be omitted from our Anglican service books.…

The Church of St. John the Baptist

Dunkirk, N. Y.

THIS SIDE OF ATHEISM

The position taken in “The Case for Orthodox Theology” and “Anchored … or Adrift” (Apr. 27 issue), if applied to other fields, would render any kind of organized knowledge impossible. The whole vast edifice of modern science and scholarship is based on the assumption that an infallible authority is not needed to supply objective and dependable knowledge. Truth shines by its own light.… There are many possible stopping places this side of atheism. For example, nearly all the miracles of the New Testament have been observed or reproduced under rigorous test conditions by the psychical research societies. And guidance, supply, answers to prayer, etc., are among the most stubborn of scientific facts. Couldn’t money being spent trying to promote a lost cause be better devoted to research in these fields?

There are many liberals with a very vital and positive Christian experience—men like Kagawa, C. F. Andrews, Leslie Weatherhead, Albert Schweitzer, etc. And there would be many more if such forms of research were more emphasized.… Very few atheists come from liberal homes.… Many … people … regain their faith through contact with some liberal church.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Of United Presbyterian (USA) persuasion and chronically perplexed by some of the hypercriticism among my brethren of their “cousin” “fundamentalists” in the fold, I was relieved to read the deft countercritic’s statement of Dr. Carnell … where he expresses the view that “the critics of fundamentalism often manifest the very attitudes that they are trying to expose.” To my mind this is a remarkable analysis of the liberal bias and the equally dogmatic attitude of the brethren who feel they have “seen the light.” Conservatives are by and large accorded the “narrow” label, yet it is high time that being “broadminded” has the taint of narrowness also.…

In conclusion, let me say how much the magazine has meant to me since its inception. The articles have been intellectually honest, thoughtfully prepared, courageous, and concise. Not that I have catered to everything printed therein, but what has grated against my stripe has been abundantly valuable in thinking through my own faith and experience.… Your articles of social concern have avoided the usual liberal platitudes and the Gospel has been foremost in grappling with paramount issues of state.

Lakewood, Calif.

UNCLAIMED RESEARCH

You mention a new Doubleday book by Dr. Franklin Loehr (News, April 27 issue).… He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. over 20 years ago, but he has not been listed in our “minutes” for several years, and he was in the employ of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles when he did his “research.” We do not claim him or his work in this field!

First Presbyterian Church

Palmdale, Calif.

NCC AND RED CHINA

I have been greatly pleased with the fine and fair treatment you have given to the repercussions across the country with regard to the amazing recommendation of the Cleveland group so far as Red China is concerned. That action—which has not been repudiated by the officials of the National Council—has done, and is doing, the National Council of Churches irreparable harm.

The good that has come out of it is to make it unmistakably clear that the great bulk of church people in America, irrespective of denomination, do not share the decidedly leftist attitudes of some who are at the forefront in the officialdom of the National Council.

The ringing repudiation of this most unfortunate action of the Cleveland group by the Session of the National Presbyterian Church here in Washington is echoed by thousands of churches in all parts of the nation.

The response to the survey of the “Committee of a Million” against the recognition of Red China is proving, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the National Council cannot get away with any such unchristian program as it proposed. Those who backed this movement ought to hang their heads in shame at what their action has already done in discouraging our wonderful missionaries on the front lines of this global battle—in Korea, in Taiwan, and in the Philippines. No wonder that their agonizing query is, “how could any Christian group in America even consider recognizing the murderous highwaymen in China in any such way?”

Unless the National Council desists from such policies, it is doomed as an organization supposed to mobilize the various divisions of the Christian Church in this divisive day.

Chaplain

United States Senate

Washington, D. C.

The Study Conference on World Order of the NCC, and the articles supporting its deliverances concerning Red China, leave at least two major impressions. Its Report seems to have been drafted amidst a general feeling of frustration and confusion. Relations in the Far East are bad and evidently deteriorating: something must be done, and quickly. The Conference seemed convinced that it was the task of ecumenical Christianity to suggest what was to be done.… The Report seems to lack any worthy controlling idea. Expediency, not principle, is its underlying note.

Liberal publications which feel duty bound to defend the action of the Conference with respect to Red China show a similar lack of any profound basis. The touchiness which these periodicals show toward criticism do little to inspire confidence. The editors equate criticism with an attack upon the right of free speech. Now, not the right of the Conference to speak is in question, but the wisdom of what has been said.

The editor of The Christian Century admits that Red China is still treading the path of unprovoked aggression in Tibet, and that she is today violating her pledge of April 29, 1954, with respect to Indo-China. The major defense of the proposal to recognize the dictatorship of General Mao, and to admit the Peiping regime to membership in the United Nations is that if once she were “in” we could watch her and presumably lecture her. The editor of Nation (April 11 issue, p. 305) suggests that if she were in U. N. membership, she “could have been pilloried on the issue [of Tibet].” The same editorial admits that Red China is “an offender,” and suggests that the present situation is equivalent to “barring an offender from the courtroom.” It would be more to the point to say that it is equivalent to barring a criminal from a place on the jury.

How little insight into the communist mentality this editorial reflects! Has the editor forgotten how the representatives of the U.S.S.R. can not only themselves walk out of a U.N. session in which they are criticized, but how they take with them delegations from other nations?

We are told that there is a “hate America” movement in China. At all costs, we are told, we must inhibit this; and diplomatic recognition is held to be the answer. No one has yet demonstrated that recognition of the Soviet Régime in Russia has built one iota of friendship for America.… The Study Conference demands that we compound our blunders and allow Red China to open an embassy and a series of consulates and trade organizations upon our soil. The Conference would do well to ponder the fact that they propose a course which will ultimately bring us a diplomatic defeat which may rival that which we sustained at Yalta.

This writer wonders whether the key to much of this confused thinking is not to be found in the National Study Conference’s abandonment of clear moral principles as a basis for their deliverances. What if the Conference had itself adopted a bold program toward Red China, a program morally based, and which would put American Christianity on record before the Free World in general, and before the eight free countries of the Far East in particular? We suggest some possible features of such a program.

With respect to recognition of Red China by the United States, why did not the Conference set forth some minimum ethical requirements to be met by the men of Peiping before recognition should even be considered? First: demand that Peiping consent to a reunification of the Korean nation upon the basis of free elections. Second, demand that Red China indemnify, in acceptable currency, the families of the American dead in the Korean War, with special indemnity to those who died in communist prison camps. Third, demand that Red China secure from a committee of neutral nations a fair estimate of the costs to the Free world of the Korean War which she aggressively waged, and that she set up a fund, under U. N. control, to be administered for the rehabilitation of Korea. Fourth, demand that she retract, through effective channels, her charge of germ warfare against the United States, this retraction to be made explicit both within and outside China.

With respect to admission to the United Nations, why did not the Conference propose for Red China a bold program which should be fulfilled as a minimum requirement for any possible discussion of admission? The following might have been embodied in such a program: in addition to permitting the reunification of Korea by free elections and to the public repudiation of the charge of germ warfare against U.N. troops, there should be a program of indemnification of relatives of United Nations’ troops killed in the conflict sparked by Peiping and maintained by her ‘volunteers,’ and the establishment of a fund for the reparation of damages done to U. N. forces in the Korean conflict. The fulfilment of these demands might also put the men of Peiping in a mood to consider some decent approach to the question of Taiwan.

Such platforms as these would have put the Study Conference on World Order of the National Council of Churches upon a basis which would command the respect of the entire civilized world. It would have entitled them to speak with a prophetic voice, rather than with the voice of an impoverished and ad hoc expediency. It would have raised the voice of Amos at the point of world justice, rather than a voice like that of Aaron as he excused the casting of Israel’s calf.…

Asbury Theological Seminary

Wilmore, Kentucky

EVOLUTION OR CREATION

Your … article “Evolution or Creation?” (May 11 issue) is one of the best … ever … written upon this vital subject.

Loma Linda, Calif.

For any good Calvinist who believes God has ordered the seemingly fortuitous events of cultural history, it should not be difficult to discern his providence in the natural history of life (not only in the “major … instances of organization,” but in the “minor” ones too!) as best elucidated by modern evolutionary theory. By all means, let us “take the evidence at its face value,” and with alacrity acclaim in ardent accord with Dr. Clark that “God created the heaven and earth.”

Concord, Mass.

Clark is a thinker, and is on the side of the angels.

Loma Linda, Calif.

He did deny the theory of evolution, but was weak on the doctrine of creation. What we need for our generation is a positive, firm structure as to the questions of origins based on the opening chapters of Genesis.

Desert Highlands Baptist Church

Palmdale, Calif.

Dr. R. E. D. Clark’s article on evolution is well done. He has the clearest statement of the entropy argument I have seen. Also the “systems” argument is handled rather nicely. One could think of many more illustrations from the “evolution” of modern missile systems: the ladder of progress is climbed by major redesigns, not gradual changes (and by hard work and taxpayers money, not magic).

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Silver Spring, Md.

Chance, God, Nature, Life Principle—one is neither more difficult nor easier to grasp or comprehend than the other with man’s meagre intellect. Ultimately, he must say only, “I believe,” and become either a victim or a possession of faith. He becomes a believer in a force of some sort and finds a certain mental peace or he believes no answer possible and tosses and struggles in the darkness of not knowing.

It may seem “natural and sensible … to believe that God created the heaven and the earth” to Dr. Clark, but there are many sincere and honest people for whom it is not this easy. They are not aided by such an anthropomorphic view of God as appears in this article which intimates that God rested because he was tired.…

Delridge Chapel, Free Methodist

Seattle, Wash.

He builds his basic argument on two misconceptions. One, entropy or morpholysis does not apply in the biological world, per se. The total effect of the biosphere is one of productivity, of energy storing. A great deal more energy is stored by the process of photosynthesis than is consumed by subsequent food chain requirements, and a great deal more radiant energy reaches the earth’s surface than is stored. Hence, there is sufficient energy for creativity.

The other misconception is the argument concerning natural selection. The present view is that there is selection of the fit, not necessarily of the fittest. Or conversely, natural selection eliminates the unfit. Modifications due to mutations may have no adaptive significance whatever and still be maintained. That is, certain changes in the organism may make it neither more fit or less fit. Such changes need serve no purpose, but will still occur in individuals carrying the proper genes for such characteristics. Tongue-curling and tasting PTC (phenylthiocarbamide) are popular examples.

To speak of “magic” does not elucidate the principle being discussed, it seems, because the underlying problem is much deeper. We must resort here to a recognition of the role of assumptions or presuppositions. We assume we are able to observe and see what we look at. We assume that we can classify the information we gain. We, as Christians, assume God created the universe. This is not magic, but a basic postulate. If nothing in our experience strongly counters our assumptions, we retain them, we build upon them. Conclusions (interpretation of observations) based upon different presuppositions often differ. This is why the Christian and the materialist, and even the evangelical and the liberal so often clash. The conflict is not of fact but of theory.

It seems to me that R. E. D. Clark is speaking in the realm of theory rather than fact and is forgetting that explanations of universal phenomena are often enlightening if considered from the “both … and” basis rather than the “either … or.” Why can not one of God’s creative mechanisms be natural selection according to his plan?

North Dakota Agricultural College

Fargo, N. Dak.

There is a difference between the entropy law, as applied only to energy, and the morpholysis law which includes the entropy law but has a wider scope. Dr. Cassel confuses them and then argues that “there is sufficient energy for creativity.” But energy is not creative. A few million horsepower will not invent a typewriter or create a literary masterpiece. Energy merely enables an already existing arrangement to be duplicated endlessly, as in factory or printing press. The problem of evolution, as ordinarily understood, is not one of duplication but of creativity—how did new types arise?

I was well aware that natural selection might sometimes select the fit rather than the most fit, but it was hardly possible to allude to all modern biological theories in a short article. Of course, purposeless characters (such as the ability to taste phenylthiocarbamide as bitter) will sometimes be present. But when a series of individually purposeless enzyme syntheses turn out, when the last link of the chain has been (purposelessly?) added, to be very purposeful indeed, the force of my remark is surely relevant: “Common sense revolts against the suggestion that all cases could be explained along these lines.”

Cambridge Technical College

Cambridge, Eng.

IN SEARCH OF AN ANTHEM

In conjunction with the celebration of its 150th anniversary, the congregation of the Park Avenue Christian Church, New York City, is hoping to locate an original anthem for use in 1960, their sesquicentennial year. The composer of the anthem judged best suited to their needs will be awarded a prize of $200.00.

Additional information and entry blanks are available to composers wishing to submit material, and may be obtained by writing to “Anthem,” Park Avenue Christian Church, 1010 Park Avenue, New York 28, New York. The deadline for entries is midnight of December 31, 1959.

New York, N. Y.

A reader of this page chides the writer for worshipping the Bible. Frequently we have heard individuals disparagingly spoken of as “bibliolaters.”

In the many years that I have lived and worked with Christians, I have yet to see such an individual. That such may exist is certainly possible. That they constitute any appreciable number of persons, however, I am certain is untrue.

There are, on the other hand, millions in our own generation, as well as those of the past, who respect the Bible for good reason. These men and women trust the written Word because it has been pragmatically justified. Wherever it can be tested it has proved itself in experience to be what Christ and the apostles represent it to be, namely, the Word of God. Neither respect nor trust can in any sense be confused with worship.

To trust the Bible is not to worship it. In respecting the Scriptures we do not ascribe homage to its pages.

How can it be said then that those who have this regard for the written Word worship it? In part the reason is it is not held with corresponding trust or respect by others.

Part of the difficulty of those who may appear to follow the Bible blindly is due to a lack of objectivity on their part. This in turn can lead to an inflexibility which is no credit to anyone. That this may also hold for many who question parts of the Bible is equally true.

There are portions in the Scriptures which were vigorously questioned in past generations because of seeming contradictions, but which are now accepted because archaeological discoveries have proven them true.

On the other hand a rigid literalism has often led to unwarranted dogmatic assumptions which fall as the rug is pulled from under them in the face of more accurate scholarship. Often a preacher has had to revise a sermon on some favored text when more careful research proved that its meaning was different from what he had thought.

By some strange legerdemain of reasoning, those who inveigh most against bibliolatry are the very ones that exhibit in their churches an open Bible flanked by burning candles!

What then is the attitude of those who turn to the Holy Scriptures with confidence and honestly believe them to be the “only infallible rule of faith and practice?” What about those who have tested the Word and found it true?

There are two questions involved here: one of inspiration and the other revelation. We believe that all Scripture is inspired of God, but not everything contained therein is equally important or relevant for daily living. We believe that in God’s Word we have revelations of truth that come through the Holy Spirit, truths which man could never have discovered for himself unless the Holy Spirit had imparted them to those willing to receive. Furthermore, we believe these revelations of truth to be God-breathed and accurate regardless of whether men believe and accept them or not.

In other words, the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by man’s acceptance or rejection of its contents; it is man who stands in judgment before the Book, not the Book which stands in judgment before man.

At the same time, the message of the Bible becomes operative in the hearts and lives of men as the Holy Spirit takes the written Word and applies it to the individual. It is perfectly accurate to say that the Bible becomes relevant to a person only as he accepts and acts on it; however, it is true that this relevance is there at all times, and man rejects it only at infinite loss to himself.

One of our greatest hindrances to an accurate and fruitful attitude to the Bible is reading books about the Bible rather than the Bible itself. There are thousands of men in the pulpits and in pews today who are thoroughly conversant on the opinions of other men about the Bible but dangerously ignorant of the Bible itself. Many of these show an almost pathological fear of letting the Bible speak for itself. To follow the example of the Laodicean Christians in examining the Scriptures is to these opponents of the Word anathema. To Paul it was an “honorable” procedure.

Again, to say that only those parts of Scripture which speak to the individual heart are, for that person, inspired is to transfer the basis of authority from the Bible to subjective intellectual or emotional reactions.

On what ground, therefore, do we Christians exhibit such confidence toward the Word of God?

This can be answered in one sentence: We have tested it and found that it is in fact what it claims to be, a Book inspired by God. In it we have found an unfailing source of comfort, hope, assurance, wisdom, warning, admonition, guidance, and truth.

Even on a cold scientific basis the Bible stands the test. Let it speak for itself and we find it true. Let it speak to our hearts and we hear God speaking.

We have found that the God of the Bible is our own God and loving heavenly Father. We have found the Christ of the Scriptures to be God’s Son and our own Saviour and Lord. We have found the Holy Spirit, whose loving ministrations are revealed in both Old and New Testaments, to be the comforter of our hearts and the illuminator of our own spirits.

In answer to the smug assertion of some that “we worship God, not the Bible,” or “we trust Christ, not a book,” we reply with hearty “amen.” Of course it is God whom we worship. Of course it is Christ in whom we put our trust for salvation. And the God we worship, the Christ we believe, and the Holy Spirit who makes our faith possible is the triune God revealed to us in the Scriptures and known experimentally by faith.

In expressing faith in the written Word, we know by experience that it is true. In matters of faith, doctrine, and practice it speaks of and for God. In the realm of daily living it shows us the way to make our Christian faith effective and relevant. Its promises have reached across the centuries and apply to our own needs. Its warnings to men of old are found to apply to these days as well.

When the Bible becomes a daily source of spiritual food and drink, when its story is woven into the warp and woof of our minds and hearts, we find that God gives us those answers without which no man can live aright.

With the Bible as our guide, we get the proper perspective between this life and the next, a right evaluation of the things which are temporary and those that are eternal, and an unshakable philosophy for living and a confidence which satisfies the question of this life and the life beyond the grave.

No, we do not worship the Bible. But we honor and trust it as a precious revelation of God’s eternal truth; and in our doing this, we have found it never to fail.