Seasoned With Salt

What Luther Says, compiled by Ewald M. Plass (Concordia, 1958, 3 vols., 1692 pp., $25) is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer of Peekskill, New York.

There have been other anthologies of Luther. For the busy scholar who wants the briefest epitomes and can read German, nothing is better than Band XXIII of Luthers Saemmtliche Schriften (Concordia, 1910). Editor Hoppe’s index, which fills the large quarto volume, contains perhaps 25,000 or 30,000 direct quotations from Luther, and in each case a reference is given to the volume and column in which the statement is found in its context. Hoppe’s work also has the merit of presenting a list of references to Bible verses quoted by the Reformer.

But for those who desire, or are obliged, to read Luther in English, Plass’s trilogy will prove to be by far the most comprehensive work of its kind of which they can avail themselves. Indeed it approximates Hoppe’s index in the number of words quoted (between half a million and a million)—for the extracts, though far fewer, and arranged under a fraction of the number of topic heads, are in general considerably longer.

This handsome thesaurus was issued by Concordia Publishing House in response to a resolution of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Its three large volumes, beautifully buckram-bound and brilliant in typography, were prepared under the direction of Synod’s Committee for Scholarly Research by Professor Ewald M. Plass of Concordia College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, author of the book, This is Luther (Concordia, 1948).

The fruit of years of labor, this encyclopaedic compilation contains over 5000 quotations on more than 200 subjects alphabetically arranged under broad topical heads. Each item has a descriptive caption, is prefaced by the author and is thoroughly documented with references to the editions of Luther’s Works in which the respective quotation is to be found. Also—and this is important in the case of Luther, who had to outgrow much of what he had learned in the Church of Rome—the extracts are, wherever possible, dated. There are many illuminating footnotes, eminently readable not only typographically but also from the viewpoint of human and scholarly interest. Valuable appendices are included in the form of a biographical register with descriptive lists of some important Luther editions and of his chief writings, a brief chronicle of his life and time, and a bibliography. The two indices consist of a supplementary index of topics and a Scripture text index.

With impartial facility Luther poured out words from tongue and pen; and almost invariably, whether in his sermons, in his private conversation, or in his books and pamphlets, he had something to say that is worth listening to. There was little indeed of what he said or wrote that was not “to the use of edifying.”

He was usually no craftsman in words; seldom was he a self-conscious stylist. There was little time in his busy life for cultivating rhetoric. Yet his words were heard and read—and they are still read, as the current monumental publication of his Works, in English, testifies. And although he may often seem less vivid in translation, however excellent (as in the present case) that may be, not only his speech but also his writing was seasoned with salt, liberally peppered, and often spiced with a dash of Worcestershire sauce. He did not need a nicely cultivated style, for in a degree unique in our modern era, he had the unction of the Holy Spirit.

Plass quotes Melanchthon as saying: “One is an interpreter; one a logician; another an orator, affluent and beautiful in speech; but Luther is all in all. Whatever he writes, whatever he utters, pierces to the heart. He is a miracle among men” (What Luther Says, I, xii).” “A voice and a pen, that is all. But there is more power in this voice and this pen to shake and mould the world than in all the bulls of a pope or the armed strength of emperors and kings.” Thus wrote James MacKinnon in Luther and the Reformation (What Luther Says, I, xvi–xvii).

Luther was, of course, pre-eminently a theologian, and he was a theologian who was bound by the inspired Scriptures and determined to exalt the Saviour. “For Luther what is not Scriptural is not theological,” Plass correctly points out, “and what does not glorify Christ cannot be Scriptural.” That point of view is reflected in all his speech and writing on theological subjects.

In matters not in their essence theological, Luther’s thinking was sometimes medieval, as in his estimate of the contemporary Copernican theory. But often in other instances, it was quite modern, as for example his utterances in behalf of democracy, separation of Church and State, income tax, price controls, and compulsory education. His comments on war are thoroughly in harmony with the popular view and governmental philosophy now prevalent in the United States. His wise and trenchant words on that subject are eminently worth perusing. The great Reformer clearly recognized, however, the futility of attempting to bring about reform by means of legislation.

In matters apart from theology we find Luther a man of strongly independent opinion, generally sound common sense and always, where the subject touches the domain of the moral, conditioned by his understanding of the Holy Scriptures, for which he had an enormous respect as the inspired Word of God.

To all who want to know what Luther had to say on almost any subject, this notable publication is to be heartily commended for its direct and practical value and its stimulus and guide to further study.

E. P. SCHULZE

How Many Authors?

Who Wrote Isaiah?, by Edward J. Young (Eerdmans, 1958, 88 pp., $1.50), is reviewed by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Professor of Biblical Languages, Fuller Theological Seminary.

This valuable little book is a worthy addition to the growing list of Evangelical studies published by Eerdmans in their current series of Pathway Books. Written by the Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary, who has previously put out a scholarly survey of Isaianic criticism in his “Studies in Isaiah” (1954), this excellent defense of the genuineness of the entire 66 chapters of Isaiah furnishes much-needed apologetic material for scholars, Bible teachers and seminarians who hold to the historic Christian faith. Even in seminaries which have been traditionally conservative in theology, the attacks of negative higher criticism have instilled doubts as to the integrity of the book of Isaiah. Scholarly discussions of this calibre should do much to restore confidence in historic view of the Christian Church and of the New Testament itself that the eighth century prophet Isaiah himself wrote the entire 66 chapters attributed to him in the Hebrew Scriptures. Not simply as a matter of faith but of keeping true to the laws of evidence, Dr. Young most convincingly demonstrates that no other theory of authorship does justice to all the facts, either from the standpoint of internal evidence or of external.

In chapter one, “Importance and Significance of the Problem,” he indicates the fallacy of the frequently expressed view that Isaiah 40–66 could have been inspired, no matter who wrote it. This opinion by implication renders the New Testament untrustworthy, for John 12:41 unequivocally asserts that the same Isaiah who wrote Isaiah 6:10 also composed 53:1. “In both instances he saw Christ and was speaking of Him. On these points the New Testament is clear” (p. 11). In chapter two the author surveys the history of negative Isaianic criticism, showing the instability and subjectivism of the rationalist scholars, whose critical judgments have resulted in chaotic inconsistency and confusion, and who have been united only in a philosophic prejudice against the possibility of supernatural prediction of the future. In chapter three, “The Witness of Tradition,” he demonstrates the inadequacy of every attempt made by modern scholars to explain away the uniform ancient tradition of the Isaianic authorship of the second part (chapters 40–66). Of particular interest is his analysis and refutation of E. J. Kissane’s theory (not discussed in his earlier works) that an anonymous admirer of the eighth-century Isaiah composed this imitation of his language, style, and circle of ideas, in order to bolster the faith of his countrymen during the Babylonian Exile. Young points out (p. 33): “The prophet was a spokesman for the Lord and therefore necessarily a divinely accredited person. The identity of the prophet had to be known for his message to be received.” In chapter four “The Position of Chapters 36–39 in the Prophecy,” he demonstrates that Chapter 39, though recording earlier events than 36–37, was placed after them deliberately to pave the way for the collection of prophecies relating to the future Exile and Restoration (Chaps. 40–66) by recording Isaiah’s denunciation of Hezekiah’s proud display of wealth to the Babylonian envoys.

It is unfortunate that the limited size of this book inhibits the author from elaborating upon some of the arguments he adduces. He leaves too much to the reader’s own industry in looking up the numerous citations listed and trying to figure out how he arrived at his conclusions. An instance in point is the set of citations from pre-exilic prophets which indicate their familiarity with Isaiah 34 (regarded by negative critics as late post-exilic in origin). To show by the laws of evidence that the Isaiah-passage must be regarded as the source borrowed from requires detailed demonstration. Yet Dr. Young does elaborate enough to make out a strong case for the priority of Isaiah 43:1–6 to Jeremiah 30:10 ff. on the basis of the Messianic title, “My Servant.”

In chapter seven “The Prophecy concerning Cyrus,” he effectively exploits O. T. Allis’s analysis (in “The Unity of Isaiah” 1950) of the Cyrus-prediction in Isaiah 44:26–28. Here he proves that Cyrus is presented as a personage who is to appear in the distant future, rather than in the immediate present (as the Two Isaiah Theory would insist). He also comes up with the surprising statistic that the name of Babylon occurs twice as often in Isaiah 1–39 as it does in Isaiah 40–66 (which is alleged to have been written in Babylon itself!) Finally, in the all-too-brief final chapter “When Did Isaiah Compose Chapters 40–66?,” he indicates that the Messianic hope had a very definite relevance to the contemporary situation in Judah during the years of the prophet’s retirement from active public ministry (i.e. in the reign of Manasseh). Only the certainty that God’s grace would ultimately triumph through the Messiah could assure the faithful remnant of true believers in Isaiah’s generation that their labor and sacrifice were not in vain in the Lord; that despite the moral failure of the nation as a whole under the influence of their ungodly king, Israel had a divinely guaranteed future and a glorious destiny to fulfill before all the world.

GLEASON L. ARCHER, JR.

Paraphrase With A Purpose

The Bihle for Family Reading, by Joseph Gaer and Chester C. McCown (Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 752 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, author of St. Luke’s Life of Jesus.

Recently, a rash of books paraphrasing the Bible have appeared. This is another. In part, these seem to reflect a growing concern about the average person’s abysmal ignorance of the Bible. Many authors, including the present one, believe that the way to whet the appetite of the average person for Bible reading is to give him a version which is “more attractive” and “less formidable” than the church-approved versions.

But there is another reason why biblical paraphrases are written. Often it is to produce a vehicle of thought which will convey the particular religious philosophy of the writer. The paraphrase is primarily a commentary and an interpretation of the Bible presenting the “truth” (usually ethical) which the author believes to be concealed from ordinary eyes within the original narrative. Mr. Gaer, the principal author of this work, has approached his task evidently from this latter standpoint. He believes that his “version”—which is complete with a brief introduction to each book—preserves the central essence of the Story while discarding the dross.

According to Mr. Gaer, every chapter of the Bible is retained or accounted for, with duplications and other useless material omitted. Thus Psalms 140–149 are left out because they are simply variants of Psalm 150 which is included. Genealogies and detailed specifications do not appear. Occasionally, of course, a drastic alteration of material occurs. Isaiah 49 is 13 lines long, while the Sermon on the Mount takes up four pages and the story of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple is left out altogether. The authors make much of their scholarly approach to the textual problem and claim to follow, in the arrangement of the Synoptics, for instance, such authorities as Huck and Lietzmann, but they close their harmony of the Synoptics with the disputed material at the end of Mark which most critical scholars reject.

The treatment accorded the gospel of John probably indicates best both the value of this book and the probable purpose which prompted its writing. John is located, because of its theme and its alleged date, at the end of the New Testament, following the Revelation. Then, although it is fully assumed that the unknown author was more of a poet than a historian, Messrs. Gaer and McCown carefully excise from the text (and explicitly call attention in their notes to the fact that they have done so) those passages in which John quotes Jesus as claiming for himself special divinity or a propitiatory purpose. Such passages are omitted, as “not directly necessary to the progress of the story,” as 5:18–19; 6:42–59; 8:24, 55–58; and all of chapter 21 except the last verse. G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Triumphant In Faith

How Sleep the Brave, by James H. Hunter (Zondervan, 1955, 256 pp., $3), is reviewed by Lucy D. Sullivan, Teacher at Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee.

James H. Hunter gives a compelling account of the immolation of the valiant Covenanters of seventeenth century Scotland in his historical novel How Sleep the Brave. Hunted down by Catholic James II and his Scottish henchmen, these hardy Presbyterian adherents to the Scottish Covenant of 1638 are championed by a hero of epic proportions who has been proscribed by James and dispossessed of his castle and lands. Known as the Black Avenger, this combination of Robin Hood, Tarzan, and the Lone Ranger roams through the highlands in various disguises playing coronachs on his bagpipe and shooting black arrows into tree trunks as warnings to the king’s dragoons.

The precision with which this champion of the Covenanters times his arrival at trouble spots and the ease with which he carries off to safety men doomed to the torture of the boot, thumbscrew, and the Red Maiden are nothing short of miraculous. Novelist Hunter also indulges in unconvincing descriptions of nature and female pulchritude. The Girvan stream pours “in winning whimples over its rock bed,” and Duncan Fenwick, alias the Black Avenger, kisses his sweetheart’s “dimpled mouth with its rose lips.”

Although the love of the Black Avenger and the laird’s daughter, Marion Kennedy, provides the romantic interest of the novel, the central focus is the “scattered and peeled” Covenanters hiding out in caves and woods to whom the Avenger whisks us in his daring rescues. The blood of little children who refuse to betray the whereabouts of their parents reddens the mountain streams; Sheila MacLeod whose persecuted and ailing husband dies as the dragoons enter the cottage, cries “He has escaped ye a’; Yer bullets canna reach; yer flames canna scorch him; yer malice canna reach him yonder.” Donald MacLeod laying his bloody head on a rock is shot where he lies; a throng of men and women sing the forty-sixth Psalm with tears running down their faces as they stand around communion tables in the heather of the hills of Galloway, after which Peden the prophet preaches a sermon “Shall the sword devour forever?” and Duncan, the Avenger, looking down on the graves of Covenanters who had been praying when they were shot down, says sadly “There sleep the brave … they died for you and me and for the generations yet unborn, that freedom to worship according to every man’s conscience might be ours and those that are yet to be.” It is in these authentic portraits of a people triumphant in faith after years of satanic and papistic persecution that the value of this novel lies.

LUCY D. SULLIVAN

Five Points Of Calvinism

The Deeper Faith, by Gordon Girod (Reformed Publications, Grand Rapids, 1958, 135 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Loraine Boettner, author of The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

This is one of the clearest and most convincing statements of the distinguishing doctrines of the Reformed Faith that can be found anywhere. The writer is a minister in the Reformed Church of America. The discussion is based on “The Canons of the Synod of Dort,” which is the principal creedal document of the Reformed Church. The Synod of Dort (1618–1619) was convened by the States-General of Holland, and there were 102 official delegates from Holland, England, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. It was therefore an “ecumenical” conference in the true sense of the word. The primary subject for discussion was a “Remonstrance” which had been drawn up by the followers of Jacobus Arminius who had taken exception to Reformed teaching concerning the relationship that exists between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Deliberations covered a period of approximately six months, and the deliverances dealt specifically with those doctrines which later came to be known as “The Five Points of Calvinism”—Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints. Each of these is given a chapter heading. Special care is taken to show the Scripture basis on which each rests. A sixth chapter answers some of the objections that are commonly raised against the system, and these are shown to have no basis in fact. Chapter seven is a reprint of that part of The Canons of the Synod of Dort which sets forth the Five Points.

We welcome this book with enthusiasm. It is a great work well done. We are impressed with the author’s ability to present the grand themes of the Reformed faith in language that the average Christian can follow without difficulty, and at the same time to inspire a loftier respect for the overtones of grace that provided for our salvation in the councils of eternity. In this day when so many are searching for an easy religion, and when the supposedly “hard” doctrines of Calvinism are largely neglected or misunderstood or even unknown by so many of our people, it is a real pleasure to find a work such as this. The title, The Deeper Faith, is appropriate. Anyone who reads this book will find himself introduced to high thoughts and stimulated in his intellectual and spiritual life.

LORAINE BOETTNER

U. S. Protestant leaders are worried over their social welfare ties with government. Should federal money be used by Protestant agencies and institutions? What are the long-term effects on church-state relations? Such questions are provoking much soul searching at top denominational levels.

Issue Avoided In Atlantic City

Diversities in Protestant practice complicated a 1957 Atlantic City conference on the church’s role and function in social welfare. Attending delegates from 27 denominations of the National Council of Churches and some city and state councils recognized “dangers in centralized governmental action,” yet affirmed that “in a pluralistic society it is necessary that governmental agencies and voluntary services cooperate” on a non-discriminating basis “so that the needs of all people will be met.” Uncertain of the extent to which cooperation should be carried, especially when government funds are used by church-related services, the delegates requested further study and conference on church-state relations. Some critics fear the government’s use of the church to implement state programs of welfare, a progressive curtailment of voluntarism, and a free hand for “fund grabs” by Roman Catholic and Protestant groups which highly approve government aid for new building programs or “purchase of services” from voluntary agencies, or both.

Wide Range Of Discrepancy

Speaking to key Protestant churchmen interested in the social welfare dilemma, Dr. William J. Villaume, executive director of the NCC Department of Social Welfare, underscored extensive involvement in a review of major church and state relationships in the current execution of the welfare program of American churches.

Variance in Protestant practice, he said, extends to most major denominations reflects wide ranges of internal inconsistency. It involves many realms: government funds for new construction and new programs; direct subsidy of operating budgets by public funds through grants, loans, and grants in return for token payments; purchase of service by government from church-related welfare agencies; supplementation of church-related services by government agencies; licensing and other regulation of church-related agencies and services; and participation of church employees and churches in old age, survivors and disability insurance (social security).

In view of problems likely to confront American Christianity during the next 25 years in the area of church-state relations, the confused Protestant social welfare program raises denominational policy to new centrality. Social welfare committees and commissions, free for a decade to determine their own policies, may now be subject to careful scrutiny, and denominational leaders will be driven to a re-examination of the Protestant philosophy of social welfare and its controlling principles.

Hospital Construction

The Hill-Burton Hospital Survey and Construction Act, now extended to June, 1962, encouraged many Protestant hospitals to seek government funds for new construction, possibly because as welfare agencies Protestant hospitals are tied to their denominations less loosely than either Roman Catholic hospitals or other Protestant welfare activities. As of June 30, 1955, $124,978,000 in federal funds had been distributed as follows: Roman Catholic, $100,381,000; Protestant, $19,164,000; Jewish, $5,433,000. Thus projects by Roman Catholics, who claim 20 per cent of the population, got roughly 80 per cent of Hill-Burton funds awarded to church-related institutions; Protestant projects got 15 per cent, and Jewish, 5 per cent. Roman Catholics have often sought and sometimes received public funds to help meet the sponsor’s local share in supplementing Hill-Burton funds. The Sisters of the Holy Cross projected a $6 million hospital in Maryland if Montgomery county commissioners would submit a $3 million bond issue to voters. The balance was to come from public subscription, and $1 million to be pledged by the Order. But American Protestants also were entangled, even if on smaller scale; a Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, unable to raise funds for a building, lapsed into “denominational heresy”—acceptance of a Federal construction grant of $780,000. In 1957, Hill-Burton grants soared to $123 million.

Vocational Rehabilitation

The Federal government spent $47 million for vocational rehabilitation in 1957. Since 1954 grants have gone directly to private non-profit organizations. Goodwill Industries, Methodist Board of Missions agency, operates in 119 cities. Since 1954, 51 Goodwill Industries reportedly have received more than $1 million in Federal grants for vocational rehabilitation.

In 1955 the National Council of Churches surveyed 978 church-related agencies of 15 denominations with a $256,506,000 social welfare expenditure the previous year. Contributions received by 69 agencies from public funds not given as fees for service came to $ 1,217,000. Middle Atlantic and East North Central states account for two-thirds of the cases of direct government subsidy of agency budgets.

Direct Federal Grants

More recently, there has been a marked national trend away from direct subsidy of church-related institutions to “purchase of service” arrangements reimbursing agencies through fees for services rendered to individuals who are public charges. But direct grants to institutions engaged in training health and welfare personnel have soared. In less than four months of 1958, $16 million in Federal grant support went to medical schools, clinics, hospitals, university psychology departments, collegiate schools of nursing, schools of social work and schools of public health in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

Another form of subsidy to voluntary welfare agencies is the provision of low-interest construction loans (Hill-Burton Act provides 40-year loans at 2¼ per cent) which mortgage bankers consider unsound.

Roman Catholic Pressure

The argument that church-related welfare agencies serve the common good has been pressed by Roman Catholic leaders to gain immunity from negligence liability litigation, and to get land grants in Massachusetts for the erection of chapels at state mental hospitals and schools for the retarded. In New York City land grants have been made for the erection of both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches on the sites of public housing projects. In New York some mission societies are using public facilities to carry on their work. In New Jersey, city authorities turned the 17-story Jersey City Medical Center, valued at $10 million, to Seton Hall University, a Roman Catholic institution which has instituted a medical and dental school, with the city providing all maintenance, elevator and other services for a $275,000 rental.

Public agencies have been purchasing health and welfare services from existing voluntary agencies ready to sell specialized services to government. An NCC survey in 1955 showed that 832 Protestant agencies earn four-fifths of their operating income. Yet, of these agencies, 132 received over $6 million from public agencies as reimbursement for services rendered. Welfare agencies related to 16 denominations benefited, with Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, and Presbyterian U.S.A. agencies receiving more than $1 million each. The percentage of government purchase of service is far higher in relation to child placement and adoption agencies: 21 agencies reported only

$311,000 in service fees from individuals, while 15 agencies reported $1,026,000 as public reimbursement of services. In Detroit the seven Protestant children’s agencies in 1956 received $956,122, half of their total budget of $1,884,000, from the county supervisors. City welfare departments from Hartford to Los Angeles buy care for homeless men and women from certain missions and shelters, including Salvation Army and sectarian agencies offering a religious ministry. While Protestants sometimes have sought to justify such services independently of a spiritual mission, the National Conference of Catholic Charities challenges efforts to exclude organizations operating on a religious basis from receiving payments for service. Most Protestant and Jewish homes for children and the aged, in fact, also consider the religious atmosphere a distinctive contribution to their clients. Judges and public welfare workers carefully observe the requirement that public charges be placed, if possible, in institutions of their own faith. An interesting development is that voluntary agencies, especially sectarian agencies, impede the expansion of public services when their sponsors insist upon government purchase of their services.

Overseas Relief

Some $128,769,000 in relief supplies was distributed abroad in fiscal year 1958 in behalf of U. S. religious and voluntary organizations, according to the Department of State.

Much of the total represents the value of surplus food donated to distributing agencies by the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the International Cooperation Administration contributed $25,886,734 to defray costs of ocean transportation.

Here is an approximate breakdown of overseas relief for the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1958: By agency—Catholic Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, $79,400,000; Church World Service, $17,700,000; Lutheran World Relief, $8,700,000; Jewish agencies, $1,841,000; American Friends Service Committee, $900,000; Mennonite Central Committee, $800,000; World Relief Commission of National Association of Evangelicals, $577,000; Seventh-day Adventists (only group which refused government food), $261,000. By country—Italy $28,423,000; Korea, $20,730,000; India, $11,029,000; Yugoslavia, $10,010,000; Chile, $9,610,000; Spain, $7,147,000; Vietnam, $5,203,000; Formosa, $4,854,000; Philippines, $4,403,000; Hong Kong, $3,363,000; Morocco, $2,710,000.

Protestant Policy And Practice

After a survey of denominational welfare executives last August, Dr. Villaume reported that such government purchase of service is almost uniformly regarded as acceptable Protestant practice. But denominational leaders are now concerned with a deeper question than the quality of the available service, the need for additional funds to carry an enlarged clientele, and government’s free offer of partial reimbursement. That question, in Dr. Villaume’s words, is: what part will acceptance or rejection play in shaping church-state relations in America in view of the church-relatedness of the institution and recipient of funds? He notes that International Cooperation Administration during the past three years contracted with voluntary agencies (sectarian and nonsectarian) for $9 million of services in community development, health, education and agriculture.

Surplus Food Gifts

A fourth type of government assistance is the supplementation of church-related services. The most obvious example is overseas distribution of U.S. government surplus commodities by church agencies. Some 1,347,000 tons of such foods have been distributed in this way to needy people in friendly lands. The cooperating voluntary agencies simultaneously procured 200,000 tons of food from their own sources. Ocean freight costs for all such distributions were paid by federal funds, while benefiting foreign governments paid inland freight and costs. All faiths have lauded the program. In 1957 National Catholic Welfare Conference distributed about 1,175,000,000 pounds of commodities, much of it government-supplied surplus food, valued at between $123 million and $148 million, at a distribution cost of $5 million. Church World Service distributed about 300 million pounds. Roman Catholic agencies have been criticized repeatedly for using their distributions for shameless proselyting, even with building Roman Catholic churches as distribution centers in areas where there are no Roman Catholics.

Foreign mission boards, both Protestant and Catholic, have often requested federal donations of war surpluses in the Far East, payment of war damage claims, and diplomatic privileges for missionaries (such as use of post exchanges).

Local Church Involvement

Supplementation of welfare services by government has nudged into many local church situations, as well as church-related agencies. Churches provide facilities for health clinics staffed by departments of health, for instruction classes for mentally retarded children and even in elementary education—all under financial contract. Public school classes are conducted in the following New York institutions: Hebrew National Orphan Home, Yonkers; Assylum of St. Dominick, Blauvelt; Cardinal Hayes Memorial Home, Millbrook; St. Agatha’s School, Nanuet; St. Joseph’s School, Peekskill; and St. Francis Sanitorium, Roslyn, N.Y.

Surplus commodity distribution is procured on the home front also, as under the National School Lunch Program. In some cases state law prohibits disbursements to private schools. Surplus food is also distributed to nonprofit summer camps. In New England a city missionary society in 1956 distributed foods valued at $1,420, delivered by a state agency for a $37.70 service charge. Summer camp and other distributions would multiply this figure thousands of times.

Another supplementation is the granting of federal research awards and fellowships to church-related medical schools and hospitals. In one year these ran $1,800,000.

The problem of church and state also shadows the licensing of church-related agencies and services. The NCC’s Department of Social Welfare in 1953 “generally approved … the licensing of voluntary institutions by state governments … provided that the freedom of the churches and other private groups and agencies to enter into these fields of service is protected.” It also stressed that “church-related institutions should neither request nor expect any exemption whatever from … minimum acceptable standards prescribed by … fire, safety, health and welfare laws.”

A sixth major area in Dr. Villaume’s report surveys the participation of church employees and churches in old age, survivors and disability insurance. The 1935 Social Security Act unveiled the uncertainty of many American churches in the matter of the relations they desire to maintain with the state, Dr. Villaume notes. Since an insurance tax compulsorily collected by the state might endanger the tax-exempt status of churches, they were apprehensive. But practical aspects soon outweighed theoretical considerations. When lay employees of religious organizations became eligible on a permissive basis in 1951, the majority entered readily. In 1954 Congress approved clergy participation as self-employed on an individual-election basis. By the end of March, 1957, more than 100,000 clergy waivers had been signed. But the coverage of a disproportionate share of older men, which drains the resources of the program, is now giving caution and, with a final deadline of April 15, 1959, only half the clergy are participating. Close to 60 per cent in the 60–64 age bracket elected coverage, and 80 per cent of those 65 and over, whereas 29 per cent of those under 30 are participating. Dr. Villaume facetiously comments that two interpretations are possible: “that older ministers are more liberal in their attitude toward the state, or that a minister knows a bargain at the expense of the government when he sees one!” Many ministers entered the program, however, on the conviction that they are tax-paying citizens and eligible on that basis rather than as ministers.

Where To Go From Here?

The sweeping involvement of Protestant social welfare programs in matters of state cooperation is quite sure to raise the question whether policy-making should be left to denominational leadership rather than to the agencies. Dr. Villaume has addressed to Protestant leaders some major questions now confronting the churches.

He asks: What are the appropriate delineations of role and function between church and state in welfare work? Where does sound democratic policy draw the line between state and voluntary welfare services? Is the same line applicable to both church-related and other voluntary agencies? What are the differences between the welfare programs of the state, of nonsectarian voluntary agencies, and of the churches, in motive, purpose and effect? What is the church’s appropriate sector of function and responsibility in community life?

Again he asks: What are sound and effective patterns of collaboration between church and state in welfare work which will not impair the freedom of either? When does a church-related welfare program become an instrument of sectarian religious influence and penetration in the community? Should state collaboration with church-related welfare work be considered on grounds of separation from sectarian religious influences or on grounds of non-discrimination? What tax funds or other subsidy or assistance should the church seek or accept from the state for its welfare work? Should the church collaborate with the state when the state welfare program is influenced by partisan politics?

These and other questions are likely to provoke a good deal of Protestant soul-searching in the months ahead. What is at stake is more than an indictment of Roman Catholic and Protestant attraction of staggering Federal monies to church enterprises, but the necessary definition of the Protestant philosophy of social welfare and the formulation of guiding principles of application.

C. F. H. H.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Mass Evangelism

“I doubt whether we have very much longer to preach the Gospel.” Such utterances were always common with evangelist Billy Graham. Not until last month did the world take them seriously.

Stricken with a rare malady which reduced vision in his left eye to a blurry 20–70, Graham was told to slacken his pace or expect the worst. Millions fell to their knees in behalf of evangelical Christianity’s most widely accepted spokesman. Few were aware of the real seriousness of his condition.

Doctors traced the trouble to a tiny yellow spot in the most vital area of the retina. Drops of fluid abnormally released from the blood stream had caused a small swelling which clouded the line of sight. Eighteen-hour days, jangling phones, and overflowing appointment books—which most often culminate in heart attacks—had taken an unusual course in this case.

Two weeks after diagnosis, the disorder had still not responded to heavy doses of cortisone and five days of treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Even with full recovery, doctors said, remaining scar tissue could impair vision as much as 10 per cent.

Disclosure of Graham’s ailment jolted evangelicals in Australia, where revival, something the 10,000,000 “down under” have never seen, seemed closer than ever as preparations for meetings by the American evangelist reached unprecedented proportions. To give him an extra week’s rest, the opening crusade in Melbourne was delayed from February 8 to February 15. Graham will bring nightly addresses, but is under doctors’ orders not to accept additional speaking engagements.

There were fears that any sort of curtailment of Graham’s ministry might lessen the spiritual awakening potential developed in such preliminaries as all-night prayer meetings, interdenominational cooperation, and counsellor training sessions. Actually, very few crusade plans were changed. But the immediate effect of developments was an even greater prayer rallying and increasing interest in the coming meetings.

What is Australia like? Here lies an island continent nearly as big in area as the United States. It currently boasts the lowest unemployment rate in the world, even as it leads the globe in the rate of highway accidents proportionate to miles travelled.

Summer holidays traditionally begin immediately after Christmas, though the moderate year-round climate allows outdoors sports during every season. Australians thus find their pattern of living based in large measure upon recreational activities, which include a great variety of pastimes (e.g. on a population basis, Australians are said to be the greatest gamblers in the world).

Australian religion is marked by almost exclusive Christian ties. Forty-two per cent of the population is identified with the Anglican church, one-fourth with Roman Catholicism. Methodists number 12 per cent of the population and Presbyterians 10 per cent.

“The background to all this,” says CHRISTIANITY TODAY Correspondent Leon Morris, “is a nation with the spiritual indifference of the materially prosperous. Australia has had a long run of good seasons. While there have been local droughts the country has not known a really bad season for 12 or more years. Last year a big drop in wool prices gave the economy a heavy blow, but it has not yet affected ordinary people very much. There is widespread spiritual complacency. While there is an undoubted quickening in spiritual things, and an air of expectancy among believers, we are a long way yet from a nation-wide revival.”

Coordinating crusade activities for the continent is Dr. Jerry Beavan, a Graham associate for 11 years, Graham’s public relations advisor, and the architect of the crusades in London, Glasgow and New York. Beaven has been laying the groundwork for the Australian evangelistic meetings for 18 months.

The crusade plan is as broad as the Australian continent, calling for a major five-week campaign in both Melbourne and Sydney, the cities in which 39 per cent of Australia’s total population is resident. Second phase of the effort: crusades running for periods varying from one to two weeks in capital cities of Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, and across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand’s principal cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. For these crusades associate evangelists will be in charge with Graham himself conducting the two or three final meetings.

Third level of the evangelistic effort are special one-day area-wide rallies planned for key Australian cities, including among others the federal capital, Canberra, and Launceston and Hobart on the island of Tasmania. Finally, to reach the rural population of Australia living in a network of tiny hamlets and sheep stations in the vast “outerback” region, a series of “relay crusades” are planned, utilizing land lines of the government-operated telephone service.

Local committees have been understanding, cooperative and appreciative of the Graham team’s offer to meet all of their own expenses from American funds, leaving only local items as the Australian committees’ contribution.

Prominent churchmen headed the committees; in Sydney, the Right Rev. R. C. Kerle, Anglican bishop; in Melbourne, the dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the Very Rev. S. Barton Babbage; in Brisbane and Adelaide, the Rev. George Nash and the Rev. Erwin Vogt, both Methodist ministers.

Monthly the crusade chairmen from each city meet with team members in a federal liaison committee. Offices are maintained in Sydney and Melbourne.

Graham prepared to open the Melbourne crusade with a series of sermons on the Lord’s Prayer. (Films were to be taken of the rallies and flown to the United States for showing on television.) The meetings are scheduled for the West Melbourne Stadium, erected for boxing and wrestling events in the 1956 Olympics. With closed circuit TV extension, capacity was to total about 11,000. A climactic closing rally is planned for next month in the 100,000-seat Olympic Stadium.

When he comes back to the United States, Graham will face the necessity of curtailing activities even though his tentative schedule extends through 1961. The release of responsibility will be made more difficult in the face of an expansion in his ministry. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association revealed that 1958 was the greatest year in its seven-year history. There were more responses from radio and television programs than in any previous year. Biggest single month the association has ever had from both the standpoint of mail and contributions was December, 1958. During the year the association bought nearly a million dollars worth of radio time and more than a million dollars worth of television time.

Would an incapacitated Graham reduce world-wide revival potential? Few would say so, for history has never produced a revival built on a single individual. Yet Christians pray that the evangelist’s health will allow him to maintain evangelical leadership while the world’s hour of decision is running out.

How Graham Was Stricken

What is the nature of Billy Graham’s eye ailment? Here are qualified answers from the evangelist’s own surgeon father-in-law, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY, who writes with 40 years professional experience and a thorough understanding of Graham’s medical history:

For several weeks Mr. Graham had sensed increasingly an impairment of vision in his left eye. By January 8, the impairment was so marked that he phoned Dr. Kenneth Gieser, an outstanding opthomologist in Chicago. Dr. Gieser immediately phoned a well-known opthomologist in Louisville, where Mr. Graham had an engagement that day. Dr. Gieser flew to Louisville the next morning and after careful examination diagnosed the trouble as a rather rare condition called angio-spastic edema of the macula, which is almost always the result of excessive work and strain.

After extended telephone consultations it was decided that Mr. Graham should go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Gieser accompanied him.

In his five-day stay, Mr. Graham received a complete physical checkup, all findings being negative other than the left eye, the original diagnosis in this being confirmed and a strict regime of medication and rest prescribed.

Mr. and Mrs. Graham then left for a Hawaiian island rest. From there Mr. Graham planned to go directly to Australia for the start of his long-planned crusade.

The overwork and strain which brought on the eye condition has not been the result of a wilful disregard of needed rest and relaxation. Nor has it been the result of poorly budgeted time either during his crusades or in interim engagements.

Rather, the abandon with which Mr. Graham has thrown himself into the work of evangelism stems from (1) an unparalleled number of open doors for the preaching of the Gospel in city and country throughout the world, and (2) the conviction that world conditions are such that doors open today may not be open tomorrow, that opportunities almost unparalleled in history should be accepted while there is yet time.

Nevertheless, Mr. Graham is entirely resigned to this enforced rest and sees in all of this a renewed challenge to undergird every effort with the power of prayer.

Reigious Assemblages

Morality And Economics

Calls for responsible capitalism at home and firmness against communism abroad marked a national conference on moral foundations of economic growth, meeting in Washington’s Mayflower Hotel January 15–16. The conference was held under auspices of the Foundation for Religious Action in the Social and Civil Order, more familiarly called FRASCO. Founded in 1953 by Dr. Charles Wesley Lowry, Episcopal clergyman and authority on communism, with Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, National Presbyterian Church minister, as co-chairman, the nonsectarian foundation aims at “uniting men and women of all faiths in a great spiritual counter-offensive against world domination by communism.”

Dr. Raymond W. Miller, Harvard Business School lecturer, told the conference that capitalism stood in need of “informed missionary communicators” for maintenance of its strength.

“The great moral foundation of capitalism is that it must assume responsibilities to society commensurate with its strength and privileges. It must be administered by its stewards both for benefit to themselves and to society. That is the function of American service capitalism.”

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin of Harvard University, remarking on Christmas season strikes, declared that it was time to reopen the question of the great accumulation of carelessly-allotted powers now exercised by labor unions. He pointed to the necessary restraints placed upon industry by anti-trust laws.

In lively rebuttal, Arthur J. Goldberg, general counsel for AFL-CIO, denied the efficaciousness of the anti-trust laws and claimed labor has not yet reached the level of management in the present power apportionment.

In general discussion on “Religion and Foreign Policy,” considerable impatience was shown toward the “most ardent welcome” given Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas I. Mikoyan by business men and civic leaders.

Even more prominent was disapproval of the actions of NCC’s Fifth World Order Study Conference in regard to Red China. Dr. Elson pointed out that the conference had spoken only for the 600 members present and not for American Protestantism. But their pronouncements were “providing moral missiles for our adversaries,” as manifest in the Communist press, he said.

He voiced his annoyance with repeated recurrence in Christian documents of the expression that we have “left to us coexistence or coextinction.” This represents “secular eschatology.” The Communists use it, but “it has no place in Christian thought.” The purpose of life, he went on, is “not to exist or coexist,” but rather to glorify God and serve him in “truth, mercy, and justice.” The question for the Christian is not one of extinction or survival, for “on the third morning was the Resurrection.” “There is the other side … the eternal.”

F. F.

Episcopal Installation

Washington Cathedral was the scene of the Right Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger’s installation as 21st Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, January 14 (for his election, see Oct. 27 issue). In a colorful service essentially following forms used in English cathedrals on such occasions, six processions of some 500 ministers and laymen preceded the Bishop’s arrival—signaled by trumpet fanfare. Before a congregation of 3,000 which included 2,000 clerical and lay leaders, the Right Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, retiring Presiding Bishop, inducted his successor.

In his inaugural sermon, Bishop Lichtenberger stressed church mission and unity. Their goals he saw as the transformation of the world and the ecclesiastical unity of “all who believe in Christ.” The catholic and evangelical traditions within the Episcopal Church he asserted to be “not opposed,” but “essential aspects of God’s truth.”

To newsmen he said that any eventual church union would come rather by individual denominational mergers than “in any general way.” Such union, he felt, should include the Roman Catholic Church.

Now his church’s chief spokesman, the bishop affirmed the church’s right to speak out on political issues but thought greater effectiveness in this area lay in action of individual Christians. F. F.

A Record?

Who holds the world record for perfect Sunday School attendance?

Mrs. Harry C. Morgan of Greene Street Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, says she has passed her 45th year of perfect Sunday school attendance—2,340 consecutive Sundays!

CHRISTIANITY TODAY readers knowing of a longer record are invited to write to the Editor.

Congress In Madras

A mile-long procession of 2,100 registered delegates climaxed the 10th World Congress of Youth for Christ International at Madras, India, last month. Thousands of others joined the line as it filed into a thatched tabernacle for the closing service of the seven-day event. Speaker was the Rev. Joe Blinco of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

The congress was held on the grounds of Doveton School in Madras. Counsellors counted some 1,200 spiritual decisions as a result of the Congress meetings. A party of 45 North American delegates was led by Youth for Christ President Ted Engstrom. The trip was marked by visa delays after a misunderstanding with Indian officials.

Facts And Figures

Church Attendance

In an average 1958 week, 50,500,000 American adults (49 per cent of them) attended church or synagogue services, according to Gallup pollsters. Back in 1955 a similar percentage was recorded as a peak in church-going. The figures fell off slightly in the two intervening years.

The Gallup Poll taken at year-end also showed:

—Women were more faithful in worship attendance than men (55 per cent to 45).

—Roman Catholics attended much more regularly than Protestants (74 per cent to 44).

—Worship attendance was highest in the Midwest (54 per cent, compared to 52 for the east, 51 for the South, and 35 for the Far West).

—Proportionately, there were more churchgoers in larger cities than in small-town America (because of more Roman Catholics in metropolitan areas, said the pollsters).

—Middle-aged persons had better attendance records than either young adults or those 50 and over.

The Gi Clergy

The Veterans Administration disclosed last month that 35,827 veterans of World War II and 12,392 veterans of the Korean War have undertaken training under the GI Bill of Rights to become clergymen.

The ministry ranked just below medicine and law in the number of veterans who undertook preparation for the professions with aid of grants from the government under the GI program.

Protestant Panorama

• President Eisenhower, honorary chairman of Brotherhood Week, February 15–22, says the achievement of brotherhood is the “crowning objective of our society.” In a message to the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which sponsors Brotherhood Week annually, the President said that “with nations poised for mutual advancement or destruction, we must enlarge our spirit of brotherhood to include all men who live under the banners of liberty and law.”

• The Temple University School of Theology lost its accreditation in the American Association of Theological Schools last month. Several alumni reportedly said they believed the association had decided “that the school lacked a proper ratio of full-time instructors to its number of students.” The loss of accreditation applies only to the undergraduate school and the standing of its bachelor of divinity degree. A number of students are leaving as a result of the action.

• “A representative of the dominion government will read the lesson,” said the program of St. John’s Anglican Church, Ottawa. To the surprise of 150 worshipers who braved temperatures of 15 below zero to attend a Week-of-Prayer service, the “representative” proved to be Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a Baptist.

• The Church of England has sold its 260,000 shares in the British Aluminium Company for a profit of at least a million dollars, Religious News Service reported last month.

• A new Swedish law authorizing women clergy prompted a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Contents were not immediately disclosed, but limited intercommunion between the English and Swedish state churches reportedly is endangered because the Church of England does not recognize women clergy.

• In Berlin, some 130 Christian young men say they will help build churches, hospitals and other welfare institutions abroad in repentance for the suffering caused by Nazi tyranny before and during World War II.

• The Rev. David J. du Plessis, world-famous Pentecostal leader, says revival is “touching the hearts” of officials in the World and National Councils of Churches. Du Plessis describes himself as an “ecumenical Pentecostal,” meaning he favors cooperation in church unity movements.

• More Communist publications are appearing on newsstands of Khartoum, capital of the Sudan, under martial law since an army coup November 17. Marxist literature is said to be available under nearly every green tree in Khartoum and nearby Omdurman.

• To assemble data for a long-range, nation-wide program to combat syndicated crime and organized racketeering, the Justice Department is establishing field offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami.

• Spiritual stirrings are in evidence in Norway. Signs of awakening have been noted in a number of communities during the winter. Evangelistic meetings are drawing unusually large crowds. Many gather in state churches.

• The Church of the Nazarene in 1958, its golden anniversary year, started an average of two new churches every three days. Nazarene churches now total 4,587 in North America.

• February 10 marks the centenary of the birth of Dr. Jonathan Goforth, esteemed missionary of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Goforth devoted nearly half a century to missionary work in China.

• The Anglican Church of New Zealand is entering “exploratory conversations” with a joint committee working toward union of several denominations. The church’s triennial General Synod authorized the move.

• Two Roman Catholic newspapers on Flores Island in Indonesia suspended publication on orders from the government. They were charged with publishing “objectionable” comments on a regulation requiring all foreigners to display the flag and name of their nation outside their homes.

Church And State

Ohio Parochialism

Under Ohio law, public school boards are legally free to provide bus transportation to children attending parochial and other private schools which meet state standards, according to Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Prosecutor John T. Corrigan. The prosecutor disclosed his opinion at the request of a community school board which has been asked to provide bus transportation for some 400 parochial school pupils.

Corrigan’s opinion counters a 31-year-old opinion of former Ohio Attorney General Edward C. Turner who said that only pupils attending public schools are entitled to transportation at public expense.

Corrigan contends that the trend of opinion is toward consideration of such benefits as bus rides, textbooks, lunches, medical and dental expenses as being for the safety and protection of children, not for the benefit of any particular kind of school.

He cites a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not violated if public transportation is provided for children in parochial schools. Similarly, he adds, the court has held that a state may provide textbooks for children in parochial and other private schools.

In his opinion he quotes the St. Louis University Law Journal thus: “The same principle has been applied to the GI Bill of Rights and more particularly to the National School Lunch Act.”

Transportation of parochial school children is not the only big church-state issue in Ohio. A showdown looms on whether Roman Catholic nuns may wear religious garb while teaching in public schools.

Last fall, former state Attorney General William Saxbe ruled that wearing of a distinctive religious habit by teachers in public schools does not amount to a teaching of religious doctrine which is forbidden by law.

The ruling was protested by Protestant church groups. Last month Republican Representative B. A. Broughton introduced a bill in the state legislature which would prohibit nuns from wearing their garb while teaching in public schools. The measure would not, however, prohibit “the hiring by a board of education of any person associated with any religious sect, order, or denomination as a teacher or employee in a public school.”

SERMON DOODLES

Dr. Knudal, one of our correspondents, received his degree in educational psychology for pioneering research in the repressed responses of a captive audience symbolized in sermon doodles. He has collected an initial sample of 64,926 doodles, representing the reactions of some 7,540 doodlers during 985 sermonic episodes. He plans to establish a clinic for the interpretation of doodles, and we submitted this sample for his comment. (The enumeration and notes are his.)

1. Gesture motif. One of the commonest preacher-based doodles. Significant index of character-image. Note mouth formation.

2. Spider webs. Intricate webs, coils, flourishes indicate impression of complexity. Check sermon structure.

3. Traffic warnings. Often sermon-orientated. Express resentment toward blocks in sermonic progress. 3? may be associated with this pattern, but is church location near grade crossing?

4. Ecclesiastical architecture. Usually suggested by church building. Visual exploration of interior is extensive and meticulous—fruitful doodle source.

5. Flower table. May be linked with 4 as interior scene, or with 6 below. Sometimes a doodle of contentment.

6. Hat show. In spite of association with 5, 6b is not an inverted flower pot. Hat contemplation unavoidable for shorter parishioners. See also Robert Burns, “To a Louse, on Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church.”

7. Time has run out. Time-lapse doodlery common among sermon listeners. Smoke above 7b suggests fate of dinner in oven. Above smoke is hour glass (or coffee maker?).

8. Neptune? Rare, meaning uncertain. If sample is from the South, this may be a Yankee Doodle.

Suggestions

a. Eliminate flowers, hats, architecture, etc.

b. Eliminate pencils, visitors, cards, hymnal fly-leaves.

c. Eliminate the preacher, (or—pray for a revival of gospel preaching!)

ON WORLD ORDER

I challenge your contention that the Cleveland discussions were not theologically motivated (Dec. 8 issue); that the lack of attendance when Mr. Dulles spoke represents a lack of interest in the ecumenical movement; that the ecumenical movement is not faithful to the Word of God.

Council of Churches of Greater Kansas City

Kansas City, Mo.

I appreciate very much the coverage you gave to the World Order Study Conference sponsored by the National Council of Churches. I think it is especially fitting that you pointed out that the “delegates tied their hopes to a revival of social gospelism and turned from the redemptive legacy of Christ.”

There are two things which greatly concern me about the Cleveland conference. The first is that the way in which the actions were reported through the press it seemed to be much more representative of Protestantism than it was in fact. There are many within National Council denominations that very directly disagree with the actions of the Cleveland conference. There are also millions of Protestants not represented by the National Council who would strongly oppose the admission of Red China to the U. N. and her recognition by our government.

The more serious matter is the fact that the World Order Study Conference ignored the fact that the Red Communist government is not truly a government of the people. It was imposed by force without the will of the people and with direct Russian aid to Communist forces. To accomplish this meant the slaughter of at least 20 million Chinese people, the enslavement of many more in at least 2,000 slave labor camps, and the subjugation of the church to the Communist cause. The true church in China has been driven completely underground. The visible church is a show window for foreign visitors completely under Communist control.

If church leaders are to favor the recognition of Red China, it means the surrender of Christian principles to Communist principles and the elevation of the Communist social order above the church of Jesus Christ.

The National Association of Evangelicals has issued a strong official statement against the recognition of Red China. We hope that millions of American Protestants will write the Department of State renouncing the statement made by the Cleveland conference.

Executive Director

The National Association of Evangelicals

Wheaton, Ill.

The cries of horror … against the … Fifth World Order Study Conference advocating U. S. recognition of Red China have left me somewhat chilled.… I detect two overtones, not directly sounded but none the less insinuated.

The first is that those who advocate such recognition are Communist sympathizers, fellow-travelers, or dwellers on the political left bank. Patently absurd!… The second overtone that I have caught in a number of articles, but muffled in your critique of the Conference’s pronouncement, is this; that our own brand of materialism bound up in our economic presuppositions and in our economic way of life is more conducive to spiritual growth and nurture than is the militantly atheistic brand that communism advocates.

… To be sure, neither Amos nor Jeremiah … was the most popular man in the land in his day!

First Presbyterian Church

Sodus, N. Y.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has proved so vital in many of the articles it has been publishing that I have profited greatly from some of the treatments there of Christianity in our modern world.

I am deeply disturbed at the action of the World Order Study Conference at Cleveland. That certainly does not represent the attitude of the overwhelming majority of the churches.… My own article, “A Trojan Horse,” … has been printed in about ten cities where my syndicated article appears. The response to it from people of all churches has been one of the most heartening that I have had in all the eleven years …

I have been writing “Spires of the Spirit.” The reaction has been altogether favorable and the letters have come from generals, admirals, high officials in government, members of the cabinet, legislators, business men—all of them outstanding laymen of their respective churches.

Chaplain

United States Senate

Washington, D. C.

When the World Order Study Conference of the greatest Protestant body in the United States today does lift the light of “a luminous cross” over the narrowing waters of American foreign policy, it seems a shame to me that your magazine would rather engage in innuendo and smear than publish an honest discussion of the merits or demerits of the resolution. You have acted no better than the Jesuits on this matter.

First Baptist Church

Roselle, N. J.

Bravo for your perceptive analysis of the shocking and immoral proposal of recognition by a “Christian” body of Communist China.

As a minister of the church to which both President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles belong, I too feel that now is no time to undercut the moral, spiritual and. diplomatic position our leaders take against encouraging the butchery and aggression of the Red government on the Chinese mainland.

Together with Dr. Daniel Poling, Dr. Norman Peale and CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I reject as leftist-inspired this recommendation of Red China recognition and we pray that the National Council of Churches will flatly reject the appeasement suggested by its Study Conference which has already damaged the cause of Christ wherever it has been publicized.

It is a large breach of our trust in the democratic procedure of the Council of Churches that this unacceptable committee proposal was publicized at all before action by the parent body which appointed it.

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

The action of the World Order Study Conference of the National Council of Churches urging U. S. diplomatic recognition and U. N. admission of Red China is sickening. Communist China, as shown by recent factual articles in several magazines, is developing an idolatry such as the world has never known before—the worship of mass, dehumanized man. The goal appears to be a nation of selfless robots, a “human” ant hill. Deliberate and persistent elimination of tendencies to individuality and dissent from the stream of heredity may breed a half-billion population whose only philosophy of life will be “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” Never before has humanity faced such a colossal menace. A few years ago liberals were confidently reassuring us that the Chinese Communists were idealistic “agrarian reformers.” The recent NCC action is surely a case of the blind attempting to lead the blind.

Beaver Falls, Pa.

Put me down as opposed to admission and recognition of Red China. Why deal with cutthroats as we do with Russia? I am a member of the Methodist church.… I stood 100 percent behind the DAR in their opposition to recognizing and bringing this red-handed organization into the UN.

Birch Run, Mich.

As to the action of … voting to receive that devil dominated country that has persecuted Jews, Catholics and Protestants, into the United Nations, it is absolutely repugnant to all real lovers of Christ. As a Southern Baptist, I am devoutly proud that as a body numbering approximately nine million we have no official relation with this body.…

Shiloh Baptist

Villa Ridge, Ill.

When even political leaders, military experts, and many others who do not represent the clergy but accept and uphold Christian faith, love, and truth, and can themselves see and warn of the dangers which do face this land of free men, it would seem clergymen themselves would open their eyes.…

Christ has a far different message to the churches than that which was drafted at Cleveland. It … can be found in the Bible.…

Tracy, Calif.

You don’t expect me to cut up my CHRISTIANITY TODAY, do you? But here is my ballot.…

Greenville, S. C.

SORROW BUT HOPE

Nothing has appeared in CHRISTIANITY TODAY which mingles more, hope and sorrow, with hope still uppermost—than “Where Are We Drifting?” (Dec. 22 issue). The very same idea appeared in a great sermon by Spurgeon in 1889, “A Dirge for the Downgrade and a Song for Faith” (Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit), in which the great popular preacher uttered what could be words of sanguine augury: “The battle is not ours, but the Lord’s. God knows no difficulty. Omnipotence has servants everywhere. Sitting in the chimney-side tonight, a young Luther is preparing, as he looks into the fire, to burn the bulls of the philosophic hierarchy of today.”

Statesville, N. C.

I appreciate the frankness and reality that is presented in the editorial.… Thank you for being realistic about the world situation and our Christian situation.

New York, N. Y.

VIEWS OF REVELATION

James Packer … quotes me quite correctly in the discussion of contemporary views of revelation (Nov. 24 issue). He goes on, however, to say, “Theology pursued in this fashion is held to be ‘scientific’ and that on two accounts.”

There is some implication in the way he puts this that my own view of revelation, or the one I am summarizing, necessarily leads to this view that theology is scientific. He does not say that he is continuing to interpret my statement, but the reader might be misled on this point. However, I am not so much concerned about this as about the substantive matter that most of those for whom I am speaking in my statement about revelation would not hold that theology is scientific, and certainly not in the senses which Mr. Packer gives to that word here. Or rather, I should say that in the second sense of taking account of a scientific view of the Bible, he is correct. But on the first point of getting a strictly scientific elucidation of the nature of faith and its object, practically all the contemporary theologians that I am interpreting here would surely say no. Theology is a precise and responsible discipline, but it is confusing to call it scientific in this sense. Of course many contemporary theologians, Barth for example, speak of theology as “science,” but here it is clear the word is used in the sense of the German “geisteswissenschaft” and not in the sense of the methods of natural science.

Mr. Packer is raising, of course, a very important question of the criterion of truth for the Christian, and I am sympathetic with his emphasis upon the importance of this question.

Union Theological Seminary

New York, N. Y.

How much longer will we contend that the Bible is the final authority for Christians? Surely we have discovered that no one sees the Bible just as it is, but only as he sees it according to the background of his understanding.… Sooner or later we must admit that the Church, the extension of the Incarnation in the world, is the final authority. No self-appointed man or group of men has the right to assume that position for another. Only the Church is big, wise and holy enough to do that. Why then do we not admit that we are rebels and lay down our arms?

Superintendent

The Akron District

North-East Ohio Conference, Methodist Church

Akron, Ohio

Thank you very much for the two first articles of [the November 24 issue]. They are vital and powerful treatments on the Bible.

I appreciate [your] balance and sanity of presentation of biblical truth, as well as [your] practice of Christian love. While I accept the fundamentals of the Christian faith I cannot see a rabid fighting fundamentalism that goes out of its way to find and pick quarrels with those who do not see eye to eye with them.

The Rock Hill Presbyterian Church

Bellaire, Ohio

SOCIAL DRINKING

You speak of the “approval of social drinking voted by the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Convention in Miami Beach this fall.” (“News,” Dec. 22 issue).

I was a Deputy in this Convention and I am not aware that we voted on the subject of social drinking at all.… I assume that the misunderstanding arises from distortion of a publication of the Joint Commission entitled “Alcohol, Alcoholism and Social Drinking.” This was not voted upon by the Convention.…

Alpine, Tex.

The notorious “Report” of a committee on alcoholism which was placed before the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church last October has unfortunately been misrepresented in both the daily press and the temperance press as setting forth the position of the Episcopal Church. Actually, the Report was merely presented, never approved or disapproved by the Bishops and never considered by the Convention, and was intended to be one of several steps of approach to the whole problem.

Wollaston, Mass.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S news section fell into the same error as many other journals and regrets the mistake. In fairness to the Protestant Episcopal Church, we are glad to set the record straight. The action in question was correctly set forth in our original Miami Beach report (Nov. 10 issue).—Ed.

MEN OF UNION

The three new presidents in our seminaries—McCormick, San Francisco, and now Princeton—are all Union Seminary men. Is that a sine qua non?

Phoenix, Ariz.

• The Union Seminary attended by Dr. James I. McCord (see Oct. 27 issue) is the Southern Presbyterian institution in Richmond, Va., rather than the New York divinity school.—Ed.

THANKS

Sincere thanks for what you have given us in this superb magazine.

Christian Reformed

Modesto, Calif.

“He’s a good fellow but he does not seem to have any fixed convictions.” This identical statement was recently made by three different people, each speaking of different individuals. All were engaged in Christian work.

But how can one be a Christian without strong convictions? How can one bear an effective witness for Christ and Christian truth on a basis of uncertainty?

Convictions are an expression of faith. “I believe” is the gateway to Christianity itself. But one of the strange phenomena of much in contemporary theological thought is uncertainty about divine revelation and a blind acquiescence in the affirmations of human speculation.

We all know that misplaced convictions can close the door to truth. “My mind is made up, do not confuse me with facts” is a humorous description of the man who has closed his mind. Often applied to those dedicated to an unreasoning orthodoxy it is equally true of some devotees of humanistic philosophy.

Admitting the possibility of arriving at conclusions which cannot be supported by fact, nevertheless, when the Christian faith is involved one must solemnly say, “God help the man who has no theological convictions!”

In the realm of Christianity there are things a man must believe—convictions which must be held—without which he remains a pagan.

Man must believe in God. Without such faith it is impossible to please Him. Not only do we believe that He is but we also believe that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

The Scriptures makes it plain that where man denies the existence of God he is utterly without excuse. In Romans 1:18–20 we read: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest to them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

Man must have a conviction about himself, a conviction which enables him to realize that he is a sinner in God’s sight. This is not easy. It is humiliating to admit our complete insufficiency and unpleasant to admit that within us there is operative a law which leads us to do evil even when good intentions are present. Lack of conviction on the matter of sin is a tragic evidence of spiritual blindness.

A Christian must have convictions about Christ; about His person and His work. At this focal point there is no room for uncertainty. There is but one Christ to be accepted: the Christ of divine revelation; of scriptural record; of historical fact; of divine Saviorhood; of personal experience. Or, he must reject Him for a Christ of human limitations, devised by human imagination and changing with the whims and opinions of men.

A Christian must have convictions about the Bible. Either it is that which it claims for itself, the written Word of God; or, it merely contains the word of God; or, it is a human document comparable in some measure with other books on ethics and religion.

Holding the latter view a theological student recently wrote: “I fail to see why we must venerate the Bible as an authentic document of religious history.… It is … a document which speaks of man’s quest for the infinite.… Is not the Koran as valid a religious source for the Moslem as the Bible is for the Christian?”

But the Christian must recognize that in the Bible there is a divine revelation, a system of truth which man could never have discovered for himself. Part of this truth is that it is God, not man, who has provided the way back to Himself.

A Christian must have convictions about the way and means of salvation. Either it is a work of divine grace by which man receives the love and atoning sacrifice of the Son of God on the basis of faith alone; or, he in some measure earns his salvation and is to that extent saved by works. An understanding of this basic truth is of the greatest importance for it involves the question of how salvation itself becomes a reality.

There are many phases of Christian truth on which men have convictions. Some are trivial or of secondary importance. On these Christians can disagree because personal redemption is not involved. But along with them there are those on which clear convictions are essential.

To those who carry responsibilities in the pulpit or classroom, Christian convictions are an imperative, for it is those who speak with the authority of personal conviction who influence others to a like commitment of faith. An evangelical scholar was recently invited to speak to the students and faculty of a very liberal theological seminary. Later some of the students remarked that it was the first address they had heard since coming to that institution in which the speaker had convictions about his faith.

In the unbelieving world, represented by professional associates; by the people with whom we work day after day; by casual acquaintances on the bus; or by the bewildered men and women sitting in the pews of many churches on Sunday, it is only those who have strong convictions based on a Christ-centered faith, and a Bible-centered message who will carry conviction to others.

But in Christian convictions there also lie a danger and a challenge. One’s certitudes of faith lose both their appeal and their witness when they beget belligerency or lovelessness. Convictions are no excuse for boorishness in any form. Of what value is a faith which is antagonistic? Our Lord set the supreme example of unswerving convictions coupled with loving consideration for those who did not believe. Rejecting unbelief, our own convictions on truth must be bathed in loving regard for those who have not yet seen that truth.

At the same time a pallid philosophy of “live and let live” has little to commend it in living men surrounded by the living dead.

In our honest desire to be judicial, fair and open-minded, it is often easy to take the fatal step of failing to have convictions in those areas where the issue is one of darkness or light; bondage or freedom; spiritual death or eternal life.

One of the appeals of the numerous cults of our day is the assumed authority and convictions of their adherents. It is precisely at this point that our Christian witness often fails.

We need to affirm with Paul, “I know whom I have believed.” It is the certainty of our faith and the object of our faith which bring comfort to our own hearts and conviction to others.

Woe to the man who has no convictions!

The last book of the old dispensation mingles remonstrations against the sins of priests and people with threats of judgments, exhortations to repentance, and prophecies of the calling of the Gentiles and the coming of Christ. The burden or oracle of the word of the Lord was addressed to the small colony of Jews who had returned to Judea after the captivity of 70 years. Under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra, Jerusalem and its temple had been rebuilt. The prophecy of Nehemiah informs us of a great revival that occurred after Ezra expounded the law. Later, however, the people lapsed into careless worship and developed an ungrateful spirit.

Authorship And Date

The name Malachi means “my messenger.” Whether this was the actual name of the prophet has been a matter of debate among commentators. Some contend that it is the actual name of the prophet since the other prophetic books of the Old Testament are not anonymous; some feel that it was a self-designated title; and others conjecture it to be bestowed by an unknown editor. To maintain that Malachi is not a proper name and that the book is anonymous comes under the head of speculation and has no substantial proof. No historical proof has been advanced that the name was added by an editor. But whether personal or official, the name is significant in that the Lord has a revelation of great significance to the chosen people.

The date of writing has also been the subject of difference of opinion. There is general agreement, however, that Malachi prophesied during the Persian period and after the exile. Internal evidence indicates that the temple was rebuilt and the ritual restored. The second temple was dedicated in 516 B.C. Many scholars allow that the prophet was a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah and wrote either about 458 or 432 B.C. The later date may be more exact as the sins which Malachi exposed were similar to those that aroused Nehemiah on his second visit to Jerusalem.

Authenticity

Until recently the authenticity and integrity of the book of Malachi had not been called to question. George Adam Smith questioned the authenticity of verses 11 and 12 of chapter 2. He writes: “But in truth the whole of this passage, chapter 2:10–16, is in such a curious state that we can hardly believe in its integrity. It opens with the statement that God is the Father of all us Israelites, and with the challenge, why then are we faithless to each other?—verse 10. But verses 11 and 12 do not give an instance of this: they describe the marriages with the heathen women of the land, which is not a proof of faithlessness between Israelites” (Book of the Twelve Prophets, p. 340). But that is the exact point of the prophet: the Israelites manifested their unfaithfulness to the wives of their youth by divorcing them and taking pagan wives.

R. C. Denton in The Interpreter’s Bible (p. 1137) states that chapter 4:5, 6 was the addition of a later editor. He writes: “The editor who added 4:5, 6 thought it was Elijah. The prophet himself was not thinking in such definite terms.” Dr. Denton does not give substantial proof that the editor added this portion and how he knows the thinking processes of the prophet is somewhat of a mystery. The general reason advanced for denying the integrity of this passage is the reference to the law in verse 4. G. A. Smith stated: “Bohme, indeed, took the last three verses for a later addition, on account of their Deuteronomic character, but, as Kuenen points out, this is in agreement with other parts of the book” (The Twelve Prophets, p. 339).

Exception to the authenticity of chapter 3:1 is also taken by the Interpreter’s Bible: “The words the messenger of the covenant … he is coming, which somewhat confuse the picture, are probably the parenthetical note of a commentator who wished to explain that even at this second stage it would not be the transcendent God in the fulness of his being (the tendency of priestly theology was to remove God as far as possible from direct contact with men), but his angel or messenger—a special revelational manifestation of God—who would finally appear in the temple.” However, the reference is to the transcendent God for the Lord whom ye seek is the answer to the question of the people, “Where is the God of Judgment” (2:17). The “Messenger (angel) of the covenant” undoubtedly has reference to the extraordinary Messenger, or Angel, to whom divine names, attributes, purposes, and acts are ascribed in other passages of the Old Testament. Malachi’s reference to the Angel of the Covenant does not confuse the picture but rather illustrates the marvelous unity of Holy Writ.

Not only the unity of the Old Testament is involved in the integrity of Malachi but also that of the New Testament with the Old. The evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke link these prophecies—particularly the passages questioned by some critics—with the time of the Messiah (Matt. 9:10, 14; 17:10–13; Mark 1:2; 9:11, 13; Luke 1:17, 76; 7:27). To the evangelist the prophecies of Malachi were fully authentic and indeed confirmed that Jesus of Nazareth was “the Lord whom ye seek.”

Content

The background of this book furnishes the key to the understanding of the “burden” of Malachi. After the restoration of Jerusalem and its Temple, the Israelites expected more than a return of former blessings. Their hopes were fired by the expectation that now the glorious prophecies of Isaiah and other prophets would be fulfilled. From their complaints one can glean that their hearts were set on great material blessings. Spiritual blessings seemed of small consequence. In their disappointment they lapsed into careless, outward worship; adopted a complaining spirit; and transgressed the laws of God.

In the introduction (1:1–5) the prophet assured the Israelites that God had not forgotten them but on the contrary loved them above all other nations. Both Israel and Edom had sinned grievously against the Lord and both experienced judgment but only Israel had been restored. Not the love of God for Israel was in question but the love of Israel for Jehovah. The love of God was the foundation of chastisement and also his mercies. Indeed, the contempt of his love was the root cause of their present predicament.

In two major divisions the messenger of the Lord rebukes the priests (1:6–2:9) and the people (2:10–4:3). The priests were rebuked first because they had the responsibility of leading in worship and teaching the law. They were accused of despising the name of the Lord by offering impure sacrifices (1:6–10). Their impure offerings betrayed an impure disposition. In spite of the commandment of the Lord they offered animals that were blind, lame, and sick. They would not offer such to the Persian Governor ruling over them, yet they offered defective sacrifices to the living God!

The sin of the priests, however, will not frustrate the covenant promise of God to Abraham that all nations would be blessed, and the encouraging promise is given that from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same the name of the Lord would be great among the Gentiles who would give a pure offering (1:11).

Further evidence of their profane spirit is given (1:12–14), and that is followed by a terrible judgment against the priests because they did not keep his covenant of life and peace (2:1–9). That the levitical priesthood was to do more than keep the ritual of the temple is seen in verse 7: “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” Mere sacrifices without true knowledge of the revelation of God would not suffice. The priest’s responsibility was to instruct the people.

However, the people cannot cast the full responsibility of their defection upon the priests. The prophet in the second major section (2:10–4:3) reveals how short the people had come of performing the law of God. This they showed first of all in divorcing their wives and marrying pagans (2:10–6). This was extreme cruelty and profaning the holiness of the Lord. Instead of being frightened by this rebuke, the people scornfully asked, “Where is the God of judgment?”

The prophet indicates that the Lord whom they sought would suddenly appear in his temple (2:17–3:6). He would come in judgment against the wicked and yet in mercy would purify the true sons of Levi. The wicked would not frustrate the grace of God. As revealed in the Gospels this was the day of the Messiah.

Another grievous sin of the people was the withholding of the tithe (3:7–12). Yet the Lord promises them great material blessings if only they would not rob him of tithes and offerings. But the people remained perverse and refuse to heed the words of the Lord’s messenger. (3:13–15).

Then again the prophet interjects a note of encouragement (3:16–4:4). They that feared the Lord would receive salvation and protection. “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels” (3:17). Yet that will not prevent the fearful judgment of the proud and the wicked (4:1). This undoubtedly takes in the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. Nevertheless, those who fear the Lord experience the bright rays of “the sun of righteousness.” Again and again the prophet indicates that the wicked will not prevent the glorious day of the Messiah and the establishment of his kingdom of righteousness. In light of the coming of the Messiah, Malachi urges the Israelites to repent and keep the law of Moses.

The final attention of the people is focused on the coming of Elijah who would precede and prepare the way for the coming of the day of the Lord. Jesus declares that Elijah is none other than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:14; Mk 9:13; Lk. 7:27).

Relevance

The burden of Malachi could well be the burden of today’s preacher. He must apply the prophet’s admonition to the priests to his own heart and see if he is profaning the name of God by imperfect service. God’s reaction to divorce and the withholding of tithes has a modern application. Also a message of hope can be given in the prophecy of the Gentiles’ conversion and reign of the Messiah.

Outline

I. Proof of God’s Love 1:1–5

II. Rebuke of Priests 1:6–2:9

A. Impure sacrifices 1:6–10

B. Prophecy of Gentile conversion 1:11

C. Profanation of God’s name 1:12–14

D. Judgment against Priests 2:1–9

III. Rebuke of People 2:10–4:3

A. Cruelty of Divorce 2:10–16

B. Jehovah’s Messenger 2:17–3:6

C. Withholding of Tithes 3:7–12

D. Perverseness of People 3:13–15

E. Blessing of Righteous 3:16–4:4

IV. Coming of Elijah 4:5, 6

Brief Bibliography

Literature on Malachi may be found in general works on the Minor Prophets. Among them are: John Calvin, Commentaries, Minor Prophets; E. B. Pusey, Minor Prophets; Keil & Delitzsch, Commentaries on the Old Testament, Minor Prophets; C. Von Orelli, The Twelve Minor Prophets; G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets in The Expositor’s Bible; George L. Robinson, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Theodore Laetsch, The Minor Prophets; H. L. Ellison, Men Spake from God. Good surveys on the book of Malachi are found in Fairbairn’s Bible Encyclopedia and The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

J. MARCELLUS KIK

Associate Editor

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Given the contemporary renewal of evangelical social interest, the problem now confronting conservative Protestantism is the definition of a sound evangelical social thrust.

To answer “Not the social gospel,” is at once too simple and too full of risk. For one thing, while the old optimistic liberal theology is now dead, the optimistic ethic it generated in practice remains a very lively corpse. One need only consider government policy in the U. S. State Department. American foreign policy remains predominantly keyed to optimistic liberal assumptions about human nature and history. It is easy to detect still the lingering influence of liberal Protestant ministers whose sons and converts were attracted to government service as a form of Christian activity through the romantic vision of the social gospel. American strategy within the United Nations and her dealings with foreign powers often reflect the moralistic expectation (and naive trust in unregenerate human nature) that Christian principles must inevitably acquire self-evident compulsion in the thought and action of men everywhere. But naively to expect that just and durable peace can be spawned on purely natural foundations simply by the vision of righteousness (or simply to rely on the dread of mutual destruction, to add a mid-century modification based on an appeal to self-interest) is to underestimate the depth of depravity in human life and history and to disregard the indispensability of divine regeneration if the human heart is to grasp and pursue the course of righteousness.

Danger Of Liberal Inheritance

Ironically, fundamentalists, in their new eagerness to correct their past social neglect, at times themselves imbibe certain errors of the social gospel. They have happily avoided the popular tendency to embrace left-wing philosophies of the day, which many liberal reformers mistook for authentic expressions of Christian ethics. (Certain American evangelical enthusiasts in the nineteenth century confessedly already had fallen into this same error, and, like some British evangelicals sympathetic to socialism in our century, thereby disclosed their failure to discern the basic clash between Christian libertarianism and collectivism.) The social gospel came to be prominently identified with collectivistic theory because Protestant liberalism has surrendered Christianity’s historic confidence both in a revealed theology and in a revealed ethic. The formative philosophies of the modern era were therefore easily confused with a creative Christian social morality. Its defection from revealed doctrines and principles enabled Protestant modernism to confer Christian blessing upon contemporary programs whose basic principles sometimes contradicted the revealed social philosophy of the Church. While evangelical circles by contrast have clung fast to a biblically revealed theology and ethic, and through this fidelity have largely escaped enthusiasm for collectivistic theories of social life, evangelicals in their rediscovery of social concern stand in danger of being drawn, as Protestant liberalism was, into an arbitrary identification of current social movements and programs as intrinsically Christian. Liberal Protestantism openly equated Christian social concern with support for specific modern enterprises and goals such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, giant labor unions, and integration. During the First World War the program embraced pacifism as well. Some contemporary evangelicals newly concerned with the problems of social justice naively imply that the social gospel is acceptable enough provided only that the requirements of personal redemption and regeneration appear as its preface. But if evangelical conscience grasps basic presuppositions, it cannot regard the social gospel as an acceptable vehicle and exposition of biblical social ethics, much as the Gospel of redemption has both personal and social implications.

We do not say that the evangelical is called upon in advance to reject and repudiate everything that the social gospel espoused. But even the social gospel’s constructive elements must be brought for their justification within the orbit of divinely revealed principles, and related properly to the biblical view of life and history. Moreover, social gospel insistence that only by the approval of specific contemporary agencies and programs as authentically Christian does Christian ethics become relevant must be challenged. All “isms and ists” must be brought constantly under the scrutinizing Lordship of Christ and tested by his revealed will.

Neo-Orthodox Dissent

Although the social gospel approach is still influential, the evangelical attack upon it is today assisted by neo-orthodox critics who now hold a virile grip upon many Protestant intellectual centers. Both conservative and neo-orthodox theologians scorn the optimistic portrait of a universe progressively evolving to perfection, and doubt the sufficiency of Christian idealism alone to inspire an age of dedication to truth and justice. Both movements insist that the universe is fallen and desperately wicked, and that supernatural redemption is its lone hope. Pronouncements of neo-orthodox thinkers often diverge and conflict, but certain elements nonetheless set apart the American articulation of its view of social ethics from both the classic liberal approach crystallized in the social gospel and the historic outlines of evangelical social ethic: 1. The depth-dimension of sin in human history is regarded as so determinative that the ideal of Christian culture is dismissed, all cultures being viewed simply from the standpoint of Christian criticism. 2. Social problems are regarded as not decisively responsive to personal redemption. Hence its advancement of social justice relies upon the pressure of organized opinion and the compulsion of legislation more than upon evangelism and a ministry of regeneration. 3. Although special supernatural redemption is affirmed, both revealed ethical principles and doctrines are scorned, in common with the liberal tradition in Protestant theology; social strategy is held to be governed by “middle axioms” which, while held to be creatively and critically relevant, abandon a basis in revelation.

Now the social outlook of liberalism had sought above all else to avoid Christianity’s preoccupation with the world to come in order that it might fervently address the vexing social evils of this life. The unhappy outcome was the social gospel, prone to equate the activities of unregenerate humanity at its best with authentic Christian achievements, and neglectful of the wholly proper priorities of supernatural revelation and redemption. Neo-orthodoxy is concerned to hold both worlds in view—not simply in their chronological succession of this life and that to come, but in the existential relationship of this life continually judged by Christ its exalted Lord. Yet speculative considerations bulk large in its theological and ethical positions; guiding elements already given suggest some of the unfortunate consequences accruing to its social perspective. Distrust of rational revelation leaves neo-orthodoxy without absolute basis for the ethical positions it advocates, and also with the practical problem of enlisting Christian commitment and action for temporary imperatives as if they were in fact the will of God. The anti-intellectual element in neo-orthodoxy thus ultimately dissipates its social dynamic and divorces its ethical declarations from an assured basis in revelation. The further reliance on factors not found in the Great Commission for the Church’s special penetration into the social order tends to formulate Christian social action in terms competitive with the proclamation of the Gospel and minimizes the significance of evangelism and spiritual revival for the advancement of social morality. Moreover, the neo-orthodox disparagement of the ideal of Christian culture fails to do full justice to the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the redeemed community. Although a sound theology must recognize that the defilement of sin precludes both glorification in the present life of the believer and absolute perfection in history, and also that the aggregate of group behavior is likely to compound the weaknesses of individual behavior, nonetheless a distinctive social morality seems possible to the community of evangelical faith as assuredly as sanctification is normative for the regenerate person.

Evangelical Strategy

The evangelical perspective for social action is therefore sharpened by a distinctive vision of life and history inspired by the revelation of God’s glory and grace.

1. Christian social leaders set their cultural objectives in the larger framework of the Christian mission, and do not regard themselves primarily as social reformers. They give no quarter to the illusion that Christianity is primarily an ethical idealism engaged in denouncing political and social injustice, or aiming at social reform as an end in itself. Even in the social thrust they preserve Christianity’s basic nature as a religion of supernatural redemption for sinners. The Christian leaders who opposed slavery a century ago did so not simply as abolitionists, but as heralds of freedom under the Creator-Redeemer God dealing simultaneously with man’s spiritual and material condition. Even well-intentioned men who regrettably turned the Scriptures to objectionable conclusions in the controversy over slavery rightly sought an ultimate sanction, and therefore judged slavery from the standpoint of divine approval or disapproval. The anti-slavery evangelicals saw that to undermine slavery (they would have spoken similarly of segregation and other contemporary vices), men must be led to see its intolerable contradiction of the rights dignifying all men by their creation as members of one common family, of the value attached to all men by our Lord’s incarnation, atonement and resurrection in the body, and of the temple of divinity God would make of humble believers irrespective of color and race. It would not have surprised them to learn that a citizenry that argued the question of human freedom within narrower limits would some day sense an emptiness and bondage even in the workaday world that would encourage white worker and black worker alike to reach wistfully for social redemption through the promise of a collectivistic society. They saw the interconnection of the Christian mission and human liberty.

2. Evangelical social action throbs with the evangelistic invitation to new life in Jesus Christ. “Ye must be born again” is the Church’s unvarying message to the world. Evangelical Christianity allows the secular world no hopeful program of social solutions that renders merely optional the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. It holds hope for the social order because it offers the prospect of personal redemption. Individual regeneration is not only a chief but an indispensable means of social reform. The kingdom of God is not to be separated from a redeemed society.

3. Reliance on the Holy Spirit to sunder the shackles of sin requires a regard for social evils first in the light of personal wickedness. The evangelical recognizes that social disorders are in the last analysis a commentary on the disorder of private life, and that the modern dilemma is essentially a predicament involving persons who need to be addressed individually. The hidden connection between social and private vices—as between war and lust (cf. James 4:1, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?”)—is thus kept in conspicuous view. The spectacle of prominent social reformers indifferent to their own private vices—the divorced statesman championing international unity, the debauched psychiatrist promising soul health to others, for example—is an absurd spectacle and an amoral luxury for the theory that decency begins at home. Deep experience of “the things of God” is thus considered the Christian reformer’s best asset. The new birth restores fallen man’s personality and his powers to the service of God, qualifying him with a new nature and moral dynamic.

4. Evangelicals insist that social justice is a divine requirement for the whole human race, not for the Church alone. The revealed commandments and rules of behavior are universally valid. All the basic laws of society begin with the divine law. Righteousness exalts a nation; a people voluntarily given over to oppression must suffer divine judgment. That man and society live on a moral basis is a requirement of both human laws and of the law of God as well. The Christian witness will stress the interdependence of revealed religion and human freedom, which is dependent on spiritual and moral foundations. Freedom is indivisible (it is not “four freedoms” nor five); man’s liberties are interdependent. (Wherever freedom’s spiritual foundations crumble, these liberties vanish; conversely, where freedom disappears, the propagation of Christianity is jeopardized). Revealed religion proclaims the threat to freedom latent in collectivistic social planning and in big government. The neglect of the larger facets of freedom, and the consequent detachment of social principles from a supernatural source and sanction, have indirectly aided the socialistic and totalitarian assault on free enterprise, private property and the profit motive, as well as upon other principles approved by the biblical doctrine of human rights and responsibilities. To assail national strongholds of evil in quest of a righteous nation, to challenge institutional sin in order to widen Christian influence over human society, are essential requirements of the Christian conscience. Both the affirmation of the Lordship of Christ and the imperative of the Great Commission provide an impetus to seek the renewal of society.

5. Despite their insistence on the spiritual and moral roots of social evil, evangelicals are aware that personal sin often finds its occasion in the prevailing community situation. They do not underestimate the importance of the general environment. In the task of social reform evangelical Protestantism exalts the ministry of preaching with its call to personal decision; it stresses the role of Christian preaching, evangelism and revival in weakening and overcoming community evils. The prophetic ministry of the pulpit creates a climate which moves toward effective solution of the problems of social injustice by calling out a race of renewed men bound heart to heart in devotion to the purpose of God in creation and redemption.

6. The fellowship within the churches is a mirror of the realities of a new social order. The new order is therefore not simply a distant dream; it exists already in an anticipative way in the regenerate fellowship of the Church. The neglect of a shared community experience within the fellowship of the churches is one of the lamentable facets of twentieth century Christianity. The believer’s vision for a more equitable social order gains its clearest perspective and major dynamic in this circle of faith. For regenerate believers are constituted one body of which the exalted Christ—having already passed through death, judgment and resurrection for us—is the living head. Moreover, from his life in the eternal order he already mediates to the body an earnest of the powers that belong to the coming age. The Christian responsibility for a more equitable social order is thus to be fulfilled first within the life of the fellowship of faith, where the passionate concern for righteousness and love is presumably the daily burden of each and all. The mission of the Church is not simply to condemn social injustices; it is to exhibit what can be done to transcend them in a spiritual society of redeemed persons. Men everywhere are called to obedience to the revealed will of God, summoned to repentance from sin, to personal trust in Christ, and to identification with Christ’s Church.

7. By maintaining the connection between social reform and the law of love, evangelicals face the organized evils of society with the power of sanctified compassion. Christian holiness issues no license for the ecstatic enjoyment of the vision of God as a merely private option; rather, it insists that love of God reflects itself in love for neighbor, and enlists men of piety as sacrificial servants of their fellows. The experience of sanctification more and more socializes the individual disposition and qualifies men with new moral power to implement benevolent motives. The influence of spiritual revivals and the resultant quest for Christian holiness have therefore been a prime source of humanitarian impulses. The believer’s personal debt of love to God and his passion for the lost impel him, so that Christian activity transcends the antithesis between spiritual and social service. The compassionate factor in the Christian social thrust, with its eye on the value of the individual, delivers social service from its impersonal tendency to deal with the people as merely so many cases or illustrations of a given complex of circumstances. Social compassion thus holds status as a prime motive and duty of the Church. He who withholds love from another because he considers him unworthy removes himself from the love God manifested to us in the gift and death of Christ while we were yet sinners, yea, actually enemies of God.

8. The pulpit is to proclaim the revealed will of God, including the ethical principles of the Bible. The spoken word is to urge man’s acceptance of the Crucified and Risen Christ. It prompts obedience to his will. It tests contemporary solutions by the plumb line of these permanent guideposts. It has no franchise to invest specific contemporary parties, programs and personalities with approval in the name of divine revelation and the Church. But it has biblical authority for the courageous proclamation of the state divinely willed but limited in power, of man’s inalienable freedom and duty under God, of private property as a divine stewardship, of free enterprise under God, and much else that speaks relevantly to our social crisis.

9. The Christian influence upon society is registered most intimately through family and immediate neighbor relations, and then more broadly in the sphere of vocation or daily work in which the believer’s service of God and man is elaborated in terms of a labor of love, and then politically as a citizen of two worlds. In the fellowship of marriage, believers are not to be yoked with unbelievers; thus a family circle is shaped to lift the ideal of neighbor love to the most intimate and sacrificial heights. But the believer’s involvement in the world of economics and the state involves necessary relations with others outside the circle of redemption. The society of the home, where children are first welcomed into the family of creation and then later into the family of faith, is a parable that quickens neighbor love and Christian witness to men in the world at large. In the realm of work, the believer blends these concerns by the way he values his daily job as a calling by which to serve God and man. In the political realm, he supports the state as an instrument of justice subordinate to the revealed will and purpose of God.

10. Concern for righteousness and justice throughout the social order requires the believer as an individual to range himself for or against specific options for social reform and change. In discriminating these he will seek in good conscience to promote above all the revealed ethical verities, bringing the contemporary alternatives under their critical scrutiny, and approving what is good, disapproving what is objectionable.

Spared From Deviations

This frame of conviction and action not only has supplied the evangelical movement with a special orientation on social evils but has protected the community of faith in the past from many errors:

1. Indifference to the cultural situation outside the churches. They deprived “infidel” reformers of the opportunity to shame them to action because they disallowed the initiative for social renewal to pass the secular agencies which wailed the decay of Christianity. No agency more than the churches manifested a ceaseless interest in the welfare of mankind and made the elevation of degraded humanity its task.

2. The hasty imposition of Christian ideals upon the social order in the hope that their validity would be self-evident and their performance implemented by unregenerate humanity as an avenue to social stability.

3. The needless and arbitrary identification of particular social programs, sometimes quite secular in spirit, as essentially and authentically Christian.

4. An undue reliance merely on propaganda, education, and persuasion, or yet on legislation and compulsion to revolutionize society, rather than on the spiritual weapon of a regenerate morality. They suffer no illusion that society can be coerced into the practice of brotherly kindness and mutual devotion. Rather they recognized that conscience must be rebuked and sensitized, and the will supernaturally re-empowered in the battle against social ills.

END

What is the hardest thing in the Christian life? Probably a majority of Christians would agree—forgiveness, for it is not easy to forgive one who has seriously and grievously wronged you. Yet, Jesus put forgiveness at the center of Christian living. He forgave men their sins, and for this the Pharisees opposed him and finally crucified him. Their contention was that he was assuming prerogatives belonging only to God; and in a sense they were right for only God, himself being sinless, could truly forgive. But where they erred, of course, was in that they rejected Christ’s claim to be God. It was Christ who put forgiveness central in the Christian life, and it was God in Christ doing it.

Four Sides To Forgiveness

We note that upon consideration there are really four sides to forgiveness. The first is God’s forgiveness of us. The Bible teaches us that God forgives; nevertheless, we know from Scripture that it cost God a most terrible price to forgive us of our sins. It cost him the death of his Son at Calvary. By his very nature of righteousness and holy perfection, God could never at any time condone sin; his attitude toward it was and always will be one of righteous hatred. But when we say that God forgives us of our sin, we are nonetheless uttering a terrible and wonderful truth!

The second side of forgiveness, we note, is our forgiveness of ourselves. To be able to face oneself and at the same time accept oneself is often very hard. But only as we learn to forgive ourselves, can we experience self-acceptance and impose self-criticism at the same time. This side of forgiveness involves a matter of faith, of truly believing that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Self-forgiveness depends simply upon our truly believing that God has forgiven us as we have confessed our sins, and has cleansed us.

But there, you say, lies the trouble. I did confess my sin, and I asked for forgiveness and cleansing. Then, a few days, or maybe a month later, I sinned again. And with tears I went to God once more in prayer for forgiveness. And for a while I felt clean until—one day I slipped all over again. This has been the story till I’ve lost faith in the promise of 1 John 1:9. If I am cleansed from all unrighteousness, how can I fall again and again?

We are reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:3–4: “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him: and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent: thou shalt forgive him.” Seven times in a day! Would God do less for us than he asks us to do for others? If I wash my hands this morning and later pick up some object that soils them, this does not mean that my cleansing was ineffective. God does not promise that cleansing “from all unrighteousness” will be permanent. He does promise, however, that it will be thorough when applied, and will be applied as often as we need it and ask for it. How thankful we are that there are no limits to his wonderful grace.

The third side of forgiveness, that which concerns our relationship with others, is the critical realm that matters most for most of us. Many tend to forgive themselves too easily, but are not so quick to forgive others. Scripture is urgent in its teaching about this. Jesus taught us to pray “forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us).” He also said, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14).

This is not to understand God’s forgiveness as something we may buy provided we meet a certain condition. What is implied in these words is that if we really receive God’s forgiveness for our sins, our gratefulness to him will act as a dynamic within our hearts causing us to forgive others of their sins. If we do not have a forgiving spirit, then it is evident that we really have not received God’s forgiveness for ourselves. God forgiving us and our forgiving others go together; there cannot be one without the other.

The Need For Forgiveness

Most people recognize that being right with God involves being right with man. Even children sense this. One pastor relates that “some years ago, after a vigorous brotherly and sisterly disagreement, our three children went to bed only to be aroused at two o’clock the next morning by a terrific thunderstorm. Hearing little noises upstairs, I called to find out what was going on. A small voice answered, ‘We are all in the closet forgiving each other.’ ”

A refusal to forgive always results in wrong relationships, and this is tragic. W. Waldemar Argow illustrates a rather odd incident: “I passed a building undergoing repairs,” he reported, “and on one side workmen were removing large quantities of bricks which had crumbled away. Why, I asked, had some bricks disintegrated and not others? The foreman answered: ‘Fifty years ago, when the building was erected, there came a day when the laborers at the brickyard had trouble with one another. Now, long years after that single day, a moral is written in crumbling brick.’ ” There is probably some “natural” explanation as to why the disagreement meant an inferior portion of wall. But whatever it is, the illustration fits the principle. Paul wrote, “… be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).

Jesus gave the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12). The Rule then is a statement of divine law. But as Christians we are not under law, we are under grace; and grace at work in our hearts will lead us to go beyond the law—beyond the Golden Rule. We may hear a lot of preaching that claims all will be well if only we obey the Golden Rule. That is certainly true, but we live also in a world where multitudes do not obey it. We need, therefore, a new principle, one that will meet the situation where people flout the other. And this we find in the Grace Rule: “Do unto others as Christ did for you.” It is the rule of divine forgiveness, and the biblical statement for it is: “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Restitution Required

We have hereto considered three sides of forgiveness. There is one more, namely, our seeking the forgiveness of those whom we have wronged. Remember Jesus’ words?—“If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matt. 5:23). We need to be willing to forgive, and we need also to seek forgiveness when we have been wrong. This takes humility and requires the grace of God in one’s heart. To go to another person and admit a sin done against him and ask forgiveness from it is not easy. But it is Christian, and our Christian life begins simply with our seeking God’s forgiveness, and continues with our forgiving and seeking the forgiveness of others.

There is, of course, a danger in forgiveness that must be avoided. Easy forgiveness that becomes merely a condoning of another person’s sin does not help him, and certainly does not rescue him. It harms him, for such forgiveness is not moral and not Christian.

But Christians are called upon to practice moral forgiveness. There is the record of a young man who once burglarized the home of Phillips Brooks. The good bishop, to the amazement of his fellow townsmen, helped to send the youth to prison. But that was not the end of the story. It is said that he wrote to the young man every week; and when the youth was finally released, he secured for him a job. By good counsel, therefore, and understanding on the part of a great Christian, a wayward one was put on solid ground. He became a Christian as well as a solid citizen.

‘Faithful And Just’

The Bible puts forgiveness on a moral foundation. It is a forgiveness that involves the suffering of the innocent. God “is faithful and just to forgive,” and that justification is made possible because Christ bore our sins for us on the cross. In truth God does not forgive the sin, nor does he ignore it; he hates it. And yet he will forgive the sinner; not that the sinner is in any sense “let off,” but that forgiveness is made possible because God has met and overcome man’s sin by way of the cross. We must remember that the cross is both a fact in time and an experience in eternity. God conquered all sin once at Calvary, but the application of that act is ever a continuing process for generation to generation.

When we realize also that sin is not just a surface stain but a deep flaw, then we realize how deep and thorough God’s forgiveness of us really is. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation,” the recipient of redeeming forgiveness. Of course, it does not mean we become perfect. Our slates may still be stained from the world. But if we have had first a true and wonderful change of nature, the cleansing power of God may be repeatedly applied to our slates to offset that stain. By receiving God’s forgiveness we learn to forgive ourselves and to experience, in Paul’s words, the “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

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Norman L. Godbey is Pastor of the State Street Baptist Church of Rockford, Illinois, where he has served since 1945. Previous to that he pastored other Baptist churches in Illinois cities and in Kansas. He holds his B.A. from Ottawa University and the Th.B. from Northern Baptist Seminary. He served as President of the Illinois Baptist State Convention in 1950–1951 and has held other posts in the American Baptist Convention.

Until the text of the Dogmatics is more widely and thoroughly read, one of the main tasks in assessing Barth will be to dispel imaginary pictures. Even yet, for example, it hardly seems to have penetrated the theological world what a decisive turn was taken by Barth in the early thirties, especially through his contact with Anselm (cf. his book on Anselm [1931] and Church Dogmatics, II, 1, 25 ff.). More recently, his emphases have been profoundly affected by his decisive rejection of the new modernism associated with Bultmann; and it is in the light of this rejection that much of his latest work is to be understood (cf. his study Rudolf Bultmann, Zollikon-Zurich, 1952, to which the page numbers in this article refer).

Bultmannism Rejected

A first point is his very strong insistence that, while occasionally mythical terms may have been borrowed, myth itself is not a genre which is found or used in the Old Testament (pp. 31 f.). What is narrated, for example, in the creation stories, is real event, though in this particular instance it is not expressed in historiographical form (cf. the full discussion in Church Dogmatics, III, 1, 41, 1). When we come to the Gospels, we have to do with a work of God in time and space, worked out in the actual life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and credibly attested by those associated with him as apostles (pp. 32 f.). If these events have more than ordinary significance, it is not as marginal symbols but as real events (pp. 16 ff.). Hence the so-called “demythologization” demanded by Bultmann is formally an impossible enterprise. There can be no other statement of the Gospel than in the form of narration (pp. 32 f.). More basically, however, it is a theologically mistaken enterprise, for at bottom it presupposes that the events narrated either did not happen at all, or did not need to happen (cf. p. 34). In reaction, Barth insists more strongly than ever upon the genuine historicity of what took place (miracles and all) for our salvation (pp. 19 ff., 32 f.).

Second, Barth is confirmed in his earlier insistence that the Bible must be read with genuine objectivity (pp. 34 ff., 48 ff.). The error of Bultmann is to import external categories. On the one side, he has a presupposed conception of what is meant by understanding the New Testament (pp. 31 f.). On the other, he allows abstract and non-biblical concerns to dominate his reading and therefore to cause him to reject what appear to him to be mythological elements (p. 27). At root, he reinterprets the whole Gospel, not in terms of itself, but philosophically in terms of an existentialism which he has really learned from Heidegger (pp. 36 f.). The genuinely pre-Copernican attitude, which demands demythologization, is that of Bultmann himself in making self the measure of understanding instead of being truly scientific and being willing to learn from the Bible as it actually is (p. 52). In reaction therefore, Barth insists that theology must rest upon exegesis of the text in terms of itself and not of alien categories, problems, or assumptions.

The Work Of Christ

Third, Barth is led to take with seriousness much needed in all circles today the fact that the center and basis of the Christian message are the work of Christ for us rather than the work of Christ in us (pp. 12 ff., 19). He has no wish to deny the importance of personal repentance, faith, and discipleship. This is self-evident (p. 12). But he has good cause to insist that this work in us is possible only on the basis and in the power of a work already done for us before our faith, apart from our faith, and in spite of our lack of faith (pp. 18 f.). And it is this work for us which forms the substance of the Christian message (pp. 21 ff.). Hence, existentialism does not lead us to the real core of the Gospel. It may well be only another form of the self-exaltation which is the very reverse of the Gospel (pp. 35 f.). What has to be kept in the forefront is that God himself has already worked for us; and that it is only on this basis that, by the Holy Spirit, we may enter into this work in personal response. Otherwise, Christ himself is lost in the so-called kerygma (p. 17). The work of Christ is cut loose from his person. Salvation is severed from Christology (pp. 17 ff.). What took place in the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is given only marginal significance, the really “crucial” thing being that which takes place here and now in me (p. 18).

Death And Resurrection

This is best appreciated in relation to the crucifixion and resurrection. For Bultmann, the all-important thing is my self-crucifixion with Christ; for Barth it is the fact that Christ himself died on the cross (pp. 18 f.). For Bultmann, the real resurrection is the rise of the Easter faith, the Easter message, the Church, the kerygma; for Barth, it is the actual rising again of Jesus Christ as the noetic basis of all these things (pp. 22 f.). If it is important to think of God’s work in terms of its benefits for me or outworking in me, it is even more important to think of what secured these benefits, of what is worked out in me (pp. 12 f.). If I am to die and rise again, I can do so only on the ground and in the power of Christ’s prior death and resurrection for me and in my place. This objectivity of God’s salvation is, as Barth sees it, the real target of Bultmann’s demythologizing rather than the so-called errors in scientific conception; and it is this which must be the more strongly asserted in answer (pp. 24, 32 f.). For the full development of this answer, see Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, which is written in conscious though not explicit repudiation of Bultmann (cf. Preface, p. ix).

In Line With Evangelicalism?

In respect of these three underlying principles in Barth’s work, it will be seen at once that he stands in line with three of the great emphases of evangelicalism: the historicity of God’s saving action; the supremacy of the Bible; and the objectivity of God’s work, particularly in atonement. To the extent that these may not always be conceived in the same way as in orthodoxy, there is ground for criticism. But to the extent that the same things are at stake, this criticism can take the form of fruitful discussion in which the participants on both sides may both help and be helped. Some of the lines along which such discussion could be conducted may be briefly indicated.

As regards historicity (cf. Church Dogmatics, I, 2, 19), it seems that Barth should give a better account of the reliability of Scripture than is actually the case. He makes two good points: (1) that there is a problem of genre, and (2) that in the last resort we depend upon the testimony of the Spirit. But in his abstract concession of errancy he both accepts a canon of historical judgment and allows a weakening of reliability which has only to be pressed to jeopardize the very thing which he wishes to maintain. If he has a lesson for the evangelical world it is that the historicity should not be suspended upon our ability to prove inerrancy, and that we should not be obsessed with this problem as it is posed by scientific historicism. But the converse is also true, that historicity implies the reliability of the testimony, and that this reliability surely means inerrancy according to the biblical category which should be our norm. In other words, the Bible does properly what it sets out to do in its account of God’s saving work.

Supremacy Of The Bible

As regards the supremacy of the Bible, it seems that Barth has a real lesson for the evangelical world in his attitude of openness to be taught by Scripture and his attempt to read the Bible in terms of itself and not of alien categories or assumptions (pp. 50 f.). This does not mean, however, that his own exegesis is right, and certainly not that he claims infallibility for it (p. 52). There thus opens up an exciting task of genuine biblical theology in which many of Barth’s own positions must be weighed by the scriptural rule, and positive exegesis or exposition may and should be undertaken, not in a mere attempt to wrestle with the errors of others, but in a constructive effort to understand the text and teaching of Scripture as it actually is. On this common acceptance of the biblical norm there is room for plenty of disagreement, but it will be friendly, humble and positive disagreement around the one Word and under the direction of the one Spirit.

As regards the objectivity of the divine work, it must be asked whether there is not a dangerous subjectivizing in much that passes for evangelical theology today. Yet the question must also be put to Barth whether he does not fall into much of the same error in his doctrine of inspiration by making the real inspiration the work of the Holy Ghost in the readers rather than a given and objective work in and through the authors. In the light of his own rejection of Bultmann, is there not demanded a reconsideration of his whole doctrine of inspiration? Does he not play right into the hands of Bultmann at this very sensitive point? Can objectivity be safeguarded anywhere if it is not really safeguarded everywhere?

These are some of the live and relevant questions and counterquestions which urgently need to be raised in the light of the developing emphases of the Dogmatics. It is not a matter of whether or not, or to what extent, we are to be Barthians. It is a matter of taking part in a stirring and constructive exegetical and theological interchange in which the only consideration is whether or not, or to what extent, we are or will be genuinely biblical.

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Geoffrey W. Bromiley is translator of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics and currently is Visiting Professor in Church History at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. His aim in this article is not to promote Barthianism, since many large as well as detailed criticisms of Barth’s views are made by evangelical theologians, but to encourage the critical yet constructive interchange promotive of a genuinely biblical orientation in the contemporary theological discussion and debate.