Putting Arkansas In Its Place

When Mr. Nixon last month announced the names of his Cabinet there was one singular omission. Years ago the person in question had publicly offered his services to Washington as a dollar-a-year man. The scheme fell through, perhaps because he stipulated salary in advance, but he did put on record (MGM K30-333-B) his surefire formula for putting the country back on its feet. The essential thesis of James Durante, shorn of characteristic embellishment, is based on one hitherto overlooked fact: The State of Arkansas is in the wrong place. Therein, affirms J.D., lies the root of America’s malaise. Don’t you feel the thudding impact of its utter simplicity?

Dear demonstrative students, when one of your current grievances is put right—when wars shall be no more or the earth is finally pronounced flat—fill the void with this Worthy Cause. It coincides in part with your yen to hasten away the former things, preferably by revolutionary process, and to create a valiant new world (the Genesis version having been, of course, a none-too-successful dry run).

Professors of sundry disciplines such as philosophy, political science, and English literature (remember Birnam Wood and Dunsinane?), here is your opportunity. This is a topic warranted to revive the somnolent who have dropped into class for a rest between campus outcries. Each of your subjects is embraced in Durante’s stirring challenge—which, incidentally, would make a superb exam question. “ ‘You can have a better nation just by changing the location of the State of Arkansas’—Discuss.” Keep in mind the possibility of bonus marks for those embryonic engineers who sneer Phoenix-wards with a telling allusion to London Bridge.

As for you pastors, this is a natural. The more piously inclined can thunder on “Dealing with the Arkansaws in your life.” Others can strafe their congregations (and take a sideswipe at the Administration) with a spell-binder entitled, “If you can’t move a Little Rock, what chance have you with mountains?

Proudly I tried that one for size on an unsuspecting friend. A bleak riposte was my portion; jealousy will out. “A man who could make so vile a pun,” he sniffed, “would not scruple to pick a pocket.” Alas for him, he left out the quotes, and I know my John Dennis. I’d rather be a punner than a plagiarizer.

Political considerations reluctantly forced me to leave out the vilest pun of all (no prizes for spotting it). President Nixon might just have a minor post still vacant, but my expectations are not great from one who spurns a giant like Durante.

The Reach For The Moon

Mr. Kucharsky’s “letter to the astronauts” (Dec. 20) placed me in a position I don’t particularly care to be in; namely, as one who is opposed in principle to space travel.

I see nothing wrong with landings on the moon, although I am unhappy at the thought of using the moon as a base from which to fight our enemies on earth. The adventure of the moon shot itself is certainly exciting and calls for much courage, and I wish them all success.

Interplanetary space travel is something else; and interstellar space travel is ridiculous to contemplate. According to some rough calculations we made in our office, it would take the astronauts one and two-thirds years (based on the time the Mariner took to reach Mars in 1965) to get to the planet Saturn, and seven years to get to Pluto, both in our solar sytem.

Our bodies cannot even travel around the earth in a jetliner without the “human clock” being thrown out of kilter. Just think of physical and psychological problems involved in a fourteen year space flight! God gave us a beautiful planet. Instead of trying to be what we were never intended to be, let’s be good stewards of the earth and seek the fulfillment that God did intend for us, the abundant life he offers in Jesus Christ.

Decision

Minneapolis, Minn.

Editor

In the rush of preparations for the Apollo 8 launch, I took time out to read Mr. Kucharsky’s very thoughtful and perceptive letter in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

We thank you for it, and I am sending it to the Apollo 8 astronauts.… I am sure they will enjoy reading it before they lift off for Apollo 8.

Ass’t Administrator for Public Affairs National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Washington, D. C.

The writer quotes Gordon H. Clark as having said: “God’s first command to Adam contained the injunction to subdue nature. Shooting at the moon, therefore, is a divinely appointed task.” I presume this is referring to Genesis 1:28, where God said: “Replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over … every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Here man is definitely limited to earth. Psalm 115:16 supports this: “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S; but the earth hath he given to the children of men”.…

Man need not go to other planets for the necessities of the natural life, for the Bible says: “The earth is full of thy riches”.… God certainly makes it plain … that our needs will be supplied if we live in his will.

Treasurer

Haug Foreign Mission Inc.

Clarion, Iowa

Redemptive Relevance

Your editorial entitled “Preaching: The Folly of God” (Dec. 20) appeared to be more of an apology to hide behind than a mandate to proclaim the Good News. I concur that the Good News must be preached. But it is altogether too easy a temptation to conclude that we have preached the Good News once we have uttered some of our time-worn and overworked shibboleths. Some of our classic clichés can be (not necessarily “will be”) as devoid of meaning as some of the most avant-garde approaches. Authentic preaching will be redemptive in its result irrespective of its form. And I have an idea that redemptive preaching is terribly relevant in any age.

Princeton, N. J.

The Preacher As Teacher

Every paragraph of R. E. O. White’s article (“Pastor’s Predicament: When to Study?,” Dec. 6) was pertinent.

The poverty of ideas in the evangelical Church belies its insistence on the riches of God’s revelation, and is in itself spiritual deficiency. The dichotomy between the “intellectual life” and the “spiritual life” must not be any longer perpetuated. The truly spiritual man is the man of sound judgment (1 Cor. 2:15). The truly holy man is transformed by the renewal of his mind (Rom. 12:2). The Church is gathered and built up by instruction (see the five columns in Moulton-Geden under didasko and related words). A basic qualification for the minister is that he be skillful in teaching (1 Tim. 3:2; 2 Tim. 2:24).

Dept. of Systematic Theology

Covenant Theological Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.

“Pastor’s Predicament” was a thought-provoking article, and I especially enjoyed the picture on the cover! I would be willing to lend out some hammers! Bellevue, Wash.

MRS. JACK OVERMAN

The Dividing Line

A news item on page 46 of your issue for December 6 reports Episcopal Bishop Harvey Butterfield as saying he was ashamed of the action taken by the Vermont Council of Churches.… I must say that I, as an Episcopalian, am ashamed of Bishop Butterfield.

Is there any conceivable reason why a group of Christians presumably organized to carry on Christian work and activities should not want to have non-Christians associated with them in their work? The Unitarians are certainly as non-Christian as Jews and/or Muslims in that they deny, as an article of their faith, the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that, according to the First Epistle of John, classifies them as anti-Christian.

Tyler, Tex.

Of Tongues And Confusion

I have just finished reading “The Confusion About Tongues” (Dec. 6), and it was refreshing. This is a most timely article and much needed in this time of confusion about glossolalia. It will help clear up some of this confusion. Mobile, Ala.

After the author so completely belittles a gift of God and those who practice such ecstatic utterence, would it not be unsafe to accept the authority of one who says, “I would that ye all spake with tongues,” or “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all”? If Paul is still so immature or emotionally out of balance as to encourage speaking and praying and singing in tongues, perhaps this is not such a bad condition to live in. Paul seems to be such a trusted authority in any other area of divine revelation.

Church of Emmanuel

Foxboro, Mass.

The “Confusion About Tongues” has hardly been corrected.… Full scriptural consideration has not been given. It is apparent the author was trying to prove his point.… The statement that the speaker in tongues “makes his emotions the basis of his belief and religious experience” is simply not true. The experience is a spiritual one, not an emotional one.

Chadron, Nebr.

We Pentecostalists do not spend as much time talking in tongues as denominationals do talking about tongues. If the writer’s intention was to reduce the confusion, he has miserably failed, in my estimation.

No matter how you slice it, the fact remains that the apostle Paul, the man God used most in writing the New Testament and shaping the Church for all time, “spake with tongues more than they all”.… If the zeal of this learned man of God for high spiritual principle demanded speaking in tongues, that’s good enough for me.

Hill City, Kan.

That article, especially the section on “Paul’s Appraisal of Tongues,” couldn’t be supported against a breath of fresh air.

Brooklyn Park Alliance Church

Osseo, Minn.

He is quite correct that tongues benefit mainly the individual (unless interpreted) and that tongues involve the more emotional areas of a person’s personality in prayer instead of the conscious rational faculties as in praying in one’s own language. That is to say that tongue-speaking is mainly for personal devotional use and to be heard in public only when it can be interpreted. Most mature Pentecostal people have been saying this since Azuza street!!

The important error in Dr. Tuland’s article which further confused the question is when he tries to distinguish the tongues of Acts 2 and First Corinthians as “intelligible speech” and “ecstatic babbling” respectively. It seems clear that the reason the tongues of Acts 2 required no interpreter (or translator, whichever he prefers) is that the visitors to Jerusalem who heard them and understood them used the languages they heard—they were not foreign to them. In the Corinthian congregation, however, one speaking in the language of “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia” et al. (Acts 2:9 f.) would not be understood; hence, an interpreter (translator) would be needed. In other words the need of a second gift was not the nature of the tongue but the constituency of the hearers.

Associate Pastor

First Assembly of God

Akron, Ohio

An excellent article; one of the best ever written on the subject. So fair to all parties who may differ about glossolalia. The superb feature is the treatment of the Greek verbs. Such Scriptural exposition clears away the “confusion.”

Warren Park

Christian Reformed Church

Cicero, Ill.

As to the author’s distinction between “translator” and “interpreter,” he is doubtless correct. He may be interested to know that some people feel that the gift of speaking in tongues (when it is intended for public use and is to be followed by “interpretation”) is just as much a prayer as is the devotional use of tongues in private. The “interpretation” which follows is the response of God to the prayer of the Spirit (Rom. 8:26, 27). Understood thusly perhaps it would fit into the author’s conception of true “interpretation”.…

The author struggles valiantly with the text trying to answer other problems that come to his mind. On this he is to be commended. I have found from experience that most of these questions dissolve into the atmosphere when one takes the leap of faith into this new dimension of the Spirit. I highly recommend this way of life to him.

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Natchez, Miss.

I regret that author Tuland did not study his lesson better before reciting!… If he had taken the trouble to candidly expose himself to the wealth of excellent literature that has been published since 1960 about the charismatic movement, he should have discovered that the question is not so much “increasingly controversial” as it is that there remain many who are adamantly critical of the phenomenon in spite of the evidence.

Let it be said at once that I am not a tongues-speaker myself, lest my reply is quickly dismissed as the defensiveness of a practitioner of this spiritual gift.…

As happens so often when so much of the weight of proof for a theological viewpoint is placed upon fine points of linguistics and exegesis, the Sovereign Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) in Christian experience supersedes and confounds our airtight opinions by giving gifts “as he wills” in ways we sometimes wish he wouldn’t.…

The judgment that tongues-speaking “seems to be highly overrated as a means of making known salvation as a transforming experience” betrays ignorance of the remarkable record that the charismatic movement has in the basic evangelistic task of the Church. Granted that the Christian message must be balanced and that “over-accentuation of any doctrine is a distortion of the Gospel,” I only wish evangelical Christendom would manifest a greater ability on several scores than it does now to preach and to practice the whole counsel of God!

Mennonite Church of Scottdale

Scottdale, Pa.

While I am in fundamental agreement with Dr. Tuland’s thesis that glossolalia is overrated in many groups, I feel that he fails to articulate fully St. Paul’s handling of this difficult question.…

The main issue here is Paul’s approach to the problem of disruptive glossolalia in the Church: it was not suppression and deprecation of the Corinthians’ zeal for the charismata—especially glossolalia, but rather he stressed redirection of that enthusiasm toward more constructive channels, e.g., prophecy and the “higher gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1, 39).…

I suspect that the reason this debate becomes so emotionally explosive is because of the hidden (and utterly false) premise that the ability to speak in tongues raises one’s “spirituality rating”.… I gather that the Apostle was not interested in “ratings,” but in mutual love and upbuilding in the Christian faith.…

Rather than making blanket denials of the modern charismata from theological presuppositions, or insisting that a certain spiritual gift is the only entrance into the full Christian life, let each side of this unfortunate debate seek to understand the other in love and compassion, and to judge all acts and attitudes as to how they increase love in the Church and exalt Jesus Christ.

Lincoln, Neb.

He reminds me of Nicodemus in his naïveté of the experience. Millions can refute his conclusions in a number of experiential ways.…

Next time you might ask a Pentecostal devotee to demythologize the confusion which your Ph.D. contributor has created.

Secretary-Editor

Charismatic Communion of

Presbyterian Ministers

El Reno, Okla.

I am ready to concede some excesses, and it seems that Luther was also. There are few if any responsible “Pentecostal” organizations who have failed to maintain a clearly intelligible ministry. If this were not true, they would long ago have floundered. If Dr. Tuland wants an experience without emotional involvement, he will have to base it on some text other than the Bible. The argument is not that “tongues” indicate spiritual maturity, but that they signify spiritual, mental, and emotional commitment to the will of God—that is to say, an immersion in the Spirit of God.

Church of God

Waynesboro, Va.

It might well be said of the author as a new radio commercial says of a deodorant, “Don’t knock-knock it unless you have tried-tried it.”

First Assembly of God

Winston-Salem, N. C.

I regretfully “take pen in hand” to protest against the article on “tongues.” The Pentecostal—otherwise known as charismatic—movement has been by many hailed as the third great force in Christianity, and to dismiss it in the cavalier manner of that article is deplorable and unworthy of the high standards of your magazine.

Actually, rather than a “third force” (which would imply, perhaps, that it was as opposed to Catholicism and Protestantism as these have been to each other), it is a penetrating force, vivifying both Catholicism and at least the “old line” denominations.

Monument Valley, Utah

With great eagerness I read “The Confusion About Tongues,” hoping to get some relief from the confusion, but it was the same old wearisome reasoning entirely from one side of the fence.

However, it doesn’t seem to make too much difference to God how many reasons scholars discover to downgrade this particular gift. He goes right on blessing and using the charismatic movement to bring new life into churches of all denominations. The spirit of love that flows through this movement across all religious barriers is one of the great ecumenical phenomena of our time.

Milford Congregational Church

Milford, Kan.

His question should be, “Are tongues for today?” …

No, according to God’s word they have ceased. We should go on to completeness found in God’s word, revealed to Paul, as the Holy Spirit told him to write in Romans 16:25.

Phoenix, Ariz.

Christmas Gift

Your Christmas issue was to me a gift as pleasing as some useful item given me by a loved one and wrapped in the most beautiful package. Outstanding in this issue was David T. Evans’s “Christmas Anew!,” which found this reader another “Avery” who found the frustrations of the ministry tempting him several times lately to leave.… Since reading Avery’s experience of perplexity and the renewal, his prayer has been prayed much by this “Avery,” who looks forward to “Christmas Anew!” The editorials of this issue were exceptionally good.

The United Methodist Church

Rector, Pa.

Where The Need Is Greatest

I am really disappointed in your editorial “The Chicago Riot Report” (Dec. 20) for it points up a lack of sensitivity to the great need of the Christian Church today—namely, to practice what it preaches. The Church will never win over a highly secular and materialistic society by simply stating that “man’s first need is the Gospel of Christ” and then leaving it there.…

Christ himself would be found today where the need is the greatest, where the hungry, thirsty, friendless, ill-clothed, sick of mind and body, in prison, are. The average churchgoer is no more concerned about these unfortunates than is any other part of our society—maybe even less.

Faith without works is dead. Preaching the Gospel without action connoting a “born-again” experience and a “works” vitality is a sham.

Colton, Calif.

At The Convention

Your comment on “Balancing Church Power” (Editorial, Dec. 20) is of much concern to me.… I have been a delegate to four state conventions of the Congregational Church—United Church of Christ. You gave a good description of their procedure.… We were handed a stack of mimeographed matter about which we knew little or nothing. We voted on them, after a short discussion. My home church knew nothing about them, so I had to vote without any hint as to how they felt.… Such material should be forwarded to the local churches in time for study and discussion.

Norfolk, Neb.

Nothing reflects confusion more than a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Beset by barking dogs, frustrated by one another and by the natural obstacles around them, leaderless sheep will mill about in a frenzy of indecision, unable to cope with the problems that confront them.

That the world of men is in a like state of confusion is seen in even the most casual reading of any newspaper. The problems are economic, racial, political, and social. They are also educational, emotional, and—above all—spiritual.

Each geographical area has its own problems, with resulting alignments and counter-alignments that jeopardize local and world peace.

For the world’s confusion, as for each man’s confusion, there has been committed to the church and to individual Christians a simple and direct answer. This answer, which can be either accepted or rejected, forms the very watershed of life now and for all eternity.

Jesus was constantly confronted by religious leaders who rejected his claims and disputed his words. On one occasion he made a series of statements about man’s deepest needs. He said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). He went on to say that there will be a “last day” when those who believe in him and therefore have eternal life will be raised up to be with him.

Christ’s claim to have come down from heaven was challenged, and he countered by asserting the centrality of his mission—to draw men to his Father. This he followed with the astounding affirmation that his own flesh was the bread from heaven: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:53, 54).

Throughout this discourse Christ spoke as God’s supreme gift to man and man’s only hope. The condition for man was to “believe”; the rest was an unfolding of God’s love, grace, and mercy.

The result? Many of those who had been following him said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Jesus replied, ‘Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

This was too much. “After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.”

This same state of affairs prevails in the world today. Men have rejected the divine revelation in God’s creative power and wisdom. They have rejected his revelation in the person of his Son. They have rejected the revelation given in his Written Word. The results: confusion and chaos.

At this point in the story our Lord turned to the twelve he had chosen as apostles: “Will you also go away?” he asked. Simon Peter—bless his impulsive heart!—replied: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Confronted as we are by a world in chaos and confusion; daily encountering people who, bruised by the world and living in spiritual darkness, are as sheep without a shepherd, what shall we do?

So often we, as individual Christians and as a corporate Church, fail in our obligations to others. Our failure is a tragic reminder of our need for constant renewal in Christ.

Jesus repeatedly healed the sick. On occasion he fed the hungry. There was never any question about his love and compassion. But as one reads the total record, this stands out: he came into the world not so much to preach the Gospel but so that there might be a Gospel to preach.

These deep truths he uttered about the bread and drink of life had to do with eternal life. He was speaking of the spiritual implications of his death and resurrection, and the majority of his hearers rejected his message and went their own way.

Men are no wiser today. Even in the circles of religion,” many reject the clear affirmation of Jesus Christ in favor of doctrines more acceptable to human reason and philosophical presuppositions. And because they offer a lost and desperately confused world the stones of worldly wisdom and human speculation, the confusion is increased.

The Pharisees were “blind leaders of the blind” in their day, and they have their counterparts today in those whose wooden interpretations reject the spirit of Christ’s message, and in those who reject the deep spiritual truths of man’s lost condition and his need of redemption.

Our Lord’s attitude to the Pharisees was one of ruthless denunciation for their legalism and hypocrisy. With equal forcefulness he showed the folly of the Sadducees: “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29).

Called to bear clear witness to a confused and lost world, we only too often add to the confusion by interposing our own opinions rather than the simple Gospel of redemption in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Little wonder that the world has turned from the Church! Little wonder the Church has lost its influence! Little wonder that we individual Christians find ourselves powerless!

Too many of us know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. We are compromising our witness by living inconsistent lives. We are rendering our teaching and preaching void by “interpreting” away the true meaning of the Holy Scriptures, by substituting for “Thus saith the Lord” the opinions and denials of “scholars” who depend more on their “findings” and those of others like them than on what God would say to us in his Word.

Little wonder that the world is confused! Too many trumpets give an uncertain sound. Some Christians lack love and compassion, some magnify the creature more than the Creator, some are more concerned with what man thinks than with what God has clearly said.

These are stirring days, days of great opportunity and challenge. But we must remember this: the needs of the world, and of individuals, are fully met in that which Jesus Christ has done once for all. Beneath the veneer of a sophisticated and affluent man of the sixties lie the same sins of the flesh and spirit that have beset men of every generation. And it was to forgive men and cleanse them from these sins that Christ came, died, and rose again. That is the Gospel in its stark simplicity.

Why complicate what God has made so simple? Why seek for solutions that are no solutions? Why not give God a chance in our own lives and in our witness to others—the chance to prove that faith in what he has done is the power of God for salvation to all who will believe.

With Jesus Christ one stands on an unshakable foundation. Without him there can only be confusion.

L. NELSON BELL

I Believe: The Christian’s Creed, by Helmut Thielicke (Fortress, 1968, 256 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Wayne E. Ward, professor of theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

The reading public has come to expect something very special in a book by the great German preacher-theologian, Professor Helmut Thielicke of Hamburg. From the evangelical appeal of the “waiting Father” in the parable of the prodigal son to the profound interpretation of the doctrine of creation, this man’s writings combine popular expression with technical excellence.

At last we have his exciting interpretation of that epitome of historic Christian doctrine, the Apostles’ Creed. In a series of doctrinal sermons, delivered with all the illustrative power and vital interaction of the preaching situation, he unfolds the meaning of these central affirmations of the Christian faith. He does so with a keen sense of the questioning, even negative, response of many in his modern congregation. In fact, he joins the doubters at many points and shows the necessity of passionate doubt in coming to a serious understanding of the meaning of the faith.

The translation was begun by Thielicke’s friend John W. Doberstein, professor of pastoral theology at the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. As early as 1961, Thielicke had mentioned in his Christmas letter to friends that he had found a translator of “remarkable creative power.” The same letter announced the beginning of Thielicke’s work on the Apostles’ Creed, and these sermons were preached in Hamburg during the following years. In 1965 they were published in Germany under the title Ich Glaube (“I Believe”), and Doberstein began his translation almost immediately. At the time of his death later that year, he had just completed the chapter entitled “I Believe in God the Father.” A former student of his, H. George Anderson, completed the translation.

Each affirmation of the creed is expounded with the thoroughness and skill that mark all Thielicke’s work. Usually a key passage of Scripture is presented as the exegetical foundation, and a fresh interpretation of the doctrine in modern language, with abundant illustrations from classical writers and his own experience, forms the body of each chapter.

In addition, several of the phrases of the creed are expanded by a consideration of “additional questions.” Under the topic “God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” Thielicke deals with the persistent questions, “Do miracles really happen?” and “What is the point of miracles?” These studies of miracles are theological gems, absolutely brilliant in their insight and honesty.

Thielicke deals also with the question, “Where are the dead?” He mentions that he noted a remarkable increase in attendance for those sermons that discuss the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. Out of a life that has known the sorrow and crisis of World War II Germany, he is able to speak to the deep longings of the heart with profound understanding.

The highest value of these sermons is not to be found, however, in the comfort they offer to the troubled, the suffering, or the doubter. Great as this may be, their greatest value is surely in their apologetic power. Surely there are few who have Thielicke’s skill in challenging the shallow thinking of the carping critic, the self-styled “atheist,” or the complacent religionist. On their own terms, these messages meet the doubter and the cynic and engage them in passionate struggle for a truth to live by. This is an apologetic work of tremendous power; it will find its place among those Christian writings that have sought, not to overwhelm intellectual opponents, but to lead earnest doubters to Christ.

Philosophy Of Process

Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, edited by W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge, 1967, 428 pp., $9.50), is reviewed by Norman Shepherd, associate professor of systematic theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This collection of studies honors a New Testament scholar who for over twenty years was associated with Union Theological Seminary (New York) and who now teaches at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest. The list of eighteen distinguished contributors insures a volume of the highest academic quality.

The chapters, though diverse in character, are brought together under two general themes: questions of history and faith focused on Jesus of Nazareth, and the mind of Paul and problems of Pauline interpretation. The essays reflect the main areas of Knox’s own interest and to a greater or lesser degree show indebtedness to him.

Most of the chapters are detailed and technical and defy evaluation in a brief review. In the opening essay, however, Norman Pittenger has sought to elicit “some implications, philosophical and theological, in John Knox’s writing,” recognizing that Knox himself has not felt the need to give a theoretical accounting for his philosophical and theological presuppositions. Pittenger sees Knox as dependent upon contemporary American process-thought in contrast to philosophies of substance, where, presumably (but wrongly), we are to expect to find orthodox Christian theology.

Knox’s world in process is found to be marked by growing concretions of good, though things may temporarily be “out of hand.” The reason for this optimism is the fact that loving action focused in the “complex occasion” called Jesus Christ is giving rise to other focal centers of love. There is a purpose of love at work bringing all things back to their intended character as instruments of the divine Charity.

Pittenger shares Knox’s commitment to a philosophy of process and, while recognizing that this can be expressed in traditional language, nevertheless appeals for a new statement “made in the patterns of thought appropriate to such a processive world as Professor Knox sees our world to be.” We can only applaud and encourage this proposal “to reconceive the Christian faith not only ‘in other words’ but also in a quite different perspective and with quite different presuppositions.” It will serve to make plain how thorough is the divergence from the historic Christian faith, and how irreconcilable is this faith with what is offered as a substitute.

For the servant of Jesus Christ it is not a matter of choosing between a philosophy of metaphysical essences and a philosophy of process. Rather, he must develop a distinctively Christian life-and-world view that begins in the sufficiency and clarity of God’s written word of revelation.

New Light On Galatians

Galatians, by William Hendriksen (Baker, 1968, 260 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by David W. McIlvaine, subject cataloger, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

This volume, the eighth in Dr. Hendriksen’s continuing commentary on the New Testament, will be very useful to the pastor or Bible teacher. An advanced scholar might find it less useful because in the main Hendriksen concentrates on the text, without detailed interaction with the opinions of other scholars. However, he is aware of the work of others and is not hesitant to voice disagreement. For example, he identifies the trip by Paul to Jerusalem (described in Galatians 2) with Acts 15. In one footnote he tells us that Berkhof, Erdman, Findlay, Greijdanus, Grosheide, Lightfoot, Rendall, and Robertson also take this position, and in another that Bruce, Calvin, Duncan, Ellis, Emmet, Hoeber, and Knox disagree. Such information makes this commentary particularly useful, for it enables the reader to see that good evangelical scholars are divided in their opinion. Not only conservative scholars are consulted, however, as the four-page bibliography shows.

By itself this volume is not exhaustive; it is meant to take its place on the shelves along with the author’s other volumes on the New Testament. When commenting on the Greek word for “to tell the truth,” for instance, he refers us, in a footnote, to a footnote in his commentary on Ephesians. This is somewhat annoying for a reader who doesn’t have his volume on Ephesians!

But this work is superb in both content and format and may well convince the newcomer to Hendriksen to investigate his other volumes as well.

Help In Sex Education

A Guide for Christian Sex Education of Youth, by Thomas Edwards Brown (Association Press, 1968, 368 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Leslie R. Beach, professor of psychology, Hope College, Holland, Michigan.

Sex has to be the subject in which we are most guilty of giving young people answers to questions they are not asking. It also has to be a subject on which we do one of our poorest jobs of communicating what answers we do give. Here is help for making sex education less painful for the educator and more relevant for the student—all within a “for real” Christian framework that speaks to today’s teen-ager.

Writing out of extensive experience with young people, Thomas Edwards Brown presents guidelines and materials for sex-education programs for grades 7–12 and for parents. He sees teenagers as already fully sexual beings who need real answers to real questions—and the real questions do not deal with biology, the human reproductive systems, moonlight and roses, or the horrors of unwanted pregnancy and venereal disease. Rather, these fiercely persistent questions have to do with the goodness or badness of sex, coming to terms with one’s sexuality, how to get started in relationships, how far to go in relationships, and becoming fully functioning, wholesome, mature sexual persons. The “traditional” subjects are not omitted, however; they are treated with openness and candor.

Brown gives his reader the materials and techniques, constantly under revision, that he has used successfully with teen-agers and their parents. His inclusion of typical questions asked at various ages helps prepare the uninitiated for the kind of question (and language) he may encounter. Helpful case examples are included also.

To Christian sex education Brown brings a positive outlook on sex and personhood, relevant materials and techniques, and sound Christian dogma. All youth workers who read his book will feel indebted to him.

Analyzing Our Dreams

Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language, by John A. Sanford (Lippincott, 1968, 223 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by E. Mansell Pattison, assistant professor of psychiatry, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle.

John Sanford’s theme is that human nature is paradoxical, and the understanding of it comes through the analysis of our dreams. And this is indeed a paradoxical book from title to index. The author begins by disavowing the notion that dreams are the vehicle by which a supernatural God speaks to men, but ends by asserting that the universal symbols and revelations of our dreams suggests the existence of God. He claims to draw on modern psychologists for the foundations of his work, yet uses only pre-1940 Jung, misinterprets Freud, and ignores the revolutionary breakthroughs that have occurred in the experimental study of dreams in the past fifteen years.

Sanford is an Episcopal clergyman who studied at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich after seminary training. There he became convinced of the correctness of Jung’s theories and concluded that dreams were a neglected but highly important theological issue. He sees dreams as the royal road not only to the unconscious but also to the restoration of psychological and spiritual healthiness. “Dreams and their interpretation can heal the sick soul.”

The first half of the book contains case histories drawn from Sanford’s pastoral counseling. He shows how his clients’ emotional conflicts were revealed in their dreams and how he helped them to emotional health through dream interpretation. He fairly accurately summarized the psychodynamic functions of dreams and sketches out the paradoxes of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the personality. None of this is at all new, but it is well done.

The second half of the book shifts to speculation. Here Sanford attempts to use dream analysis to develop a theological view of the nature of man and his relationship to God. It will satisfy neither scientist nor theologian.

I also want to make it quite clear that by referring to dreams as God’s forgotten language I do not have in mind the “theological God” possessing a whole string of metaphysical attributes. By saying that our dreams are from God I mean that they are, from the point of view of the ego, purposively directed, and seem to revolve around a central authority in the psyche. There is always a creative element in dreams, and it is this creativity which is divine.

The two halves of the book present a familiar paradox. Writing as a clinician, the author shows a warm, empathic understanding of human nature. This part will warrant reading by the layman. The clinical relevance of dreams is well shown. But when the clinician tries his hand at being a theoretician, he runs afoul of the danger of using personal clinical success to validate a speculative theory. Contemporary research simply invalidates much of his Jungian extrapolation. Thus his scientific and theological theory fares no better than the metaphysics he so vehemently decries.

Objective Look At Mid-East

The Arab-Israeli Dilemma, by Fred J. Khouri (Syracuse University Press, 1968, 436 pp., $10), is reviewed by Arnold T. Olson, president, Evangelical Free Church of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

An objective treatment of the complex issues of the Middle East is hard to find. The emotion the situation has generated among the people directly involved seems contagious; one is either pro-Arab or pro-Israeli.

Mr. Khouri’s book is refreshing and revealing as it deals objectively with the events of the past twenty years. As a historian he reports the events as they happened. As a political scientist he seeks to interpret those events. Time and again he summarizes the pros and cons of a situation. His analyses seem quite impartial, and he does not hesitate to point out errors on either side. While he exposes what he considers the failures of the United Nations and the great powers in their attempts to solve the problems, he also notes praiseworthy endeavors. And he believes that with the United Nations rests the ultimate solution to the problem.

Sources are well documented in more than five hundred footnotes, some containing as many as a score of references. The bibliography includes 212 documents and official publications, arranged according to where they can be found, as well as a thorough listing of books. An appendix contains documents such as the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, several U. N. General Assembly resolutions, and armistice agreements, as well as tables on Palestine population, immigration, and refugees, and other material.

Khouri, writing a secular history, begins with the period leading up to the partition of Palestine. He states, “It was the rise of extreme forms of Arab and Jewish nationalisms, mostly in the twentieth century, which precipitated the serious breach between the two Semitic peoples. Thus their hostility is of fairly recent origin and not based on some ancient animus.” But as any student of the Scriptures knows, the animosity goes back through many centuries. The book does not look back far enough, and, since it deals only with secular history, it cannot look far enough ahead.

One is left with many questions. Why is the United Nations, which was responsible for the birth of the State of Israel and which has spent more time on the Middle East crisis than on any other issue, so helpless? None of its resolutions have been fully adopted; most have been ignored or defied. Why have the great powers been so inept and almost naïve in dealing with this crisis? It seems clear that another world war could develop out of it; yet the situation is permitted to deteriorate.

Khouri summarizes the problem clearly:

So long as deep Arab-Israeli distrust, hostility, and conflicting national interests persisted, so long as internal political instabilities and rivalries continued to exist within Israel and the Arab world, and so long as the two super powers remained seriously divided, neither the United Nations nor any of its agents would be able to bridge the wide psychological and political gaps which continued to separate the Arabs and Israelis and to bring about a peace settlement despite U Thant’s clear warning that “if … no progress is made towards resolving the root causes of conflict, within a few years at the most there will be ineluctably a new eruption of war.”

This will take more than the efforts of the United Nations. It will take a miracle. And such a miracle will call for divine intervention.

A Discussion Of Death

Death and Its Mysteries, by Ignace Lepp (Macmillan, 1968, 194 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by R. K. Harrison, professor of Old Testament, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada.

The uncertainties of the atomic age and the nihilism of most existentialist thinkers, it is said, have made death a matter for discussion in some intellectual circles. Dr. Lepp, a French Roman Catholic priest and a psychotherapist who practiced in Paris until his death in 1966, has taken his cue from writers such as Camus and Sartre and has expounded his general theme along the lines of Bergsonian “creative evolution” and the rather elusive theology of Teilhard de Chardin.

Lepp makes several penetrating criticisms of Freudian theory. He views death both as a normal procedure (for old people) and as an “intolerable scandal” (for young people). The book contains interesting and penetrating sections on suicide and spiritism, and helpful comments on communicating the fact of death to children.

Perhaps I move in the wrong circles these days, but I felt that the book drew too heavily upon nineteenth-century Roman Catholic traditions in Europe and was therefore rather dated in its approach. The author exhibits a certain old-world romanticism in discussing how men supposedly dread death and try to give some meaning to it. He maintains that North Americans, more than any others, are terrified by the onset of death, and that this is reflected in their funeral practices. As a European, I have observed that most North Americans live as though they believed themselves indestructible, and seldom think about their own death. As for the funerals, there is a business interest connected with the undertaking that need not be discussed here.

The doctrinal standpoint of the book is that of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, tempered by the speculations of Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin. The title led me to expect that Lepp would discuss the phenomenon of death more than he did. Still, I found the book stimulating.

Survey Of Jewish Thought

A New Jewish Theology in the Making, by Eugene B. Borowitz (Westminster, 1968, 220 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Victor Buksbazen, editor, The Spearhead Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The author of this excellent survey of contemporary Jewish religious thought and philosophy is a liberal rabbi and a philosopher of religion. In discussing the difficulties of writing a systematic theology of Judaism acceptable to the contemporary thinking Jew, he takes us on a grand tour of philosophical and religious ideas of the most prominent Jewish thinkers of the last hundred years. And with great skill and insight, he analyzes the lasting contributions made by such pillars of contemporary Judaism as Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Mordechai Kaplan, Leo Baeck, Abraham Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchick.

Borowitz believes that a theology of Judaism is urgently needed if the modern Jew is to understand the faith by which he seeks to live, and avoid the pitfalls of a too individualistic and subjective religion. However, Judaism is intrinsically inhospitable to theology, because it is basically a religion of deed rather than creed.

There is an even greater obstacle to the formulation of a contemporary theology of Judaism. In the past, the Bible and rabbinical tradition were the supreme authority for right conduct and right belief. Today, this authority is either completely rejected or seriously questioned by the vast majority of a secularized Jewry:

For just as history no longer shows a single progressive march of Jewish faith, so contemporary philosophy does not provide a single standard of truth, so widely acceptable that it might become the foundation of a theology of Judaism.

Consequently all that remains to the Jewish religious thinker is to formulate significant questions in the hope that a rising generation will perhaps find answers.

The lack of a sure foundation and authority upon which to base faith is the real predicament of contemporary man, whether he be a liberal Jew or Christian. He must sail very stormy seas without either a guiding star or a dependable compass.

Paperbacks

The Bitter Road, by John H. Baumgaertner (Concordia, 1969, 104 pp., $1.95). A series of Lenten messages beginning at Bethlehem and ending triumphantly at an empty tomb.

Cameos, Women Fashioned by God, by Helen Kooiman (Tyndale House, 1968, 163 pp., $1.95). Stories of fifteen women whose lives have been deeply affected by their personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Ecumenism and the Reformed Church, by Herman Harmelink III (Eerdmans, 1968, 112 pp., $2.45). Examines the reasons for the repeated refusal of the Reformed Church in America to enter into unions with various other groups.

Is It the Same Church?, by F. J. Sheed (Pflaum, 1968, 224 pp., $1.75). A thoughtful consideration of change in the church by one who has been deeply involved in one of the most rapidly changing periods in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Living Dangerously, by D. Stuart Briscoe (Zondervan, 1968, 132 pp., $1.95). Confronts Christians with the shocking fact that they may be living as those who are spiritually dead and challenges them to lead daring and dynamic lives of vigorous commitment to Christ.

Man Alive!, by Michael Green (Inter-Varsity Press, 1968, 96 pp., $.95). An examination of the cardinal tenet of the Christian faith—that Jesus rose from the tomb and is alive today.

Martin Luther and the Birth of Protestantism by James Atkinson (Pelican, 1968, 352 pp., $1.95). Investigates the social basis for Luther’s dissent and tries to determine what issues of faith and morals really divided him from the Church.

The Message of Galatians, by John R. W. Stott (Inter-Varsity Press, 1968, 191 pp., $1.95). Twenty sermons on Galatians by the outstanding rector of All Souls Church, London. Shows how Galatians speaks to our day.

Psalms in Modern Speech, translated by Richard S. Hanson (Fortress, 1968, 80, 103, and 124 pp., $1.95 each). A refreshing new translation of the Psalms in three volumes.

Rebel with a Cause (Tyndale, 1968, 80 pp., $.75). The Gospel of Mark from Kenneth N. Taylor’s The Living New Testament presented in a format attractive to young people. In the same series: Tune In (John).

This Morning with God, edited by Carol Adeney (Inter-Varsity, 1968, 121 pp., $1.50). First of a series of daily devotional guides that lead the reader into firsthand study of the Bible. The series is planned to cover the whole Bible in five years.

A Woman in Her Home, by Ella May Miller (Moody, 1968, 128 pp., $.50). Practical suggestions pointing busy wives and mothers to a more satisfying home and family life.

The Pattern of God’s Truth, by Frank E. Gaebelein (Moody, 1968, 126 pp., $1.25). Paperback edition of a widely acknowledged treatment of Christian education. States that the master principle of all education, Christian or secular, is that all truth is of God.

Can I Trust the Bible? edited by Howard F. Vos (Moody, 1968, 190 pp., $.60). Paperback edition of an earlier work in which eight evangelical scholars whose fields of learning vary considerably present solid reasons for believing the truth of the Bible.

A Treasury of Sermon Illustrations, edited by Charles L. Wallis (Abingdon, 1968, 319 pp., $1.95). More than 2,400 stories, poems, and anecdotes; comprehensive indexes make this volume particularly helpful.

Structures of the Church, by Hans Küng (University of Notre Dame, 1968, 370 pp., $3.45). Paperback edition of a bold and penetrating study of the nature of the Church by an outstanding Roman Catholic scholar.

Our forefathers sang joyous songs about freedom ringing from every mountainside and wrote words about freedom’s holy light. Poets, statesmen, even philosophers assumed that godly faith was the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims (Tocqueville). And a connection between freedom and law was commonly assumed, as in the words of one writer, “If liberty with law is fire in the hearth, liberty without law is fire on the floor.”

Today our countrymen are generally the inheritors of these freedoms gloriously spoken of—liberties of choice about ways of learning, working, speaking, worshiping, and so on. Yet our land is also confronted with an increasing tumult about lack of freedoms. This growing protest, with its sharpening profile of disillusionment and bitterness, hardly reflects a spirit of thanksgiving for freedoms inherited and possessed.

One way or another, the word freedom assumes preeminence in the modern vocabulary. Many of our countrymen are still singing psalms of thanksgiving for their freedoms while at the same time they are haunted by freedom’s cry for deliverance uttered by the alienated and dispossessed. The freedom theme may generate a feeling of exhilaration or of sadness and pity. There is also another kind of freedom shout that arouses a sense of foreboding and dismay, for it is a raucous and militant demand that radical changes must take place “now!” This revolutionary emphasis on “now-freedom” usually has utopian and perfectionist overtones. Strangely enough, it may arise from the soil of affluence and academic privilege. This impatient and aggressive stance is often heralded as a necessary prelude to substantial breakthroughs for a revised social order of one sort or another. I wish to suggest, however, that this peculiar kind of freedom-cry may be less a high moral protest and more a symbol of inner contradiction and spiritual insecurity.

Perhaps it was in this context that D. H. Lawrence wrote about a shout of freedom that is the rattle of chains. When the freedom-cry is overpitched and overanimated, it may reflect more the agony of spiritual desperation, the rattle of inner chains, than the vision of true liberty. Dostoevsky is credited with similar insight in his portrayal of a man driven to murder out of his own weakness, desperately trying to prove to himself that he is not a slave to that weakness. Friedrich Nietzsche is a tragic example of a man so obsessed with the dream of power and freedom that he even tried to destroy God, and eventually succumbed to madness in a frenzy to achieve his goal.

It is not hard to see how a downtrodden person who is powerless to do anything about his predicament might become obsessed about freedom. It is less easy, however, to explain an obsession of this sort in those who have acquired some amount of freedom and power. Yet it often seems that freedom whets the appetite for more freedom, power for more power, money for more money.

Freedom, it appears, is a seductive elixir when mixed with the wine of power and tasted by the man who is intrigued with the vision of a perfect setting (especially when this prospect is pursued overtly or covertly in the name of man). However, this potent combination may also become an opiate that dulls the sensitivity of the human spirit. This was perceptively illustrated by Nathaniel Hawthorne a century ago in his “Birthmark,” a commentary on the ebullient secularist demeanor of the new sciences of his day, fascinated as they were with the ideal of human perfectibility, the concept of knowledge as power, and the prospect of complete autonomy of the human spirit. Hawthorne, with the discerning eye of a New England Puritan (surely no defender of the concept of human perfectibility), tells about Alymer, scientist of world renown, whose wife’s beauty was marred only by a birthmark on her cheek. Even though Alymer stands at the pinnacle of his scientific career, flushed with honors and successes, he gradually allows these honors to be overshadowed by an obsession about the birthmark, symbol of imperfection. Finally Alymer gives way to this obsession and, with a godlike assurance of his own powers and a zeal to blot out the imperfect “now,” performs a scientifically perfect operation and removes the blemish. He seems to be eminently successful in this ultimate venture—only to discover that his wife has suddenly stopped breathing. Alymer loses her, but in the end seems to be more grieved over the failure of his supreme effort than the loss of his wife.

The enigma here is that men, whether deprived or privileged, ignorant or learned, tend to become obsessed by the desire for freedom and power as the antidote to some kind of bondage that stifles them; with no release forthcoming, they are confronted with a real danger of the transforming of humanity into inhumanity.

There is yet another dramatic narrative to be reckoned with, an account that may well be considered the alpha and omega of all commentaries on freedom, power, and perfection. This is the Adam and Eve story, the Genesis synopsis of the creation of man, who was endowed with unique freedom among all the creatures of earth and with power to subdue the world, and who lived without sin in a utopian garden.

The crucial difference between secular attitudes toward freedom and this biblical version has to do with the issue of independence. The Genesis version of freedom is framed within a context of man’s dependence on, and answerability to, his Creator. In the secular view, freedom seems to be the first word; in the biblical view, freedom actually stands in subservience to obedience. The first word about man is that he is dependent, not that he is autonomous. The Creator endowed man with the glorious capacity of being free to answer yes or no, even to God himself, but man was in no sense endowed with the capacity of being non-answerable to his Maker. Man must answer yes or no to God, and his freedom is contingent on his answer. To say no to God is to forfeit the very groundwork of human freedom, and to slip into the precipitous realm of the unfree, from which, humanly speaking, there is no recourse, just as when the eye is destroyed there is no recourse from physical blindness.

The secular confusion about what really is the ground of freedom, and the disconcerting paradox involved in seeming to lose one’s freedom in the act of pursuing it with great vigor, are counterbalanced with striking simplicity in the words of ancient Joshua: Choose (freedom) this day whom he will serve (the other side of the freedom coin, from the biblical perspective). Freedom’s cry for freedom in the name of man leads to an obsession about freedom, not to mention an eventual bondage. Freedom received within the context of obedience to the Eternal Word is true freedom; as it is written, If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. All of which is to say: Choose to be a slave in the right way and be free, or choose to be free in the wrong way and be a slave.

Two other early rivals to Christianity should be considered, the first because of its attractiveness, the second because of its persecuting power. Both are equally operative in the Asian world of today. The first, more a movement and a climate of thought than a coherent religious system, is represented by Gnosticism and the mystery religions. It is also represented by the substratum of magic that underlay all first-century religions, as Taoism underlies modern Chinese popular religion or the bomah (witch doctor) underlies the popular Islam of Malaysia.

If we start at the lowest level of magic, the classical biblical example is at Ephesus, where the triumph of the Gospel meant the burning of many of the famous “Ephesian letters,” the magic spells for which the city was famous. Simon of Samaria and Elymas of Cyprus apparently used this sort of magic in connection with more developed religious systems. In one respect at least, magic corresponded very closely to science in modern times. It was an attempt by man to manipulate and control his natural environment for his own benefit. Of course, we know that it was a false and pseudo-science; but those who used it believed in it implicitly, and it did seem to produce some results, no doubt by demonic power. The fortune-teller of Philippi bore true witness to the mission of Paul and Silas, just as the demon-possessed man in the Gospels bore unwilling but true testimony to the nature of Christ. Christian workers today are sometimes puzzled by the heathen fortune-teller who can actually foretell the future; this problem too was known to the primitive Church.

The belief in magic led to that bondage of fear of the spirit-world that is still prevalent in many lands. To such people, the good news of the resurrection victory of Christ, with its triumph over all the powers of darkness, came as a liberating message. But it is important to understand that magic, as well as being terrifying, was as fascinating as science is today. It professed, at least, to give knowledge of the future, and even to be able to mold that future; it seemed practical, modern, this-worldly. Those of us who strive to present the Gospel to the scientifically minded youth of the great Asian cities today find ourselves faced by similar problems. Christianity does not seem as relevant to them as the atomic reactor. On the other hand, those who work in the villages still face magic, in the old sense, as a rival to Christianity.

The mystery religions as such are not mentioned in the New Testament. It is almost certain, however, that when Paul uses the term “mystery” in his epistles, he is deliberately using the language of one of Christianity’s rivals, and giving it a Christian meaning. Of course, “mystery” to Paul meant the revelation of a previously hidden secret of God, something very different from the meaning of the word in either the Eleusinian Mysteries or any other of the well-known examples. All these mystery religions alike catered to the religious cravings of the common man, unsatisfied by the formalism of state religion and the emptiness of the old mythologies. Indeed, the wilder and more orgiastic of the mystery religions catered to men’s emotional as well as his religious needs, giving worshipers the sort of emotional release that fans nowadays get from an exciting ball game or a Beatles concert. But as far as we know, the mystery religions were not as a rule immoral: instead, they gave men hope of rebirth and salvation, with noble aspirations and ideals. In later days the simple soldier-faith of Mithras, with its clear distinction between right and wrong, was a rival to Christianity in winning the loyalty of the Roman legionnaires. What then was the danger to Christian faith posed by the mystery religions? Perhaps it was similar to the danger in modern non-Christian psychotherapy. Such religions gave men release from tension and psychological relief without touching the deeper problems of salvation and peace with God.

Gnosticism, at the other end of this spectrum, was something very different and far more dangerous. It was many-armed, like the octopus, and like it engulfed its foes. Hinduism and pantheism and theosophy are all Gnosticism in its modern forms. True, today Hinduism has a militant movement in India; but this is as inconsistent with historic Hindu philosophy as the militant Buddhism of Viet Nam is inconsistent with traditional Buddhism. Gnosticism, too, was rarely a persecuting force and claimed few martyrs. Instead it was parasitic on the Christian Church, and continually sucked weak Christians into its maw.

Of all the rivals, Gnosticism was the most attractive; it flattered man’s intellect, and gave its followers the impression that they were superior insiders and that all the rest of mankind were outsiders. It was a philosophy, it was a church, it was mysticism; what more could men ask? It found a place for Zeus, Moses, and Christ, along with a thousand others, as different emanations of the divine. One Roman emperor had statues of all three in his private chapel. Broadmindedness and tolerance and enlightenment were its watchwords, and the proof of this claim was that it took two very different forms. The first was ascetic; this is still one great tradition of our Asian lands—the man who controls, despises, ignores, perhaps even burns, his body. This often kindles natural man’s admiration, or even his emulation; but to despise or ignore the body is not Christian doctrine, and led to the worst excesses of the monastic movement. This wing of Gnosticism was admired by many but followed by few; the other wing was the true danger. Gnosticism was fundamentally amoral; salvation was by intellect alone. Many Gnostics glorified sex in the name of religion, or at least allowed men to give free reign to all their passions, as Baal worship had done in the old days. Liberty became license. Among other sterner Gnostic groups, the body itself was considered an evil and a hindrance; that being so, it did not matter what man did to his body. This sometimes led to the condoning of immorality, as is done in certain theological and ethical circles today. No wonder, in view of the practices of some of these sects, that Christians were accused of every kind of vice, the more so since their doings had to remain secret because of persecution.

We who have seen the glorification of sex both in ancient Hinduism and in modern Hollywood can realize the magnetic power of such an approach to fallen man, especially to young people. True, unabashed sexual license had always been a part of the worship of Aphrodite at Corinth and other places; but normally, Graeco-Roman religion at its worst was only amoral, not immoral. Gnosticism on the other hand glorified and boasted of the very things of which paganism was ashamed. If the Jews saw the Christians as heretics, and the polytheists saw them as atheists (because of their rejection of images), then the Gnostics saw them as killjoys. Christianity was pictured as gloomy, frustrated, unnatural, evil—all the adjectives we hear applied to ourselves today by those who will not accept the biblical revelation of God’s will. How the Church met the Gnostic challenge, we have no time to see in detail; but principally the answer lay in clinging fast to God’s Word and refusing to lower the moral standards that God demands, no matter how attractive the alternatives seemed.

Of all the rivals, the one that claimed the lives of most martyrs was the state religion, and this still remains the greatest danger to many Christians in Asia today. The strange thing is that, while it least partook of the nature of a true religion, it was the most bitterly intolerant. Those who would not burn a pinch of incense to Rome and Caesar were led at once to death. Of course, the Roman emperor was not the first to institute this practice. The Hellenistic kings of the East had long used this method (for it was but a political ruse) to bind into one the heterogeneous peoples whom they ruled. It is doubtful whether, in later days, either ruler or ruled took emperor-worship seriously; the crowds in Acts were only flattering Herod (Luke makes clear the financial motivation again) when they said he was a god, though Herod was punished for accepting this title. Typical was the attitude of the dying Roman emperor who, when asked how he felt, said with dry humor, “I feel that I am becoming a god.” Yet from the time of the Maccabean martyrs to the early Christian Church, Jew and Christian alike steadfastly refused this token worship of the state, which to them was idolatry. This, to the imperial authority, was narrowmindedness, inexplicable stubbornness, lack of patriotism, and, worst of all, open defiance of government edict.

So men and women died for Christ’s sake, but, in the eyes of the government, they died because they were bad citizens; this was a stigma hard to bear. So today many suffer and die, not as Christians, but, in the eyes of their governments, for some other reason that actually stems directly from their Christian obedience. True, in quite early days a man could be put to death simply on the charge of being a Christian; but the acid test as to whether or not he was a Christian, in the eyes of the state, was whether he would sacrifice to Rome and Augustus. In the days of World War II, Japanese Christians faced similar problems in connection with emperor worship; and in other lands, bowing to pictures of rulers or founders of states has exercised the Christian conscience. In all totalitarian states, this clash is bound to occur in some form or another. It often crops up in far less extreme forms in our new states of Southeast Asia.

The tragedy is that the point of difference seemed so small; yet, to the Christian, everything was at stake. It would have been easier to bear if Christianity had been totally opposed to the state as an institution, as some peripheral groups have always held. But the Lord’s word was clear: Caesar’s things to Caesar, and God’s things to God. No man could have gone further than Paul or Peter in preaching civil obedience, and obedience to an autocratic government.

Yet the Book of Revelation shows the dilemma of a Christian, who is bound to cooperate with the state as far as he can in good conscience, but who knows that there will always be a limit to the cooperation when Caesar’s law and God’s law conflict. When does Caesar cease to be the one set in authority by God and become instead the Beast, drunk with the blood of the saints? There is no easy answer, and perhaps not all Christians will answer alike. This Christian intransigence puzzles any government still further: Why, having come so far, cannot Christians come all the way with them? Worse still, what of the Christians who give way under pressure and sacrifice to Caesar, and are then in an agony of remorse? This was a continual problem to the Church in the days of the persecutions that followed the New Testament (and, surprisingly enough, none dealt with it as wisely as Cyrian, a church father not usually found congenial by evangelicals). It is a problem we may have to face in parts of Asia in days to come.

In the West, the problem of the opposition of the state religion to Christianity was solved with the accession of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who turned the tables by making Christianity the state religion. But the Western churches are still suffering from the ill effects of Constantine’s move; and we in the East have never had our Constantine. State religion is a rival to Christianity that we must be prepared to meet increasingly in days ahead, whether our countries are totalitarian states, or guided democracies, or full democracies. The Christian must love his country, true, but he must love God more.

Having seen something of the nature and extent of the rivals to Christianity in the first century, we may take heart when we see that they were not only just as serious as the rivals of our day but also very similar. We may also take heart from the knowledge that Christianity finally triumphed. The Roman Empire is no more, but the Christian Church remains, planted today in every continent. What was the secret of its triumph, the triumph of the Cross? Were there any great principles we may follow today?

The first letter of John was written at a time when the storm of persecution on the one hand and heresy on the other was already breaking on the Church. The aged John says very simply, “Whatever is born of God conquers the world. Our faith, that is the conquest that conquers the world. Who is the world’s conqueror but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4, 5, Moffatt Translation). The quality of Christian faith is the key, for it is a faith in the One who said, “In the world you have trouble, but courage!—I have conquered the world” (John 16:33, Moffatt). In this way, and this way alone, the Christian has “survival value.” This is no automatic process; it is Christians who are conscious of the nature of their faith who will overcome (1 John 2:14, Moffatt: “You are strong, and the word of God remains within you, and you have conquered …”). Faith in the Christ who has already conquered on the Cross, and a readiness to proclaim that faith—these are the two essentials for dark days.

In the Book of Revelation, the experience of the infant Church is summed up as, “They have conquered … by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev. 12:11, Moffatt). But there is a second part to this verse, one that shows the price: “They had to die for it, but they did not cling to life.” Totality of commitment to Christ is as essential as faith and readiness to witness; a lukewarm church has less to offer than any of the ancient or modern rivals of Christianity, and will go with the winds of change. For many Christians in the first century, this meant martyrdom, as it had for their Lord—that final act of witness by death that seals and completes the witness by life. For some Christians in the twentieth century, especially in totalitarian countries, it may well mean this also. For all of us, it will mean that we hold life, and all that it offers, cheap as compared with the triumph of the Cross throughout the world.

After the beginning, man began. And man said, Let there be a wheel, and there was a wheel. And man saw that it was good and invented all sorts of vehicles, from wagons pulled by oxen to trains driven by the power of the piston; from carts pulled by ponies to planes pushed by jet engines. And the evening and the morning were the first era.

And man said, Let the laboratories bring forth the cleansers, the labor-saving devices, the maintenance-free equipment; let them multiply in infinite variety; and it was so. And man made self-cleaning ovens, frost-free refrigerators, remote-control lawn mowers, automatic washers and dryers, electronic, transistorized trouble-free equipment of every conceivable type. And man saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the second era.

And man said, Let there be a new dimension to our vision so that we can see what takes place on the other side of the earth as well as in every corner of our countryside and cities. Let this television divide the night from the day for its viewers so that the night people may rule. Let it be for a sign of the seasons and give information to all the earth. And it was so. And man made great towers to send the vision on waves of light and sound, and he made a lesser sound called radio to rule the day. And he set them in the pattern of life to divide the day into segments, the years into series, and the summers into reruns. And man saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third era.

And man said, Let there be power from the building blocks of the universe. And man made the power by dividing the atom, and called that power an atomic bomb. And man said, Let the power of the atom be channeled into one purpose. And man called that one purpose the guarantee of Peace upon the earth, and the working together of all peoples for the benefit of all. And man saw that it was good. And man said, Let the power bring forth new ways of manufacturing goods for all men; and the atom yielded its power to produce submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, each yielding after its own kind. And men thought it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth era.

And man said, Let the men of science bring forth a craft that will break the power of gravity and fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And man created great space capsules, orbiting platforms, communications satellites, flying spy machines in order to explore the universe and to keep track of his earth neighbors. Every invention brought forth abundantly after its kind and inspired new creations. And man saw that it was good and blessed it with huge budgets, saying, Be fruitful and multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth era.

And man said, Let us make a machine in our image, after our likeness, and let it do all our calculating for us, keep accurate record of our fiscal affairs, make out the payroll, keep up to date the data on all scientific progress, store in memory all the facts of all the earth and every moving thing in heaven and on earth.

So man created the computer in his own image, computer and collater created he them. And man blessed them and said, Do all the work required of man, multiply formulas and equations to the end of the universe, take charge of the power of the atom, and compute the path of the orbiting spacecraft. And man saw everything that he had made, and behold, he thought it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth era.

Thus was all the modern world completed with its host of ingenious devices created by man. In the seventh era man said, Now I will rest and enjoy the fruits of all my labors. But the screaming jets would not let him sleep; the gadgets and expanded vision gave him stomach ulcers; his unlimited power kept him nervously suspicious of his neighbors; and the creation in his own image gave him answers to his questions he did not like.

Having made all things for his comfort and enjoyment, man found himself still in trouble. Great and marvelous were his achievements; but they brought no peace to him or to the world. For in the beginning was God, who made man, and made his heart to be restless until it finds its rest, not in man’s inventions, but in the Creator and Ruler who created peace and bestows it upon those who believe in the One he sent. May 1969 have this kind of Genesis.

Ministers often lead frantic, frenzied lives, and like physicians are faced with intense stresses. They are called to enter into the tragedies, heartaches, and tears of many lives—the very gut-level of existence. These involvements can extract a high price, especially if there has also been neglect of body.

It is neither selfish nor neurotic to be maturely thoughtful about one’s bodily health. In one of his essays Montaigne wrote, “It is not a soul, it is not a body that we are training up; it is a man, and we ought not to divide him into two parts.” Ministers, and all of us, would do well to re-evaluate our physical condition in this light. My recommendations for good health stem from long years of professional surveillance of the human scene, and from professional reading, teaching, and research in the leading cause of death, cardiovascular diseases.

In one of his books Paul Tournier quotes another physician: “Man doesn’t die, he kills himself.” I state further: He kills himself with his stresses and excesses. How many of our American businessmen are on that diabolical status treadmill of security and material success, at great cost to their spiritual, mental, and physical health? Executives tell me that much of today’s business is transacted over the banquet table, often after several drinks. When I find their blood pressure elevated and prescribe a simmered-down way of life, they protest, “But it will hurt business!” Was man made for business or was business made for man? Similarly, many ministers mistakenly think they give their best to their work only by pushing themselves to the limits of their endurance.

My very first prescription for better health is: Exercise. Ponce de León traveled the world in his fruitless search for the key to long life. Now, cardiologists are bombarding their patients and the public with a new conception of “The Fountain of Youth.” To push back the walls of death, exercise in boyhood, in youth, in young manhood, in middle age, and beyond.

Jesus exercised vigorously as he walked the Palestinian highways. Those who have actually walked in his steps have said that only one in full strength of manhood could cover the territory he covered within the indicated time. I picture Jesus, not as a pale-faced ascetic clothed in a skirt, but as a vigorous man bronzed by the Syrian sun, glowing with the radiant health of a well-exercised, well-disciplined body.

The Prophet Amos proclaimed “Woe to them that are in Zion.” Today, woe to them that are in automobiles, in escalators and elevators, in chairs in front of a TV set—to those equipped with a host of labor-saving devices that rob them of their strength and stamina—and perhaps even their very life.

Neither yard work nor golf provides adequate physical activity for a man. Most golfers have a caddy carry their bag, roll it on wheels, or ride an electric cart between shots. Thus they minimize the very beneficial effect of physical activity. Ride a bike, swim, join the Y, use your hiking boots—get up! Many thousands have taken up jogging to good advantage. It’s an excellent way to exercise if your doctor says you are up to it. To be active is to live; to be sedentary is to die.

A second important prescription for good health is: Abstain from nicotine. The clergy should stand firmly with the doctors in this matter. Floods of research have pointed an accusing finger at smoking. This damaging habit invites early coronary disease, emphysema, lung cancer, bladder cancer, and chronic cough from chemical bronchitis. Great numbers of physicians have stopped smoking, and the American Medical Association will no longer accept tobacco advertising in any of its journals.

Prescription number three is: Abstain from alcohol. The medical profession is deeply concerned over the rising incidence of alcoholism in this country. Alcohol is guilty of killing tens of thousands on our highways and of inciting many other deaths through murder, suicide, and health destruction. It places many behind bars as raving maniacs. Others drink their way to cirrhosis of the liver and perhaps death. Recent cardiac publications have discussed a new entity called “alcoholic cardiomyopathy,” or “beer drinker’s heart,” a condition that can occur in persons who drink heavily and consistently for many years. We have learned that alcohol is a cardio-toxin that poisons the mitochondria of the heart muscle cell, blocking the transfer of chemical energy into physical energy. The clergy should stand firmly with the medical profession in denouncing the increasing alcohol consumption.

The fourth mandate for good health and longevity is: Do not become overweight. One of the curses of this affluent nation is its widespread obesity. We who have the finest economy in the world, the finest supermarkets, look it. I constantly urge people to lose weight in order to reduce heart work, lessen frequency of anginal pain, lower blood pressure, and slow down degeneration of the artery walls.

Pastors, shape up, skinny down, and don’t hesitate to bid parishioners to do likewise. I believe it is a form of discipleship and consecration to keep thin and healthy. Paul spoke bluntly in Philippians 3:19 about those “whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly.”

Another edict is: Limit animal fats in the diet. In recent years medical science has come to realize that generous eating of animal fats is one of about ten factors leading to arteriosclerosis. It is interesting that in Leviticus 7, written 3,500 years ago, we are told: “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.”

When people want to debate with me the relation of fats to arteriosclerosis, I simply point out that this is only one of a number of known factors. The limitation of fat is logical, for fats contribute nine calories per gram of food, and limitation of fats aids in weight control. Greasy blood is clotty blood, and since we know red cells stick together more easily when the blood is fatty, it’s hardly worth an argument. Far better to be safe than sorry.

Still another decree for the preservation of good health is: Reduce salt intake. Dr. Richard C. R. Connor reported that the salt consumption in Glasgow, Scotland, was about 10.3 pounds per year per patient while in Monmouthshire, England, it was 6.7 pounds per patient. The incidence of coronary heart disease is much higher in Glasgow than in Monmouthshire; this suggests that we would do well to cut down on salt consumption. Most of us crowd too much salt into our diets, and it tends to make us waterlogged. Experiments in which rats and guinea pigs consumed a lot of salt have produced a surprisingly high number of animals with high blood pressure. Heavy salt intake is one of five factors implicated in hypertension, taking its place alongside heredity, obesity, nicotine, and stress.

In this attempt to present a formula for preserving health, a final edict is necessary: Avoid fatigue and stress. Just what is stress? How can we set limits on such a thing? Were our ancestors more afraid of being scalped by the Indians than we are of being scalped by the Internal Revenue Service? What may disturb one person may not so affect another. Almost all of us are sometimes guilty of “generating ten dollars’ worth of adrenalin over some ten-cent incident.”

We all must deal with daily tensions, anxieties, and stresses. Here I believe that the Christian faith has much to offer. Our Lord wants us to lead balanced, rested, orderly lives. Too often Christians represent not the Company of the Committed but the Company of the Overcommitted. We become tired and anxious and stressful, and this is reflected in our spiritual lives. We need to avoid the wheel-spinning of an excessive Christian activism.

I remember Norman Vincent Peale best not for his book, The Power of Positive Thinking, but for his short article, “The Power of the Positive NO.” How often Christians equate consecration with activism, with doing everything they are asked to do within the Christian structure. It is far better to do a moderate number of things well than to do many poorly.

Many men and women pay a high price in body and mind for their excessive application to work without proper periods of respite. Jesus gave this directive: “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for their were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat” (Mark 6:31). How often as professional men we rush about, miss meals, and live in a frenzy. Yet not one of us is indispensable.

Walking relaxes tension. So does prayer. Quoting verses of calm assurance in prayer is often helpful. “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps. 34:4).

Ministers and physicians are often honored as representatives of the fine and noble. They owe it not only to themselves but also to others to lead exemplary physical lives, and protect their health. A man may be a committed evangelical, firm and correct in his doctrinal beliefs, but if he is an overweight trencherman his testimony may be sorely impeded. A doctor who advises a patient to stop smoking undermines his counsel if his own consultation room is permeated with smoke. The same can be said for a doctor who tells a patient to lose weight while his own fat bulges over his beltline.

Pastors, to improve your ministry, to avoid chronic illness, to extend your lifespan, it is very important to attain and maintain normal weight, to exercise until the angel of death appears, to avoid nicotine and alcohol and excesses of caffeine, fats, and salt. Finally, try to live balanced, integrated, fulfilled lives, avoiding fatigue and controlling reactions to stresses to the best of your ability. You are urged to use the power of prayer, the power of the positive no, the power of a nap, and the tension-reducing power of exercise to temper stress, worry, and anxiety. Remember the desire the Apostle John expressed in his third epistle: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

To hear some people talk you would think that the Bible was basically a book about reconciliation. They will say that Christ’s atonement was essentially a work of reconciliation. Or they will say that the task of the Church in the world is first and foremost a task of reconciliation, of reducing tensions so that men learn to live at peace with one another. In view of the frequent use of the term these days, a little work on the concordance comes as quite a shock. The reconciliation words are used comparately little in the New Testament. Reconciliation is not so central to the New Testament understanding of atonement as is, for example, justification. And it is not so central to Christian duty as is love.

This does not mean that reconciliation is not important. Though the passages in which it is mentioned are few, they are highly significant. We should not overestimate them, but neither should we minimize them. They certainly repay close study.

The basic idea in reconciliation is that of making up after a quarrel. If people get on well at a first meeting, we do not say they have been reconciled. It is when they have been at enmity and have come to be of one mind again that we speak of reconciliation. The word means a process of making peace between those who have been in a state of strife.

Man The Enemy Of God

In the biblical view there is a fundamental hostility between God and sinful man. This is the great problem to be faced by all religions: How can a good God be at peace with sinful man?

The Bible does not pull its punches when it speaks of the hostility between unregenerate men and God. “Do you not know,” asks James, “that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (Jas. 4:4). Paul speaks of unregenerate men as “estranged and hostile in mind” (Col. 1:21), and simply as “enemies” (Rom. 5:10). But we scarcely need to quote specific texts. The whole thrust of the Bible is toward the fact that sin creates a barrier between man and God. It also creates barriers between man and man, but in the Bible the primary thing is the enmity it arouses between God and his creatures.

Sometimes today this is taken to mean that man, because he is a sinner, has taken up a stance in opposition to God. He is hostile to God. God, on the other hand, is seen looking on man with unwavering love. The state of enmity is thus considered to be on one side only. This makes reconciliation simple. It requires only that man realize how far he has strayed from the right path, and return. Peace will follow immediately.

There is some truth in this, of course. It is true that man is far from God. It is true that if he realizes this and repents, reconciliation will take place. But it is not true that this is the whole story. It leaves out the Cross.

The Place Of The Cross

And the Cross is central. We cannot understand the New Testament unless we see the centrality of the cross. For it was through the Cross that God worked out man’s salvation. Specifically, it was through the Cross that man’s reconciliation was effected. Christ died that he might “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end” (Eph. 2:16).

The point we must grasp if we are to understand the biblical teaching is that it is God’s attitude to the sin of man, not man’s, that is decisive. Man is usually not particularly worried by the fact that he has done wrong. If it can be brought to his attention that he is a sinner, he is usually content to let bygones be bygones, and he cannot see why God should not do the same.

But the Bible makes it clear that God will not do the same. The reason for the enmity between God and man is not that sinful man is actively and consciously hostile to God. He is not. It is rather that a holy God will not tolerate sin in those he loves. God’s demand on man and man’s failure to meet it constitute the problem. If God regarded sin as of no account, there would be no enmity and no problem. But God never condones evil. He never countenances wrong.

The Method Of Reconciliation

Now we are quite familiar with the process of reconciliation in human affairs. We know that when two people are at loggerheads, the way to bring about reconciliation is to take the cause of the quarrel out of the way. If harsh words have been spoken, they are withdrawn with an apology. If money has not been paid, it is paid. If a letter has not been written, it is written. Whatever is the root cause of the trouble must be identified and dealt with. If this is not done we will have at best an uneasy truce; we will not have a genuine reconciliation.

So also in relations between God and man. Sin is the cause of the trouble, and if there is to be reconciliation, the sin must be dealt with and taken out of the way. It is important to be clear on this, for man cannot remove his sin. He was able to erect a barrier that separated him from God, but he was not able to pull it down. When he repents and turns over a new leaf, that is fine for the future. But what of the past? “God seeks what has been driven away,” or as the King James Version puts it, “God requireth that which is past” (Eccles. 3:15).

In our own affairs we never doubt that the past is important. When a student fails his exams, he cannot laugh it off and proceed to the next unit of his course as though nothing had happened. When the businessman finds his debts pressing, he cannot write them off and start afresh as though nothing had happened. In every area of life we recognize that our actions have consequences and that we are responsible. We cannot cut ourselves adrift from the past.

C. S. Lewis has some wise words here:

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker’s, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ [The Problem of Pain, London, 1943, p. 49].

It is the place of “the blood of Christ” that is critically important. We may or may not be able to say how this puts away sin. The important thing is that it does. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation” (Rom. 5:10, 11). Notice that Paul speaks of the reconciliation as something that can be “received”; i.e., it in some sense exists before we receive it. In other words, reconciliation is not something in which we have the decisive part. It is worked out by Christ, and we enter into it by our repentance and our faith. But it is his work first and foremost. This is the main thrust of New Testament teaching on reconciliation.

But the Bible does have something to say as well about the reconciliation of man with his neighbor. The most important passage is the one in Ephesians that deals with the bitterest enmity in the ancient world, that between Jew and Gentile. There we read that Christ “is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14). Reconciliation is effected not by man’s effort but by Christ’s. He is our peace.

Nor should we think that this is a vague general result of his setting us a good example so that we try to live in peace with others. If we are his, we do so try. But the effective making of peace is due not to these efforts of ours, but to the work of God in Christ. Paul goes on to explain that the breaking down of the wall of hostility was done “by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end” (Eph. 2:15, 16).

Part Of Man’S Salvation

This is not a more or less accidental by-product of man’s salvation. It is an integral part of it. If we are truly reconciled with God, we will certainly seek to be at peace with our fellows. It is part of the living out of the implications of our reconciliation. But we should be sure that we get our priorities right. In the New Testament it is our relation to God that is of primary importance. Once that is put right, our relation to man must follow. Without a right relation to God it is difficult to see how there can be a right relation to man.

All this means that for the biblically instructed Christian there will always be an emphasis on reconciliation with God. He will not sit loose to the obligation of doing all he can to reconcile men with men. But he will see this as effectively done only when they are first reconciled to God. In short, he will see his task as essentially one of persuading men to be reconciled to God. As Paul put it (2 Cor. 5:20, 21): “We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

It was the Year of the Pill. Rarely has a single event so predominated the year’s religious news as Pope Paul’s birth-control encyclical, and subsequent ferment in the Catholic Church.

It was the good old days of Vatican II turned bad, with front-page stories on Catholicism abounding. First, the reaffirmation of church teaching against any “artificial” contraception. Then the waffling reactions by several national hierarchies, culminating in the (apparently) conservative support’ from the most powerful group of bishops, the Americans.

Internally, this issue was the occasion, if not the cause, for dissent on a wide range of Catholic concerns: papal authority, church authority in general, the role of individual conscience in disagreement with that authority, discipline and “due process” for accused priests, and—in general—the limits of free speech and thought in Catholicism.

Externally, the Catholic stand had stunning consequences for the population curves of the next generation. For whatever the extent of disobedience among sophisticated Catholics in educated and affluent nations, the church teaching has great force in nations where population is potentially more dangerous. But even in the United States the conservative weekly newspaper Twin Circle was able to lead a December edition with an article arguing not only that there is no population explosion but that a growth in world population will aid world prosperity.

The murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Memphis garbagemen’s strike was a second major event. And unlike many deaths it both symbolized and set off a complex series of social forces. Weeks before the murder the Kerner Commission had indicted U. S. society for white racism. Weeks after, King’s proposed mass protest occurred in Washington, D. C., but “Resurrection City” did little more than highlight the agony within the civil-rights movement, and the difficulty of applying old protest strategies to new, complex problems of employment and economics. By year’s end, the long alliance of Negroes and Jews seemed crumbling in New York City over the school strike.

Within the Church, black power took a bold new form, as formerly quiescent black blocs lobbied for ecclesiastical power, formed new organizations, and talked of black theology, and even of separation.

Many denominations pledged special efforts toward racial justice and aid to the poor, led (on paper) by the United Methodists’ $20 million “Reconciliation” fund.

Despite the deaths of King and of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, violence continued not only as a motif of American life but as a growing theme in liberal theology and as a “justifiable” means of domestic social revolution. That it could be met in kind was easily seen in police conduct at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and in the 13.5 per cent national vote for George C. Wallace as president.

In international affairs, the Soviet Union did strange things to some ecumenical presuppositions. The onus of evil had been hung for years on the United States over the Viet Nam war.

Churchmen’s protests both inside and outside the United States continued even after the partial bombing halt of the spring, and the volume of the past era was replaced by a mere whisper of praise when all bombing ceased. Then the Soviets sent as many soldiers into liberalizing Czechoslovakia overnight as the United States had sent to Viet Nam in years. And the suffering church of East Europe stared into the darkness ahead.

Otherwise, world ecumenism featured increasing friendship between Rome and the World Council of Churches and Protestant and Orthodox groups around the world. And a point of increasing contact was social action, a theme that captured much attention at the WCC’s Uppsala assembly and in U. S. National Council affairs.

In American ecumenism, the Consultation on Church Union voted to write a union plan for 25 million Protestants by 1970. The United Methodist Church was formed from the Methodists and Evangelical United Brethren, and there were significant developments toward unity among more conservative Wesleyan groups. The Southern Presbyterian and Reformed Church conventions voted for merger, subject to regional approval. More Baptists than usual found a point of unity in plans for next year’s evangelistic Crusade of the Americas. And The American Lutheran Church voted intercommunion and a merger hint for both the Lutheran Church in America and the Missouri Synod.

But the ecumenical and social-action developments produced a growing counter-reaction, as protest organizations surfaced in several denominations. The Christian Churches quietly lost 2,113 congregations over the “restructure” that passed this year. Other denominations watched anxiously as the U. S. Supreme Court decided to rule on two Georgia Presbyterian churches that quit the denomination and sought to keep their property.

Within evangelicalism, there were also some signs of growing inter-group cooperation, and of grappling with pressing social issues (see page 31). The Southern Baptist Convention issued a crisis-in-the-nation statement, the Reformed Ecumenical Synod passed a fairly strong statement on race, and most of the churches of South Africa joined in a statement against apartheid that could be an overture to one of the twentieh century’s great church-state confrontations. Black and white U. S. evangelicals broke barriers with a bid at relevant revival in Newark, New Jersey.

The biggest new ethical issue of 1968 was transplantation of human hearts, a procedure that proved to have 99-to-1 odds of failure in about that many actual operations. And the Nigerian civil war and the agony of breakaway Biafra raised anew the human peril of starvation and its cynical use as a weapon of war.

In theology, Germany’s young Jürgen Moltmann came into prominence in 1968 with his Theology of Hope, which did not neglect Christian origins in its effort to recapture the vision of the future world. In denominational life, orthodoxy retrenched again as the United Church of Canada paraded a proposed doctrine-less modern creed, and the Lambeth Conference cast a skeptical eye at Anglicanism’s Thirty-Nine Articles.

And personalities made news this year. Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy married divorcé Aristotle Onassis and became the world’s most famous fallaway Catholic. Pop artist Sister Corita became America’s most famous fallaway nun. Pentecostal healing evangelist Oral Roberts became a Methodist. Carl McIntire charged that new leaders of the fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches which he founded are trying to force him to the sidelines. Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was among those convicted of conspiring to circumvent military draft laws.

Billy Graham proclaimed anew the old-time religion with crusades in Australia; Portland, Oregon; and Pittsburgh; and turned out to be an important influence in Richard Nixon’s decision to run for president and—perhaps—an influence in garnering votes for Nixon.

New faces: President Robert J. Marshall of the Lutheran Church in America, and Editors Alan Geyer and Harold Lindsell of rivals Christian Century and CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Significant figures who died during 1968 included Karl Barth, the century’s pre-eminent theologian; Augustin Cardinal Bea, founding leader of the Vatican’s Christian-unity secretariat; President Franklin Clark Fry of the Lutheran Church in America; J. Ray Hord, the controversial social-action director of the United Church of Canada; journalists Daniel Poling (Christian Herald) and Kyle Haselden (Christian Century); and six American missionaries, killed by Viet Cong terrorists in January in Viet Nam.

And, as always in religion, the really important developments of 1968 may not have been chronicled at all. What new idea, its hour come at last, might have been born? Or what now obscure personality might one day change history? Perhaps one of those 375 college students who attended Inter-Varsity’s Missionary Convention and, during 1968, sent in a card indicating a decision for foreign missionary service. Or one of the 652 others who signed willingness to consider missionary work.

FOOTNOTES TO 1968

In a year of ins and outs, the Evangelical Candor Award for 1968 goes to the Ohio school that issued a press release stating:

“A recent evaluation of the Presidency has been made by the Salem Bible College Board of Trustees, and it has been their unanimous decision to have the Rev. George E. Bowen terminate his connections with the College effective January 31, 1968. Rev. George E. Bowen has tendered his resignation accordingly.”

Sign of Progress: On December 16, 1968, Spain officially revoked the government order expelling all Jews from the nation. It was put on the books by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

Personalia

A second look at the national executive committee for next September’s U. S. Congress on Evangelism showed all Republicans (Senator Mark Hatfield, former Congressman Walter Judd, Congressman Albert Quie, Judge Luther Youngdahl). The remedy: Add presidential candidate and Senator George McGovern, a Democrat and Methodist who was a delegate to the World Council of Churches assembly.

New Congressman Earl Landgrebe (R-Ind.) is on the Executive Committee of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod, Lutheran Church in America.

R. Burnett Thompson, Houghton College graduate and former Methodist minister, will be the administrative assistant to new Congressman G. William Whitehurst (R-Va.).

FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson praised a fellow member of Kenwood Country Club, Episcopal Bishop William Creighton of Washington, D. C., for working from within to end club racial bias. Episcopal activists had demanded the bishop quit Kenwood.

Leighton Ford passed up a bid to take over the “Old-Fashioned Revival Hour” to speak alternate weeks on colleague and brother-in-law Billy Graham’s “Hour of Decision.” The move cast Canadian Ford in an heir-apparent role.

Louisville’s Duke McCall was flying National to Miami to confer with other Southern Baptist seminary presidents—he thought. Turned out he was on the latest plane hijacked to Cuba, but he got back in twenty-four hours.

Baptist pastor Thedford Johnson is the first Negro to head the Miami area church council, and the U. S. Catholic Conference named black priest Charles Burns as field director of its race-and-poverty agency.

Veteran Church of the Brethren service director W. Harold Row is moving to Washington, D. C. to head both government liaison and interchurch relations.

Scottish Episcopal Bishop John Howe, a 48-year-old bachelor, is new executive of the Anglican Communion.

Retired Anglican Archbishop Edwin Morris of Wales defended Enoch Powell’s controversial proposal to repatriate non-whites from England, noting the plan was voluntary.

The Rev. J. Ketelaar, 40, was fired as head of the Dutch Baptists’ evangelism committee because he spends too much time on his new “Radical People’s Movement” for social justice.

Father Charles Coughlin, right-wing radio priest of the thirties, put out a pamphlet charging Catholic bishops are “social engineers” who play ball with dissidents.

Latest Catholic clergy dropouts: Jesuit Paul Harbrecht, 45, dean of the University of Detroit law school and until August board chairman at Georgetown University—to marry. And Alkuin Heising, 41, abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Michaelsberg, West Germany—to protest “authoritarian” church policies.

DEATHS

KARL BARTH, 82, the twentieth century’s foremost Christian theologian (see pages 22, 34).

THOMAS MERTON, 53, French-born intellectual who, despite vows of silence as a Trappist monk in Kentucky, had great impact through the written word, as in his best-selling 1948 autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain; champion of racial justice; in Bangkok, Thailand, of accidental electrocution.

HOWARD HAMILTON, 65, layman who headed United Presbyterian ministerial relations; in Worthington, Ohio.

HANS C. JERSILD, 72, president of the Danish Lutheran body who sparked talks toward The American Lutheran Church merger; in Rock Island, Illinois.

ILSLEY BOONE, 89, nudist leader who quit the Reformed Church and became a Baptist clergyman; in Oakland, New Jersey.

HOMER A. TOMLINSON, 76, head bishop of the Church of God (Queens Village, New York), which split off the Pentecostalist group his father founded; jolly Presidential candidate and self-proclaimed “King of the World” who circled the globe to be crowned in his portable aluminum “throne”; in New York City.

Church Panorama

The Southern Presbyterian Church joined the long-range church-education planning project previously formed by the United Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and United Church of Christ.

Episcopal Church executive council members discussed a “theological” cleavage found in the Episcopal Church after visits to eighty-two dioceses. The Virginia diocese held an emergency meeting last month because pledges are running $85,000 behind, partly in reaction to national social-action programs.

After a closed meeting in Atlanta, a Consultation on Church Union committee said its merger plan for 25 million Protestants won’t be ready this year but is expected in 1970.

Dallas pastor Neil Jones thinks the Southern Baptist Convention should put out a national newsmagazine.

Moody Memorial Church closed its doors to a Crusade of the Americans rally when it learned American Baptist President Culbert Rutenber would be on hand. But 2,000 Baptists from six denominations turned out at another church to hear Rutenber, National Baptist President Joseph Jackson, and former Southern Baptist President Herschel Hobbs.

Top Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic executives issued an implied rebuke against National Guard troops that have been patrolling black sections of Wilmington, Delaware, nightly since April.

Regional accreditation has been won by The King’s College, New York; Southern Baptist Seminary, Kentucky; Crozer Seminary (American Baptist), Pennsylvania; and Houston and Mobile Baptist Colleges.

Nine evangelical missions and national groups have formed the first permanent body for united action in Paraguay.

Nearly half the summer-school students at Union Theological Seminary, New York, were Roman Catholics, as are 15 per cent during the current term.

Dubuque Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian) and Aquinas Institute (Roman Catholic) in Iowa plan complete sharing of campus buildings.

Two dozen hooded students held a street march to protest a ban on dancing at Eastern Baptist College (American Baptist), Pennsylvania.

Miscellany

Berkeley medical researcher Joel Fort studied 9,000 teens in northern California high schools, and found more than a third of twelfth graders are on marijuana and nearly half had experimented with it; 11 per cent had tried LSD; 15 per cent had used amphetamines.

The Gallup Poll estimates that 49 per cent of Protestants voted for Nixon, 35 per cent for Humphrey, and 16 per cent for Wallace. The Catholic vote went 33 per cent for Nixon, 59 per cent for Humphrey, 8 per cent for Wallace. Nixon did not run as well among Protestants as he did in 1960, but did better than Barry Goldwater.

Northern Ireland’s regime gave virtual amnesty to Roman Catholic “civil rights” demonstrators and appealed for calm and an end to street protests.

The Malaysia Evangelistic Fellowship and the Asia Evangelism Fellowship planned to seek to reach the poor of Laos, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore with the gospel message and needed food and clothing during the Christmas season.

Ontario’s government decided against taxing church property, despite recommendations from two committees.

The Anglican cathedral in Ottawa invited thirty-eight convicts to join a choir for a special service, similar to others arranged by law officers across Canada. At the close of the service there were only thirty-seven.