Is Resigned Bishop James A. Pike a heretic? The Episcopal Church is officially studying the problem as a result of last month’s meeting of the House of Bishops (see previous issue, page 53). On the eve of that meeting, Pike stated these views in an interview with Ken Gaydos of KBBI, Los Angeles:

Q: Back in March, United Press International quoted you as saying, “What we need today is fewer beliefs and more believers.” In what are we to believe?

PIKE: First, from the data that suggests a certain measure of order on which science and technology rest—beauty, love, grace, the unexpected breakthroughs in life—I see something here that enables me to affirm that there is a unison in the universe; a consolating, organizing Evolver who is at least personal since we have been evolved, and we have personality, and no stream rises higher than its source. Beyond this, I do not affirm any more by extrapolation all the way out to the skies that he is omni-this, omni-that, and omni-the-other. When we do that, we set up the problem of evil, if he’s omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. I would not deny any of these “omni’s.” It’s just that this is going way, way beyond the data in the modest inference I’d make.

Q. Do you believe in an eternal life?

PIKE: I would say there is not only eternal life, but we are in it now, which will lead me to say, “Let’s get with it, now. Here is where I’m called to decide, serve, love, hopefully be loved, and enjoy one world at a time, to be sure, but as set in the context of eternal life.”

Q: When does this eternal life begin for a person, and for whom?

PIKE: I believe I’m already in a dimension beyond that which you see in the special temporal container I am wearing.

Q: Who else is in eternal life? Would you say everyone?

PIKE: It’s part of the nature of persons, and this gives me a chance at this time to insert this point. Don’t think I’m talking about the supernatural. I don’t really believe in the supernatural. If God is, he is the most natural thing there is. If I go on forever, that’s the way I am as a person, and that’s the way you are; that’s the way we are. It’s not something supernatural. It’s of the nature of the persons.

Q: Of special interest to many of our listeners is the comment you made some time ago when you found it necessary to jettison the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, and the Incarnation. Would you clarify this for us?

PIKE: Yes. The first thing I would like to clarify is that I did not use that particular verb. That was the Look magazine, and it’s the senior editor’s way of interpreting me; but I won’t deny the word, even though it is a little rough. What I really was going to say is that I find the fourth- and fifth-century definitions in terms of philosophical concepts today for the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one substance) as using categories that are not very meaningful to us today—as really unnecessary. About all we can affirm of each of the persons can be affirmed of God. God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself; or in him—as St. Paul says in Colossians—does the fullness of God dwell. One doesn’t have to say second person plus the Trinity here. In modern terms substance is rather meaningless. It doesn’t mean much in physics any more, and I don’t know what a spiritual substance would be. If you say three persons, you are almost implying a Committee-God, which I don’t think was ever meant and I certainly don’t think we want to affirm today.

And, as to the Virgin Birth, my difficulty there is not with the concept of miracles (all kinds of amazing things happen all the time). That’s not my hang-up. But looking at the New Testament data itself, there are more points on the side of normal birth than vice versa.

Q: Now, how would this affect your concept of redemption?

PIKE: I don’t think that would affect it at all—in fact, Jesus as being a man born under the law, as St. Paul puts it, with no mention of the Virgin Birth. Now all those texts that identify him as one of us make more relevant and more applicable now in life all that we see in the images of him; whereas, if he were not a free, deciding person, as in St. Luke 2:52—“He grew in wisdom and stature and he grew in favor with God and man”—then it says very little to me as to how I can grow and encounter, rather than shrivel, and encounter the usual life-choice when encounters come up, and so I think it contributes to the redemptive aspect of this victorious servant image of Jesus.

Q: Some people feel that you have departed rather radically from the traditional affirmations of the Episcopal Church, the Thirty-nine Articles, and even some of the creeds. Now, as you approach this thing, do you consider yourself to have departed from the traditional clichés, or doctrinal positions of the Church?

PIKE: No, I do not feel I have, because I don’t think there’s a finality to any of these statements. The Thirty-nine Articles for a long time we felt were only a historic statement of our allergic reaction when we had papists on the one hand and Puritans on the other. Men have not been regarded as binding. The creedal affirmations were developed by the councils of bishops in the early Church. One of the articles itself says that the councils of the Church—being made up of men and not always guided by the Holy Spirit—have erred, can err, and have erred even in the matters pertaining to God. One of the articles which I believe in—the Holy Scriptures—we take seriously, but we are not fundamentalist about it and do not proof-text out of them. I would feel, myself, that in the task of separating the earthen vessels from the treasures (to use St. Paul’s analogy, which was also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls earlier), we might endanger the treasure by the task of examining critically the vessels and perhaps seeking to replace them or reshape them or relabel them.

Q: Would man’s destiny be any different in eternity if Christ had not come? Did Christ do anything to change my destiny in eternity?

PIKE: I will answer in existential terms. This has happened. It is happening that these insights I affirm have come to man and have come to me. Whether otherwise I might have reached them or others would have, I don’t know. There are lots of insights and lots of world religions; and, of course, on other planets there apparently is life somewhere. What they’ve reached in what ways, I don’t know. I do know that through this is how I have reached it.

Q: You would take Christ’s resurrection as a literal thing?

PIKE: Not so. I believe he lived on past death as a real being, not just as a memory. I take the earlier way of stating it that St. Paul has in Corinthians: that there is a physical body and there is a spiritual body, and after death there are other means of communication relationship than this physical frame which dies.…

Q: [If the church removes you as a bishop] what will be your reaction?

PIKE: I will feel sorry that the church has done this to itself, but I have a full-time post. I’m with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. I would be free Sundays to do what I do free for the church, mainly confirm in the various parishes as a worker priest in the purple. I’ll be sorry not to be doing that, but my basic work here at the center—which is looking at all democratic institutions, but specializing on the Church to see what’s happening to it as an institution, and seeking to state truth more clearly—will go on, and I would go on speaking at universities and other places, and probably still in churches. My life would not change very basically, but the Episcopal Church would have changed, because we have had an Anglican heritage of a very peculiar combination which most outsiders don’t understand: the continuity of Catholic form, tradition, and esthetics, along with openness to truth and relevancy with lots of roominess. So we would have become a different kind of church if this judgment went that other way, which I think they would have become, because I wouldn’t be here any more. I’d be very sorry to see it do that.…

Q: How much support do you have for your own self in this, and from whom?

PIKE: Rather widespread support among the laity and clergy, judging from their response when I do around-the-country speaking and from mail and from the writings of other people.… Some preachers have said in their pulpits that if I go, they have to go, because they cannot believe these things that the church might define itself as believing, in the way that they are stated. Certainly, a statistical study, rather a responsible one, has recently shown that only one-third of Episcopalians believe in the Virgin Birth, only one-fifth of them believe in the Second Coming, and so forth right down the line—not that truth ought to be decided by statistics or that this case will be decided that way.

Miscellany

In Aberfan, Wales, a communal funeral for more than 100 children who died when their school was buried under a sliding mass of black slime was conducted by Anglican Bishop Glyn Simon, Roman Catholic Archbishop John Murphy, and the Rev. Stanley Lloyd, a local Congregationalist.

East Germany’s Gerald Götting, State Council vice-president, promised that Martin Luther will not be depicted as “the chief advocate of socialism” during next year’s 450th anniversary of the Reformation, but will be honored in “historical context, free of any taint of reactionary abuse.”

The French Protestant Federation voted to “encourage” continued merger talks among four Lutheran and Reformed bodies that include three-fourths of France’s 600,000 Protestants.

Seven persons were killed and hundreds injured November 7 in New Delhi, capital of India, as a mob led by near-naked Hindu priests rioted to force a national ban on slaughter of cows, which Hindus consider sacred.

The Asian Evangelists Commission last month completed the largest evangelistic crusade ever in Colombo, capital of Ceylon. Total attendance was 36,200, and more than 1,000 inquirers were counseled.

If state parliaments and twenty-five synods approve, the Church of England in Australia will be renamed the Anglican Church of Australia.

The General Council of Britain’s Student Christian Movement is seeking talks with “conservative evangelicals.”

A Montreal court invalidated a clause of a will disinheriting a daughter for marrying outside the Jewish faith, as a violation of Quebec’s religious-freedom law.

The U. S. Agency for International Development will give Church World Service, Protestant relief agency, $1 million worth of surplus property.

Next fall, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian) begins a cooperate graduate religion study program with the University of Pittsburgh.

Educational Communication Association honored the film The Bible; a Southern Baptist TV production, “The Inheritance”; and France’s Paul Eberhard, editor of L’Illustre Protestant, largest Protestant journal in Europe.

Indiana’s Valparaiso University (Missouri Synod Lutheran) will open a nursing school in the fall of 1968.

Seven out of ten students in a cross section poll of the University of Wisconsin said the significance of religion in their lives has stayed constant or increased in college. The Wisconsin Alumnus also reports that one-fifth of the students have no religious preference but that most of these had no church membership when they entered the university.

Personalia

President Arthur Flemming of the University of Oregon (see March 18 issue, page 36) will be the only official nominee for president of the National Council of Churches at next month’s assembly, Religious News Service reports.

Mrs. Lorraine Mulberger of Milwaukee, citing Romans 14:13, sold for about $36 million her controlling interest in the Miller Brewing Co. founded by her grandfather. A former Roman Catholic, she now attends an independent Bible church.

Richard B. Martin, 53, a Negro, was elected suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island October 31, after an earlier convention ended in a deadlock.

Arthur Dore, press officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, was named director of interchurch relations and communications, replacing the Rev. Leonidas C. Contos.

The Presbyterian U. S. Board of World Missions named J. Hervey Ross its first medical secretary.

In McAllen, Texas, Assemblies of God pastor Henry Collins announced he would give 120 trading stamps to everyone who attended an October service. Afterwards he reported, “It did not go over with a howling success.”

Bob Mitchell has taken the new post of field director for the Young Life Campaign.

Paris W. Reidhead, downtown New York City pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, will become the first international development director for the LeTourneau Foundation.

Spanish Professor Robert deVette was appointed admissions director at Wheaton (Illinois) College.

Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord of Washington, D. C., has proposed that his church sponsor residences for unwed mothers.

Meliton Hadjis was elected Metropolitan of Chalcedon and thus became first in rank among bishops of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Holy Synod in Istanbul.

Gunnar Hultgren, primate of the national Lutheran Church of Sweden, will retire next October 1, at age 65.

Carl Gustav Diehl, a Swede, was elected bishop to head South India’s Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church as of January.

Masahisa Suzuki, Tokyo clergyman, was elected moderator of the United Church of Christ in Japan (Kyodan) at its twenty-fifth anniversary assembly.

They Say

“When I commit a sin, there is nothing casual about how I feel. I am not simply violating a self-created ‘code of honor.’ I know now that I am sinning against One who gave his life for me on the cross.…”—Brooks Robinson, of the world champion Baltimore Orioles, in Christian Athlete.

Deaths

WILLIAM N. FEASTER, 28, United Church of Christ clergyman, and first Protestant chaplain killed during the Viet Nam war; near Saigon, a month after being wounded by “friendly” artillery in a midnight mistake while on patrol with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. Buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

JAKOV ZHIDKOV, 81, white-bearded chairman of the Soviet Union’s All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians—Baptists, which he led into the World Council of Churches; in Moscow, two weeks after he was replaced as chairman by Ilya Ivanov, pastor of Moscow’s Baptist Church. Touring Baptist leaders from North America and England attended the funeral.

THOMAS J. SAVAGE, 66, foe of South African apartheid; the day after the enthronement of his native-born successor as Anglican bishop of Zululand and Swaziland; in Eshowe, Zululand.

HORACE HULL, 81, Presbyterian layman, owner of one of the largest Ford dealerships in the world, board member of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and other evangelical organizations; in Memphis, of a heart seizure after surgery.

The name of God was invoked on many sides of the political issues at stake in this month’s congressional and gubernatorial elections, and two pervasive issues—Viet Nam and white backlash—posed the kind of moral questions that invited greater church involvement in politics than is usually evident.

Viet Nam might logically have been the most viable political issue but it was not, because most candidates generally agreed with current policy. Only in Oregon did one of the “glamour” races spotlight that issue. Governor Mark O. Hatfield (an articulate evangelical Christian), in spite of his maintaining a “dove-ish” position on Viet Nam, defeated Representative Robert Duncan, a Democrat “hawk,” to win a vacant Senate seat.

Backlash loomed larger and was vigorously enjoined by many churchmen. An example of this action was Maryland, where Democrat George Mahoney based his gubernatorial campaign entirely on opposition to open housing legislation. Most of the large denominations denounced Mahoney’s platform, by official or quasi-official statements. A half-page advertisement in the Washington Post, headed “A Call to Maryland Voters of Religious Principle!” was cosponsored by Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Episcopal interracial councils. It admonished voters: “Your church or synagogue bans bigotry not only on your conscience, but also on your ballot! VOTE for AGNEW.” Spiro T. Agnew was elected in spite of Mahoney’s 3-to-1 Democratic registration advantage.

In Arkansas, where Little Rock had been one of the early civil rights battlefields, backlash also failed to be decisive. The moderate ex-Yankee Republican Winthrop Rockefeller won the governorship over segregationist Democrat James Johnson.

In Georgia, “God-fearing,” Bible-quoting arch-segregationist Lester Maddox had been officially denounced by Roman Catholic Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan. Hallinan said that it was not the policy of his archdiocese to get into politics but “this is not politics, it is morality.” Democrat Maddox ran a close race against Republican Howard H. Callaway, and write-in votes for former Democratic Governor Ellis Arnall threatened to keep either candidate from getting a clear majority and to put the election in the hands of the legislature or the courts.

Backlash didn’t stop Massachusetts Attorney General Edward W. Brooke, a Negro and Republican, from winning a Senate seat against former Governor Endicott Peabody. Brooke, who will be the first Negro in the Senate since 1871, received strong support from Italian and Catholic precincts and was opposed in white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant areas (according to CBS Vote Profile Analysis).

The gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania had some religious overtones. Democratic candidate Milton Shapp (formerly Shapiro), the first Jew to run for the governorship, claimed some grass-roots anti-Semitism. Shapp also antagonized Catholics by urging “stronger” public birth control measures, and provoked some Protestant resistance by his pledge to legalize church bingo. The governorship went to Lieutenant Governor Raymond P. Shafer, son of a Protestant minister.

Voting On Issues

A number of state referenda, initiatives, and constitutional amendments drew church interest:

State lotteries. New York voted 2 to 1 to amend the state constitution to authorize a state lottery to raise education funds, and New Hampshire approved, almost 4 to 1, wider sale of its lottery tickets. A bid by a private company in Nevada to put a lottery initiative on the November ballot was barred by the Nevada Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

The New York lottery issue was the most crucial and many Protestant groups went on record against it. The candidate for lieutenant governor on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.’s, Liberal Party ticket, the Rev. Donald S. Harrington, a Unitarian, opposed the lottery bid, which his running mate supported. Harrington said, “I take a very simplistic view on this—I believe you don’t get something for nothing.”

Capital punishment. In Colorado a referendum supported by a number of mainline church groups to abolish the death penalty was defeated.

Sunday blue laws. Washington approved, almost 2 to 1, an initiative to repeal Sunday blue laws. Seventh-day Adventists supported the initiative; other church groups opposed it.

Alcoholic beverages. South Carolina strongly defeated a liberalization of liquor laws which would have allowed sale of liquor by the drink. Massachusetts voted to place the regulation of alcoholic beverages in the hands of the towns rather than the state.

Aid to parochial schools. Nebraska knocked down a constitutional amendment proposal authorizing state bus service for parochial school students. The proposal carried in the cities but was defeated by the rural vote.

Horse racing. New Jersey will have night horse racing with the passage of a referendum, in spite of the protests of the New Jersey Council of Churches.

California: Smut Law Smitten

Californians this month turned down an initiative to toughen anti-obscenity laws by a vote of 3.2 to 2.5 million, after a battle with churchmen on both sides.

The constitutionality of the proposed law, questioned by chief legal counsels of Los Angeles County and San Diego city, was the key issue. Acknowledging that “this may not be a perfect legislative instrument,” the Southwest Regional Board of the National Association of Evangelicals urged voters to use the opportunity “to give a mandate for decency in our society.” Other supporters included Roman Catholic prelates of three major cities, the Southern Baptist Convention of California, and Governor-elect Ronald Reagan.

Against the initiative were the board of the Northern California Council of Churches, James Francis Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles, the council of the Episcopal Diocese of California, and the California Library Association.

The proposal, going beyond U. S. Supreme Court rulings, would have: Eliminated the “social importance” test for obscenity; judged a work obscene if it appeals to the “prurient interest” of a “specially suceptible audience” to whom it is distributed; expanded the definition of “knowingly” to include “recklessly failing to exercise reasonable inspection” of literature before distribution; and made conspiracy to violate obscenity laws a felony.

Merger of The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren Church won easy approval this month from the top legislatures of both denominations.

If the plan of union gets enough endorsement from the 178 annual conferences of the two churches, a new denomination to be known as The United Methodist Church will come into being at a uniting General Conference in Dallas in 1968. Two-thirds of the aggregate conference vote will be necessary to effect the merger.

The merger was endorsed in principle by the two churches at simultaneous General Conferences held in adjoining ballrooms of Chicago’s ageing Conrad Hilton Hotel. In standing votes on November 11, the Methodists adopted enabling legislation and a constitution for the new church by 749–40, and the EUBs by 325–88.

In the Methodist meeting, the race issue overshadowed even the merger. A racially inclusive structure has continually eluded Methodists. They still have segregated annual conferences in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The coordinating Negro Central Jurisdiction is to be abolished by 1968, but segregated annual conferences would follow the Methodists into the merged church intact.

Methodist delegates repeatedly beat down efforts to legislate a racially inclusive church. Instead, they set a 1972 “target date” for voluntary abolition of segregated conferences. The reluctance of delegates to adopt mandatory legislation was believed to rise partly out of fear of schism.

The voluntary 1972 target of the present Methodist denomination is referred to in the proposal for the new united church, but the new church is not committed to any target date, voluntary or otherwise.

After a decisive vote reaffirming the voluntary approach, some 32 persons, mostly Negroes, got up and marched to the altar and knelt for several minutes. A number of them were delegates. Bishop John Wesley Lord of Washington, D. C., who was presiding, ignored the group and continued conducting the scheduled business. After the kneel-in, the group quietly returned to their seats.

Then a delegate offered a motion that the conference adjourn for prayer. The motion was defeated, and Lord quipped, “You can still pray when you go to your rooms,” whereupon the house broke into laughter.

The dramatic moment had been prompted by an eloquent plea for mandatory legislation by a Negro delegate, Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, of Birmingham, Alabama. He said that “we embraced racism” in the 1939 agreement which brought three denominations into what is now The Methodist Church. “We erected walls, and after 26 long years these walls still separate us.” He pointed out that the Church was lagging behind the theater, sports enterprises, and even the “beer-drinker’s saloon,” all of which have eliminated racial barriers.

Until recent years The Methodist Church has been North America’s largest Protestant denomination. Now it runs slightly behind the Southern Baptist Convention. If all EUB members are added, the combined total will top the eleven million mark and surpass the SBC.

The totals may be diminished somewhat by split-offs from The EUB Church. In the Pacific Northwest there has been strong opposition to the merger, and intentions to withdraw have been voiced. The EUB Church also faces the loss of one of its two conferences north of the border, which wants to deposit its membership of 10,000 in sixty-three churches with the United Church of Canada, which has already approved the plan.

The EUB Church has been losing members slowly but steadily for several years. If the Methodist merger is not effected, the denominational leadership is expected to press for a major ecclesiastical overhaul. Several key leaders insist that the denomination must develop long-range plans and goals, and this has not been done recently because the major energies of the past few years have been devoted to the Methodist union.

Proponents of the Methodist-EUB merger say they have common origins going for them. The union plan’s historical section says, “Had it not been for the difference in language, the Methodists working among English-speaking people and the Evangelical and United Brethren working among those speaking German, they might, from the beginning, have been one church. Today the language barrier is gone and the uniting of forces for our common task and calling seems appropriate and timely.”

Both denominations are members of the World Methodist Council, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, and the Consultation on Church Union. Church historians would probably agree, however, that by and large The EUB Church is theologically more conservative than the Methodists.

The merger plan incorporates side by side the doctrinal statements of both churches: the Methodists’ Articles of Religion and the EUB Confession of Faith. A move is under way, however, to name a commission to formulate a more modern and inclusive doctrinal statement. The social creeds of both churches have also been left intact.

Rocky Courtship In Canada

After twenty years of courting, the United Church of Canada—Anglican Church of Canada merger was expected to result in a relatively quick marriage. But sensitivities are greater than many believed, and the UCC’s handling of the “Principles of Union” at its September convention has stopped the Anglicans dead in their tracks.

The Anglicans had adopted the “Principles” as “a basis of agreement,” but the UCC approved the document as a mere starting point, with changes in mind. Thus Anglican Primate Howard Clarke said he is no longer optimistic about union, and Anglican Editor Gordon Baker warned in the Canadian Churchman, “As it now stands, the cause of Christian unity in Canada has been dealt a serious blow. It remains to be seen if the determination of the two churches to unite can overcome this setback.”

The UCC is amazed. Moderator Wilfred Lockhart calls Baker’s interpretation basically “incorrect,” and A. B. B. Moore, chairman of the UCC’s Negotiating Committee, says, “I am astonished … that it should be misunderstood.” Every effort is being made by UCC unionists and some Anglicans to clear up the confusion.

J. BERKLEY REYNOLDS

There are at least 1,111 ways of viewing the World Congress on Evangelism, for at last count that was the total number of delegates and observers. Each obviously had a different way of looking at what happened during those eleven days from October 25, when Editor Carl F. H. Henry delivered the opening address, to November 4, when evangelist Billy Graham conducted a service of prayer and consecration just before the closing recessional.

In the most sobering sense, CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S tenth-anniversary project was a council of war. Participants from some 100 countries vowed to battle evil with unprecedented intensity and to defend the Scriptures against snowballing traditions as well as new speculations. There was a substantial degree of truth in one analyst’s observation that the meeting represented a legitimate “backlash” against secularist theologies emerging from contemporary worship of intellect.

From another perspective, the congress brought a major breakthrough for evangelicals in news-media exposure. Congress developments won front-page display in scores of American newspapers. America’s most distinguished daily, the New York Times, carried interpretative on-the-spot stories daily. Religious News Service said its coverage matched what it had given Vatican Council II and last summer’s Geneva meeting on Church and Society. Even Vatican Radio took sympathetic notice. All this spells encouragement for Protestant conservatives, especially those from areas where they are few and far between.

Evangelicals found new confidence, not only in such global attention, but also in the spirit of togetherness that characterized the congress in prayer, praise, and fellowship. As perhaps never before there seemed to be a willingness to sacrifice individualism in the interest of working hand in hand for world evangelization. It was perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the congress that without proposing new structures, its participants fanned out over the world with fresh determination to win the lost for Christ.

No one would claim, on the other hand, that the congress was an unqualified success. The most common complaint seemed to be that daily discussion groups opened up great issues without striving to arrive at a consensus. The relation of evangelism to social concern—to cite the major example—was a recurring theme, and many delegates felt there should have been more of an effort to crystallize thinking on it.

A number of delegates did take the initiative, however, to communicate their convictions to congress chairman Henry. From these grew the 1,000-word declaration that was issued at the close of the congress. The statement was approved by congress officials and the fifty-five-member list of sponsors. But since the gathering was not a deliberative assembly, no vote was taken among delegates. They were given the opportunity to make it their own, if they wished, by applauding it. Many did, and there was no publicly expressed dissent. The approved statement, (which appears on page 24,) with the congress, provided a springboard for evangelical renewal and fresh outreach to the world.

The major addresses and position papers delivered at the congress have appeared in the two previous issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Congress highlights included strong demands voiced for racial equality, for identification with the world, and for much wider demonstration of Christian compassion. A dramatization (following story) collected these moods effectively. It might best be described as a plea to rid the church of phonies and to narrow the gap between words and works.

Two Auca Indians deeply moved the hearts of fellow delegates with the simplicity and sincerity of their new-found Christian faith. Kimo Yaeti and Komi Gikita got their first taste of civilization, in their journey to the congress, accompanied by Miss Rachel Saint of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Miss Saint is a sister of the late Nate Saint, who with other missionaries, died at the hands of Kimo and his fellow tribesmen in 1956.

“There are lots of people here,” Kimo said about the city. “Some believe in God. Some do not. Why don’t they all believe in God?”

Halfway through the congress, evangelical gadfly Carl McIntire turned up in Berlin with an armload of mimeographed literature denouncing “ecumenical evangelism.” Congress officials refused to give him a newsman’s credentials, explaining that he had applied too late. They said they had already turned down some forty applications for press accreditation and that they were not about to make an exception for McIntire. He was invited in, however, and was offered observer and visitor badges, but he ultimately refused both.

The musical program of the congress catered to a variety of tastes. Among those heard were a Liberian drummer, a Paris folk-singer, and an American Indian who sang some tribal melodies and acted others in sign language. Familiar Gospel tunes were sung by George Beverly Shea and Jimmy McDonald.

Ted Engstrom, executive vice-president of World Vision, issued a plea to mission-minded churches and organizations to put more resources into evangelistic research. He urged wide use of computers, saying that “the ways in which proper use of computerized information can speed the message of the Gospel worldwide are beyond imagination.” World Vision is carrying on a pioneer program of this sort.

Maxey Jarman, a Southern Baptist layman who is chairman of GENESCO Corporation, stimulated spirited discussion with a panel paper. “Because individual Christians feel their own individual weaknesses,” he declared, “they are greatly tempted by the seeming strength of political power to force reforms and improvements among people.” He urged Christians to count on spiritual power, “the spiritual power of faith and hope and above all, of love, the love that comes from God, that is of God, that can take full possession of us and make us more influential than anything else that we could possibly do.”

The Rev. Louis Johnson, a Detroit Negro Baptist, responded that “law did for me and my people in America what empty and high-powered evangelical preaching never did for 100 years.”

Evangelist Oral Roberts won a significant measure of new respect through the congress. He made a host of friends among delegates who were openly impressed with his candor and humility. When a panel got around to discussing over-emphasis on healing, Roberts readily acknowledged that he had made “some mistakes” in the past. He indicated to a plenary session that he wanted to be identified more with mainstream Christianity.

It was perhaps a basic element of the congress that evangelicals showed their willingness to take a hard look at themselves. The concern was voiced articulately by World Vision’s Paul Rees, who declared that when “practices contradict our principles” the result “fills the victims of our discriminations with frustration and turns its observers into cynics.”

“We have loved the silken complacency of our verbal tidiness,” he said, “when what we have needed is to feel the savage rawness of human ache and fury and despair.” He contended that there are close ties between evangelism and social responsibility: “It is a terrifying thought that in a presumably free society, abject poverty, family disorder and disintegration, work insecurity and joblessness, can erect psychological barriers to the reception of the Gospel that are as real as the suppression of free speech.”

Among observers at the congress were several Roman Catholic priests and a Jewish rabbi and a representative each from the World and National Councils of Churches. Several churchmen from Hungary, Yugoslavia, and East Germany were also on hand. All sessions were conducted in the ultra-modern Kongresshalle along the banks of the Spree near the Berlin Wall.

Congress officials were gratified that the historic meeting proposed to tackle world evangelism with greater zeal, but without plans for new organizations to compete with already existing ones.

The ‘Why’ Generation

“Christians are a betrayed people.”

“Don’t tell us—show us.”

“We need a bloke who’ll take a deal to make it real what Jesus has to say.”

These voices heard at the World Congress on Evangelism (story above) were those, not of the delegates assembled from across the globe, but of the mods of Soho and the surfers of Hermosa Beach, of youth on the campuses of California and the streets of young Africa.

In an offbeat production, The Why Generation, congress staffers Ed Bailey and Jim Collier and a company of teen-age recruits dramatized unforgettably the shrinking influence of Christianity on today’s young people.

All the words spoken by a miniskirted blonde or a slim-jeaned hipster were culled from hundreds of actual letters and interviews. The epigrammatic commentary was woven together with a brash beatnik “Passion” in free verse about “Jerusalem Slim” and a tragicomic narrative poem about a teen-ager’s visit to a London church.

Some gripes: “Most Christians are sterile, hypocritical cowards.… We just won’t buy that white Anglo-Saxon God anymore.… It’s easier to identify with the Beatles than with God.… Christianity is too fantastic, too miraculous.…”

A melancholy theme song recurred throughout the production, reminding congress delegates of “All the Lonely People.” The concluding line was, “We’re lost, but few men care.”

A girl who has completed four years in a Christian college bemoaned her insecurity: “I should now be a stable, vital Christian,” she said, “but I’m not.… My faith was not my own.… I was acting from external pressures.” Poised and chic, she expressed her longing for reality in cultured tones. “About the worst sin in the book is not to be yourself. And many Christians are afraid to be themselves.”

In one of the final scenes, three ministers discussed their problems in getting through to the current generation. “If we don’t change,” one said, “we may soon find ourselves equipped to evangelize the world of twenty-five years ago.… Yet the very word ‘change’ seems to threaten us evangelicals.…”

“Christians are the ‘salt of the earth,’ ” he said, “but it is still stockpiled.” He bowed his head, and the spotlight dimmed.

“Meanwhile, the world gets hungrier.”

The light went out.

W. DAYTON ROBERTS

Sing A New Song, Tenderly

Jazz continually raises its rhythmic sound in New York City’s worship life these days. An October 23 instance was an ecumenical triple-header: the Lutheran Foundation for Religious Drama presenting a Roman Catholic jazz mass at the Broadway United Church of Christ.

A Pan-Christian Bible?

Boston’s Father Walter Abbott, 43, was scheduled to meet the American Bible Society’s Advisory Council last week in what the New York Times thinks might be “the most important, concrete Christian unity step” since Vatican II closed a year ago.

Abbott, a former associate editor of America, was named November 8 to direct the Vatican’s new drive for a series of common Bible translations, used by all Christians. Pope Paul VI made the move to implement the council’s call for “easy access to Sacred Scripture.” Roman bishops around the world are filling out questionnaires on problems in Bible translation and distribution, and are conferring with local Protestant Bible societies.

The work, Missa Hodierna, was written by schoolteacher-jazz pianist Eddie Bonnemere. He Latinized his fifty-six voice choir, ten-piece band complete with conga drum, and congregation in an engaging hour that ended with a triumphantly syncopated “Go, the Mass is ended: Thanks be to God.”

Bonnemere attributes the mortality rate of regular churchgoers to the lack of participation in services allowed the worshiper. A Roman Catholic, he says most Mass music spurs feelings of “instant strangulation.” His remedy is a “functional service,” combining Latin American rhythms, modern thematic lines, and a touch of Gregorian chant for historical continuity.

The Church was officially represented at this $3-a-seat service by the Rev. John Gensel, who is usually evident at such events and carries on a supportive and counseling ministry with jazz musicians and their families. His chaplaincy to the New York jazz scene is an outgrowth of his weekly jazz vespers at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church (LCA), where he is one of the pastors.

The St. Peter’s services allow the jazzmen to worship regularly in their vernacular, and open communication to them from the more traditional church. Gensel collaborates with trumpeter Joe Newman in O Sing to the Lord a New Song, which puts jazz behind and around spoken words of Scripture.

Gensel thinks jazz worship has “freshness.… It’s like when you are tired and you take a shower.” “The motive makes the difference,” he says; “the motive of love and grace of God makes the difference in the new song.”

But some credit for the difference must also go to Newman and the rhythm section. His group weaves an exotic sound of intense meaning with the words of the Testaments, coupling Psalm 137 with “Willow Weep for Me,”First Corinthians 13 with “Tenderly,” and portions of Solomon’s Song with “Stella by Starlight.” Despite the secular sounds, Newman says the work is “not to entertain, but … to worship.”

JOHN EVENSON

Church Giving: $3.3 Billion

Americans and Canadians gave a record $3.3 billion to their churches last year, says a November 11 report from the National Council of Churches. Per-member contributions rose an impressive $5.71 over 1964, and the average member gave 67 cents more to benevolences (home and foreign missions and overseas relief).

As usual, omissions and qualifications are important. Figures came from only eleven of the NCC’s thirty members, representing two-thirds of its constituency.

Denominations receiving more than $200 from each member were, in order: the Wesleyan Methodist, Evangelical Free, Brethren in Christ, Pilgrim Holiness, Orthodox Presbyterian, and Evangelical Covenant Churches. The highest-ranking large denomination was again the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (Southern), at $118.72.

American Baptists Say ‘No’

The American Baptist Convention’s General Council this month declined to join other Western Hemisphere Baptists in a united evangelistic “Crusade” in 1969. Instead, the ABC will concentrate on separate strategy with ABC-related churches in Latin America and on its new curriculum, also due in 1969.

The ABC thus spurned the first project of the new North American committee of the Baptist World Alliance. ABC President Carl Tiller pointed out that baptisms had dropped from 63,632 in 1955 to 43,759 in 1965, and gave hesitant support to the 1969 effort. But the council followed advice of staffers in the evangelism and program divisions.

Meanwhile, those in the ABC who favor unity with non-Baptists got some ammunition for next year’s Pittsburgh convention when northern California delegates failed to endorse the “Armstrong Amendment” that stressed “Baptist distinctives” in unity talks. And the New York State convention reaffirmed last year’s call for full participation in the Consultation on Church Union. Indiana’s convention, however, opposed COCU.

Greek Crisis Ends

The Greek parliament, ending a year-long crisis, approved nomination of fifteen Orthodox bishops and left the hierarchy to decide on controversial transfers of two bishops to richer dioceses. Though weaker than an earlier reform bill rejected by the hierarchy, the measure pays all Greek bishops a salary equal to that of senior judges, with side income from marriages and other services to be pooled and distributed to poorer clergymen and theology students. Also, bishops appointed in the future must retire at age 80.

Has The Queen Abdicated?

New Directions in Theology Today, Volume I: Introduction, by William Hordern (general editor of the series), and Volume II: History and Hermeneutics, by Carl E. Braaten (Westminster, 1966, 170 and 205 pp., $1.95 each, paperback), are reviewed by Edward John Carnell, professor of ethics and philosophy of religion, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Volume I (seven volumes are to make up the series) is saturated with the conviction that it is high time to have edifying dialogue between theologians and the Church, and that the best way to come to the rescue is by disclosing what is new in contemporary theology. So Hordern brings forth a delightful cafeteria of theological alternatives. His sense of fairness leads him to include a chapter entitled “The New Face of Conservatism,” although I wonder whether he really grasps the true substance of conservatism.

In any case, Hordern writes with such an irenic spirit that he addresses both mind and heart, and thus forces serious readers to ask, “Just why is Christianity so fragmented?” and “What can we do to convert this fragmentation into a spiritual, intellectual, and ecclesiastical unity?”

An orthodox Christian, nonetheless, will feel a measure of frustration after reading this book, for no attempt is made to develop a rigorous criterion by which a selection between theological alternatives can be made. The Bible is quoted here and there. In fact, the book ends with a portion of Second Corinthians 4:2. But whether quotations from Scripture contain any more truth on divine authority than quotations from Plato is not resolved. This leads an orthodox Christian into deeper questions, for of what value is theological dialogue unless the agenda includes serious consideration of the right criterion for declaring theological system valid or invalid?

I would speak less than the truth if I were to conceal my feeling that this is a highly stimulating, well-written book. Still, I am sorry that the case for theological dialogue is built in part on the open admission of skepticism that theology is any longer “queen of the sciences.” Certainly we confront new complexities; certainly our file of theological knowledge contains more relative judgments than our fathers in the faith were prone to admit; but the fact remains that a theologian is entrusted with a queenly science. For nothing can fitly rank above the question, “What must I do to be saved?”

Volume II is an awesome piece of scholarship, even though it is written from a somewhat parochial Lutheran perspective and dwells mostly on the theological debate in contemporary Germany. The lion’s share of the discussion is given to Bultmann’s existential theology, while the greatest admiration is heaped on Pannenberg’s theology of universal history.

Two questions arise immediately. First, why are Barth and company brushed off in such a cursory way? Second, why does Bultmann steal the show, despite Braaten’s rejection of his theological position? Braaten (a conservative liberal, if that means anything) devotes a number of closing paragraphs to telling us, in a rather dogmatic way, why he believes that Bultmann has failed miserably in his attempt to perform a marriage ceremony between Christian existentialism and outright naturalism. Bultmann seems to throw out the good with the bad.

Since much of German thinking pays high regard to planned obsolescence (somewhat like the American automobile industry), Braaten may simply be reporting that the revelation theology of Barth has run its course and thus has lost its novelty, while Bultmann, who started out with Barth but later severed company, retains a sparkling novelty. In any case, I am left with the assumption that Bultmann forces Braaten to work for his faith, and this leaves Braaten in debt to Bultmann.

Although Pannenberg is one of the bright young stars in the contemporary theological constellation of Germany, Braaten by no means accepts all of his position. Indeed, he deals with some serious difficulties. Still, Pannenberg seems to command Braaten’s respect by viewing historical Christian events in such a way that they are actually not historical or Christian unless a believer responsibly acknowledges them as part of salvation-history. In this way the objective and the subjective are blended in such a way that the secularization of salvation-history and the envelopment of Christianity by some brand of mysticism are avoided. Moreover, Braaten is convinced that this blending of objective and subjective yields a fresh hermeneutics. Such hermeneutics takes in both the obligation to defend, as well as to know, historical Christian events, and the rules governing biblical exegesis. Pannenberg is forthright in his acceptance of Christ’s resurrection, even as he struggles hard and long to bring the Old and New Testaments into some kind of theological fellowship. These are excellent commitments, although I fail to see anything particularly “new” about them.

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• The Christian Persuader, by Leighton Ford (Harper & Row, $3.95). A trenchant analysis of contemporary evangelism—the obstacles to be overcome, the strategies to be carried out, the biblical message to be proclaimed—by a man whose writing reveals his passion for Jesus Christ.

• History of Evangelism, by Paulus Scharpff (Eerdmans, $5.75). Evangelism in Germany, Great Britain, and America viewed in their historical relationship by a German writer who urges mutual exchange of such knowledge by Christians.

• Man: The Dwelling Place of God, by A. W. Tozer (Christian Publications, $3). Terse essays by the late Christian and Missionary Alliance editor that provide insight into the pitfalls and victories of the life of faith.

Braaten summarily dismisses orthodoxy on at least two charges: (a) that it hinders the work of the Spirit by identifying the Word of God with infallibly inspired words in the Bible; and (b) that it imposes the culturally conditioned world view of the Bible on people who happen to live in the twentieth century with its evolutionary and expanding universe. All honor to Braaten for making it clear why he sees no value in holding dialogue with orthodoxy. Ironically, however, his caricature of orthodoxy may convince many conservatives that there is no value in holding dialogue with Braaten.

In any event, this is such a technical work on such far-out theological systems that it is not likely to stimulate dialogue between busy theologians and busy laymen. Whether we like it or not, the fact remains that the average church member wouldn’t grasp the difference between Historie and Geschichte if they sat beside him in the television room for a week.

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL

Through Chaos And Terrorism

Congo Crisis, by Joseph T. Bayly (Zondervan, 1966, 224 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by C. Darby Fulton, retired executive secretary, Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., Nashville, Tennessee.

This is a vivid story of what happened to a young American missionary couple and their children who arrived in the Congo in the spring of 1964 and were soon caught in the murderous cross fire of the rebellion that centered around the city of Stanleyville. The author, an experienced writer, has produced an animated recording of the harrowing experiences of Charles and Muriel Davis and the beleaguered company of missionaries and Congolese Christians. The reader will find heroes of all ages, both sexes, many nationalities, and the black as well as white skins.

Early in the story there is a brief but excellent summary of the developments leading to Congo independence in 1960 and an explanation of the violent and chaotic years that have followed. Bayly lays the chief blame for Congo’s deterioration on the pressures of world opinion that compelled Belgium to grant independence prematurely. “Belgium’s hand was forced, and the Free World suffered. The Congo itself suffered most.” Included in the record is a remarkably sympathetic interpretation of the tragic career and fate of Patrice Lumumba.

The heart of the book consists of firsthand accounts narrated by missionaries and other eye witnesses who lived through weeks of chaos and terrorism. The whole area around Stanleyville was at the mercy of roving bands of “Simbas,” intent on murder and destruction, guided by caprice, and inflamed by tribal rivalries, political dissension, and international intrigue. The story is one of husbands snatched away from their families, of wives and children hiding in the tropical forest like hunted animals, of narrow escapes from detection and death, of firing squads, of prayer and faith and dependence upon God, and of the final and sudden ordeal of martyrdom for some.

The author feels that the role of the missionary and of the Congolese Christian in this drama has been “magnificent,” characterized by courage and dignity. This should engender added respect for the whole enterprise.

The final chapter is an attempt to evaluate the Church and missions in the Congo. Specifically, it examines the events of the past few years to see what lessons are suggested for missions throughout the world. There are interesting and valuable insights here, not only for the foreign missionary but for all who are concerned about the Gospel’s encounter with the revolutionary forces of this generation. Emphasis is given to the “new partnership” between missionaries and the national church, as distinguished from the “paternalism” of former years. At this point the author does not entirely escape the easy fault of making comparisons at the expense of the past, describing as “new” some attitude or principle that has long been recognized. It is likely, however, that there will be general agreement with his basic summation in the closing paragraphs:

The Church is not a missionary carrying on his program with the help of nationals. Nor is it an organization with national leadership in which a missionary is accepted as helper. In America or the Congo, the Church is—according to the New Testament—a body, and Christ is the Head of the body. The life that surges through the body is not Congolese life, or American life; it is the life of Christ. Each part of the body exists for the Head, and for every other part.

C. DARBY FULTON

Face The Issues!

Dissenter in a Great Society: A Christian View of America in Crisis, by William Stringfellow (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966, 164 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Charles E. Hummel, president, Barrington College, Barrington, Rhode Island.

What do race riots in Watts and Rochester and demonstrations in Selma and Cicero portend for the American future? With prophetic urgency Stringfellow attacks Americans’ complacency about the social and economic structure that institutionalizes poverty.

Lawyer Stringfellow eloquently argues the case for the poor and oppressed. In the war on poverty, what is the nature of the enemy? A cogent analysis of the interrelations of poverty, property, and people disclose an ideological problem that has divided the country from the start: Should the rights of property or the rights of people constitute the basis of our society? The author shows how institutions of property are prevailing over the rights of human beings. While both rights are important, the tragedy of American society lies in its worship of property. What a man owns has become the yardstick of his worth.

Stringfellow incisively exposes the idolatry of money. “Money is not inherently evil, but it is fallen.” One society mistakenly equates value with money and so judges a man’s moral worth by the amount of money he possesses or controls. If we disavow this idea, to what extent do we not really believe that those without money are inferior? “Where money is an idol, to be poor is a sin.” Christ offers freedom from the idolatry of money.

Everyone in the United States is now involved in the war between the races. “The only issue that remains is how one is involved: obstinately, stupidly, irrationally—or with concern, intelligence or compassion.” But the civil-rights movement is not an end in itself; restoration to Negroes of their rights must pioneer a reconstruction needed by our entire society. For the Christian, integration is not enough, since it is not the moral equivalent of reconciliation in Christ. All men and things are reconciled only in the Body of Christ.

Pessimistic about lack of progress, Stringfellow sees a day of wrath approaching. He believes the “real recalcitrant in the American racial crisis is not the so-called die-hard segregationist or the pathological racist, but respectable, sane, sincere, benevolent, earnest people, church members and devout liberals.”

This book steps on many toes from the right to the left. Each reader must face the basic question: Will he look for excuses to discount its message? Or will he move past the offense to some of his pet positions and panaceas and get at the central disturbing questions? Stringfellow’s perception and passion commend this book for personal study and group discussion.

CHARLES E. HUMMEL

A Modest Commentary

Beacon Bible Commentary, Volume V: The Minor Prophets, by Oscar F. Reed, et al. (Beacon Hill, 1966, 453 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Bruce K. Waltke, assistant professor of semitic languages and Old Testament exegesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

A sober evaluation of this commentary is given in the preface: “Beacon Bible Commentary is offered in ten volumes with becoming modesty. It does not supplement others. Neither does it purport to be exhaustive or final.… It is candidly admitted that this is a commentary written from the viewpoint of Wesleyan-Arminian theology. Nevertheless, it is hoped that it will have value to all who seek to know the truth as it is in Jesus.” The Church of the Nazarene is to be commended for offering this helpful, devotional commentary to all serious students of God’s Word.

The defensive aspects of Wesleyan-Arminian theology are not apparent in this volume and therefore will not limit its popularity in evangelical circles. The non-definitive character of that system of interpretation with regard to eschatology, however, will limit its value for those who hold to a dispensational, pre-millennial interpretation of Scripture. Although the contributors are generally vague about their eschatological convictions, their view seems to be that the kingdom of Christ was inaugurated with the death and resurrection of Jesus and will be consummated when Christ returns (see p. 399). Oracles of judgment are usually interpreted as having been fulfilled historically; oracles of blessing are usually interpreted as having been fulfilled in the return from the exile, in the Maccabean era, and in the Church but are sometimes more vaguely interpreted as yet to be fulfilled in the Messianic age.

Generally speaking, the work is non-critical and is based on the King James translation. Problems of literary criticism are dismissed (but see the discussion on the unity of Zechariah); problems of form criticism are not raised; and problems of the Hebrew text are rarely considered. For the most part, the authors comment only on the interpretative problems of the KJV.

As stated in the preface, the work is not exhaustive. On the one hand this approach is welcome, for often the contributors, avoiding pedantry, incisively interpret an obscure passage. On the other hand, the approach proves disconcerting when contributors treat other interpretations superficially or draw conclusions where the reader asks for more argumentation. For example, one contributor cavalierly states that Amos addressed his prophecy to both Israel and Judah, although the text itself does not clearly attest this fact. Again, the identification of the four horns in Zechariah’s vision with the kingdoms of Daniel’s vision is summarily rejected because the horns are said “to have (already) scattered Judah.” It is well known, however, that the perfect tense of the Hebrew verb denotes the aspect of the action more than the time of the action and can refer to the present and future as well as to the past. Although both of the above interpretations may be correct, the point is that the reader would have appreciated a stouter defense.

The contributors have extensively used earlier commentaries written in English and modern English translations but have neglected almost entirely pertinent articles in the learned journals. This neglect severely limits the value of the work. For example, our understanding of the prophetic message, especially Hosea’s, has been greatly enriched by the form-critical analysis of the rib motif in the Old Testament (cf. Herbert B. Huffmon, “The Covenant Lawsuit in the Prophets,” Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXVIII [1959], pp. 285–95). In addition, it is very hazardous to amend the Masoretic text, as the authors occasionally do, without a thorough acquaintance with the history of the texts of the Minor Prophets (cf. D. Barthélemy, Les devanciers d’Aquila: Première publication integrale du texte des fragments du dodécaprophéton, Brill, 1963).

Nevertheless, despite these limitations, this work will have value for all those engaged in the public presentation of God’s Word because of its practical expositions, homiletical suggestions, and pertinent quotations.

BRUCE K. WALTKE

Vatican Ii And Anti-Semitism

The Church and the Jewish People, by Augustin Cardinal Bea, S. J., translated by Philip Loretz, S. J. (Harper & Row, 1966, 172 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Belden Menkus, editor, author, and management consultant, Bergenfield, New Jersey.

“Christ killer!”

The cry echoes with misery through two millennia of Jewish history. At best, it has been followed by a curse, a kick, or a blow. At worst, it has brought humiliation, torture, or death for Jews.

Far too often, this hatred has hidden behind the cross of Christ.

The Vatican Council, as one of its noblest objectives, sought to bring this distortion of all that is Christian out in the open. Result: A declaration by the council that pleased no one. Some felt it went too far, some that it did not go far enough.

What did happen? What does this statement really signify? Cardinal Bea, a prime mover in the council’s deliberations, was intimately involved with the discussion of anti-Semitism. Here, in an engagingly lucid style, he tells what the council did, analyzes what it said, and suggests how this statement might affect future relations between Christians and Jews.

Evangelicals may find this book a bit confusing. The Cardinal accepts the traditional “deicide” charge at face value—and this colors the rest of the book. Deicide has not been a significant factor in evangelical thought. And, as I have pointed out elsewhere, deicide is a contradiction in concepts. Man cannot kill God; and Jesus Christ was and is God. Even Cardinal Bea recognizes this problem in Catholic thought when he contends that “Jews should not be represented falsely as under a curse and rejected by God.” The duty of the Church, he continues, “is to preach that Christ voluntarily submitted to his death.”

This is a challenging and satisfying book. The Cardinal is an exegete of exceptional insights; I found myself wanting to read more of his writings and to know the man better.

This is a forthright book. Few in Catholic or Protestant circles have faced the Christian implications of anti-Semitism as clearly and directly as Cardinal Bea has here. “The bonds which bind us to the Jewish people are manifold … reaching to the very heart of our spiritual life.” Speaking of Christian and Jewish common contact in the Old Testament, he writes that “difficulties will arise in connection with the interpretation of certain passages … but there is no doubt that we can go the greater part of the way together.”

This is a disappointing book. The Cardinal fails to face past Catholic anti-Semitism and the council’s retreat from its original position on the Jews.

Yet, the book merits thoughtful study. And it demands a comparable confrontation of the problem by evangelicals.

BELDEN MENKUS

Book Briefs

More Hebrew Honey: A Simple and Deep Word Study of the Old Testament, Volume II, by Al Novak (Premier Printing Company, 1966, 144 pp., $4). Old Testament word studies sweet to the mind and heart.

Captured by Mystery: Devotional Readings, by Alvin N. Rogness (Augsburg, 1966, 147 pp., $3.50). Penetrating readings on life, love, gratitude, the church, and death, for daily consumption.

The Changing Church, by Bertrand van Bilsen (Duquesne University, 1966, 440 pp., $7.95). A synthesis of the current Roman Catholic reformation.

Children’s Art and the Christian Reader, by Edgar Boevé (National Union of Christian Schools, 1966, 200 pp., $5.95). A Christian approach to the development of children’s discernment and religious expression in art; well illustrated.

Woman Is the Glory of Man, by E. Daniel and B. Olivier, translated by M. Angeline Bouchard (Newman, 1966, 137 pp., $4.25). The mystery and uniqueness of woman seen from a Roman Catholic perspective.

Where Jesus Walks, by Ruth Youngdahl Nelson (Augsburg, 1966, 144 pp., $3.50). A devotional pilgrimage to places of spiritual enrichment and service.

Aw, Stop Worryin’, by Winston K. Pendleton (Bethany Press, 1966, 80 pp., $2.50). The Christian antidote to anxiety, discussed by the author of 2121 Funny Stories and How to Tell Them. His only worry seems to be our worrying.

Get Up and Go: Devotions for Teens, by Paul Martin (Beacon Hill, 1966, 96 pp., $1.50). Ninety pungent devotionals beamed directly at today’s teenagers.

The preacher must read and hear the Word till it engages him in conversation

“Every good sermon has been heard once before it is preached; it has been listened to by the preacher.”

I don’t know who said that; it may even be something I have phrased for myself out of my own experience. For I am profoundly convinced that it is true. Whatever method I have in preparing for the pulpit grows directly out of this principle.

The starting point is the Bible. I cannot conceive of a sermon without a text, whether it be only part of a verse or a larger section. The Word must be read and heard by the preacher. I am not ashamed to say that I usually read it out loud—and read it until I am stopped, questioned, cornered, by, as I believe, the Holy Spirit speaking out of Scripture.

Strange how it works. I am stopped by a phrase today that I slipped right past a month or a year ago without hearing a thing. Or sometimes I am stopped so often in a short space that I cover scarcely a chapter or two in several days. I am not conscious of anything I can do about this except to be still and listen.

Such listening, however, calls for a systematic plan of reading the Word. For a long time, because of the tradition in which I was raised, I found that plan in various lectionaries for the Christian year. I still would not despise that way and find myself using it from time to time. But more recently I have found it more profitable to follow the Reformed tradition of lectio continua, the systematic pursuit of a single book of the Bible. I do not wish to argue for any particular plan, however, but simply to plead that there should be one.

Beside my Bible is a notebook in which I jot down, as they come, the stopping places, the questions, the places where the Word of God has engaged me in some kind of conversation. The second part of my method involves following myself up, so to speak. First I have a look at the original of the verse or section that has begun to speak. My Greek is only tolerable, my Hebrew extremely lame; but even so, both are sufficient, with some generous help, to inform me whether what I thought I heard in English was really there in Hebrew or Greek. I have had to surrender enough good texts this way to know that it is a very necessary discipline!

Then come the commentaries. Shall I be badly misunderstood if I say that for me their chief function is to help me decide what not to preach? Well, that is usually what happens. For some reason that I do not try to explain, the study of the time, place, situation, and meaning of several verses causes me to lose interest in some while another begins to speak to me with increasing clarity and force.

Once that has happened, I file that word in the back of my mind and let it go to work on me. Hopefully it is there for as long as several weeks, and never for less than a week. I try to make it a constant companion and, as time goes on, connections begin showing up. An article or book that I read not too long before, an event in the daily press, a conversation with a parishioner or even with someone on the bus—these all begin to connect. Usually I try to jot the connection down. By the end of a week, my desk—to say nothing of the pockets of my jackets—is a mess of scraps of paper, backs of used envelopes, and whatnot, the raw material for the next step.

With me that next step usually takes place on a Saturday morning. I assemble all my raw material, try (sometimes in vain) to remember the jottings I forgot to make, and spend time looking at it all, thinking about it, thinking about the people to whom this Word is to be spoken. (I find preaching to a strange congregation an increasingly difficult experience, although I still do it).

At this point, I suppose I should say that I begin to write an outline. But I don’t. Sitting down at my 1932 Remington portable (my thinking process has somehow become bound up with it) I begin to take down what I hear. Sometimes this dictation process is simple and is finished within a few hours. At other times it is extremely difficult. Whole pages are torn up, or several beginnings are made, or, more often, at a certain point the process simply stops. Sometimes as much as several hours must elapse before it can be started again.

Indeed, I can record the frequent experience of having a sermon turn out to be so different from what I had envisioned when I began that I have had to rewrite the whole introduction, because it was obviously introducing the wrong sermon. There have been some Saturdays spent with nothing to show for them, but I think I should have to confess that they were usually times when I wanted to impose my idea on the clear message of the Word.

In twenty-one years (all of them in the same pulpit) I have written out every sermon in full. I usually read it before I retire on Saturday night; I always preach it aloud in my library on Sunday morning. By that time the manuscript means little or nothing. But I have tried the outline and ex tempore methods just enough to know that I am a wool-gatherer who needs the discipline of putting down to the end what he has heard if he is to repeat it faithfully to his people.

In twenty-one years I have repeated a sermon possibly five times. In each case the reason was my failure to be a faithful hearer of the Word. And in each case I was painfully aware that I was giving an address, not preaching a sermon.

A sermon to me is the Word of God addressed to a particular people at a particular time in a particular place. Even a week later in another congregation I find that it has lost some of its livingness. For that reason I never keep sermon manuscripts in an accessible place for more than six months. By that time they are almost worthless for me. It is not what the Spirit speaking out of Scripture said but what he is saying that gives preaching its power to raise men from the dead.

My method is suited to me; I expect no one else to follow it. But I do expect any man who is called to preach to believe that the word he has to speak cannot be his own.—The Rev. HOWARD G. HAGEMAN, North Reformed Dutch Church, Newark, New Jersey.

Those who have a low concept of God have rejected the multiplied revelations he has given of himself—in his works of creation and providence, in the person of his Son, in the presence of his Spirit, and in his written Word. He has not left himself without a witness, and the evidence demands that we worship and praise the One thus revealed.

God is infinite—without limits of any kind. Limited as we are by time, space, and circumstances, we find it difficult even to apprehend dimly the fact that for God there are no such limitations. As Solomon said, “heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him” (2 Chron. 2:6b, RSV). The psalmist affirms, “Great is the Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Ps. 147:5).

God is omnipotent—all powerful, the master of every situation. Jesus said, “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26b). Some day every Christian will hear the proclamation, “Hallelujah! the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” (Rev. 19:6b, KJV).

God is omniscient; he always knows all of the past, the present, and the future. Eternity lies before him like a vast panorama. Nothing is hidden from his knowledge.

God is omnipresent; there is no place where man can escape his presence. David expressed this in Psalm 139. Truly there is no place where man can hide. Outer space, the depths of the ocean, darkness—all are alike to him. “Even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee” (Ps. 139:12).

God is sovereign. Even in the chaos of today’s world, he is working out his holy purposes; and they will certainly be fulfilled. Who is man to question the wisdom or sovereign power of God?

We learn something of the nature of God when we pray, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.” We affirm that his kingdom is eternal, that his power is infinite, and that his glory encompasses infinite love, holiness, justice, and mercy. And we affirm that these things are for ever.

God is all this and more. He is the Creator of all things seen and unseen, of the laws that govern the universe, of the perfections in evidence on every hand in nature.

What folly, then, for the creature to question or doubt the Creator! The Apostle Paul pointedly asks, “Who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me thus?’ ” (Rom. 9:20).

Nothing is more humbling than to contemplate the infinite power and wisdom evinced in God’s works of creation. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). Only the spiritually blind can fail to see the greatness and the glory of God in his creation.

God is not only the Creator; he is also the Redeemer, returning to the world he made to redeem sinning man back to himself. Exercising his right of choice, man disobeyed God; and sin brought separation. But the love of God would not permit man to continue in a hopeless state. God came in the person of his Son so that once more man could choose and those who believed could be redeemed.

Not only did God create; not only does he redeem; he also preserves by his works of providence. The amazing fact that all things work out for the good of God’s children—any possible circumstance of life—is an evidence of his preserving and overruling power. How can we fail to worship such a God!

Yet, despite his majesty, power, and wisdom, God is the God of the individual. He is a personal God to all who receive him. To reject him means chaos in every aspect of life.

He is concerned with the great problems and minute details of our lives.

O, what peace we often forfeit,

O, what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

This is not the figment of a pious imagination; it is the statement of a deep and abiding truth.

The psalmist says, “When the cares of my heart are many, thy consolations cheer my soul” (Ps. 94:19). What a loss for those who do not know the privilege of trusting the heavenly Father who is concerned about our personal problems, the Saviour who understands our personal temptations and delivers from them, the Holy Spirit, who is a personal Comforter to those who turn to him! How truly David spoke when he said, “The Lord is my shepherd.” This was a personal relationship for life, for death, and for all eternity.

How big is God? He is the God of destiny. It is he who determines the outcome of history and who stands in the shadows keeping watch over his own.

Men and nations may parade grandly across the stage of history, but they do not determine the course of either life or death. The curtain of history will be drawn, not by man, but by God.

How big is God? Look about you and see the evidence of his wisdom and power. If a man claims to be an artist, one has the right to ask to see his pictures. If he says he is an architect, one wants to see something he has designed; if an athlete, to see his prowess; if an inventor, to see his product.

Look at the heavens, the moon and the stars. Look at the earth, all the marvels of God’s creative power. Look at his Son and Calvary. Look in his Word and all it reveals. Look into the innermost reaches of your troubled soul and hear him speak peace. You will get an inkling of how great he is.

How big is God? He can never be measured by earthly standards, but on every hand we see signs of his glory. God is a spirit, and we can grasp what this means only when we worship him in spirit and in truth. Although he is nearer than hands or feet, yet he encompasses all of time and eternity.

Staggering? Of course. But, oh, how comforting to those who know him!

God’s witness is universal, to be seen and known by all who will. It is continuing, from one generation to another. It is personal; he stands at the door of the human heart, knocking and seeking admittance.

Moses knew this when he said, “Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God” (Ps. 90:1, 2).

Man may try to limit God by his own earthbound limitations. He may blaspheme God by saying he is dead. He may defy God by conspiring against him. But “he who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision” (Ps. 2:4). Some day all who have limited him or blasphemed or conspired against him will find to their eternal horror what a “fearful thing” it is “to fall into the hands of the living God,” “for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 10:31; 12:29).

God has set before us an array of witnesses, inanimate and animate, that combine to tell us as much as the human mind can grasp of infinity. Jesus tells us where faith enters the picture: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

Hi-Ho Preacherinos And Church Pillars:

It isn’t every issue you have the dubious privilege of meeting a spankin’ new Eutychus. During the past decade only two other scribes have dared dip their quills in this particular pot of ink to have a-go-go at dialogue with you ecclesiastical cats. But it’s quite appropriate for Eutychus III to make his debut at this time. In this Thanksgiving week issue, CHRISTIANITY TODAY is only too happy to serve up a turkey.

Now, if I were Eutychus I, I’d take pride in being a great innovator. If I were Eutychus II, I’d try harder. But since I’m number three, I’ll probably fall asleep on my journalistic window sill, like the original Eutychus in Acts 20. It will be up to all of you to awaken me and keep me abreast of the absurd side of the religious scene where folly, foibles, and phonies are so frequently found. (The prior passage was planned for pulpiteers who use a preponderant part of their preaching preparation period pursuing proper and persuasive alliteration.)

But it’s easy to see that the religious fun house is going full blast. You may not be aware that Homer A. Tomlinson, Bishop of the 63-year-old Church of God and self-crowned King of the World, now rules over us all on the Throne of David. He recently appealed to the nations of the world to kick in 10 per cent of their annual income to his government or face curtailment of rainfall. King Homer is sending an envoy to Viet Nam with an olive branch from the Mount of Olives to enforce his edict that “wars will come to an end.”

On a more mundane level, we note with pleasure that Mrs. Joan Kruger of Detroit, Michigan, was awarded a beautiful red Scofield Bible for winning the recent “Pew-Packing Contest” at Detroit’s Chandler Park Drive Baptist Church. Picture in your sanctified imagination how it might have been: 137 happy Christians piled into one creaking pew with Mrs. Kruger aloft, waving her crimson morocco. Those college kids in telephone booths have nothing on her.

In our future fortnightly visits, you may be tempted at times to engage in a bit of Euty-cussing. But restrain yourself. Given time, you’ll learn to love me. Actually I’ve got a heart as big as all outdoors.

Thanksgivingly,

EUTYCHUS III

Up In Arms

Let me begin by stating very forthrightly that I am (and have been for the last five years) a paying member of the National Rifle Association; and I resent Mr. Moberg’s insinuations (review of The Right to Bear Anns, by Carl Bakal, Oct. 28) that the NRA is nothing but a group of “gun nuts” whose sole activities are “heading the pro-gun lobby in Washington.” …

Mr. Moberg accepts as true author Bakal’s assertion: “The lie that Hitler used firearms registration lists to disarm and conquer Europe and other lies are panned off as fact” … With my own ears I’ve heard people from Poland, France, the Ukraine, and other places say that Hitler did use firearms registration lists to disarm conquered peoples, prevent any large-scale guerrilla-type operations, and so forth; and also, for good measure, that the Soviet Union adopted and still uses that very same practice!

Again: Mr. Moberg states that Senator Dodd’s 1965 Firearms Bill “was greatly distorted in a letter sent by the NRA to all its members. Requests that a new mailing be sent to correct mistakes were unheeded, and distortions were repeated in subsequent publications of the firearms lobby”.… These charges simply are not true, and I have NRA material at hand to prove that statement.… If you can’t find any better material than such slander to publish, then kindly peddle your libel sheet to someone who is just as misinformed (and here I am being most charitable!) as Mr. Moberg. If this article/review is really representative of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the twentieth century, we had all better pray for another Reformation. Immanuel Lutheran DAVID J. BEHLING Norton, Kan.

You could do us all a service if you would attempt what no one else has, to my knowledge. We need a confrontation of the two sides of this [gun control] argument in which each side deals with the real concerns of the other side instead of knocking down straw men. We also need to have some discussion in which each side assumes the basic integrity of at least most of the people on the opposite side. If one listens now to what each side says about the other, he must assume that Communists and fellow travelers are ranged against hoodlums, the insane, and the callous.

DANIEL C. REUTER

Malone, N. Y.

Faculty Reader Speaks Out

Your editorial, “Let Student Editors Speak Out” (Oct. 14 issue), will doubtless receive the approbation of disgruntled students who want a sounding board for their grievances, of some members of the administration and faculty who feel above criticism and would like to see their associates under fire, and of the vast majority of us who like to see a fight and enjoy the sensationalism of touching the untouchable.… But I question whether it is biblical. My Bible tells me that if I have a quarrel with anyone I should go to him directly and see if I cannot solve the problem personally. Your editorial seems to suggest that I should make my quarrel public.

In a Christian college where the administrators are Christian, and the students elect to attend it because of its emphasis on Christian behavior, surely your editorial sounds a discordant note.

G. ARTHUR KEOUGH

Assistant Professor

Department of Religion

Columbia Union College

Takoma Park, Md.

Your editorial “Let Student Editors Speak Out” (Oct. 14) has been an inspiration to many on our campus.… Many of your articles speak well of the conflict on today’s Christian college campuses. Thank you for letting us hear your voice.

ROBERT ZAWOYSKY

Mishawaka, Ind.

Scoop Of The Decade

The scoop of the decade is Sartre’s demise (“Dynamics of a Decade,” Oct. 14) in the grand company “… of a Generation of Giants”! When did Sartre join Camus in the non-existent existential netherland?

DALE SANDERS

Denver, Colo.

• We goofed.—ED.

Force, If Necessary

I was very glad to read your report of General Council of the United Church of Canada (News, Sept. 30). I think you brought out some of the major emphases very well.…

You indicate that we were in favor of the termination of the Ian Smith regime, “without use of force.” Actually the fifth section of the Rhodesian resolution placed General Council in favor of “the use of necessary police action” under the United Nations in order to oust the Smith regime. This would certainly involve the use of force.…

J. R. HORD

Secretary

Board of Evangelism and Social Service

The United Church of Canada

Toronto, Ont.

Fill In The Blank

Would you kindly elucidate on your positional statement, “A crude anti-Communist reaction survived in some segments of the Church and society, but other Christians were more concerned that the Communist Bloc remained the most challenging unevangelized area on earth” (Oct. 14, p. 58).…

It might have been more appropriate to predicate the expression with “An enlightened and realistic anti-Communist.… In fact, your own editorial on the NCC and Red China (p. 35) was indeed “an enlightened and realistic anti-Communist” editorial. Or do you consider your own position “crude”?

DAVID A. NOEBEL

Christian Crusade

Tulsa, Okla.

Problem Promulgation

We are enclosing two copies of the article “The Problem of the Underpaid Pastor,” printed in your September 30 issue and reprinted by us for use in a mailing to the churches of this presbytery, by your permission.

I find CHRISTIANITY TODAY to be very helpful and informative to me, and am an appreciative reader.

JAMES H. MONROE

Executive Secretary and Stated Clerk

Presbytery of Winston-Salem

Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

Winston-Salem, N. C.

Back On The Track

James Panoch’s discussion, “Is Prayer in Public Schools an Illegal Maneuver?,” (Sept. 30) is much appreciated. Technically, Senator Dirksen’s amendment is not needed, but the general impression has gone out that prayer has been banished from the schools. Across the country baccalaureate services have been discontinued, and the simplest attempts at Bible reading and prayer have been discouraged. The schools have been made safe for the atheist but not for the Christian. We need the Dirksen amendment or something else to get us back on the track again. We do not want an established religion, but we do want religion in all of American life.

BYRON S. LAMSON

Editor

The Free Methodist

Winona Lake, Ind.

Preaching In Dialogue

My class in “Contemporary American Preaching” is studying dialogue preaching. I would be happy to hear from any minister who has done some of it, and especially to receive copies of sermons.

WILLIAM D. THOMPSON

Assoc. Prof. of Homiletics and Speech

Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

Written More Boldly

Thank you for your editorial comments on the political integrity of Charles Long-street Weltner (Oct. 28).…

An earlier statement, recorded for use in the church schools of five denominations, is now written more boldly because of Weltner’s act of conscience. He wrote: “I believe that the problem of doing what is right in the face of tradition, in the face of convention, in the face of what we fear others may say about us, is one of the great impediments to progress and true living Christianity that faces all Americans today, particularly to those of us who live in a troubled part of the world—south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

JOHN A. KIRSTEIN

Board of Christian Education

Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

Richmond, Va.

Understanding, Please

I live amongst the “troubled nation” you refer to in the editorial (“After Verwoerd—What?,” Sept. 30), about four miles from Sharpeville! I should know about all the “troubles” we go through, caused by “the snares of … apartheid.” May I refer you to the same issue and your own editorial on page 33, “Playing With Fire”? Such riots, burning and murder in the U. S.! I prefer to live four miles from Sharpeville.

You speak of Christians around the world setting an example to us. Then do it! Convince us that you really understand what is going on here and that you respect our strong Christian convictions that the policy of separate development is the only policy that will do justice in our situation to the demands of Scripture. When, on that basis, you raise a sound Christian concern, it will be respectfully and prayerfully received.

J. J. le ROUN

Dutch Reformed Church

Vanderbylpark, South Africa

More On Communication

My compliments to you on an interesting and provocative issue on this entire matter of Christian communications (Oct. 14). I think that such a treatment of this complex problem will help our clergy and lay people awake to the possibilities of religious journalism. Your continued membership in the Associated Church Press is a helpful factor in providing us with the proper orientation.

ALFRED P. KLAUSLER

Executive Secretary

Associated Church Press

Chicago, Ill.

Your recent issue emphasizing the continuing crisis in communication was sensible, sensitive, and indeed quite provocative.

CHARLES R. SUPIN

Vice Chairman

Department of Radio and Television

Protestant Council of the City of New York,

New York, N. Y.

Congratulations on your outstanding tenth-anniversary issue: “Crisis in Communication.” George W. Cornell’s article, “Religion’s New Entree to the City Room,” was especially perceptive.

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Religion Editor

The Modesto Bee

Modesto, Calif.

I wish we had less about marshmallows and jello in church and more Bible study,” said a smart young suburban housewife. Her comment reflects a feeling many women have: in providing programs for them, their churches underestimate their intelligence. This is especially likely to happen in suburbia, where the educational level is often high.

As an effective means of reaching women for Christ, I recommend the serious Bible-study class. It has the appeal of the “soft sell” rather than the “hard sell.” It can reach those who would never set foot in an evangelistic meeting or other preaching service.

The idea of attending a weekday Bible study can be presented to women who are not church-goers as a form of adult education. Middle- and upper-middle-class housewives in the suburbs attend all kinds of classes. They study flower-arranging, fur-remodeling, Great Books, or Chinese cooking. Or they go back for a post-graduate course at the university. Women who have no intention of getting themselves into a Bible class can be persuaded by their neighbors that everybody should know what’s in the Bible—after all, it’s listed as one of the Great Books!

A minister can hardly add teaching a women’s Bible class to his many other duties; but he can inspire a capable woman to teach it. To reach college-educated, alert, well-read women, a teacher must be willing to make Bible-teaching a matter of lifetime dedication. Not that it is a great self-sacrifice to be one of these teachers; for the right person, teaching may be a welcome escape from other church duties.

I have taught Bible classes for over twenty years. At times I have wondered whether I was justified in spending so much time studying in preparation for teaching. When I talked to my pastor-husband about this, he would say, “Absolutely. There are few enough people in the world who like to study. You enjoy it, so go ahead.” And when I was tempted to shoot off in other directions, he would firmly set me back on what he considered the main track: “You’re not needed as a piano-player, and the organizations can get along without you. You’re needed as a Bible teacher.”

Tips For Success

There are four main guidelines, I think, for making these classes go:

1. Make every minute count. A woman from another church said to me, “Our assistant pastor has started a class also on Tuesday mornings, and I went a few times, but he doesn’t seem to realize how valuable our time is. It’s such a struggle to bundle up the children and get there that we want every minute to count.”

Start on time and end on time. It’s always a pull to get the class started, but it has to be done, on time. Equally important, especially for mothers of school children, is ending on time. We meet from 9:30 till 11:00 in the church for the Tuesday-morning class, with no hymn-singing and no social time—strictly business. The attendance is now running about 270, and more than twice that number are on the roll. New women are coming in constantly.

We follow a course that will take us through the entire Bible in eight years. This course involves about two hours of outside preparation, though some spend more time than that, some less. As teacher, I spend perhaps twelve hours in preparation, plus an hour of review before each of the three parallel weekly classes that I teach in the city and the suburbs. Their preparation and mine is all part of making every minute of class time count. If the class members are prepared, they come with questions in their minds, and much more can be packed into the teaching time.

Women can and will find time for home study; what they object to is having to come out of their homes for too many meetings. Our class has no social organization, no committee meetings.

2. Make it practical. Perhaps the common denominator of successful women’s Bible-class teachers is the ability to make the Bible practical. Classes should deal with the everyday problems of the home as they relate to the Scripture being studied—such things as how to give the headship of the family to the husband, and why it is necessary; how to stand up to the children; how to accept the monotony of housework.

I like a good ballast of background facts, too—historical, geographical, archaeological. The Bible comes alive when it seems anchored in time and space.

3. Keep the class informal and personal. The lesson should not become too much like a lecture or sermon. If the class starts small (and they usually do), it is quite easy to keep the informal atmosphere as the class grows. Two or three people with a knack for informality can keep the atmosphere from congealing; they can give others the courage to say what’s on their minds.

I like it when someone speaks up in the middle of class: “Margaret, where are we? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Everybody laughs, and I have a chance to clarify my point.

Or when someone new says about such a chapter as Numbers 31, which tells of the Israelites’ killing the Midianites, “I just don’t like that chapter. And our minister says it’s only legend anyway.” Don’t swat down this person with a pat reply. Such a remark opens the way for an invaluable discussion, and if it is tactfully handled, the woman can be persuaded to keep on coming and postpone judgment until she has studied the Bible more.

4. Use fresh language. Presenting the age-old truths in fresh language is perhaps the most important factor in reaching people who are unacquainted with the Bible. Theological and doctrinal cliches so freely bandied about in evangelical circles are unintelligible to those outside. These clichés may be bricks in a great wall that separates the chance visitor to the class from the closed world of evangelical belief.

How much better is it to follow the example of the Bible by using new, fresh, vivid language and imagery. Think of the many different figures Christ used to invite people to himself: new birth, water, light, bread, the weary laborer, shepherd and sheep, the lost and found coin. Not one of these was hammered away on over and over again. We too can get across the idea that people need the complete life-change that Christ alone can give without saying “saved, lost,” “born again,” “sinner,” every time we get up to speak.

And think of the different elements of the Old Testament that can be tied up with New Testament passages and used to invite people to Christ, such as redemption of the Israelites out of Egypt, the Levitical offerings, the high priest, the cities of refuge.

People who would take violent exception to a pounding sermon on sin and salvation will study and discuss such terms for months when they crop up in the Bible lesson. As with any other method of evangelism, sometimes these persons find salvation, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they come for months, finally feel they must decide, and then either come through with a wonderful change of life or else turn sadly away. But if they do turn away, isn’t it good that they have all those months of solid Bible study behind them? Who knows when the Holy Spirit might use what they have learned to work in their lives?

The teacher can also stimulate her use of fresh language by continually making bridges with the thought and the reading of the day. She must connect with the spirit of the day in order to make herself understood as she presents age-old truth. Sometimes, for example, a spiritual lesson can be put into psychological language and be much more readily understood. Sometimes comparisons and contrasts can be drawn from works of great authors, both those of the past and those of our day.

All this is what makes Bible-teaching so exciting. One’s interest in everything—reading, travel, art, the out-of-doors—is enlivened, because anything and everything might provide an illustration. Drawing from many sources is appreciated by these education-minded women.

A Class Cross Section

Many different kinds of women are attracted to a serious Bible-study class. In our class eighteen groups are represented, including Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Christian Scientist, Plymouth Brethren, Bible churches, Episcopal, and Presbyterian, and there are nineteen persons who claim no church.

A beautician who had little connection with a church before closes up her shop every Tuesday morning and comes to Bible class. The mayor’s wife pushes aside her many responsibilities to come. A beautiful young housewife who recently earned an M.A. degree bundles up a couple of toddlers and comes. Several professional women drive across the city to get to the class.

“I like a class where Bible study is taken seriously,” they say. And, “It’s a challenge to have something to work on at home.”

A woman’s schedule is subject to interruptions, for a new baby, perhaps, or for sickness in the family. We tape-record the lessons for these people, and some of the tapes have found their way to Canada, Florida, and other states. Sometimes little groups of neighbors gather to listen to the tapes and keep up their lessons that way. Once a woman showed up at the closing luncheon of the year, when awards are made for completed work, with her notebook all in order. She had been at class only twice all year, because of a new baby, but she had kept up at home.

Teaching a Bible class is a great ministry for a minister’s wife—she can use her husband’s library—or for any woman who wants to build up a little library of her own and devote her spare time to studying out the riches of God’s Word.