Presbyterians Draft New Confession

When the present United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was formed in 1958, a special eighteen-member committee was saddled with the task of formulating “a brief contemporary statement of faith” to be included in the denominational constitution. Next May the committee’s work is scheduled for presentation to the UPUSA General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio. The committee plans to recommend that its two-part, purposely undefinitive 5,900-word statement built around a doctrine of “reconciliation” be given equal standing with a number of other historic creeds. A collection of these confessions would then be regarded as “the symbolical book of the church.” (See also the editorial on page 24.)

Thus far, the text of the proposed document has not been made public. A draft has been shared with United Presbyterian seminary faculties and other select groups, and this exposure has already aroused considerable controversy. United Presbyterian leaders are understood to have given the statement their blessing.

The new confession, if adopted, will considerably broaden and therefore alter the denomination’s theological rationale. Evangelicals contend privately that it would legitimize theological deviations that liberal and inclusivist churchmen have condoned and surreptitiously promoted for a number of years.

The document explicitly rejects the infallibility of the Scriptures and avoids reference to the Virgin Birth of Christ. It affirms a second coming of Christ but makes no mention of hell. Some of its observations skirt perilously close to syncretism, universalism, and pacifism.

The General Assembly will be asked to decide, not only on the content of the new confession, but on the question of the extent to which the church must subscribe to the proposed collection of creeds. The United Presbyterian Church requires creedal subscription only of its ordained ministers, who must now assent to “the system of doctrine in the Westminster Confession.”

Decidedly ecumenical, at the expense of conservatism, the new statement reflects a broad image of oneness rather than emphasizing distinctives. What few condemnations appear are reserved mostly for fundamentalist tenets. The statement assigns implicit priority to love and social responsibility but minimizes justice and individual initiative. The document singles out racial conflict, war, and poverty as conditions in our time “that threaten the humanity, if not the very existence, of man.” It blends principles and particulars, punctuated with equivocations; more than one critic complains that it makes ambiguity a virtue.

A 2,500-word preamble to the statement asserts there is historical precedent for the committee’s recommendations:

“Your committee is firmly persuaded that the original Reformed and Presbyterian approach to the writing of confessional statements was right. Therefore we are recommending that this procedure of building upon the past and adding what the present needs of the church require, be followed.”

The preamble describes the new creed as “a call to reconciliation in a divided world and a divided church, where nations, races, families, and individual lives are torn by strife and enmity. The statement is meant to summon the church to life in and for the world and is patterned upon the words of Paul, ‘God through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.’ ”

(The only other direct biblical reference in either the preamble or the confession is found at the conclusion of the statement, where the familiar benediction of Ephesians 3:20 is quoted.)

Tracing the use and effect of confessions in American religious history, the preamble laments that “the Westminster documents had come to have the character of timeless truth rather than the truth for the times.” It asserts that “such anti-Reformed and anti-Presbyterian movements as Dispensationalism, ultra-nationalism and racism found an entry into the Presbyterian Church because the three hundred year old Westminster documents provided no barriers adequate to deal with these new heresies.”

The special committee that drafted the statement was composed originally of four theologians, four biblical scholars, four pastors, two historians, and four specialists in philosophy and ethics. Dr. Edward A. Dowey, Jr., a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, is chairman.

Two members of the original committee have resigned: Dr. Addison Leitch and Dr. David Reed. Two others, Dr. John Mackay, retired president of Princeton, and Dr. Ernest Wright, have not recently been active in committee deliberations.

Highlights

Here are significant excerpts from a draft of the proposed new statement of faith for United Presbyterians:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This confession of faith is the foundation of any Christian statement about God, man, or the world.

On Jesus Christ:

In Jesus of Nazareth the omnipotent God entered human flesh to accomplish the reconciliation of men.

Jesus lived among sinners and called them his brothers. He shared with them the temptation and suffering that trap other men into bondage to sin, yet he sought the will of God and lived in perfect obedience to him. He was truly man as God intends man to be.

On Christ’s role:

In the cross of Jesus God took upon himself the judgment under which all men stand convicted.… The resurrection of Jesus is the promise of forgiveness and of life for all men, not just as a future hope but as eternal life in the present. To refuse life in the risen Lord is to remain separated from God in death.

The promise of Christ’s return opens the prospect of a final resolution of the issues of reconciliation and so discloses the ultimate seriousness of life. All who put their trust in Christ may look to that judgment without fear, for the Judge is their Redeemer.

… The statement that Jesus Christ is “very God and very man” is intended by Christians today, as long ago, to affirm the uniqueness and the mystery of God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ.

On God:

The mystery of God’s being, of his acts, and of his love is beyond the grasp of man’s mind; human thought at its best can ascribe to God mere superlatives of power, wisdom, and goodness.… To praise God as Creator and Lord of all is to affirm that his purpose prevails despite sin and evil and will triumph in all things visible and invisible throughout eternity. This affirmation is not intended to answer questions about the origin of matter or of species. Rather it is to acknowledge God’s goodness to man.…

On the Holy Spirit:

… the source of life and the bond of love and unity in all things.

The reconciling work of Jesus is the supreme crisis in human history, for his cross pronounces judgment on man’s sin. The cross becomes personal judgment and present crisis through the power of the Spirit when the gospel is proclaimed and heard.… The Spirit provides nurture and direction for the new life in preaching and prayer, in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in the discipline and community of the Christian community, and in opportunities to witness and to serve.

The Spirit not only gives direction but leads into action.… Although members of the body of Christ are emissaries of peace they do not escape struggle. They contend with powers and authorities in the realm of politics, economics, and culture.

On the Bible:

The one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ, the Word of God, to whom the Holy Spirit bears witness. The church has received the Old and New Testaments as the unique and normative witness to God’s Word, and has set them apart from other writings as Holy Scripture.… The Bible should be interpreted in terms of the over-all pattern and purpose of revelation rather than under the control of particular details. The human character of its writings requires for their understanding that all resources of literary and historical scholarship be used with complete integrity.

The sufficiency of the Bible does not depend upon the certainty with which its various authors can be identified. Neither is it derived from regarding the Bible as a book of inerrant and infallible formulations.…

On the Church:

The body of Christ is one, but its oneness is hidden and distorted by the struggles and enmities that persist in the church as they do in the world. Thus the church appears in many divisions and forms.… Nonetheless the church is one body in a unity yet to be disclosed.

On other religions:

As a human phenomenon the Christian religion may benefit from the wisdom of other religions, as well as from secular institutions and movements.

On mission:

Each Christian participates in the mission of the church by the quality and spirit of his relations with other persons and the work he does in the world. His participation may take the form of telling his neighbor of God’s forgiveness; of personal help or shared concern; it may prompt him to resist an unjust law or government, a selfish pressure group, or an irresponsible employer. He may be led to change vocation or party, or even to break with the system altogether and rebel against constituted authority.…

The church is often called to proclaim the Word of God directly with reference to a particular evil.…

On sin:

The reconciling act of God in Jesus Christ exposes the radical meaning of what men already know as evil.… In his pride man declares his independence from God, and so loses his freedom.… Sin divides man within himself and puts him at enmity with his neighbor.… Because God’s love jealously resists all that denies and opposes it, sinful man experiences that love as all-consuming wrath. God’s wrath and Law are always expressions of his love. By revealing to man the seriousness of his rejection of Christ, God leads him to repentance and bestows upon him the gift of forgiveness.

On race:

The Christian community works for the removal of physical, legal, and psychological barriers between races. The mission of the church in this regard is to assist people of different racial origins to know and enjoy each other as persons so that they may live and work together in all levels of common life. When some persons are led across racial lines into the intimacy of courtship and marriage they should not find themselves therefore rejected but rather supported by the church.

On war:

… The church can neither seek to protect partisan interests nor to hold itself apart from them. It is constrained by Christ to expose the relativity of all human conflict and the lie that lurks in all hypocrisy, and to bring support to such policies and institutions as promote justice and preserve peace within and between nations.… Those who reject conscientiously all participation related to war ought not to find themselves for this reason forsaken by the church.

On poverty:

Men and nations blessed with material prosperity and scientific leadership are under the law of Christ constrained to share from the abundance they have received whatever will protect the human dignity of people in need, and will help them make more effective use of their own talents and resources. The church’s mission in this regard is to induce men of good will to make it possible for all men to engage in such dignified labor as will enable them to enjoy the material things of this life.

From Warring To Wooing

Some startling developments in the fast-moving Second Vatican Council have made it plain that the Roman Catholic Church seriously seeks Orthodox-Protestant-Roman Catholic unity.

Perhaps the most surprising decision to come out of the stepped-up meetings in Rome was one permitting Roman Catholics under “special circumstances” to say prayers with their Protestant “separated brethren.” Sacramental services are explicitly excluded, but the definition of what constitutes “special circumstances” under which common worship is permissible was left to bishops.

In Boston this month Archbishop Richard Cardinal Cushing made it clear that such circumstances need not be a personal crisis or a national calamity. Referring to a complimentary editorial, “Bravo Billy,” printed in the archdiocesan newspaper when Graham held his 1950 crusade in Boston, Cushing said, “I am 100 per cent for Dr. Graham, and if I were to rewrite the article in the Pilot now I would go right out and encourage all Catholic people to attend the meetings.”

Cushing was as good as his word. He urged Roman Catholic youth and college students to attend the Graham meetings that were then in progress in Boston, because, he said, “his message is one of Christ crucified and no Catholic can do anything but become a better Catholic from hearing him.” The Archbishop said Catholics “have everything to gain by going.”

After Cushing and Graham had conversed for forty-five minutes in front of newsmen and TV cameras, the Archbishop told the evangelist:

“I’ve never known of a religious crusade that was more effective than yours. I’ve never heard the slightest criticism of anything Dr. Graham has ever said from any Catholic source.” And, Cushing added, “I only wish that we had a half dozen men of his character to go forth and preach Christ crucified as he does.” Evangelical Christians could hardly have written a better testimony if they had had the opportunity to write a script for the Archbishop.

If formal discussions of church unity ever occur between the forces of evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism, evangelicals will doubtless offer stiffer resistance to some elements in Catholicism than will their more liberal brethren. Yet evangelicals will also find that on many fundamentals they are much closer to Rome than to liberal Protestantism. In responding to Cushing’s comments, Graham said, “I feel much closer to Roman Catholic traditions than to some of the more liberal Protestants.”¹

Another sign of change is the often-repeated affirmation that the Bible is a “common heritage.” Beginning in January, Roman Catholics in Great Britain will be able to use a New Testament that is adapted from the Protestant Revised Standard Version. Earlier this month Bishop John van Dodewaard of the Netherlands told Vatican Council fathers that translations of the Bible into modern languages “should be done with separated brethren.”

It has been said that the Roman church has suddenly opened out to the world. Evangelicals will find it even more exciting that the Roman church has opened itself to the Bible. Now, they may say, anything can happen.

The most dramatic sign of change and renewal within the Roman Catholic mind is the inclusion of Martin Luther’s hymn. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” in a new Roman Catholic hymnal, “The People’s Mass Book.” The volume in which the famous hymn of the Reformation appears bears the official imprimatur of Auxiliary Bishop Paul L. Leibold of Cincinnati. Some observers conclude that when Roman Catholics and Protestants can join in singing what was the battle hymn of the Reformation, then the claim may well be true that the Counter-Reformation is finally over. The most superficial interpretation is that Rome is wooing, not warring on, Protestantism.

Informed Protestants realize that no change that has occurred thus far in the Roman Catholic Church constitutes a change in basic position. Nor does Rome hold up such a hope. Roman Catholics are also “fundamentalists,” who hold doggedly to the unchangeability of Christian doctrine. Cardinal Bea has put it bluntly: “There can be no question of seeking a compromise on dogma, no divinely revealed doctrine.”

There remain, then, what seem immovable roadblocks to total unity. Among them are what Protestants call Mariolatry and Catholics, Mariology, and papal infallibility. Protestants are also taking a long look at the council’s decision of episcopal collegialily, according to which bishops share fully in the total authority of the church, which is to say with the pope, who nonetheless is described as primate of the Roman church. No matter from which end one views this doctrine, the other end always appears to be larger.

A German Groundswell

While the Bultmannian empire in Germany has been shaken from within by a lack of theological and methodological agreement, it has also been assailed from without by those who find its existentialist theology irrelevant and its impetus to evangelism in arrears. Last month, as if to document this groundswell of religious protest, a three-week series of evangelistic meetings was conducted by the Janz Brothers Gospel Association in the picturesque West German town of Biedenkopf within the shadow of Marburg University and the vacant Bultmannian throne.

To Canadian-born evangelists Leo and Adolf Janz, soloist Hildor Janz, and the other members of their diversified evangelistic team, the problems of crusade evangelism in Germany are largely the problems of the state church itself, which dominates 95 per cent of the religious life of the German people. Weakened by decades of Bultmannian theology with its philosophical pre-commitments and a heavy dosage of extreme biblical criticism, many pastors have lost faith in the ability of the Bible to speak to laymen and are themselves many times uncommitted to the ruling doctrines of Reformed, Protestant theology. At an organization meeting that preceded the Marburg-Biedenkopf crusade, many of the 140 pastors and religious leaders who attended voiced objections to Leo Janz’s nightly call to decision, termed by one state pastor a threat to “the decision which is the step of God toward me in Jesus Christ.” Objection was made also to the Scripture-centered counselor-training program, which many pastors with their own heavy dependence upon higher criticism of the Scriptures and formal theology are reluctant to endorse.

To the members of the Janz team, such opposition is vigorously overthrown by the enthusiasm of consecrated laymen that has greeted the evangelists in crusades at Zurich, Munich, Hamburg, Basel, Mainz, and Augsburg over the past few years. “Preach the Gospel so that the layman can understand the message,” admonished the editor of the Hinterlaender Anzeiger at the Biedenkopf crusade. “Not even Hitler could have managed to gather such crowds to this place,” declared one alderman as he watched the people gather from remote areas of the Westerwald, many in colorful national dress. At Biedenkopf closely knit participation by several state churches, the Evangelical Gemeindeschaft, the Marburger Deaconesses, and the Evangelical Free Church kept attendance close to 5,000 nightly.

As the Janz organization enters its ninth year of work in German-speaking Europe, it is furthering an effort that has grown greatly since its beginnings in 1955. Three weekly gospel broadcasts from Radio Luxembourg now blanket East and West Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Austria. Two periodicals, Ruf zur Entscheidung (Call to Decision) and Crusade for Christ, now circulate to German- and English-speaking readers. And a department of Sunday school promotion is now making adapted Scripture Press material available to churches that have never experienced departmentalized Christian education for all age levels and have until now relied largely upon rote learning in catechetical and pre-catechetical classes.

The Janz brothers do not expect criticism from theological quarters to cease. They are accustomed to objections to evangelization in general, such as that by one state pastor, “Whether I am a Christian, a heathen or a Hottentot, I am one who is loved by God and brought home to him in Jesus; thus far is God the father of all men and not only of the Christian, as Leo Janz maintains.”

But there is no indication that Leo and Hildor Janz intend to change their message. “A man is saved,” the evangelists reply, “not by baptism, nor by membership in the church, but by a personal and genuine conversion to Jesus Christ.”

Supreme Court Review

Of the some 100 cases the U. S. Supreme Court is expected to review during its 1964–65 term, a number involve questions of religion, morals, and ethics.

The court opened its new session October 5, confronted with two crucial tests involving the public accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It broke precedent by hearing cases on opening day, an indication of the importance the court attached to the cases that were before it.

In all, more than 1,000 appeals have been filed, running the gamut from cases involving millions of dollars or involving the entire nation to hand-scrawled pleas from prison inmates.

One that has religious overtones and involves the entire nation is an appeal by Mrs. Madalyn Murray, the professed atheist who was also an appellant in the prayer ruling of 1963. Mrs. Murray holds that the words “under God” may not be included in the Pledge of Allegiance as used in public school classrooms. She regards the reference, appended to the Pledge by Congress in the mid-fifties, as “offensive” because her children, she says, do not profess a belief in God.

A similar but more restricted case centers on whether persons must profess belief in God before they can qualify for draft exemptions as conscientious objectors. Central to the issue is whether religious precepts alone are the criteria on which a decision is to be made.

An appeal from Connecticut seeks to have a state law declared unconstitutional that forbids use of contraceptives and penalizes medical authorities and Planned Parenthood officials who prescribe or advise clients in matters involving birth control. Appellants contend they cannot give what they consider the best medical advice so long as the Connecticut law is enforced.

The question of movie censorship comes up in an appeal from Maryland, where law requires that motion pictures be submitted to a state board before they can be shown publicly.

A question involving race centers on state laws against intermarriage of whites and Negroes and is also expected to be ruled on by the court during the current term.

- More from James Daane and James Boice

About This Issue: October 23, 1964

Our “Reformation” issue features the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church as seen from five Protestant perspectives. In addition, Dr. Roger Nicole presents a study of Calvin’s all-compelling view of the sovereignty of God. A converted Roman Catholic priest, Charles A. Bolton, discusses the pan-deist movement in the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

A special report on the proposed new United Presbyterian confession begins on page 38. A related editorial appears on page 24.

Books

Book Briefs: October 23, 1964

Like A Motherless Child

Centers of Christian Renewal, by Donald G. Bloesch (United Church Press, 1964, 173 pp., $3), is reviewed by Hugh A. Koops, professor of church history, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.

Donald Bloesch has prepared a fine introduction to the evangelical communities that are urging the Church to re-examine her witness in the contemporary world. He defines these communities as “group(s) of persons who are concerned with the renewal of evangelical Christianity and who seek to contribute towards this renewal by living the common life under a common discipline,” and he selects as representative evangelical communities the following eight: Lee Abbey and St. Julian’s in England, Koinonia Farm and Bethany Fellowship in the United States, The Community of Taizé in France, the Agape Community in Italy, the Iona Community in Scotland, and the Ecumenical Sisterhood of Mary in Germany. Denominational as well as geographical representation is widespread, including Anglicans and Southern Baptists, Reformed and Lutheran members. In spite of the fact that these communities vary greatly in size, conditions for membership, rigor of discipline, and nature of worship, all attempt to function as “lighthouses” that speak prophetically to the Church in a ministry to the world.

This book is meant to be a theological analysis rather than a historical or sociological study of these evangelical communities. The structure and the scope of the work, however, preclude a thorough theological critique. Each community is taken in turn, and little opportunity is left for theological analysis after the author has presented the introductory descriptive material. Thus the theological analysis is consistently suggestive but modest. It is generally limited to the theological views of these communities as expressed by their leaders in the community publications. These beliefs may, but also may not, be determinative of the impact the communities are making upon the understanding of the responsibility of the Church in our day. We await a theological analysis of the evangelical communities; we appreciate the commendable introduction to the history and theology of these communities which the author has here made available.

The author underscores the major problem of the evangelical communities: the maintenance of a communicative relationship with the institutional church. The prophetic voice of these communities can be but dimly heard when the distance between the communities and the Church increases. It is regrettable that this distance seems to be greater in America than in Europe. It is the two American communities that were forced to organize apart from the institutional church. Has the historically experimental American church begun to “jell” or “set”? Has commercial success made it impossible for the American church to attend to a plea for more devoted discipleship or meaningful worship? Has success, which spoiled Rock Hunter, now spoiled the Church?

The tentative and experimental steps of devoted Christians on the “new frontier” of the Church have received serious treatment in this study. No longer can the Church play the role of benevolent uncle or outraged father toward these evangelical communities. These are our offspring! We do well to examine carefully the criticism of our discipline in the past and the challenge to our expectation for the future which the evangelical communities bring to us.

HUGH A. KOOPS

Keswick As It Is

The Keswick Story: The Authorized History of the Keswick Convention, by J. C. Pollock (Hodder & Stoughton, 1964, 192 pp., 16s; also Moody, $2.95), is reviewed by J. D. Douglas, British editorial director, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Each year in July, several thousand Christians spend a week in the little town of Keswick in England’s Lakeland. They represent many different Protestant denominations, but differences are forgotten at a convention “for the deepening of spiritual life.” In this official history, John Pollock tells in his own racy effective way how it all began in 1875 and how it has continued down the years, with special emphasis on the personalities chiefly involved in it. One single page, for example, recounts how the movement initially caused a difference of opinion between the Presbyterian brothers Andrew and Horatius Bonar, elicited cautious approval from the great Congregationalist leader R. W. Dale of Birmingham, and had the enthusiastic support of Henry Wace, Dean of Canterbury. Times have changed since then (so have deans of Canterbury), but the Keswick Convention now approaches its ninetieth year with the same concern for personal holiness.

In the course of his characteristically thorough preparation Mr. Pollock has been given every facility by the Keswick Council, whose chairman, the Rev. A. T. Houghton, acknowledges in a foreword that here is a candid history that “does not cover up the failings of those whom God has used in the leadership of the Convention.” A refreshing objectivity is evident throughout this account of a movement that has contributed so significantly to evangelical life in Britain and beyond.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Learning At A Humble School

The Mind of Paul VI: Addresses of Cardinal Montini, edited by James Walsh, S. J. (Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1964, 267 pp., 12s, 6d), is reviewed by A. J. Maclean, minister, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Rome, Italy.

The title invites comparison with the Pauline ideal, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” On page 192, in his reflections on modern industry, the writer strengthens the invitation when he says, “It is almost like thinking with the mind of God.” We may well ask, How near does the thought of him who now claims to be Christ’s vicar come to the mind of the Master in the Gospels?

The book is marked by a high standard of sensitive writing through which a gracious gentleness and a firm love of truth reach the reader. When the writer is defining what the church is, in the first section, the thought is arresting in its nobility and alive with beautiful metaphors, “like light over a desk.” Light is clearly shining, especially in the chapters on Christmas and the Epiphany, with their emphasis on unity and universality. The passage on page 21, “Let us love those near by and those afar,” has the quality of First Corinthians 13. Here we have pure religion expressed, as the author says, with a feeling for poetry and prayer.

A wide knowledge of modern philosophy and patriarchal thought is brought to bear in the second section on “the world of today as it spins on its giddy course devoid of the central axis of security, order and peace.” An accurate and helpful analysis of modern life, much of it based on Italy today, where “we must recognize that the number of those [Catholics] not practicing far exceeds those who do practice” (p. 28), gives the impression that the height is being left for the plain. In an effort to confront humanism, existentialism, and materialism with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, the contamination feared earlier (p. 26) of “those who immerse themselves in the ideas of others … who exchange their priest’s cassock for a workman’s overall” delicately draws away this section from the mind of the Master. We finish up “in the hospital of the sick humanity” more certain of the diagnosis than the treatment towards a cure.

The cure applied in the third section reflects the mind of the Catholic Church, with pre-eminence given to assistance at Mass. But the modern evangelical awakening within the Roman church is clearly stated. “He comes to those who learn at a humble school—the School of the Gospels to which we must return” (p. 154). Throughout the book it is clear that the writer is equally at home in the Bible and in papal bulls and edicts. This is essentially a section from which Catholics will draw more benefit than others.

The final short section on “The Council, The Church and the World” ties up many references to Christian unity; but as it mainly outlines the doctrinal and constitutional basis of the councils of the church and the position of the pope with regard to them, it is not of much general interest. The passage on page 225 in which the writer says that “Rome is the City of Christ.… The human city will be transmuted into a city of God. Rome will become Jerusalem,” reveals an extravagant idealism that removes this section more than any other from the mind of the Master. In fact, in this section it is clear beyond doubt that whereas Pope John was careful to present the Good Shepherd, “the restorer of human salvation, Jesus Christ,” Pope Paul is more concerned with the fold and with Catholic conditions of re-entry, through the open door, into Christian unity as he conceives it.

Altogether it is a finely arranged selection of addresses, revealing consistency of Catholic thought in front of all problems of the modern world. Behind the imposing structure of the church, her dogmas, and her ritual, there is a certainty of Christian interpretation that many in these days will find increasingly difficult to accept. And there is also a policy toward Christian unity that must undergo radical change if we are to give, as Pope John said, “value, splendour and substance once again to the human and Christian thought of which the Church has been the depository through the centuries.

A. J. MACLEAN

Lutherans Seek A Solution

Church and State Under God, edited by Albert G. Huegli (Concordia, 1964, 516 pp., $8), is reviewed by William A. Mueller, professor of church history, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.

A group of competent theologians, historians, educators, and jurists who have worked under the auspices of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod since 1955 here present a comprehensive analysis of the ever-crucial church-state problem.

Because of the complexity of the problem and radically changed conditions, the writers sense that today we face unheard-of conditions in church-state relations. Yet they assert with candor that the “essence of the question as to how church and state must live and work together is clearly set forth in the Word of God.”

Reading Perspective

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

● Harfier Study Bible, Revised Standard Version, edited by Harold Lindsell (Harper & Row, $9.95). A serviceable study Bible that is soundly evangelical; complete with outlines, introductions, annotations, marginal references, index, concordance, and maps.

● Jesus and the Kingdom, by George Eldon (Harpcr & Row, $5). A recognized New Testament scholar discusses the concept of the Kingdom within the context of current studies, giving special attention to the role of apocalyptic literature.

● Servant of God’s Servants: The Work of a Christian Minister, by Paul M. Miller (Herald, $4.50). A sober analysis of the task of the ministcr that sees him as more than a religious chore-boy and says many needed things often left unsaid.

The Christian, according to chapter 1, recognizes that both church and state are ordained by God. The church, under the Lordship of Christ, is the fellowship of believers and an instrument of God’s redemptive purpose. The state, though ordered of God, has temporal ends, i.e., justice and human welfare. Christians serve the state under God, intercede for it, show it respect and obedience, and act as its conscience. They are ever aware of the possibility of the demonic perversion and abuse of power in both church and state.

Professor Spitz, with theological depth and historical acumen, details the impact of the Reformation on church-state issues. Luther’s concept of church and state stands out in bold relief. The Reformer, often accused of a servile attitude toward rulers, emerges as a courageous critic of princely pelf and power, as do Zwingli and Calvin in the Reformed tradition. Spitz wisely concludes that in the long run the Reformation made a decisive contribution to the growth of representative government, even though that was not its primary concern. Luther’s clear distinction between churchly and state power, Calvin’s constitutionalism, the Anabaptist insistence on voluntarism, and Roger Williams’s grounding of liberty in predestinationist thinking—these, with the Reformers’ vigorous emphasis on God’s sovereignty, put rulers in their place. Historic developments in the British Isles, in Colonial America, and during the Enlightenment made way for the overthrow of absolutism in government and the emergence of free churches in a free state.

The remaining chapters, dealing with post-Reformation theological expressions of the church-state issue in Spain, France, England, and America, are instructive. C. F. W. Walther, an early nineteenth-century leader of Missouri Lutherans who was at odds with the basic assumptions of American political philosophy, argued strongly for separation of church and state. Bishop Eivind Berggrav (1884–1959) of Norway was a modern Lutheran churchman who, under Nazi pressures, rose up against unjust and perverted secular authority in the name of the Christian conscience.

Professor Carl S. Meyer’s treatment of the “Development of the American Pattern” is very illuminating, showing the constant interaction between church and state since colonial times. The constitutional enactments bearing on non-establishment; the struggle for complete religious liberty after 1776, with Baptists among the outstanding advocates of this tenet; the formation of independent churches in friendly relation to the American government; the attempts to mold America into a Christian community; the veiled and open messianism that often (and to this very hour) tends to identify the Kingdom of God with the American Dream; the growth of Roman Catholicism in the United States and the attendant complications of church-state relations; the emergence of public education in the first half of the nineteenth century—these are all discussed in their wide-ranging complexity.

In the final chapter the editor, Albert G. Huegli, discusses “New Dimensions in Church-State Relations.” With the rise of totalitarian regimes, new questions are posed in an area where tension and conflict will never be completely overcome. For Christians, loyalty to Jesus Christ is uppermost. In a pluralistic society they must be in continuous dialogue with those of other persuasions. In the Christian view, Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed are in basic agreement that both church and state are instruments of God. A renewed study of Holy Writ, an openness to new truth will help Christians to find creative solutions and adjustments for the problems that arise between churches and their governments.

WILLIAM A. MUELLER

Holy Worldliness

The Congregation in Mission, by George W. Webber (Abingdon, 1964, 208 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Robert H. Stephens, pastor, Central Presbyterian Church, Summit, New Jersey.

What might happen if the life of a Christian congregation were organized around Bible study—not the perfunctory pattern of pastor expounding the obvious to the elect circle of the pious, but a bringing of the whole church into serious wrestling (in small groups) with the Living Word? This is the heart of The Congregation in Mission, and in chapter 4 (“The Living Covenant”) Dr. Webber tells how this type of Bible study was developed as the heartbeat of parish life in the East Harlem Protestant parish where he is one of the ministers.

His aim in this book is to analyze the shape of the urban culture in which people live today, to examine the significant failures of present church life, and, through listening to both the Gospel and the realities of the world, to attempt to discover what the shape of the Church must be in our time. Some of his conclusions may be disturbing, some may seem far out; but no one can fail to be stimulated and prodded by his questing. He writes from the viewpoint of the inner city; but “the facts of history demonstrate that we live in an urban world,” and his insights could help us in suburbia and elsewhere to some critical, creative questing.

The chapters on “The Challenge of the City” and “The Church and the City” point up much of what we have been hearing in this field. “The Emerging Theological Consensus” is a helpful survey of relevant theology. Webber suggests “politics” as the “unifying concept that would make clear the relation between the church and the world, between God and his creation”—not politics as we commonly use the word, but politics meaning “the art of making and keeping men truly human,” a definition deriving from Aristotle. “This is precisely what the Christian faith is all about. God, the Christian confesses, is at work in the world to redeem men, to restore them to their true humanity, and to maintain them in this relationship” (p. 49).

The author would set worship at the heart of congregational life, and Holy Communion at the heart of worship. The Christian “ ‘style of life’ will not focus primarily on a new piety, but on preparation for witness and service in a world which has rejected God,” a style of life that may be termed “holy worldliness.” Thus the gathered life of the church will center around two foci: corporate worship and cellular units, the latter involved in Bible study, in developing a laity prepared for dispersion into the world.

It is hard for this reviewer to accept Webber’s views of evangelism (pp. 160 ff.), but they should be pondered as the views of a dedicated man who is spending his life in the world’s hardest mission field, the inner city.

This is an excellent book, lucidly written, enriching, disturbing, stimulating. From it could be born creative renewal of congregational life. It deserves wide reading.

ROBERT H. STEPHENS

For Directors Of Music

Twentieth Century Church Music, by Erik Routley (Oxford, 1964, 244 pp., $5), is reviewed by Robert Elmore, organist, Central Moravian Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

This book is a splendid survey of church music from the beginning of the century up to the present. It is written largely from the British viewpoint, and since much of our church music derives from England, this is not necessarily detrimental. The author does, however, omit much that could be said about American church music.

Beginning with Queen Victoria’s funeral and citing the repertoire for that solemn occasion as indicative of the best church music of the time, Routley moves into the reconstruction begun by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. A very perceptive analysis of the reforms instituted by these composers gives background for later trends in this century.

American readers will be particularly interested in Mr. Routley’s insight into the music of Benjamin Britten, whose genius is as admired here as in his native Britain. The author points out that all of Britten’s church works have been written for specific occasions in particular churches, and that all have become classics. The necessity of writing for definite combinations of voices and instruments in certain acoustical situations has refined the composer’s craft and raised his technical competence to the level of genius. One is reminded of the fact that no less a composer than Bach wrote music for specific occasions, most of which has endured and become classic.

American organists will welcome the author’s discussion of contemporary organ music. His treatment of Messaien, highly favored in this country at present, is particularly perceptive and penetrating.

His remarks on light music in church and particularly on “evangelistic ‘pop’ ” are worth the price of the volume. For a writer of his scholarship and background, he is surprisingly gentle in his discussion of the gospel hymn, pointing out that it is not necessarily “bad” music. He does make the statement that this music is entirely unoriginal “in the sense of owing everything to the musical tradition that surrounds it.” His strongest statement about this music is: “The great error was in presenting the Christian faith as something whose image in music was the second-rate and second-hand.” Many of us would say “Amen!” to this.

This, then, is a book for the serious church musican who is interested in and concerned about church music and has the welfare of music in the service close to his heart.

ROBERT ELMORE

The Nature Of Truth

A Philosophical Study of Religion, by David Hugh Freeman (Craig Press [Box 13, Nutley, N. J.], 1964, 267 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, professor of philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Titles similar to this cover so much ground that a reader unaware of what a particular book includes and omits could easily and unjustly be disappointed. This volume has a minimum on the classical proofs of God’s existence: twenty pages cover Anselm, Aquinas, Hume, and Kant.

On the other hand, well-written sections on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism provide, not only interesting information to Westerners who know little of the East, but also philosophic contrasts with Christianity that might not otherwise be so clearly noted.

The main philosophic content of the book deals with the definition of religion, the problem of revelation, and, in two solid chapters, the most pertinent modern objections to revealed religion. It is quite clear that the author does not reduce religious language to Ayer’s unverifiable nonsense; nor does he attempt to develop the concept of God out of sensory images, as Mascall does; nor will he allow the gullible college student to rest at ease in a superficial scientism. Positively he argues that God has revealed information that can he rationally understood, with which a philosophy of religion must deal, and without which a true religion cannot exist.

GORDON H. CLARK

Book Briefs

Parish Back Talk, by Browne Barr (Abingdon, 1964, 128 pp., $2.50). The Lyman Beecher Lectures in which a minister replies to the critics of the local church.

A Concise History of Church Music, by William C. Rice (Abingdon, 1964, 128 pp., $2.50.) A non-technical discussion of the most important persons and events, representative compositions, instruments, and musical forms in church music from its earliest beginnings. Arranged according to historical periods. Contains a bibliography of additional readings. A handy, indexed reference for busy pastors and laymen.

More Southern Baptist Preaching, compiled and edited by H. C. Brown, Jr. (Broadman, 1964, 165 pp., $2.95). Eighteen Southern Baptist leaders contribute sermons and helpfully describe their methods of sermon preparation.

Her Best for the Master: Selected Poems of Martha Snell Nicholson, compiled by F. J. Wiens (Moody, 1964, 96 pp., $1.95). Particularly good for sick people.

Bible Key Words, Vol. IV, from Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, by Gerhard Kittel (Harper & Row, 1964, 296 pp., $4.50). A one-volume edition containing two “books”: Law, by Hermann Kleinknecht and W. Gutbrod, and Wrath, by Hermann Kleinknecht, J. Fichtner, G. Stählin, and others.

Open Letter to Evangelicals, by R. E. O. White (Eerdmans, 1964, 256 pp., $4.95). A devotional and homiletic commentary on the First Epistle of John.

Memories of Congo, by J. Hershey Longenecker (Royal Publishers, 1964, 159 pp., $2.95). A biographical account of the missionary-author’s thirty-three years in the Congo.

The First Amendment: Religious Freedom in America from Colonial Days to the School Prayer Controversy, by William H. Marnell (Doubleday, 1964, 247 pp., $4.50). An examination of religious freedom in America by a man who believes the First Amendment does not support the recent Supreme Court decisions on prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.

Many But One: The Ecumenics of Charity, by J. H. Jackson (Sheed & Ward, 1964, 211 pp., $4.50).

The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order: The Report from Montreal 1963, by P. C. Rodger and Lukas Vischer (Association, 1964, 127 pp., $3.95).

Why Not Just Be Christians?, by Vance Havner (Revell, 1964, 128 pp., $2.50). Popular, punchy sermonettes.

Four Northern Lights: Men Who Shaped Scandinavian Churches, by G. Everett Arden (Augsburg, 1964, 165 pp., $3.75).

Hymns of Our Faith: A Handbook for the Baptist Hymnal, by William J. Reynolds (Broadman, 1964, 452 pp., $6). Background information on 554 hymns and tunes, with biographical material on their authors and composers.

Jonah, His Life, Character and Mission, by Patrick Fairbairn (Kregel, 1963, 237 pp., $3.50).

Church and State in the United States, by Anson Phelps Stokes and Leo Pfeffer (Harper & Row, 1964, 660 pp., $12.50). A one-volume abridgment and revision of the definitive three-volume classic, with special attention to the most recent developments in church-and-state relations. Includes substantial additions on public education and a summary of all major court decisions and critical issues.

Unfinished Business, by Maisie Ward (Sheed & Ward, 1964, 374 pp., $5.95). The interesting autobiography of Mrs. Frank Sheed of Sheed & Ward; a competent writing that throws light on the world of her threescore and fifteen years.

Evangelicals and Ecclesiastical Tradition

Ecclesiastical tradition has in recent years become an increasingly important element in theological discussions and in the thinking of most Christians. One of the sections at last year’s World Conference on Faith and Order in Montreal devoted itself entirely to the attitude of the Church toward tradition and to the relation of tradition to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Furthermore, in the current dialogue about church union, ecclesiastical tradition looms large, particularly when the contemplated amalgamations affect denominations of markedly different traditions. In this situation, what attitude should evangelicals adopt to the question of historically rooted church tradition?

The evangelical identifies himself with the fundamental position of the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, who insisted upon “Scripture only” (sola scriptura) as the ultimate authority for faith and life. At any talk of tradition he becomes not only wary but even hostile. Tradition to him means corruption and infidelity that must be avoided like the plague. Yet, since he lives in the world of the 1960s he has to face the problem and try to see the situation in its reality. Is his flat denial of tradition proper, and is it in accord with the facts, even of his own Christian faith?

When one looks carefully at tradition, he soon discovers that even the most biblical Christians have a tradition. For instance, in August of 1963 a group of Christian scholars held a consultation at Winona Lake, Indiana, to consider the question of the evangelical Christian and war. Two traditions soon made their appearance, that of the Mennonites stemming from the sixteenth-century Anabaptist tradition, and that of the Reformed churches from the Calvinism of the same era. Listening to the arguments on both sides, one could hear Menno Simons or John Calvin speaking loudly. Yet one of the groups in particular kept disowning all tradition and charging the other with being “traditionalists.” The fact was that both followed a tradition in biblical exegesis, in systematic theological thinking, and in the application of doctrine, thus proving that even among evangelicals there is not just a tradition but a number of traditions.

In order to see why evangelicals have a tradition and traditions, one must go back to first principles. Generally speaking, evangelicals accept the Scriptures as the final authority for faith and action, and in this they all agree. Indeed, one might even speak at this point of an evangelical tradition. But evangelicals must go further, because the Scriptures do not apply specifically to every situation the Christian faces in life. Twentieth-century society technically, economically, and intellectually differs radically from that of both Old and New Testaments. How then may Christians apply biblical teaching in their own lives? They do so in light vouchsafed them by the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church into the truth of Scripture down through the ages.

Such a development of the understanding of Scripture is in fact the formulation of a tradition. Christian people have always lived in a specific social and cultural situation. But they still have had spiritual needs common to all believers throughout history, and to meet these needs they have had to turn to the Scriptures. Thus forced to study the Scriptures by external as well as internal problems, they have found it necessary to come to an understanding of what the Scriptures have to say to them in their existential situation. They have thereby discovered answers to what might be new problems or at least old problems in a new setting. But their discoveries have never been completely new, for their interpretation of Scripture has always reflected what Christians thought and wrote in earlier days.

Once they have determined what they believe to be the scriptural teaching concerning their problem, evangelical Christians have then endeavored to apply it. Calvin, for instance, believed that the newly developed national states should be Christianized, and so taught in Geneva. Konrad Grebel and other Anabaptists, on the contrary, maintained that the Bible called Christians out from human society to live apart according to the New Testament law of love. Therefore they separated themselves from the national state as much as possible. Both these positions became part of the beliefs of the respective groups that followed these sixteenth-century Reformers. And so each of these groups developed a tradition of exegesis, of philosophy, and even of political science. At the same time both insisted, as they do today, that their own tradition was correct.

This immediately raises the problem of the relativity of such traditions. The unbeliever scoffs: “If the Christians cannot agree on such things with their infallible Bible, how do they expect me to believe?” But at this point a distinction must be made between what is absolutely central, of the essence of the Christian faith, and what is not so close to the center. Consider, for example, the question of the person of Christ. This is indeed central; on it all evangelicals agree. They all hold that he was and is both God and man in one Person, although how this can be they accept as a mystery comprehensible only to God himself. Any denial of the Incarnation they would hold to be denial of a central doctrine stated in Scripture and handed down (tradition) through the Christian Church since the earliest days. Moreover, they would brand such denial as unchristian.

On the other hand, there are traditions relating to matters that, while important, yet remain on the periphery of the Christian faith. Upon these matters Christians may agree to disagree without denying one another’s membership in the body of Christ. Sometimes one finds it hard to define these peripheral matters, because what is to one believer peripheral may to another lie much closer to the center. Perhaps church-state relations and the form of civil government are in this category. Some may even hold that the form of church government or church worship belongs in this classification. At such points traditions may differ widely; even those holding the same basic faith in the Gospel may disagree, without finding it necessary to reject one another as unbelievers.

Thus, even though they may not admit it, evangelicals do hold traditions. Like all other human beings they are influenced by the history out of which they have come. To a large extent their history—i.e., their tradition—makes them what they are. From it they cannot escape. Their training as children and adolescents, whether by formal education or by the unconscious influence of their environment, indelibly stamps its design upon them—even if that design is a total rejection of all tradition in order to cling solely to the Scriptures. Tradition makes possible the understanding and application of the Bible after two thousand years of history and after transfer to a completely different social setting. Without tradition every Christian would have to begin to work out for himself the meaning of the biblical story anew—an impossible task.

Tradition must never be taken as infallible. The Holy Spirit has guided the Church throughout history in its understanding and application of biblical teaching, but he has never guaranteed to the Church absolute correctness in all matters. The Bible never speaks of an infallible Church. The visible church that interprets Scripture and forms the tradition consists of both regenerate and unregenerate, and even the regenerate are not perfect. Only Christ, the Lord of the Church, possesses infallibility, an attribute with which he has never endowed his Church.

Because of its own fallibility and because of the infallibility of its Lord, the Church has the obligation of continually measuring its tradition by his Word, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. In order that it may be true Christian tradition, tradition must be made to conform to the Bible. As new light breaks forth from the Word of God through new and deeper understandings of its teachings, so the Church must continually rethink and modify its tradition, aligning it with biblical teaching. In order to remain obedient to Christ, the Church may even need at times to reject a large part of its accumulated tradition. Such was the view of the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. Christ speaking by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures is the Lord and Judge of all ecclesiastical tradition.

Evangelicals cannot escape ecclesiastical tradition, for by God’s grace and the work of his Spirit, tradition enables them to understand their faith so that they may accept it and apply it to their own situation. But evangelicals must continually be critical of tradition—even of their own tradition. And their criticism cannot rest upon rationalistic principles that reduce everything to the level of man’s thinking. It must rather be critical in the light of the Scriptures. This may mean at times the throwing overboard of cherished customs and shibboleths, because in the light of a deeper understanding of the Scriptures these have been proved wrong. Thus neither the Church nor the Christian can ever say: “We have reached the ultimate in Christian truth and can now rest content.” Instead, they must continually dig deeper into the mine of God’s Word so that they may repeatedly reform their traditions and themselves in conformity to his sovereign will.

Ideas

High Time for a Confession?

In 1956 the Presbytery of Amarillo, Texas, overtured the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., asking that the Westminster Shorter Catechism be reworded on the ground that recent generations cannot understand it.

A year later the so-called Adams Committee named by the General Assembly abandoned this assignment, stating that such rewording would irritate Presbyterians who have learned and memorized the classic document and cherish its language. The Adams Committee proposed two alternatives: first, that a committee be named to write a historical introduction to the Shorter Catechism and to revise its biblical references, some of which are now scorned as “farfetched”; second, that a committee be named to draw up “a brief contemporary statement of faith” supplementary to the Westminster Standards as part of the church’s Constitution. This short modern “statement of faith,” the Adams Committee contended, “would bring to all members of our church some sense of participation in the thrilling revival of theology.” The committee on “a brief contemporary statement of faith” was named at the 1958 assembly that constituted the merged United Presbyterian Church.

But the 1958 committee soon sensed that the addition of any new document to the Presbyterian Constitution raises the delicate question of creedal subscription. Next May the “contemporary faith” committee will propose that the General Assembly alter the requirements of subscription concerning Scripture and the system of doctrine expounded in the Westminster Confession. The committee prizes confessional literature that does not involve any orderly system of doctrine, as does the Westminster Confession, which one of the committee’s church historians describes as “a miniature theological summa” but “not a Reformation document.” The committee insists that authentic confessions exist in a variety of forms, and that no one type is to be considered definitive. In the Barmen Declaration, drawn up by German churchmen in the 1930s against Nazi Socialism, the committee finds a precedent for a new confession operating within the general structure of older historic documents but restating the Word of God in its “modern meaning” in the face of a particular threat to the Church.

A wave of anxiety is already sweeping some United Presbyterian congregations. In the proposed expansion of their church Constitution they foresee doctrinal changes that will tend to move the denomination from its historic moorings, ultimately substitute a new authority, and gravely impair church unity. The addition of a “contemporary confession” is seen as the first step in a process whereby ecumenically minded churchmen are venturing to change the church’s historic Constitution, including its Confession of Faith and its Form of Government. They want to know what emergency in American church life requires the adoption of a new Presbyterian statement of faith at this time.

Those who fear an ecclesiastical maneuver to alter traditional Presbyterian standards consider the “contemporary confession” proposal variously motivated. For one thing, it would abet and approve the drift of denominational seminaries from historic Presbyterian theology. In the next place, it would provide a broader theological basis for future ecumenical merger. And it would also legitimize contemporary church practices that violate the Westminster Standards, including the hierarchy’s mounting involvement in politico-social activity.

The “contemporary confession” development is thus seen as conferring a denominational benediction upon trends and practices incompatible with the church’s Confession of Faith and its Constitution. The introduction and approval of elements in conflict with the historic standards might well initiate a movement that could lead to the ultimate replacement of the church’s present Constitution by another authoritative document.

Princeton Professor Edward A. Dowey, Jr., chairman of the eighteen-member committee assigned to draft the modern confession, told a Princeton Seminary Alumni Day gathering that the firm adherence of nineteenth-century American Presbyterianism to the Westminster Confession as irreformable was “perilously close” to the Roman Catholic view of the irreformability of papal definition. He deplored the reluctance to rethink Presbyterian theology and characterized as “the death of theological thought” the requirement once exacted from Presbyterian seminary professors that they teach nothing contrary to the Westminster Standards.

If seminary professors are not bound to uphold the theological tenets of their church, the requirement of creedal subscription cannot and will not long be imposed upon the clergy. Any “contemporary confession,” in these circumstances, can only serve to suggest the “dated” character of any and all confessions, and thus to imply the impermanence of theological beliefs.

It is remarkable that contemporary churchmen formulating modern statements take such an ultimately serious view of their own theological pronouncements while imputing to their denominational forebears a sense of exaggerated doctrinal authority. The ecumenical mood represents a flight from creeds and confessions as a test of truth. Professor Dowey told the Princeton audience that the theology formulated in the Westminster Confession cannot function in the present century and held out the alternative of doing “the best we can with a contemporary statement of faith.”

In the recent past, every proposal for a new Presbyterian confession has failed through the insistence that the Westminster documents represent an unsurpassable achievement. All pleas for a new confession have been silenced by the emphasis that the historic documents need only better interpretation and deeper loyalty. One spokesman for the “contemporary confession” committee has said his group will not venture to “repeal” the Westminster Confession but will honor it as “the great theological document of our tradition in the seventeenth century.” The committee proposes “a book of confessions”—from the Nicene Creed through the Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism, plus the Barmen Declaration and, of course, the new American Confession now in preparation. The entire series of creeds, confessions, and catechisms with the Barmen Declaration and the 1964 statement would be formally adopted by the church in the same manner. Yet the committee’s major premise is that the Westminster documents do not have the character of timeless truth but are to be read rather as truth for their times, and that latitude of interpretation must be allowed.

The proposed new statement expounds the meaning of redemption narrowed to the theme of “reconciliation” and is built largely around Second Corinthians 5:18. Its theological intention will be to launch the church more firmly into “the work of being a reconciled and reconciling community.” The tentative version begins with the man Jesus, not with the Bible or with Creation—and in this respect breaks with the Westminster Confession. It presents man’s sin against the background of God’s grace in Christ, but not of Creation and the fall of Adam. The doctrine of Creation is presented later under the exposition of God’s love. The doctrine of God is cast in a trinitarian pattern, but the emphasis is functional. The significance of the Bible, expounded under the treatment of the Holy Spirit, further departs from the Westminster Confession. Under the topic of the Spirit, the new life in Christ is expounded before the subject of Scripture. The draft declares that Jesus Christ is the Word of God and that “the church has received the Old and New Testaments as the unique and normative witness, as God’s Word, and has set them apart from other writings as Holy Scripture.” But there is no doctrine of biblical inspiration.

In the second half of the draft, two sections on the doctrine of redemption and reconciliation are frankly intended as a revision of the Westminster Standards. These changes spring from the modern ecclesiastical “post-Enlightenment” view of the Church as “the reconciling community.” Divine calling and reconciliation are correlated with the Church’s mission in the world as a reconciling community, and this mission is expounded in relation to all manner of social commitments. The Church’s task in social education and action is regarded as so comprehensive that, in the words of one interpreter of the new document, the “whole business of civil rights is the most trivial first step.” The document relates church action aggressively to the political resolution of poverty and to policy relating to international conflict.

For most Presbyterians the Scriptures and the Constitution of their church express the basis of all their religious hopes and spiritual expectations. Were Presbyterian leaders to veer from the Westminster documents in order to rely exclusively on the Scriptures in an age of ecumenical exploration, something could be said for such a move. Or changes in the confession to more modern English and the revision of biblical references no longer consistent with reverent contemporary scholarship may be needed. But the “contemporary confession” looks beyond both Scripture and the Westminster Standards to twentieth-century affirmations that are offered as Spirit-guided insights reflecting the spirit of modern ecumenism.

The Westminster Confession of Faith continues to be a scholarly theological achievement of gigantic proportions based squarely upon the Word of God. Many Presbyterians will regard this new statement as a departure from the doctrinal formulation upon which that great denomination was built and a justification of corporate ecclesiastical involvement in politico-social affairs. It is a matter for concern throughout the whole evangelical community that despite their great theological heritage, Presbyterians are increasingly divided over what their confession ought to be.

From One Generation To Another

The Church is confronted with a breakdown in the process of Christian training, evident in altered standards in the home and in the failure of many congregations to hold their young people during the transition to adulthood. Behind the blurring of values among youth today there lies widespread biblical illiteracy. This is therefore a time for a return to scriptural principles.

In his final address to the children of Israel, Moses declared: “Lay to heart all the words which I enjoin upon you this day, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no trifle for you, but it is your life …” (Deut. 32:46, 47, RSV). This same theme occurs in Psalm 78: “Tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders he has wrought” (v. 4, RSV).

We may look to God to reverse the present trend if the Church and Christian parents go back to faithful instruction in his Word. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps. 119:11) is still the principle on which a new generation must be trained. Yet a famine of the Word of God prevails among millions of our youth.

One generation is responsible to the next. Not to instruct children in the Scriptures is to withhold from them the food on which the growth of their souls depends.

Shattering The American Image

United States government efforts to create a favorable image abroad are often sadly undone by the personal behavior of American servicemen. Our image abroad ought at least to portray an America committed to decency. Yet that image is often shattered beyond recognition by servicemen who buy the gratification of their lust and debase the people they are there to help.

Reports of immoral behavior by American military men abroad have reached shocking proportions. The Rev. Ernst W. Karsten, former Army chaplain, and now director of the Lutheran Service Center in Seoul, finds a “frightening prevalence” of sexual immorality among American servicemen in South Korea. He reports that 90 per cent of the G.I.’s indulge “more or less frequently” in illicit sexuality. General Hamilton H. Howze, commander of American armed forces in South Korea, agrees with Karsten that immorality prevails among U. S. personnel, and says, “We are working continuously with the ROK [Republic of Korea] government in an effort to resolve it.” A Christian Reformed serviceman writes of the “constant bragging of fellow servicemen who have made promiscuity a pleasant habit.” “It is not uncommon,” he says, “to meet officers who proudly show pictures of their families in the States while a painted Korean whore hangs on an arm.”

Recourse to a prostitute by a lonely boy is a lapse soon regretted. But for some it has become a way of life. It is even a common practice for soldiers to “own” a girl. The Christian Reformed serviceman writes, “The soldier lives with his girl during his off-duty time.… When he leaves Korea, he ‘sells’ her to a newcomer. If he is broke, he may ‘rent’ her out to others. Under such circumstances, of course, venereal disease is as common as a cold in the head. Forty per cent of the troops serving in Korea during a year will get VD. A young boy may be horrified the first time this happens to him, but he is kidded out of his shock, and often becomes a repeater who never learns and ceases to care.”

According to William D. Carlsen, matters in Thailand seem much the same. Korat, its third largest city, has been transformed to meet the “needs” of U. S. service personnel. Korat formerly boasted one nightclub, “for the benefit of the Thai who had acquired an American education,” Carlsen remarks. “With the coming of the G. I.’s over 100 ‘Welcome and Joy’ nightclubs broke out all over town. Most of them are fronts for brothels.… My neighbor, a Thai public health nurse, told me her unit had as many as 4,000 girls under treatment at one time. What used to go on in back alleys has been brought out into public view by G. I.’s.” One U. S. military policeman told Carlsen the folks at home wouldn’t believe him if he told them “how depraved the men are.”

There are, of course, servicemen who withstand the combination of loneliness and the temptation of the “street flowers,” as Korea’s prostitutes are called. Happily they are helped by (an inadequate number of) U. S. chaplains, and by missionaries who digress from their task of evangelizing the natives to help America’s young men. Yet the over-all picture is depressing and frightening, not only for the “American image,” but also for the “Christian image.”

In Korat, Thailand, according to Carlsen, “Eighty per cent of the servicemen give some church affiliation but less than 15 per cent … are regular attendants at the camp chapel,” the only place they can hear the Gospel in English on a Sunday morning.

If the American churches consider their image in Korea and Thailand, they must surely ask themselves what they once taught these members, and what they are doing for them now.

Beyond Personalities

Few pulpit utterances of recent years have occasioned as much vigorous comment as the sermon of Dean Francis B. Sayre, Jr., at the National Cathedral (Episcopal) in Washington on September 13. In it he said that the selfish materialism of our society has led to “a sterile choice” in the Presidential campaign between “a man of dangerous ignorance and devastating uncertainty” and one “whose public house is splendid in every appearance but whose private lack of ethic must inevitably introduce termites at the very foundation.” And now from the perspective of several weeks and in the light of the election that is now only days away, some implications of the sermon may well stand re-examination.

Was the dean justified in speaking as he did? To raise the question should not cast doubt upon the right of the pulpit to speak out on politics as relating to religion and morality and the national welfare, provided always that legislation and specific candidates and political parties are not endorsed. It is simply to ask whether the dean spoke responsibly and in the authentic prophetic tradition that is an important element of a biblical ministry.

At the heart of that tradition there is a particularism characteristic of the Old Testament prophets. Elijah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and their fellow prophets criticized men in high places and named particular transgressions. But Dean Sayre condemned both candidates without presenting evidence. And although two weeks later he again spoke about the election, he offered no facts to support his earlier denigration of the nominees. Surely if ministers feel constrained to discuss morality in politics, they should do so prophetically and in conformity with the principle that a man is presumed innocent unless proved guilty.

The selfish materialism of our American society is indeed disturbing. It is without doubt reflected in politics. Nevertheless, the present campaign with all its ambiguities concerns great issues relating to integrity of administration, human rights, public welfare, national security, and world peace. Upon issues such as these the electorate must decide.

A Presidential contest, like all of human life, mirrors something beyond contemporary mores; it stands under the sovereignty of the God who works in the affairs of sinful men and, in judgment or blessing, carries forward his eternal purpose as he wills. It is to God alone that every public official as well as every private citizen is ultimately responsible.

Although a campaign for the highest office in the land is not a popularity contest, the personal qualifications of men who would assume the awful responsibility of the White House—and tragic experience demands the inclusion of Vice-Presidential candidates in this statement—must be taken with the utmost seriousness. At the same time there is the danger of so debating personal qualifications through ill-founded charges and counter-charges that some voters may stultify their citizenship by concluding that “a sterile choice” really justifies them in staying away from the polls. On the contrary, such a choice, even if the designation were accurate, must be interpreted as a summons to fuller study and clearer discernment of the momentous issues none but the blind can fail to see in this election.

As the Presidential race nears its close, there is a growing need for the courage to believe that, as we vote according to knowledge instead of emotion and choose out of concern for the welfare of others above that of self, we may trust our country to the God who graciously uses earthen vessels.

Theology

A Bill of Goods

L. Nelson Bell

Many years ago we came under the influence of some enthusiastic men who convinced us that a business venture in which they were engaged was destined to become a sensational success. As a result we bought ten shares of stock—only to find the men had little more than enthusiasm and glib tongues. The enterprise ended as a complete failure.

As the saying goes, we had been “sold a bill of goods”; we had exercised poor judgment and lost our money.

We believe that many in the Church today, both ministers and laymen, have been “sold a bill of goods.”

General hospitals exist to diagnose and treat disease. In them one finds labor and delivery rooms, laboratories, operating rooms, and various other facilities for relieving pain and healing sickness. People rightly look to their hospitals and those on their staffs to be competent and faithful.

Suppose then that one found in a hospital the following conditions:

No labor or delivery rooms, no babies born. In place of this there is a morgue where physicians spend their time making corpses attractive—with cosmetics, meticulously arranged coiffures, fashionable clothes, and “Chanel No. 5” or “My Sin.”

When questioned, the physicians say frankly that they do not believe in delivery rooms, nor do they believe that people are born into the world. Rather, they believe that, given proper attention, corpses eventually come to life and become useful members of society.

In the wards and private rooms one finds doctors busy treating symptoms. For pain only a narcotic is given. When laboratory findings indicate a disordered metabolism, or dysfunction of an organ or system, some panacea is prescribed. When the patient’s symptoms get worse, doctors and nurses become more frantic in their efforts. That many patients die indicates to the doctors and nurses that treatment of symptoms has not been carried on aggressively enough.

When some who have had their diseases cured in other hospitals visit relatives and see conditions in this hospital, they call the doctors in question. But the doctors reply that their calling is to treat symptoms, and some are even unwilling to admit the reality of disease. In fact, relatives are told that it is “old fashioned” to talk about disease; that such a viewpoint is not “relevant” to today’s world; and that it is their duty to improve environment, further education, and help their sick to become adjusted to life.

But there is another important department of the hospital—the operating rooms. Here there is found the most modern equipment, gleaming stainless steel and enamel, and an array of instruments and solutions. Asepsis is rigidly observed; even the air is purified. But as one watches an “operation,” he is amazed to see that the surgeon and his assistants are merely making gestures. There is no knife in the hand of the surgeon and no blood where the incision is supposed to have been made.

Is all of the above a foolish fantasy? Of course. Should such a situation be found in any hospital, doctors and local medical societies would take immediate action.

Nevertheless, the absurd conditions imagined for a hospital are a reality in many churches today. Ministers with high spiritual calling—to win men and women to a saving faith in Jesus Christ and then build them up in the Christian faith—have left this calling for a secular one.

Many ministers, through their training and reading, have come to the place where they are no longer fulfilling their ministerial functions and instead have become sociological and political workers. Because of this, parishioners are being neglected in areas where they desperately need help, or are being led astray be the notion that becoming a Christian and acting like one is a matter of reformation, not redemption.

The “New Birth,” which our Lord says is an imperative, is not compatible with the new view. Man, we are told, is not a lost sinner but a misguided saint. He needs, not the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, but the environmental and educational facilities to bring out what already exists in him by natural inheritance.

There is no difference between the folly of trying to make a corpse attractive and the folly of attempting to make unregenerate men into new creatures without the supernatural atoning and cleansing work of the Christ of Calvary.

Social maladjustments, economic and political injustices? Certainly they exist. But solutions that ignore the need for changed hearts are no solutions, only panaceas that add to the problem.

But what about that absurd picture of an operating room where the surgeon merely made gestures—where there was no knife and no blood?

There are many churches today where the edifice is an architectural masterpiece and the program meticulously arranged; where the singing is beautiful, the ritual an esthetic gem; and where the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, is used only as a gesture, while copious quotations from contemporary authors serve to demonstrate the erudition of the preacher. As for “blood”—we can hear the horrified chorus: “This is an offense to the esthetic senses of our twentieth-century man.” And yet, the Bible repeatedly affirms that man’s redemption centers in the shed blood of Calvary.

Yes, multitudes of ministers have been sold a bill of goods whereby they have been steered away from their spiritual calling into the secular world, not with a message of redemption from sin but with a program of social reform. Because of this diversion of calling and message, the Church is suffering. Men are being deluded; they are starved for spiritual truth. And the unbelieving world loses interest in the Church as a place to turn for salvation.

But there comes the rebuttal: “If the Church does not go out into the market place and become involved in the daily problems of mankind she loses her relevance to the day in which we live!”

The Church does not go into the market place as an organization. Rather she is to be found out in society in the persons of men and women who have had a saving experience with the living Saviour, and in no other legitimate way. Redeemed people are the “light” to lighten the dark places of the social order; they are the “salt” that by God’s grace sweetens and preserves what is otherwise decaying and offensive.

That one should feel called upon to urge ministers to recognize and follow their spiritual calling is in itself a tragedy, but this is the greatest need of the Church in our time.

The words of our risen Lord speak to us today: “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see” (Rev. 3:18, RSV).

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Theology

Beyond the Ecumenical: Pan-Deism?

Charles A. Bolton

A new phenomenon in religion is becoming more prominent as each year passes. It is a syncretist movement aiming at the union of all those who believe in God. This phenomenon goes far beyond the so-called ecumenical movement, which strives to unify all those who call themselves Christian. Before the Roman church took the ecumenical movement seriously, she generally alluded to it disparagingly as pan-Protestantism. The new movement is blessed by some of the hierarchs of the Roman church as the pro Deo (for God) movement.

To promote to the full the objective of this new trend, the Vatican has this year set up an organization as yet in embryo, a Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions. This new establishment, which will operate in Rome under the direction of Paolo Cardinal Marella as another arm of the Curia, parallels the Secretariat for Christian Unity.

It is interesting to note in this connection the changing vocabulary of the Vatican. Some recent popes have made much use of the terms Il Padre Commune (“The Common Father”) and La Casa del Padre Commune (“The Father’s House”—the Vatican) in their appeals to bring Christians back home. In establishing this new activity, the Pope now describes Rome as the Patria Commune, the “Common Fatherland” for all believers. However difficult it may be for Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews to regard Rome as their “common fatherland,” the idea is that the new secretariat will make them feel that they now “belong.” It seemed as though Paul VI was reaching beyond the history of the papacy and the Roman church to the universality of the old Roman Empire embracing many nations when he said:

“By the institution of this organism, no pilgrim will henceforth be a stranger in Rome, where the Church faithful to her history and her catholic faith shall always be the ‘common fatherland.’ ”

The activities of the pro Deo group, which no doubt paved the way for the new secretariat, seem to have been chiefly confined to organizing international banquets, called agapes or love-feasts, thereby changing the character of the meetings of the early Christians, which were certainly closed to non-Christians.

Fraternizing With The East

To those familiar with the history of Roman Catholic missions in recent centuries, the idea of fraternization with oriental religions is not completely new. Throughout the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth a bitter controversy raged between certain Jesuit missionaries and their opponents about what is sometimes called “Chinese rites.” In fact, the desire to transform Catholicism into an oriental cult, though within certain limits, began with the Jesuit missionary De Nobili early in the seventeenth century. He assumed the saffron robe of the monk, observed Brahmanic rites and fasts, and tried to be as much like a Brahman as possible. In China the Jesuit missionaries later attempted to use similar methods in order to make themselves as completely oriental as possible.

Despite fierce opposition, the methods of De Nobili were approved for a time. But all these attempts to “naturalize” Roman missions in the East were finally suppressed by a bull of Pope Benedict XIV, Omnium Sollicitudinem, in 1744. After this decree, the Roman missions in the East were destined to become like so many Latin colonies planted on foreign soil. This has often been deplored in modern times, and no doubt the recent Vatican approach may be seen as a return to the “assimilation” attempts of previous centuries.

Evangelicals do not always realize how spiritually satisfying to some Roman Catholic intellectuals is the idea of assimilating and adapting all human cultures—and to some extent all religions—inside one vast theocratic Roman Catholic Church. Karl Adam in his Spirit of Catholicism has tried to show how much this is a part of the modern Roman Weltanschauung.

An increased impetus in this direction comes from a growing consciousness that the Catholic-Protestant divisions seem to be lessening and that many world cultures are still outside the range of Catholicism, especially of a Catholicism identified with Western culture. Some have begun to ask if African and Asiatic cultures might have something in their philosophy, theology, and mysticism, as well as in the less difficult fields of music and art, that might be included under the name “Catholic.” Certain Roman apologists might boldly assert that these cultures “belong” to the Catholic idea.

Teilhard de Chardin, chiefly through his posthumous book, The Phenomenon of Man, has become the prophet of a new evolutionary outlook, centering the climax of world development in the formation of a new creation in Christ. This would also imply for some—among them, no doubt, Arnold Toynbee with his synthesis of world history—the idea of a convergence of religions, however repellent this might seem to many.

I first came upon this extension of ecumenism into pan-deism among some Roman Catholic scholars interested primarily in the “reunion of the churches,” Roman, Orthodox, Anglican. This was just before Pius XI brought out his encyclical, Mortalium Animos (1928), which was seemingly directed against the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement generally. These were condemned as “pan-Protestantism.” Yet even then a number of Roman scholars had already made public the idea that the Church Catholic is “Jewish, is Moslem, is Buddhist, is Taoist.” The idea behind this was the concept of a true catholic or universal order of religion that must be able to include the highest aspirations and achievements of all religions and cultures. It was felt that the same ecumenical spirit that sought to bring together the historically separated Christian churches should be able to reach out to the religions of Asia, of Africa through Islam, and to the Jewish diaspora.

An obvious bond with Jews and Muslims through the Old Testament was recognized. The “Our Father” of the Christian was also the God of the Jews and the Allah of the Muslims. It was explained that to unite with Hindus and Buddhists, Christians should explore the hidden reality—the “ultimate reality,” the infinite, the absolute, the everlasting, the all-pervading spirit that marks the religious experience of the Orient. Many felt that Western culture has lost the sense of a living and inspiring presence in intimate religious experience and “knowing,” because this is not regarded as something for the ordinary believer but is rather the privilege of an esoteric few, called “mystics.” Some religious observers in the Roman church have believed that just as contact with non-Roman churches might have a salutary and broadening influence on many Roman Catholics, so also for people of Western culture, contact with the religious experience of the East might lead to the vitalizing effects of the “inner light” and the “inner presence,” which seem so essential a part of the oriental religious outlook.

Surprisingly, some have seriously declared that this universal outreach should include even atheists, on the plea that many so-called atheists are in reality seekers after God in their own perverse way.

What Is The Goal?

We may perhaps ask what is the ultimate aim of the Curia in promoting the pan-deist movement. Undoubtedly, certain Roman Catholic thinkers have a sincere desire to promote greater unity and peace in the world. Such thinkers envisage ecumenism as a fulfillment of Christ’s prayer, “That they all may be one.” Their beliefs and education convince them that unity implies submission to one authority, and this submission is taken to be a divine mandate to include everybody in the one sheepfold of the pope. The same thinkers accept as a natural prerogative Rome’s promotion of world unity by any religious means whatever. Thus they do not necessarily discern in Rome’s ecumenism and pan-deism a project for world dominion. Yet this danger certainly exists.

Evangelicals should remember that the bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, still exists and is generally taught as an infallible utterance in Roman seminaries. In this bull the pope proclaimed that to attain salvation every soul must be subject to the Roman pontiff. He also promulgated the doctrine of the “two swords”—the spiritual and the temporal—by which he affirmed that the pope as vicar of Christ had supreme power not only in religion but in all things temporal.

Evangelicals should also remember that Paul VI was crowned in June, 1963, with the same symbolical emblem of dominion invented by Boniface VIII, and with the admonition (in Latin): “Remember that thou art the ruler of kings and the father of princes.”

And finally, evangelicals should not forget that the basic justification for the world ambitions of the papacy as interpreted by the Curia is still a misinterpretation of Jeremiah 1:10: “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”

On August 6, 1964, Paul VI published his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam. Several passages in this lengthy message confirm all that has been outlined above about Vatican approaches to the great non-Christian religions. The following is the most relevant:

Then we see another circle around us. This too is vast in its extent, yet it is not too far away from us. It is made up of the men who above all adore the one, supreme God whom we too adore. We refer to the children, worthy of our affection and respect, of the Hebrew people. They are faithful to the religion which we call that of the Old Testament. Then there are the adorers of God according to the conception of monotheism, especially the Moslem religion, deserving of our admiration for all that is true and good in their worship of God. Then there are also the followers of the great Afro-Asian religions.…

- More from Charles A. Bolton

Theology

Divine Sovereignty: Cornerstone of the Reformation

Roger Nicole

John Calvin’s death occurred on May 27, 1564, toward eight o’clock in the evening. For him this was a welcome relief from the host of ailments that had burdened him for some time: asthma, gout, ulcer, hemorrhoids, colic, kidney and liver stones, not to speak of the headaches that had been his constant companion for the last twenty years of his life. Yet in spite of almost unbearable sufferings, Calvin had taken with poise and forethought all necessary steps to prepare for his death.

In February, he preached and lectured for the last time. In April, he said farewell to the civil authorities of Geneva, and later to his fellow pastors. Hearing that William Farel was planning to take the long journey from Neuchâtel to Geneva on foot, he had written, “I don’t want you to make this effort for me.… I am expecting momentarily that my breath will cease. But it is enough that I should live and die in Christ.… Farewell.” But Farel (by twenty years Calvin’s senior) missed or disregarded this note and came anyway.

Late in April Calvin prepared his testament. The sum total of his property was 225 pounds, probably less than $1,000. So Pope Paul IV was heard to exclaim, “What made the strength of this heretic has been that money could never reach him.” And it surely did not. In fact, in the last weeks of his life he was refusing his wages as pastor because he could no longer preach.

Two days after his death, his body was brought in a simple pine box to the common cemetery of Plainpalais, Geneva. There was no ceremony, not even a stone for his grave, so that the place where he is buried is lost altogether. These were his express instructions. He did not want any monument. What he wanted was that attention should be paid to the Word of God and to the glory of God. Thus his epitaph can be expressed in the motto that dominated the whole Reformation movement, Soli Deo Gloria (“to God alone be the glory”).

It is safe to say that these few words go to the heart of Calvin’s ministry. The principle of divine sovereignty was one of the controlling features of his life, theology, and biblical exposition. Perhaps even more than his fellow Reformers, he was ready and willing to carry this principle into his whole life and thought.

What Sovereignty Implies

For Calvin the sovereignty of God meant, in the first place, that the Bible must be acknowledged as the book God has inspired and in which his revelation is made available unto men, and that it is not to be watered down or evaded by church interpretations but to be received and accepted as it reads in the plain meaning of its message to every believer. Calvin made a moving statement in the closing moments of his life when he said, “I never knowingly corrupted or distorted a single passage of Scripture.” Here was a book to which no human criteria were to be applied to sift the good from the unserviceable. The Bible was received from the hands of God himself and was acknowledged as the supreme rule of faith and the ultimate authority.

With respect to the doctrine of man, the sovereignty of God meant for Calvin that God’s standards must prevail rather than any self-appointed code of ethics devised so that man may be thought able to fulfill its demands. When God is truly acknowledged as sovereign, it is quickly perceived how far short man falls of meeting his requirements. Man is seen as depraved and completely devoid of any merit. The first mention of the sovereignty of God in the writings of Calvin relates to the subject of merit. The Roman Catholic Church had developed a prodigious theology of merit, in which men were attempting to build and accumulate a potential of good works to insure their own standing in God’s eyes. Against this and in keeping with the Scriptures, Calvin asserted that man has no merit whatsoever, that he is radically corrupt, totally depraved, utterly unable by himself to do anything truly pleasing to God. He clearly affirmed the misery of man, his total helplessness even to the point of being powerless to exercise faith without the aid of the Holy Spirit.

The sovereignty of God meant that recognition was given the deity of Jesus Christ and the substitutionary work he accomplished in the atoning ministry of the Cross. Here was the sovereign remedy that God himself and God alone had prepared by which men could be brought back into newness of life and fellowship with him.

Calvin asserted the sovereignty of God in his emphasis upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who came down upon the Church at Pentecost; who regenerates, energizes, indwells, and keeps the believer; and by whom alone anything that can at all please God is accomplished in the life of those who trust in Christ.

The sovereignty of God was reflected in Calvin’s doctrine of the Church, her divine origin, her reality as an invisible body corresponding to the divine purpose and transcending all earthly organizations, her constant dependence upon the headship of Christ. And it was seen in Calvin’s view of the sacraments—their origin, their number, their nature, their efficacy.

The sovereignty of God was starkly revealed in the mysterious doctrine of predestination, of that double predestination which Calvin was never afraid to assert.

The sovereignty of God culminated in Calvin’s view of the last things, where God would have the last word in everything, manifesting his glorious grace and his glorious justice in total triumph for ever and ever.

In a similar vein, one could review many more areas of Christian doctrine to see the implementation of this great principle of divine sovereignty. From beginning to end, we find in Calvin a studied determination to acknowledge that God is to receive the glory, that it is he who must be exalted, and that it is to him that all praise and honor are due.

Some Objections

Objections may rise and press for a hearing as the implications of the sovereignty of God are enumerated. If this doctrine is asserted, some will urge, does it not inevitably follow that morality, liberty, and human activity are undermined at their very foundations? Does not this doctrine confront us with an impossibility?

1. If God is sovereign and man is totally corrupt, it is thought that moral distinctions in human actions are obliterated, because all human actions are seen in the one context of wickedness and corruption. Thus there can be no difference between more evil deeds and less evil deeds, there can be no merit, and the very springs of moral action will disappear in this self-destroying uniformity. Total depravity leaves man totally despondent and must, it is argued, lead to a carelessness and abandon in sinning that will ruin the personal ethical life not only of the individual but also of society. To assert the sovereignty of God is thought to be suicidal, because it makes morality impossible.

This objection could well receive extended attention. If both the sovereignty of God and morality are properly understood, a very good case for their coexistence can in our judgment be made. But our purpose at this point is not to argue the question theoretically but rather to examine whether the anticipated damage actually occurred in history. John Calvin and a vast group of Reformed churches and individuals certainly believed in divine sovereignty and in the radical depravity of man. Did this, then, really lead to a dissolution of morals? Did their view of God make them careless in their conduct? Quite the contrary; history shows that in an atmosphere filled with immorality and at a time when the Church itself had been invaded by infection to an almost incredible degree, there arose a renewal of honesty, of purity, of truthfulness, of eagerness to serve, of humility, and of selflessness. The morality of the early Reformers was noteworthy. In many cases, it was because they were outraged by the prevalent immorality that they sensed so deeply the need of reforming the Church. Had they been grievously lax, their opponents would have ruthlessly used any flaw or failing against the movement. Far from debasing morality, the doctrine of the sovereignty of God restored morality and led men to new heights of courage and dedication. It may seem impossible, but it is true!

2. If God is sovereign and man totally dependent, then, it is further objected, human liberty is ended. For if God controls everything, men become mere puppets or robots. Nothing is left of human responsibility or true liberty. The sovereignty of God makes freedom impossible.

But the objection rests on a misunderstanding, either of divine sovereignty or of human responsibility, and possibly of both. Consider some facts of history. Those who acknowledged the sovereignty of God in the sixteenth century, notably John Calvin and his colleagues, did not shun responsibility or undermine liberty. They sensed so deeply their answerableness to God that they were willing to endure anything in order to discharge their duty. And this has become the foundation for all types of human liberties. In serving God, man was emancipated from the yoke of tyrants. Wherever Calvinism penetrated, people could not be satisfied in submitting to unjust oppression. The Huguenots in France, the Gueux in the Netherlands, the Puritans in Scotland, England, and America, were profoundly mindful of their right to be free and were willing to shed their blood in order to safeguard that right. Calvinism meant a new birth of liberty in the world. In fact, it may be averred that every liberty we enjoy in these United States has, in some sense at least, its foundation in the Reformed thought initiated by Calvin. It may seem impossible, but it is true!

3. If God is sovereign and man without merit and under God’s total control, then, it is objected, this spells the end of any human activity. There is no purpose in making any effort; man is condemned to apathy, or, at best, to quietism. Specifically, this brings to an end the whole evangelistic and missionary enterprise of the Church. For, we are told, the sovereignty of God makes human activity impossible.

History’s Rebuttal

Once more, rather than resorting to argument, let us examine the facts of history. In Geneva and in the Reformed churches the sovereignty of God was proclaimed. Did people stop exercising wholesome activity and cease exerting all effort in the pursuit of their calling? On the contrary, those most thoroughly convinced of this doctrine were veritable prodigies of activity. Calvin himself, whatever his human frailties may have been, could hardly have been accused of laziness, even by his most reckless opponents. In the midst of almost desperate illness, he continued to work, to preach his sermons every Sunday and three times a week, to teach his classes, to write his books, to carry on correspondence far and wide, and to bear upon his heart the burdens of Geneva, the Swiss Cantons, France, Germany, England and Scotland, Hungary, Poland, Italy, and other places as well. This man was a veritable dynamo of activity; his performance staggers and humbles us. Those under his ministry were men and women ready to put their shoulder to the wheel and their hand to the plow. The Reformed people of France were known as skillful artisans who brought new excellence to their work. They realized that their activity was in God’s hands and that, therefore, there was meaning in it and blessing upon it. They did not have to concentrate their gaze upon the smallness of what they were doing, for they could see their labors as part of a total pattern in which the sovereign God himself was active and incorporated their contribution into his own majestic purpose. Calvinists have been missionaries and evangelists with a flaming passion for souls, whenever the doctrine of the sovereignty of God has been rightly understood. This may seem a paradox, but the testimony of history is unimpeachable. Impossible, but true!

When in the first century paganism was threatening the Christian Church, the Lord raised up the Apostle Paul, that great preacher of divine sovereignty. By his ministry to the world of the Gentiles, the Lord was pleased to overcome the threatening forces of immorality.

When in the fifth century the teachings of Pelagius presented a new threat of humanism against the Gospel, the Lord raised up Augustine, that great teacher of divine sovereignty and grace; and through his efforts, by the blessing of God, the forces of dissolution were for some time repelled.

When in the sixteenth century unbelief and immorality had again invaded the world and even honeycombed the Church, the Lord was pleased to raise up the Reformers—Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer, Peter Martyr, Farel, Beza, and many others—a company of men who believed strongly in the sovereignty of God. Through them the truth of the Gospel was again brought to light; justification by faith was preached; the souls of countless people were blessed; and immeasurable benefit accrued both to those who left the church of Rome and to those who remained in it, for the cleansing stream had wholesome effects beyond the pale of the Protestant communion.

They were small, these men of the Reformation, almost annihilated in the sense of their own limitations and unworthiness. Yet they were great, very great indeed. Fearing God, they did not fear the face of any man! The sovereign God was with them and in them. They were sure of their Bible, the sovereign Book; sure of their salvation, effected by the sovereign God himself. Permeated with a sense of the divine sovereignty, they were stronger than the strongest rulers, stronger than death itself. Their stand is well symbolized in the granite of the Geneva monument of the Reformation, where they are portrayed as unmovable because they rest in God.

Radically corrupted, but sovereignly purified;

Radically enslaved, but sovereignly emancipated;

Radically impotent, but sovereignly empowered.

This is the fruit of the sovereignty of God in the lives of men who said, as did Calvin, “My heart I give to Thee, O Lord, promptly and sincerely.”

Today there are dangers, too—waves of humanism, of secularism, of Communism. There are insidious movements that threaten the Church from within. May it please the Lord in his mercy to raise up men and women who believe in the sovereignty of God, men and women dedicated to the end that “to God alone be the glory.” The world needs them now.

- More from Roger Nicole

Theology

A Baptist View

James Leo Garrett

Baptist participation in serious theological and ethical dialogue with Roman Catholics can hardly be said to have antedated the pontificate of John XXIII. The two major postures of Baptists, in the United States at least, toward the Roman Catholics, whether devout or nominal, had previously been polemical and conversional.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Baptist polemical writers in North America who have written about the Roman Catholic Church have tended to fit one or more of four basic patterns. There were rebuttalists, such as J. M. Cramp, William Cathcart, J. H. Eager, W. J. E. Cox, and E. Y. Mullins, who joined with other Protestant writers to answer or refute the most pertinent claims made by Roman Catholicism. There were exposurists, such as Richard Fuller and, of the more thoroughgoing type, J. D. Fulton and T. E. Watson, who alleged various ethical or moral perversities in the Roman Catholic Church, past or present. Others, such as J. R. Lamb and, more recently, W. H. Rone, sought to refute Roman Catholic succession by advocacy of a Baptist historical succession from the first century A.D.—an approach rejected by most professional historians of the Baptist movement since 1900. Other Baptist writers concentrated on religious liberty and church-state issues. Some of these, such as John T. Christian, T. W. Calloway, and Rufus W. Weaver, saw the church of Rome as the inevitable and irreconcilable enemy of American democracy. Other writers, notably George W. Truett, Joseph M. Dawson, and C. E. Carlson, articulated a firm but more irenic position.

With the development of Protestant missions in Latin America and southern Europe in the nineteenth century, Baptists among others began to articulate a theology of mission to peoples nominally Roman Catholic. William R. Williams and B. H. Carroll wrote in this vein in the nineteenth century, while William O. Carver was the leading missiologist among Baptists and Kenneth S. Latourette has been the leading historian of missions during the present century.

Speaking To Each Other

Baptist leaders in dialogue with Roman Catholics in the United States have included the late Conrad H. Moehlman, Stanley I. Stuber, Brooks Hays, and J. H. Jackson. As yet Baptist-Roman Catholic dialogue has not produced a very considerable body of literature from Baptist authors; yet the interest in dialogue is noteworthy in view of the wide gulf between Roman Catholic and Baptist theological positions. The Executive Committee of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting near Oslo, Norway, in August, 1962, discussed at length and with honest differences of opinion an inquiry from the Vatican Secretariat for Promotion of Christian Unity whether the alliance would favorably receive an invitation to send observers to Vatican Council II. The committee replied that it was not agreed that such an invitation should be encouraged but assured “the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church of its hopes and prayers that the forthcoming Council will contribute to an increasing understanding of the will of God and the unity of his people.” Hence the Baptist World Alliance has had no official observers at Vatican II. However, certain individual Baptists have been present in Rome during sessions of the council. The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, representing eight Baptist bodies in North America and concerned primarily with religious liberty and church-state issues, has maintained a press representative in Rome during the second and third sessions of Vatican II.

Instances of dialogue may be found in academic settings, on the community level, and even in predominantly Roman Catholic nations. A Baptist seminary student and a Jesuit theological student were asked to prepare and read papers on their views of religious authority as groups of seminarians exchanged campus visits. Surprisingly, the Jesuit dealt primarily with texts in Acts and Galatians which he related to his concept of Petrine authority, and the Baptist gave a theological and philosophical statement without reference to specific biblical texts. In certain American cities both Baptist pastors and Catholic priests are participating in periodic pastor-priest study groups. In a city in north Brazil in which Baptists have since 1922 maintained a colégio, a Roman Catholic priest who is dean of the philosophical faculty of a large Brazilian university reportedly admonished his Catholic hearers from the pulpit of a local parish, “Fall on your knees and thank God for this Baptist colégio in your city.” Later, the Baptist colégio invited this same priest-dean to deliver its commencement address, and, while his bishop was attending the first session of Vatican II, the priest did so.

Several important factors militate against more fruitful or extensive Baptist-Roman Catholic dialogue at present. One is the carry-over of strong and deeply rooted strains of anti-Catholicism and anti-Protestantism, including suspicions of the ulterior motives of others and the tendency to categorize all Roman Catholics or all Baptists in one unfavorable mold, as, for example, “opponents of democracy” or heretics.” A second factor is the persistence of genuine differences on church-state issues facing the United States Congress or various state and local governments. The issue of tax support for parochial schools is the most acute of these issues. The participation of various Baptists in the leadership of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State and widespread Baptist support of POAU have led some Catholics to interpret such activity as motivated solely by “anti-Catholicism”; and certain Protestant writers in recent years have made such an interpretation seem more plausible by unqualified condemnations of POAU. Thirdly, not many Roman Catholics or Baptists have had widespread experience in the kind of dialogue now called for. Not until recently have Roman Catholics been permitted or encouraged to engage in dialogue with Protestants. American Baptists and British Baptists by participation in the ecumenical movement are generally more familiar with interconfessional dialogue than Southern Baptists, who have officially been non-participants. A fourth factor working against Baptist-Roman Catholic dialogue may be the thinking prevalent among many Baptists that Vatican II is bringing about non-dogmatic, and hence minor, changes within the Roman Catholic Church and that Pope Paul VI seemingly does not want the “windows” open so much as did Pope John XXIII. Therefore, since the Johannine interlude in papal history has passed, some tend to feel that the potential fruitfulness of dialogue is limited. Finally, the failure of certain more eager participants in Protestant-Catholic dialogue to deal realistically with continuing doctrinal and moral differences has tended to turn some away from interest in dialogue.

On the other hand, Baptists who are informed about the biblical, liturgical, critical-historical, theological, and lay movements within the Roman Catholic Church during recent years lean toward a more open posture regarding dialogue. Likewise, those Baptists who are sensitive to the need for church renewal today can read Professor Hans Küng’s description of the dangers of the church’s becoming too “worldly” and too “churchy” and know that such conditions are not peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church (The Council, Reform and Reunion, pp. 21–25). Southern Baptists, who face acutely the contemporary racial crisis, are unable to refute Reinhold Niebuhr’s evaluation, written in 1958, that the Roman Catholic Church by its hierarchical structure and its sacramental rather than “chummy” fellowship is making more rapid strides in racial desegregation than Protestant churches (Pious and Secular America, pp. 82–84). Such conditions may make it evident to many that dialogue, not monologue, is in order.

Three Points Of Division

The era of dialogue has not erased the numerous theological and ethical differences between Baptists and the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The average Baptist is more conscious of such differences in the areas of grace and merit, the sacraments, the priesthood, and purgatory than in the areas of faith and reason, the application of natural law, original sin, mortal and venial sins, and justification and sanctification. Three divisive issues are of special importance if future dialogue is to be realistic and meaningful.

Religious Liberty: Baptists, who for three and one-half centuries have advocated the right of all men to freedom in the exercise of religious faith and practice without interference from civil authority, have been especially sensitive to the failure of the Roman Catholic Church in modern times to abandon its historic policy of seeking civil restrictions upon the faith and practice of non-Catholics in predominantly Catholic nations and of teaching that Catholic acceptance of religious liberty for all citizens in other nations is only an expedient and temporary accommodation of principle. The writings of John Courtney Murray, S. J., in the United States and those of various European Catholic thinkers, as summarized in Roman Catholicism and Religious Liberty by A. F. Carrillo de Albornoz, have raised the hopes of all concerned with liberty of conscience. Yet, as the Baptist historian Winthrop S. Hudson wrote in 1959, “The voice that counts is the voice of Rome. The minimum assurance … would seem, therefore, to be a … declaration that it is at least permissible for a Roman Catholic to accept and defend, on the basis of principle … the fundamental guarantees embodied in the Bill of Rights” (Understanding Roman Catholicism, p. 160). No action of Vatican II would serve to remove a “stone of stumbling” between Baptists and Roman Catholics more readily than a clear, unambiguous conciliar declaration in behalf of religious liberty for all men, followed by implementation in southern Europe and Latin America. Baptists, no longer apprehensive that their fellow believers would endure discrimination in mixed marriages, suffer civil disabilities, have their church buildings closed, or even face death at the hands of a fanatical mob of Catholics, could then give attention to other issues both they and Roman Catholics face in today’s world.

Mary versus Christ: The Marian dogmas and piety constitute another major gulf between Baptists and Roman Catholics. The concern of Baptists as to Marianism, shared with other Protestants, is that articulated in the writings of Presbyterian John A. Mackay, especially in his 1955 article, “The Marian Cult in Relation to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the Unity of the Church.” Not only are the Marian dogmas and piety without foundation in the New Testament: they constitute a distinct challenge to the mediatorial office and sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ. Mariology, far from being a department of Christology, is a usurpation of the saving work of our Lord and a threat to the integrity of the Trinitarian self-manifestation of God.

Authority: The ultimate question of authority goes beyond the Tridentine issue of written Scriptures versus written Scriptures plus unwritten traditions. It involves the distinction between (1) a norm in apostolic Christianity that judges later and contemporary teaching and practice and (2) an evolving institutional church, which, having forsaken the fixity of dogma of Bossuet for the developmentalism of J. H. Newman and J. A. Möhler, sees in itself at present the ultimate judge of all religious and moral truth. Moreover, the locus of such ultimate authority is said to be the Petrine-papal primacy, which, since 1870, has been said to embody in itself the charism of infallibility. To freedom-loving, democratic Baptists the papal office still bears the authoritarian, autocratic marks of the Roman Caesar, even when occupied occasionally by a shepherding pope. Few Baptists would differ from Reinhold Niebuhr at the point of his indictment of the sinful pretensions of a human, historical ecclesiastical institution in its claims always to speak unerringly for Christ and to identify itself indistinguishably from the fulfilled Kingdom of God.

But in spite of such great differences as those discussed in this essay, Christians who are earnestly seeking to “speak the truth in love” may discover, while adhering to the truth they apprehend by faith, that the agape of Christ is able to cross barriers and bind men together by bonds that are real and strong.

- More from James Leo Garrett

Theology

A Presbyterian View

C. Gregg Singer

Presbyterians who are aware of theological issues must look at the Roman church today, not only in the light of the decrees of the Council of Trent and the subsequent strengthening of the power of the papacy over the spiritual life of the church, but also in consideration of what has taken place within that communion over the past four centuries. For although that council brought a hardening of the theological arteries for the purpose of making the Tridentine settlement permanent, complete immunity to the intellectual changes that were taking place in European society, the rising tides of liberalism and secularism that marked the history of the nineteenth century, was not possible. These forces made a deep imprint on the Roman church in both France and Germany. The promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility by the First Vatican Council nearly a hundred years ago was an official acknowledgment that the church needed a papacy girded with sufficient power to prevent a further penetration of liberalism into the church’s life. No sooner was this doctrine made official dogma than the papacy hastened to exercise it for its intended purpose. The bulls and encyclicals of Leo XIII were obviously framed to recall the Roman church to its Thomistic foundations in an effort to rebuild the walls of the ancient theological fortress that had been erected in the latter Middle Ages.

Evangelical Presbyterians can only have a certain sympathy with these efforts to stem the tide of a militant liberalism that was threatening not only the Roman Catholic position but evangelical Protestant Christianity as well. And even though Neo-Thomism was not and is not the answer to the threat to historic orthodoxy posed by humanistic liberalism and socialism, one must admit that it had more biblical substance than the social gospel American theologians offered as their answer to this same threat.

To say this is not to admit that Presbyterians could come to terms with a Rome that looked back to Trent any more easily than they could come to terms with theological liberalism as it developed in this country under Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, and their followers. The biblical elements remaining in the Roman Catholic system were and are so concealed under layers of sacramentalism and sacerdotalism that this theology can no more win the favor of evangelical Presbyterians today than it could during the Reformation. Presbyterians must always be aware that officially Rome is committed to that same system of doctrine which the Council of Trent consciously defined in such a way as to bring about the widest gulf between Rome and the Reformers. Any contemporary evaluation of the Roman church must be made in the light of this fact. It must also be observed that Rome has shown no disposition to soften this position in any way, and that in the conversations that the hierarchy has seen fit to have with Protestant leaders there has been no offer to modify the Tridentine position. Rather, the papacy in 1963, on the four-hundredth anniversary of the closing of the Council of Trent, reaffirmed that the council’s decisions were still the doctrinal position of the church.

The Currents Of Change

But it is also true that far-reaching changes have been taking place within the Roman Catholic Church. It has not remained immune to the intellectual currents that have been sweeping through Western culture during the present century. By recalling the church to its Thomistic heritage during the latter part of the nineteenth century, Leo XIII attempted to erect a barrier against the pervading secularism and socialism. But even as the heroic efforts of Innocent III to keep the New Aristotle, the modernism of that day, out of the curriculum of the University of Paris were unavailing, so too were the efforts of Leo XIII. And as 150 years later Urban VI yielded to the pressures of the day to require the teaching of the New Aristotle, so have the last two popes, John XXIII and Paul VI, surrendered to contemporary pressures. But this recent reversal of papal policy is fraught with an even greater danger to the Roman church than was the action of Urban VI. For if the position assumed by John XXIII in his Mater et Magister should prevail, it is possible that the Roman church would soon cease to be a church and become some kind of international body with humanistic and even communistic leanings. Thus far, this change of direction initiated by John XXIII has not brought any profound modifications in the doctrinal outlook of the church. Nor has it by any means been able to engage the loyalty of the hierarchy as a whole. Indeed, it has met vigorous opposition, and this opposition apparently scored some victories in the second session of Vatican II.

Although this shift of outlook became more apparent in Mater et Magister and Pacem in Terris, the very fact that John XXIII called Vatican II is further evidence of the changes taking place in the church. The invitation to Protestant leaders to take part as observers affords new insight into the situation that has been developing in Roman circles; such an invitation would have been virtually impossible two decades ago. But the conversations between Roman Catholics and Protestants are not limited to councils and papal audiences; there is to an amazing degree a growing dialogue among theologians and ecclesiastical leaders. All these developments testify that a new era has arrived. We who hold the historic Presbyterian position are, to a degree at least, affected by these developments and must take them into account.

What are these forces that are making themselves felt in Roman ecclesiastical and theological circles? What do they mean to the heirs of the Reformation in general and to Presbyterians in particular? Is this recent change in the attitude of the Roman hierarchy only an accommodation to the demands of the day, or does it spring from a basic change of heart that marks the beginning of a new era in Protestant-Catholic relations? There can be no simple answers to these complex questions, and an essay of this length can only offer an outline for a possible solution.

It has already been suggested that the Roman Catholic Church has not been immune to the contemporary theological and intellectual movements that have profoundly altered historic Protestant thought. The modernism that invaded American Protestantism in the early years of the present century also left its mark on Roman Catholic biblical scholarship. However, the existentialism and neo-orthodoxy of our own day have made a much greater impression on Roman Catholic thinking. And herein lies the issue as it is seen by evangelical Presbyterians.

At first glance, a Roman Catholic accommodation to these two currents would seem to be almost impossible. For if left to themselves, these strains of thought would threaten not only the hierarchy but the very existence of the Roman church and its entire system. The so-called Christian existentialism has gained a hearing from very important thinkers in the church, such as Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain. I do not mean to imply that these movements have gained the same audience in Roman circles as in Protestant ones. But they have penetrated more deeply than is often suspected, and this penetration has made itself felt in the calling of Vatican II and in the many dialogues being carried on by Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians. Roman Catholic priests have been allowed to take part in Protestant services, an activity previously unheard of. Likewise, the decisions already made by Vatican II indicate that the papacy itself, in the person of John XXIII and to a lesser extent, perhaps, in Paul VI, has been influenced by the ecumenical movement.

Trent Or Ecumenism?

There is an obvious ambiguity in Paul VI’s position, one that looks back to Trent and at the same time embraces the ecumenical movement. This ambiguity must ultimately be faced by the Roman church, for the Tridentine theology cannot long survive in a church that engages in the ecumenical movement and entrusts its future to an ecumenical theology. The Roman church must realize that in an ecumenical atmosphere St. Thomas cannot long maintain his role as the champion of orthodoxy.

It is this infiltration of ecumenical theology into the Roman Catholic Church that evangelical Presbyterians must view with alarm, because this theology, wherever found, must be regarded as an enemy of the pure Gospel and the Reformed theology. Evangelical Presbyterians are fully aware that it is this same ecumenical theology that enables Rome and liberal Protestantism to find a common ground; they are also aware that it is the liberals within Protestantism who fervently champion the continuing dialogue with Rome and seek an ultimate union with that church.

The current quest for some sort of union with Rome assumes that in this ecumenical encounter a new theological synthesis can be achieved that will offend neither party. The rapprochement is to be achieved on the basis of an agreement between an ecumenical Protestant theology and an ecumenical Roman theology.

Just how much influence existential neo-orthodoxy will gain in Roman circles remains to be seen. Perhaps a determined papacy under Paul VI or his successors will be able to restrain its influence, but this seems highly doubtful in view of the progress it has already made. The penetration that has already taken place poses a serious threat to evangelical Christianity. It is not too much to say that an ecumenically minded Roman Catholic hierarchy, acting in concert with a liberal ecumenical Protestantism, could well be the greatest threat historic Presbyterianism has faced since the Reformation. The ecumenical movement has on more than one occasion shown itself to be quite ecumenical in its attitude toward Marxian Communism and Soviet Russia. This tendency was also rather evident in Mater et Magister, in which John XXIII made great concessions to the Communist position even while he looked back to St. Thomas Aquinas. For this reason Presbyterians today can find no more room for agreement with Rome than their forebears could 400 years ago. They would prefer a Rome true to Trent over a Rome paying honor to Trent in one breath and promoting an ecumenical theology in the next. They would prefer a Pius XII to a John XXIII or a Paul VI, even if they agree with none of them.

- More from C. Gregg Singer

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Highlights

On Jesus Christ:

On Christ’s role:

On God:

On the Holy Spirit:

On the Bible:

On the Church:

On other religions:

On mission:

On sin:

On race:

On war:

On poverty:

From Warring To Wooing

A German Groundswell

Supreme Court Review

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Like A Motherless Child

Keswick As It Is

Learning At A Humble School

Lutherans Seek A Solution

Holy Worldliness

For Directors Of Music

The Nature Of Truth

Book Briefs

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From One Generation To Another

Shattering The American Image

Beyond Personalities

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Fraternizing With The East

What Is The Goal?

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What Sovereignty Implies

Some Objections

History’s Rebuttal

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Speaking To Each Other

Three Points Of Division

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The Currents Of Change

Trent Or Ecumenism?

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