Saints and thinkers of the early Church had generally frowned upon physical beautification. Later, medieval authorities demanded that woman or man spend his spare time in pure thought and celibate prayer, not in priming the body. But at the breaking of the Renaissance, about 500 years ago, the old Oriental practice of beautification became a moving force in Western society. Hairdressing and cosmetics advanced with a flourish.

The West became concerned about the body and beauty at the time of such earthly discoveries as the circulation of the blood (nobody would massage the scalp to get healthy hair until he was aware of the circulation of the blood). Emancipated courtly ladies and lovers went wild with new-found techniques. Plaited pony-tails, long curls, waves, bobbed hair, egg shampoos, scalp washes in milk or—if you happen to be Queen Elizabeth—in wine, make an old story. Famous sculptors turned beauticians and thus added precision and status to the profession. Hair-cutting became widely acknowledged as an art rather than an ignoble business. Gradually the modern creations of cosmetology snowballed into the infamous Pompadour of the eighteenth century where the hair was kneaded with pomade and flour, drawn up over a cushion of wool, twisted into curls and knots, decorated with artificial flowers, and left that way for weeks.

Ecclesiastical bodies were forced to condone what they could no longer control. The English parliament in 1770 gamely enacted a statute to invoke “the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanors” upon all those women who “impose upon, seduce, and betray into matrimony any of his Majesty’s subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetic washes, false hair,” and the like. But nothing has ever stemmed the tide. Today cosmetics and the art of physical beautification are about the biggest business in the United States.

After delineating more fully this history of cosmetological theory and operation for the National Convention of Cosmetology in Chicago some months ago, I presented the state board examiners with the following thesis: there are at least three basic perspectives in which cosmetology can be and, as a matter of fact, is being practiced in America; only one of these possible perspectives is Christian; whichever way cosmetology goes, history seems to suggest, so also goes the nation.

The Cult of Beauty

One perspective which rules the training and operation of beauticians and their patrons is the Cult of Beauty perspective. Beauty determines, motivates, and shapes all that is done. Beauty is never quite clearly defined (philosophers themselves have been looking for Beauty with a capital B for 2000 years, one of those black cats in the dark room that is not there), but adherents to the Cult of Beauty believe it is a certain pleasing if not perfect proportion. This Beauty is believed to be the key to a full life, happiness, even fame; it is virtually worshiped. That is what “cult” means. Beautification then becomes a magical operation and its steps become a ritual exercised religiously by its devotees. Devotees of Beauty honor beauticians as priestesses; their worship of Beauty is not comic opera but tragically serious.

Such worship of Beauty, however, is pagan. “Pagan” does not mean “primitive”; by definition “pagan” means simply “not Christian.” Christians do not worship Beauty, either physical or the capital B variety. To say that the Cult of Beauty perspective is pagan is not saying that the Cult of Beauty is not a reasonable way of thinking or a hard-working way of living; in fact, the Cult of Beauty probably always lends a successful cast to the profession of cosmetology. That the Cult of Beauty perspective is pagan means only this, that wherever this intensive, limited horizon sets the tone and pace of hairdressing and cosmetics, whether its patron saints come from Ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, Pompadour France, or Hollywood America, there you have the pagan alternative dominating cosmetology.

Automatic Beautification

A second perspective is the Automatic Beauty Shop perspective. Here beauty is a commodity anybody can buy, provided she has the money. Beauty is not worshiped, for it is something done by machines handled by trained experts who efficiently, painlessly (as reasonably as their technological know-how permits) supply the demand for beauty. Beauty is considered a necessity of life, like bread and water; you get it by visiting your beautician three times a year.

This peculiarly twentieth-century perspective is secular. “Secular” does not mean “immoral”; “secular” means simply that “the heart of the matter is gone.” Human beauticians are reduced to flawless technicians getting pay, and customers become patients needing the treatment. The whole impersonal business has drab, disheartening, unhuman possibilities.

Devaluing the Body

Both these perspectives, as well as the traditional medieval disparagement of physical beautification, work out of the age-old dichotomy of man the assumption that man is split up into a mind or soul and a body, a view developed in ancient times, intensified in the medieval period, and as powerfully latent in the modern era as ever. Standard philosophers have almost unfailingly contended that the body is so impermanent and its adornment worth so much less than cultivation of the mind or soul that preoccupations such as hair dressing and cosmetics should be neglected, if not rejected, as they interfere with the truly important and essential activities of men and women. Beauticians, on the other hand, throughout history, have concerned themselves with man or woman as an object worthy of beautification, a body, something physical in which a person can find enjoyment and happiness; they have thereby implicitly denied or at least omitted as “none of our business” any mental or spiritual factors there might be in man.

But this divisive, split-up analysis of man, no matter which side you take, does not do justice to the biblical view of man as a unified whole, a personal creature in God’s Garden. In order to get physical beautification into a radically Christian perspective, traditional dichotomistic anthropologies will have to undergo a critical re-formation. Man is not cut up into mind and body but is an integral whole.

Seeking a Christian Perspective

A guiding perspective which can rule the training and operation of beauticians and their patrons, a perspective implied and supported by a Reformed anthropology, could be called the Style For a Woman perspective. In this perspective Beauty is neither idolized nor considered a commodity but is viewed wholly as a matter of style. Not every person can be “beautiful”—whatever that means; but everyone has the capacity, even duty, to be groomed, and that includes aesthetic enhancement as well as hygienic care. Within the Style For a Woman perspective, competent men or women groom others as a service, a rather intimate service—hair-washing and styling is not far away from the biblical foot-washing—and this service is performed in a sphere of leisure. To become stylized is a luxury, not a bare necessary; therefore the performance deserves the restfulness, color, and celebration that goes with moments of luxury. Beauticians of the Style For a Woman perspective are not clinical physiologists who address themselves to bodies and heads of hair but are persons who are aware that here comes a whole woman at leisure, and their competence as beauticians is measured by their ability to give the woman style, to coax out hidden glories a la Frank Lloyd Wright, with a level of conversation and modest personal interest that relaxes and invigorates the whole woman. Beauticians of this mind are dedicated to the end of making every hair-washing an enjoyable and fruitful experience. No unspoken promises of Beauty are made. There is just the assurance of hair washed and dressed, sculptured about one’s most comely features, during a pause that refreshes physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.

The Style For a Woman perspective has a Christian warmth and sanity about it. “Christian” does not mean “moralistic” nor “humanistic”; “Christian” means something “done in Christ’s name,” whether it be the proverbial cup of cold water or the caress of a comb. When the “style for a woman” perspective puts dedication and depth into the work because the worker realizes the importance before God of working with a human being, a whole person created by the Lord God with glories waiting to be developed and blemishes needing to be dressed, then you have action that is “Christian.” If there is anything our tottering social and political affairs need today, it is action permeated by the dedicated warmth and open joy of Christian sanity. Such action can be shown and taught even at the hairdressers.

CALVIN SEERVELD

Department of Philosophy

Trinity Christian College

Worth, Illinois

Socrates was, as usual, after definitions. In particular he wanted definitions of the good, the true, and the beautiful. This business of finding definitions was, for him, an existential question. His life, and even the state of the “life hereafter” depended upon it. He was being tried for corrupting the youth of Athens, and death might be the penalty.

When Socrates met Euthyphro it seemed as though the end of his quest had come. Euthyphro knew all the definitions that men and gods had given. But Socrates wanted a definition of holiness, regardless of what men or gods say about it. So he died without the desired definitions. For him the good is good in itself, and god or the gods must look up to it as such. For him man was the center and final reference point of all predication.

Paul, the apostle, was also in search of definitions. He too wanted definitions of the true, the good, and the beautiful. For him too the finding of definitions was a matter of life and death. When Paul met Christ the end of his search had really come. Christ was God. In the Scriptures as the Word of Christ his Lord, Paul found himself defined by God. Henceforth his mind was subject to the mind of Christ. Paul had found, or rather had been found of God. For him the true, the good, and the beautiful are what they are by his Creator’s and his Redeemer’s ordinance. The holy is holy because God says it is holy.

At this point a new search for a new kind of definitions began for Paul. His chief concern was now to learn how great was the grace of Christ to him, how great was the love of God that sent his Son into the world to save not only him but also a numberless host of others with him, to be members of the body of Christ. Here was corporate salvation.

Here “the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” and here “they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:15,17). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Sinners are constituted righteous by the righteousness of one, even Jesus Christ. Here was imputed righteousness. And on its basis, Paul knew, he had true ability to serve his Saviour.

The Analogy. Having seen the vision of corporate salvation in Christ, Paul also sees the vision of corporate sin. All men have sinned in Adam. Through the “offense of one many be dead.” Judgment was “by one to condemnation.” By “one man’s offence death reigned by one.” “For as by one man’s disobedience many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be constituted righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

1. Original Sin. So deep, says Paul, is the nature of our sin that, as death comes to Adam for his sin, death comes also to all men “for that all have sinned.” Thus Paul speaks of “the one sin and the sin of all.” “We must not tone down either the singularity or the universality” (J. Murray, Epistle to the Romans, Vol. I, p. 186).

We cannot ask: When does the individual become a sinner? “For the truth is that each person never exists as other than sinful. He is eternally contemplated by God as sinful by reason of the solidarity with Adam, and, whenever the person comes to be actually he comes to be as sinful” (J. Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, p. 90).

Paul’s sense of guilt is deepened, not reduced, because of this his view of original sin.

2. Imputed Sin. Paul says that all men were in Adam “constituted sinners” as believers are in Christ “constituted righteous” (ibid., p. 88). There is “as truly an imputation of the disobedience of Adam as there is of the obedience of Christ” (ibid.). God contemplates all men as actually one with Adam in his sin. There is “as truly an imputation of the disobedience of Adam as there is of the obedience of Christ. As the latter imputation is not that of the benefit accruing follows upon the imputation, so the former must not be conceived as the liability entailed but the liability as flowing from the imputation” (ibid.). Thus “the kind of relationship which Adam sustains to men is after the pattern of the relationship which Christ sustains to men” (p. 39; cf. 1 Cor. 15:22, 45–49).

3. Inability. Only when the Church, with Paul, confesses its sin as being corporate and imputed does it sense its spiritual inability. Due to the fall in Adam “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil” (Westminster Confession). The natural man “is able to perform moral acts, good as well as evil” which are “as to the matter of them” prescribed by the moral law (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 261). But the natural man, due to his false motivation and aim cannot “perform any act in such a way as to merit the approbation of God” (p. 264). Man cannot regenerate himself, and as unregenerate he is under the wrath of God.

The Contradiction. What would Socrates have said about all this: definitions of grace and sin given to man by sheer authority—original sin, imputed sin, and spiritual inability? Out with one and all of them!

In modern times no one has expressed the Socratic attitude more pointedly than did Immanuel Kant. For Kant human personality is altogether a law unto itself. Its autonomy is its freedom.

Kant’s moral consciousness is, for him, the ultimate source of the distinction between good and evil. Kant, as well as Socrates, wants to discover the nature of sin regardless of what God says about it.

The Synthesis. 1. Pelagius. In addition to open opposition to its confession of sin, the Church has always faced the problem of the synthesizers. Holding to an essentially Socratic view, Pelagius insisted that sin “consists only in the deliberate choice of evil. It presupposes knowledge of what is evil, as well as the full power of choosing or rejecting it” (ibid., p. 153). Away then with solidaric sin, with imputed sin, and with spiritual inability.

The Pelagian view was too obviously anti-Christian to be tolerated as such in the Christian Church. But soon the process of synthesis began again. The semi-Pelagians sought for a compromise between the Socratic and the Pauline views.

2. Roman Catholicism. Then in terms of a framework of theology itself taken in part from Aristotle and in part from the Scripture, the Roman Catholic church developed a further refinement of synthesis in its view of sin. Since man, as first created, was in part composed of matter, this fact implied an inherent defect in man as such. God therefore gave man at the outset a superadded gift. Conceivably man could exist without this gift. And even without this gift he would, though defective, not be, properly speaking, sinful.

Accordingly, in the course of time Romanist theology, while teaching original sin, imputation, and inability, toned down the meaning of these doctrines in terms of the Aristotelian notion of negation (H. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Vol. III, pp. 84–85).

3. The Reformation. Over against this Roman Catholic view the Protestant Reformation recovered and developed the scriptural view of grace and with it the scriptural view of sin. Instead of viewing sin as, even in part, due to any limitation of being, the Reformers thought of Adam as created without any defect and of his sin as a willful transgression of the known will of God. The deep sense of guilt expressed in the Protestant confessions rests upon this truly ethical concept of the relation of man to God.

4. Modern Theologians. But within the Protestant churches a contest has broken out. This time the dispute concerns the question of what constitutes a truly ethical relation of man to God. Building on Kant’s view of the autonomous moral self, modern theologians hold that the historic Protestant view of sin and grace is anything but ethical.

To be truly ethical, these modern theologians contend, man must be thought of as truly free. And how can he be truly free unless autonomous?

With his “ethical” view of man and God, the modern theologian reinterprets the biblical view of original sin, of imputation, and of inability. The modern theologian seeks, to be sure, to be biblical and Christological in his view of sin. But the Christ in terms of whom grace and sin are interpreted is himself first reinterpreted according to the demands of an independent moral consciousness.

5. Friedrich Schleiermacher. It is well known that Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, violently rejects as unethical the idea that God should have made “the destiny of the whole human race contingent upon a single moment, the fortunes of which rested with two inexperienced individuals, who, moreover, never dreamt of its having such importance” (The Christian Faith, p. 301). For Schleiermacher “what is now innate sinfulness was something native also to the first pair” (p. 301). Thus finite being is, as such, assumed to be inherently defective. Schleiermacher’s supposedly ethical view of man thus appears to be more fully controlled by a nonbiblical metaphysic than does the Romanist view.

6. Albrecht Ritschl. Albrecht Ritschl seeks to be more truly Christological in his theology than Schleiermacher. In reality the framework of Ritschl’s theology is more obviously patterned after the requirements of Kant’s autonomous moral consciousness than is that of Schleiermacher. The ideas of solidaric, imputed sin and inability in the biblical sense are ruled out, together with Adam as the first man through whom sin came into the world.

7. Karl Barth. Much more complicated is the question of Karl Barth’s concept of original sin, imputation, and inability. Barth’s aim is to offer a Theology of the Word. He wants to build on Reformation “principles.” But the Kantian idea of free personality rules supreme in Barth’s theology.

Barth seeks to be far more truly Christological in his approach to all questions of theology than were Schleiermacher and Ritschl. But he will not submit his thinking to the Christ who died for sinners once for all in history. And Barth will not submit his thinking to this Christ as he speaks once for all in Scripture.

Barth has no room for the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to sinners on the basis of his finished work on Calvary. Barth’s view of substitutionary atonement rests on the idea that all men have from all eternity been participant in the being of God through Christ. Thus in his case it is once again a non-Christian metaphysic that chokes the biblical view of grace.

And Barth’s view of sin is patterned after his view of grace. When we deal with a passage such as we find in Romans 5, Barth avers, we must not speak of Adam and Christ but of Christ and Adam. Paul is primarily speaking of the righteousness of God.

The original relationship of every man is to Christ. “Jesus Christ is the secret truth about the essential nature of man, and even sinful man is still essentially related to Him” (K. Barth, Christ and Adam, 1st ed., p. 86). “In Christ the relationship between the one and the many is original, in Adam it is only a copy of that original. Our relationship to Adam depends for its reality on our relationship to Christ” (pp. 58–59).

This primacy of Christ over Adam, according to Barth, involves this: that “sin is subordinate to grace, and that it is grace that has the last word about the true nature of man” (p. 43). Human nature appears in both Adam and Christ, but “the humanity of Adam is only real and genuine insofar as it reflects and corresponds to the humanity of Christ” (p. 34). “We are real men in our relationship to Adam, only because Adam is not our head and we are not his members, because above Adam and before Adam is Christ. Our relationship to Christ has an essential priority and superiority over our relationship to Adam” (p. 34). It is because of this basic priority of Christ “human existence as con-constituted by our relationship with Adam in our unhappy past as weak, sinners, godless, enemies, has no independent reality, status, or importance of its own” (p. 30).

Barth has, therefore, no more room for the biblical teachings on original sin, imputation, and spiritual inability than do Schleiermacher and Ritschl. The supposedly ethical view of human personality precludes, in the case of all three of these typically modern theologians, the truly biblical and therefore truly ethical view of sin and its effects. For on the non-biblical view human personality must act in a vacuum.

Modern theologians either reinterpret or openly reject the biblical view of sin. So, for example, Paul Tillich speaks of the “literalistic absurdities” of the traditional Protestant view (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 40). But what is the foundation on the basis of which Tillich makes this charge? He makes it on the basis of his idea of Christ as the New Being. But he knows very well that “the quest for the New Being presupposes the presence of the New Being as the search for truth presupposes the presence of truth” (p. 80). Tillich cannot identify his New Being with a Christ that is really present to man. Thus it appears again that unless we take our definition of sin from the Christ as speaking directly in Scripture we have no intelligible foundation even for our basic hostilities.

Bibliography: K. Barth, Church Dogmatics; Christ and Adam; H. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek; G. C. Berkouwer, De Zonde, Vols. I, II; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology; J. Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin; A. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation; F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith.

Professor of Apologetics

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

THE GREAT OMISSION

A recent article told of some of the amusing situations developed by the producers of the TV program, “Candid Camera.”

One of these involved the removal of the engine from a new model car. The car was poised at the top of a hill with a filling station near the bottom of the hill on the right side of the street.

A young woman then guided the car down the hill and into the filling station and asked the attendant to check the oil and water.

The clincher came when the camera focused on the bewildered and amazed attendant as he exclaimed, “But lady, you ain’t got no engine!”

This amuses us because it is a good story, because it is an absurd situation, and because our imaginations join in the perplexity of the filling station attendant.

But when we transplant this situation into the realm of Christian work the absurdity becomes a tragedy and we stand in judgment before the God who has offered his Spirit which we have ignored or rejected.

How often “the engine is missing” in work undertaken for God! The words of the ancient prophet, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts” still hold good today. We glibly memorize and quote this verse and then go blithely on our work—for the Lord? yes, but as though might, power, activity, and dedication were sufficient in themselves.

In terms we all can understand let it be repeated, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit are as essential to any Christian work as is the engine to the modern automobile. The pull of gravity and the momentum of a down-hill grade will take the car a little way, but then it stops, and stays stopped. In the Lord’s work there are times when we think we are doing fine, only to discover that the momentum of extraneous influences has ceased and our work is revealed as utterly without power or spiritual significance.

There is no substitute for His presence. There is no power without Him. There is no real success without the help and blessing of the Spirit of God.

Our Lord’s earthly ministry was restricted geographically, probably to an area no more than 135 miles long and 60 miles wide. In his person and work he did everything necessary for the redemption of the world. But because of time and space it was necessary that he send into the world One who would make possible the extension of that work around the world and down through the centuries.

What was it which made possible the extension of his work to the uttermost parts of the earth?

Who made it possible for the gospel of Jesus Christ to become the force which turned the world upside down—which carried the Message to Asia, to Europe, and around the world?

How could a few unlearned and unprepossessing men go out and within a few years shake the very foundations of the then civilized world for Jesus Christ?

It was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living God who guided, inspired, empowered, blessed, and mightily used these men and their message.

The Bible does not leave us in ignorance as to what happened. They had been with our Lord for more than two years. They had heard him preach and teach. They had seen his mighty miracles, even the bringing of the dead back to life. And they had seen him unjustly condemned, crucified, and then, wonders of wonders, they had seen him alive again—had touched him, heard him, eaten with him and knew without a doubt that he was living.… If ever men would appear to have been prepared to go out and preach the Gospel these men were prepared, and what a marvellous preparation was theirs!

But they were not ready.

The resurrected Lord told them to wait; he said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you,” and then he defined their task: “ye shall be witnesses unto me.”

A witness is one who furnishes proof to a circumstance, or an event. A witness attests to a fact. A witness tells of a personal experience. But the Christian witness is effective only as the Holy Spirit takes it and enables the one witnessed to understand and receive.

For one to accept such a witness it is necessary that its truthfulness be believed. In the preaching of the Gospel it is the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth. It is he who prepares the heart of the hearer. It is he who enables one to believe. It is he who quickens the spiritually dead and brings life from death. It is he who speaks of the things of Christ to the human heart, convicts the sinner of his sin, brings about repentance, and leads to confession and surrender to the Saviour.

These things being true—and they are true—how utterly foolish to undertake any work or witness for Christ without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit!

On the road to Emmaus the disciples walked with the risen but unrecognized Lord. Then at supper he expounded to them the Scriptures. Then he suddenly disappeared. But the impact of his presence lingered and they said: “Did not our heart bum within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures”?

And so it is today. Only the Holy Spirit creates the “burning heart.” Only through his presence do men react in love and faith to the claims of Christ.

Ezekiel tells of a vision of a valley filled with dry bones and God asked him: “Son of man, can these live?” The prophet was nonplussed. All he could say was: “O Lord God, thou knowest.” Then God gave this promise: “I … shall put my spirit in you [the dry bones of a spiritually-dead Israel], and ye shall live.”

Nor is God’s promise limited to the rebellious house of Israel. Today he longs to pour out his Spirit on men and women, on the Church, on the nations of the world, and make them live.

Christians. Pastors. Church leaders. Do you want to see the miracle of spiritual rebirth and power in your own life and in the lives of those to whom you minister? The writer believes most persons would quickly and without question reply, “Yes.”

Then such a miracle is possible today. The dryness and deadness of a formal Christianity can be changed to the life and power of new men and new organizations in Christ—by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us all.

We are not left to hope for such a blessing. It is ours for the asking. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” This promise is still valid.

Will it be unduly emotional? No, Christ was not unduly emotional, nor were the early disciples that way. Actually it is the only way to spiritual power.

For too long some of us have tried to drive without an engine.

L. NELSON BELL

The International Association for Reformed Faith and Action now holds congresses every three years, and the fourth of these met in Cambridge during August. The Congress theme was “The Authority of the Bible Today,” and delegates numbered nearly one hundred. They had come from countries as far apart as Canada and Australia, U.S.A. and Japan, Eire and Korea.

A devotional address by the Rev. Dr. Pyeng Oh of Korea opened the Congress. Dr. Oh, who had endured the terrible fighting in defense of Pusan, declared that the roots of men’s problem is not political but moral. Man’s sin causes the trouble. The answer is not to be found in some clever new synthesis of all the world’s religions but rather in the cross of Christ. This he was ready to teach on his return to the Presbyterian seminary in Pusan.

Fashions in Theology

Dr. Leon Morris, new Warden of Tyndale House, the Evangelical Research Centre in Cambridge, delivered the first lecture on the Congress theme. He surveyed the attitude of the early Christians towards the Bible and the attempts of the Reformers to recover this after it had been lost in the Middle Ages. Turning to modern problems, Dr. Morris noted the growing recognition by scholars of the limitations of liberalism. He cited the late Professor T. W. Manson’s location of liberalism’s wrong turning: “The mischief was begun when the working hypotheses of natural science were allowed to become the dogmas of theology. At that moment God’s revelation of himself gives way to man’s thought about God.” Nowadays it was getting fashionable for everyone to call himself a “biblical theologian,” and while evangelicals could welcome the intention they were not always convinced that the old note of liberal subjectivism had gone, nor that evangelicals were always understood by their critics. Professor C. F. Evans of Durham had written, “We must beware of any sentence which begins with the words ‘surely God would have …’ for it is a religious a priori sentence. ‘Surely God would have seen to it that the Bible would have been preserved from error.’ ‘Surely God would have seen to it that there would be an instrument on earth which would teach without error.’ This is how the sentences run which are spoken from embattled positions. But for all their impressiveness must they not be judged irreligious and heretical sentences?” Dr. Morris commented that “this would make impressive reading except for the fact that the orthodox do not in fact reach their position this way.” They claim to follow Christ and what he said about the Scriptures of his day. “Their crime is that they prefer to find their guidance in the words of their Master rather than in the assured results of modern scholarship.”

The Burning of the Bishops

The next lecture by Professor Roger Nicole of Gordon Divinity School consisted of a detailed examination of the Lord’s attitude to the Old Testament. This was followed by a lecture by a Cambridge Vicar, the Rev. Herbert M. Carson, on the English Reformers and Martyrs. Some foreigners, said the chairman introducing Mr. Carson, imagined there had never been a proper Reformation in England, but this was not so. Mr. Carson traced the developments of the great revival from Wycliffe and the Lollards through to the cruel burnings of godly bishops under the Papist Sovereign Mary. The Rev. Dr. James I. Packer, Librarian of the Evangelical Anglican Research Library in Oxford (Latimer House), spoke of the conflict between humanism and the Church. A century or so ago most of the humanists were still “a cuckoo’s egg in the Church’s nest,” but now that had changed. With the revival of more biblical emphases in theology, humanism was now quite outside, and the conflict was a struggle to the death. The Christian cannot accept the authority of reason since this in effect means setting up man’s fallen mind and its judgments over against what God has said. To do this would be to fall into the same temptation as Eve, when Satan deluded her into believing something other than what God had actually said. Setting up reason as an authority can only result in ignorance of God (1 Cor. 1:21) and idolatry (Rom. 1:22 f.). The Christian must say to the humanist unambiguously, whether he be inside or outside the Church, that the only thing that will break men of the habit of looking to the authority of reason in religion is regeneration and revival.

The Rev. Donald Robinson, Vice-Principal of Moore College, Sydney, spoke on the authority of the Church. He insisted that the local church must at all times sit under the discipline of the Word of God. Dr. A. M. Donner. formerly Professor of Law at Amsterdam and now President of the Court of European Communities in Luxembourg, then examined the authority of the state. In New Testament times and at the Reformation there had been a considerable gulf between the rulers and the ruled. The latter merely obeyed the former. Then Christians directed their writing mainly to the leaders, and what they demanded was a rule of law. The state was an instrument of God ordained to rule, but the rulers were to be mindful of their high calling from above. Today, however, the situation has changed with modern democracies, and everyone is involved in the question of government to some degree. Now that the masses have the power, the rule of law and justice is even more important as it is so easy for a majority to be deluded into thinking it is the whole body, and so trample under foot the rights of a minority. The Church urgently needs to address itself to the new princes of our times, the masses, and remind them of the state’s divine callins.

Next in the Netherlands

The secretary, Dr. Jan Dengerink of Amsterdam, made his report on the progress of the association’s work. This was in two fields; first, they are now holding annual study conferences as well as the triennial congresses, the next of which is to be held in the Netherlands with the Church, the Ministry, and the Spirit as its theme. The Congress ended with a fine address by the eminent French Calvin scholar, Professor Jean Cadier, on the Word of God dwelling in the Christian.

GERVASE E. DUFFIELD

London, England

Excerpts from remarks by Dr. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, chairman of the International Reformed Congress, on “Reformed Faith and Action: Challenge and Response”:

Our situation today is by no means identical with that in which the Reformers of the sixteenth century were placed: we cannot lean exclusively upon them as though they had thought the last thought and said the last word. It is our solemn responsibility to think and plan and act for ourselves in accordance with the demands of our own age.

Similarly, the task of reform in our world today is not precisely the same in every country and every society. Some churches are young and impetuous; others are ancient and senile; others again are middle-aged and preoccupied with respectability.… However, the Church here on earth is in constant need of reform.…

In a word, the New Testament is the standard or principle in comparison with which the Church must always be reformed.… The rediscovery and application of this standard explains the Reformation of the sixteenth century.… The result was not only the exposure and eradication of error, but also positively the provision of doctrine and worship which once again were scriptural, and the placing of the Scriptures in the hands of the people, and in their own language, so that they could read and study God’s Word for themselves and thus themselves become integrally involved in the great work of reformation.…

What, then, are the issues which confront and challenge us today?… There are four in particular.…

Theological Relativism. This is beyond doubt the greatest menace to the survival of New Testament Christianity. It manifests itself in a variety of ways: in the depreciation, for example, of dogmatic or propositional theology; in the shifting sand of subjectivism which has found passionate expression in the egocentric individualism of contemporary existentialist religion; in the scarcely disguised rationalism of so much that goes by the name of biblical scholarship; in the new theory of missions which at this very time is being, so to speak, visibly formulated before our eyes.…

Because the New Testament Gospel is The Truth, uniquely so, it strikes at the root of all subjectivism and relativism. Wielding the Sword of the Spirit, we must strike at that root today. But our dogmatism must be precisely that of our Lord and his apostles—no more and no less. Otherwise we cease to be distinctively Christian: we dishonor God’s Act and Word.

The Ecumenical Movement. Impelled by a concern for the manifestation to the world of a unity that is visible as well as spiritual, the World Council of Churches is seeking to promote the co-operation and unification of the churches. Can it be denied that the multiplicity of our divisions is a scandal? that the Reformers of the sixteenth century would have viewed the contemporary scene with distaste and dismay? that the ecumenical impulse is good and commendable?

There are, however, some very definite dangers, the chief of which is connected with the temptation to allow zeal for outward unity to exalt unity to the dignity of the supreme Christian virtue and to denounce separateness as the one intolerable sin against the Holy Spirit. We must, in recognition of this danger, never cease to affirm that Christian unity must be unity in Truth, otherwise it is a mere facade without any substance behind it. And unity in truth means also unity in being separated from error.…

What ought our reaction to be to this modern movement? First of all, so far from holding ourselves aloof, we should be ready to take every opportunity … to exert an influence within the ecumenical movement in the interest of the crown rights of New Testament Christianity. Secondly, we should be open-hearted towards all our fellow-Christians and uninhibited in our willingness to give expression, before God and before the world, to the love that unites us (or should unite us) at the Lord’s Table. Thirdly, we should consider whether effective steps ought not now to be taken to remove the divisions which, in some places, have caused the fragmentation even of Reformed Christians into separated denominations.

Rome and Reunion. Among the most recent of contemporary developments is the unprecedented interest which the Roman Catholic church is beginning to show in the ecumenical movement, evidence of which is seen in the presence of Roman Catholic “observers” at assemblies of the World Council of Churches and also now in the setting up of an ecumenical office in Rome itself. This in itself need not be an unwelcome development, provided we know where we stand, and why, and maintain our position in love, though with firmness. Let us not forget that the Reformers themselves were originally devout papists: no man is beyond hope of reform because he is a Roman Catholic. But let us not forget the reasons, so clearly and frequently stated by them, why they found it necessary to dissent and separate from Rome—reasons, moreover, for which they were willing to be tortured and put to death. Those reasons are no less valid today than they were in the sixteenth century. What was false and unscriptural then is still false and unscriptural now. Nor let us overlook the anathemas which were hurled against the Reformation and its distinctive teachings by the Council of Trent—anathemas which never to this day were withdrawn.

We cannot leave out of account, either, that, officially at any rate, Rome has added to her efforts since the sixteenth century, in particular by the promulgation of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (1854), Papal Infallibility (1870), and the Assumption of Mary (1950); and it is appropriate to mention the expectation that the next dogma to be proclaimed as absolutely binding on all the faithful will be that of the Co-Redeemership of Mary with our Lord Jesus Christ. From such unscriptural error and blasphemy we cannot but hold ourselves in separation.

At the same time, however, we must not be blind to the fact that there are movements within the Roman Catholic church today which, in a variety of ways, give evidence of dissatisfaction with the prevailing ecclesiastical authoritarianism and of desires on the part of many for religion that is more simple, more evangelical, and more meaningful to the people. The Bible is, in some parts, being read and studied in a manner that has not been known for centuries. This means, if it means anything, that the possibility of a new reformation taking place within the ranks of Roman Catholicism is not a mere fantasy. By prayer and personal contact we should seek to encourage such trends.

The Cultic Hordes. The fourth phenomenon of our day is the veritable tidal-wave of strange cults that is now swirling alarmingly across the world.…

If this Satanic assault on the unique Gospel is to be repelled, it will only be, humanly speaking, as a result of penetrating study of the teachings and practices of the cults and a counter-attack in depth, not merely exposing their spurious and deceitful pretensions, but piercing their armour with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and by God’s grace reclaiming through the trumpet call of the genuine Gospel many who have been deluded by their falsehoods.

FALL PROGRAM

Programmed Progress begins at Clover-leaf Church this fall. The new pastor procured the package plan from Programmed Progress Press. Hugh Whipple, an insurance salesman, is one member of the board who is enthusiastic. He says it is the first system that brings programmed learning to the churches. I thought most Sunday schools had programmed learning, but Hugh tells me that it has just been invented. It has something to do with teaching machines. After the Program Training Center is operating in the former Sunday school auditorium, there will be an open house for church leaders.

Pastor Peterson surprised me with his interest. Programmed teaching, he insisted, demands sharp, clear questions. “It’s exactly the approach that produced the catechism!”

I found him less enthusiastic about the time-saving features of the program. “The trouble with time-saving devices is that the time we save may be our own!”

That sounded a bit epigrammatic: sure enough, he was at work on a sermon. The space-nap of Cosmonaut Titov was his launching pad. I could only think of the relaxed bravery of a man who could sleep while traveling at 18,000 miles an hour. But, to the pastor, Titov is a symbol for our age.

“What do we do with the time we save? We lose it. A man will break turnpike speed limits to go to a party where everyone kills four or five hours. We’re all asleep in orbit.”

The pastor, of course, was preaching on “Redeeming the Time.” I anticipated his stress on Christ who redeems the time of our lives; he was eloquent in treating the opportunities that God gives in the lives of His children.

Our lives are programmed better than we know. To redeem the time demands more than activity. For Paul, as for his Redeemer, the first program was prayer.

EUTYCHUS

ALCOHOLISM

Just a brief note to express my deep appreciation to Jasper A. Huffman for the courage, wisdom and basic integrity to tell the truth and expose alcoholism for what it actually is and does (July 17 issue).

I believe this is the most wonderfully straightforward statement on the fallacy that alcoholism is a disease or illness and … not a moral issue, that I have ever read.

ARTHUR KENDALL

First Methodist Church

Aransas Pass, Tex.

If alcohol is the cause of alcoholism, then guns, knives, clubs, etc. are the cause of murder, money is the cause of robbery, and womanhood is the cause of adultery. How much better to see alcoholism as being the tragic fruit of a misguided quest. Defeated persons always will seek escape from life’s problems. They find in drink a temporary respite. They do not realize that the cave in which they have taken refuge from the storm is in reality a lion’s mouth. However, condemnation—such as Dr. Huffman proposes—will never win these people away from their persuasive, though false, friend.

ARTHUR O. ACKENBOM,

Chaplain

The Methodist Home for the Aged

Topeka, Kan.

When we are able to understand why Mr. A. can control his intake of alcoholic beverage and drink socially all of his life and Mr. B. from the same cultural pattern with generally the same background goes out of control and develops alcoholism, then we will understand cause.…

H. LEONARD BOCHE

Exec. Counselor

Family Service

St. Paul, Minn.

It is the refusal of the church to accept the alcoholic as sick person, condemning him as a sinner, that turns him from the church. The alcoholic individual is in most instances a highly neurotic person. His use of alcohol is not the cause of his illness, it is merely the outward symbol of it.… Since the church memberships are filled with other neurotics as any observant pastor can testify, why must we in unrelenting hostility continue to damn the poor alcoholic while proclaiming our love for other addicted neurotics: the compulsive eater, the gossip monger, the sex addict seeking to establish his manhood, the psychopathic liar, and all the rest who make up our church rolls?

ALBAN RICHEY

Beaufort, N. C.

Being a 1960 graduate of the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, I must agree that the approach endeavors to be both scientific and objective, but I must disagree with the statement that the moral aspect appears to be ignored. My experience was one in which considerable time and energy was spent on this very aspect.…

The work of the National Council on Alcoholism and its affiliated community committees on alcoholism is a tremendously forward-moving factor on the scene today in which many of the churches are actively participating. To note the effectiveness of this sort of program we need look only to the public figures, and I think especially of those in the entertainment industry, who have recently spoken out in alarm concerning drinking problems.

GEORGE W. CONKLIN

Cashmere, Wash.

For 35 years I have worked with alcoholics. For 10 years I have been executive director of the only rehabilitation center for alcoholics in this state. I would agree that drinking is a moral matter. But the physical, mental, or spiritual change which takes place in approximately one out of eight drinkers to cause them to react compulsively to alcohol is the condition known as alcoholism. It should not be confused with drinking alcohol. About 20 percent of our patients … drank compulsively after their first drink of beer, wine, or whiskey. Others began to drink compulsively after weeks, months, or years of social or so-called normal drinking. One recent patient did not “go out of control” until after 30 years of social drinking.…

There is no cure. There are literally millions of case records which show that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.… We speak of “arresting” alcoholism, but actually we mean that the drinking of alcohol can be arrested. The illness, whatever its cause, which results in compulsive reaction to alcohol, continues to worsen whether the alcoholic drinks or not. Yet, so long as he is completely abstinent, he can live a normal, useful life.

The reaction of the alcoholic to alcohol is by no means limited to beverage alcohol. Many of our patients come for help after a drinking bout which was triggered by fruit cake with wine in it, by kosher dill pickles (2 per cent alcohol), by … patent medicines containing alcohol, by cough syrup, etc.

MAXIE C. COLLINS

Exec. Director

Fairview, Inc.

Ridgeway, S. C.

People will make use of the process of fermentation which the Creator built into his world. Why he did this I do not know but I do not question his wisdom. The Bible said God did this “to make glad the heart of man.” …

I am a total abstainer, not because I think my friends who are moderate drinkers are sinners but because I think the best policy with regard to alcoholic beverages is to leave them alone. I advise my young people that by abstaining from alcoholic beverages they can be sure they will never become alcoholics.

ARTHUR T. CLARK

Fair Haven, N. Y.

The cure lies … in the co-operation of the doctor, the informed minister, and dry alcoholics working as a team to bring the wet alcoholic to a true encounter with the love and acceptance and forgiveness of the living Christ so that he will be motivated to resign as general manager of the universe.

JACK WOODARD

All Saints’ Episcopal Church

Galena Park, Tex.

The answer to the problem of alcoholism lies in a cleansing of the nature of man, by the second work of grace. This removes the desire to drink and truly gives the individual something (Someone) better than booze.

O. JOE OLSON

Director

Information Service

Church of the Nazarene

Kansas City, Mo.

If we would appeal to magazines not to accept liquor advertising, if we would tell TV and radio that we will not tune in programs so sponsored, we could control the situation for advertising is their life.

JAY L. CLOW

The Community Church

New Carlisle, Ind.

For 43 years I served five Cincinnati Methodist churches as pastor; I retired in 1956.… Since retiring I have given my full time distributing temperance tracts and papers and have read hundreds of temperance articles and sermons.… Mr. Huffman’s article is the greatest that I have ever read in 50 years.…

I. G. ARMBRUST

Cincinnati, Ohio

A PRAYER AND A WISH

I congratulate you and the author on the outstanding article “Listen, People, Listen!” (July 17 issue). May God help all of us to be willing to proclaim the Gospel!

You are to be commended for the scholastic contents of your articles and editorials. You are making a great contribution to the ecumenical movement of Christendom. A universal understanding is always needed and you are in a position to give this understanding to all of us in the Christian movement.

ARTHUR C. FULBRIGHT

St. Paul’s Methodist Church

Thayer, Mo.

WITHHOLD YOUR DIMES!

I … hasten to correct a statement in the article … “Facing Stewardship Problems.” … Mr. Salstrand refers to “The Joint Department of Stewardship and Benevolence, 297 Fourth Avenue, New York 10,” and “a Stewardship Bibliography, price 10 cents.” The correct name of the Department is The Department of Stewardship and Benevolence; the correct address is 475 Riverside Drive, New York 27, N. Y.; and the Department no longer produces the Stewardship Bibliography.

M. D. BLACKBURN

Assoc. Exec. Director

Dept. of Stewardship and Benevolence

National Council of Churches

New York, N. Y.

PRESBYTERIANISM RAMPANT

Your list of 100 select books for a basic church library is commendable and useful, but I cannot understand why all churches should include the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (Aug. 28 issue).…

GABRIEL COURIER

New York, N. Y.

• The listing was compressed for space reasons and appeared inaccurately. Our intention was to list the historic Anglican Book of Common Prayer or, as an alternate, The Book of Common Worship of the local church’s denominational affiliation if any.

—ED.

OPEN DOOR IN QUEBEC

Speaking of teachers, there is a great need for good teachers here in Quebec, and the door is open for Christian teachers in French and English. All correspondence should be addressed to [me].

DONALD SWITZER

Box 264

Ayer’s Cliff, Que.

Second in a Series (Part I)

The tiny state of Israel is one of today’s most remarkable albeit most controversial nations. Its resurrection from the dust of history is without parallel. Whether Israel’s sovereignty is an act of political ingenuity, one of divine providence, or a strange mixture of both, neither Jewish nor Gentile historians seem able to decide.

Unlike those who recently won independence in places like India, Burma, and Ceylon, the Israelites, after surviving 19 centuries of dispersion, were “restored” to a land inhabited mainly by Arabs for 13 centuries. The country’s long-neglected natural resources were quickly harnessed by modern scientific techniques to serve a million immigrants and refugees since 1948, mostly from Eastern and Central Europe, from Arab countries like Yemen and Iraq, and from North Africa. Students of Bible prophecy quickly recalled ancient predictions about the regathering of the Jews in Palestine and about a future prosperity when even the desert would blossom like the rose.

For the first time’ in 2000 years the Hebrews now have at hand all necessary conditions for shaping their own culture. In this transition process the Hebrew language, so long confined to the margins of life, has

once again become a vigorous living language; it gives contemporary force to the ancient medium of the Old Testament. At the same time the Near East’s long-slumbering powers that reach back to early biblical times are participating once again in the lively dialogue of the nations and are asserting their places on the. front pages of the world press. The whole of Palestinian history almost seems to have revived for some awesome end-time drama.

To the younger generation (two-fifths of the population is now Israeli-born) it seems incredible that European Jews faced genocide instead of “taking care” of Eichmann. Colossal self-assurance and gratification over military prowess is a discernible feature of Hebrew nationalism, and especially of the dedication of Israeli youth to the new state. Israeli men and unmarried women, who at 18 begin two years of military service, place unbounded confidence in the Israeli army. This force, after all, repulsed the Arabs in 1948.

Recently I spent 10 days in Israel, having arrived in Tel Aviv by El A1 jet from New York. I traveled 1000 miles by car, constantly interviewing Jewish leaders and people as well as many workers in the small Christian community. Through the courtesy of the Israeli Embassy, I had unhurried access to leaders m government, education, religious affairs, natural resources, and community planning. One fact is obvious: while many large powers today are fearful about even holding their places on the map, tiny Israel-about the size of New Jersey and having a population of 1,931,000 Hebrews encompassed by 30 million Arabs in bordering states—buoyantly anticipates the future. The American Jewess who asked us “Do you think they’ll make it?” had her eye on the soft comfort and luxury of the United States, not on the determination of countless

Jews regathered from lands of persecution in the post-Eichmann era.

FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA

We drove north to the Syrian frontier, south to Beersheba and the Negev. We saw the ruins of Acre (Akko) and Megiddo, Ashkelon, and Sodom (lowest spot on earth), and the remnants of Caesarea, the Roman capital of Palestine. We glimpsed the huge prestressed concrete pipes of the spectacular Jordan-Negev water diversion scheme which, with the Western Galilee-Kishon and Yarkon-Negev projects, within three years will provide an abundance of one of the Near East’s most precious commodities. This irrigation system will compensate for the dry season of April to November, and once more turn the desert (which in biblical times was fruitful and supported up to 100,000 persons) into an area of fertility. We preached during the 50th anniversary festivities of the Baptist Church of Nazareth (through an Arab interpreter); took a cruiser across the Sea of Galilee; touched the outskirts of Dimona, in the central Negev desert area east of Beersheba, where new housing in the next three years will multiply the population from 5,000 to 30,000. We visited the Lachish resettlement in the northern Negev area that integrates Jews from many lands through a bold venture in civic planning. We noted the correlation of crops relatively new to Israel, such as peanuts, sugar cane, cotton (its fiber yield per acre the highest in the world), with nearby transportation-saving industrial establishments such as cotton, sisal and nylon fiber plants, sugar and peanut oil processing centers. The nation, we learned, already meets 50 per cent of her own cotton requirements; in fact, unless exports are increased Israel may actually face overinvestment in the textile industry. The value of overall exports already registers $350 million a year. After citrus fruits and industrial diamonds (a field opened when Hitler drove the Jewish diamond cutters out of Holland), tourism is expected to be the nation’s third biggest “export” by 1965. We observed light planes dusting the fields and learned that the Weizmann Institute of Science had eliminated the Mediterranean fruit fly and had developed chemicals to combat invading clouds of locusts. Agriculturally, Israel is now one of the three exporters of bananas to Europe. She also exports 300 million eggs a year. In the next few years $60 million will be invested in Dead Sea development, where the potash works alone export 98 per cent of their chemical products. In World War II these Palestinian operations provided most of the potash for British explosives and repair service for Allied war equipment. Today Israel exports arms, since she produces 11 times her own needs in submachine guns, mortar, and cannon. This same Dead Sea area supplies entire nations with salt and supports a thriving pharmaceutical industry. Already the film industry shows some strength, and before the end of 1962 television will be a reality unless Ben-Gurion’s opposition prevails. We glimpsed one of Israel’s two atomic reactors—the one in the Negev will be ready in two years, the one near Rehovot scientists use for training younger specialists. Since inquisitive strangers first misidentified them as mills, the atomic plants are joshingly referred to by Israeli scientists as “textile industries” run by expert “tailors.”

We visited the teeming campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—finest in the Middle East—whose enrollment of 5,000 will double before very long. In Haifa we toured the Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology) that offers almost 2,500 students academic degrees through the doctorate in modern science and technology. We stopped at the Weizmann Institute, now the largest supplier to the world of 98–99 per cent concentrate heavy oxygen for research tracing. In addition to meeting her own needs we discovered that Israel is already exporting tires. She also has a petrochemical industry. We drove to Ashdod where a whole seaport city as well as the biggest power station south of Tel Aviv is being planted in the sand. With vastly expanded farming in view as water shortages are overcome, and as agriculture responds to scientific direction, the Kibbutz, or communal settlement, is probably on its way out in Israel except for strategic or military purposes in border areas. All in all in contrast with other ancient lands whose museums and ruins speak only of past glory, the heartbeat of Israel pulses expectantly with what is yet to be.

LAND WITHOUT PROBLEMS?

Israel is not, however, without its problems. Some of the difficulties are surface deep, others chronic and ingrained.

As already noted, striking progress has been made with respect to natural resources. And diversion of water from the Jordan Valley helps moderate the sobering fact that 58 per cent of the land (from Beersheba south) is desert. Cattle raising has not yet proved successful in Israel’s climate, however, and beef (imported frozen from Argentina and Ethiopia) is expensive. Pork is not, of course, in great demand. Drillings for oil have proved generally disappointing except at Heletz which supplies one tenth of the national needs. Although several new tries are under way on Mount Carmel, those in the Negev and Dead Sea Valley are now valued mainly for their production of natural gases. Railroads especially south of Beersheba need much improvement. National projects deal with the housing problem; 100,000 co-operative apartments (three rooms, no central heating) are priced comparatively high, with a down payment of one third and involving many immigrants in substantial indebtedness. Because of government rent controls, home ownership for investment purposes offers little opportunity for profit. Such a situation among people with an average income of only $147 per month (even considering two wage earners in quite a number of families) would hardly attract to Israel American Jews skilled in successful business operations.

Labor as such is a powerful political force in Israel; in fact, Ben-Gurion’s Mapei party has dominated government policy. Nonetheless this work force poses serious problems. For one thing, some of the immigrants from Europe have virtually stepped from the Middle Ages into a twentieth century setting. And laborers from North Africa and other Arab lands lack the Western Puritan work morale that has contributed so largely to Jewish success in business. On the premise that labor supplies the main support of a sound national life, many Jews, long homeless, have been given work that undergirds their “sense of belonging” and also assists the new state’s fight for self-sufficiency. A mass return to the soil, for example, so necessary for economic survival, is a case in point. Because its society is essentially classless with little wage difference between professional and nonprofessional workers, Israel seldom attracts immigrants of professional stature. From America, therefore, where many Jews are professionally skilled in law, medicine, and the sciences, immigrants have been few. In fact, there are still more Jews in New York City alone (2,500,000) than in all of Israel (1,931,000).

MORAL ASPECTS OF LIFE

More important than socio-economic problems, however, is the question of moral strength. Although a land of wine Israel is not beset by drunkenness, and the sexual vices so common in many Western lands do not seem to have gripped Israeli youth. Prostitution is forbidden throughout the state. Compulsory service in the Army for both men and women develops self-reliance, physical fitness, and a certain sense of social and national responsibility. Many newlyweds establish their own homes in co-operative apartments instead of returning to communal life in the Kibbutzim. Divorces unfortunately are as common in Israel as in America. While Israel continues to develop its own movie industry, the worst as well as the best American films may be seen in the city theaters. Leisure time activities are often a family affair, with abundant opportunity for conversation; someone has said “there are two million people in Israel and four million opinions.” Soccer is the major national sport, and amateur archaeology almost equally popular. Of the state’s monthly lottery income of $250,000, 80 per cent goes for building schools and hospitals. Apart from Tel Aviv, Israel’s gayest night spot, Beersheba (where the patriarchs once wandered with their sheep) is now the liveliest town, probably because of its concentration of young married couples. In a city like Tel Aviv, with its bright lights and gaudy as well as commercial side, leisure becomes for many of the younger generation merely a distraction rather than a cultural opportunity; the seashore is thronged during holidays, and interest in cultural affairs is less characteristic of Tel Aviv than of Jerusalem.

The moral predicament of the Israeli is not so much a matter of external wickedness as of internal vacuum. Conformity to sabbatical and other restrictions is for multitudes a matter of routine and not of ethical decision. To what extent the growing interest in culture—in the fine arts especially—can really grip the lives of many immigrants, for whom mere residence and work in Israel are sufficient reward, is an important if debatable question. Immigrants forced to Israel in order to escape persecution seem to lack the cultural idealism of those who come voluntarily for other reasons.

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

With respect to social justice, the Israeli mind functions with a strange duality illustrated by the trial of Eichmann on the one hand, and by the Arab problem on the other. The Hebrew conscience seems to isolate these events in separate compartments. It condemns Hitler’s vicious persecution of the Jews, which he justified in part by the German need of Lebensraum; at the same time the Hebrew conscience seems un-pricked by long-standing failure to solve either the problem of the displaced Arabs, or that of the Israeli Arabs now settled but somewhat restricted as citizens of the Hebrew nation. There are, of course, staggering differences: the Nazis premeditated the savage destruction of helpless Jewry including a million children and babes, whereas the Israelis fought a war of life and death against Arab onslaught. Apart from the formal question of the Eichmann trial’s legality (passing judgment upon crimes committed before the nation existed) looms the moral necessity to present comprehensively and authoritatively this record of attempted Gentile extermination of the Jews. It besmirches human history with an almost ineradicable stain. Not in 2,000 years has a trial—in both cases in Jerusalem—linked the destinies of so many human beings to the life and work of one man. But even as the Eichmann trial quickens conscience concerning blatant disregard of Jewish minority rights, and bitter hostility toward Jews in general, so Israel’s lack of creative earnestness to resolve the plight of a million displaced Arab refugees ought also to stir an uneasy conscience. The moment Israel proclaims her international messianic mission she must reckon at her own borders with the Arab refugee.

But an even deeper spiritual aspect surrounds both the Eichmann trial and the Arab refugee problem. Failure to discuss in depth this factor of God’s sovereign purpose in history and redemption is significant: “Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated” pinpoints the Old Testament index of destiny for both Jew and Arab. Scripture illustrates, too, that privilege involves responsibility, a thesis of which exile and dispersion are poignant reminders. But what does the Old Testament imply about Israel’s treatment not simply of the neighboring Arab nations but of the Arab refugees as persons? How much more will the Israeli value the Arab in cold war than the Nazis valued the Jews in their barbarian aggressions? Ben-Gurion has said that Israel’s survival and security require at least two million more Jewish immigrants (2.5 million Jews are still in Russia). Ultimately, according to some estimates, the land should be able to sustain 7.5 million inhabitants (in contrast with the present 2.5 million). After 13 years of statehood, this prospect gives the demands of Israeli leaders a peculiar hollow sound, for they condition return of any of the one million Arab refugees on full settlement of political tensions. In the U. S., which has supplied 75 per cent of the material aid to these refugees, is a growing conviction that Israel is long overdue in a prompt token resettlement of 100,000 refugees.

On the other hand, there is little doubt that the Arab states have done little to encourage a peaceful settlement of tensions. No point in Israel is less than a few hours from a hostile border, and she is outnumbered 15 to 1 by Arab inhabitants of bordering states. Propaganda broadcasts from Arab League nations call not for a resettlement of the refugees in Israel, but for annihilation of the state of Israel. The Arab nations have not joined in a declaration of peaceful intentions which the U. N. Palestinian Conciliation Commission considers a reasonable prerequisite for a resettlement of refugees in Israel. Many displaced Arabs in view of their link to Moslem rather than to Hebrew culture, moreover, no doubt prefer reparations to return to Israel, and the Arab League ought to consider this fact constructively.

Until the plight of the Arab refugee is resolved, however, the Israeli stress on individual dignity slumps at the nation’s borders, where the personal worth of the Arab is implicitly subordinated to that of the Jew.

In the next essay Dr. Henry discusses spiritual and moral trends in Israel. Focusing attention on the problem of social justice, he has an eye both on the judgment of Eichmann and on the Arab refugee. He reflects on the latent implications of scientific concentration and the unbridged gulf between science and religion for Israel’s claim to a providential world mission.

The question of human nature is raised even more profoundly by the Eichmann trial. The prevailing tendency in Israel is to view Eichmann not as a mirror of human nature but only as an isolated being. “Eichmann is not a man but a beast; he does not deserve justice though he will get it” is a common sentiment. Israeli leaders do not wish Eichmann’s judgment to deterioriate into mere crude revenge, but they seek negation of evil through a process of justice. Yet the real truth about human nature is evaded. Eichmann and the Nazis (whom the Germans too hesitate to identify with themselves) are viewed apart from any context of a fallen race which encompasses also the modern Israeli, and in fact all mankind. The long view of history demonstrates this truth, as fully and even more so than in 1961, by what happened in Jerusalem in A.D. 30. Failure to see in the Eichmann trial (its legality curiously is also disputed) the larger meaning of human nature in its totality—and which therefore must also raise the question of the Christ—follows from a readiness to level accusation against only Eichmann. However great may be the guilt of this one persecutor of the many, the truth about all human beings is revealed by the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth (“Now is the hour of judgment for this world.…” John 12:31, NEB). The cross of Christ is still the supreme moral indictment of human nature, for here the righteous one was put to death by the many. By directing its force against the very Christ of very God, human wickedness revealed the character of Jew and Gentile alike.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Psalm 19

The Preacher:

Alfred M. Engle is Pastor of First Baptist Church of Ventura, California. Born in Virginia in 1908, he earned his B.A. degree from Wheaton College and then worked three years in a steel mill before preparing for the pulpit ministry. He received the Th.B. degree from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1938, and took some graduate study at Wayne University, Detroit. He was ordained by the American Baptist Convention in 1935, and served churches in Illinois, Michigan and Arizona before coming to his present charge in 1956. He was moderator of the Santa Barbara Ministerial Association in 1959. Recently his church relocated in new properties valued at $315,000.

The Text:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom, coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes … The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

God has chosen to reveal his glory to us in three wonderful ways: through the marvel of his creation, through the testimony of his Word, and through his work of redemption. The nineteenth Psalm gives us a glimpse of these.

IN MATERIAL CREATION

‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (verse 1).

The glory of God is declared by the beauty and mystery of the heavens, but there is more than that here. God has also permitted us, through modern discoveries in the field of astronomy, to behold more of his glory through the heavens.

Truly the heavens declare the glory of God through their great immensity or expanse.

Our greatest powers of imagination cannot adequately comprehend the vastness of God’s creation.

The astronomer measures the great distances of outer space in light-years. Since light travels at about 186,300 miles per second and there are 31.5 million seconds in a year, the distance of a light-year would be equal to 5.88 million million miles or almost 6 trillion miles. Scientists stretch our imagination by telling us that Capella, one of the stars that appears very bright to us, is 45 light-years away or 260 million million miles from us. Even the very nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light-years from us. If we were to represent the proportionate size of the sun as a mere dot on a piece of paper and the size of this star as another dot, these dots would have to be five miles apart. There are globular clusters consisting of tens of thousands of stars all of which are at least 20,000 light-years away. Think of it. Astronomers say that 300 light-years is only a step into outer space and that there are other galaxies that are at least 260 million light-years from us. This, too, is far beyond our ability to comprehend.

We hear much today of man’s great conquest of outer space; and we would not for a moment minimize the greatness of modern scientific discovery. But suppose that God does permit man to explore the moon, what has man really accomplished? The moon is only 1.3 light seconds from the earth. If a person were able to spend an entire lifetime traveling at the fantastic speed of light with no need to stop for refueling, he could not even reach out one step into the vastness of the creation of God.

The heavens declare the glory of God in the movement of the stars. It is marvelous to think of the billions of stars and planets moving in prescribed orbits, balanced in their movements with perfect mathematical precision. Knowing that he, the Creator, “hangeth the earth upon nothing,” we stand in reverence before him.

Not only is there this remarkable movement within prescribed orbits, but we are told that the universe is expanding at an unbelievable rate—stars are rushing out into what seems to us almost infinite distances. In searching some of the recent writings on this subject, we make the amazing discovery that those stars that are nearest to us are moving from us at a slower rate and those that are at the greatest distances are moving at a proportionately faster pace in relation to their distance from us. Some of those nearest to us are traveling at speeds of 20 to 62 miles per second; and by means of the recent radio telescope it is revealed that those farthest stars discernible (approximately 360 million light-years away) are retreating at the incomprehensible speed of 38,000 miles per second. The scientists have quite accurate means of measuring these movements by using the spectroscope and the newer radio telescope.

How great is the universe? Leading astronomers are saying that theoretically we may some day be able to observe those stars and galaxies so far away that they are receding from us at the speed of light. But they also tell us that anything moving faster than these bodies could perhaps never be observed because its signals could never reach us. These are so far away that the world could never investigate them. So, we ask almost breathlessly, how great is our God?

The heavens further declare the glory of God through the antiquity of the stars.

The proportionate increase in speed on the part of stars, in direct relation to their distances from us, leads to the intimation of a time of creation. It is gratifying to note that many of the recent books on astronomy speak of a creation, although to be sure, not all astronomers give God the glory for the work of creation.

Reference to a possible date of creation is made in the Encyclopedia Britannica Year Book for 1959. In discussing the movement of the stars away from us, the article says, “If this rate were interpreted as the expansion of the universe following a creation, the age of the universe would turn out to be greater than 7×109 years.” This would be 7 billion years. There is nothing in the first verse of Genesis to date God’s first great act in creation. As we think of these ages piled upon ages, we remember that David said, “From everlasting to everlasting thou art God” (Ps. 90:2).

The heavens also declare the glory of God in the magnitude or brilliance of the stars. The variation in the light given off by the stars is truly astonishing. Some of the stars are thousands of times brighter than the sun. Others are variable in their brightness; and the variety of color adds to the glory that we see in the heavens, for some stars are blue, some red, and some yellow. The blue stars are rotating most rapidly—some at the rate of 200 miles per second at their equators—and the red ones much slower, and the yellow ones the slowest of all. Our sun is a yellow star.

Then the heavens declare the glory of God in the law and order of creation. The writer of the book of Hebrews says of the Lord that “he upholdeth all things by the word of his power.” The context of this passage shows the glory of Christ as one with the glory of the Father. The orderliness with which all of the heavenly bodies work together is an evidence of the great design of him whose power is manifest in them.

The nineteenth Psalm goes on to show that the firmament showeth his handiwork. All the great expanse of the heavens is a witness, from the farthest stars right down to the air we breathe. It is not within the scope of this message to speak of the wonders of the atmosphere surrounding the earth. But we would not pass by this subject without saying that God has not failed in a single provision to make life possible and to provide for our comfort. How impossible it would be that all of these things could be brought into existence and operation without an intelligent Creator.

IN HIS WORD

The great, silent testimony of the heavens, however, magnificent as it may be, is not sufficient. Through the material creation we may know something of the wisdom and power of God, but we have no access to him. We cannot come to personal knowledge of him or discover whether a personal relationship with him is possible just by experiencing the created universe.

The nineteenth Psalm has not suddenly changed its theme at verse seven, as it might at first appear; our attention has simply been turned from the mute testimony of the heavens to the very intelligible witness of God s Word concerning his glory. He who created us capable of knowing and loving him is now revealing himself in terms that we can understand and receive. Here is not merely an impersonal expression of greatness but the very personal revelation of God in his relationship to man. How sinful and needy we are. How righteous and capable God is! The same One who has spoken through the skies above us is now speaking intimately in the Scriptures which he has placed in our hands.

Various terms are used here to designate the written word, such as the law, the testimony, the statutes, and the commandment. This Word of God is declared to be perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true, and righteous altogether. Through it, God is seen converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes, enduring forever, warning against sin, and rewarding those who keep his Word.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” He who is perfect in his own nature and in all his decrees has caused us to see how far short of the glory of God we have come. A man may be made to marvel at the works of God in creation, but he can be converted only as the Spirit of God draws him through the instrumentality of the Word.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” There is no room left for doubt here. The sincere soul may know him with certainty.

“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Those who invent their own gods seek to invent their own standards of right and wrong. To the self-willed the statutes of the Lord are a source of distress, but to the converted soul they are the source of rejoicing. He who loves the Lord delights in his Word.

“The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Testimony to its power is seen in the enlightment it brings to individual lives and even to nations whenever the Word of God is received in its purity.

“The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.” In sharp contrast to the heathen ceremonies of past centuries and of the present stands the reverence for God in its cleanness. There is nothing degrading in the worship of the Lord. Certainly this Scripture intimates not only that God is eternally deserving of reverential awe but that the soul that so honors him shall also endure forever. This does not mean simply duration but the quality that is enduring. The New Testament tells the secret of this eternal life: it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Here is something “more to be desired than gold.” Here is that which is “sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.” But how may we know it in experience? Is it possible for us, who come so far short of the glory of God, who stand before the Holy One convicted of our sins—is it possible for us to be acceptable in his sight? Look at the close of the Psalm.

IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION

“O Lord, my strength and my redeemer”—what wonderful words these are with which to declare his glory. In my weakness he is my strength. But give thought also to the other expression, “my redeemer.” It speaks of restoration, purchase, release! We who are living, not as the psalmist long before the Redeemer came, but in this present time, have seen the fulfillment of the written Word in the living Word, Jesus Christ, who is our Strength and Redeemer.

To enter into this wonderful relationship with God, the psalmist begins with a plea for cleansing, as we see in verse 12. He stands in awe of the righteousness of God and is keenly aware of his own sinfulness. He asks for the cleansing of his life from these secret faults. He asks to be restrained from the sins of arrogance, that he shall not be dominated by them.

Comment On The Sermon

The sermon “The Glory of God” was nominated for CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S Select Sermon Series by Dr. Clarence S. Roddy, Professor of Practical Theology in Fuller Theological Seminary. Dr. Roddy’s comment fellows:

In my search for a sermon representative of modern evangelical preaching, I found myself, with about 500 others, sharing a morning worship service of the First Baptist Church in Ventura, California. The service rang with spiritual vitality from the beginning to the amen. The pastor, the Reverend A. M. Engle, led the people in a reverent and compassionate voice through the opening phases of the sendee into the sermon which I have selected here.

In the past few years it has been my lot to listen to many sermons in the so-called “average churches” of this country and abroad, and I find it difficult to concur with the opinions of those who forever decry the preaching in our churches. In fact, I doubt if we have ever had a higher standard, or that there was ever a time when our people were exposed to more thoughtful and relevant preaching. The power of the average pulpit is not be judged by the homiletical prowess of a few outstanding pulpiteers and thinkers.

I find this sermon representative of the best being presented in our churches every Sunday. Let us note a few of its qualities. First, it is biblical. It is what the old school homileticians termed expository. To feel the strength that comes from being exposed to a solid portion of God’s Word is a real joy. Such a sermon carries with it the ring of authority. Without doubt, expository preaching is an area where even the so-called “great” pulpits of America could improve.

The movement of the sermon is clear, simple, and progressive. It is logical in its development, does not meander from Dan to Beersheba with a detour to Damascus. James Denny once remarked that the three essentials of a good sermon are first—clarity, second—clarity, and third—clarity.

The objective of the sermon is readily grasped, for the preacher starts with the people where they are and then leads them to their Redeemer. Courtland Myers used to say that the ideal sermon is one that began at the level of the people and always led them to the foot of the Cross. By that standard this sermon rates high.

The sermon is relevant. On every hand we are confronted with the subject of space. Many expressions of God’s place in this “new age” of space have been heard, some wise and some not so wise. This preacher did not indulge in a lot of speculative verbiage but assumed with the Bible the God of the universe, and the universe as expressive of his majesty, glory, and power. This the sermon expounds without pedantry or sophistry. His knowledge of the field is evident and is used with restraint. It is dangerous for preachers to talk too “wisely” in the fields of science. But this man’s insight into man’s conquests of space, the earth and moon satellites in reference to the vastness of the universe was appreciated by all, even college students.

The sermon does not get bogged down, however, in the material universe (a real homiletical temptation) but proceeds with the psalm to the Word of God written and its ministry to man in the moral order. The sermon reveals the wonders of the Word of God with freshness and vitality. Note the force in the rather short sentences. Observe the simple but adequate vocabulary. It is the language of the laity, not the technical jargon of the scholastic. It communicates!

Using Spurgeon’s “element of surprise,” the message, almost with abruptness, confronts the hearer with Christ as his Strength and Redeemer. It is a fitting climax to a fine, down-to-earth message on a grand and glorious theme. As I left the church, I could hardly keep from singing aloud, “Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art!”

C.S.R.

There is a way which a man can be upright and innocent from the great transgression. We know that the greatest sin against God is the failure to believe in him and to glorify him.

And so this Psalm closes with a prayer to the Redeemer whom the New Testament reveals to be the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord, who gave his life for our sins. The great cry of this believing heart is uttered in these words: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

It is only by the grace of God and through the power of the new creation in the heart of the believer that the innermost thoughts and the outward expression can be acceptable in his sight.

Thus is his glory revealed.

As we look up into the heavens we say, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all” (Ps. 104:24).

As we search the Scriptures we are convinced that “the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Pet. 1:25).

As we behold our Redeemer we confess with a faith that issues in salvation, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

When this writer decided in 1953 to come into the Presbyterian ministry as an ordained and appointed evangelist, he was then greatly encouraged by glowing reports from the Standing Committee of the Department of Evangelism. These reports indicated that we Presbyterians were becoming “evangelism conscious.” The writer attended the General Assembly meeting in Minneapolis in 1953, where a dynamic program for increased vision and interest for evangelism was lauded. The impetus of the program was shared by both laymen and the professional ministry. However, all this was in 1953.

What are the results in 1961 of all this “increased vision and interest” for evangelism? However noble the words vision and interest may be, they never quite get a job done. Are we satisfied simply to laud a spiritual principle without launching its program?

NEED FOR A DEFINITION

Perhaps before we go much further, we should define some terms. By evangelism we mean that contagious enthusiasm to present Jesus Christ that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, men may accept Christ as their Saviour from the guilt and power of sin, may come to know, love, and trust God through him, may grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and serve and follow him as Lord in the fellowship of the Church, in the world-wide redemptive work of his Kingdom, and in the vocations of the common life. This task is in no way limited to ministers or theologians, but must be the leavening force in all local congregations and among all persons who are committed to Jesus Christ. This is evangelism.

Now let us define the word evangelist. The writer of Ephesians sets forth the word evangelist in its proper position: “And he [Christ] gave some apostles, and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” The proper function of the evangelist is within the framework of the Church. The Lord in bestowing gifts to men also determines where these gifts are to be used. “Some” (churches or places) need pastoral service and shepherding. “Some” churches have need for a teaching ministry. And of equal importance to the life of the Church, “some” churches need an evangelist. Our Presbyterian constitution in its form of government lists evangelists, pastors, and teachers as “needful … laborers” for the life of the Church:

As the Lord has given different gifts to the ministers of the Word, and has committed to them various works to execute, the church is authorized to call and appoint them to labor as pastors, teachers, and evangelists, and in such other works as may be needful to the church, according to the gifts in which they excel (Form of Government VIII 1, p. 122).

And yet, in spite of the abundance of scriptural and constitutional fortifications for the word evangelist so as to warrant its acceptance in our Presbyterian vocabulary, the word is still approached with overt caution and ominous contempt. Why? Must every evangelist be categorized as “another Elmer Gantry”? Is there sufficient evidence to label all evangelists as “Christian charlatans” and “biblical Barrymores”? Was Moody a money grabber? Was Finney a fraud? Was Chapman a charlatan? Is Graham a Gantry? No! These men accepted their God-given talents for recruiting men into the kingdom of God … seriously. They discharged their duties with vigor and vitality, but also with sobriety and solemnity. Would not our own church program today be revived and revitalized if such a list of men were available from the rolls of our presbyteries and synods? Or, would such men ever be called upon for their services by our churches? There is no purpose in putting up a shingle in our synodical and presbytery windows “Have Evangelist … Will Travel” unless our churches see the need of such rendered service. Must our own people “sneak” off to some evangelistic service at another church, because our own church program does not include such services on its “spiritual menu”? Must the intake of this type of evangelism by our own people always be provided by other denominational bodies who “pick up the tab”?

A SURVEY ON EVANGELISM

In the past four months this writer has been conducting a private survey on evangelism and has covered at random many parts of the United States. The questionnaires were mailed out to pastors, stated clerks of sessions, stated clerks of presbyteries, synodical executives, national secretaries for the commission on evangelism, as well as leading laymen in our churches. To those pastors whose names appeared on presbytery ministerial rolls, behind which there were the initials Ev (i.e., evangelist) and P-Ev (i.e., pastor-evangelist, a designated term which is applied to a pastor of a church who may be on call for evangelistic meetings), the following set of questions was sent:

1. First, do you believe, because of specially endowed gifts that God has granted you, that you were definitely called to this calling of an evangelist, rather than a pastorate?

2. What type of preaching mission services do you conduct? Do you preach for a decision or a verdict in each message?

3. What have you found to be the ideal length of time for your preaching missions?

4. How many “preaching mission crusades” have you conducted in the past year?

5. Do you feel there is an awakening amongst our churches for the need of such preaching missions?

To the other persons listed above, the following questions were addressed:

1. What has become of the traveling evangelists for the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.?

2. How many ordained and commissioned evangelists does your Synod have on its rolls for its churches?

3. Would you please give the date when the last evangelist was commissioned?

4. If ever a qualified person were to apply for said position, what would be his chances of ever being employed and used by our church?

I have never conducted a survey which met with better co-operation. Approximately 93 per cent of all questionnaires mailed out were answered and returned to my desk in less than two weeks. The genuineness and candor of most of the answers proved very enlightening, if not amusing. For instance, one pastor in seeking to answer the question “Do you believe … that you were definitely called to this calling of an evangelist, rather than a pastorate” replied:

As you probably know, when they don’t know what else to call you at your ordination in our church, they call you an evangelist. If you are going directly into a Presbyterian parish, you are ordained a pastor. If you go into something a little offbeat, they ordain you an evangelist since they don’t have any other categories.

Another pastor answered the same question this way:

As you no doubt realize, evangelist is a catch-all term applied to any ordained minister in our denomination who is not a chaplain, pastor, or secretary, or a variation of those three. I am none of the above, hence I am an evangelist. My work is in the factory of the Cadillac Motor Car Division of the General Motors Corporation. I am employed as an hourly-rates worker on the assembly line. I don’t preach (except to the ostensibly already converted in some of our local congregations).

These answers (a sampling of many similar replies) contain an admixture of humor and pathos. There is humor, because theoretically the word evangelist has been bantered to and fro so much that it has become a “catch-all term” for some “offbeat” church work. The real pathos is seen in the over-generalizing of the word. Here is a word which has all of the pregnant meaning of “reconciling men to God” and “proclaiming the good news of Christ” that he has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Then we take this word, which represents what every pastor, every church member, every Christian everywhere must be, and we cheapen it into something less. This is an insult to the Name that officially and originally gave the word to the Church. The word should be solemnized by all who know its true meaning, rather than sloganized or scandalized by its ambiguous applications. Ultimately Christ alone is the evangelist, not man; yet men feel the compulsion to evangelize. And herein lies the great dilemma of what the word evangelist should mean to each Christian. How does one plan to do something which ultimately one does not do; and what does this mean for the content and method of evangelism?

THE EVANGELISTIC MEETING

What now is to be said for “evangelistic meetings”? Is there room for this type of evangelistic endeavor in our outreach for the souls of men? Do we appreciate the aim of these services, or are we afraid of them? My questionnaire raised forth considerable discussion about the “evangelistic service.” One pastor from New York replied rather negatively:

A series of “evangelistic services” is often nothing more than a week of meetings where a guest minister digs into the barrel and preaches a series he has used in his church. In recent years we have been calling these “preaching missions,” where the sermonic messages are aimed usually at those already professing members.

A pastor from Michigan says bitterly:

We are especially concerned, as you might expect, with the “inner city.” We are examining the work of religious groups which have used high-powered evangelism with little serious effect on the people or the society. We have watched the formerly powerful city church, replete with evangelistic meetings, slowly wither.

Are these pastors right? Does this represent a majority point of view? Or, should we also hear the views of others, such as one New York Synodical Executive:

This is not to deny, however, that in keeping with the New Testament understanding of special gifts, there may be those who have special gifts in persuasive preaching which the Holy Spirit may choose to use to bring non-Christians or nonbelievers to the point of Christian commitment. There are many men in our denomination who have unique gifts of preaching in whom I have real confidence, and whose ministry the Holy Spirit has indeed blessed in special services and in other ways.

A St. Paul, Minnesota, pastor-evangelist writes:

In honesty, I receive more and more invitations outside of the Presbyterian church than in it. The whole official trend in evangelism is toward personal work rather than mass evangelism. I do not object to the first, but I do regret the official attitude towards the second.

Is this not the heart of the matter? No one denies or repudiates the validity of a realistic Christian experience that is obtained through personal work. But are we Presbyterians broad-minded enough to validate the equally realistic Christian experience that is obtained through the evangelistic meeting?

PREACHING FOR A DECISION

What does an evangelistic service seek to accomplish? Basically, the evangelistic service calls men to repentence and to put faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. An evangelistic sermon specifically or indirectly seeks a response. There need be no labored pointing of a moral or a public invitation at the close of every message, but, whether evident or implicit, the call to commitment must be there.

Preaching for a decision or verdict must always be predicated upon the sovereignty of God. Men are to be won by “the foolishness of preaching,” but it would be foolish indeed to hope to win people to Christian living by preaching alone. We do not call men to God in ourselves. “No man cometh unto me,” said Jesus, “except the Father draw him.” The evangelist must always be conscious that men and women are not won simply by the skill or persuasiveness of his preaching. “Not by might, nor by power [nor by preaching], but by my Spirit,” says the Holy Writ. The sacredness of the individual personality is to be respected and it would be presumptuous to suppose that everyone who hears the evangelist is, as a consequence, ready to make a decision.

Now, what of all this in our church program? Is there really a desire to have this type of evangelistic thrust in our church life? There is considerable evidence from certain Presbyterian leaders that perhaps such a thrust is easier to write about than to implement. For instance, a Minnesota stated clerk of presbytery replies:

At the present time, we have no commissioned evangelists in our presbytery. I have been stated clerk of this presbytery for many years, and it is my recollection that we have not ordained an individual for the specific assignment of evangelism for many years. This probably dates back even to dates prior to 1940.

A stated clerk of a Wisconsin presbytery says this:

The records of the Presbytery previous to 1926 are on deposit with the Wisconsin Historical Library in Madison, Wisconsin. Since that time, no man has been ordained as an “evangelist.”

A Michigan synodical secretary replies:

I can only say that I have been a member of this synod for about 14 years, and during that time we have not commissioned any evangelists as such.

And finally, the executive secretary and stated clerk of the synod of California sums up the situation of existing and available evangelists for our churches when he says:

I have been a stated clerk for some 30 years and cannot recognize what you mean by “traveling evangelist” for the United Presbyterian Church. As far as I know, no evangelist without a pastoral charge has ever been commissioned in the synod of California and there certainly are none in existence now in this synod.

Must these statements of seeming utter pessimism be the final word on the subject? Or, will we try to rethink our position on evangelism in such a way as to include on our ministerial rolls a place for the evangelist who will be available to all churches who may want evangelistic services that point for a verdict!

Preacher In The Red

SQUELCHED

In the Presbyterian Church ministers are designated as “Teaching Elders” while the Session is composed of “Ruling Elders” who work with the minister.

In my pastorate there was an old Elder who had “served” for many years. He was rather the dominant type, which at times caused some difficulties. As a young minister I hesitated to “tackle” him, but one time I really had to do it, to prevent further difficulties. Trying with the utmost care, I approached him and made some suggestions. Looking over his glasses at me, he said, “Listen, young man, let me remind you that you are the teaching Elder, but I am the Ruling Elder here.” … This brought the conversation to a close.—The Rev. A. C. VAN PUFFELEN, First Presbyterian Church, Coleraine, Minnesota.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1014 Washington Building, Washington 5, D. C.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

In evangelical circles it is always a cause of great lament that those early colleges and universities which were definitely Christian in their origin are now lost to the cause. That such is the case one cannot deny, but too seldom do evangelicals, who grimly remind themselves of this fact, seek for the reasons behind the all-too-frequent departures of Christian colleges from the historic faith. These should cause evangelicals great concern, and should encourage thorough investigation. Why have so few, if any, of the schools founded in the colonial period and early days of the Republic remained true to the Scriptures and to the purposes for which they were started?

Certainly this is a question we must frankly face and frankly answer before we set out to establish new schools, for these might swiftly follow the same path unless adequate steps are taken to guard against it. Without soul-searching on the part of evangelicals it will be very difficult to justify the expenditure of vast sums of money for new colleges and universities to replace those already lost to the faith.

No one factor can explain the situation which brought about the shift of control in these colleges from the Christian Church to secular groups. Their early history reveals the fact that various forces were at work. But usually one or more of the following causes can be traced.

LOOSE CHURCH CONTROL

Weaknesses in the ecclesiastical polity of the founding church were in many cases directly responsible. This is particularly true of those schools which owed their origin to churches using the Congregational or Baptist form of government. When the Puritans of Massachusetts consciously rejected the Presbyterian form in their Cambridge Platform they chose a kind of polity that would ultimately render it difficult for them to retain any semblance of control over Harvard College, and to maintain in that institution a doctrinal orthodoxy should the college choose to follow another course. In the same way, the decentralized Baptist churches of the North have found it almost impossible to maintain sufficient authority over most of their schools to insure doctrinal soundness.

It should be noted that these weaknesses in polity do not in themselves cause the colleges to proclaim their theological independence of the founding church. They only make departures from the faith possible. It can be argued that Congregational polity would, under the most favorable conditions, eventually result in the loss of some schools, but it can hardly explain the wholesale desertion of their colleges from the Christian faith.

THEOLOGICAL WEAKNESSES

Inherent theological weaknesses have been a second factor in the drift of Christian colleges to secularism. A profoundly biblical theology must lie at the heart of a sound educational philosophy. The less biblical a theology, the more easily and readily does it succumb to the enticements of heresy. It is a matter of common knowledge that those churches which adopted Arminianism and semi-Pelagianism have become the easy and even willing prey of liberalism, and have suffered the greatest inroads of unbelief. Such theological positions are themselves conscious accommodations to humanism and unbelief to the extent to which they deny the sovereignty of God and the depravity of the race after the Fall. At these important points Arminianism and semi-Pelagianism are sub-biblical theologies, and fail to provide the necessary theological foundation for a Christian philosophy of education. Many colleges were founded in this country by churches professing to hold to the Arminian system, and this theological weakness has been the Achilles heel of much evangelical educational effort in this country.

The importance of a sound philosophy for educational endeavor cannot be overemphasized. This can be found only in a sound theology which in turn supports a Christian world and life view. Many churches which were historically evangelical in outlook have singularly failed in their educational activities simply because their theology did not provide the necessary foundation for a philosophy of education that would bring the teachings of the Scriptures sharply to focus on the educational program. They started colleges which were Christian in purpose and evangelical in tone, but lacking in their theological outlook. These schools, professing a real loyalty to the evangelical cause on the one hand, soon began to accept philosophies of education culled from humanism and other prevailing philosophies of the day. Thus, their Christian testimony was largely confined to the worship services held in chapel, to the missionary rallies, and to the courses in Bible. But the rest of the college program slowly came under the influence of those who were unprepared to examine the problems of culture and scholarship in terms of the Scriptures. The philosophy which came to prevail in the sciences, psychology, sociology, literature, history, and other departments, was frankly humanistic, or naturalistic, to such an extent that the Gospel preached in the chapel was overwhelmed by the paganism of the class rooms and the colleges could no longer claim to be Christian in fact.

SHUNNING INTELLECTUAL ISSUES

This whole transition, in many cases, was possible for the simple reason that the theological position of the colleges did not afford clear and convincing answers to the great intellectual issues that must constantly arise in educational circles. Where the whole counsel of God is not presented in its grandeur and fullness, Christianity often appears in an adverse light in its continuing conflicts with other systems of thought.

In many evangelical circles the result has been the rise of an anti-intellectualism which, in turn, accentuates the very departure from the faith which they fear. On the part of many pietistic groups there has been an obvious tendency to flee from learning as a dangerous activity. This, in turn, has given rise to the conviction that scholarship is a dangerous enemy to the Christian faith. Thus, all too often in the past, as well as now, many evangelical colleges have been forced to find adequately-trained faculty members outside the historic Christian faith in order to meet accreditation requirements. More than one college has been lost to the faith by such a process. Faced with the necessity of maintaining high academic standards, they have taken competent scholars without too much regard for their doctrinal standards on the assumption that they would not endanger the faith of the students or the purpose of the college so long as they did not teach courses in Bible or theology.

At this point the churches must share the blame with the colleges. The finest educational philosophy must remain ineffective unless it becomes the guiding principle for competent scholars who are, at the same time, thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures and committed to the historic Christian faith.

CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT

But a fourth factor remains to be considered, and this one has assumed a far greater importance than is generally realized. It is the desire of the Christian colleges to accommodate their own programs to the cultural milieu of the day. In recent years this has taken the form of conforming to the demands of the American way of life and the democratic philosophy. It is this factor which has played a dominant role in the departure of many colleges from the evangelical cause. A weak polity on the one hand and a deficient theology on the other made their task simpler, but the desire to conform to non-Christian cultural norms furnished the stimulus for their defection. This attempt to bridge to a philosophy of life which is dominantly pagan must be fatal to any Christian educational effort which is not thoroughly grounded in the historic faith, for only this historic faith brings out, in sharp contrast, the basic differences between contemporary non-Christian philosophies and the plain teachings of the Scriptures in regard to God and man, sin and salvation, and the meaning of the human drama itself. Many schools, sound in doctrine and polity, have sought to escape what they felt were the fetters of orthodoxy so that they might gain a worldly intellectual respectability. This has been the case with Presbyterian colleges which have been conscious of the cleavage between their Calvinistic heritage and democratic environment. The answer to this dilemma is the realization that Christianity is exclusively true, that it transcends all human systems of thought, and must therefore be sovereign over the minds of men.

God Forbid

Galatians 6:14

God forbid that I should boast—

Weak thing of clay and loathsome dross—

May it not be that I should boast,

Save in the glory of Thy Cross.

God forbid that I exult

In fleshly compact, pledge or tryst;

May it not be that I exult

Save in Thy plighted Word, O Christ.

God forbid that I depend

On what man’s limit doth afford;

May it not be that I depend,

Save on Thy Grace, my Sovereign Lord.

PAUL T. HOLLIDAY

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.