For several decades the subject of special revelation has been focal in theological discussion. The basic issue, implied or stated, in recent theological structures is precisely the question, how are we to understand God’s specific self-disclosure? Those who have rejected the historic evangelical position, with its sola scriptura, sola fides, solus Christus, despite varying degrees of dogmatism, betray an astonishing degree of fluctuation and hesitancy, gyratings and revisions.

Some have commended modern theology for its “dynamic” nature in contrast with the “static” doctrine of the “traditionalists.” The emphasis on new “insights” into truth frequently recurs in modern theologies. But it is one thing to move, another to be sure where you are going. Much modern theology is restless and lacks a fixed center; it is on the march, but unsure of its destination.

It is difficult to describe some contemporary views on revelation with exactness, not only because these newer theological reconstructions insistently deny all finality but because of the delight expressed by exponents over the disagreements among each other. The basic differences between Barth and Brunner are well known. Brunner accused Barth of inconsistency. Although Barth professes to repudiate intellectualism in theology, his writings are vitiated, Brunner insists, by an unconscious philosophy which ends in biblical monism. Barth retorts that Brunner welcomes at the back door (in the form of general revelation) the intellectualism he has cast out at the front door. With both and between themselves Tillich and Niebuhr disagree. Tillich writes of the “many theological disputes” he has had with his “great friend” Niebuhr. Niebuhr maintains that an indebtedness to Greek intellectualistic thought was necessary so that Christianity might convincingly adapt itself to prevailing views. This was a missionary requisite. Tillich denies the legitimacy of this type of intellectualism and insists, in opposition, that Greek thought was not in fact rationalistic but mystical.” Brunner states that the label “neo-orthodox” is unfortunate and really inapplicable to Niebuhr since “there is nothing more unorthodox than the spiritual volcano Reinhold Niebuhr.” He prefers therefore to call him a “radical-Protestant.” Then there is Bultmann, the new monarch in the theological arena, who, according to Brunner, “thins out the Gospel too much.” In the midst of such cross discussion, the student of contemporary theology must be forgiven if he finds agreement in high places hard to discover.

One thing, however, is certain. Behind these modern ideas of revelation stand a deliberate renunciation of the “traditional” doctrine and a departure from what the Church has from the first believed concerning special revelation. From time to time, assuredly, advocates of one or other of the current ideas seek to justify the newer position by claiming that theirs is the historic teaching of the Church. Such a claim, made by Gore in his day and by Hebert at the present, need not be taken seriously. To call their opponents “traditionalists” and then to castigate them as modern is, to say the least, very inconsistent.

As the late John Baillie says in the opening of his book The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought, the fundamental question of all theological reconstructions is “What do we mean by revelation?” This, he says, “is a question to which much hard thinking and careful writing are being devoted in our time, and there is a general awareness among us that it is being answered in a way that sounds very different from traditional formulations.”

THREE MODERN PRONGS

Broadly, those who take up positions opposed to “traditional formulations” fall into three groups. There are the older theological liberals, the neo-orthodox, and the modern Protestant radicals.

In some quarters a surprising number of thinkers adhere still to the first of these ideas. The view, deriving from Schleiermacher, puts emphasis upon the immanence of God and upon personal experience as the method of revelation and as the ground of religious authority. In the context of these notions God is sought in the depths of man’s consciousness and he is regarded as the “near Ally,” not as the “great Alien.” In his fundamental nature, man is not cut off from the Infinite. Clouded and strained by man’s folly and ignorance though the divine may be, yet it still subsists and persists. The native God-consciousness needs but to be awakened and then man will rise upon the steppingstones of his awakening self to heights divine.

This was the basic idea of which Schleiermacher was the father and liberal Protestantism the offspring. Schleiermacher proclaimed and liberal Protestantism reiterates the thrilling and tremendous possibility belonging to man as man, “of taking up the divine just as it did happen in Christ.” This is religious experience: here are special revelation and religious authority. The Bible is demeaned into mere testimony to this human reality. It is a record of and a witness to religious experience as a continuing possibility. The Bible is a book of abiding value because herein is collected the evidence of man’s growing experience of God and his progressive response to him. And of this experience Jesus is for us the supreme example and the chief inspiration. But to be so it must be the real Jesus, the genuine historic Figure, recovered from the debris of dogmatism under which the Church has buried him. It was found necessary therefore to reconstruct the gospel record and to discover the essential human character of the story whose genius for religion has been so creative and decisive for all following generations. It fell to Harnack to lead in this reconstruction. “The Christ that Harnack sees,” said George Tyrrell, “looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.”

Against such a view of revelation, the neo-orthodox entered the most vigorous protest. Brunner saw it as an attempt to get rid of the idea of special revelation by seeking to make all history revelational. It failed altogether to take account of the fact that Christianity is decisively connected “with a real event in time and space, which, so it affirms, is the unique, final revelation for time and eternity, and for the whole world” (Mediator, p. 30).

So neo-orthodoxy came with its message of sharp opposition to liberalism’s attempt to build theology on human experience, even if designated as “religious” and “Christian” experience. In contrast, emphasis was placed upon the transcendence of God and his difference from man. He is the Wholly Other and there is no natural unity (says Barth especially) between God and man. The cult of the historic Jesus is therefore firmly repudiated. Special revelation is located in the Word of God, God the Son. It has nothing to do with a figure of human history. The revealing events are not “historical” happenings at all. They fall in the realm of Geschichte (which denotes that which is above history). Here, it is said, is the locale of revelation in which and for which the human Jesus has no significance. “Faith presupposes, as a matter of course, a priori, that the Jesus of history is not the same as the Christ of faith,” says Brunner (Mediator, p. 184). Thus faith is not in the least concerned with critical investigation into the records. In fact, the most radical biblical criticism, of which Brunner is an ardent adherent, does not affect the issue in the slightest. Indeed, it may well be that the Synoptic Gospels do less than justice to the stark literal humanness of Jesus (cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 151 ff., 1955). “Not Christ after the flesh, the Christ who is tractable to historical and critical enquiry, but the Christ after the Spirit is the subject of revelation” (Camfield, Revelation and the Holy Spirit, p. 64).

We cannot enter into the implications of all this now. It could be shown that despite all their emphasis upon “objective” revelation the neo-orthodox have really returned to the Kierkegaardian subjectivity, a subjectivity which in their respective criticisms of Schleiermacher they have professed to renounce. And, eliminating the historical Jesus from account, they readily entertain the most radical critical conclusions regarding the gospel records. But they are left, it appears to us, with a Christ who merely has the “value” of God for us, since he is who he is by the interpretation of the Church. It is when I am “convinced in my conscience” that “Christ is the truth” that I can believe in the Scripture testimony to Christ (Brunner, Dogmatics, Vol. I, p. 110). The truth is, of course, that this repudiation of the historic Jesus is false and fatal. It is the whole Christ of the whole New Testament who is the source and the object of faith. Faith presupposes, as a matter of course, a priori, that the Jesus of history is the same as the Christ of faith.

Modern radical Protestantism, it seems to us, sets out from the neo-orthodox conclusion and develops into a “reconstruction” theory which is reactionary indeed. Bultmann (the Strauss of the twentieth century) arrives at what we may call a form of skeptical romanticism. We are told that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and person of Jesus (Jesus and the Word, p. 8). The whole Gospel has come to us “legend-tinted,” overlaid with ideas derived from a primitive supernaturalism. It is the task of theology today not be content with the neo-orthodox, super-historical Christ but to reconstruct the whole by “demythologizing” the “myths.” It is therefore maintained frankly, for example by Niebuhr, that such ideas as the Trinity are mere symbolic expressions, quite meaningless if read literally. Since it would be absurd to assert that the finite can be the infinite, we are told that Jesus was not really, literally divine. Only in a “gnostic, symbolic” sense can it be said that he died and rose again.

The upshot of this line of thought is that we are left with a new form of humanism in which revelation seems to be nothing much more than the unveiling to man of the ultimate divinity of his own being. This seems to us to be the conclusion of Tillich’s Systematic Theology, that is, if we understand him aright, or if he is really understandable at all. “Revelation,” he tells us, “is the manifestation of what concerns us ultimately” (Vol. I, p. 110). Everything is a bearer to man of such a revelation when it seizes him as a “miracle” and as “ecstacy,” thereby inducing an “elevation of heart.” Of this reality Christianity is the profoundest “symbol.” “A Christianity which does not assert that Jesus of Nazareth is sacrificed to Jesus as the Christ is just one more religion among many religions,” he says. But this too is “symbolic”; indeed, ’tis “symbol” all. The term “Son of God” is a symbol; so, too, is the term “God”; but a symbol of what? That we are not really told.

It need hardly be said that for all this “reconstruction” there is no authority whatsoever. Having renounced the thesis that divine revelation contains truths, Bultmann, Tillich, and Niebuhr are left with no rational basis for theology. They have failed to observe, what seems to us so clear in the biblical record, that the knowledge of God which is discovered by experience is not a knowledge which could have arisen in experience. Man’s encounter with God comes by way of the truth communicated to God’s chosen prophets and apostles. The acts of God and the word of God are not two separable realities. God’s acts are known only as they are interpreted by his word, and by his word we are brought into saving contact with his acts. Protestant radicalism has no objective Word of God, with the result that it flounders in the abyss of irrationalism and subjectivism.

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.

“Theology: the Queen of the Sciences.” For many today, such a concept is reminiscent of times when knighthood was in flower. The man on the street may have difficulty comprehending that doctrinal differences involved in “that crash of light over Europe known as the Reformation played a mighty role in shaping the face of that continent. He cares little whether theology abdicated or was dethroned. He is more interested in the twentieth century monarch: natural science.

And natural science, or better, scientism, indeed seems regnant. But it wears its crown uneasily, its scepter twitches in a sweaty palm. For it threatens its dominion with destruction, its subjects with genocide. This is not out of character, for the youthful sovereign usurped the throne with a suddenness akin to violence. Indeed, of those performing the task of midwifery, of all the scientists and engineers produced by the human race, the majority are still alive. Their rushing flood of discoveries, by almost annihilating time and distance, has forced a reconstruction of geography. While the Industrial Revolution removed many of man’s muscular burdens, the current swift extension of electronics data-processing techniques, coupled with automation, will relieve him of many mental and decision-making functions. The unfolding of scientific discovery has been greater this past century than in all the others put together, and the acceleration shows no sign of slackening.

All of this promises man a golden age, but it has brought him into an era of mortal peril. His ability to cope with new forces matures slowly and is hopelessly outdistanced by the remorseless pace of his monarch-captor. The new discoveries, applied to weaponry and timed to the ideological division of the world into two armed camps, have propelled him into a balance of terror, with no guarantee of stability.

There are scattered cries for some word from the old Queen, but many theologians speak in uncertain accents (see editorial, “The Predicament of Modern Theology”). Their faltering words are often muffled by the blast of rocketry and echo meaninglessly in a yawning chasm of disaster. The world hears no clear warning of doom or promise of regeneration.

In such an hour, CHRISTIANITY TODAY begins with this issue a series of studies of the great Bible doctrines, in the classical tradition of biblical and systematic theology. The world hungers for such. Sometimes it takes a scientist like R.C.A. Vice President Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom to remind mankind, as he did government officials recently, that we need to develop faith and wisdom “more nearly the equivalent of our technical prowess.” These he finds in Christ.

Men outside of Christ are becoming more aware of their impotence. The illusory ideal of humanistic self-sufficiency is being seen more for what it is. But men cannot agree as to the proper source of aid. They seem lost in a never-ending war of ideas as they fight behind an armor of fluctuating notions which vanish with the polishing. Lacking are the transforming power of true doctrine, eternal principles, the certainty of a personal relationship with God.

What kind of God? Could evangelical theologians know whereof they speak as they tell us of the attributes of God? And what could have more thunderous relevance for the besetting uncertainties of our day than the providence of God? What of the enigma of man—his great capacity for good coupled with his stunning aptitude for evil? We have surely heard of God’s image in man and also of man’s fall, of his original sin. What is the present significance of these realities?

Explanations without solutions are surely inadequate. But how pale seem other messages beside the proclamation of Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. How futile, solutions other than the gigantic Cross, its head reaching heaven, its foot piercing the bowels of hell, its arms encircling the world. How frustrating the quest for fullness of life apart from the emptiness of The Tomb. Where is there salvation apart from atonement? Where is completeness apart from mystical union with the Son of Man? Where is hope apart from faith? Where is satisfaction apart from justification? Where is purpose apart from sanctification? Where is confidence apart from assurance concerning the last things? And where is fellowship apart from God and his Christ?

But how may we know these matchless truths unless God tell us in ways we can understand and dare not evade? This is revelation. And it is at this point that Pittsburgh Seminary’s Addison H. Leitch begins our pilgrimage back to Jerusalem, treading with sure step as he avoids the common pitfalls of sacrificing either general or special revelation.

I am not sure whether such opportunities have been present in other places, but in Holland personal contacts between Roman Catholic and Reformed theologians since the last war have been highly instructive. During the occupation, we came together frequently because we felt a strong need of one another. After the war, we tried to continue something of the same spirit, and a series of conversations was carried on between Roman and Reformed theologians. In the conversations we attempted to review in an open and cordial way the great questions involved in the Rome-Reformation conflict.

There was voiced concern on the part of some lest in such conversations Reformed theologians would tend to minimize the depth of the gulf between us. But those who took part in the discussions know that within the cordial personal relationships, the profound differences of faith were continually manifest. Subjects as mariology, the primacy of the pope, the nature of the church, justification and good Works, all of which were repeatedly discussed, kept us from ever forgetting our tragic differences.

Misunderstandings were frequently cleared up. But even as we came to understand each other better, the differences between us became all the more marked. At the same time, it often struck us that misunderstandings of Rome from the side of Protestants are many and frequently form part of a long tradition of misunderstanding. But it struck us even more deeply that Roman Catholic thinkers carry on a persistent misinterpretation of the Reformation.

It is recognized by Roman scholars that a profound religious motivation was involved in the Reformation. Catholic apologists talk of the profound faith observable in Luther and Calvin, and speak appreciatively of the Reformers’ great respect for the Word of God. But the charge that the Reformation was basically a revolution still is heard. Karl Adam, who often has a good word for Luther, says that Luther committed the great sin, which Augustine called the worst, namely, the sin of raising an altar against an altar. Luther, says Adam, lost the vision of the reality of the body of Christ in the ecclesia catholica.

Of special interest is the fact that Roman polemicists still charge the Reformers with an unwarranted one-sidedness in regard to the doctrine of sola fide, salvation by faith alone. Catholic writers have coined the word solism for this aspect of the Reformers’ theology: sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia. The tendency to see things in terms of only this or that forced the Reformers, we are told, to ignore other sides of the truth.

Criticism is directed especially against the sola fide doctrine. Salvation by faith alone tended to remove necessity for good works or sanctification. The Reformation is thus seen as a kind of antinomianism which relied on a perverse interpretation of Paul with no eye for the urgent call to holiness in the Christian life.

Now it is obvious that the Bible puts much emphasis on the necessity of sanctification and good works. It could hardly be said more strongly than in the book of Hebrews which tells us that without consecration it is impossible to see God (Heb. 12:14). Then there is Matthew who recalls that it is the pure in heart who shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Why then do Roman apologists suggest that the Reformers, who were theologians of the Word, had no eye for the biblical urgency of sanctification?

If we recall the sixteenth century, we remember that many, in reaction to Roman ideas of man’s meriting salvation, were hesitant even to talk about good works with any emphasis. Yet it is surely clear that the Reformers without exception never lost sight of the importance of sanctification in their attack on the idea of the merit of sanctification as part payment for salvation.

Calvin probably had Roman criticism in mind when he wrote that salvation by faith alone cannot mean that faith remains alone. Like Luther, he would have no part of the thought that, since justification is by faith and not by works, good works were unnecessary and even harmful. Their protest was in no wise against sanctified living; rather, it was against the notion that a man earned salvation in part by sanctified living. They wanted to maintain sanctification in its biblical perspective.

Roman Catholic theology made a tradition of accusing the Reformers of losing sight of the urgency of the moral and spiritual life. This is parallel with their charge that the Reformers’ rejection of papal primacy meant they were not Reformers but revolutionaries. Such Catholic writers often suggest that the Reformers blazed the trail that led to the French Revolution and the nihilism of our own day. The discouraging aspect of this understanding is that it is seen in the most irenic Catholics, those who want most sincerely to understand the Reformation.

Surely, it is the duty of those who look at the Reformation as a return to the Bible, to make clear in word and deed that such interpretation of the Reformed life is a serious misunderstanding. We cannot rest with saying that the writings of Luther and Calvin make it abundantly clear that they were not enemies of sanctified living and not antagonists of good works. We must make it manifest in our persons and in our congregations that faith does not remain alone, that it is informed with love and holiness, that the faith which alone saves is a source of spiritual life, a power which makes for holiness. If we wish to dispel the Catholic argument that Protestants believe only faith is important and sanctification unimportant, then we must together seriously live the Christian life in the seriousness of the Bible.

The deepest intention of the Reformation was to preach the significance of the Atonement as the redemption of life. Antinomianism is a thrust against the real meaning of the Reformation, the call to life in Christ with all its urgency to holiness. Salvation is through faith alone: this is the Reformation truth. But faith does not remain alone, it is joined by works. This also is Reformation truth.

The Finished Work Of Christ

The Nature of the Atonement, by J. MacLeod Campbell (Clarke, 1959, 464 pp., 17s 6d. and The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, by James Denney (Clarke, 1959, 339 pp., 17s. 6d) are reviewed by R. A. Finlayson, Professor of Systematic Theology, Free Church College, Edinburgh.

When the older theologians were explicit in their reference to “the finished work of Christ,” it was in order to distinguish between the objective work completed on the Cross, and the unfinished or progressive work of Christ carried on through His Holy Spirit to the end of the age in the regeneration and sanctification of men. And they were equally clear and insistent on the fact that the objective work of Christ was the basis of man’s subjective experience. It is found that historical deviations from the orthodox view of the atonement tended to neglect this distinction and to view the atonement of Christ mainly, if not altogether, in its ethical implications. This can be more clearly seen towards the close of the eighteenth century when, with the disintegration of the Satisfaction Theory under the impact of Rationalism, there arose the school in theology identified with Schleiermacher and Ritschl in Germany and MacLeod Campbell in Scotland, which labored to place the meaning of atonement purely on a basis of history and experience.

Campbell’s theology was so heretical that in 1831 he was deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland. Evidently, the mood of the present generation of theologians is more hospitable to his theology since his book has been republished after the lapse of a full century.

MacLeod Campbell’s theory of the atonement is listed even by so discriminating a conservative theologian as Warfield as among the “Vicarious Theories,” though he places it lowest in the group. The vicarious element in the atonement Campbell regards as Christ’s repentance for us. It was a representation and identification with us on the part of Christ which involved no element of imputation on the part of God. In this identification with us, Christ in His great love was able to make our sins His own to such an extent that He could confess them and render to God an adequate repentance for them. This completely satisfied the demands of God and secured for all men the basis on which they could be forgiven. Thus Christ’s vicarious repentance rendered an unlimited atonement that was as extensive in its scope as the whole of mankind. And now the experience of salvation consists in Christ bringing us into the very experience in which our sin involved Him, and then into His experience of the Father’s love and grace. In short, Christ’s atonement for us guides us to the making of a similar atonement for ourselves.

The two questions that arose immediately, to which Campbell offers no satisfying answer, are: Can there be a vicarious repentance, or repentance, in any true sense of the term, on the part of one who has no consciousness of personal sin? And: Is repentance all that is necessary for forgiveness?

The answer to these questions can be found in James Denney’s classic work reissued at the same time. His estimate of Campbell’s book is, from one point of view at least, very high: “Of all books,” he writes, “that have ever been written on the atonement, as God’s way of reconciling men to Himself, MacLeod Campbell’s is probably that which is most completely inspired by the spirit of the truth with which it deals” (p. 120). One is, somehow, accustomed to these testimonials from Denney to positions that he is about to demolish! And his exposition of the New Testament doctrine of reconciliation, and of reconciliation as achieved by Christ, is a complete answer to MacLeod Campbell. Denney’s own position with regard to the basis of forgiveness is crystal clear in such statements as these: “God forgives our sins through Him who died for them: this is the real basis in the New Testament for such a formula as that Christ by the sacrifice of Himself for sin satisfied divine justice” (p. 161). And again: “If we are to stand on New Testament ground, propitiation is a word which we cannot discard and propitiation can never be defined except by reference to God.” Once more: “Its reference is to sin, and what it signifies is that in the very processes through which God’s forgiveness comes to sinners, justice is done and must be done, to the divine order in which sin has been committed. It is divinely necessary,” he adds, “necessary not only with a view to impressing men, but necessary in order that God may be true to himself, and to the moral order He has established in the world, that sin, in the very process in which it is forgiven, should also, in all its reality, be borne. This is what is done by Christ in His blood.”

Denney’s book, written with all the mental acumen and in the brilliant style that characterize all his works, is a valuable corrective to present-day easy views on sin and forgiveness.

R. A. FINLAYSON

East German Witness

A Christian in East Germany, by Johannes Hamel, edited with an introduction by Charles C. West (Association Press, 1960, 126 pp., $3), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry.

Here is an exciting window on the Christian witness in East Germany, that heartland of Luther’s Reformation now in the lap of Communism. Johannes Hamel has a message for Christians in the West as well as in the East: that Communists are not simply to be damned, but are to be addressed as sinners for whom Christ died. The reader will note the Barthian stamp on his view of the Bible (pp. 60 ff.), his downgrading of dogmatics (p. 63) and his view of truth (pp. 91, 97 ff.), but he must not escape the force of his plea that the Christian community has a missionary obligation as much to Khrushchev’s world as to Nero’s.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Evangelical Archbishop

Archbishop Mowll, by Marcus L. Loane (Hodder and Stoughton, 1960, 262 pp., 21s.), is reviewed by Noel S. Pollard, formerly Precentor, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, New South Wales.

Billy Graham said during his Crusade in Australia that he had “never been in a city where he was so conscious of the influence of one man, who had walked with God, as he was in Sydney, where the influence of the Archbishop was still everywhere evident” (p. 253). This estimate made almost a year after Howard Mowll’s death explains why a biography of him should interest Christians all over the world. The fact that Marcus Loane is the author of this work will be a further recommendation to those who have read his other biographical writings. For those interested in the fortunes of the Evangelicals in the Church of England and in the part played by a fine Evangelical leader in the affairs of the world church, this is a rich storehouse. Dr. Loane has abundantly demonstrated that Archbishop Mowll was the rightful successor to the great Evangelical leaders such as Bishops Ryle, Moule, Knox, and Taylor Smith.

Most valuable of all, Bishop Loane has given us a wonderfully detailed picture of Mowll’s work in the four countries where his influence was greatest. First, in England during his student days, he played an important part at one of the most difficult times in the recent history of Evangelicalism. His name is still remembered and honoured in Cambridge today. Then, during the years of the Great War, he exercised a far-reaching pastoral ministry in Canada among the clergy of that dominion. During the 1920s he was made bishop in West China and he assisted at the birth of the indigenous church there. Finally, in the fourth period of his ministry as Archbishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia, he did much to lay the foundation of a strong and virile Evangelical witness in that vast continent over a period of twenty-five years.

A complete estimate of the man and his work can only come when we can look back over a longer period and see his life in perspective. But for the present here is a most valuable and detailed guide to his career and achievements. Those who know the Diocese of Sydney and who knew the man himself can only give God the praise for all we read in this book.

N. S. POLLARD

Pioneer In Education

J. M. Price: Portrait of a Pioneer, by Clyde Merrill Maguire (Broadman, 1960, 138 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by James DeForest Murch.

Southern Baptist churches are noted for their great Sunday Schools and their progressive ideas about Christian education at the local church level. Much of this accomplishment is due to the pioneer work of John Milburn Price.

Price came from the hills of Fair Dealing, Kentucky, but as a young college student he caught the vision of an educated church, earned doctorates with honors in eastern universities, and founded the School of Christian Education in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary—one of the most advanced institutions of its kind in the world.

Maguire pays a much-deserved and inspiring tribute to this true scholar who achieved greatly but never lost the common touch.

JAMES DEFOREST MURCH

Unique Phenomenon?

The Prophets of Israel, by Curt Kuhl. Translated from the German. (John Knox Press, 1960, 199 pp., $3.50). Reviewed by Oswald T. Allis, formerly Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary.

The author of this short but meaty volume justifies his choice of subject by describing it as “the unique phenomenon of Israelite prophecy, unparalleled among any other people or in any other literature.” This encourages the reader to expect a rich repast. Unfortunately, when he has completed his examination of the volume, the reader finds that very much of the uniqueness has disappeared. For one of the main results of that “critical” movement which the author represents has been to decrease or destroy that uniqueness. In religious matters Israel, according to Kuhl, “was profoundly influenced by its surroundings”; and its “two essential elements,” the mantic and the ecstatic, are both derived from her neighbors.

One of the distinctive features of biblical prophecy is prediction. In proof of this the reader is referred to Isaiah 40–48. But according to Kuhl 2 Samuel 7:8–17 “has no messianic character whatsoever”; and the same view is taken of Isaiah 7:14 (“the mediaeval Jewish opinion … that the reference is probably to the prophet’s wife, is probably nearest the truth”) and of 9:7. With especial reference to Isaiah 53 he tells us that we must be “content with the inadequate solution that the central figure in the songs is Deutero-Isaiah himself.” The significant thing about this solution is that it is admittedly “inadequate.” According to Kuhl there are three Isaiahs. But to call the third “Trito-Isaiah” is a “misnomer” because Trito is himself composite. There are three Zechariahs, three hands to be distinguished in Obadiah. Ezekiel did not write chapters 34–48. Joel, Jonah, and Daniel belong to the late-post-exilic period.

If Dr. Kuhl really holds that biblical prophecy is so “unique” and so “unparalleled,” he owes it to himself and to his readers to treat it with the respect which such an amazing phenomenon deserves.

OSWALD T. ALLIS

Congregational Way

The Congregational Way of Life, by Arthur A. Rouner, Jr. (Prentice-Hall, 1960, 182 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Henry David Gray, Minister, South Congregational Church, Hartford, Connecticut.

Arthur Rouner writes a Word for today which is warmly evangelical and profoundly Christian. I can testify, as Chairman of the Committee on Congregational Polity for four years and as one of the nine members of the Constitutional Commission of the General Council during the biennium of its existence (1954–56), that Mr. Rouner’s descriptions are accurate concerning the ministry, the sacraments, the worship, the association, the conferences, the councils and the covenants of our traditional Congregational Way of life.

The value of the book lies in its cogent imposition of the life and work of a Spirit-commanded fellowship. The principle of ‘the gathered Church’ here breathes a commitment to Christ founded on the twofold recognition that Christ is “Lord and King of His Church” (p. 46) and that “His presence gives authority to our order … validity to our sacraments … and … power” (p. 46).

‘Freedom’ is seen to be ‘freedom in Christ’, “the freedom of a voluntary agreement with Christ and with our fellow Christians to walk together in love—to obey the Lord … (p. 64). “Because of this direct line of authority to churches from their Lord, our Way is known as ‘Independency,’ and our churches as ‘free’ churches” (p. 65). In a penetrating and often soul-disturbing manner Mr. Rouner unfolds the theme that “a Congregational Church lives or dies by the dedication and devotion of its people” (p. 68), with special concern for individual and corporate searching of the scriptures and with an enunciation of the principle that all church bodies beyond the local church are “formed to serve” the churches and are “in no sense their masters” (p. 75).

With considerable eloquence Mr. Rouner pleads for a “high ground of faith (which we) can stand on together” (p. 85). The New Testament testimony “Jesus is Lord” is proclaimed as the center of “a free, creative fellowship” (p. 91) with the overwhelming conviction that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” A Bible faith which “springs from the deep wells of human experience” (p. 95) in living personal relationship to God—this is the transforming reality which needs no creed when conviction leads a man to the personal confession of faith “Jesus is Lord.”

There is also a definitive plea for a consecrated, care-for-each other, expectant, lay-led, adventurous, believing and serving fellowship which radiates “the apostolic joy” (p. 116).

Simplicity, directness and spiritual power characterize the claim that the uniqueness of the Congregational Way is “a whole people worshipping together, working together, and led by God together: a people who bear responsibility as a whole church and not just by delegated committees or representatives” (p. 124).

The church itself is directly and immediately responsible for the nurture, training, ordination, life and work of the minister as one giving full time to the Christian work which is the concern and responsibility of the whole worshipping community. The call is God’s call; education is for service rather than to gain a position of deference, and ordination is at the call of a particular church, by the people of that church.

Mr. Rouner’s book is inadequate in two chief ways. First, he idealizes certain aspects of English Congregational life, particularly the Church Meeting and the Lay Preacher. Possibly he intends a call to us to use these valid ideas in vigorous ways. Second, even the splendid section on “The Way of the Spirit” does not quite come to grips with the nature and power of theology of Christian experience unveiled in Acts and in the Congregational Way at its best.

Despite minor defects this volume is the clearest trumpet-call which Congregationalism in America has heard in more than a quarter century. For the Congregationalist, it is an accurate, reverent and soul-searching call to commitment. It is the best one-volume introduction to the Congregational Way published in many decades.

HENRY DAVID GRAY

The Jew And Christ

The Church Meets Judaism, by Otto A. Piper, Jacob Jocz and Harold Floreen. (Augsburg, 1960, 98 pp., $1.75), reviewed by Victor Buksbazen, Vice President International Hebrew Christian Alliance.

In this small volume three Christian theologians confront the Church with the challenge of contemporary Judaism.

Jakob Jocz, Professor of Systematic Theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto, gives a penetrating analysis of Israel’s spiritual crisis, from the vantage point of a Hebrew Christian. His conclusion: “The modern Jew is a split personality without deep convictions and definite faith in God. The church must help the Jew find his way back to the source of spiritual life.”

Professor Piper of Princeton Theological Seminary analyzes chapters 9–11 of Paul’s epistle to the Church in Rome and decides, “Our task is not to make the Jew a Gentile Christian but a true Jew, a Jew who sees what Christ actually means for the historical mission which his people have in the world.”

Perhaps the most thought-provoking and even embarrassing challenge to the Christian conscience occurs in Professor Floreen’s contribution to the symposium: “The most direct defiance of Christ’s lordship is the refusal to include Jews or others in our evangelism because of prejudice.”

A stimulating and challenging book for all those who take their Christian responsibility to the Jew earnestly.

VICTOR BUKSBAZEN

Christian Dictionary

The Vocabulary of the Church, edited by Richard C. White (Macmillan, 1960, 178 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Faris D. Whitesell, Professor of Practical Theology, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

If you have ever been confused by the phonetic markings and diacritical signs in standard dictionaries and reference works, you will appreciate this book. In one alphabetical index of over ten thousand word entries, it gives the correct pronunciation of words in a simplified form. Avoiding all diacritical markings, the author uses a system of capitalization, syllabylization, and italicizing to indicate at a glance the right pronunciation of any word. His index includes all Bible names and places, the most used Bible words, and the common names and terms from church history, theology, music, psychology, and philosophy—truly the vocabulary of the Church!

Here are examples of his system: Aaron is ER uhn; Barth is BAHRT; Bethphage is BETH fuh jee; Bezalel is BEZ uh lel; Caiaphas is KAY yuh fuhs; Frelinghuysen is FRAY ling high z’n; Geoffrey is JEF ri; Pharoah is FER o, or FAY ro; Nicanor is nigh KAY nawr; Philistine is fi LIS tin, or FIL uhs teen.

This volume will easily prove worthy of a place alongside the dictionary on the desks of pastors and vocational Christian workers.

FARIS D. WHITESELL

Sunday School Lesson Commentaries

Standard Lesson Commentary, edited by Orrin Root (Standard, 1960, 440 pp., $2.95); The Douglass Sunday School Lessons, by Earl L. Douglass (Macmillan, 1960, 494 pp., $3.25); Broadman Comments, by H. I. Hester and J. Winston Pearce (Broadman, 1960, 458 pp., $2.95); The International Lesson Annual, by Charles M. Laymon and Roy L. Smith (Abingdon, 1960, 448 pp., $2.95); Tarbell’s Teachers’ Guide, by Frank S. Mead (Revell, 1960, 384 pp., $2.95); Peloubet’s Select Notes, by Wilbur M. Smith (Wilde, 1960, 423 pp., $2.95); are reviewed by Milford Sholund, Director of Biblical and Educational Research, Gospel Light Publications, Glendale, California.

The 1961 outlines of the International Sunday School Lessons and International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching include four areas of biblical subject matter. The first quarter plus one extra lesson in the second quarter (14 lessons) includes a comprehensive study of the entire Gospel of John. The second quarter is titled Biblical Wisdom and Ethical Problems. Biblical selections are taken from Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Luke, Ephesians, and James. The third quarter is devoted to personalities of the New Testament. They are Mary, the mother of Jesus, Andrew, Matthew, Mary and Martha, Thomas, Dorcas, John, Mark, Silas, Lydia, Timothy, Aquila and Priscilla, Titus, and Gaius. The last quarter is on the subject of Christian Growth.

The editors and publishers of comments on the International Uniform Lessons are going to the grass roots constituency to find out how to improve these volumes. Last year (1960) Tarbell’s volumes inserted a return post card asking for certain information. Editor Frank S. Mead learned that the principal concern of the teacher-users was for more application of the lessons to daily living. Sunday School teachers and students not only want to know what the Bible teaches but what this teaching means for their daily lives. Within the volume of a book of about 400 pages, the authors seek to make each biblical passage relevant to contemporary life.

A good illustration of the effort to help the teacher do a better job is shown in the format and organization of the lessons in the Standard Lesson Commentary. Orrin Root works with a larger volume with three columns per page. There is the skillful use of art work, layout, and attractive headings. The typical teacher will be fascinated by the book as he works through it for his weekly assignment. One of the unusual features of this edition is the cumulative index of all the biblical passages used in the Standard Lesson Commentaries from 1954 to 1961, listed on six pages. This should be a handy reference for Sunday School teachers and pastors.

Peloubet’s Select Notes for 1961, edited by Wilbur M. Smith, prince of biblical bibliographers, contains an enormous amount of information on the biblical text and related items. Undoubtedly, faithful users of Peloubet’s Select Notes will have become accustomed to the form of the lesson layout well enough that they know almost where to look for what they want. Dr. Smith has the unusual capacity of finding out what the best expositors of Scripture have to say on a given passage. The teacher who spends the time that he should in meditating and thinking about the compilation of truth that Dr. Smith has condensed for each lesson will be full of his subject. He should know what to teach. He may not get all the help he needs on how to relate this knowledge to the class.

The finest example of applying biblical truth to contemporary life is found in Douglass’ Sunday School Lessons. Earl L. Douglass is a master at compiling facts and presenting them in cogent, incisive language that the Sunday School teacher and pastor can use. There is a modernity about Douglass’ presentation of biblical truth that is appealing. Douglass is as certain as the sun rises that the Bible has the answer to man’s dilemma, but the way he brings the Word of God into contemporary language is fascinating and satisfying.

Broadman Comments has a distinctly Southern Baptist flavor, with a healthy emphasis on the all-sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures in faith and practice. H. I. Hester furnishes the exposition of the text. J. Winston Pearce applies the lesson to life. Teaching outlines and helpful visual aid suggestions add to the practical value of the volume.

Abingdon’s International Lesson Annual, edited by Charles M. Laymon, is prepared in more of the traditional format of the lesson exposition verse by verse with departments featured by well-known writers. For the typical Sunday School teacher there probably is more help in this volume on how to proceed to teach the lesson than is found in the other books. This is an important feature because Sunday School teachers too often are simply “talkers” rather than teachers. The King James Version and the Revised Standard Version are printed in parallel columns for those who prefer to use either one or both of these texts. It is interesting to observe that the King James Version continues to remain the popular text in the exposition of the International Uniform Lessons.

All six volumes abound with suggestions for illuminating the truth by audio-visual aids including films, filmstrips, flat pictures, object lessons, and oral illustrations.

Sunday School teachers and pastors who use these Sunday School lesson helps will find more than they can use each week in their Sunday classes. Undoubtedly much of the material published in these volumes will be useful outside of the Sunday School hour. There is a wealth of biblical material, and fortunately the editors are giving more time each year to teaching the Word of God.

MILFORD SHOLUND

Youth Ministry

The Jack Wyrtzen Story, by George Sweeting (Zondervan, 1960, 151 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Ted W. Engstrom, President, Youth for Christ International.

The life of Jack Wyrtzen is a flesh and blood commentary on the promise of God in 1 Samuel 2:30—“For them that honor me, I will honor.” Wyrtzen and his Word of Life program have been true to the Word of God through many years of faithfully giving out the gospel of Jesus Christ to the youth of the world.

The Jack Wyrtzen Story is an unusual blending of twentieth century biography and solid biblical teaching. The Christian worker cannot help but be encouraged as he sees what God has done through one dedicated life. Teen-agers will also benefit from reading this book.

TED W. ENGSTROM

Word And Worship

Word and Sacrament: A Preface to Preaching and Worship, by Donald Macleod (Prentice-Hall, 1960, 164 pp., $4.65), is reviewed by C. Ralston Smith, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City.

This interesting little book by the Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary might better have been named “Word and Worship” because it has to do with these areas more particularly than with “sacrament” as that word is generally understood. It is written with clarity and persuasiveness. The last third of the book is taken up with several examples of meditations and sermons which purport to illustrate ideas of the author’s thesis.

The volume is especially well documented, perhaps too much so, with two hundred references to at least that many authors in its brief compass. Pastors should be helped much by the reading. My only point of real disagreement was in the unwarranted and unnecessary criticism of the ministry of music in the churches. Our own experiences reveals none of the hazards expressed, and I feel the situation described to be the unusual (p. 111).

C. RALSTON SMITH

Mission Surveys

Safe in Bondage, by Robert W. Spike (Friendship, 1960, 165 pp., $2.75) and One World, One Mission, by William Richey Hogg (Friendship, 1960, 164 pp., $2.95), are reviewed by Harold Lindsell, Dean of the Faculty, Fuller Theological Seminary.

These two books are written, the first about home missions and the second about foreign missions. In the first book the author successfully identifies and isolates the various strands which go to make up the complexity of modern American life. Each in itself is a mission field and the Church has not always witnessed successfully to the people who are caught in the web of circumstances. He deals with the big city and its problems of housing, minority groups, the flight to suburbia, and juvenile delinquency. He touches on regionalism, leisure, youth, TV, and industrial problems. Some solutions are offered for increasing the effectiveness of the Church’s witness. It is a searching, thoughtful, and well written book deserving of attention.

Hogg’s book is an elementary treatment or survey of missionary endeavor in terms of the modern ecumenical movement. The background material is synthetic and helpful to the ordinary reader. He shows the comparative strength of the National Council’s Division of Foreign Missions in relation to the IFMA, and the EFMA of the NAE. Having begun with a consideration of the various groups which make up the Church’s witness to the world the latter part of the book is unfortunately devoted only to illustrations of the effectiveness of the National Council’s Division of Foreign Missions witness.

HAROLD LINDSELL

No major realignments are evident in a comparison of religious affiliations of members of the 86th Congress with the 87th Congress, which convenes January 3.

Roman Catholics again are the most numerous in some two dozen religious affiliations represented in the Senate and House, but not by much. In both houses, Protestants as a group still outnumber those of other faiths.

In the 86th Congress, there was an initial total of 103 Roman Catholics, 91 in the House and 12 in the Senate.

In the 87th Congress, there are 98 Roman Catholics, including 86 in the House and 12 in the Senate. Here is the makeup of the House according to religious affiliation (for similar details on the Senate, see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, December 5, 1960 issue):

ROMAN CATHOLIC

Addabbo (D.-N.Y.)

Addonizio (D.-N.J.)

Anfuso (D-N.Y.)

Barrett (D.-Pa.)

Bates (R.-Mass.)

Becker (R.-N.Y.)

Bennett (R.-Mich.)

Blatnik (D.-Minn.)

Boggs (D.-La.)

Boland (D.-Mass.)

Buckley (D.-N.Y.)

Burke (D.-Ky.)

Burke (D.-Mass.)

Byrne (D.-Pa.)

Byrnes (R.-Wisc.)

Cahill (R.-N.J.)

Carey (D.-N.Y.)

Clancy (R.-O.)

Conte (R.-Mass.)

Cook (D.-O.)

Daddario (D.-Conn.)

Daniels (D.-N.J.)

Delaney (D.-N.Y.)

Dent (D.-Pa.)

Derwinski (R.-Ill.)

Dingell (D.-Mich.)

Donohue (D.-Mass.)

Dooley (R.-N.Y.)

Dulski (D.-N.Y.)

Fallon (D.-Md.)

Feighan (D.-O.)

Finnegan (D.-Ill.)

Fino (R.-N.Y.)

Flood (D.-Pa.)

Fogarty (D.-R.I.)

Gallagher (D.-N.J.)

Giaimo (D.-Conn.)

Mrs. Granahan (D.-Pa.)

Green (D.-Pa.)

Healey (D.-N.Y.)

Hebert (D.-La.)

Hoffman (R.-Ill.)

Holland (D.-Pa.)

Mrs. Kelly (D.-N.Y.)

Keogh (D.-N.Y.)

Kilday (D.-Tex.)

King (R.-N.Y.)

Kirwan (D.-O.)

Kluczynski (D.-Ill.)

Kowalski (D.-Conn.)

Lane (D.-Mass.)

Lesinski (D.-Mich.)

Libonati (D.-Ill.)

McCormack (D.-Mass.)

McDonough (R.-Calif.)

Macdonald (D.-Mass.)

Machrowicz (D.-Mich.)

Mack (D.-Ill.)

Madden (D.-Ind.)

G. P. Miller (R.-Calif.)

Monagan (D.-Conn.)

Montoya (D-N. Mex.)

Murphy (D.-Ill.)

O’Brien (D.-N.Y.)

O’Brien (D.-Ill.)

O’Hara (D.-Ill.)

O’Hara (D.-Mich.)

O’Konski (R.-Wisc.)

O’Neill (D.-Mass.)

Philbin (D.-Mass.)

Price (D.-Ill.)

Pucinski (D.-Ill)

Rabaut (D.-Mich.)

Rodino (D.-N.J.)

Rooney (D.-N.Y.)

Rostenkowski (D.-Ill.)

St. Germain (D.-R.I.)

Santangelo (D.-N.Y.)

Shelley (D.-Calif.)

Mrs. Sullivan (D.-Mo.)

Thompson (D.-N.J.)

Thompson (D.-La.)

Vanik (D.-O.)

Willis (D.-La.)

Young (D.-Tex.)

Zablocki (D.-Wisc.)

METHODIST

Abemethy (D.-Miss.)

Adair (R.-Ind.)

Albert (D.-Okla.)

Arends (R.-Ill.)

Aspinall (D.-Colo.)

Avery (R.-Kan.)

Ayres (R.-O.)

Bass (D.-Tenn.)

Belcher (R.-Okla.)

Mrs. Blitch (D.-Ga.)

Boykin (D.-Ala.)

Brademas (D.-Ind.)

Brooks (D.-Tex.)

Broomfield (R.-Mich.)

Brown (R.-O.)

Mrs. Church (R.-Ill.)

Collier (R.-Ill.)

Colmer (D.-Miss.)

Corman (D.-Calif.)

Cramer (R.-Fla.)

J. C. Davis (D.-Ga.)

Denton (D.-Ind.)

Devine (R.-O.)

Dole (R.-Kan.)

Dowdy (D.-Tex.)

Elliott (D.-Ala.)

Flynt (D.-Ga.)

Frazier (D.-Tenn.)

Grant (D.-Ala.)

Haley (D.-Fla.)

Halleck (R.-Ind.)

Hardy (D.-Va.)

Herlong (D.-Fla.)

Inouye (D.-Hawaii)

Jennings (D.-Va.)

Jonas (R.-N.C.)

Jones (D.-Ala.)

Kilbum (R.-N.Y.)

Kilgore (D.-Tex.)

Komegay (D.-N.C.)

McSween (D.-La.)

McVey (R.-Kan.)

D. Magnuson (D.-Wash.)

Mahon (D.-Tex.)

Meader (R.-Mich.)

Merrow (R.-N.H.)

Mills (D.-Ark.)

Moore (R.-W.Va.)

Morgan (D.-Pa.)

Murray (D.-Tenn.)

Olsen (D.-Mont.)

Mrs. Pfost (D.-Ida.)

Pilcher (D.-Ga.)

Randall (D.-Mo.)

Rhodes (R.-Ariz.)

Riley (D.-S.C.)

Robison (R.-N.Y.)

Rogers (D.-Fla.)

Schenck (R.-O.)

Sheppard (D.-Calif.)

Shriver (R.-Ken.)

Sikes (D.-Fla.)

Smith (D.-Miss.)

Smith (R.-Calif.)

Smith (D.-Ia.)

Staggers (D.-W.Va.)

Steed (D.-Okla.)

Stubblefield (D.-Ky.)

Thomas (D.-Tex.)

Thornberry (D.-Tex.)

Trimble (D.-Ark.)

Tupper (R.-Me.)

Vinson (D.-Ga.)

Wallhauser (R.-N.J.)

Wharton (R.-N.Y.)

Whitener (D.-N.C.)

PRESBYTERIAN

Alexander (D.-N.C.)

Auchincloss (R.-N.J.)

Baker (R.-Tenn.)

Baldwin (R.-Calif.)

Barry (R.-N.Y.)

Bell (R.-Calif.)

Mrs. Bolton (R.-O.)

Bow (R.-O.)

Bromwell (R.-Ia.)

Chelf (D.-Ky.)

Clark (D.-Pa.)

Corbett (R.-Pa.)

Dague (R.-Pa.)

J. W. Davis (D.-Ga.)

Derounian (R.-N.Y.)

Edmondson (D.-Okla.)

Fountain (D.-N.C.)

Fulton (R.-Pa.)

Glenn (R.-N.J.)

Gross (R.-Ia.)

Gubser (R.-Calif.)

Harsha (R.-O.)

Harvey (R.-Mich.)

Hays (D.-O.)

Hemphill (D.-S.C.)

Henderson (D.-N.C.)

Hoeven (R.-Ia.)

Horan (R.-Wash.)

Jarman (D.-Okla.)

Johnson (D.-Calif.)

Karth (D.-Minn.)

Knox (R.-Mich.)

Kyl (R.-Ia.)

Laird (R.-Wis.)

Lindsay (R.-N.Y.)

MacGregor (R.-Minn.)

McCulloch (R.-O.)

McDowell (D.-Del.)

Martin (R.-Neb.)

Matthews (D.-Fla.)

C. W. Miller (D.-Calif.)

Milliken (R.-Pa.)

Moorehead (R.-O.)

Morris (D.-N.Mex.)

Norblad (R.-Ore.)

Pillion (R.-N.Y.)

Poff (R.-Va.)

Scott (D.-N.C.)

Scranton (R.-Pa.)

Slack (D.-W.Va.)

Springer (R.-Ill.)

Stephens (D.-Ga.)

Stratton (D.-N.Y.)

Thomson (R.-Wis.)

Ullman (D.-Ore.)

Utt (R.-Calif.)

Weaver (R.-Neb.)

Westland (R.-Wash.)

Whaley (R.-Pa.)

Whitten (D.-Miss.)

Wright (D.-Tex.)

BAPTIST

Abbitt (D.-Va.)

Andrews (D.-Ala.)

Ashbrook (R.-O.)

Ashmore (D.-S.C.)

Bailey (D.-W.Va.)

Beckworth (D.-Tex.)

Cannon (D.-Mo.)

Chenoweth (R.-Colo.)

Cooley (D.-N.C.)

Davis (D.-Tenn.)

Diggs (D.-Mich.)

Dorn (D.-S.C.)

Forrester (D.-Ga.)

Gary (D.-Va.)

Gathings (D.-Ark.)

Gray (D.-Ill.)

Hagan (D.-Ga.)

Hall (R.-Mo.)

Harris (D.-Ark.)

Ichord (D.-Mo.)

Kitchin (D.-N.C.)

Landrum (D.-Ga.)

Lennon (D.-N.C.)

Lipscomb (R.-Calif.)

Loser (D.-Tenn.)

McIntire (R.-Me.)

McMillan (D.-S.C.)

Natcher (D.-Ky.)

Nix (D.-Pa.)

Norrell (D.-Ark.)

Passman (D.-La.)

Patman (D.-Tex.)

Perkins (D.-Ky.)

Powell (D.-N.Y.)

Rains (D.-Ala.)

Rayburn (D.-Tex.)

Reece (R.-Tenn.)

Riehlman (R.-N.Y.)

Roberts (D.-Ala.)

Rogers (D.-Colo.)

Rutherford (D.-Tex.)

Ryan (D.-N.Y.)

Schwengel (R.-Ia.)

Shipley (D.-Ill.)

Siler (R.-Ky.)

Taylor (D.-N.C.)

Teague (D.-Tex.)

Tuck (D.-Va.)

Williams (D.-Miss.)

Wilson (R.-Calif.)

Wilson (R.-Ind.)

Winstead (D.-Miss.)

EPISCOPAL

Alford (D.-Ark.)

Ashley (D.-O.)

Bass (R.-N.H.)

Betts (R.-O.)

Bolling (D.-Mo.)

Bonner (D.-N.C.)

Brewster (D.-Md.)

Brooks (D.-La.)

Cohelan (D.-Calif.)

Cunningham (R.-Nebr.)

Curtin (R.-Pa.)

Curtis (R.-Mass.)

Dominick (R.-Col.)

Downing (D.-Va.)

Ellsworth (R.-Kan.)

Ford (R.-Mich.)

Frelinghuysen (R.-N.J.)

Garland (R.-Me.)

Gavin (R.-Pa.)

Goodell (R.-N.Y.)

Harrison (D.-Va.)

Hechler (D.-W.Va.)

Hosmer (R.-Calif.)

Huddleston (D.-Ala.)

Ikard (D.-Tex.)

Johnson (D.-Md.)

Karsten (D.-Mo.)

Mrs. Kee (D.-W.Va.)

King (D.-Calif.)

Lankford (D.-Md.)

McFall (D.-Calif.)

Mathias (R.-Md.)

Mailliard (R.-Calif.)

Mrs. May (R.-Wash.)

Moorehead (D.-Pa.)

Morrison (D.-La.)

Pelly (R.-Wash.)

Reifel (R.-S.Dak.)

Reuss (D.-Wis.)

Rivers (D.-S.C.)

Rogers (D.-Tex.)

Roosevelt (D.-Calif.)

Mrs. St. George (R.-N.Y.)

Schneebeli (R.-Pa.)

Seely-Brown (R.-Conn.)

Selden (D.-Ala.)

Short (R.-N.D.)

Smith (D.-Va.)

Spence (D.-Ky.)

Taber (R.-N.Y.)

Thompson (D.-Tex.)

Mrs. Weis (R.-N.Y.)

Widnall (R.-N.Y.)

CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN

Battin (R.-Mont.)

Berry (R.-S.D.)

Chiperfield (R.-Ill.)

Doyle (D.-Calif.)

Fenton (R.-Pa.)

Findley (R.-Ill.)

Griffin (R.-Mich.)

Hiestand (R.-Calif.)

Johansen (R.-Mich.)

Judd (R.-Minn.)

Keith (R.-Mass.)

Morse (R.-Mass.)

Mosher (R.-Ohio)

Osmers (R.-N.J.)

Pike (D.-N.Y.)

Schadeberg (R.-Wis.)

Sibal (R.-Conn.)

Stafford (R.-Vt.)

Younger (R.-Calif.)

“PROTESTANT”

Baring (D.-Nev.)

Breeding (D.-Kans.)

Casey (D.-Tex.)

Chamberlin (R.-Mich.)

Durno (R.-Ore.)

Mrs. Dwyer (R.-N.J.)

Fascell (D.-Fla.)

Mrs. Griffiths (D.-Mich.)

Hagen (D.-Calif.)

Latta (R.-O.)

Mason (R.-Ill.)

Marshall (D.-Minn.)

Minshall (R.-O.)

Moss (D.-Calif.)

Ostertag (R.-N.Y.)

Pirnie (R.-N.Y.)

Rivers (D.-Alaska)

Teague (R.-Calif.)

Van Pelt (R.-Wis.)

LUTHERAN

Andersen (R.-Minn.)

Beerman (R.-Neb.)

Broyhill (R.-Va.)

Bruce (R.-Ind.)

Hoffman (R.-Mich.)

Jensen (R.-Ia.)

Johnson (D.-Wis.)

Kearns (R.-Pa.)

Langen (R.-Minn.)

Moeller (D.-O.)

Mumma (R.-Pa.)

Nelsen (R.-Minn.)

Nygaard (R.-N.D.)

Quie (R.-Minn.)

Rhodes (D.-Pa.)

Tollefson (R.-Wash.)

Van Zandt (R.-Pa.)

Walter (D.-Pa.)

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST

Alger (R.-Tex.)

Bennett (D.-Fla.)

Coad (D.-Ia.)

Mrs. Green (D.-Ore.)

Harvey (R.-Ind.)

Holifield (D.-Calif.)

Hull (D.-Mo.)

Jones (D.-Mo.)

Roundebush (R.-Ind.)

Watts (D.-Ky.)

Wickersham (D.-Okla.)

JEWISH

Celler (D.-N.Y.)

Farbstein (D.-N.Y.)

Friedel (D.-Md.)

Gilbert (D.-N.Y.)

Halpern (R.-N.Y.)

Holtzman (D.-N.Y.)

Joelson (D.-N.J.)

Multer (D.-N.Y.)

Toll (D.-Pa.)

Yates (D.-Ill.)

Zelenko (D.-N.Y.)

LATTER DAY SAINTS (Mormon)

Harding (D.-Id.)

King (D.-Utah)

Peterson (D.-Utah)

Udall (D.-Ariz.)

CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST

Dawson (D.-Ill.)

Hansen (D.-Wash.)

Rousselot (R.-Calif.)

Scherer (R.-O.)

CHURCHES OF CHRIST

Burleson (D.-Tex.)

Evins (D.-Tenn.)

Fisher (D.-Tex.)

Sisk (D.-Calif.)

UNITARIAN

Curtis (R.-Mo.)

Harrison (R.-Wyo.)

EVANGELICAL AND REFORMED

Garmatz (D.-Md.)

Saylor (R.-Pa.)

EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCH

Anderson (R.-Ill.)

Cederberg (R.-Mich.)

UNIVERSALIST

Poage (D.-Tex.)

Ray (R.-N.Y.)

APOSTOLIC CHRISTIAN

Michel (R.-Ill.)

BRETHREN IN CHRIST

Roush (D.-Ind.)

Contested race, outcome uncertain.

CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN

Everett (D.-Tenn.)

EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN

Goodling (R.-Pa.)

SCHWENKFELDER

Schweiker (R.-Pa.)

SIKH

Saund (D.-Calif.)

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Bray (R.-Ind.)

“NOT LISTED”

Kastenmeier (D.-Wis.)

Martin (R.-Mass.)

Moulder (D.-Mo.)

Wholesale Resignations

Resignations by the general secretary and the entire office staff of the National Council of Churches in Korea last month left the country’s only agency of Protestant church cooperation with an unprecedented emergency.

No known candidates for the secretary-ship were in sight as delegates to a council session accepted the resignation of the Rev. Simeon Kang, former pastor of Seoul’s oldest Protestant church, Seimoonan Presbyterian, known as the Mother Church of Protestantism south of the 38th parallel. Apparently “irresistible pressures” from the church led him to return to the pastorate, according to observers.

Mr. Kang had served as council secretary since last April when former secretary Ho Joon Yun was ousted.

Churches and Apartheid

The World Council of Churches held a week-long conference on the race question in South Africa last month. It had been called following heated exchanges and a building-up of tensions between Anglican and Dutch Reformed churchmen. The outcome made it evident that sharp differences of opinion still exist in the churches toward the government’s apartheid policies.

A lengthy anti-apartheid statement was issued following the conference, held in Johannesburg and attended by 87 delegates, 24 of whom were Negroes. All eight WCC member churches in South Africa were represented. Deliberations were held behind closed doors; the press was barred.

WCC spokesmen said that 80 per cent of the delegates voted in favor of a series of resolutions condemning apartheid. Dutch Reformed churches which participated in the conference subsequently issued dissenting statements.

The majority statement was divided into three parts, the first of which rejected “all unjust discrimination on racial grounds.” The second part listed 17 resolutions on specific aspects of the race question, and the third gave views on recent incidents.

One resolution took sharp issue with the South African ban on Negroes worshipping in white churches. Another asserted that there are no Scriptural grounds for prohibiting racially-mixed marriages, but added that the well-being of the community and pastoral responsibility require that due consideration be given to certain factors which may make such marriages undesirable. Still other resolutions contended that the present system of job reservation in South Africa must give way to a more equitable system and that non-whites’ wages must be raised by concerted action.

The dissent from the Dutch Reformed Church stated that integration was unjust and that apartheid was the “only just solution to our racial problems.”

Some observers felt that despite the dissenting statements a major concession by Dutch Reformed elements was apparent. While supporting the idea of “differentiation” in the races, the Dutch Reformed Churches of Cape and Transvaal voted for a resolution which said:

“It is our conviction that the right to own land wherever he is domiciled and to participate in the government of his country is part of the dignity of adult man, and for this reason a policy which permanently denies to non-white people the right of collaboration in the government of the country of which they are citizens cannot be justified.”

Disaster Damage

The 500-seat Pillar of Fire Church in Brooklyn was among 10 buildings set on fire last month by the crash of a falling jetliner which had collided with another aircraft over New York City.

The church belongs to the Pillar of Fire society which has an inclusive membership of about 5100 in the United States. It is a holiness, Methodistic group initially organized by Mrs. Alma White as the Pentecostal Union in 1917.

Religious Respectability

The president of the University of Minnesota, Dr. Owen M. Wilson, is studying a proposal to establish a school of religion at the Minneapolis campus.

A committee from the university’s Council of Religious Advisers and a faculty committee of the College of Science, Literature and Arts are preparing a statement of definition and purpose for such a school.

Mrs. Keith Heller, council president, has proposed that the university finance the administrative costs of a school of religion and that religious bodies endow chairs of learning.

Mrs. Heller, a Presbyterian, says a school of religion would help make “religious knowledge academically respectable.”

Decalogue For Church News Pages

Hiley H. Ward, religion writer for the Detroit Free Press, has come up with a “Decalogue for Church News Pages” aimed at ministers:

1. Thou shalt have no other newspapers before me—that is, newspapers like to have the same release date, and, too, a date that favors that particular paper.

2. Thou shalt not make unto you any images as to how you think your story should look in the paper. Then you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t come out the way you expected.

3. Do not take God’s name in vain. Do not expect every club meeting and social tea in God’s name to get on the religion page.

4. Remember your deadlines, and keep them holy.

5. Honor your father and mother, your senior pastors and retired deaconesses and missionaries, but remember, too, the children and the young adults whose faith in action makes very fresh reading.

6. Thou shalt not kill anything. Send us a calendar—let us know what you are doing—briefly, of course, and leave the slaughter to the religion editor and the copy desk.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. This could mean for the minister with news ambitions to stay with his own business of the Gospel and he will be much better off newswise. It can mean literally, too, don’t run away with the choir director.

8. Thou shalt not steal or borrow the ideas of somebody else and expect good coverage.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Be positive. Don’t try to expose other religions.

10. Thou shalt not covet your fellow ministers’ publicity. If one man is getting all of the publicity, maybe he deserves it, maybe he doesn’t.

Cardinal Appointments

Four more Roman Catholic prelates—an American, an Italian, and two Latin Americans—will be elevated to the Sacred College of Cardinals by Pope John XXIII in Rome this month.

The American cardinal-designate is Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis, 68, whose appointment raises the U. S. membership in the college to six.

The new Italian member is 61-year-old titular Archbishop Giuseppe Ferretto, a prominent prelate of the Roman Curia, who was in the United States last September on his way to a Roman Catholic congress being held in Ottawa.

The Latin American appointees are titular Archbishop Jose Humberto Quintero of Caracas, Venezuela, who is 58; and Archbishop Luis Concha Cordoba of Bogotá, Colombia, 69.

This marks the third series of cardinal appointments by Pope John in little more than two years. In all, excluding the cardinals “in pectore,” he has created 42 new cardinals.

As now constituted, the college has 31 Italian and 51 non-Italian members.

Offending A State

An Italian weekly newspaper editor was given a five-month suspended sentence by a Rome court last month for asserting in an article that the Vatican had interfered in Italian civil politics.

Arrigo Benedetti, editor of the weekly Expresso, was convicted under Article 297 of the Italian Penal Code which provides sentences of up to three years for “whoever on Italian territory offends the honor and prestige of the head of a foreign state.”

Benedetti made the assertions May 22 while commenting on the widely-discussed statement in the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano of four days earlier which upheld the right of the church to “guide the faithful.”

The editor charged that the Pope and the Roman Catholic hierarchy were limiting the freedom of the Italian citizen and were behaving unconstitutionally by interfering in Italian civil affairs and demanding the obedience of Catholic citizens to ecclesiastical directives in political decisions.

Reversal at Yonsei

Dr. Bung-kan Koh, former president of Kyungbuk National University in Taegu, Korea, last month was elected president of Yonsei University, an interdenominational, mission-supported institution in Seoul that has been rocked by insurrection of students and professors.

A Presbyterian elder, Koh takes over the Yonsei helm from Professor Horace Underwood, who was named acting president after Dr. George L. Paik, former head, resigned last July to run successfully for Korea’s House of Councillors (Senate).

Koh, 60, was nominated for the presidency by the same striking faculty members who blocked his election by the university board six months before.

A native of North Korea, Koh has spent many years in educational and administrative work south of the 38th parallel and is considered one of the outstanding Christian educators in the Republic of Korea. He served as dean of the medical faculty of the second largest government medical school in Korea (Kyungbuk) before becoming president of the Kyungbuk university proper. Unseated from the post in the wave of nationwide faculty turnover following Korea’s April Revolution, Koh has been living quietly as a private citizen.

Meanwhile, the Yonsei campus is still under well-organized influence by dissident faculty and student body leaders, whose current program allows no student to attend class or to study except in shirtsleeves, despite winter cold, out of sympathy for 10 student rioters still held by police as the “hard core” of the mob which ransacked the homes of Professor Underwood and Dr. Charles A. Sauer, acting board chairman. Both men are veteran U. S. missionaries, Presbyterian and Methodist, respectively.

A Christian Testimony

The Christian testimony of Eastern Nigeria’s first African governor appeared in the Daily Times, the nation’s largest daily newspaper, last month.

Sir Francis A. Ibiam is a dedicated Christian believer who makes no secret of his faith in predominantly Muslim Nigeria. His confession of faith was reprinted from the African Challenge, a Christian monthly, on the occasion of his installation December 15.

Splashed across three columns by the Daily Times’ Muslim editor were these words: “I accept as the absolute truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and that for my sake he died … so that if I believed in Him—I do believe in Him—I should not go to damnation but live with Him for evermore.”

Contributing Editor

Dr. A. Skevington Wood, minister of Southlands Methodist Church in York, England, has been named a Contributing Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Wood succeeds Dr. W. E. Sangster, who died recently.

L. F. E. Wilkinson

The Rev. Leslie Francis Edward Wilkinson, principal of Oak Hill Theological College, London, England, died last month at the age of 55.

Wilkinson was a highly-respected evangelical leader in the Church of England. He became principal at Oak Hill in 1945.

Ncc Picks A Layman President

The new president of the National Council of Churches is a wealthy 51-year-old banker-industrialist from Columbus, Indiana, who has long been active in ecumenical activities. J. Irwin Miller, first layman president in NCC history, moves up from the council’s Division of Christian Life and Work, for which he has been vice chairman during the past three years.

Miller is board chairman of the Cummins Engine Company and the Irwin Bank and Trust Company in Columbus, and the Union Starch and Refining Company of Granite City, Illinois. He also serves on the boards of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Indiana National Bank of Indianapolis, and of Purity Stores, a 105-store chain of supermarkets in California.

Time magazine characterized Miller as “sole angel” of The Christian Century for years. He “still meets most of the magazine’s deficit,” the report said.

Miller is active in the Disciples denomination and comes from a distinguished line of Christian Church leaders and philanthropists. He recently gave the campus site for the relocation of the Christian Theological Seminary adjacent to Butler University.

A few years ago Miller led some 200 members of the 2000-member First Christian Church, Columbus, in a revolt against its long-standing conservative theological and strongly independent congregational policy. Overwhelmingly defeated in his move, he effected the organization of the North Christian Church in Columbus, where he now holds his membership.

Traditional U. S. policy of full property tax exemption for all churches and religious organizations apparently faces a major review.

Such exemptions now cover property with a total assessment estimated at 10 billion dollars or more.

In New York City alone, the current value of churches, synagogues, monasteries, and convents is nearly 570 million dollars. Projected for the entire nation on the basis of population, the comparable figure easily exceeds 10 billion dollars.

Tax officials in numerous communities are known to be studying the possibility of modification in the church tax exemption pattern. They are particularly concerned in cases where churches appear to engage in outright competition with secular enterprises. So are many churchmen (see “Tax Exemption and the Churches,” August 3, 1959 issue; editorial, “Taxation and the Churches,” January 4, 1960 issue; as well as page 20 in this issue).

Boldest effort thus far is in Nashville, Tennessee, where city assessors have been trying to add to their tax rolls the Methodist and Baptist publishing houses, which are among the largest in the nation.

The assessors’ move ultimately came before the Tennessee Board of Equalization, the state’s tax review agency. The board disallowed the city’s assessment of the Baptist operations, but retained 50 per cent of the assessment on the Methodist publishing house. Board members apparently feel that the Methodists fail to confine publishing activities to the religious sphere.

Tax officials and churchmen alike are becoming more vocal over alleged abuse of property tax exemption by some religious enterprises. In view of rising demands for additional public revenue, crackdowns on abuse are predicted.

Increased attention to church property exemptions also is attributable to a large growth in the total volume and value of these exemptions. As religious groups flourish, they tend to acquire more property and more valuable property.

Many students of public finance are unalterably opposed to church tax exemption. Some regard it as a holdover from the days of the established church. Some even think it inconsistent with the principle of church-state separation. A counter-argument is that tax exemptions provide necessary encouragement to worthy purposes and that strengthening such institutions enhances the value of other nearby property. Many Protestants point out that the state’s right to tax is limited, and that taxing churches would violate church-state separation, although they are concerned over abuses which tend to encourage reactionary solutions.

Concerned church leaders foresee the possibility of a growing resentment against the accumulation by church groups of tax-free properties. Some even fear a wave of anti-religious feeling which could result in a drastic curtailment of exemptions, if not in ultimate expropriation.

Protestant leaders differ sharply on the course to be followed. Some feel that any enterprise sponsored by a religious group should be tax-free. With churches tending toward more elaborate physical plants, the result is often that some very commercial projects elude the assessor, including parking lots which produce revenue on week days, cafeterias and rummage sales. First target of tax assessors will doubtless be property not directly used for worship and education.

Any general trend toward taxing the more commercial aspects of church activity is sure to meet strong opposition from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, whose holdings are by far the most extensive. The Roman Church contends that the payment of any tax levied by a secular agency on any church owned property is contrary to canon law.

Baptist leaders gathered in Washington last fall to discuss church tax exemption voiced contrasting opinions on whether the present policy contributes to or injures the future of the freedom of the churches.

Conferees agreed that the New Testament does not offer any specific precedent for tax exemption of church property (defined as property used for worship and religious education), but the majority felt that no conflict with New Testament principles is involved in the concept of tax exemption. However, a strong minority felt that any form of tax exemption for churches injures the future of the freedom of the churches.

Showdown Faces Denominational Publishers In Nashville

Protestant publishing houses constitute a major industry in Nashville, Tennessee. Out of the city come tons of religious literature every year. Most of the material originates in the Methodist or Southern Baptist publishing houses. The Methodist publishing house (Abingdon Press) claims to be the largest denominational publisher in America. The Baptist publishing operation (Broadman Press) also ranks high in size. In a city of only 170,000, a high concentration of valuable, tax-exempt properties posed a problem for tax officials.

Nashville was therefore a likely place for a controversy over tax exemptions for church-owned property. Like so many other municipalities, the city has had to face increasing demands upon its public revenues.

The city first placed assessment on the Baptist and Methodist publishing properties for the year 1959. Subsequently the issue came before the Tennessee Board of Equalization, tax review agency for the State, which ruled against the assessment of nearly $5,000,000 on Southern Baptist properties. In the case of the Methodists, however, the board said that the publishing house must pay 50 per cent of the city’s assessment (a reported $694,050 for 1959 and $773,150 for 1960) on grounds that its operation is “the same business as that of commercial publishers without regard for the need of such publication by the religious institution.”

The Methodist publishing house differs from the Baptist in that it (1) operates its own printing plant (it even accepts outside business) and (2) reaches into the secular field with its books. The Baptists do no printing of their own and are understood to steer clear of non-religious book markets.

The Methodists are believed to be preparing a court appeal of the assessment against them. The city, meanwhile, is also said to be planning to appeal the state board’s ruling in favor of the Baptists.

Coming: Dead Sea Scrolls

Several of the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls will be displayed in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries under terms of an agreement now being worked out with the government of Jordan.

In the United States, the exhibit probably will be housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.

The plan, according to a U. S. State Department spokesman, is to supply funds from private sources in the United States, Great Britain, and other nations to purchase scrolls still in the hands of Bedouins and to reimburse the American School of Oriental Research for scrolls already in hand.

The scrolls would remain the property of the Jordanian government, the spokesman added.

The earliest of the documents is estimated to belong to the second century B.C. Many others are assigned to the time of Christ and the Apostles.

Defying Superiors

A Protestant Episcopal clergyman in New York City defied his ecclesiastical superiors last month by refusing to read from the pulpit a pastoral letter issued by the Episcopal House of Bishops.

The 4,000-word letter, released in November at the annual meeting of the bishops in Dallas, reaffirmed the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds “as the symbols of the rock of our faith,” observing that they were as valid in the twentieth century as they were centuries ago.

In a sermon at St. George’s Church, where he is rector, the Rev. Edward O. Miller described the document as full of “pious religious jargon” couched in “archaic language” and “double talk.”

According to Protestant Episcopal canon law, a pastoral letter must be read in the 7,500 parishes of the church within one month after it is received.

In the present letter, the bishops called the creeds a “proclamation of a faith, a gift whose kind and nature does not in itself change from generation to generation.”

“I love the creeds,” Miller said. “I recite them, and I think I have overcome honestly the intellectual obstacles. But when any one tries to tell an Episcopalian that he is unequivocally—which means without variety of interpretation—committed to a particular creed, I can only remind him of the wisdom of Alfred North Whitehead who said ‘religions commit suicide when they find their inspirations in their dogmas.’ ”

Protestant Panorama

● The Civil War Centennial Commission is distributing a booklet on “The Role of Religion in the Civil War Centennial.” Officials from major Protestant denominations, as well as from the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals, are represented on the commission’s Religious Advisory Council and are cooperating in the observance, which gets under way officially on Sunday, January 8.

● The American Lutheran Church will commemorate its founding by establishing a congregation in each of its 19 territorial districts this year. Each of the congregations will be named “Atonement Lutheran Church” or “Lutheran Church of the Atonement.” January I was the official date set for The ALC’s beginning. It comes into being through merger of the Evangelical, American and United Evangelical Lutheran churches.

● German Lutheran churches are opening their first joint theological seminary to serve territorial bodies throughout East and West Germany. The new $240,000 Preachers’ and Study Seminary at Pullach, near Munich, is intended for advanced theological research and teaching and for specialized religious training.

● Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, pastor of Oklahoma City’s First Baptist Church, will be permanent preacher for “the Baptist Hour,” the first in history for the 20-year-old international radio broadcast.

● A Cuban refugee center is being established in Miami by the United Presbyterian Board of National Missions in cooperation with Presbyterian churches in Florida.

● The United Church of Canada is sponsoring a “Motor League of Moral Responsibility.” Sole qualification for “membership,” says the church’s Board of Evangelism and Social Service, is the simple affirmation, “I care.”

● The Lutheran Church Center in Washington, D. C., is undergoing an expansion program to meet growing needs for office space. Two adjacent buildings have been acquired for joint use by agencies of the National Lutheran Council and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

● Northern Baptist Theological Seminary’s move to the Chicago suburbs seems assured with receipt of a grant to purchase 10 acres of a proposed 50-acre site near Lombard, Illinois. The site is 10 miles west of the Chicago city limits and adjoins property of the new Bethany Biblical Seminary, graduate theological school of the Church of the Brethren.

● The 19-year-old Christ for America organization, promoter of visitation evangelism, is being disbanded. Assets have been purchased by the Christian Home League.

● Barrington College won accreditation last month from the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Only eight colleges in Rhode Island possess such recognition (Brown University, Pembroke, University of Rhode Island, Providence College, Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island College, and Salve Regina College).

● Assemblies of God churches in El Salvador are witnessing unprecedented growth, attributable largely to Sunday School evangelism. Now in operation across the tiny Central American republic are more than 738 branch Sunday Schools conducted by Assemblies of God personnel. The total represents a 500 per cent increase in three years.

● The Evangelical Teacher Placement Agency approved some 60 applications during its first year of operation. The agency was established in 1959 as a cooperative effort of Christian college educators to meet the problem of teacher shortages. An abundance of personnel trained to teach theology has become evident, but vacancies tend to arise in languages, natural sciences, and education.

● “Light Time,” a National Lutheran Council television series for children, is said to be gaining in popularity across the country. Some 60 stations now air the weekly quarter-hour programs, which are available as a free public-service feature.

The Presbyterian Church, U.S., popularly known as the Southern Presbyterian Church, will observe in 1961 the centennial of its organization as a separate denomination. The theme of the celebration is Heritage and Mission. The emphasis on Heritage will not feature the tragic “divorce” in 1861 involving Southern members and the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (now the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.) but three centuries of Presbyterianism in the South. Actually the celebration looks to the present and future with stress on Mission. Two goals will be served by a centennial “love offering” (this is no high pressure quota campaign): aid for Presbyterian churches in other lands and participation, with the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., in a great Presbyterian Mission to the Nation. Evangelism will be the heart and soul of the celebration because of the place it has held in the history of the church and because of present needs and opportunities.

Evangelistic Concern

Presbyterianism in the South owed its origin to evangelistic concern and endeavor. It was the direct product of the Great Awakening in colonial America. The mother presbytery of the South and the agent for much of the advance in southern states was Hanover Presbytery in Virginia, founded in 1755 by New Side Presbyterian ministers who stressed the new birth, religious experience, and revivalism. The leader was Samuel Davies who shared many views and concerns of William Tennant and George Whitefield. Davies gave a tremendous impulse to Presbyterian outreach, though his ambition was “not to Presbyterianize the colony” but “to propagate the catholic religion of Jesus in its life and power.” The beginnings of Presbyterianism in many southern states owed much to men who were licensed and ordained by Hanover Presbytery and who carried on its evangelistic fervor. Failure to match the needs and opportunities was due in part to a subsequent decline in evangelistic zeal. It was due primarily to an acute shortage of home missionaries who could preach the Gospel to Scotch-Irish and others and gather into churches those who had heard the Gospel from Presbyterian itinerants.

Evangelistic concern was renewed and extended in the great frontier revival about 1800. This awakening had its beginning in Hampden-Sydney College, founded by Hanover Presbytery. It spread to the Carolinas and reached tremendous proportions in Tennessee and Kentucky. Unfortunately the revival resulted in the Cumberland division of 1810. This division was a direct result of the shortage of ministers and of the inflexibility of the Presbyterian church on the frontier. Insistence on college and theological training as a condition for ordination in all times and places, even in the face of thousands of converts who begged for pastors, and an unbending attitude in behalf of doctrine, resulted in the loss of thousands of members and of much evangelistic fervor. This division and the Old School-New School division of 1837–38 came during a period of great evangelistic opportunity. The attitudes manifested in both cases contributed to a situation where Methodists and Baptists left the Presbyterians far behind numerically.

The 1861 Separation

The separation from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the formation of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States occurred in 1861. The new church shared almost immediately in the great revival which took place among the soldiers. There was rejoicing over continuing evidence of “the extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our army.” It is estimated that over one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers were converted during the war years, thousands of whom became Presbyterians. The ingathering was partly the result of a diligent effort by the church to minister to the troops. Many of the converted soldiers entered seminary and became leading ministers of the church in subsequent years.

With the organization of a separate southern Presbyterian church, no one did more than Dr. John Leighton Wilson to arouse the new church to evangelism at home and abroad. He had served in Africa for almost twenty years and during that time wrote Western Africa, which won high praise from David Livingston. Dr. Wilson was largely responsible for the church’s acceptance of its evangelistic calling. He led the first General Assembly to declare that the Great Commission was “the great end of her organization, and obedience to it as the indispensable condition of her Lord’s promised presence.” Under his leadership the church declared in 1865, “we can scarcely claim to be regarded as a true branch of the Church of Christ, or take an honorable place in the sisterhood of evangelical churches, unless we keep this object [foreign missions] constantly and distinctly before our minds.” Amid the trials of Reconstruction, the church opened small missions in China, Italy, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Greece—all established by 1874. This dedication to evangelism abroad has continued among Southern Presbyterians. The proportion of missionaries to membership is greater today than that in almost all major denominations, and the size of the foreign mission program is surpassed by only a few American churches.

In recent decades three developments may be mentioned. The period 1908–1918 reflected increased evangelistic concern. The beginnings of a special department of evangelism date from 1908. A permanent committee of evangelism for the General Assembly was appointed which thereby promoted an evangelistic committee in each presbytery. In addition to that, an Assembly evangelist was used. J. Wilbur Chapman, R. A. Torrey, and Billy Sunday were heard in many revivals. In 1915, there was “the evangelistic Assembly.” While much emphasis was placed on professional evangelism, and while evangelism appeared to be largely conceived in terms of revival meetings, the ideal was kept before the members and was given a place in the organizational structure of the church.

Second, a new evangelistic concern developed in the 1930s which led to a rededication to evangelism in 1939. This resulted in the greatest period of growth, from 1940–1960, that the church has known. It stressed witness as the business of every church and of every Christian. A great number of outpost Sunday Schools and chapels were established which led to the organization of an average of one new congregation each week. New members, which were added on profession of faith, increased from 16,000 in 1938 to almost 30,000 in 1958. In many states Presbyterian growth was at a much faster rate than population gain. The technique of visitation evangelism found wide acceptance.

Third, there has been in recent years a deepening and broadening of the concept of evangelism. A greatly strengthened Division of Evangelism in the Board of Church Extension is leading the way. There has been serious search, still in process, for a concept of evangelism consistent with Reformed theology. Evangelistic techniques, ancient and modern, have been evaluated in the light of theological understanding. Along with promotion of evangelism by spoken word is an emphasis on evangelism by Christian action. It is interesting to note that about the same time the church’s rededication to evangelism occurred, there took place the establishment of a permanent committee on Christian Relations. The evangelistic program now joins individual outreach with concern for society. Materials issued by the Division of Evangelism encourage community study, Christian social responsibility, and involvement in crucial world issues. At the same time there is increasing stress on the church and on the importance of the life and worship of the local congregation. This emphasis reflects the attention given by the Board of Christian Education to the study of the “Covenant Community.” It is the judgment of the writer that evangelism is gaining in the Southern church a new place of acceptance and standing, especially among those ministers who had disdained an over-emphasis on techniques and results. The Southern church has not known an evangelistic program so extensive or so carefully prepared as the Presbyterian Mission to the Nation.

Some Problems

There are some problems facing the church’s evangelistic concern. One persistent question in any consideration of evangelism among Southern Presbyterians relates to the Negro. Results of evangelistic work among the Negroes have been exceedingly small. Even in 1840, only about 7000 out of 250,000 Negro church members in the South were Presbyterians. The number decreased until in 1892 there were only about 1300 Negro members. The decline was due to many factors, the primary one being perhaps a lack of real concern. But there were those who had concern, as, for example, Dr. John L. Girardeau who was pastor of Zion Church, Charleston, South Carolina, and who led in the construction, for his Negro congregation, of the largest church building in that city. How to win the Negro and what was the best ecclesiastical relationship of Negro churches were discussed in many Assemblies. As early as 1867, the Assembly approved, if possibly only in theory, of ordaining men “of whatever race, color or civil condition.” In 1874 the Colored Evangelistic Fund was set up and in 1877 a school for Negroes, now Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was opened. The church experimented with a separate independent Negro Assembly, then for a quarter of a century it retained an all Negro synod, then it incorporated Negro ministers and churches in predominantly white presbyteries while allowing others, if they chose, to continue in Negro presbyteries. In recent years 2 million dollars was raised to strengthen Stillman College, purchase land and erect Negro churches. Negro ministers are trained in the church’s seminaries, and two of the church’s colleges have accepted a few Negro students. The new attitude in the church may account for the fact that in the last five years the number of Negro members has doubled.

The evangelism of the Negro is crucial. At present the Presbyterian Church, U.S., is surrounded by millions of Negroes but remains almost exclusively white in membership. With many Negroes unreached, and many others searching for a church life and worship more meaningful than what they have previously known, the opportunities are great. But the difficulties are also great. Several local efforts, undertaken with zeal and dedication by white ministers and churches, have seemed almost fruitless. The number of Negro ministers to serve newly gathered congregations is very small. A few white churches have accepted Negro members and other churches are on record that their membership is open to all regardless of race or color. Due to location as well as social and economic factors, it does not appear that the integration of white churches will be a means of greatly increasing Negro membership, at least for a few years. The establishment of new churches which are integrated from the day of their founding and which are located to serve both races offers some hope.

There is another group in the South where Presbyterian evangelistic endeavors and results have been small. These are the Mexicans, concentrated in the Southwest. In Texas a separate Mexican presbytery was abolished. A remarkable educational advance has been made in the new Presbyterian Pan-American School. But the number of Mexican ministers and churches is still very small. Effective evangelism among the Mexicans will demand more than zeal, unless it is zeal that is resourceful in developing new approaches.

A third area of evangelistic challenge is in the great industrial areas and among the lower income people. There have been some notable examples of pastors who have had remarkable ministry in industrial communities, but the number of them is not great. Signs of a growing consciousness in the church of the need to serve all the people of the South is hopeful. Transition from a predominantly upper middle class church to one with a large membership among the less privileged will challenge the evangelistic resourcefulness and zeal of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.

T. WATSON STREET

Professor of Church History

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Austin, Texas

SILENTIUM

Retinium has not been added to eyewash as I once proposed, but the added ingredient specialists have just come up with silentium. This remarkable additive is compounded with cough syrup to muzzle the sufferer’s bark. I am engaged in a consumer’s research project to determine whether silentium stops coughing altogether, or enables one to cough silently, after the fashion of a genteel sneeze.

Many other applications suggest themselves. What effect does silentium have on squealing automobile tires? Can silentium be prescribed for infant formulas? Will high-octane silentium make mufflers obsolete? Is there a market for silentium lipstick? What about candy bars with silentium for free distribution to neighborhood children? “Silentium in the Sunday School” is a promising topic for a master’s degree in religious education.

Since silence is golden, its dollar value has soared of late. If the developers of silentium appreciate this, they may revolutionize television with commercials of profound silence, presenting scenes of gentle showers to suggest the quiet of the nasal drip when silentium reigns.

Silence seems so desirable in the din of our lives that it may require an effort to remember that silence in itself is neither good nor bad. Carlyle once wrote, “Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.”

In the Bible, silence appears more often as a judgment than as a blessing. A wasted land has the silence of the grave; the enemies of God are silenced by his wrath. Afflicted saints cry that God should not be silent. The Bible puts too much emphasis on the word of God to make silence the supreme blessing. The climax of worship is not to be dumb with awe but to cry hallelujah. As God awakes to judgment all flesh is silent before him, but Zion sings to the Lord who comes to dwell in her midst (Zech. 2:10–13).

As a recent magazine article put it, clams are not my dish. There are too many silent saints these days. They have clammed up the pearl of great price in a hard shell of silence. The apostles, in a situation where stoical silence was a golden virtue found a more excellent way. They sang praise in the stocks at midnight.

I have suggested to Pastor Peterson that he trade in those SILENCE! signs on the church stairway for new ones: PRAY! SING!

Silentium may quiet coughs during the sermon, but many dour saints need a shot of Amenium.

EUTYCHUS

LETTERSFROMMISSOURI

“A Letter to Missouri” (Nov. 21 issue) does not appear to most of us loyal Missourians to merit the space you gave it.

Actually, “A Letter to Missouri” is what it almost purports to be, a rehash of views recently circulated to the clergy of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod by William M. Oesch, dozent of the theological school of Lutheran Free Churches at Oberursel, Germany. Dr. Oesch’s observations are more penetrating than those of your correspondent, frankly representing, as they do, the traditional views of a hitherto extremely static church, which itself is beginning to wonder whether it has not almost totally neglected its mission to the indifferent and unbelieving. This misgiving came to the Missouri Synod three or four decades ago and resulted in a mission outreach for Christ which is somewhat perplexing and puzzling to our orthodox Lutheran brethren across the seas.

Has your correspondent considered the fact that he may have completely misunderstood the theological professors he castigates? I know for a fact that no theological professor of our church has ever denied the resurrection of the body, but one did point out that Platonic ideas regarding immortality of the soul detract from the glory of this New Testament doctrine. I have no knowledge of one of our five thousand pastors who supposedly advocated “modal monarchism” (usually called “modalistic monarchianism” in our histories of dogma). Could he have been misunderstood, too?

The theory, termed smartly in this imposing “letter” the Lex Missouriensis, that numbers are our prime interest or objective, has practically no currency in the Missouri Synod. We publish statistics, of course, and try to keep them as accurately as we can. But we do not put much stock in numbers, and are somewhat embarrassed by the fact that for each of the last fifteen years the Missouri Synod has contributed the largest number of new members to the Lutheran total in America. We still continue to instruct our new members in the Christian faith as we understand it before admitting them to the privilege of membership, and to educate our children in the verities of the Scriptures with a system of Lutheran elementary schools which, I am not ashamed to say, is constantly growing in size and effectiveness.

We are aware of the fact that “error is not static.” We are also aware of the fact that truth is not static when it is God’s truth as revealed in the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit of God does His work when the Word of God is laid on the hearts of hearers, whether in our congregations or in the listenerships of our extensive radio and television programs. We do not believe that reading a “popular magazine” will necessarily “distract us from the Greek New Testament” or that television will necessarily “beguile us from Pieper’s Dogmatics.” We do believe in bringing the Word of God, as we find it in the Greek New Testament and as it is formulated in Pieper’s Dogmatics, to bear upon the fermenting secularism and frequently fluid Christendom of this age.

We preach Christ, the Savior atoning for sin, the Righteousness of God for a world lost in its own unrighteousness and work-righteousness—Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. We find Christ only in the authoritative Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, which we accept from cover to cover as verbally inspired. If there are serious discussions within our church body regarding the nature of the Word of God, they are a sign that the Word is taken seriously among us rather than indifferently, with the purpose not of discarding it or rendering it ineffective, but of keeping it as the two-edged sword of the Spirit it really is.

Your correspondent drops deep dark hints about “unionism” and “clamor for church union with those who do not hold our historic confessional position.” What is he referring to? The talks now going on between leaders of the Missouri Synod and the National Lutheran Council regarding the theological basis for limited cooperation (without altar and pulpit fellowship) or for refusal of such cooperation? If there is any “clamor” in the Missouri Synod for “church union,” it is muffled to the point where it is inaudible. “Church union,” pray, with whom? As far as I know, no doctrinal talks to that end are going on with anybody. For a Missourian, no matter how “liberal” he can be made out to be, doctrinal agreement is an indispensable sine qua non to “church union.”

Serious discussions are going on regarding the nature and extent of “doctrinal agreement” required for Lutheran cooperation and Lutheran union. Is this bad? Or is it the mark of a church that must continually ask itself, “What does God’s Word have to say to us?”

OSWALD C. J. HOFFMAN

Director

Dept, of Public Relations

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

New York, N. Y.

A real service, not only to the Missouri Synod but to all Christendom, for it brought into the open a subject which has long been overdue for a healthy airing.…

It occurs to me that many of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S one hundred and seventy-five thousand readers would like to have for themselves a copy of Dr. William Oesch’s profound study of the “Present State of American Lutheranism of the Synodical Conference.” It can be had by sending one dollar to the author’s American address: 1638 Main St., Highland, Ill.

B. W. TEIGEN

President

Bethany Lutheran College

Mankato, Minn.

You paint in broad indistinct strokes. These broad strokes leave you and your denomination all white while you paint all others in opposites in one sweep of the brush.

F. C. ST. JOHN

First Methodist Church

Middlefield, Ohio

Pastor Schulze correctly states that certain individuals (and they are few in number!) have been “accused” of some of these heresies. However, there is a difference between accusation and fact.

K. L. FRERKING

University Lutheran Chapel

Columbus, Ohio

I would think others, as for instance, J. Pelikan or M. Marty, could speak if not “for” Missouri at least “as” Missourians in good standing!

J. T. KEEKLEY

St. Timothy Lutheran Church

Hyde Park, N. Y.

As an answer to Pastor Schulze’s statement on truth and union, I wish to say that Lutherans of all synods did accept and always have accepted the Book of Concord.

J. W. VON SCHMELING

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Langenburg, Saskatchewan

It is my observation that the leaders of our church are fully aware of these developments and are doing something about them.

H. F. SCHWEIGERT

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and School

Minneapolis, Minn.

One would hope that those who see “Missouri” as David to Jonathan, or Aaron to Moses in the Lutheran family of America, rather than Samson to the Philistines, may be free to search for clearer ways to speak the Gospel to the ears of listening brethren rather than shout it in the sleep of strangers.

DONALD H. LARSEN

St. Andrew-Redeemer Lutheran Church

Detroit, Mich.

By what stretch of editorial right do you presume to print such opinion?

A. KARL BOEHMKE

Lutheran Church of The Shepherd King Birmingham, Mich.

My deepest appreciation for publishing Brother Schulze’s “A Letter to Missouri.” You have the courage our Lutheran Witness lost some twenty odd years ago.

LUTHER P. J. STEINER

Redeemer Lutheran Church

Perris, Calif.

It is my appraisal that if we continue the practice of following first of all Missourism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, the next generation clergymen will not find time to turn to Pieper’s Dogmatics nor to be branch office managers but will be fighting to find a place in which to gather a few faithful to proclaim to them the word of God—in short, the church will again be faced with a catacomb existence within a hostile world because the ministers of the 60’s were more interested in their own “ism” than being “of Christ.”

ROBERT L. BILL

Wray, Colo.

This so interested me, from the standpoint of a concerned Missouri Synod layman, that I couldn’t help but send you a note a appreciation for publishing it.…

THEODORE SMITHEY

Taylor, Mich.

MISSIONARY ACHIEVEMENT

A few miles from where the United Church of Canada General Council was held in Alberta (Oct. 24 issue) is one of the greatest examples of union to spread the Gospel … “The Prairie Bible Institute.”

The United Church may be great as far as wealth and numbers go, but they are very, very small as far as missionary achievement is concerned.… It is quite possible that a former Methodist Church of Bloor Street, Toronto, whose [Missionary] Pastor is the well-known Oswald J. Smith, is doing more so-called foreign missionary work than the whole United Church of Canada.

MALCOLM PELLY

Smith Sound, Newfoundland

CALL FOR PROTEST

I’ve just seen a film of the San Francisco student riots against the un-American Activities Committee.

… A wave of Red student riots is generating in this country. For opposition, it would be more than all the billies in the world if there were a wave of heaven-anointed Christian Open Air Protest meetings.

SAMUEL WOLFE

Santa Barbara, Calif.

JERUSALEM HEIGHTS

Dr. Hughes’ thought-provoking article (Oct. 24 issue).… says “… excepting in the Temple on Mount Zion.”

When I was in Jerusalem last summer I visited the former site of the Temple and it was on Mount Moriah, about three-fifths of a mile northeast of Mount Zion. Today it contains the Moslem structure, the Dome of the Rock.…

LESTER C. HARLOW

Alexandria, Va.

CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

You should put a halt to the emphasis on “high class” and degrees in your magazine and face up to reality.

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).

These men, who were before of old ordained, have crept in unawares into the churches, National Council of Churches, National Education Association, labor unions, Farmers Union, and other “slightly tinged” organizations and … are causing the trouble in America, in Europe, and in the rest of the world.

There would be no need to establish new Christian universities and colleges. The universities and colleges would once again become Christian, and the public schools would become purified again, if these men were purged from the N.E.A., churches, etc.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Chinook, Mont.

JACOB H. RITTERBUSH

Let’s take a long hard look at the dangers … of a Christian university … and then plan a strong careful campaign to meet them, rather than retreat.

HELEN R. COATES

San Diego, Calif.

BIBLE TRANSLATION

Dr. Steele’s standards [for translation are] “unduly rigid” (Sept. 26 issue).… A “word for word transfer” of the text would violate every principle of good translation in the secular field; surely such a principle goes far beyond what those of us who accept verbal inspiration would ever demand of a translation of God’s inspired Word.

LESLIE R. KEYLOCK

Dept. of Foreign Languages

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

MENNONITE DOCTRINE

It is unfortunate and regrettable that Mr. Bonebrake should have brought the Mennonite Church into his false assertion that since the Lord is already here we do not look for His coming again (Eutychus, Sept. 26 issue).

In the official statement of our church appears these words, “We believe in the personal and imminent coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as the blessed hope of the believers.”

ARCHIE KAUFFMAN

The Mennonite Church Lebanon, Ore.

FROM THE SENATE

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is a must in the understanding of our times.

FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS

Chaplain

United States Senate

Washington, D. C.

You may be interested in a comment I rather frequently hear these days, that it is now necessary to read CHRISTIANITY TODAY, even though grudgingly.

WILLIS E. ELLIOTT

Office of Evangelism

The United Church of Christ

Cleveland, Ohio

SHIFTING VALUES

We are witnessing a growing extra-Christian philosophy which contends that the current explosion of knowledge calls for an accompanying “broadening” of the base of moral values and spiritual concepts.

For many centuries there were two worlds, the pagan and the Christian: pagan beliefs and practices varied with peoples, cultures and the centuries, while Christian beliefs and practices were fixed, having their basis in the biblical revelation.

No such clear delineation is possible today, for while paganism has been consistently inconsistent, the image of Christianity has been blurred by a gradual equating of human opinions and deductions with divine revelation.

This downgrading of the Scriptures has been effected from without by cultured paganistic philosophy, and from within the theological liberalism built on philosophical presuppositions having to do with the supernatural facets of the Christian faith.

In this context startling scientific breakthroughs have confused Christian thinking because of restricted concepts of God on the one hand and magnified views of man on the other. We live in an age of glorification of human achievements, whether it be on the gridiron or in the laboratory, and the result is that the “humanizing of God and deification of man” is no longer a cliché but a sobering fact.

A contributing factor in the change in moral and spiritual values has been the bold assertion of educators and others that “there are no absolutes.” The absurdity of this statement is found in that it is itself an absolute. But where men have undertaken to live by the philosophy that all things are relative—even the basic values of life itself—the result has been disastrous for the individual and for society.

If adultery is a relative matter, the rightness or wrongness of the act depending on the accepted mores of a given time and place in society, it is immediately evident that the Judeo-Christian concept of marital fidelity has given place to paganism.

If honesty is relative, so that it becomes a matter of expediency built on a foundation of anything other than the rights of ownership, then the law of the jungle has prevailed.

It might prove tedious to examine the Ten Commandments and to affirm their relevancy for today, but the world has found nothing better and it ignores these principles to its eternal undoing.

That God’s moral law is the code for human behavior in the Christian era should be a self-evident fact. Recognizing that the basis of salvation rests solely in the redeeming work of Calvary, the Christian knows his responsibility to God and to man is summed up in the demand to put God first in everything and to love his neighbor as himself.

Even within the Christian community moral and spiritual values have deteriorated to a level little separated from those prevalent in the pagan world.

Realism, relativism, and a rational approach have in such measure supplanted Christian restraints that we find growing around us a confused and beat generation, frustrated by an older generation which pitched its tent towards Sodom and settled for a regimented mediocrity. We deplore the antics of the juvenile delinquent, but we need to confess the sins of the men and women who made such delinquency inevitable.

Ours is not the only age when evil has multiplied on every hand. History tells of many times when moral and spiritual values were at a low ebb. The one outstanding difference between the past eras of decay and our own is that no generation has been blessed of God as has ours. The Gospel has been preached. The Church has borne her witness. On every hand we have evidence of God’s work in the midst of his people.

But despite the Christian witness, we find ourselves caught up in a spreading maze of iniquity. This has not happened overnight. Standards have been lowered gradually, step by step—here a concession, there a concession. Sex has been stressed and exploited until we have lost both the impulse and the ability to blush.

That these are days of lowered moral and spiritual ideals does not need documentation. What does need a new affirmation is that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the answer to all of these problems. The unchanging Christ for an ever-changing world is the message which needs to be preached from the housetops. The Church has become so concerned with secondary and peripheral matters that those which are of basic and eternal import find themselves only too often crowded out of their rightful place.

Let us be perfectly candid—in many churches today the message of salvation through the Cross with all of its implications (blood, atonement, substitution, propitiation, and so forth) is never preached. In other churches, the Gospel is so diluted and changed as to have no recognizable connection with the affirmations of Christ or Paul.

Many of the churches are not to blame. They have never known faith in a completely trustworthy and authoritative Bible. They have never had the opportunity to experience the simplicity of God’s offer of forgiveness of sin through repentance, confession, and faith in the redeeming death of his Son.

America’s greatest need today is not in the field of further scientific breakthroughs. What is needed is a revival within the Church—twice-born men teaching in our seminaries and preaching in our pulpits; men with an overwhelming sense of the sinfulness of sin and the righteousness of a holy God; men who, through the Holy Spirit, go out to preach Christ crucified, dead and buried and risen again; men who reject the suppositions of men for the affirmations of God; and men who realize that the Church is in the world, not to reform but to preach the One who came to redeem lost sinners.

We need such a conviction of sin that men will fall on their faces crying out to God for forgiveness and cleansing.

We need a vision of God which comes only to those who are willing to subordinate everything—mind, will, life—to Christ and to experience the joy which proceeds therefrom.

No one can accurately pinpoint God’s timetable. The hour may be very late. Unquestionably we live in a day when iniquity abounds and flourishes on every hand, and when the love of many waxes cold.

On the one hand, Christians must endure by God’s grace and, in these days of the world’s need, use every means at hand to witness to the saving and keeping power of Christ.

A sovereign God may yet pour out his Spirit in a refreshing stream of spiritual awakening. As at Pentecost, the prophecy of Joel may once more be fulfilled.

For this the Church should pray and to this end she should work.

L. NELSON BELL