Meeting in Detroit’s Statler Hilton Hotel, December 2–3, the policy-making General Board of the National Council of Churches manifested all the self-consciousness of an auto executive caught driving last year’s model. Public reaction to Cleveland Conference pronouncements on Red China appeared to have induced in some of the 250 board members a case of headline shock. The occasion: a pronouncement called “Ethical Issues in Industrial Relations of Concern to Christians” which opposed, among other things, right-to-work laws. In a board not noted for vigor of debate, and where committee reports nearly always enjoy smooth sailing, this was the one issue which produced lively exchanges. The pronouncement was adopted by a vote of 73 to 16, with 12 abstentions. But the minority was vocal.

Southern Presbyterian John V. Matthews, a lawyer, opposed such pronouncements in principle: “The most prevalent criticism we face is that the Church speaks mostly on all sorts of things on which it is not qualified to speak, while it remains silent on matters where it qualifies as an authority.” Others opposed the pronouncement on grounds that it was divisive and that the NCC should speak only when it has a “Thus saith the Lord.” The rejoinder: “Christ cleansed the temple” and thus attacked the “big business” of the day—religion.

Then the debate descended to arguments about the type of headlines this pronouncement would produce. Before grinning reporters, one board member suggested that a paragraph condemning “featherbedding” would be more apt to capture headlines than “right-to-work.” In a singular display of public relations sensitivity, a reluctant officer of the General Public Interpretation Committee was called upon to gauge the “timeliness” of such a pronouncement. For him, propriety dictated a noncommittal stance, though he voiced respect for the pronouncement’s framers and suggested the need of an appraisal of “the whole matter of pronouncements.”

Several expressed “profound regret” for the impression that headlines had assumed priority over God’s will. United Lutheran Dr. F. Eppling Reinartz reminded his fellows of the costliness of their right to speak: alienation and “good solid dollars.” He estimated cost of their recent convictions at a possible $100,000.

The 1960 budget of $19,374,420 was down from 1959’s $21,565,450. Expressions of anxiety were met by assurances that no reduction of program was involved, but rather the termination of certain work projects. Some were not satisfied. Dr. Glenn Moore pointed to potential curtailment of race relations work.

Despite fears that the NCC was rushing into an economic area “several hundred yards ahead of the angels,” the board voted unanimously to offer the council’s services to the two sides in the strikebound steel industry, “to be of any assistance within its power.” A special committee is expected to prepare a report on the facts of the strike and ethical implications involved. “In view of the difficulty resulting from Cleveland,” request was made for specific reference as to whom the report would represent.

The NCC has not yet taken a stand on the lively birth control issue, though a report is in the works. But Dr. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service (a “central department” of NCC) stated to the press his opposition to President Eisenhower’s declaration that our government should not provide birth control information to other nations. Church World Service maintains workers in overpopulated areas who give instruction in family limitation.

In a telegram of good wishes to President Eisenhower on the eve of his trip abroad, NCC President Edwin T. Dahlberg made a pertinent point: “We note that your visit to the Vatican is construed as a visit to the head of a church rather than the head of a state, and we trust that it will in no way be interpreted as promoting official United States diplomatic representation at the Vatican.” He suggested the President also visit Eastern Orthodoxy’s Ecumenical Patriarch.

Turning to problems of foreign missions, board members heard Dr. Virgil A. Sly tell them their denominations should yield more power to the International Missionary Council and World Council of Churches as well as to the NCC “to carry forward the mission of God.” He noted that this decade has seen for the first time “boards not associated with the National Council” sending out more missionaries than those so related.

Methodist Dr. Eugene Smith had some healthy words of self-criticism for the ecumenical movement: “It isn’t sufficiently ecumenical. The most rapidly growing churches are not members of our group. Historically, these groups exist because of our own theological and spiritual failures. The real problem is not their intransigence but our indifference.” He indicated that conservatives were not missed when absent from conferences and drew a picture of a “small group of professionals” figuring out plans in an office with the larger group “on the front slugging it out.” To overtures from conservatives, “we’ve responded with massive immobility, being too busy with our own machinery.” “We must have theological study with them.”

Widened Wedge

A large minority group, which split the Presbyterian Church in Korea by walking out of its general assembly in September, widened the wedge last month by holding its own assembly and rejecting a reconciliation proposal.

Elected moderator of the “National Association of Evangelicals” group (not affiliated with the American NAE) was the Rev. Yang Hwa Suk, a vice moderator before the split. The Rev. Mr. Yang thus becomes the dissident counterpart of the Rev. Chang Koo Yi, who was elected moderator of the so-called “Ecumenical” faction when it reconstituted the September assembly.

A peace plan laid before the “NAE” assembly provided for compromises on key issues which divide the two groups. It was rejected despite pleas from 12 missionaries who drafted it in behalf of the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., the Presbyterian Church, U.S., and the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

Mediation Mission

Two missions executives of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. flew to Korea this month for two weeks of meetings with dissident nationals.

Dr. L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and Dr. S. Hugh Bradley made the trip at the urgent request of their church’s Korean Mission. They sought to effect understanding and reconciliation between two major factions of the schism-riddled Presbyterian Church in Korea.

Bell and Bradley were officially dispatched on their mission of mediation by the Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. Bell is a member of the board and Bradley is its field secretary for the Far East.

Student Stirring

A total of 2,208 baptisms were recorded during a Methodist evangelistic mission in Korean high schools and colleges last month. The two-week mission was conducted by Dr. Harry Denman, general secretary of the Methodist General Board of Evangelism, and five other Americans.

Ike at the Vatican

President Eisenhower’s call on Pope John XXIII caused embarrassment in Protestant circles in Italy and other countries, according to the Federal Council of Protestant Churches in Italy.

The council expressed concern that the visit might be interpreted as a personal act of homage to the pontiff as a religious leader and he exploited for “propaganda purposes” in some segments of Catholicism.

Eisenhower rose early on Sunday, December 6, to attend the 8 a. m. service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rome conducted by the Rev. Gerardus Beekman. He left after Communion.

The President was received by the Pope on the threshold of his private library at 9:30 a. m. For their private conference, Eisenhower was ushered into the papal red damask-walled studio by Domenico Cardinal Tardini, Vatican Secretary of State. With John XXIII also were Archbishop Antonio Samore, secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, who acted as interpreter for him and Lt. Col. Vernon Walters, who was the President’s interpreter.

The only report to be released on the nature of the topics discussed was a statement from the Vatican press office which said that “the President explained to the Pope the spiritual values on which he bases his action for peace—values that safeguard human dignity and liberty and therefore lead to peace.”

Despite the significance of Eisenhower’s Vatican visit (Woodrow Wilson’s call on Benedict XV in 1919 was the only other time a U. S. president and a pope have met), only one reporter, a Roman Catholic, “covered” the story within the Vatican for all American news media. He was the “pool” man, Edward T. Folliard, correspondent for the Washington Post and Times-Herald and a contributor to the Jesuits’ America. The other 83 members of the presidential press party were already on their way to Ankara, the President’s next stop.

Unity and Orthodoxy

A “Pan-Orthodox” meeting, the first since 1921, is scheduled for next July at a site along the Mediterranean Sea.

Participants will seek to draft a statement on Christian unity, according to Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America.

Besides bringing together many Eastern Orthodox bodies, Archbishop Iakovos stated, the meeting is expected to attract representatives of Armenian, Jacobite, Coptic, Ethiopian and Old Catholic churches, including those in Red lands.

The unity statement, he said, will be sent to the World Council of Churches before it holds its next General Assembly and to the Vatican before the Ecumenical Council convenes.

“We are going to tell both we are ready and willing to participate in any universal attempt to restore church unity,” he added. “I am convinced we can have union without doctrinal unity. There can be union based on cooperation in matters of moral order, however.”

Confessional Hope

Leaders from 10 world confessional bodies representing some 250 million Christians held a two-day meeting in Geneva last month. Speaking only for themselves, the leaders expressed joint hope that the coming Vatican-convened Ecumenical Council will “speak clearly on the question of religious liberty.”

This is “highly important,” said a statement prepared by the attendants, among whom was Dr. David J. du Plessis, past general secretary of the Pentecostal World Conference.

In addition to du Plessis, there were representatives of the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed (Presbyterian) Churches, the World Methodist Council, the Church of England, the Baptist World Alliance, the International Congregational Council, the World Convention of Churches of Christ, the Friends World Committee for Consultation, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church.

Major Stories

Major story of the year, according to Associate Editor Albert P. Stauderman of The Lutheran, was Pope John XXIII, his call for an ecumenical council and the Roman church’s wooing of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Other top stories on Stauderman’s list include the tensions between church and state in East Europe, the issue of a Roman Catholic for president, court action on prayers and Bible reading in public schools, Sunday closing laws, growth in church membership, the rise of liturgical movements and religious reaction to Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the United States.

Christmas Quotas

Government quotas provided for about 3,000 persons, mostly Christian Arabs, to cross armistice lines to the Old City of Jerusalem for Christmas Eve observances in Bethlehem this year. It was reported that about 10,000 had applied.

Faith and Freedom

“There exists in Mexico absolute freedom of belief,” President Adolfo Lopez Mateos declared this month. It was one of a few times a Mexican president has spoken publicly of religion since the stringent anti-clerical decrees imposed by Plutarco Elias Calles in 1927.

Mateos was reassuring a textile labor leader who claimed that his union was being discriminated against because of religious beliefs. Mexico is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.

Biblical Stamp

Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.

The Liberty Bell, which bears the above inscription taken from Leviticus 25:10, will appear on a new 10-cent U. S. stamp for overseas air mail to Latin America. The stamp will go on sale June 10 in Miami.

‘Mine Eyes Have Seen’

Dr. Daniel A. Poling tells in his newly-published autobiography how Sen. John F. Kennedy cancelled a scheduled appearance at an inter-faith meeting under pressure from the late Dennis Cardinal Dougherty. According to the Christian Herald editor’s book, Mine Eyes Have Seen, the cancellation occurred in 1950 prior to a Philadelphia banquet marking the end of a financial drive for building the “Chapel of the Four Chaplains.”

Told of the published account this month, Catholic Kennedy’s initial reaction was a “no comment.”

Accreditation Intact

The American Association of Theological Schools’ Commission on Accrediting voted this month to continue accreditation of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, whose academic standing was threatened following dismissal of 13 professors. A special AATS committee which visited the seminary this fall reported that “adequate steps” had been taken by the seminary to repair “damage” caused by the dismissals. The school had rescinded the dismissals and asked resignations instead.

Here is a roundup of significant religious developments during 1959, compiled through the combined efforts of editors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, its correspondents around the world, and news agencies which serve the magazine:

EVANGELISM: Billy Graham’s popularity continued to rise. His crusade in Australia and New Zealand won unparalleled response … An outdoor rally in Munich climaxed the ninth Kirchentag by drawing 400,000 persons.

THEOLOGY: The 171st General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. confirmed appointment of Dr. Theodore A. Gill as president of San Francisco Theological Seminary despite his denial of the Virgin Birth … A United Church of Canada committee published a doctrinal study disavowing hell and Christ’s second coming … The Southern Baptist seminary at Louisville, fearful of losing accreditation in the firing of 13 professors, asked for resignations instead, an action which apparently mollified the accrediting agency (see page 33) … Scholars asserted that Gnostic influences pervade the so-called “Gospel of Thomas,” post-war archaeological recovery.

MORALITY: Signs of U. S. moral bankruptcy were evident in continuing disclosures of payola and fixed quiz shows … The Senate Rackets Committee held 63 days of hearings. The corruption they have turned up prompted passage of a new federal law aimed at labor union irregularities … Preliminary crime figures for 1959 showed increases in the incidence of murder and rape.

ECUMENICITY: Pope John XXIII said he would summon an Ecumenical Council (latest target date: late 1962 or early 1963) … Preliminary talks between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians were shelved indefinitely … Plans were announced for a Pan-Orthodox meeting, first since 1921, next July … Among U. S. church union drives which gained momentum were two within Lutheranism, another between Unitarians and Universalists, and still another which joins Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed churches … The Interchurch Center in New York, a 19-story office building was opened for occupancy.

MISSIONS: The Missionary Research Library released figures showing a total of 25,058 U. S. and Canadian missionaries abroad, 10,000 more than in 1950. Two in three were women … Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot, wife of one of five missionaries slain by Ecuadorian savages in 1956, spent much of the year making friendly contacts with the very tribe which killed her husband. Several other missionaries lent aid in a joint effort to present the Gospel … The Presbyterian Church in Korea, once one of the most productive of foreign missions enterprises, suffered its third schism in eight years.

COMMUNISM: While Nikita Khrushchev was making pious pronouncements in America, the Soviet government was making new attacks on religion. Latest tool is a new magazine which cites scientific data in an attempt to discredit faith … Communists in East Germany promoted their own state rituals to replace Christian baptism and confirmation … Red brutalities in Tibet were climaxed with the flight of the god-king Dalai Lama into India.

CHARITY: As a wave of natural disasters brought suffering to millions, more fortunate Christians responded with clothes, food and relief monies … United charity drives stirred controversy in American cities and some observers wondered whether almsgiving ought not be brought back under the canopy of churches.

PUBLISHING: New translations of the Bible in modern English sold briskly. Nearly a half million of Zondervan’s Amplified New Testament have been printed.

ANNIVERSARIES: John Calvin (450th of his birth and 400th of the university he founded and of the publication of his Institutes) … Organization of U. S. Methodism (175th) … Japanese Protestantism (100th) … Wheaton College (100th) … Evangelical Free Church (75th) … Wycliffe Bible Translators (25th).

CHURCH-STATE: President Eisenhower became the second U. S. chief executive to visit a pope … Federal funds became available to American seminaries via the National Defense Education Act.

Aid for Missionaries

Dr. Albert Holt, chief surgeon of an Evangelical Alliance Mission hospital in India, was turning away patients, not for lack of beds or medicine, but because there was not enough water on the compound. The solution lay in the installation of the right kind of a pump, but what does a medical missionary know about plumbing?

Holt’s problem eventually landed in the lap of a fledgling organization created to lend a hand in such technical crises which confront missionaries.

Only a week before receiving this request for help, the Development and Technical Assistance office in Palo Alto, California, heard that the production manager of a local pump company was willing to file his specialty with DATA’s 75-member “Technical Fellowship,” which includes engineers and scientists who stand ready to help missionaries.

An outline of Holt’s needs was forwarded to the pump company, where selection of the right type was made and installation and operating instructions forwarded. It turned out, moreover, that the company had outlets in India which enabled Holt to pick up his pump in a nearby city with the added assurance that parts would be available there, too.

Since its incorporation a year ago, Data and Technical Assistance has completed more than 150 such transactions with missionaries and mission boards across the globe. A doctor in Colombia wanted to know how to grow drug-producing plants. A missionary in Africa asked about transistor radios. Another in Honduras sought a formula for turning limestone into lime.

DATA got its start when Wil Rose of Moody Institute of Science made a survey tour of 30 missions stations in 18 countries. He found only four missionaries who knew where to get technical help. Others deluged him with questions, only a few of which he could answer. But he knew people back in the States who could!

Establishment of DATA was the outcome, an organization to channel missionaries’ technical questions to U. S. specialists who know the answers.

DATA is one of several U. S. agencies offering such services (another: Technical Assistance to Missions in Tennessee). Their efforts represent attempts to apply great scientific advances of our day to more effective Christian witness. Rose describes DATA as “evangelical in conviction” and invites home and foreign missionaries to make use of its service.

Global Tie

An organization representative of Conservative Judaism in 22 countries was formally established during a biennial convention of the United Synagogue of America last month.

The World Council of Synagogues bring together for the first time Conservative Jews in America and elsewhere.

A World Union of Progressive Judaism, was organized by the Reform Jewish movement several years ago. There is no comparable body among Orthodox Jews.

The United Synagogue is a federation of Conservative congregations representing some 1,000,000 members in North America. Conservatism is a middle-of-the-road branch of Judaism between Orthodoxy and Reform which represent another 2,000,000 Jews.

Jewish Record

The 45th General Assembly of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which drew some 3,000 delegates to Miami Beach, Florida, last month, was the largest convention in the history of American Jewry.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Methodist Bishop Titus Lowe, 81, in Indianapolis … Dr. Andrew R. Bird, 79, minister of the Church of the Pilgrims (“gift of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. to the nation’s capital”), in Washington, D. C. … Dr. Charles E. Perry, 51, an American who taught oriental history at St. Paul’s (Anglican) University in Tokyo (following a beating by two drunken students) … Dr. David R. Gordon, 92, retired United Presbyterian missionary to India and Pakistan, in Duarte, California.

Retirement: As executive secretary of the Southern Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, A. C. Miller.

Appointments: As dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, Dr. John V. Butler … as chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, the Rev. Walter E. McAlister … as professor of Old Testament at the Methodist Theological School of Ohio, Dr. C. Everett Tilson … as executive editor of Together, Glenn S. Hensley.

There was little startling about a statement last month from the Roman Catholic hierarchy in America recording its opposition to public assistance for promotion of artificial birth prevention. The declaration was only a logical extension of Catholicism’s well-known stand against use of contraceptives. But timed for release on Thanksgiving morning, the 1,516-word statement (formulated a week earlier at the 41st annual meeting of U. S. Catholic bishops) won headlines across the country.

Within hours birth control had become a major U. S. controversy which soon took a political turn. Senator John F. Kennedy, leading Catholic presidential aspirant, said he thought it would be a “mistake” for the United States to advocate birth control in under-developed countries. President Eisenhower said this would never happen while he is in office.

Reaction from Protestant quarters found a division of opinion on the morality of birth control itself.

Among evangelicals, the hullabaloo perhaps served to crystallize some convictions. Prodded by controversy, many went anew to the Bible for a re-examination of views on the legitimacy of sex severed from its procreative role. Most evangelical leaders were willing to state beliefs even when these conflicted with convictions of fellow Christians.

Catholic Practice

What advice do Roman Catholic physicians give to married women who request contraceptives?

Among 244 U. S. Catholic physicians who responded to a survey, 29 per cent flatly disagree with the dogma of their church and say they recommend contraceptives.

Another 24 per cent say they agree with Catholic teaching that such methods of birth control are immoral but will give advice to a patient who asks.

The remainder—47 per cent—say they refuse to give the patient, even if she be a non-Catholic, any advice on avoiding conception by means other than continence and the “rhythm method.”

The survey was conducted by Drs. Sydney S. Spivack and Jerald T. Hage of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University. Their report was presented to the 1959 convention of the American Sociological Society.

Dr. Herbert E. Mekeel, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said he is “firmly against any form of birth control.”

“God has never revoked his great command to ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ ” Mekeel declared.

Dr. Oswald C. J. Hoffman, speaker on radio’s “Lutheran Hour” (Missouri Synod-Lutheran Laymen’s League), stated:

“It is a moral issue of such consequence that people have to decide for themselves on the basis of their own conscience and on the teachings of the Word of God.”

Dr. P. Kenneth Gieser, president of the Christian Medical Society, also left it “entirely up to the individual.”

“Some use of contraceptives is necessary,” he added. “I do not see that they are harmful or unscriptural.”

Professor Merrill C. Tenney of Wheaton College asserted that birth control must be a personal matter of “prayerful agreement and self-control rather than promiscuous use of chemical or mechanical aid.”

Professor Bernard Ramm of California Baptist Theological Seminary characterized birth control as part of the “rational control of nature which involves risks and responsibilities.”

He said man exerts similar control in such acts as the amputation of a limb or the damming of a stream, either of which can be done rightly or wrongly.

Professor Edward J. Carnell of Fuller Theological Seminary agreed that contraceptives have their place in the Christian home:

“I hold that the end of marriage is the total creative work of two lives that have been joined together to glorify God and to enjoy one another. The whole question of the marital relation is evaluated from within this created relation and no one from the outside of this relation can dictate by simple law how lovers can govern themselves. The question of contraceptives is simply one expedient within the creative possibilities of love.”

Dr. Harold J. Ockenga, minister of Boston’s Park Street Church, declared that “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with birth control per se.”

Ockenga fears that in international sharing of birth control information, however, the data might get in the wrong hands. He sees the problem as one of “getting the information to the people who need it in order to check the “population explosion.”

Dr. Samuel M. Shoemaker, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, said: “As it would be wrong to foist birth control upon unwilling people, it is also wrong to keep the knowledge from ignorant people who seek this information to insure smaller families.”

The Scriptures do not discuss birth control (avoidance of parenthood was unheard of in biblical times), so the position of evangelicals is one of the liberty of a good conscience before God.

Interestingly, the birth control controversy flared as the Christian world prepared once again to mark the Bethlehem birth of the Saviour. God’s sovereignty over the human reproductive process, exhibited nowhere more strikingly than in the incarnation, fell into the background, however, as the debate wore on.

In Honor of Darwin

A brilliant array of scholars responded to beckonings of the University of Chicago for its Darwin Centennial Celebration, November 24–28, and the resulting galaxy was perhaps the most memorable feature of the gathering. Numbered among approximately 2,500 attendants from 27 countries was another Charles Darwin (grandson of evolution’s bright light), who dolefully predicted that over-population and resulting complications would cause a return to hard conditions of life and the diminishing of human intelligence.

But it was another grandson of a famous British scientist who ran off with the headlines, and he did it with an old, old story. Sir Julian Huxley, scion of Thomas Huxley, predicted the disappearance of religion—a product of evolution like everything else—from earth, through “competition with other, truer, and more embracing thought organizations.” He saw no “need or room … in the evolutionary pattern of thought … for supernatural beings capable of affecting the course of events.”

There were many rejoinders. Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan of the University of Chicago’s Federated Theological Faculty said that theologians now believe so deeply “in the task of science that they will not let scientists pose as theologians.” Other indictments of Sir Julian from church spokesmen: “naive” and “old-fashioned.”

Unfortunately the rebuttals seemed to come chiefly from religious leaders (who accepted evolution but not atheism—as did a participating Roman Catholic scientist) and not from science professors.

Christians tremble for the West as they see unbelief ensconced in high places of influence in their supposedly “Christian” society. Given a mushrooming of this influence through educational institutions, and who could question the divine indictment: “A plague on both your houses!”

F.F.

Protestant Panorama

• Sunday church attendance in Sweden averages little more than three per cent of the entire population, according to a newly-released report from the state Lutheran church to which 95 per cent of Swedes belong.

• The American Tract Society is distributing a new tract featuring the personal testimony of Gov. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon.

• The executive committee of the Greater Seattle Council of Churches says it is against proposed licensing by the City Council of a commercial service designed to provide dine-and-dance companions for men.

• The National Labor Relations Board last month dismissed a petition by a Teamsters local to organize employees of the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville.

• A thief who broke into Baptist Editor Floyd Looney’s car during a session of the Southern Baptist General Convention of California took not only a wardrobe of clothes but a 40-year collection of sermons.

• The Canadian Lutheran Council, at an annual meeting last month in Winnipeg, adopted a record budget of $71,000 for 1961.

• The life of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale will be the topic of a movie slated by Hollywood producers.

• The National Association of Evangelicals is sponsoring a “Universal Week of Prayer” January 3–10.

• The Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. turned down last month an offer of $250,000 cash plus land for a new building in Charlotte, North Carolina, if it would relocate there from Richmond, Virginia.

• The Assemblies of God Home Missions Department is mapping plans for 400 rallies throughout the United States in 1960 to promote organization of new churches.

• Gerald W. Dillon, chairman of the Association of Evangelical Friends, and Everett Heacock, Quaker businessman, completed a three-month, 40,000-mile tour of Friends missions this fall.

• Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin will visit England next month.

• A Baptist Press survey shows that most colleges and universities related to the Southern Baptist Convention are taking part in the student loan program established by the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Only three colleges said they would not seek loans because of possible church-state entanglements.

• A new school for evangelical missionaries’ children is scheduled to open in Mexico City December 28.

• A group of Nashville Negro ministers protested last month the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s refusal to lift racial bars in its three hospitals.

• Ground was broken last month for a science laboratory on the campus of Gordon College.

• Protestants in New York City are organizing vigorous opposition to Mayor Robert F. Wagner’s proposal to legalize off-track betting.

• Asked for his formula for long life, Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, Presbyterian minister celebrating his 103rd birthday, quipped, “Don’t die.”

• The Delaware County Christian School won accreditation last month from the Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools.

• Publication of The Chronicle, student newspaper at Methodist-affiliated Duke University, was suspended by school officials following appearance of a fictional article about the Virgin Birth which “mingled the actuely obscene with the offensively sacrilegious.” The officials said publication would resume after a staff reorganization.

• A modern, two-story “Center for the Study of World Religion” will be built by Harvard University near the institution’s Divinity School.

FAVORITE GREETING

If Nancy had not fallen into the Christmas tree, I might never have noticed. I was quietly reading a back number of Time (when I recover my copy from the boys’ wastebasket or under the All in the laundry, it is always a back number); I was reading, I say, Time (and don’t think there is any payola in my plugging that magazine or mentioning a detergent; sometimes I wish I were not so anonymous). I’ll begin again. I was quietly reading when Nancy fell into the Christmas tree. It was a routine holiday accident, Nancy, age four, was crying because she couldn’t touch the star on the top of the tree, and Willie was lifting her up so that she could, and Charles was lying on the floor watching television, and Sue was practicing a dribble and lay-up shot with an imaginary basketball. Sue stumbled over Charles and clipped Willie, who windmilled wildly before catapulting Nancy into the middle of the tree. The whole incident didn’t take more than five seconds, and everything was set right in two or three hours, including replacing the tree lights and getting three stitches in Nancy’s chin.

However, I recalled, while I was searching for the magazine again, that I had been reading about the success of Mr. Hall of Hallmark Cards (remember, I don’t receive even a complimentary get-well assortment out of this). I had just come to the sentence that stated what the alltime best selling card was when the catastrophe struck. What was that alltime bestseller? The question became important. Here was an image of an age. This is the kind of thing a budding sociologist takes seriously. No doubt the bestseller would be seasonal. Perhaps a wise men design, symbolizing the yearning of modern man for his dimly remembered faith.

Three days later, I found the right magazine in the public library. I finished the article. The alltime bestselling card shows a cart loaded with pansies.

I walked home through the sleet. Am I, too, a beatnik at heart? What’s wrong with pansies? Perhaps they will become the national flower. Or does this account for the “time wounds all heels” variety of cards that are taking over at the drug store? Is this the revolt of existentialism against the old liberal optimism of the pansies? Does the elderly Mr. Hall have the same sure touch in selecting designs for these wierdies?

There was a get-well greeting for Nancy in the mailbox from Aunt Sally. Yes, a cartload of pansies.

EUTYCHUS

FOURTH YEAR FRONTIER

Thank you for your continuing high standards, even after … three years of publication.

HAROLD MARR

St. David’s Presbyterian Church

Campbellville, Ont.

Personally I find immense profit in reading your paper and would not be without it.

C. H. ZEIDLER

President

Northwestern Lutheran Seminary

Minneapolis, Minn.

We regard CHRISTIANITY TODAY as an outstanding religious magazine providing scholarly and conservative articles which constitute wholesome reading for our seminary students as they face the responsibilities of the ministry. I am particularly grateful for the evangelical tenor of the articles and for the calibre of men whom you invite to write for the magazine.… Your editorial staff is to be congratulated most heartily on the production of this splendid religious magazine. It is rendering a distinct service in American Christianity today.

E. E. FLACK

Dean

Hamma Divinity School

Wittenberg University

Springfield, Ohio

I hope all of … our students … eventually become subscribers.

GILBERT L. GUFFIN

Eastern Baptist Seminary President

St. Davids, Pa.

We have high regard for your splendid periodical, believing that it is the best paper of its kind on the market.

BURTON L. GODDARD

Dean

Gordon Divinity School

Beverly Farms, Mass.

Let me take this opportunity … of expressing my … appreciation for the paper.… I have been a subscriber for some time and always read the paper with interest.

GEORGE G. HORN

Dean of the Seminary

Bloomfield College and Seminary

Bloomfield, N. J.

Only today I quoted at length from an editorial … in our chapel talk. We thank God for CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

HOWARD W. FERRIN

President

Providence-Barrington Bible College

Providence, R. I.

It has been my pleasure to receive the magazine from the first issue.… Our entire student body and faculty and staff are committed to the evangelical principles promoted by your magazine. We are all for it!

ROY S. NICHOLSON

Bible Department

Wesleyan Methodist College

Central, S. C.

I am sure, from my own experience, that the reading material in this magazine is of high caliber and is of informational and inspirational value to seminary students and others in the ministry.

FRANK R. BROWN

Dean

Hood Theological Seminary

Salisbury, N. C.

May the Lord continue to bless abundantly in the testimony you are exercising for Him in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

JOHN F. WALVOORD

President

Dallas Seminary

Dallas, Texas

We of the staff of Azusa College consider this magazine one of the finest Christian periodicals we have.

EDWARD PETERMAN

Librarian

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The right of II Peter to a place in the canon of the New Testament has been more widely disputed than that of any other book. No direct quotation from it can be found in the patristic literature prior to the beginning of the third century. Eusebius, in the fourth century (HE V, i, 36, 45, 55) classes it explicitly among the antilegomena or doubtful books rather than among those that were accepted as of apostolic origin.

AUTHORSHIP

External testimony to its Petrine origin, however, is not totally lacking. There are occasional allusions in the Shepherd of Hermas (c. 140 A.D.), 1 Clement (95 A.D.), the pseudo II Clement (140 A.D.), and the Didache (c. 150 A.D.) which resemble it, although there is no convincing proof that any one of these is quoting II Peter directly. Eusebius quoted Origen (c. 220 A.D.) as saying: “Peter … has left one epistle undisputed. Suppose also the second one left by him, for on this there is some doubt” (HE VI, xxv, 8). Origen’s language does not exclude the Petrine authorship, but merely indicates that it was not universally acknowledged.

The internal evidence is stronger. The writer claims at the outset to be “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ” (1:1). He announces that the time has come for him “to put off this my tabernacle even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me” (1:14), a statement which accords with Jesus’ prediction that Peter would die a violent death (John 21:18). He claims to have been present at the Transfiguration when the “power and coming” of the Lord Jesus Christ was exemplified, and when the divine Voice said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (1:16, 17; cf. Mark 9:5–7; Matt. 17:4, 5). The words “decease” [Gr., exodus] and “tabernacle” (1:13–15) appear also in the accounts of the Transfiguration (see Luke 9:31, 33). He identifies himself as one of the apostles of the Lord (3:2). In speaking of the writings of Paul, he calls him “our beloved brother,” a title that would hardly have been used by anyone who did not know Paul personally, and as an equal.

The problem of authorship is further complicated by the relation of the second chapter of II Peter to the epistle of Jude. In content and in language there is a resemblance between the two that is too strong to be accidental, though there are marked differences as well. If one is dependent on the other, which is the original? Since Jude’s epistle is briefer and more compact, its priority is usually taken for granted. In that case, II Peter must be later than Jude, and therefore too late to belong to the apostolic writings of the first century.

Ernest F. Scott has stated the critical dilemma succinctly and boldly (The Literature of the New Testament, New York: Columbia University Press, 1936, p. 227): “Thus we have no choice but to regard II Peter either as a genuine writing of the Apostle, or as a later work which was deliberately composed in his name.” Scott and many others solve the dilemma by assigning II Peter to the subapostolic writings of the second century, but their conclusion is not the only possible answer to the problem. It seems incredible that so barefaced a forgery should have been foisted on the Church without any protest. This document has not simply taken Peter’s name, but it has professed to grow out of his experience. Even granting the fact that the apocryphal Gospel of Peter and Apocalypse of Peter bear some resemblance to the second epistle and were accepted by segments of the Church, they did not enjoy such wide acceptance, nor are they mentioned as equal candidates for a place in the canon.

If the internal evidence be taken at face value, it is plain that the epistle was written near the close of Peter’s life, when persecution was threatening both him and the churches to whom he wrote (cf. 1 Pet. 4:14–19). In writing his first letter he had the aid of Silvanus [Silas] (1 Pet. 5:12), who could smooth out his style, and who perhaps made several copies for general circulation, thereby insuring a wider knowledge of the epistle in the churches. The second epistle, if written without such aid, would show the cruder Greek style of a Galilean fisherman, and would have a narrower distribution.

The allusions to the life of Christ (1:14–18; 3:2) can best be explained by admitting that they are the testimony of an eyewitness. Peter was one of the three disciples present at the Transfiguration, and was deeply impressed by the phenomena that he observed. The Gospels say that he reacted immediately to the situation (Matt. 17:4; Mark 9:5; Luke 9:33), and it must have been stamped ineffaceably upon his memory.

One may account for the likeness to the book of Jude by reversing the theory stated above. Jude uses the Petrine phrase “put in remembrance” (Jude 5; 2 Pet. 1:13); he refers to “the words spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (17) of whom the writer of II Peter claims to be one (2 Pet. 3:2), and he employs the very words of 2 Peter 3:3 in a quotation from them. Since Jude asserts that he is quoting from the apostles, while the writer of II Peter makes this statement as his own, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Jude is quoting Peter rather than vice-versa. If so, Jude becomes an external witness for the early date of II Peter rather than making it a late reproduction of Jude.

If II Peter is genuine, it was probably written by Peter from Rome between 64 and 67 A.D. for some group of people who did not publicize the letter widely, perhaps because they were afraid to acknowledge the possession of it.

SETTING

The second epistle of Peter claims to be a sequel to another epistle written to the same destination (3:1). If it can be rightly paired with I Peter, it was directed to the Christians of northern Asia Minor, among whom Peter had ministered at some previous time. Between the writing of the two epistles, a change had taken place in their circumstances. The first epistle was written to forestall the external danger of trial, probably by governmental oppression. The uncertainty of the Roman attitude toward the growing sect of the Christians, and the contempt in which they were held made them apprehensive of persecution (1 Pet. 1:7; 2:12–15, 20; 3:14–17; 4:3, 4, 12–16; 5:8–10). The warnings of the second epistle concern the internal danger of apostasy, which Peter feared more than the cruelties that might be inflicted by the jealous and ignorant heathen.

CONTENT

As the central theme of I Peter is suffering, so that of II Peter is knowledge. The words know and knowledge occur 16 times in three chapters, six of which refer to the knowledge of Christ. This knowledge is not academic, but is fundamentally spiritual, based on a growing experience with Christ (3:18). It is the source of peace and grace (1:2), the cause of fruitfulness (1:8), the means of liberation (2:20), and the sphere of Christian growth (3:18).

The epistle can be divided into three main sections. The first (1:1–21) deals with the nature and the ground of spiritual knowledge. The gift of the knowledge of Christ provides all that is needed for the attainment of glory and virtue, and the promises of God afford escape from the carnal lusts that would hinder progress (1:2–4). That knowledge increases by growth in experience, which promotes the addition of spiritual qualities to the mature believer and the assurance of entrance into the kingdom of Christ (1:5–11). The source of this knowledge is the personal manifestation of Christ which the apostles had witnessed, plus “the more sure word of prophecy” inspired by the Holy Spirit and recorded in the Scriptures (1:19–21).

The second division of the epistle contains a warning against apostasy (2:1–22). Peter predicted the rise of error within the ranks of believers. These false teachers are not pagans who invade the Church from without, but are traitors who bore from within with “feigned words” (2:3). Peter illustrated their judgment by the doom of the angels that sinned (2:4), by the overthrow of the antediluvian world (2:5), and by the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (2:6). Their error, which is essentially the repudiation of Christ’s lordship (2:1), is arrogant (2:10), wanton (2:13), adulterous (2:14), covetous (2:14), pretentious (2:17), boastful (2:18), and enslaving (2:19). The danger of their error is that it will lead them straight back into the spiritual bondage from which they had presumably escaped.

The last section of the epistle (3:1–18) refers the reader to the voice of prophecy as an antidote to apostasy. The threat of persecution and the influx of unbelief had aroused doubt as to whether the promises of the Lord’s coming would be fulfilled. Cynical persons, observing that the apostles were dying and that the signs of the Lord’s coming were not evident had begun to wonder whether he would come at all. They argued fallaciously that because nothing cataclysmic had happened since the creation, nothing would happen in the future. Peter reminded them that just as the flood was unannounced and sudden, so will the coming of the Lord be. Natural phenomena have not always followed a uniform course in the past, nor need they do so in the future. “The day of the Lord” will come suddenly; the material universe will pass away; and a new heaven and earth will take its place.

The challenge to new depths of experience, the threat of defection, and the impending consummation of all things are an incentive to holiness. “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?” (3:11) is the supreme question, and the answer is: “… be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (3:14).

TEACHING

The second epistle of Peter offers some teaching that is not presented elsewhere with the same explicitness. The statement that “prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (1:21) is one of the most definitive passages on inspiration in the New Testament. It asserts unmistakably that the message of the Old Testament Scriptures is the authoritative voice of God which must be interpreted in the light of the total revelation.

The eschatological teaching of II Peter is an explanation of the seeming delay of the Lord’s return. Peter had been one of the group who questioned Jesus concerning the time of his coming (Mark 13:3, 4), and he had heard the answer which Jesus gave. The allusion to a thief in the night (3:10) is taken directly from Jesus’ own words (Luke 12:39, 40). Undoubtedly many of the second generation Christians were disappointed that the Lord did not come in their lifetime. Others were skeptical because they could not conceive of any interruption in the orderly process of nature. Peter answered their objections by pointing out that once before God had intervened by a flood which had made a sharp break in the uniform progress of the past. The delay of Christ’s return was not the result of a mistaken prediction, but was rather a sign of God’s desire to give man a longer opportunity to repent.

COMMENTARIES

For a general introduction to II Peter, see Paton J. Gloag, Introduction to the Catholic Epistles (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1887). Among the better critical commentaries are C. Bigg, The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude in the Inter-Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901); Joseph B. Mayor, The Epistle of Jude and the Second Epistle of Peter (London: Macmillan & Co., 1907); J. W. C. Wand, The General Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude (London: Methuen & Co., 1934). Some excellent biographical background and exposition are available in A. T. Robertson, Epochs in the Life of Simon Peter (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933) and W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Apostle Peter (Eerdmans, 1946).

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Graduate School of Theology

Wheaton College (Illinois)

Religious leaders who are not strongly attached to biblical Christianity have on occasion recommended a so-called “universal” religion synthesized from elements of all the world religions. This proposal can be buttressed by the allegation that Christianity itself is a synthesis of borrowings from earlier systems of worship. The idea of the Virgin Birth, it is said, has been copied from the story of Buddha’s birth or from Greek mythology, and the doctrines of Paul are explained as adaptations from the Greek mysteries. Macchioro even asserts that Paul was an initiate to the pagan rites. Conservative Christians, on the other hand, maintain that Christianity is unique.

For example, J. Gresham Machen in his monumental work, The Virgin Birth of Christ, produces evidence to show that the original account of Buddha’s birth contains no extraordinary factor, and that only after Christianity had come on the scene were those stories altered in the direction of a virgin birth. The same author in The Origin of Paul’s Religion, and other authors as well, explode the theory that Paul borrowed from the pagan mysteries. Thus Christianity has been defended as unique.

Such studies are all to the good. Christianity would be compromised if it could be shown to be a mosaic of borrowings. Yet, the fact that Christianity is unique is subject to an exaggerated evaluation. For, when one analyzes the situation, it will be discovered that every religion is unique—Buddhism and Islam as well as Christianity. In fact, failure to recognize this results both in a misunderstanding of Christianity and in a false philosophy of religion as well.

THE ERROR OF SYNCRETISM

Nearly all volumes on the philosophy of religion assume that there is a common, universal phenomenon, religion, which may be the subject matter of a single science. William E. Hocking in Living Religions and a World Faith commences by asserting—“In its nature religion is universal and one.” The same author in a later volume, The Coming World Civilization (p. 149), emphasizes and elaborates the same idea. Other authors are in essential agreement on this point.

The unity of religion is sometimes sought in an experience of conversion, an integration of personality, or some sort of emotion. The present article cannot discuss extensively this point of view except to say that it is entirely too broad a definition of religion. Any selected emotional experience (abstracted from intellectual or doctrinal content) can be found in politics, marriage, business success, and in aesthetic experience as often as in religion. Here the topic must be restricted to religious ideas.

TRUTH THE DECISIVE CRITERION

The reason every religion is unique is that each one is a particular complex, and the several factors are interdependent. If it were not so technical, a comparison might be drawn with Euclidean and noneuclidean geometries, or even with plans and spherical geometry. They may all use the word triangle, but the word does not mean the same thing in the several cases. In plane geometry a triangle is a figure that necessarily contains 180 degrees. A spherical triangle must contain more. Both triangles are bounded by straight lines, but “straight lines” do not mean the same thing. So it is in religion, and even more so: a common word may be used in two or more religions, but not a common idea. For example, Christianity, Islam, and orthodox Judaism all talk about God. Indeed, they all talk about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Notwithstanding this striking identity in phraseology, the three religions do not mean the same thing. Obviously the triune God, whose second Person is Jesus Christ, is not the God of Judaism or Islam. The disparity is still more obvious if one analyzes the ideas of sin, salvation, or the future life. Each of these ideas is formed in relation to each of the others within a single religion. Clearly heaven is not the same in all. When further we add Buddhism to this list of religions, the situation becomes still more complex—or, rather, still more clear and simple. Nirvana and heaven (either the Christian one or the Mohammedan) are not the same thing at all. One form of Buddhism, possibly it is the purer form, is definitely atheistic. All plausibility therefore that heaven, or God, or any other idea is the common definitive element in a universal religion is lost. And it is virtually rubbing an author’s nose into it to ask: Is communism a religion? Does one say that communism is antireligious? If so, it is none the less zealously and religiously so.

From a systematic point of view the inductive attempt to find a common element in all religions involves a hysteron-proteron; that is, it requires at the outset the knowledge it professes to obtain in the end. Let us take a parallel case. If Lewis Carroll tells Alice to examine all Snarks to find their common nature, Alice, at least in her waking moments, would not know whether all the objects before her were snarks or even whether any of them were. The philosophy of religion is in the same perplexity with Alice. The objects before it are Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and so on. Are they religions or are they not? This question could be answered only after we knew the common element in all religions—only after a list of religions had been drawn up. But to draw up the list requires the knowledge that induction from the list is supposed to provide. Thus it is that so many volumes on the philosophy of religion or on comparative religions proceed on an impossible foundation.

The attempt to consider religion as a common, universal phenomenon ought really to be abandoned. There are religions, but there is no religion. Christianity is unique. Neither the Virgin Birth nor the Pauline theology was borrowed from other religions, and to try to merge these ideas in some syncretistic religion is to destroy Christianity. There would remain neither sin, heaven, nor Jesus Christ. But of course Islam is unique too and would equally be destroyed in a merger. The more important question therefore is not whether Christianity is unique, but whether Christianity is true.

Gordon H. Clark is Professor of Philosophy at Butler University in Indianapolis. From his pen have come such significant works as Thales to Dewey, A Christian View of Men and Things, and Readings in Ethics, T. V. Smith, co-author.

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

Running through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation are multiplied references to sacrifices and blood.

The New Testament references to “the blood of Christ” are so numerous and specific that they in themselves constitute a theology of redemption.

That the doctrine of the blood atonement is attacked and rejected as a “slaughter house religion” by many is a matter of deep concern. If the shed blood of Calvary has no relationship to God’s redemptive act, then men should know it. If allusions to Christ’s blood, and faith in its saving efficacy, are “offensive”, and on this assumption to be eliminated from Christian doctrine, we should know on what authority such action is being taken.

I have before me letters which deplore in the strongest terms a concept of God which requires the sacrifice of his Son for the sins of the world.

These letters speak of such beliefs as “sadistic,” “revolting,” “outrageous,” “atonement of retaliation,” “masochism,” and other vigorous terms.

Little is to be gained by engaging in polemics. To me the decision must center in the revelation which God has given us of himself and his Son through the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures.

Here we are confronted with the holiness and justice of a God who is utterly righteous, and we see the great mercy of the same God who is love.

The Bible tells us that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were types and symbols of the death of Christ on the Cross, and the New Testament affirmations about the blood shed on Calvary require us to take them in their rightful context and accept them as the inspired explanation of the central event of all history. Where we fail to understand all that is implied is our fault and not the fault of God’s plan.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the tabernacle service as symbolic of Christ’s atoning work; and he further states: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Before such a statement how can we refrain from bowing our hearts in humble thankfulness for what Christ has done?

This same writer says: “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” This to me is evidence of the overwhelming importance of God’s holy provision for my sins and also the awfulness of sin which made such provision necessary.

The blood which flowed at Calvary was real blood. The implication and effect of that blood is for all ages, and becomes real and precious to us through faith.

Our Lord, in instituting the sacrament of remembrance, says: “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

The Apostle Paul, in his meeting with the Ephesian elders, speaks of “the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood”; while to the church in Rome he writes: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.… Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”

What is the significance of this blood that runs like a red line through the story of redemption?

Noah was warned against eating “flesh with the life thereof, which is the life thereof.” Equating blood with life is fully compatable with the concept of our Lord’s giving his life for the redemption of mankind.

In our own scientific age there are thousands living today who owe their lives to blood transfusions. By analogy, it can be reverently said that, in a mystical sense, the Son of God is the great universal Donor, giving new life to the sinner who trusts in His shed blood for cleansing.

The implications of his blood are inexhaustable in their effect on those who accept new life in Christ.

We have redemption through his blood, and it is this same blood which brings us near to God. Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians of their former state—“having no hope, and without God in the world”; and then he says: “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

To the Christians in Colosse he tells of God’s good pleasure that in Christ “should all fullness dwell” and immediately speaks of the work of Christ in these words: “And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.”

The Apostle Peter is equally emphatic with reference to the blood of Christ in telling us that our redemption is not purchased by silver or gold, “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

John, the beloved apostle, in speaking of Christians walking in the light of the Lord and in the fellowship which this makes possible, says: “And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

We find this same theme in the book of Revelation where we are told: “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood …”; “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation.”

In all of this we are confronted by a great mystery. This side of eternity none of us can know the full implication of God’s great act of redemption in Christ. To rationalize either the nature of sin or the cost and means of our salvation is to toy with destruction itself. It is not for man to argue with his Maker. To let one’s philosophical preconceptions separate him from God’s provision of eternal life is folly at its worst.

We live in a day of great sophistication. It is not easy to humble our hearts, minds, and wills and submit them to God; but there is great reward to those who say from a yearning heart: “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”

“What can wash away my sins,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Is not this a time when we might well exchange some of our theological sophistication for the simplicity of a by-gone day?

L. NELSON BELL

When a man is asked to write an article on Confucianism, his immediate question is: “Which Confucianism? Now, of course, it is genetically true of every religion that it has many aspects. Always there is the distinction between the religion of the “fundamentalist” and the religion of the “liberal”: always there is the contrast between the lofty but nebulous creed of the philosopher and the workaday faith of the plain man. Yet of no religion is this more true than of Confucianism, which at certain levels ceases altogether to be a religion in any sense of the word. Instead, it becomes at once an ethical system and a pattern of life. Curiously enough, this tendency, which might at first seem to be its weakness, has proved to be its strength in old age; for in the twentieth century, with the collapse of the organized Confucian cult, Confucianism still persists. It survives not only as a deliberately chosen way of life, but even more as an unselfconscious, pervasive attitude of mind, which is, by one of the ironies of history, more common now in the Western world than in the Eastern. Therefore, among the world’s religions, the study of Confucianism is still valid, though today there are no sacrifices or incense burned before the tablets or statue of the sage K’ung Ch’iu, better known to the West by his honorific title of “K’ung the Maestro,” K’ung Fu-Tzu, early Latinized as Confucius.

RECOVERING THE FOUNDER

This collapse of the cult has a certain appropriateness. Confucius was no Confucianist, and would certainly have deplored such virtual deification. It is doubly appropriate that there is nowadays a renewed interest on all sides in Confucius the man, for it is first as a man, and second as a teacher that he has left an abiding mark on the East. For millennia he has been regarded as an expert in “lifemanship,” to use a useful neologism from contemporary humorists; and it is as such that others have looked to him for guidance.

Setting aside then those works which are mere “debunking” in the modern tradition, and those “higher critical” studies which deny Confucius any independent existence, we find remaining many recent studies which represent a serious attempt to recover the man himself, to see him directly instead of through endless stacks of commentaries, as has been his fate for two thousand years at least. For the serious student, Creel’s books will repay study. For an easy, readable, yet scholarly exposition of the modern “slant,” the busy pastor could not do better than read the paperback copy, A Short History of Confucian Philosophy, by Liu Wu-Chi (Penguin Books, 1955).

On the writer’s shelf before him are two small Chinese books, taken at random, which serve as a reminder that this revival of interest in Confucius is by no means confined to the somewhat artificial atmosphere of Western universities with their departments of Chinese studies. Were this so, it would indicate that Confucianism was already dead and had reached the point of being worthy of study as a branch of “spiritual archaeology,” like the religion of the Incas or the Totemism of precolonial New England. No, these books, and numerous others, are written in a living situation, to meet a living need. One book is titled, A New Discussion of Confucianism, by Ch’en Chien-Fu, and the other is Criticism of Confucian Philosophy, by Chang Shen-Ch’ieh, published in Formosa in 1953 and 1954 respectively.

CONFUCIAN WAYS OF THOUGHT

Now, in spite of what detractors may read into the last clause of this sentence, such continued study of Confucius in the periphery of the Chinese world is not mere “stubborness,” nor can it be dismissed as merely “reactionary”—although it is true that Confucianism was as much a part of Old China as the Orthodox Church was of prerevolutionary Russia. Such books are published not simply because Confucianism was part of the old and loved as such; they are published because, for better or worse, Confucianism was the motor spring of the old. If the old is to survive in the same recognizable form, it must therefore be with this motivation. The Chinese of the Dispersion may dress and eat like the Americans or Australians around them without ceasing in any way to be thoroughly Chinese; but once they cease to live by Confucian ways of thought, then they cease to be distinctively Chinese. Thus the resuscitation of Confucianism, no doubt artificial in some of its aspects, is not alone a conscious protest against that un-Chinese way of life which is communism; it is equally an incoherent protest against the invasion of the old China by all modern corrosive values. As Christians, we may well see dangers in this attitude, for the Gospel is certainly a solvent, if not a corrosive. As realists, we may feel it a vain attempt to plug the dikes of modern thought; but we must at least try to understand it.

CRITICISM ON TWO FRONTS

So Confucius, like some modern King Canute, is doughtily fighting on two “fluid fronts” today. The materialistic Western world “debunks” him, or considers him hopelessly impractical. The Communist world simply points to him, shrugs its shoulders, and says in effect, “There you are—we told you so!” No need for “debunking” so far as they are concerned (although there have been some very crude attacks on him); he is already the quintessence of all that communism opposes. He is feudalistic to his backbone; he is aristocratic in the true sense of that maligned word. Worse still, he holds incurably “bourgeois” concepts of virtues and vices. The maligned hymn verse, “God made them high and lowly, He ordered their estate,” would have found a stout defender in Teacher K’ung. He would have stood for no egalitarian nonsense, though his sense of superiority might be measured in terms of learning or virtue as well as birth. He would have accepted as axiomatic the attribution of such strata to Providence if not to a personal God, whereat the Communist would again shrug his shoulders, in helplessness and in triumph. In the Communist’s mind, Confucius belongs to a paternalistic age, past and outmoded, and there is no need to attack him now. They may condescend to use him at times as an example of good vulgar proletarian virtues that peep shyly through the rents of a fur-lined bourgeois gown, much the same way Nazi Germany was pleased to use Martin Luther as a national figure long after they had denied him his position as religious leader.

EPITOME OF THE OLD NATURE

The attitude of the Communists to Confucius is not, of course, important to us except insofar as we may ask ourselves whether they were right in regarding Confucius as the epitome of the Old China, the destruction of which they felt to be their immediate mission in the East. If that was the case, then we have a valuable confirmation of the view of the Chinese periphery—that Confucius is the very matrix from which came traditional China with all its weakness and strength. But we as Christians ought to carry this analysis further. Confucius is to us not only the epitome of Old China, but of old natural man—lovable, inconsistent, easygoing, with a neat pattern of virtues and vices, rights and duties, and regarding the whole of life as a pattern of human relationships. Thus it is that for the man educated by the old “classical” system, the transition from Greece and Rome to Confucius is easy and natural; he is conscious of no break because there is none. Confucius breathes the same air and oves with the same grace and dignity as the Olympians. He finds an answering, if unwilling, echo in us all simply because he is the fine flowering of all that is best in the old pagan world. In other words, he is something of our father. In our hasty Christian rejection of the pagan world, we do well to remind ourselves that there are worse things than a good pagan. We can recollect with humility that it was not even Christian theology that swept Parnassus from the educational curriculum, but statics, dynamics, and physics—that worthy trinity of the Machine Age. Communism denies, as sheer subjective folly, the “ought feelings” that were self-evident to Confucius, as indeed they were to most Western philosophers and moralists until recent centuries.

THE NEO-PAGAN COPY

But communism is not alone in this denial: the neo-pagan of the modern West, for all his antipathy to communism, yet agrees with it here. And is this modern pagan in any way preferable, from the evangelical Christian point of view, to the traditional Confucian type of pagan?

If, from this point of view, we should be tempted to consider Teacher K’ung as a Christian ally, we must remember that, as Christians, we can none of us believe in the inherent goodness and decency of man. As an explicit doctrine, this is more characteristic of Mencius who played a Chinese Aristotle to the Confucian Plato; but it is an ever-present, yet unexpressed element in every Confucian syllogism, be it in philosophy or ethics.

So, in the twentieth century, the Sage has no ally—Marxist, Western materialist, or Christian theologian. Canute has stemmed the waves all in vain; the Chinese of tomorrow, whether inside or outside the Bamboo Curtain, can scarcely be a true Confucianist. He must instead choose between two brands of materialism, unless indeed he has come to that complete distrust of man and complete trust in God which is Christian faith.

Where, then, does Confucianism live? It lives unconsciously in the hearts of many an educated “decent pagan” of the West who has absorbed insensibly certain moral standards from the pervasive Christianity of which he knows little and wants to know less. Wherever the old liberal humanism prevails, with its tranquil and deluding beliefs about the nature of Man—there Confucianism lives, recognized or unrecognized. Good-natured pagans, dignified and cultured, coming from the “best” of families, going to the “best” colleges, secure and confident in their own benevolent “mission,” still dressing for dinner as did the ship founders beneath them—these are the true sons and daughters of Confucius. The fondness of the modern world for translations of Confucius shows that at least some of these pagans recognize the pit from which they have been dug, and the rock from which they have been hewn.

Alan Cole is a native of Dublin, Ireland, and holds the B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, and the B.D. and M.Th. degrees from King’s College, London. After teaching at Oak Hill Theological College, London, and Moore Theological College, Sydney, he went to the mission field in 1952. Currently he is engaged in a Lay Leaders’ Training Scheme of “Schools of Discipleship” in Singapore Diocese.

Buddhism originated in the life, teaching, and personality of a remarkable Indian sage, Siddhartha Gautama, the son of a petty king whose capital was at Kapilavasta in northern India. The life span of Gautama, who is called Buddha or “Enlightened One,” is usually reckoned as about 560–480 B.C.

According to traditional accounts, at the age of 29 Gautama saw in succession a decrepit old man, a dead body, a diseased person, and a calm recluse. Shocked by these “Four Passing Sights” and filled with a yearning to find release from the inevitable misery of existence, he forsook his sheltered life of luxury and left behind his beautiful wife and young son to become a recluse.

After trying various Hindu ways of salvation, Gautama adopted a rigorous asceticism involving such extreme fasting that his body wasted away to skin and bones. Rejecting this fanaticism for a “middle way” between self-mortification and self-indulgence, he began to eat again; and shortly thereafter, while seated in meditation, he attained “enlightenment”—he became a Buddha.

Soon Gautama had made the important decision to share his experience with others. He began to preach, and his first converts were five former disciples who had forsaken him when he had renounced extreme asceticism. Other conversions followed, and before long a brotherhood of 60 monks had resulted with Gautama at the head. Thus a new religion was born.

This Buddhist faith flourished for a few centuries in India until through certain circumstances it became practically extinct in the land of its birth. Meantime, however, it had divided into two main branches and had effected a missionary expansion which was to give it continued existence in many Asiatic countries.

Today, the Theravada (or Hinayana) branch of Buddhism predominates in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. The Mahayana branch prevails in China, Tibet, and Japan, and to lesser extent in Viet Nam and Korea.

Estimates of Buddhist membership vary widely, but a Buddhist writer has indicated recently that 150,000,000 is “the figure which has a wide acceptance” (H. Nakamura in Kenneth Morgan, ed., The Path of the Buddha, Roland Press, 1956, p. 364).

Between the two major divisions of Buddhism there are fundamental agreements but also deep differences, although quite recently they have reached some measure of union in the World Fellowship of Buddhists. The motivation of this union seems to be a new awareness of world mission.

This illustrates the fact that just within the last decade or so Buddhism has become “a self-conscious missionary faith” addressing itself to the Western world.

CLAIMS TO WORLD FAITH

What claims can Buddhism make as a world faith in the contemporary situation? It can truthfully assert that in common with other high religions it has inculcated lofty ethical standards, such as honesty, sexual morality, and sobriety. It can point to its noble ideal of compassion for all sentient beings.

Actually, at the heart of Buddhist missionary propaganda is the contention that not Christianity but Buddhism is the religion of peace. Buddhists point to the record of wars and controversies of Christendom and the use of atom bombs by Christians. They insist that Buddhism has a much better record than Christianity concerning religious tolerance. In an article published in Ceylon, a Buddhist has charged that “Christianity is based and built upon the idea of vengeance” (Edmund Perry, The Gospel in Dispute, Doubleday, 1958, p. 211).

The sting in these words is not relieved by the fact that we Christians know this to be a very inadequate, though understandable, judgment upon our faith. It is possible, of course, to show that Buddhism has not been entirely free from intolerance, that Buddhist tolerance has often meant lack of zeal, and that Buddhists claim too much for their religion’s opposition to war. But it surely behooves Christians to look at our own record with repentance and with the determination to prove that Christ is truly the Prince of Peace.

Buddhism must be confronted and evaluated, however, not in terms of isolated elements of its missionary apologetic but as a total religious system. It is possible to see in Buddhism’s ideal of compassion and concern for peace some evidences that God has not left himself entirely without witness in the Buddhist world. But it is likewise true that the world view and basic presuppositions of Buddhism are irreconcilable with the uniquely authoritative revelation in Jesus Christ.

Over against the Christian faith in a personal God, who is Creator and Redeemer, stands the Buddhist denial of such a Deity. Buddhists often call themselves atheists, though at least in Mahayana the profession of atheism must be seen as one of a dialectic whereby the existence of objective realities is denied so that the great Buddha Reality may be affirmed. It is perhaps correct to include both branches of Buddhism in the category of identity-mysticism, since in either case there is ultimate absorption of the individual into the Absolute, whether this Absolute be conceived as the Cosmic Buddha Mind or Spirit (as in Mahayana) or hardly subject to any positive definition (as in Theravada).

Opposed to the Christian view of the universe as created by God and moving toward the goal of his gracious purpose in Jesus Christ is the Buddhist concept of samsara, which means the endless (unless broken by Nirvana) chain of rebirths of individuals in successive existences and of universes in world cycles. According to this view, every existence depends upon a previous one and the present universe evolved out of the dispersed matter of a former universe. Buddhist statements of this doctrine of “dependent origination” sometimes resemble the writings of modern scientists (cf. Perry, op. cit., p. 203). But the inadequacy of the Buddhist view as a religious explanation of the world may certainly be questioned; for not only does it fail to discover a First Cause, but, unlike modern science, it specifically denies its possibility.

To the Christian this view robs history of its meaning, rendering it self-contained and without a goal. And if one adds to this the concepts of impermanence and nonsubstance which are basic to Buddhism, he finds it well nigh impossible to maintain the reality of the phenomenal world as well as history. Mahayana teaches the doctrine of sunyata, which is the void or emptiness, indicating that all things are but appearance. Although in a profound dialectical interpretation sunyata is understood positively as all-inclusiveness and indeed as the metaphysical equivalent of love, it looks very much like the reappearance of the Hindu maya or illusion by which phenomenal realities are denied. At any rate, it is incompatible with the historical and phenomenal realism of Christian faith.

This whole concept of samsara must be a matter of faith for the Buddhist, since it can neither be proved nor disproved scientifically. This is recognized by an erudite Buddhist, at least concerning individual transmigration, when he admits that “the doctrine of transmigration does not seem to enjoy any scientific support” (D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, Harper, 1957, p. 121).

THE DOCTRINE OF KARMA

The Christian is all the more troubled by the doctrine of karma which underlies the concept of transmigration. Karma is the law of cause and effect whereby one’s actions in a given incarnation determine his character and the state of his future existence. This Hindu concept was retained by Gautama and is still an important part of Buddhist religion. It is not only impossible of scientific verification but is morally offensive even to some Indians.

It is true that Buddhism offers ultimate escape from the clutches of karma by the experience of Nirvana, which literally means “the blowing out” or “the absence of craving” but is interpreted by Buddhists as the positive experience of “emancipation.” In the mystical enlightenment of Nirvana the power of karma is broken, but karma itself contains no hint of Cosmic Forgiveness or Regenerative Power and is too mechanical and merciless to represent Cosmic Justice in a world of persons.

On pragmatic grounds, the belief in karma may be criticized for having hindered the implementation of Buddhist compassion. One might have expected that Buddhism’s concentration upon suffering as the central problem of life would have led to a robust effort at the relief of human misery and the correction of wrong social structures which breed and nurture it. As a matter of historical fact, however, organized efforts at social service on the part of Buddhists (e.g., the creation of hospitals and the like) appear scattered and desultory when compared to those of Christians; and where Buddhism has not been appreciably influenced by Christianity it has shown practically no concern for social reform. It is significant that in a volume of essays in which Buddhist scholars attempt to interpret their religion to the Western world (Morgan, ed., op. cit.), no reference is made to social reform, although attention is given to service and compassion. This deficiency is all the more regrettable when it is remembered that original Buddhism was revolutionary, at least to the extent of obliterating caste and including women in the monastic order.

THE MEANING OF COMPASSION

The Buddhist remedy for suffering is not the changing of conditions which produce and perpetuate human misery but the individual enlightenment of the sufferer. He is to understand that desire is the cause of suffering and that the eradication of desire in the experience of Nirvana is its cure.

Enlightenment is certainly important, especially if it is based on truth and reality; but it is never sufficient to satisfy the social concern of the Christian who stands under the judgment of the kingdom of God and has the compassion for persons he has learned at the Cross.

Yet Buddhism also is a religion of compassion, and it is at this point that it moves closest to Christianity. The Buddhist ideal is universal, all-embracing love for all beings. In Theravada Buddhism the motivation for this compassion is the desire to produce good karma and to express one’s identity with all that lives (Thittila, op. cit., pp. 94–96). In Mahayana, compassion seems more definitely based upon the self-sacrifice of Gautama the Buddha and of other Buddha-like beings or Bodhisattvas who have delayed the full enjoyment of Nirvana or Buddhahood in order to save others.

From the Christian standpoint, however, identity-mysticism tends to vitiate the Buddhist motivation to compassion. The import of the profound Mahayana doctrine of the Threefold Body of the Buddha is that phenomenal reality is but a secondary expression of the void or Absolute Reality; and the compassion or self-sacrifice of the Buddha Mind which is Ultimate Reality is actually “the impartial acceptance of all things as expressions of itself” (T. N. Callaway, Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. Tokyo: Shinkyo Shuppansha, 1959, p. 221). World salvation, therefore, is the Buddha Mind’s realization of itself. Likewise, the compassion of an enlightened Buddhist or a Bodhisattva is not loving service to other individual selves but acceptance of things as they are in the realization that ultimately there is no self to be sacrificed and no other to be served (ibid., pp. 219, 222; cf. Nakamura, op. cit., pp. 381, 395–396).

In the identity-mysticism of Buddhism there is no basis then for the salvation of society. There is nothing at all analogous to the great social ideal of the kingdom of God and the Church as the Body of Christ. And what looks like the self-sacrifice of Ultimate Reality (resembling the Cross) turns out to be more self-realization than self-sacrifice, and in any case mythical.

A young Japanese Buddhist once asked me the question: “If I should become a Christian, would I have to renounce my Buddhist heritage which I respect and appreciate deeply?” I replied something like this: “I too respect your Buddhist heritage and would regret to see it all renounced. Rather, I hope that in Jesus Christ you will find a new object of supreme devotion and a transforming experience by which you will see your religious heritage with new eyes. In His light some of your heritage will be negated but much will be transformed and fulfilled.”

Edwin Luther Copeland is Professor of Missions in South-eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina. Formerly a Southern Baptist missionary to Japan, he taught at the Seinan Gakuin University from 1949–56. He holds the B.A. from Furman University, the Th.M. from Southern Baptist Seminary, and the Ph.D. from Yale.