Does conservative Christianity face up to contemporary intellectual issues?

In the following report, Dr. Arthur F. Holmes of Wheaton College presents evidence of Biblical philosophers meeting new theories head-on:

That evangelical scholars are increasingly alert to the intellectual issues of the day is plainly attested by the professional conferences in which they periodically convene. The Sixth Annual Philosophy Conference of Wheaton College, meeting November 6–7, attracted evangelical thinkers from some 20 secular and Christian institutions.

The conference theme—“Recent Process Philosophies”—was posed in the light of the centennials of Alexander, Bergson, and Dewey, as well as of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Much of the time was devoted to discussion of metaphysical problems arising from the dominance of the new process theories over the Greek and Cartesian concept of unchanging substances.

From the outset, general appreciation was expressed for some positive values found in process philosophy. Professor John W. Sanderson of Westminster Theological Seminary noted that it provided a welcome counteraction to the exclusive concern of some philosophers with linguistic and logical analysis. Both he and others were happy also for the renewed emphasis on the unitary character of man, as against the caricature of the soul as a prisoner in a cave or a ghost in a machine. Said Dr. Carl Bangs of Olivet Nazarene College, Kankakee, Illinois, “It is his [Whitehead’s] account of the unity of man which has attracted the attention of some recent theologians who find in his anthropology a suggestive framework for expressing a non-idealist, Biblical point of view.”

Some philosophers ascribed much more weight than others to specific contributions of process metaphysics. Some regarded the notion of unchanging substances as largely passé. Dr. Jerome Ficek of Trinity Seminary, Chicago, asked whether the Trinitarian formulae might need to be re-expressed in the language of process metaphysics, rather than perpetuating the hypostasis and ousia of the Greeks. Others felt that regardless of the applicability of process categories to the created world, they could hardly be referred to the immutable and transcendent Creator. Still others regarded process metaphysics as necessarily and inevitably naturalistic. “Show me one of these writers with a transcendent God,” one conference participant demanded.

The concept of causality became the focus of attention when Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff of Calvin College presented a paper treating Whitehead’s notion of causal efficacy as a possible answer to David Hume. He pointed out that if man does in fact have non-sensory perceptions of causes, then Hume can no longer object that causality is merely a generalization from the regular succession of impressions. It became apparent that while Hume viewed causality as an external relation between disconnected substances, process philosophy asserts rather the connectedness of all events, and therefore both the immanence and the transcendence of causal forces. In any case, it was agreed, some defensible notion of efficient causation seems essential in giving meaning to the Christian doctrines of creation and providence.

Traditional substance metaphysics, as interpreted by Locke and Berkeley, preceded the scepticism of David Hume. At the Wheaton conference, Sanderson argued that process metaphysics also produces scepticism—or, at the best, solipsism. A changing reality can yield changing man no fixed knowledge—so Plato and Aristotle had argued against the process philosophers of their day. Here the conferees differed. Some defended the possibility of making truth-judgments about changing objects. Others preferred to fight off Hume from within the epistemological dualism of substance metaphysics. Others avoided the empiricist’s dilemma by using Augustine’s rationes aeternae as the basis of certainty. But all agreed on the necessity of a clearly formulated and defensible epistemology.

Discussion at the conference moved from these issues to questions about the nature of metaphysics. Do process categories represent anything more than an attempt to describe things in terms of certain root-metaphors? Or do they represent also an attempt to explain and interpret what is described? Some felt that the descriptive powers of process categories render them useful tools for the Christian philosopher. Others felt that the interpretative element is so inseparably interwoven as to largely invalidate process categories.

Dr. Cornelius Van Til pressed this still further. From an assertion on which all Christian thinkers must agree, that the universe is intelligible to man only because of its God-given structure, he argued that the universe is intelligible to a man only if that individual explicitly confesses that its structure is God-given. Some objected that the structure of the universe is intelligible to man created in God’s image, and intelligible to such an extent as to provide empirical evidence for the existence of God.

The conference was permeated by a reverent recognition of the premises which give direction to Christian thought. As one participant remarked, it gave eloquent expression to Wheaton’s centennial theme, “Dedication in Education.”

Australian Ecumenism

More than 450 ecclesiastics, representing all major Protestant denominations in Australia, are expected at a conference in Melbourne called by the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches February 2–11, 1960.

While not directly a conference on church union, leaders anticipate that the program will include informal ecumenical discussions. Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches already have initiated talks with a view to eventual unity, and the conference will doubtless stimulate such discussions preparatory to decisions in the churches.

The conference will begin with an outdoor rally. Dr. Alan C. Watson, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Australia, will preside.

Religious News Service reported that the conference will be divided into five “commissions,” each assigned a specific study topic: “1. The authority for the Word of God. 2. The Australian Churches’ evangelistic responsibility, including recognition of partnership with the Churches of Asia. 3. Ethical problems of economic and technical assistance by governments. 4. The Church in an industrial community, with special attention to the appointment of industrial chaplains and the effect of automation and greater leisure. 5. The local congregation and whether it is meeting 20th century needs or has become too much of a secluded club.”

Among conference speakers: Bishop Leslie Newbigin of the Church of South India and chairman of the International Missionary Council last year; M. M. Thomas, a sociologist from the Mar Thoma Church in India; Miss Renuka Mukerji, principal of the Women’s Christian College, Madras; Masao Takenaka, professor of social ethics at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, and Bishop Enrique C. Sobrepena of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines and chairman of the East Asia Christian Conference.

This year’s Thanksgiving season finds an estimated 20 million people hungry. Not since World War II has there been so much suffering in the world.

Storms, floods, droughts and earthquakes have taken a staggering toll. Political crises have added to the misery. In Hong Kong alone there are said to be some 1,000,000 refugees. An estimated 5,568,000 have fled Communist countries of eastern Europe since World War II.

In contrast, the U. S. horn of plenty was running over, despite more than 3,000,000 unemployed (strikers excluded). A record crop of 82 million turkeys is bringing farmers more than 320 million dollars during 1959.

As a representative national gesture of gratitude, and to perpetuate a tradition far older than the country itself, President Eisenhower issued the annual Thanksgiving proclamation. The first such proclamation to set aside the last Thursday of November was issued in 1863, one of the darkest years in U. S. history. Actual observance of a day of thanks dates back to an order handed down by Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony in 1621 and affirmed by George Washington in 1789.

“The time of harvest turns our thoughts once again to our national festival of Thanksgiving,” began the President’s proclamation for 1959, “and the bounties of nature remind us again of our dependence upon the generous hand of Providence.”

Here is the remainder of the proclamation:

“In this sesquicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, it is fitting and proper that we should use his words contained in the historic proclamation of 1863, establishing this annual observance, to express anew our gratitude for America’s ‘fruitful fields,’ for our national ‘strength and vigor,’ and for all our ‘singular deliverances and blessings.’

“The present year has been one of progress and heightened promise for the way of life to which we, the people, and the Government of the United States of America, are dedicated. We rejoice in the productivity of farm and factory, but even more so in the prospect of improvement of relations among men and among nations. We earnestly hope that forbearance, understanding, and conciliation will hold increasing sway among us and among all peoples everywhere.

“In the enjoyment of our good life, let us not forget the birthright by which we reap the fruits of life and labor in this fair land. Let us stand fast by the principles of our republic enunciated in word and deed by the statesmen, teachers, and prophets to whom we owe our beginnings. Let us be thankful that we have been spared the consequences of human frailty and error in our exercise of power and freedom. As a token of our gratitude for God’s gracious gift of abundance, let us share generously with those less fortunate than we at home and abroad. Let us at this season of Thanksgiving perform deeds of thanksgiving; and, throughout the year, let us fulfill those obligations of citizenship and humanity which spring from grateful hearts.

“Now, therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941 … designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 26, 1959, as a day of national thanksgiving. On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes devoted to family sharing and community service, to express our gratitude for the inestimable blessings of God; and let us earnestly pray that He continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace among men and nations.”

Eisenhower normally sets the example for the nation by attending a church service Thanksgiving morning.

Across the land, many churches scheduled Thanksgiving services and ministers sought to rouse a greater sense of appreciation for the U. S. abundance. Christians will be asked to search their attitudes: Are these attitudes mere pious sentiment? To what extent do they epitomize the high ideals expressed in the President’s proclamation?

The phrase, “We have a lot to be thankful for,” has deteriorated into a cliché in America, but clergy the country over will resort to its key premise in contrasting their parishoners’ prosperity with sobering deprivations in other lands.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYpinpointed areas of need in a global survey, which revealed that these were among the hardest hit in recent months (casualties represent authoritative estimates):

MEXICO: As many as 2,000 were feared dead in floods and storms which swept Pacific coast states last month. Ten communities were wiped out. In one village, survivors were attacked by swarms of scorpions and tarantulas whose nests had been unearthed by a landslide.

JAPAN: Typhoon Vera left 1,500,000 homeless. Some 100,000 homes were destroyed, 5,000 persons killed, and another 15,000 injured. There was an alarming spread of disease.

KOREA: Typhoon Sarah drove 625,000 from their homes.

INDIA: Floods caused some 5,000,000 to flee their homes.

FORMOSA: Three days of rain and the resultant flooding, effects of Typhoon Ellen, left 240,000 homeless. The government instituted food rationing to meet the emergency.

PAKISTAN: Approximately 5,000 square miles were inundated as floods, an annual occurrence in Pakistan, came early this year.

CEYLON: With the assassination of Premier S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the country’s Buddhists were asking crucial questions about their religious leaders. Widespread public revulsion is reported as corruption in the Buddhist clergy becomes more apparent. The premier was shot by a bona fide Buddhist clergyman even as he was in the very act of bowing to the saffron-robed visitor.

MADAGASCAR: A cyclone, perhaps the worst natural disaster ever to hit the country, left 3,000 dead.

NORTH AFRICA: Civil strife has prompted an estimated 120,000 Algerians to flee to Tunisia, another 200,000 to Morocco, and more than 1,000,000 have been displaced from their homes in Algeria.

GREECE: A series of earthquakes left 90 villages destroyed.

JORDAN: The country’s worst drought, which ended last year, was followed by violent snowstorms. About one-half of all grazing animals perished.

SCANDINAVIA: A summer drought left severe water shortages in a number of communities. Crops were affected.

POLAND: Droughts brought on a shortage of feed grains and a meat shortage was feared.

HAITI: A famine precipitated by prolonged droughts, particularly in the northwest part of the island, threatens to take the lives of thousands.

CUBA: Fighting in Oriente province left 52,000 in need of food, clothing, and shelter. At least 200 were executed after trials by the Castro government.

URUGUAY: Floods last spring drove 50,000 from their homes.

BRAZIL: Widespread flooding deprived some 60,000 of their homes. Destruction of property resulted in a wave of unemployment.

COLOMBIA: This country, scene of much Protestant persecution, is also plagued by internal strife and banditry. Within the last 10 years, 100,000 are said to have been killed in bandit raids.

To alleviate suffering caused by the recent “constellation of disasters” (so characterized by Executive Director R. Norris Wilson of Church World Service), Protestant relief organizations are stepping up campaigns for funds, food and clothing.

In launching a Thanksgiving season drive in behalf of the “Share Our Surplus” program, Wilson said $865,210 was needed immediately to offset depleted stocks of relief materials.

An equally urgent appeal came from Wendell L. Rockey, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals’ World Relief Commission.¹Church World Service, a National Council of Churches agency, uses local churches as pickup points. The NAE World Relief Commission has headquarters at 12–19 Jackson Ave., Long Island City, New York. Relief materials can also be sent in care of the World Relief Commission to Brethren Service Centers at Nappanee, lndiana, or 919 Emerald Ave., Modesto, California. Rockey cited the need for large amounts of “clean, wearable clothing.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Walter Freytag, 60, vice chairman of the International Missionary Council, in Hamburg, Germany … the Rev. Noel O. Lyons, home director of Greater Europe Mission.

Appointments: As president of Taylor University, Dr. B. Joseph Martin … as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, the Rev. Buckner Fanning, widely-known evangelist … as preacher to the Avenue Road Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Toronto, Dr. A. W. Tozer (a somewhat unique appointment which does not entail pastoral responsibilities) … as editor of Youth for Christ Magazine, Warren Wiersbe … as director of immigration services of Church World Service, James MacCracken.

Elections: As Primate of Australia, Anglican Archbishop Hugh Rowlands Gough … as president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational Christian), Mrs. Douglas Horton.

Nomination: As moderator-designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr. John H. S. Burleigh.

Award: To Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of the Baptist World Alliance, the 1960 Upper Room citation.

The Roman ‘Summit’

The first “summit conference” of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Western Hemisphere took place on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D. C., this month.

Twenty-two bishops, representing 220 million Catholics in North and Latin America, assembled for three days of closed door talks.

Comparatively little was released on the nature of the discussion, but many regarded the occasion as a very important strategy conference.

The Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference issued a statement which said that Latin American problems occupied much of the bishops’ time. The Roman Catholic church is known to have been sustaining serious losses in South America.

Protestant Panorama

• Billy Graham’s month-long crusade in Indianapolis drew an aggregate attendance of 350,000, with 9,320 individuals making decisions for Christ.

• U. S. temperance forces lost a key proponent in the death November 8 of Senator William Langer of North Dakota. Langer several times sponsored Congressional legislation aimed at banning liquor advertising.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod says it is ready to meet with the National Lutheran Council to explore relationships between the two groups which represent about 90 per cent of the Lutherans in North America.

• The pilot of the Piedmont Airlines DC-3 which crashed near Charlottesville, Virginia, October 30, was a member of the Cherrydale Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia. George Lavrinc, 32, among the 26 victims, had also edited a monthly paper for Northern Virginia Youth for Christ.

• At an annual meeting in Chicago last month, the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges gave full accreditation to Western Baptist Bible College, El Cerrito, California; Bethany Bible College, Santa Cruz, California; London (Ontario) Bible Institute; Berkshire Christian College, Lenox, Massachusetts; Lee College, Cleveland, Tennessee; and Midwest Bible College, St. Louis.

• All 85 performances of the world-famous Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 are sold out.

• The Methodist Publishing House reports net sales, rentals, and advertising for the past fiscal year of $25,616,249. Net income: $1,174,059.

• The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society plans to send missionaries to western Borneo.

• WNEW-TV sponsored the first New York City television showing of the “Martin Luther” film on Sunday evening, November 1.

• The General Council of the American Baptist Convention voted last month to receive into membership churches from the South. The move was obviously a counter-measure taken to offset northern inroads of the aggressive Southern Baptist Convention.

• Four Presbyterian missionaries and one representing the Reformed Church in America are back at their posts in Iraq after an absence of several months following political disturbances in the country.

• A petition signed by more than 14,000 Protestants “and other Colombians” was presented to the House of Representatives at Bogotá last month. The petition called upon the government to make effective the religious liberty guaranteed in the country’s constitution.

• Providence-Barrington Bible College is changing its name to Barrington College. The school’s 110-acre campus is located in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island.

• “Facing the Unfinished Task” will be the theme of the Congress on World Missions to be held in Chicago December 4–11, 1960. The Congress will be sponsored by the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association. The group, which includes 42 societies with 8,000 missionaries, held its annual convention in Racine, Wisconsin, last month.

• An exhibit of the Arkansas Child Evangelism Fellowship at last month’s state Livestock Exposition in Little Rock was tabbed “the best on the show grounds” by teen-agers.

• Church property valued at $18,166,000 was destroyed by fire during the past year, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Though the total of 4,200 fires in U. S. churches showed an increase of 1,100 over the previous year, total monetary loss dropped by about $2,500,000.

• The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada voted at a convention last month to cooperate with Western Regular Baptists in “a programme of united action in areas of (a) home missions, (b) publications, and (c) evangelism.”

Vatican Postponement

The Vatican announced last month that the ecumenical council summoned by Pope John XXIII will not be held until the end of 1962 or the beginning of 1963.

Originally, the council had been expect had to meet late next year or early in 1961.

A Vatican source said it will take a minimum of three years to process suggestions for topics of discussion which are coming in from cardinals, archbishops, bishops and religious superiors around the world.

President and Pope

President Eisenhower’s scheduled meeting with Pope John XXIII on Sunday, December 6, will make him the second U. S. chief executive to be received in audience by a Roman Catholic pontiff. The only other was Woodrow Wilson, who visited Pope Benedict XV on January 4, 1919, prior to the Paris Peace Conference. Like President Eisenhower, Wilson was a Presbyterian.

President Theodore Roosevelt, after he had retired from the White House, scheduled a meeting with Pope Pius X while on a trip abroad in 1910. Roosevelt never did see the pope, however, because of an incident involving Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks. Fairbanks, a Methodist, was visiting Rome shortly before Roosevelt was due and arranged a meeting of his own with the pope. But Fairbanks wanted to visit Methodist headquarters in Rome, too. Pius declared the visit would have to be exclusive. Fairbanks refused to accept the condition and Roosevelt followed suit.

Crucial Omission

Recent controversy among Unitarians over whether to consider themselves Christian came to a head in Syracuse, New York, where delegates of the 110,000-member American Unitarian Association met October 31-November 2 with representatives of the 75,000-member Universalist Church of America to vote on a constitution uniting the two bodies as the “Unitarian Universalist Association.” The merger carried overwhelmingly, but the constitution gave scant comfort to those who considered themselves somewhat Christian-oriented.

The document which was presented to some 1,000 delegates by the 12-member joint merger commission stated this aim: “To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition immemorially summarized in their essence as love to God and love to man.” Previous documents of the two church bodies have singled out Jesus as a major prophet and teacher.

An amendment inserting mention of Jesus and the Judeo-Christian tradition in the above statement was defeated. Its sponsor, Dr. Walter D. Kring of All Souls Unitarian Church, New York, said he found himself in a meeting “where Jesus is anathematized.” It was suggested that the issue was important enough to make some Unitarians and Universalists desert to the Congregational Christian churches. The merger must still be ratified by the autonomous local churches and assemblies of both denominations by next May, with final union scheduled for May, 1961.

Amid secession rumblings came a dramatic last-minute reversal. First the Universalists and then the Unitarians in separate sessions voted to substitute the words “the Judeo-Christian heritage” for “their essence.” Universalist spokesmen said the change was made for unity and to avoid offense. But one Unitarian delegate resented “being steamrollered by the Universalists,” and a woman charged she was “browbeaten” and had her “arm twisted” in an effort to change her vote.

Some evangelicals see evidence of the “offense of the cross” in the continued refusal to name the name of Jesus. Yet delegates expressed dissatisfaction with the “exclusiveness” involved in singling out any one teacher for special mention. “Let’s hope to include everybody,” said one. But orthodox Protestants point to the excruciating confines of an exclusiveness which expels the Christian God. They see in the current debate an illustration of the toboggan slide of Unitarianism from its early convictions as exemplified in such as William Ellery Channing, who believed in the preexistence (not Godhead), miracles, and physical resurrection of Jesus.

Following merger approval, denominational heads issued this statement: “We do not disavow our Judeo-Christian heritage but affirm the universality of real religion and recall the words of Jesus: ‘Not he that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ” But on the content of the Father’s will, Unitarians and Universalists confess crucial differences with Jesus Christ.

F.F.

Missionary Heroine

As the end of her four-month U. S. tour drew near, missionary heroine Gladys Aylward was appealing for concentrated Christian witness in the Far East during the next two years.

Miss Aylward, whose articulate and dynamic British delivery challenged church audiences from coast to coast, fears that current missionary opportunity among Orientals may not last.

She vigorously opposes recognition of the Chinese Communist regime by the United States and the United Nations.

Her challenge to American Christians was that they develop a vital, personal concern for the witness abroad. Collecting money for a select few and bidding them, “Off you go,” falls short of true evangelical responsibility, she said.

Miss Aylward plans to return next month to Formosa, where she operates orphanages and preaches regularly. (Formosa currently has some 180,000 Protestants and 145,000 Roman Catholics. Buddhists number about 1,000,000.)

Born near London nearly 60 years ago, she was converted while in her twenties. “I was not only saved, but the Lord shook me,” she recalls.

With no training in language or missionary techniques, she set out across Asia and finally settled in a mountain town in Northwest China. There she founded an inn which later doubled as a missions station. Her great work was in a ministry to children.

Miss Aylward says she does not know what became of the inn when Communists moved in. She estimated that half her converts have been executed.

Her trip to the United States and her speaking tour of churches was sponsored by World Vision. Her exploits are described in The Small Woman, written by Alan Burgess, and in the film, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.”

FOR MAN TO SEE

Determination of drift is made, not by comparisons between those who are drifting, or the boat in which one is riding, but with some fixed object on the shore.

The apostle Paul warns against the mistake of false comparisons: “but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

For the Christian there is a fixed object to which we can look and by which we can determine our own position, and that object is Christ.

In national life also comparisons need to be made. Have we as a people drifted from that course which under the hand of God’s blessing has made our nation great? There is every reason to think that we have drifted far.

Within the framework of our Constitution and those instruments of freedom and protection which together bring blessing to the greatest proportion of the citizens of any nation in history, there are found certain principles which had their origin in the Christian faith. It is to these principles that we speak.

The men who drew up the Constitution never envisioned its use as a protective device for those who would be its avowed enemies. Nor was it ever contemplated that the document should become a cloak under which the destruction of our government might be planned.

That the freedoms guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution have become license for traitors is a matter of record.

But one particular menace demands our attention now. There is an alarming tendency on the part of some to surrender the sovereignty of our government to international agencies and in so doing to erode away not only the rights of American citizens but also to lose for our own land the prestige and power that can best be wielded by people who operate according to tried and true principles.

Arnold Toynbee, sensing the trend toward world government, with its recession from basic Christian ideals, says in his book, An Historian’s Approach to Religion: “We can, however, foresee that, when world government does come, the need for it will have become so desperate that Mankind will not only be ready to accept it even at the most exorbitantly high price in terms of loss of liberty, but will deify it and its human embodiments, as an excruciated Graeco-Roman World once deified Rome and Augustus. The virtual worship that has already been paid to Napoleon, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler and Mao indicates the degree of idolization that would be the reward of an American or Russian Caesar who did succeed in giving the World a stable peace at any price; and in this baleful light it looks as if the ecumenical welfare state may be the next idol that will be erected in a still discarded Christianity’s place” (p. 219).

These are the words of a sober observer, one of the world’s great historians.

Toynbee sees the drift of our times. He sees the desire for peace at any price. He recognizes that the welfare state is man’s attempt to produce a utopia by governmental power rather than by human character.

Furthermore Toynbee foresees the very thing predicted in Holy Scripture—the emergence on the world scene of a superman who will offer “world peace”—the peace of death.

With these trends for all to see what should be the Christian’s attitude? How can he stand forth against the things that are contributing to the downfall of the nation?

Strange as it may seem, there is a powerful element in the Church which has fostered and continues to support every step toward a welfare state. Envisioning for the Church the status of ultimate world domination (rather than that of a witness in the midst of unbelief), this segment of the Church caters to the concept of big government and the controls of big government.

At the heart of the matter is the philosophy of spending and yet more spending. The present devaluation of our own currency to a 47¢ dollar, the unending spiral of inflation, the astronomical national debt, and the continuing unbalanced budget of the nation are all part of a trend which, without any other factors, can destroy America.

Scattered throughout both the Senate and House of Representatives are men who repeatedly advocate the expenditure of funds which the government does not have and who with eyes wide open are willing to see the nation go further and further in debt. That they thereby buy the votes of selfish and misguided constituents is a poor excuse for hastening the day of national economic collapse.

Christians should oppose every candidate for office who shows himself either ignorant of the laws of economics or callous to the welfare of the nation. They can speak out and do so with great power and effect.

There was once a time when the basic principles of Christianity were clearly reflected in public life. That day is rapidly fading. Few indeed are the men who will take a stand for the right regardless of political, social, or economic consequences. In the last 25 years expediency has become increasingly the watch-word; righteousness has become relative.

Wherever possible, Christians ought to be offering themselves for public office, not on a basis of partisan politics but out of a motive for the good of the whole. In many cases this will mean personal sacrifice and a difficult life for those that are elected.

But unless something is done at this level the present trends cannot be stopped.

A new generation has emerged, a generation which values security more than freedom, ease more than hard work, pleasure more than application, entertainment more than enterprise. Worst of all we live in a time when millions think the government owes them a living—one of the most damning philosophies men ever had.

Without question, the government owes to all fairness and equality of opportunity. But that the government should be both umpire and play along with one of the teams is a different thing.

The cry that times have changed and our industrialized society needs big government to control big business is an unconvincing argument. That which is wrong for the individual or groups of individuals is also wrong for the government. The same laws of economics which hold for the man on Main Street are valid for the government in Washington. The greatest good of society is to be found where good principles are practiced by and for all concerned.

The ecumenical welfare state which Toynbee foresees is but part of a world government where God is gradually replaced by man, and the whole structure is foredoomed to destruction.

L. NELSON BELL

It may well be that no book of the Bible is less read as a whole than Chronicles—in Hebrew manuscripts I and II Chronicles are one book, though the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible follow our division into two. It is a safe guess that certain of its chapters are read virtually only by those that find themselves committed to it by some scheme of Bible reading, and we may hazard the suggestion that they all too often skimp their task here. When we hear someone repeating the old saying, “All Scripture is inspired, but some parts are more inspiring than others,” it is fairly certain he is thinking of some of the lists of names of Chronicles.

The reason for all this lies less in the book itself and more in our wrong approach to it. Already in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made before the time of our Lord, it is called Paraleipomena (a name that lives on in the Vulgate), meaning things omitted. The name implies that here we have the bits and pieces for which no room could be found in Samuel and Kings. That is how we all too often read it, almost intuitively comparing and contrasting its information with that of the other books. To get the full value out of Chronicles we must discover why it was written and read it accordingly.

AUTHORSHIP, DATE AND SOURCES

Like all the other historical books it is anonymous. The closing verses of II Chronicles make it clear that it must have been written after the return from the Babylonian exile. If the almost universal modern view is correct that Ezra and Nehemiah were originally part of Chronicles, then it cannot be earlier than Ezra. Young, while rejecting this view, puts the book in the same general period as Ezra. Jewish Talmudic tradition seems to attribute it to Ezra, but The Jewish Encyclopedia maintains that it is merely affirming that he collected the opening genealogies. Delitzsch suggested that Ezra was the collector of much of the material, while Albright argues for Ezra’s authorship. It seems best to respect the anonymity the Holy Spirit has given the book and simply call the author the Chronicler. We can date it with reasonable confidence around 400 B.C. and link it with Ezra’s religious settlement.

Quite apart from his obvious use of earlier canonical books the Chronicler mentions 20 sources (seven in I Chronicles) from which he has drawn his information. There is no doubt that some are alternative titles for the same work, and we cannot be sure whether some of the others still existed in their own right or whether they had been incorporated into a larger work. What is important is his way of handling them. Where he covers the same ground as Samuel and Kings he normally quotes verbatim. What differences there are, apart from occasional abbreviation, may be due for the most part to his access to the authorities used by the earlier works or to a larger edition of them. All the other matter has been transformed and appears in the Chronicler’s own typical style. This can only mean that he is openly recognizing Samuel and Kings as authoritative and is inviting the reader to interpret his work in their light. It is a commonplace in modern scholarship to speak of the Chronicler’s “distortion” of history, but this is unreasonable in the light of his constant reference to an earlier norm.

If any think this argument too far-fetched, let them consider 1 Chronicles 10. Apart from Saul’s genealogy this is all we are told of him. Any intelligent reader would immediately want to know more, and indeed 10:13 is a clear indication that there is a source where his interest can be satisfied. Equally the passing references to David’s years of flight are intelligible only if the reader is expected to know the story from another source, for example, 11:2; 12:1, 8, 17, 19; 20:5. Just as the abbreviated genealogies of chapter 1 presuppose a knowledge of Genesis, so the narratives assume familiarity with Samuel and Kings.

ADDITIONS AND OMISSIONS

The outstanding feature of Chronicles is its large number of additions and omissions. Most of the former are linked with the Temple and its worship, though some are meant to enhance the glory of the monarchy. The omissions are almost entirely of matter which is derogatory to or expressive of opposition to the Davidic dynasty. In I Chronicles the reign of Saul (all but his death) and the early years of David are passed over in silence. The same is true of almost all in 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1; 2. To suggest that this was because the stories were derogatory to David is foolish. Not only is very much that is altogether to David’s credit omitted, but he did not hesitate to tell the story of the census (chap. 21). It has long been recognized that in II Samuel we have two more or less parallel histories, chapters 2–8 dealing with David as king, and chapters 9–20 portraying him as a man. It is precisely these latter chapters that have been omitted except for a few verses, for it was with the king that the Chronicler was particularly interested.

REVELATION OF GOD

In the Hebrew Bible Samuel and Kings are reckoned among the Former Prophets, not because they may have been written by the prophets, but because they reveal how history can be a revelation of God. They are interested less in the history of Israel and more in how it reveals God, his will, and his dealings with men. Chronicles, which is the last book in the writings and in the Hebrew Bible, is also not particularly interested in the history of Israel as such; it is concerned with the revelation of God in two institutions: the Davidic monarchy and the Temple. In spite of the promise of 1 Chronicles 17:11–14 the monarchy was in abeyance, but the rebuilding of the Temple in spite of all difficulties was the guarantee of the monarchy’s restoration as well. Though we live after the King has come, we live in an age where we must trust His promise of coming again. We have, however, the continuation of the Temple, one not made with hands, the Church, as the visible demonstration that our hope is not an empty one. So for us Chronicles has a message even as it had for the generation for which it was written.

GENEALOGIES

In this message the genealogies of chapters 1–9 have a very important part to play. Those in chapter 1 assure us of the principle of continuity. The “dispensations” are not sudden changes in God’s activity, creating a sudden break with what had gone before, but are steps in the working out of a purpose which existed before the foundation of the world. The mention of Ishmael’s and Esau’s descendants are the affirmation that God’s election does not involve the rejection of those He did not elect. In the chapters that follow, probably all the tribes are mentioned, for I consider the modern view almost certainly correct that in the difficult Benjamite genealogy of 7:6–12 are hidden through textual corruption those of Zebulon and Dan. But though none were omitted, how different is their treatment!

The Bible student who is prepared to consider each set of names, in spite of the often very difficult text, in the totality of the information given us elsewhere can easily see the mingled rebuke and praise, sympathy and depreciation implied. The sudden, otherwise unknown pieces of historical information tell us that however much has been omitted from Scripture for reasons that seemed good to the Holy Spirit, there is a greater chronicle where all man’s acts are recorded; God does not forget when he selects. The genealogies of Benjamin (chap. 8) are given at special length because of his loyalty to the Davidic monarchy. Those who returned after the exile have their mention too (9:1–34), not so much as an honor as a guarantee that they were playing as essential a part in God’s purposes as the great names that had gone before them.

The high-priestly list is carried down only to the Exile (6:15), because it is continued in Nehemiah 12:10, 11 with the first six post-exilic high priests. On the other hand the Davidic line is continued apparently for six generations from Zerubbabel (3:19–24), though many reckon only two and the Septuagint finds eleven. In neither case do these lists provide any clue to the time of writing, for they could easily have been kept up to date by scribes.

Saul is introduced by his genealogy (9:35–44) and is dismissed by his death (chap. 10) lest any should think that David was merely the man who made good and was therefore approved of by God. God had shown by his rejection of Saul what He did not approve of before he set his divine promise on David’s house (17:11–14). For the same reason we are not given details of David’s young manhood nor of his great sin. His dynasty was based neither on his nobility of character nor on God’s grace to him in his fall, but on its being the institution of God’s choice. It is worth noting that the two sins that led to Saul’s rejection (1 Sam. 13:8–14; 15:8, 9) both represented attempts to exceed his royal authority. It is quite natural that a list of those who were conspicuously loyal to or who welcomed the setting up of the monarchy of God’s choice should be mentioned in chapter 12.

In chapters 13–20 the Chronicler follows the acts of David the king as given in II Samuel but gives special stress and priority to the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem. In chapter 21 he uses the story of the plague that followed the census as a transition to the preparations for the building of the Temple.

We know from I Kings that Solomon’s accession was linked with a sordid court intrigue. 1 Chronicles 29:22 shows the Chronicler’s knowledge of it, but in chapters 23–27 we see a well-organized country being handed over to Solomon’s rule by due process of law (chaps. 28; 29). It is evident that the shock of Adonijah’s intrigue stirred David out of the senile indolence into which he had allowed himself to slip after the heartbreak of Absalom’s revolt.

Modern commentaries are normally at their poorest in dealing with a book like Chronicles. There has been little of value written from the conservative standpoint since Keil’s and Zockler’s commentaries in the last quarter of the last century.

H. L. ELLISON

Wallington, Surrey, England

THE MAN WITH THE BOOK

Now I saw in my dream, as Christian went on his way toward the City, reading from the Book, that he came upon a toll gate at the entrance to a great highway, and there he beheld a marvelous chariot which dazzled his eyes. And in the chariot sat a man in strange garments with his head shorn.

DR. IVY: Hop in, Dad; want a lift to the city?

CHRISTIAN: What manner of words are these? And whither.…

IVY: Just sit down. I’m in a bit of a rush. What’s the matter? Too fast? This Jag has a lot of soup. Where are you from? Destruction? Can’t say I ever heard of it. Sounds like a good place to be from! What’s the book you’re carrying?

CHRISTIAN: Sir, this is the Book that leads me in the path of righteousness. Because of what I have read in it I am journeying to the City. Are you bound thither at this fearful rate, or is this the broad highway that leadeth to destruction?

IVY: Not a bad term for this pike; it does lead the nation in traffic deaths. But don’t be alarmed; I’ll get you to the city. I’m glad you read the Bible, but isn’t it a bit ostentatious to carry it in your hands that way? It suggests Fundamentalist bibliolatry.

CHRISTIAN: I know not who these are whom you scorn, but did not Moses bear the Words of God in his hand as he came down from the mount?

IVY: To be sure, but you can scarcely conform your daily behavior to the myths of Heilsgeschichte, however meaningful they may be as witnesses to redemptive action. You don’t follow me? After all, we know nothing about Moses. The Sinai tradition was Israel’s way of historicizing the Babylonian New Year mythology. What is significant is the philosophy of history that arose in Israel in which Israel’s past was related in mythological language to the act of God.

CHRISTIAN: But did not the King say, Moses wrote of me?

IVY: No doubt Jesus accepted the traditions of his day as to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; but we must distinguish between the man Jesus and the Christ-event.… DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR! I’m stopping!

Now I saw in my dream that Christian picked himself up from the ditch, and with great haste fled away from the highway, holding both his ears as he ran.

EUTYCHUS

DURABLE DEBATE

To my way of thinking this is one of the finest and greatest and most informing issues you have published (Oct. 12 issue). I started reading and could not quit until I had finished. That “Debate over Divine Election” is a most interesting conversation by great and well-informed thinkers.

WM. B. EERDMANS

Grand Rapids, Mich.

You and your associates have done a magnificent job in your treatment of Divine Election (Oct. 12 issue).… Your debate shows that when the evangelical—be he Calvinist, Arminian or Barthian—contemplates divine election he bewails his own helplessness, magnifies God’s saving grace, and entrusts himself afresh to Christ his righteousness.

May the writer offer one question? Is the treatment of Calvinists and of Calvinistic interpretation offered in the name of Barth quite true of Calvin himself? For example, Calvin repeatedly asserts: “No man is loved by God but in Christ; he is the beloved Son in whom the love of God perpetually rests, and then diffuses itself to us: so that we are accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:6, Institutes III.ii.32; III.xxiv.5; II.xvi.4). Thus he insists that “we shall find no assurance of our election in ourselves; nor even in God the Father, considered alone, abstractly from the Son”; rather our eyes must be directed to Christ, because it was impossible for the Father to love us except in him. Here for Calvin as for Luther, Christ the Mediator is the mirror of election (III.xxiv.5); for Calvin, as later for Barth, Christ as God the Son is the Author of election (III.xxii.7); and for Calvin, following Augustine, Christ as a mortal man of the seed of David is the brightest example of gratuitous election (III.xxii.1).

As Berkouwer (Faith and Justification, pp. 164, 168, 165) shows, “the Reformers, no less than Barth, willed every believer bound to Christ and every path that turned away from him rejected as speculation.” In that God’s mercy comes to us in history, we are guarded against speculation. “For confronting us is the mirror of our election, Jesus Christ” which is “the deepest intent of the thought of both Luther and Calvin.”

Again thanking you and every one of your notable panel for their scholarly and evangelical testimony.

WM. C. ROBINSON

Columbia Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

How much there was said in that debate, but how little of importance.

HERMAN D. MIERINS

Chatham, N. J.

Excellent … issue, particularly the interview on divine election.

WILBURN C. CAMPBELL

The Diocese of West Virginia

Charleston, W. Va.

The brethren … have sufficiently muddied the theological waters so as to have left the layman and the average cleric at sea.… With respect to man, God predestined character and nothing else.

G. C. MCCRILLIS

Bisbee, Ariz.

If one picture is worth a thousand words, surely one debate such as the one over divine election is worth at least a dozen treatises on the same subject.

GARY M. HIGBEE

The Alliance Church (C.&M.A.)

Hood River, Ore.

The participants waded around in the shallows of traditional theologies and at no time did they get beyond their depth. Therefore the traditional obscurities were stirred up and no aspect of the debate was settled.… In biblical theology of the New Testament there are frequent examples of the will of God being conditioned by the will of man …, indicating … that salvation is possible.

THOMAS D. HERSEY

Methodist Church

Popejoy, Iowa

Just about the most stimulating thing I have read in a long time. Any time a Baptist, an Anglican and a Nazarene can get together to discuss one of the doctrines generally considered a Presbyterian exclusive, you have ecumenicity of a sort that organic church unions can never breed.

LOREN V. WATSON

First Presbyterian Church

Appalachia, Va.

This is as clear a presentation of the issues as I have seen in recent literature. It is also a singularly fair and objective discussion. I feel that this article will go a long way toward establishing the belief on both sides that there are actually evangelical Christians in the Arminian as well as in the Calvinistic camp. Thank you for rendering this service to the English-speaking world.

DONALD E. DEMARAY

Dean

School of Religion

Seattle Pacific College

Seattle, Wash.

Wonderful.… As an evangelical Arminian institution we have been hoping for some top-level discussion such as this.

KENNETH R. MAURER

Dean

Evangelical Congregational

School of Theology

Myerstown, Pa.

Reminded me of the dangers in Calvinism and strengthened my Arminian convictions. Surely if God loves, he loves all men and desires their salvation.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been a great blessing to my ministry. Many of my Methodist preacher brethren find inspiration in its pages to continue in the evangelical tradition.

EDMUND W. ROBB, JR.

First Methodist Church

Hamlin, Tex.

Dr. Wiley so ably presents the viewpoint of the Arminian position that one cannot help but see its support in the Holy Scriptures.

S. L. NUSSBAUM

Allen Street Methodist Church

Centralia, Mo.

Dr. Wiley … and Dr. Bromiley together revealed the affinities between Arminius and Barth.… Arminius … was clear on one central point …, that Christ is really the object of the divine election.

CARL BANGS

Olivet Nazarene College

Kankakee, Ill.

It is probably true that Arminianism as a theological system more so than Calvinism often has lapsed into humanism, but this fact does not incriminate true Arminianism as such.… The fact that Arminianism makes such a delicate, but nevertheless careful, scriptural distinction at the point of divine sovereignty and human freedom does mean that the greatest of diligence is necessary to safeguard the exegesis. Of course, anytime human opinion usurps the authority which belongs only to the Sovereign Word of God, Arminianism like Calvinism becomes an easy prey to the egocentric schemes of liberalism.… I rejoice in the Arminian faith which declares the absolute Sovereignty of God, the utter lostness of man, but the inexhaustable possibilities of redemption through the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. Moreover, it would seem to me that this is the practical faith of most Calvinists in the front line of evangelism—in fact, I suspect on the whole our Calvinist brethren today are better Arminians than most Methodists although I don’t expect them to admit it.

ROBERT E. COLEMAN

Asbury Seminary

Wilmore, Ky.

I have the feeling that it illustrates with some degree of persuasiveness that the purely biblical point of view must somehow accept both positions, admitting meanwhile, the impossibility of complete reconciliation.… Our activity in obedience to the requirements of the Gospel must be governed by both positions. We must preach to men’s wills, and we must depend on the Holy Spirit’s sovereign operation.

SIGURD F. WESTBERG

Chicago, Ill.

To my surprise nothing was said concerning Emil Brunner’s attempt to wrestle with this problem in his Dogmatics.

FRED L. HOLDER

Iowa City, Iowa

I consider it very unfortunate that a Lutheran theologian was not included in this conversation. There is a unique Lutheran stand on this subject, quite distinct from the Calvinist-Arminian tug-o’-war, as a glance at the Book of Concord will reveal.

DON BARON

Bethesda Evangelical Lutheran Church

Newark, N. J.

I find that nearly all of our evangelical Calvinistic preachers and evangelists very definitely step over into the Arminian realm when they minister to believers—Calvin for birth; Arminius for growth and service.

MILES J. STANFORD

Warrenville, Ill.

I read with relish.… Could you get together a group of scholars who would debate with the major premise being: “The Scripture says” rather than “I believe” or “so-and-so has said.” On that basis we would have an answer to the Scripture where it says, “The spirit quickens.” Or “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” Also, sticking close to the Scripture it’s quite obvious that Judas had no alternative but he wanted none. While he may be called a robot on that basis the fact yet remains that he had no choice in those innate factors of life with which he was born by which he was the type of man who willingly served as the instrument of God in doing what God had ordained. Accepting the fact of Scripture, God is the author of evil, remembering Job, or there is another force greater than God who has control over evil? In that event, of what value is God?

W. L. MARGARD

Calvary Evangelical and Reformed

Crestline, Ohio

Calvinists know that the biblical fact of the fall makes necessary individual election if any fallen son is to be saved; but do the Arminians?

LONNIE L. RICHARDSON

Roanoke, Va.

Since when does a sinner deserve mercy? Therefore, what has “justice” to do with the selective exercise of God’s sovereign mercy to sinners? That is to insert into the Gospel of Grace the error of French egalitarianism, which Communism seeks to implement materially.

Since it is the nature of men to believe, why may not God hold men responsible to believe simply on the objective reality of the Cross and Resurrection? “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar.” Has the revelation of God’s redemptive love toward a lost world relieved men of the responsibility to believe Him? (St. Jno. 3:18).

How can there be a “class” of the elect, apart from individuals elected?…

Election to redemption (Rom. 8:29), that God may, despite the moral incapacity of men to believe Him, fulfill His Purpose to reconstitute the universe, nowhere in Scripture implies reprobation as an act of the Divine Will.

God’s wish that all men might be saved may not be used to contradict the sovereign exercise of the Divine Mercy by which, through His election of some, He implements His Purpose to bring into being a New Heaven and a New Earth: the salvation of the universe, but not the universal salvation of all men.

ELBERT D. RIDDICK

Portland, Ore.

THE SYNOPTICS

This whole discussion on the Synoptic Gospels and the … “Mark-theory” (Sept. 14, 28 issues) seems to me to reflect on the inspiration of the gospel writers and on the integrity and native ability of the authors of the three Gospels. Since all three had full access to the oral tradition, and had had firsthand experience either with Christ himself in the days of his flesh, or with those who had, why should any one of them be dependent on the writings of either of the others?

WALTER MCCARROLL

Lomita, Calif.

Having made a very intensive study of the modern theories regarding Matthew during the past twenty years I have come more and more to the conclusion that the apostolic authorship of the First Gospel is unassailable. Only an eyewitness like the former taxgatherer Levi (alias Matthew) could have written the First Gospel. Linguistic resemblances between this Gospel and Mark can be explained in many possible ways without sacrificing the acceptance of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel of Matthew.…

I feel that evangelical scholars who follow the Streeter line of thought regarding the supposed dependance of Matthew on Mark do not realize the serious implications of such a standpoint. The recent article (George E. Ladd, Mar. 2 issue) … pleading for the priority of Mark proves no more than that Luke used Mark and definitely does not prove that Matthew used Mark.… Through an intensive study of Huck’s Synopsis one can see how impossible it is to accept the theories of Streeter cumsuis regarding the use Matthew is supposed to have made of Mark.

J. NORVAL GELDENHUYS

Capetown, South Africa

These … articles … should help dispel the notion that an evangelical faith must reject the critical method.

LEE GALLMAN

Jackson, Miss.

FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

As the moderator of the General Conference Mennonite Church, I … want to say we appreciate the contents of the article … “Mennonites Reaffirm Biblicism and Pacifism” (Sept. 28 issue).… There is general agreement on our Seminary campus that you did a fine job … and have thus made a significant contribution toward better understanding among evangelical Christian groups.

ERLAND WALTNER

Mennonite Biblical Seminary President

Elkhart, Ind.

I want to express … my appreciation for your fine story on the two Mennonite General Conferences. I think you did an exceptional job of sensing what happened, and we appreciate very much your intelligent and fair description.

PAUL ERB

Executive Secretary

Mennonite General Conference

Scottdale, Pa.

A LOST WORLD

It was with interest and sorrowful affirmation that I read “The Campus: A Lost World?” (Sept. 14 issue). Having just come from a summer school session, and having lived for 25 years on the campus of a large university as a faculty wife, I can underscore the truth of what [Harnish] has written.

MRS. LESTER HORN

Cicero, Ill.

I wonder if the campus is as much a “lost world” as the pastors who are unwilling to change their vocabulary.… If Pastor Harnish felt frustrated by his “tradition-laden vocabulary,” why didn’t he lash out at us preachers to bring our preaching and teaching up to date and be prophets that can be understood by our own generation—especially if it is a generation of higher learning and higher standards.

If Dr. Harnish thought these nice fellows seem clean-cut because they don’t smoke, he should pop in at a Friday dinner and hear what they sing. I know. I lived with them. Remember the Greeks—they used masks in their drama. There are some masks on the campus too, along with a drama of which magnitude the church can only begin to realize.

RICHARD E. MAGNUSON

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

Salem, Ore.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

I have read every issue of your paper since it first came out, but I believe …, to me, the August 31 issue was the most meaningful and enjoyable one of all. It contains few words I shall not, in some way, try to get across to my people.

O. E. SANDEN

Warrendale Presbyterian Church

St. Paul, Minn.

Your articles on Christian education are terrific. I plan to reread them and then share my magazine with the church school superintendent … and the chairman of the department of Christian education.

LEWIS L. CORPORON

Minister of Christian Education

Central Christian Church

Enid, Okla.

The fact that you have devoted so much space … to Christian education is most encouraging to me personally and I pray it will find acceptance with many of your readers.

As a pastor please accept from me these suggestions: First, the Christian education program of every local church must always be the responsibility of the entire church, and never of the pastor alone.… Second, the Sunday school can never succeed in being anything other than an appendage, as long as it is considered, as per your editorial, as “an agency (along with other agencies) in the Church.” It is or must become THE CHURCH in its teaching task.… “Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you.…” Too many Sunday schools have become “agencies” using the same facilities and competing, often unfairly, for the loyalty and attendance of the same people.… Third, the Church must awaken to the fact that no Sunday school teacher however consecrated, well-trained and fortified with the best lesson materials can “make disciples” of people they see only once a week, even for two or five hours. Christian nurture begins, must continue, but must not end, in the home. All the Sunday school can hope to do is to supplement what the parents are inspired by the Holy Spirit to do, by way of example as well as precept. This is where the minister must put his best efforts, as pastor and preacher. He cannot hope to do all the details you lay on his back.…

W. FREDERICK WILLS

First Presbyterian Church

Santa Barbara, Calif.

This is the first time in 25 years that I have written any magazine. However, I can’t resist complimenting you on the thorough job you are doing. Having read each issue since the first one …, as a layman, I especially enjoy the regular feature by Dr. Bell, but this letter is prompted particularly by the excellent piece by Prof. Doll, “Shall We Close the Sunday Schools?” By all means, let’s have additional articles from his perceptive mind.…

FRED R. ESTY

Summit, N. J.

Dr. Bell’s “Teaching the Bible” is a truly fine and powerful page!

L. V. CLEVELAND

Canterbury, Conn.

It seems that [Dr. Bell’s] objection to the discussion method of teaching is far too strong. No one will justify [it] when it is a pooling of ignorance, but competent leaders in the field of Christian education point out that the learning process is heightened when the pupil is active in that process.… Discussion: enables the student to direct questions to the teacher regarding areas … where the teacher is not clear …; helps the pupil to verbalize what has been taught …; enables the pupil to share related experiences …; opens [new] areas of thought …; enables the teacher to be more certain that the lesson truly has been learned.…

Apart from this rather mild criticism, I feel that the article was quite to the point, and its message ought to be pondered by every … teacher in our church schools.

WILLIAM S. SMYTHE, JR.

Centre Presbyterian Church

Maxton, N. C.

The fathers of compulsory education over a century ago claimed that compulsory “education” will eliminate vice. They were mistaken. Education is blind without schooling and schooling is empty without education, in our century. Schooling and education had to be separated and brought in a synthesis on a higher level. On the American scene where school and church are separated, the church can play the most decisive role by relating the function expressed by school marks and the firmness of a sequence of [character] traits. This method is eminent in the prevention of delinquency.… Education, as well as preaching, begins when we can state in simple terms of faith—“God exists!” When this supreme truth begins to grow clear in a mind, then obedience becomes operative. God must be given the focal point in a mind.

EUGENE F. MOLNAR

St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church

Bathurst, New Brunswick

DISCIPLE DISAGREEMENT

I would like to voice strong disagreement with Brother Murch’s report of the Christian Church convention (Sept. 14 issue), in which he says that the United Christian Missionary Society receives little or no support from Bible-centered churches. While some liberal churches do support this society, my experience in the Christian Churches as minister for 13 years indicates that most of the churches supporting the UCMS are “Bible-centered.” … Cooperation does not eliminate the possibility of being “Bible-centered.”

TOM PEAKE, JR.

Highlands Christian Church

Dallas, Tex.

All Disciples, whether they support a cooperative program or go it alone as “independents,” hold to a firm belief in Jesus Christ (our only real test of fellowship) as revealed in the Scriptures.

JAMES L. MERRELL

Indianapolis, Ind.

The purpose of Resolution 52 … was to try to do something to face up to this problem [of] … a small but vocal group who seem called upon to try to disrupt … churches by methods which are anything but Christian.

GENE ROBINSON

First Christian Church

Billings, Mont.

I wish to thank you for your succinct and discriminating report of the Denver Convention …, reprinted in Christian Standard for October 3. Such efforts, I believe, go a long way in encouraging those in all groups who hope to see again something like real unity in our brotherhood.

LOUIS COCHRAN

Santa Monica, Calif.

ALTERNATIVES

With reference to [Mr. Rasmusson’s] letter (August 31 issue), I venture to submit the following:

“The only alternative to His Virgin Birth would be a natural birth. If He had been thus born, He would have had a sinful nature, as all mankind. If He had had a sinful nature, He would have been a sinner. If He had been a sinner, He would have needed a Saviour, and could not have been the Saviour of other sinners. No sinner can atone for the sins of others.” (Author unknown.)

HAROLD H. COOK

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

“Japan: A New Christian Hope,” by Dr. C. F. H. Henry (Aug. 3 issue), points up one more distressing fact about Japan, beyond those mentioned by the author. The additional fact is that the country evangelist is the forgotten man of Japan’s missionary community.… Has any visitor ever visited Shikoku, the least known island of Japan? Presbyterian missions began on this island, and churches are seen in many smaller towns.… There are approximately nine churches in the city of Kochi alone, a city of 190,000.

Dr. Henry’s analysis of the frustrations and encouraging signs is good. Let’s just not become more frustrated by letting every visitor visit Tokyo alone. Welcome to Gifu!

HAROLD BORCHERT

Gifu City, Japan

The Gospel has always progressed to a pattern of plan and circumstance. Sometimes a plan has been laid which circumstances, whether of opposition or opportunity, have molded: “Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth” was the plan the Saviour gave; yet it was persecution that first sent witnesses out to Judaea and Samaria “preaching the Word.” Sometimes it has been the other way around. An opportunity has been seen and plans have been molded to seize it; then much has depended on the Church’s response.

It was so in the earliest days when the apostles moved across the ancient world. It was so in the great periods of expansion of the Christian Church. Perhaps Pope Gregory’s remark “Not Angles but angels,” leading to Augustine’s mission to England, is a famous medieval example of opportunity seen and taken with careful planning and, as a result, the establishment of a church in new territory. In more modern times, the American Baptists in Burma switched their main emphasis from the unresponsive Burmans to the Karens on discovering the Karen belief that a white man with a book would come to teach the truth. The Karen church is now one of the strongest in South East Asia.

Christians today have greater facilities than ever to focus prayer and support on any new opportunity. Only the Holy Spirit can create a church, but every good means should be concentrated for His use, even as a country at war mobilizes its resources for its commander-in-chief. Unfortunately the man in the pew often believes that no virgin soil is left, that the churches have merely to expand in non-Christian parts already occupied, however thinly, and thus he fails to mobilize his personal and spiritual resources.

Recently, in the course of an unhurried tour which I am now making through the Asian mission fields, I found myself in the position of St. Luke, that is, a writer witnessing the first impact of the Gospel on an entirely untouched area.

Laos is a newly independent country, little known, and formerly a component of French and Indochina. In the lowlands are the Lao, a race closely connected with the Thai, who are Buddhists and among whom missions have operated for 50 years. The more mountainous area to the north and east is inhabited by primitive tribesmen, animists living in very real dread of evil spirits. They were scarcely disturbed by the French colonial government, and the whole province which we visited was prohibited to foreigners until independence. No Christian work, not even French Roman Catholic, has ever been done there.

Soon after its independence, a Gospel Recordings team penetrated to the Lao valley centers where the tribes come into market and made recordings of Gospel messages in several tribal languages. The team’s report led to a survey in Southern Laos as a result of which the overseas missionary fellowship of the China Inland Mission began an approach to the tribes late in 1957.

The first move was to form lowland bases in cooperation with the Swiss Brethren; and the second, during 1958, was to form three forward bases from which reconnaissance and evangelistic treks are being made on foot into the surrounding tribes. The intention is eventually to live right up in the tribal villages as response comes. The Lao authorities at first were fearful for the missionaries’ safety, but in fact only one tribe practices occasional human sacrifices.

It was with the team of the forward base at Attopeu, two young Americans, Mr. John Davis of Everett, Washington, and Mr. David Henricksen of Antioch, Illinois, that my wife and I trekked, knowing that we were out on no mere aimless fling but the early stages of a carefully planned strategy. As an indication of the remoteness of the place, we endured three days’ bus travel from the railhead, the last being 11 hours to cover 135 atrocious miles, before even reaching Mr. Davis’ house at Attopeu.

From there we walked. Only two tribesmen, in a large party, could be found to carry packs for us, so we had to carry them ourselves. These two were typical: small, naked except for G-string, teeth filed short (they do it when drunk), ears stretched and holed to carry heavy ivory bobs curiously similar to those of the South American Aucas pictured in Mrs. Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor. Though so little clothed, the tribe was modest. When they bathed the men covered themselves with their hands, and no child after puberty was allowed to run about naked. But married women often wore nothing above the waist except beads. One was seen to suckle her baby and then a puppy!

We ferried across a river, did three stages and slept in the forest, walked all the next day at an easy pace because of the women and children (it was very different two days later), and reached a large village by another river just before dusk. Civilization we discovered had already crept in—an army post, government officer, doctor, and schoolmaster. It would have been more romantic otherwise, but this emphasized the urgency. For in order to Laoize them fully, the government hoped to turn the tribes Buddhist. It is significant, therefore, that our meeting that night, though largely attended, made little impact.

The following day we walked deeper into the hills. The villagers we came to meet in a cluster of raised bamboo houses near a stream had never before had a white woman visitor. And Christ’s name had never been spoken there.

We sat outside the house of the headman or village father, who smelled of rancid meat, and ate with our fingers rice and a succulent chicken which they presented to us. Then John Davis set up the little portable gramophone and played Gospel records in their own tongue. As I watched those raw tribespeople, tattooed, brightly beaded, puffing at their stubby pipes, while a tiny puppy slept on the warm ashes at my feet and chickens wandered at will, I saw their close attention and believed that this revolutionary development of Gospel Recordings Incorporated of Los Angeles should be deserving of widest support.

John next brought out the Wordless Book, that old friend of evangelists to illiterates which, by means of colored pages, pictures man’s sin and judgment (black) the blood of Christ (red), the cleansed heart (white), and gold for heaven. Using Lao, which this tribe but not all the local tribes can speak, he took them through it. The first time they looked dumb. The second time they could explain it back. I noted that an unashamed, unadulterated biblical Gospel was taught of a Saviour crucified as man’s substitute and risen from the dead to be his Friend. Humanism would leave these men in their ignorance and desperate need.

John turned to the headman, who wore a G-string, a light blue necklace and a worried expression. “How about the village father,” he asked. “Do you want to go to hell or to heaven?” “I want to go to heaven,” the headman replied. “I want to escape from sin.” “There’s only one way you can get to heaven and that’s by having Jesus wash away your sins. Would you like him to do that?” “Yes!” “How many would?” The headman said: “I don’t know, I can’t speak for the village but only for myself.”

“Do you realize what it means?” John then warned this spirit-worshipper, “You can’t walk two trails at once.” He saw that, and spoke to his neighbors in their own language and then, in Lao to John, “I want to go the Jesus trail, only one trail.” “That means you’ll have to leave the old trail.” “I don’t understand,” said the headman, backing a bit and bringing up a little Buddhism. “What kind of work do you have to do?” “You don’t have to do anything,” replied John. “When you want to know where to make your rice fields, you don’t kill a chicken and ask the spirits, you ask Jesus to lead you. Jesus doesn’t eat chickens and pigs and buffalo. When you’re sick, don’t kill sacrifices, just pray. When you go into the forest, you needn’t propitiate the spirits with a pig, just ask Jesus to keep you safe.”

The headman said, “Why, if this is true it is the best thing in all the world! But we don’t quite understand.… I think we’ll go on as before but when we sacrifice, instead of calling on the spirits we will call on Jesus.” “That will never do,” said John. “They are enemies. Jesus would not be pleased. If you want to believe in Jesus you will have to throw over the spirits and burn all this,” waving his hand at the demon altar.

A long silence followed. Beads of perspiration appeared on the headman’s forehead as he thought of the awful risk. All his life he had dreaded the spirits. Could he dare throw them over? A handsome, smiling younger man began to suck at the potent rice wine (they use long thin bamboos from a common pitcher) which had been put aside at John’s insistence. “We don’t know these words yet,” the youth temporized.

“You don’t need to study first,” urged John. He asked for one of their pipes. “If I give you this pipe, my giving is of no use unless you reach out and take hold of it. God offers you a home in heaven, but his offering is of no use unless you take it.” They began to chatter in their own tongue. John sensed that they had gone off at a tangent. They turned to him. “We hear you saw a wild elephant on your way here.…”

John has already seen men burn their demon altars and “call on the name of the Lord.” It would have been fine had this episode ended like that.

But perhaps this was not permitted in order that my description should be left in the air as a standing challenge to the churches to focus prayer on this field. For a glance at the map will show that a strong church in the mountains of Laos could influence several surrounding countries. And who that knows of the mighty movement of the Spirit among the Nagas in Assam, the Karen in Burma, the Lisu in China can doubt that God can move the pagan tribes of Laos?

John C. Pollock, author of The Cambridge Seven and Way to Glory, is former Rector of Horsington, Somerset, England. He is touring Asia, and preparing a missions book for the Macmillan Company (New York) and Hodder and Stoughton.

The doctrine of inspiration continues to be in many ways the critical issue underlying all other issues in the Church today. A variety of statements vie with one another for assent. Labels are often attached to those who have no desire to follow any particular school. Judgments are passed in terms of traditional or less traditional alignments. Yet behind all other problems, concerns, or assessments, the primary question is still, as always, that of the biblical teaching itself. What are, in fact, the essential demands of the Bible with regard to its own inspiration? What are the basic factors without which no doctrine can claim to stand by the biblical and apostolic norm to which all attempted theological statements must be subject?

A first point is the obvious one that a human authorship is also assumed for all the books of the Bible. “Holy men of God spake” is quite definitely stated of the writing of the Old Testament. These men used ordinary media. They adopted or adapted known literary genres. They had distinctive styles. Their works emerged in specific situations. This is not the most important thing. It is not even the first thing in 2 Peter 1:21, for there we are first told that prophecy came by the will of God. Yet it is a real thing. As the Lord Jesus Christ himself took flesh, so the written word was clothed in the form of human writings. This is a part of the matter which must be given due weight even though its importance may be exaggerated in some circles.

The second point is that, in fulfillment of the will of God, these holy men, whether prophets in the Old Testament or evangelists and apostles in the New, were “moved by the Holy Ghost.” In other words, there was a distinctive breathing of the Spirit of God in relation to the actual composition of the works. Whatever else the Holy Spirit may do in respect of these writings, for example, in their reading and hearing, he was present and active objectively and once for all in their original compilation. If the “inspiration” of the Holy Spirit is an act of God, it is an act which has taken place when the writings were first given. This must be emphasized in response to the legitimate concern of the Church in every age for the givenness of the work of God.

Three subsidiary points call for notice in this connection. The Bible obviously means writing as well as speaking, as we gather from 1 Timothy 3:16. Again, the writings of the New Testament may be legitimately included with those of the Old, as seen in the witness of 2 Peter 3:16. Finally, the Bible makes no similar claim for any other writings. Hence, whether or not we suppose that all literary activity is in some general sense due to the operation of the Spirit, this work of the Holy Ghost in relation to Scripture is unique. Not even great Christian classics based on Scripture can claim inspiration of this nature. The additional observation may perhaps be made that Holy Scripture does not seem to describe or define the mode of the Spirit’s operation in this work, and therefore statements in this regard must always be made with modesty and caution.

A further main point is that the purpose of this written word is plainly linked in the Bible with the work of God in Jesus Christ. In its biblical sense the word “witness” or “testimony” is important in this regard. The Old Testament Scriptures testify of Christ (John 5:39). The Lord expounds in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27, 44 f.). The function of the Holy Spirit is to testify of Christ (John 15:26), speaking what he has heard and glorifying the Son (16:13 f.). The New Testament no less than John’s Gospel is written with a view to faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (20:31; cf. Luke 1:1 f.). It is a declaration under the Holy Spirit of what has been seen and heard and handled of the Word of life (1 John 1:1 f.). Inspiration is not just a matter of the pronouncement of general religious and moral truth. It is the special declaring of the will and mind and words and works of God as supremely fulfilled in the life and death and resurrection of his incarnate Son. This demands recognition irrespective of the fact that its implications may sometimes be worked out in certain ways which may be inadequate or even harmful.

The next point is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The Bible thus presupposes that what is given under his moving or inspiration is true, authentic, and trustworthy. Considered abstractly, that is, apart from this work of inspiration, the human authors are no doubt fallible and sinful like the rest of us. But in this work, for this purpose, they have the promise that he will bring all things to their remembrance, and guide them into all truth (John 14:26; 15:13). The compilation is with a view to certainty of knowledge (Luke 1:4), and the claim is made in the case of the New Testament that this is a true record (John 21:24). In addition, the Old Testament is authenticated not only by the claims, for example, of the prophets, but by the express statements of the New, often in regard to factual matters. The hotly contested terms “inerrancy” and “infallibility” are not perhaps used explicitly by the Bible in relation to itself. But it indisputably claims to be true, authentic, reliable testimony under the moving or inspiring of the Spirit of truth, and nowhere is there the suggestion that its real miracle is that of the using of erroneous ideas or information for the passing on of some basic or kerygmatic truth. Justice must be done to this claim of the Bible doctrine which makes any claim at all to be biblical, and it is to be noted that the Holy Scriptures themselves know no distinction whatsoever between supposedly spiritual truth on the one side and historical or scientific truth on the other.

Again, the Bible makes it plain that the work of the Holy Spirit does not cease with this moving or inspiring. The work of inspiration ceases. It has been done. The books are written. The authors have finished their work. No new prophetic or apostolic testimony is to be expected. But since their works are written in the Spirit, they must also be read in the Spirit if they are to accomplish their primary function. Ordinary reading can be profitable for the amassing of such information as is also given, or the study of such doctrinal or ethical truths as are also imparted. But as regards the main purpose and content of these Spirit-given books, the mind is blinded and there is a veil which is not taken away until they are read in the Spirit and Christ is seen as the theme and center of Scripture (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14 f.). In other words, the minds and hearts of the readers must be enlightened by the same Spirit by whom the writings themselves were inspired. This enlightenment or illumination is not properly inspiration itself. But rejection of this confusion should not blind us to the fact that it is the biblical complement of inspiration, and that an important place must thus be given to it in any doctrine of Scripture.

Finally, the Bible teaches us plainly that as the inspired word, read or heard in the enlightening power of the Spirit, it is an efficacious word. It pierces to the inmost being of man (Heb. 4:12). It brings new life (Jas. 1:18). It accomplishes that which it is sent to accomplish (Isa. 55:11). In this older sense in which it was sometimes used by the Reformers, Scripture is infallible; that is, it does not fail to do that which it was designed and is empowered to do. A biblical doctrine of inspiration will be characterized by this confidence in the power of the written word itself to do its own work and to carry its own conviction. It therefore demands prayer, as we read it ourselves or commend it to the reading of others, that the Holy Spirit who has given this word may open the eyes of the readers to perceive its truth and receive its light. “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold the wondrous things of thy law” (Ps. 119:18).

Geoffrey W. Bromiley is Professor of Church History in Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, and author of several published volumes on the Reformation period.

You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39, 40, RSV).

The two most important questions which must be asked and answered about the Bible concern its origin and its purpose. Where has it come from, and what is it meant for? Until we know whether its origin is ultimately human or divine, we cannot determine what degree of confidence may be placed in it. Until we have clarified the purpose for which its divine Author or human authors brought it into being, we cannot put it to right and proper use.

Both questions gain an answer from the words of Jesus to certain Jews, recorded in chapter 5 of John’s Gospel, verses 39 and 40: “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (RSV). He was, of course, referring primarily to the Old Testament Scriptures. But if we concede that there is an organic unity in the Bible, and that God intended his saving acts to be recorded and interpreted under the New Covenant as much as under the Old, then these words may be applied to the New Testament also.

THE SCRIPTURES HAVE A DIVINE ORIGIN

The divine origin of the Scriptures is clearly implied in our Lord’s statement: “it is they that bear witness to me.” The scriptural witness to him is a divine witness. Jesus has been advancing some stupendous claims about his relation to the Father. The Father has committed to him the two tasks of judging and quickening (vv. 21, 22, 27, 28). But how are Christ’s claims to be confirmed? They are confirmed, he says, by testimony, and the testimony he requires adequately to authenticate his claims is divine, not human. Self-testimony is not enough. “If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true” (v. 31, RSV). John the Baptist’s testimony is not enough. “You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth” (v. 33). No. He adds: “Not that the testimony which I receive is from man” (v. 34). “There is another who bears witness to me, and I know that the testimony which he bears to me is true” (v. 32). He is referring, of course, to the Father. But how does the Father bear witness to the Son? In two ways; first, in the works of Jesus, and second, in the words of Scripture. “The testimony which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has granted me to accomplish, these very works which I am doing, bear me witness that the Father has sent me” (v. 36). This is familiar ground to readers of the Fourth Gospel. “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (10:27, 38). “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves” (14:11).

Our Lord asserts, however, that he has from the Father an even more direct testimony than his mighty works. “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me” (5:37). But these Jews were rejecting this testimony. “You do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he has sent” (v. 38). What is this witness? Where is this word? Jesus immediately continues, “You search the scriptures … and it is they that bear witness to me” (v. 39), and concludes this discourse with a specific example of what he means: “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; it is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (vv. 45–47).

The Scriptures are, then, in the thought and teaching of Jesus, the supreme testimony of the Father to the Son. They are the word and witness of God. True, they had human authors. It was Moses who wrote, and the writings of Moses are the Word of God (vv. 46, 47, 38). Jesus undoubtedly believed the Bible to be no ordinary book, nor even a whole library of ordinary books, because behind the human writers stood the one divine Author, the Holy Spirit of God, who, as the Nicene Creed affirms, “spake by the prophets.” Because men spoke from God, or God spoke through men (for the process of inspiration is described in both ways in Scripture), the Bible is to be viewed not as a mere symposium of human words but as the very Word of God.

There are many grounds for this Christian belief. There is the Scriptures’ own unaffected claim. There is their astonishing unity of theme, despite the extremely varied circumstances of composition. There is their power to convict and convert, to comfort and uplift, to inspire and to save. But the greatest and firmest ground for faith in the divine origin of Scripture will always remain that Jesus himself taught it. The living Word of God bore witness to the written Word of God. His opinion of, and attitude to, the Scriptures is not difficult to determine. Three striking indications are:

He Believed Them. Let one example suffice. On the way to the Mount of Olives he turned to the disciples and said: “You will all fall away.” This categorical statement must have amazed and perplexed them. Had they not sworn allegiance to him and promised to be true to him? Had they not followed him these three years without thought of home and comfort and security? How could he assert with such definiteness and dogmatism that every one of them would desert him? The answer is simple. He continues: “You will all fall away; for it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Mark 14:27). It is because the Scriptures had said so that he knew beyond peradventure or doubt that it would come to pass.

It is for this reason that the progress of events at the end of his career did not take him by surprise. He knew that what had been written about him would have its fulfillment. The word gegraptai, “it stands written,” was enough to remove every doubt and silence every objection. So, with an assurance and clarity that over-awed the Twelve, he repeatedly predicted both his death and his resurrection, because the Old Testament had depicted the sufferings and the glory of the Christ. So plain was it to him that he soundly rebuked the Emmaus disciples after the resurrection, saying: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27).

No wonder he could say in his Sermon on the Mount, “Truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18) and, again, later: “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). To him the Scriptures were unbreakable because they are eternal. It was impossible that one Scripture should fail or pass until it had been fulfilled.

He Obeyed Them. Even more impressive than the fact that Jesus believed the Scriptures is that he obeyed them in his own life. He practiced what he preached. He not only said he believed in their divine origin; he acted on his belief by submitting to their authority as to the authority of God. He gladly and voluntarily accepted a position of humble subordination to them. He followed their teaching in his own life.

The most striking example of this occurs during the period of temptation in the wilderness. The synoptic evangelists record the three principal temptations with which he must later have told them he had been assaulted. Each time he countered the devil’s proposal with an apt quotation from chapters 6 or 8 of the Book of Deuteronomy, on which he appears to have been meditating at the time. It is incorrect to say that he quoted Scripture at the devil. What he was actually doing was quoting Scripture at himself in the hearing of the devil. For instance, when he said, “It is written, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve,’ ” or “It is written, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,’ ” he was not telling Satan what to do and what not to do. He was not commanding Satan to worship God and forbidding Satan to tempt God. No. He was stating what he himself would and would not do. It was his firm resolve to worship exclusively, he said, and not to tempt God in unbelief. Why? Because this was what was written in the Scriptures. Once again, the simple word gegraptai, “it stands written,” settled the issue for him. What was written was as much the standard of his behavior as the criterion of his belief.

Moreover, Jesus obeyed the Scriptures in his ministry as well as in his private conduct. The Old Testament set forth the nature and character of the mission he had come to fulfill. He knew that he was the anointed King, the Son of man, the suffering servant, the smitten shepherd of Old Testament prophecy, and he resolved to fulfill to the letter what was written of him. Thus, “the Son of man goes as it is written of him” (Mark 14:21), and again, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished” (Luke 18:31).

Indeed, Jesus felt a certain compulsion, to which he often referred, to conform his ministry to the prophetic pattern. Even as a boy of 12, this sense of necessity had begun to grip him: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” What is the meaning of this “must”? We hear it again and again. It was the compulsion of Scripture, the inner constraint to fulfill the messianic role which he found portrayed in the Old Testament and which he had voluntarily assumed. So, “He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things” (Mark 8:31). “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day” (John 9:4). When Peter attempted to defend him in the garden and prevent his arrest, he forbade him, saying: “how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matt. 26:54). Again, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things?” (Luke 24:26).

He Quoted Them. Not only did Jesus believe the statements and obey the commands of Scripture in his own life, but he made the Scriptures the standard of reference when engaged in debate with his critics. To him the Scriptures were the arbiter in every dispute, the canon (literally, a carpenter’s rule) to measure and judge what was under discussion, the criterion by which to test every idea. He made the Scriptures the final court of appeal.

This can be seen from his attitude to the religious parties of his day, the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

When the Sadducees (who denied the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the existence of spirits and angels) came to him with their trick question about the condition in the next world of a woman married and widowed seven times, he replied: “You do greatly err” or (RSV) “Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mark 12:24). He went on to refute them, not only in the silly problem they had propounded to him, but in their whole theological position, by quoting Exodus 3:6 and expounding its implications.

As for the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus rejected their innumerable man-made rules and traditions and referred them back to the simple, unadulterated Word of God. Whether the question was sabbath observance, ceremonial laws, or marriage and divorce, it was to the original divine Word that he made his appeal. You make the word of God void by your tradition, he said, and “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!” (Mark 7:13, 9). And during the Sermon on the Mount, in the six paragraphs introduced by the formula “You have heard that it hath been said … but I say to you.…” Jesus is contradicting not the law of Moses but the unwarranted scribal interpretations of Moses’ law. This is clear from the fact that he has just said “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17). Besides, where does the law say “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy” (v. 43)? The law says “Thou shalt love thy neighbour.” It was the Scribes who attempted to restrict the reference of this command to friends and kinsmen, and Jesus rejected their interpretation.

All of this is of the greatest importance. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, with all his supernatural knowledge and wisdom, accepted and endorsed the divine origin and authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. He believed them. He obeyed them in his own life and ministry. He quoted them in debate and controversy. The question is, are we to regard lightly the Scriptures to which he gave his reverent assent? Can we repudiate what he embraced? Are we really prepared to part company with him on this issue and assert that he was mistaken? No. He who said “I am the truth” undoubtedly spoke the truth. If he taught that the Scriptures were a divine word and witness, the Christian is committed to believe this. Never mind, in the last resort, what the rationalists and the critics say, or even what the theologians and the churches say. What matters to us supremely is: What did Jesus Christ say?

THE SCRIPTURES HAVE A PRACTICAL PURPOSE

We have considered the origin of the Scriptures; we must now consider their purpose. We have seen from whom they have come to us; we must now ask for what they have been given. It is important to grasp that their purpose is not academic but practical. No doubt the Scriptures contain both science and history, but their purpose is neither scientific nor historical. The Bible also includes great literature and profound philosophy, but its purpose is neither literary nor philosophical. The so-called “Bible Designed to be Read as Literature” is a most misleading volume, for the Bible never was designed to be read as literature. The Bible is not an academic textbook for any branch of knowledge, so much as a practical handbook of religion. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

This Jesus made plain in the verses we are studying. “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” The Jews were in the habit of “searching the scriptures.” The verb used here, comments Bishop B. F. Westcott, indicates “that minute, intense investigation of Scripture which issued in the allegorical and mystical interpretations of the Midrash.” They thus studied and sought to expound the Scriptures, while fondly imagining that salvation and eternal life were to be found in accurate knowledge!

But the purpose of the Scriptures is not merely to impart knowledge, but to bestow life. Knowledge is important, but as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. The holy, God-breathed Scriptures, wrote Paul to Timothy, “are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15, 16). Their purpose is not just to “make wise” but to “make wise unto salvation” and that “through faith in Christ Jesus.” Their ultimate purpose is to lead to salvation; their immediate purpose is to arouse personal faith in Christ in whom salvation is to be found. This, albeit in different terms, is exactly what Jesus in John 5:39, 40 is recorded as saying. Three stages are discernible in the purpose of Holy Scripture.

The Scriptures Point to Christ. “It is they which bear witness to me,” he said. The Old Testament points forward, and the New Testament looks back, to Jesus Christ. English theologians of a former generation were fond of saying that as in England every track and lane and road, linking on to other thoroughfares, would ultimately lead the traveler to London, so every verse in Scripture, leading to other verses, would ultimately bring the reader to Christ. Or we might say that as seven or eight different streets converge on Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, so all the prophetic and apostolic strands of biblical witness converge on Jesus Christ. He is the grand theme of Holy Scripture. Reading the Bible is like an exciting treasure hunt. As each clue leads to another clue until the treasure is discovered, so every verse leads to other verses until the glory of Christ is unveiled. The eye of faith, wherever it looks in Scripture, sees him, as he expounds to us “in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27; cf. v. 44). We see him foreshadowed in the Mosaic sacrifices and in the Davidic Kingdom. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and the prophets write of his sufferings and glory. The evangelists describe his birth, life, death, and resurrection, his gracious words and mighty works; the Acts reveals him continuing through his Spirit what he had begun to do and to teach in the days of his flesh; the apostles unfold the hidden glory of his person and work; while in the Revelation we see him worshipped by the hosts of heaven and finally overthrowing the powers of evil. No man can read the Scriptures without being brought face to face with Jesus, the Son of God and Saviour of men. This is why we love the Bible. We love it because it speaks to us of him.

The Scriptures Affirm that Life Is to be Found in Christ. The purpose of the Scriptures is not just to reveal Christ, but to reveal him as the only Saviour competent to bring forgiveness to sinners, secure their reconciliation to God and make them holy. That is why they concentrate on his “suffering and glory.” The Gospel they enshrine is that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared …” (1 Cor. 15:3–5). As Dr. Marcus Dodds writes in the Expositor’s Greek Testament, the Scriptures “do not give life; they lead to the Lifegiver.” This is what our Lord meant in saying that the Jews thought they could find life in the Scriptures and would not come to him that they might receive life. Of every Scripture, and not just of the Fourth Gospel, it may be said: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

The Scriptures Invite Us to Come to Christ to Receive Life. The Scriptures do not just point; they urge us to go to the One to whom they point. They do not only make an offer of life; they issue a challenge to action. What the star did for the Magi, the Scriptures do for us. The star beckoned and guided them to Jesus; the Scriptures will lighten our path to him. That is why Jesus blamed his contemporaries for not coming to him. Their study of the Scriptures was purely academic. They were not doers of the Word, but hearers only and thus self-deceived. They searched the Scriptures, but did not obey them. Indeed, they would not come to Christ to receive life. Their minds may have been busily investigating, but their wills were stubborn and inflexible.

We must come to the Bible as sick sinners. It is no use just memorizing its prescription for salvation. We must go to Christ and take him as the medicine our sick souls need.

These verses from John 5 show our Lord’s view of the divine origin and practical purpose of the Scriptures. We learn their divine origin from his testimony to them. We learn their practical purpose from their testimony to him. There is therefore between Christ (the living Word of God) and the Scriptures (the written Word of God) this reciprocal testimony. Each bears witness to the other. It is because he bore witness to them that we accept their divine origin. It is because they bear witness to him that we fulfill their practical purpose, come to him in personal faith, and receive life. May God grant in his infinite mercy that Jesus may never have to say to us what he said to his contemporaries: “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

John R. W. Stott, Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, preaches to one of the largest congregations in London. Educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied modern languages and theology, he then entered Ridley Hall, Cambridge, for his theological study. He has led university missions in Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, and was Evangelist Billy Graham’s chief assistant missioner during the 1955 Cambridge mission. What Christ Thinks of the Church, Fundamentalism and Evangelism, and Men With a Message are among the many books he has written.

Though Bible scholars live in an age of unprecedented discovery, they stand in the shadow of nineteenth-century higher criticism. There was a time when the label “conservative” meant the rejection of that higher criticism, but now the conservative mind often latches onto higher criticism even though archaeology has rendered it untenable. My conservative critics, some of whom are on the faculties of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish seminaries, find fault not because my writings run counter to any particular religious tenet, but because I am not devoted to JEDP: the badge of interconfessional academic respectability.

INTELLECTUAL COMMITMENT

All of my Bible professors were conservative higher critics with a positive appreciation—and in some instances, with a profound knowledge—of the archaeological discoveries bearing on the Bible. I was trained simultaneously in higher criticism and biblical archaeology without at first realizing that the two points of view were mutually exclusive. By this I mean that a commitment to any hypothetical source-structure like JEDP is out of keeping with what I consider the only tenable position for a critical scholar: to go wherever the evidence leads him.

When I speak of a “commitment” to JEDP, I mean it in the deepest sense of the word. I have heard professors of Old Testament refer to the integrity of JEDP as their “conviction.” They are willing to countenance modifications in detail. They permit you to subdivide (D1, D2, D3, and so forth) or combine (JE) or add a new document designated by another capital letter; but they will not tolerate any questioning of the basic JEDP structure. I am at a loss to explain this kind of “conviction” on any grounds other than intellectual laziness or inability to reappraise.

The turning point in my own thinking came after (and in large measure because of) a four-year hiatus in my academic career during World War II. Coming out of the army and back into teaching, I offered a course on the Gilgamesh Epic. In the eleventh tablet I could not help noting that the Babylonian account of the construction of the Ark contains the specifications in detail much like the Hebrew account of Noah’s Ark. At the same time, I recalled that the Genesis description is ascribed to P of Second Temple date, because facts and figures such as those pertaining to the Ark are characteristic of the hypothetical Priestly author. What occurred to me was that if the Genesis account of the Ark belonged to P on such grounds, the Gilgamesh Epic account of the Ark belonged to P on the same grounds—which is absurd. The pre-Abrahamic Genesis traditions (such as the Deluge) are not late P products; they are essentially pre-Mosaic and it is not easy to single out even details that are late. This has been indicated by Sumero-Akkadian tablets for a long time; it is now crystal-clear from the Ugaritic texts, where whole literary themes as well as specific phrases are now in our possession on pre-Mosaic tablets, as well as in our canonical Bible. Ezekiel (14:13–19) thus refers to an ancient Daniel: a model of virtue who emerged together with his progeny from a major disaster. We now have the Ugaritic Epic of this Daniel on tablets copied in the fourteenth century B.C., when the story was already old. Like many another psalm ascribed to David, psalm 68, far from being late, is full of pre-Davidic expressions some of which were not even understood before the discovery of the Ugaritic poems. In verse 7, for example, kosharot means “songstresses” as in Ugaritic so that we are to translate “He brings out prisoners with the songstresses,” meaning that when God rescues us from trouble, he brings us joy as well as relief. He frees the prisoner not into a cold world but into one of joyous song. The Kosharot were just as much a part of the classical Canaanite heritage of the Hebrews as the Muses are a part of our classical Greek heritage.

The question the biblical scholar now asks is not “How much post-Mosaic (or post-Exilic) is this or that?” but rather “How much pre-Mosaic (or pre-Abrahamic)?”

The urge to chop the Bible (and other ancient writings) up into sources is often due to the false assumption that a different style must mean a different author.

AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE

When the subject matter is the same, different styles do ordinarily indicate different authorship. But any one author will employ different styles for different types of subject matter. A lawyer uses different styles depending on whether he is preparing a brief, or writing a letter to his mother. A clergyman does not use the same style in making a benediction and in talking to his children at the breakfast table. No physician writes in prescription style except on prescription blanks. Accordingly the technical style of Genesis in describing the Ark is no more an indication of different authorship from the surrounding narrative than a naval architect’s style in describing the specifications of a ship makes him a different author from the same architect writing a love letter to his fiancée.

Minds that are incapable of grasping whole entities are tempted to fractionalize the whole into smaller units. The Book of Job, for all its difficulties, is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts after the critics have hacked it to bits. Ancient Near East literature makes it abundantly clear that Job as it stands is a consciously constructed single composition. The kind of criticism that detaches the prose prologue and epilogue from the poetic dialogues on stylistic grounds (that is, that “prose and poetry don’t mix”) runs counter to ancient Near Eastern rules of composition. From many available illustrations, let us single out Hammurapi’s Code in which the prose laws are framed within a poetic prologue and epilogue, giving the composition what may be called the ABA form. This means that the main body of the composition is enclosed within language of a contrasting style. The structure of Job (“prose-poetry-prose”) exemplifies this ABA scheme. Moreover, the structure of Daniel (“Hebrew-Aramaic-Hebrew”) also reflects the ABA pattern, and the book should be understood as a whole, consciously composed unit.

No one in his right mind would want to outlaw the study of the component parts of biblical (or any other) books, but a sane approach to scriptural (or and other) literature requires that we take it on its own terms, and not force it into an alien system.

One of the commonest grounds for positing differences of authorship are the repetitions, with variants, in the Bible. But such repetitions are typical of ancient Near East literature: Babylonian, Ugaritic, and even Greek. Moreover, the tastes of the Bible World called for duplication. Joseph and later Pharaoh, each had prophetic dreams in duplicate. In Jonah 4, the Prophet’s chagrin is described at two stages, each accompanied by God’s asking “Are you good and angry?” (vv. 4, 9). Would anyone insist that such duplicates stem from different pens?

One particular type of duplicate is especially interesting because of the extrabiblical collateral material at our disposal. Judges 4 gives the prose and Judges 5 the poetic account of Deborah’s victory. The two accounts confront us with variants. The usual critical position is that the poetic version is old; the prose version later. The assumption of disparity in age or provenance between the two accounts on stylistic grounds is specious. Historic events were sometimes recorded in Egypt simultaneously in prose and poetic versions, with the major differences appropriate to the two literary media. (Sometimes the Egyptians added a third version—in pictures.) In approaching matters such as the date and authorship of Judges 4 and 5, it is more germane to bear in mind the usages of the Bible World than it is to follow in the footsteps of modern analytic scholars who build logical but unrealistic systems.

A FRAGILE CORNERSTONE

One of the fragile cornerstones of the JEDP hypothesis is the notion that the mention of “Jehovah” (actually “Yahweh”) typifies a J document, while “Elohim” typifies an E document. A conflation of J and E sources into JE is supposed to account for the compound name Yahweh-Elohim. All this is admirably logical and for years I never questioned it. But my Ugaritic studies destroyed this kind of logic with relevant facts. At Ugarit, deities often have compound names. One deity is called Qadish-Amrar; another, Ibb-Nikkal. Usually “and” is put between the two parts (Qadish-and-Amrar, Nikkal-and-Ibb, Koshar-and-Hasis, and so forth), but the conjunction can be omitted. Not only biblical but also classical scholars will have to recognize this phenomenon. In Prometheus Bound, Kratos Bia-te “Force-and-Violence” is such a combination. If any further proof were necessary, Herodotus provides it in his history (8:111), where he relates that Themistocles tried to extort money from the Andrians by telling them that he came with two great gods “Persuasion-and-Necessity.” The Andrians refused to pay, and their way of telling him “you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip” was that their gods were unfortunately “Poverty-and-Impotence.” Thus it was a widespread usage to fuse two names into one for designating a god. The most famous is perhaps Amon-Re who became the great universal deity as a result of Egyptian conquest under the eighteenth dynasty. Amon was the ram-headed god of the capital city, Thebes. Re was the old universal Sun god. The fusion of Re’s religious universalism with the political leadership in Amon’s Thebes underlies the double name “Amon-Re.” But Amon-Re is one entity. Scholars can do much to explain the combination of elements in Yahweh-Elohim. Yahweh was a specific divine name, whereas Elohim designated “Deity” in a more general, universal way. The combination Yahweh-Elohim is probably to be explained as “Yahweh = Elohim,” which we may paraphrase as “Yahweh is God.” But when we are told that ‘Yahweh-Elohim is the result of documentary conflation, we cannot accept it any more than we can understand Amon-Re to be the result of combining an “A” document with an “R” document.

THE GENUINE SOURCES

Older documents do underlie much of the Old Testament. Our Book of Proverbs is compiled from collections indicated as “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David” (1:1), “The proverbs of Solomon” (10:1), “These also are sayings of the wise” (24:23), “These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied” (25:1), “The words of Agur” (30:1), and “The words of Lemuel, king of Massa, which his mother taught him” (31:1). The individual psalms must have existed before our canonical book of 150 Psalms was compiled. Many of the psalms bear titles ascribing them to specific authors. But other biblical books do not have titles heading the text. The scroll of Ruth begins “Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled”; Leviticus opens “And Jehovah called unto Moses”; and so on. Since some biblical books are compilations (like Proverbs and Psalms) and since titles were often omitted (as in Ruth or Leviticus), it follows that certain biblical books can be compilations of earlier sources unidentified by titles.

If JEDP are artificial sources of the Pentateuch, are there any real ones? Yes, and one of them happens to be the book of the Wars of Jehovah cited in Numbers 21:14. Another ancient source used by the authors of both Joshua and Samuel is the book of Jashar, excerpted in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18 ff. The second of these excerpts is the beautiful dirge of David for Saul and Jonathan, which was used for teaching the troops of Judah heroism and skill in the art of war (note, for teaching the sons of Judah bowmanship—in v. 18). There can be little doubt that the book of Jashar was a national epic, commemorating the heroic course of Hebrew history from at least the conquest under Joshua to the foundation of the Davidic dynasty. Like other national epics, including the Iliad and Shah-nameh, the book of Jashar was used for inspiring warriors to live, and if necessary to die, like their illustrious forerunners. If the entire book of Jashar was characterized by the high quality reflected in David’s dirge, we can only hope that future discoveries will restore it to us. It might successfully compete with the Homeric epic as a masterpiece of world literature.

The books of Kings draw on earlier documents, such as, “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kings 11:41); and “the chronicles of the kings of Judah” and “the chronicles of the kings of Israel.” The canonical books of Chronicles cite a host of sources by name. The time is ripe for a fresh investigation of such genuine sources of Scripture, particularly against the background of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

THE MODERN IDOLS

No two higher critics seem to agree on where J, E, D or P begins or ends. The attempt to state such matters precisely in the Polychrome Bible discredited the use of colors but not the continuance of less precise verbal formulations. The “history” of Israel is still being written on the premise that we can only do so scientifically according to hypothetical documents to which exact dates are blandly assigned. While most critics place P last chronologically, some of the most erudite now insist that P is early, antedating D in any case. Any system (whether P is earlier or later than D in such a system makes no difference) that prevents us from going where the facts may lead is not for me. I prefer to deal with the large array of authentic materials from the Bible World and be unimpeded by any hypothetical system.

There may well be quite a few sources designated but not generally recognized as such in the Bible. Just as an older Deluge story is incorporated in the Gilgamesh Epic, another older variant Flood account has been, I think, excerpted in Genesis. The Hebrew word toledot (literally “generations”) can designate a “narrative” or “story.” In Genesis 6:9 “This is the Narrative of Noah” (literally, “generations of Noah”) may well have conveyed to an ancient Hebrew what a title does to us. The account of nature in Genesis 2:4 ff. is introduced by “This is the Account of the Cosmos” (literally, “the generations of the heavens and the earth”) and might possibly have been intended as a title indicating a biblical source.

Let us keep our eyes open and our minds sharp. Let us make observations and check them against the available facts. But let us not erect vast edifices on shifting sands.

The excavations at Ugarit have revealed a high material and literary culture in Canaan prior to the emergence of the Hebrews. Prose and poetry were already fully developed. The educational system was so advanced that dictionaries in four languages were compiled for the use of scribes, and the individual words were listed in their Ugaritic, Babylonian, Sumerian, and Hurrian equivalents. The beginnings of Israel are rooted in a highly cultural Canaan where the contributions of several talented peoples (including the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and branches of the Indo-Europeans) had converged and blended. The notion that early Israelite religion and society were primitive is completely false. Canaan in the days of the Patriarchs was the hub of a great international culture. The Bible, hailing from such a time and place, cannot be devoid of sources. But let us study them by taking the Bible on its own terms and against its own authentic background.

If there is any expression in the Hebrew language that is charged with meaning for the intellectual person devoted to his biblical heritage, it is simhat torah “the delight in studying Scripture.” I am familiar with this delight and I like to see others have the opportunity of experiencing it. I am distressed to meet ever so many intelligent and serious university students who tell me that their teachers of Bible have killed the subject by harping on the notion that biblical study consists of analyzing the text into JEDP. The unedifying conclusion of all such study is that nothing is authentic. That this type of teaching should go on in our age of discovery when biblical scholarship is so exciting is, so to speak, a perverse miracle.

A professor of Bible in a leading university once asked me to give him the facts on JEDP. I told him essentially what I have written above. He replied: “I am convinced by what you say but I shall go on teaching the old system.” When I asked him why, he answered: “Because what you have told me means I should have to unlearn as well as study afresh and rethink. It is easier to go on with the accepted system of higher criticism for which we have standard textbooks.”

What a happy professor! He refuses to forfeit his place in Eden by tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Cyrus H. Gordon is Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Chairman of the Department of Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis University. He is recognized as a leading Orthodox Jewish scholar. Worldfamous as an archaeologist, lecturer on the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” and authority on the Ugaritic tablets, he formerly was Professor of Assyriology and Egyptology at Dropsie College, Philadelphia. He holds the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Pennsylvania.