After 150 years, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) stand at the crossroads of the future and frankly face a “Decade of Decision.” More than 9,000 delegates gathered at Denver August 28-September 2 to hear their leaders report, appraise and forecast and to vote on recommendations which may well change the course of Disciples’ history.

The 110th assembly of the International Convention was recognizing the 150th anniversary of Thomas Campbell’s historic “Declaration and Address”—a document which said that “the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one.” It proposed the New Testament, apart from human creeds, as a “perfect constitution for the worship, discipline and government of the New Testament Church, and as a perfect rule for the particular duties of its members.” Thus the Disciples of Christ became the earliest ecumenical movement in America, calling upon all Christians to unite on the Bible alone as a rule of faith and practice.

Much of the program at Denver was concerned with some 25 agencies which report to the International Convention. So dominant are the affairs of these corporations that it is often facetiously remarked that “the tail wags the dog.” The mammoth United Christian Missionary Society presented a 17,000-page report at Denver, dealing with a wide scope of services—world missions, religious education, social welfare, home missions and evangelism. At one time it was proposed that the society be inclusive of all the interests of the churches, but that goal has not yet been realized. For more than 30 years the program of the society has been dominated by liberal leadership. It receives little or no support from Bible-centered churches. President A. Dale Fiers made it clear that the UCMS Division of World Mission “faces a revolutionary situation … in many areas” and that it is wholeheartedly committed to the ecumenical world mission program. In a number of fields the society is merging its work with “younger union churches.”

Social issues received much attention in resolutions perfunctorily adopted by the convention. Nuclear testing was opposed, racial integration approved, restrictions on use of alcoholic beverages urged, and marriage counselling was strongly advised as a church duty. The action of the Cleveland World Order Study Conference relative to recognition of Communist China did not come before the assembly, but delegates did voice support of National Council of Churches policy that churches have a right to speak up on such issues.

As convention agencies face the ensuing 10 years they share in development of a new cooperative program labelled the “Decade of Decision.” It is pitched at a high spiritual level and moves away “from pre-occupation with selfish concerns to a firmer theology concerned with the idea of God and what He is doing—a quest to discover the ways of God and follow in them.” It has little to say of the historic plea for “the restoration of the New Testament Church” and much to say about the ecumenical world mission of the church. The “Decade of Decision” provides a planning program in building new churches, educating more ministers, expanding the missionary enterprise, entering new fields of social service, enlarging publication services, enhancing men’s work, intensifying religious education and raising the level of giving in the churches. Each agency has been asked to suggest major undertakings for the 10-year period and budget askings. These will be compiled into a unified program. Churches will be asked to increase annual contributions from 33 to 87 millions and to spend 100 millions in new church construction. As Dr. Wayne Bell put it, “The destiny of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) will be decided during the 1960s.”

While Disciples at Denver thought of their “Decade of Decision” largely in terms of program and promotion, there is a far deeper significance. Within these 10 years they must face such issues as (1) brotherhood restructure, (2) cooperative strategy, (3) internal unity and congregational freedom, (4) merger with the United Church of Christ, (5) missionary and educational policy, and (6) the nature of their continuing mission.

Resolution No. 34 passed by the convention provides for a committee to produce a plan of organizational restructure. Hitherto the International Convention has offered its services to any worthy agency engaged in missionary, educational or benevolent work. Current proposals would eliminate all agencies that do not accept centralized control. Disciples must decide whether they wish to continue a free people or accept domination of a centralized ecclesiasticism.

Resolution No. 52 faces the issue of cooperative strategy. A committee of 15 is to decide what should be done with “recalcitrant brethren”—ministers listed in the convention Year Book who do not give full support to “official agencies.”

There are encouraging voluntary movements toward greater internal unity among Disciples. Scores of conversations between ministers and laymen cooperating with the convention and independent enterprises are taking place across America. These could heal wounds of old controversies and could unite forces long alienated.

The Disciples’ Council on Christian Unity is maintaining discussions which could eventually lead to merger with the United Church of Christ. This calls for another major decision during the decade. Disciples sat in on the United Church synod in Oberlin in July, but little was said about merger proceedings in Denver. There is strong opposition in a majority of churches and even in some “official agencies.”

Missionary and education policies of convention agencies are undergoing radical changes. The traditional Scriptural ground of evangelistic missions is slowly being abandoned for the newly-conceived “ecumenical world mission” program. Disciples are encouraging the merger of the International Missionary Council with the World Council of Churches and are now little concerned in maintaining the distinctive Christian Church testimony on foreign fields. Disciples must decide whether this policy is acceptable and whether adherence to it will be made a test of fellowship. Almost all the older institutions of higher education have accepted the terms of liberal scholarship and are enjoying material prosperity but some 3,000 ministerial students are now being trained in independent orthodox schools not reporting to the convention.

Finally, what will Disciples decide about the nature of their continuing mission? Will they consider their function as an ecumenical movement to be one of a “disappearing brotherhood” in the WCC and the “Coming Great Church,” or will they continue to insist that the only true united church must be a restoration of the Church of the New Testament in doctrine, ordinances and life?

A summary of events at Denver would not be complete without reference to the breath of evangelical fresh air which came in pre-convention sessions of the National Evangelistic Association. Here there was a real emphasis on the Gospel and the seeking and saving of the lost. Addresses of Dr. Lin Cartwright, former editor of the Christian Evangelist, on the content and intent of the Gospel were especially refreshing and inspiring. What the future of the NEA may be under the new constitution adopted at Denver is problematical. Its old-time freedom may be limited as it becomes more closely related to the UCMS.

Chapel Contract

A $3,237,298 contract was awarded last month for construction of the controversial Air Force Academy chapel at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Work is scheduled to begin immediately.

Design of the chapel is essentially the same as that unveiled more than three years ago (for architect’s sketch, see September 15, 1958 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY). Since that time its contemporary style has been the topic of widespread debate. Start of construction has been delayed repeatedly.

The chapel may take as long as two years to complete.

Missionary Enterprise

‘The Door’

For new missionaries planning service in Latin America, the Orientation Center and Language School at San Jose, Costa Rica, is a common introduction to Spanish culture. Some 34 boards and agencies use the school, operated by the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. For 13 of its 15 years, the school has had as directors Dr. and Mrs. Otho LaPorte, who flew back to their native United States this month upon retirement from a lifetime of missionary service.

The LaPortes, who labored in the Philippines prior to World War II, say they had a vision for a Latin American language-orientation center while interned by the Japanese. They had even decided that Medellin, Colombia, would be the ideal location, and, returning home after liberation, learned that their board had already established such a school in Medellin and wanted them to take over!

Approximately 1500 missionaries have been initiated under the LaPortes, whose name translated from French connotes “the door.” Their duties in San Jose, where the school moved in 1950, will be assumed by the Rev. and Mrs. A. D. Coble, also Presbyterian missionaries.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Haldor Lillenas, 74, noted Gospel song writer, at Aspen, Colorado … Dr. William Lindsay Young, 66, former moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., in Los Angeles … Dr. William S. Abernethy, 86, former president of the American Baptist Convention and pastor to President Harding, in Washington, D. C.… Bishop John L. Stauffer, 70, former president of Eastern Mennonite College, in Harrisonburg, Virginia … Elizabeth A. Smart, 70, national legislative director of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, in Washington, D. C.

Appointments: As president of Grand Rapids Baptist Theological Seminary and Bible Institute, Dr. W. Wilbert Welch … as executive administrator at Gordon College, pending appointment of a president, Hudson T. Armerding … as Swedish Lutheran Bishop of Linköping, Dean K. F. Askmark … as professor of church administration and director of field work for Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, Dr. Elmer L. Gray.

Elections: As sixth copresident of the World Council of Churches (after the WCC Central Committee changed rules to permit a presidential election between assemblies), Archbishop lakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America … to the WCC Executive Committee, Archbishop Gunnar Hultgren, Primate of the State Lutheran Church of Sweden … as national chaplain of the American Legion, Rabbi Robert 1. Kahn … as president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Otto Graham … as general foreign secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, Rev. E. G. T. Madge … as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Sweden, the Rev. Simon Oberg … as president of the Dutch Lutheran Church, Dr. C. Riemers.

Special Report

Remarkable interest in World Vision’s first Thailand conference, hosted by the Church of Christ in Thailand, shaped a historic meeting of 352 Christian workers July 20–24 in Bangkok’s Wittana Wittaya Academy. Unregistered observers lifted daily attendance above 500.

In a land where organized Protestantism claims only a dozen full-time pastors in 117 churches, and where Protestant membership totals only one-third the 60,000 Roman Catholic constituency, a “pastors’ conference” seemed to some leaders an unexciting prospect. But it drew the Christian task force in record numbers for Thailand’s most representative gathering geographically and denominationally. Many Christian workers had never before experienced spiritual fellowship across denominational lines. But even from Thailand’s borders 600 miles distant, traveling 30 hours over rugged highways, came missionaries and workers, their belongings stuffed into old suitcases, cardboard boxes or wicker baskets, in such numbers that Bangkok area delegates were urged to lodge at home rather than at conference grounds. Some workers came from distant Laos. Besides delegates from the United Church (Presbyterian, American Baptist, Methodist, Reformed) there were 30 Christian and Missionary Alliance, 30 Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 20 Southern Baptist, as well as displaced China Inland Mission workers, New Tribes Mission, Pentecostal, and Seventh-day Adventist. Delegates included 72 pastors and evangelists, 38 missionaries, and 86 elders who preside over churches organized somewhat along Old Testament authoritarian lines in consequence of long missionary effort based on geographic divisions rather than church-centered activity, and relying heavily on visiting speakers.

In many respects missionary achievement seems meager in this land of 19 million Thais and 3 million Chinese—a major Chinese community outside Red China. Bangkok’s Baptist church is the oldest Protestant church in Asia. Yet early missionaries worked 30 years for their first Thai convert. Main mission centers are scattered over a thousand miles, some being more than a hundred miles apart, and their work is often uncoordinated. Most congregations are so small that a resident pastor would be an extravagance. City churches are supplied in spare time by teachers, and rural churches by elders aided by itinerants. Theological training has been tapered to the laity. Missionaries long have been more interested in “staking out the field” than in planting churches and even mission boards have looked for regional stations more than for new congregations. Missionaries have concentrated on lepers and hill tribes. Some local efforts have relied on transfers of Christians and baptism of children rather than upon evangelization of the lost as the main source of strength, and city parish evangelism waned. Some liberalism is rampant, and the preaching of regeneration neglected for an emphasis on Christian culture. Some workers have been preoccupied with agricultural advances. But reliance on the “social gospel” has been gradually countered by Buddhist programs, including a “Y.M.B.A.” and “Y.W.B.A.” Mature ministers are needed to offset an acute lack of leadership. Even the 10,000 persons who have completed the C. and M.A. correspondence course on Christianity have had little or no follow-up. Some work still reflects the cutback of the 1930 depression and the isolation, dislocation and destruction wrought by World War II.

Another obstacle springs from the structure and temper of Thai life. Its predominantly rural society of small scattered villages, edging very slowly toward the cities, lack any marked urge for modernization and industrialization. Almost 9 in 10 farmers are landowners and land and food supplies are adequate. The local Buddhist wat (temple complex) stands everywhere as the center of community life. Buddhism dominates the religious, educational and social activities, and has integrated itself with Thai government, which is officially Buddhist. Monks set moral patterns, and support of these is said to gain spiritual merit. Two in three Christian churches in Thailand are located in rural villages, and Christian chapels seem inferior in size and dignity to Buddhist temples—one reason some Protestant leaders are promoting a “Protestant cathedral” in Bangkok through enlargement of Second Church to seat 400 persons. The only big city, Bangkok has one-tenth of Thailand’s population, half its 1,500,000 persons being Chinese. It is the residence of royalty, seat of government power, intellectual center, international crossroads and tourist haven. Its American colony, numbering 3,000, shows a rising rate of venereal disease and cirrhosis of the liver, a by-product of alcoholism. The vital center of Christian missions is hundreds of miles to the north in Chiengmai, where a 1960 crusade is proposed.

But the Church of Christ in Thailand now is assessing its opportunities afresh in a nation strategically important in the world political situation. Thailand’s fertile fields stretch across the only land routes from Red China and North VietNam to strategic Singapore. Rich in forests, rubber, rice and tin, Thailand (Siam) has never been a colony of any foreign power and is determined now to resist Communist infiltration and subversion. Recognition by Thai royalty has lent a prestige to Christian schools and hospitals for many decades, but not to the churches. Spreading interest in world religions is now leading to courses on Christianity even in state schools. Young people are turning from Buddhist traditions, eager to learn English. During Religious Emphasis Week at Bangkok Christian College, where 100 of the 2600 students are believers, 27 converts were won and baptized last year. Contrasted with the scarcity of Buddhist converts in some other lands, four of five Thailand Christians—20,000 in all—are converts from Buddhism. Some are former priests. The evangelistic outreach has accelerated as much in the past five years as in the previous fifty. Some churches have doubled their membership in this recent period.

World Vision speakers brought new confidence to pastors lacking prestige by reflecting to them the glory of the calling to the Christian ministry. They strengthened local leaders by deepening the dedication of elders and emphasizing the requirements of a virile lay witness. They pleaded for new theological depth and Bible study. They quickened interest in visitation evangelism. They stressed the importance of stewardship to Christians in a land faced neither by poverty nor overpopulation.

Thailand’s Christian workers opened their hearts to the visiting team. They scheduled seven sessions a day, with the rising bell at 5 a.m. and an hour of prayer before breakfast. With some 40 per cent of the delegates at home in English, the conference heard Thai and Chinese translations of messages by Dr. Richard Halverson, Dr. Paul Rees, Bishop Enrique C. Sobrepena, Dr. K. C. Han, and Dr. Carl F. H. Henry with untiring interest. And they returned to their lonely posts with new awareness that they are not as much alone in their Christian labors and concerns as they had long surmised.

C.F.H.H.

Religious Assemblages

Jazz For Devotions

The 6,000 delegates to the National Convocation of Methodist Youth, held at Purdue University August 24–28, had the option of attending daily 6:30 a.m. services in which John Wesley’s “Order for Morning Prayer” was presented in a jazz setting. Some ministers who attended weren’t as enthusiastic, Religious News Service reported, as youth delegates who said of the nine-man combo accompaniment, “It really gets you,” and, “It was strange enough to be interesting.”

Missouri Vs. Wisconsin

Delegates to the 35th biennial convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin and Other States voted to change the name of their 350,000-member body to the “Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.”

Meeting at Saginaw, Michigan, last month, the Wisconsin synod voted to continue in a “vigorously protesting fellowship” with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. A resolution was passed “to continue and accelerate with the help of God” negotiations with the Missouri Synod in an effort to restore peace.

Within the Wisconsin synod there have been repeated demands that relations with the Missouri Synod be severed on the grounds that the latter has engaged in certain “unionistic” practices (including sponsorship of boy scout troops, military chaplains, as well as fellowship activities with other churches). Both synods belong to the Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America.

In another resolution, the Wisconsin synod asserted its intent “to testify strongly against the offenses which are still prevalent” in the Missouri Synod.

Support For Ncc

At its 82nd annual convention, held last month in Detroit, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church endorsed stands taken by the General Board of the National Council of Churches which (1) declare that churches have a “right and duty” to study and comment on social issues and (2) oppose adoption of a “Christian Amendment” to the Constitution.

Conclave At Essen

Some 175 delegates from 16 nations were on hand July 12–19 for the first World Convention of the Church of God, held at Essen, Germany. Sunday evangelistic services drew audiences of 2,000.

Protestant Panorama

• No liquor is to be served at any official Canadian government entertaining, according to a report from Ottawa, which added that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a Baptist, set the policy.

• Nashville Teamsters Local 327, cited by the McClellan committee for corrupt leadership, was defeated in its efforts to organize for collective bargaining 88 services employes of the Methodist Publishing House by a vote of 44 to 36, with eight votes challenged by the union and not counted, in an election held last month by the National Labor Relations Board.

• All three representatives to Congress from the new state of Hawaii are affiliated with Christian churches. Hawaii’s admission to the Union made it the first state in which non-Christion faiths are in the majority (Buddhists make up the islands’ biggest religious group and together with Shintoists, Taoists, and Confucianists, they claim a majority of the 600,000 population).

• Claire Cox, New York correspondent for United Press International, told a Catholic information seminar last month that the Catholic church has not been getting the publicity “it deserves” as a major religious group because “we do not receive much material from Catholic sources.”

• Christianity’s influence in Japan is much greater than statistics might indicate, according to the Rev. Sekikazu Nishimura, first Christian minister ever elected to the Japanese Diet … Evangelist David Morken planned an evangelistic campaign in Fukuoka September 17-October 4.

• Dr. Thomas A. Dooley, noted 32-year-old Roman Catholic medical missionary to Laos, was reported in good condition at New York’s Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Institute this month, where he underwent surgery for a malignant chest tumor.

• A World Conference of Pentecostal Churches will be held in Jerusalem in May, 1961, by special invitation from the government of Isarel. The climax of the conference will be held on Pentecost Sunday in commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the second chapter of Acts.

• The Yankee network, an association of New England radio stations, cited youth leader Jack Wyrtzen last month in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to God, to America, and to humanity.” Wyrtzen’s weekly “Word of Life” broadcast originates from a Times Square auditorium.

• Democratic Senator Olin Johnson of South Carolina said on the floor of the Senate last month that the United States missed “a tremendous opportunity to teach the Russian people that we Americans depend on God in our daily living” when Vice President Nixon and his wife failed to attend church during their Russian visit.

• The Scripture Union, noted for its Bible reading plans, announced last month it has opened a “North American Division” in Havertown, Pennsylvania. The Scripture Union began in England in 1879.

• Nine students formed the first class of the Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem which began study August 31. All are graduates of U. S. colleges and seminaries. Their course lasts six months, whereupon a new group is scheduled to arrive from the United States.

• Several West German religious organizations are mapping plans to help find jobs for illegitimate children of German mothers and Negro fathers from U. S. occupation forces in Germany. There are some 72,000 West German children fathered illegitimately by foreign occupation troops, including 6,000 fathered by Negroes. Of the 6,000 about 1,500 will reach working age next spring.

• At a meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the National Youth Council of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. voted to change its name to “United Presbyterian Youth.”

• Dr. Albert Schweitzer is in Europe for a three-month rest.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY NEWS

To leaf through yellowed pages of old college catalogs is to realize that the Bible was once the priority text on many a U. S. campus. Scores of today’s big name universities were founded on Christian precepts. One of the tragedies of American history, say evangelical observers, is the repudiation of religious roots by so many educational institutions.

Just 25 miles west of Chicago’s loop is the 40-acre grassy campus of Wheaton College, whose 100-year history challenges the notion that academic prosperity means spiritual decay. For Wheaton continues to be an evangelical stronghold while building a reputation as one of the nation’s leading small colleges (“small” meaning that facilities limit enrollment to 1700).

Doubtless a factor in Wheaton’s high spiritual plane is the tradition which begins each academic year with a week long evangelistic campaign. For the fall 1959 term the school, in launching its centennial observance, has called as guest evangelist its most distinguished alumnus, an anthropology major who upon graduation in 1943 went on to become the most famous spokesman for evangelical Christianity? of our time: Billy Graham.

Considering Wheaton’s premium on evangelism, which out of 12,000 graduates has produced nearly 1,200 who are serving on 84 mission fields, officials felt it appropriate to begin the centenary year with a crusade in which even the surrounding community could participate. Graham’s team was called in and agreed to set up a full-fledged campaign with such big city complements as choir, counselor, and follow-up programs. Dr. Evan W. Welsh, college chaplain, heads an executive committee which includes ministers in and around the town of Wheaton.

The crusade is scheduled to begin Sunday afternoon, September 27, at McCully Field, college athletic stadium named after alumnus Edward McCully who with four other missionaries (including two former Wheaton classmates) was slain while seeking to bring the Gospel to the savage Aucas of Ecuador. Nightly public services will be held Monday through Friday in a newly-constructed gymnasium which accommodates 5,000. The crusade will close on Sunday, October 4 with another afternoon rally at McCully Field. Graham’s weekly radio broadcast, “The Hour of Decision,” is scheduled to originate from Wheaton on both Sundays.

The centennial program commemorates the transition of Illinois Institute, founded by a group of Wesleyan Methodists in 1852 but closed less than eight years later because of financial pressures, into Wheaton College. The college was opened shortly after Wheaton was incorporated as a village, taking its name from a settler in that area, Warren L. Wheaton, who granted land to the college and became a trustee.

The destiny of the interdenominational, coeducational liberal arts college has been guided by only four presidents. The first, Jonathan Blanchard, a Congregationalist who helped establish Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, was succeeded by his son, Charles. Their leadership steered the college through 65 years.

In 1925, Dr. James O. Buswell, Jr., took the helm and was succeeded in 1940 by the current president, Dr. V. Raymond Edman, who has spent the past summer recuperating from an operation for a detached retina.

Wheaton’s actual founding will be observed January? 9–10, but a number of events throughout the school year are planned in remembrance of the occasion. These include: Symposia in archaeology, theology, writing, philosophy, fine arts, general science, and social science; a “Spiritual Life Conference” in midwinter; and a dedication festival, “The Abundant Century,” scheduled for May 27–28. Several books are being published in connection with the centennial as well as a record album featuring Wheaton student musicians.

Wheaton’s resources are valued at approximately $16,000,000. The main campus has 16 major buildings, and the college owns two extension facilities: a 20-acre plot in the Black Hills of South Dakota where a science laboratory is located and where two terms of summer school in the field sciences are held each year, and a 160-acre site in Wisconsin which serves as a camping ground and provides students with counselor experience in the summer.

Wheaton maintains strictest admission procedures. Each applicant (he must be in the upper third of his high school graduating class) is required to sign an agreement that he will abstain from (1) use of alcohol and tobacco, (2) gambling and card-playing, (3) dancing, (3) meetings of secret societies, and (4) theater attendance.

“While as an individual the student may not be convinced of the necessity of these requirements,” says the catalog, “he is expected to be in harmony with their goal, and to observe them, whether at the College or away, as long as he is enrolled.”

Degrees offered by the college are bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, bachelor of science in professional chemistry, bachelor of science in nursing, bachelor of music, and bachelor of music in education. The Graduate School offers master’s degrees in biblical studies, theology and Christian education, plus a bachelor of divinity degree.

Wheaton’s “number one centennial project,” and its “most urgent need,” is a chapel-auditorium for which ground has already been broken. Alumni are spearheading a drive to raise $1,500,000 so that the building may be completed in time for centennial commencement exercises next June.

Whither Orthodoxy?

Is Orthodoxy moving toward a tie with Roman Catholicism? If so, what will it mean to Orthodox membership in the World Council of Churches?

The questions were set in new focus last month when ecumenical brass gathered on the Greek island of Rhodes for a meeting of the policy-making, 90-member Central Committee of the WCC.

“Observers” at the meeting, who attracted more attention than did delegates, included two representatives from the Moscow Patriarchate and two Roman Catholic priests. Newsmen probed for significant developments when the priests went into a huddle with Orthodox officials, but all insisted that the session was “absolutely informal.”

Russian Orthodox representatives sat in on Central Committee proceedings for the first time in history, the move being a part of a “get acquainted” program now going on with the WCC, leaders of which plan a trip to Moscow in December.

Whatever the future holds, it was obvious that Orthodoxy had the lion’s share of attention at Rhodes. This was the first time that the committee had ever convened in a predominantly Orthodox country. Dr. W. A. Visser’t Hooft, WCC general secretary, paid Eastern Orthodoxy a glowing tribute, noting in an opening address that back in 1919 it was the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Constantinople which became the first church to propose a permanent world council.

Perhaps ironically, however, Orthodox leaders have been less than enthusiastic about their participation in the ecumenical movement. Last month, for instance, Orthodox delegates reaffirmed their opposition to the WCC plan of merger with the International Missionary Council. The committee nevertheless moved ahead with the proposal by receiving a draft constitution and referring it to constituent churches for study, hopeful of culminating the merger at the 1961 WCC assembly (the site of which was shifted from Ceylon to New Delhi).

Eastern Orthodoxy opposes WCC-IMC on the grounds of fear of “antagonistic missionary activities” and the “radical nature of the change proposed in the structure of the World Council.” The IMC includes members which are not churches (national Christian councils, for example). “Can there be any witness apart from a church or confession?” asked one Greek Orthodox bishop.

Even as the council’s Faith and Order Commission was asking for more theological discussions between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, Visser’t Hooft promised a full airing on problems of religious liberty when the committee meets again next summer in Scotland. The debate presumably will take in discussion of freedom both in Roman Catholic and Communist countries.

Church Membership

The latest version of the Yearbook of American Churches, most authoritative compilation of U. S. religious statistics, shows a record high ratio of church membership to population.

Nearly two-thirds of the 5,368,063 membership “gain,” however, is drawn from new Roman Catholic statistics which for the first time listed 2,000,000 communicants in the “Military Ordinariate.” Thus the 2,000,000 Roman Catholic statistical addition alone accounts for more than two-fifths of the total U. S. church and synagogue membership increase. Protestant church members in the United States (an estimated 90–95 per cent of whom are over 13) totalled 61,504,669 compared with 39,509,508 Roman Catholics (including all baptized children).

Figures for the yearbook, edited by Benson Y. Landis and published by the National Council of Churches, were supplied by 251 church bodies as of the end of 1958.

The new U. S. church membership total, 109,557,741, represents 63 per cent of the nation’s estimated population.

Sunday and Sabbath (Saturday) school enrollment totalled 41,197,313 for 1958, a 2.1 per cent increase over 1957, according to figures from 229 church bodies (230 reported for 1957).

For the year covered, there was but one change in the “standings” of the top 10 U. S. denominations. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod became the eighth largest, displacing the still merging United Church of Christ (only major Protestant body whose membership fell).

Here are organizational totals:

According to “family” groupings:

FOR THE KIDDIES

Pastor Peterson saw my cartoon, and after mustering a chuckle remarked on the seriousness of immaturity in the church. The apostle, he said, complained about having to feed the Corinthians milk instead of meat, but now even milk won’t do. It has to be candy, or candy-coated tranquilizers.

Fearing that he had missed my point, I suggested that all this concern about immaturity could be a clear sign of it.

“Exactly,” he agreed. “But it is difficult to preach with child-like simplicity to people who are looking for childish gratification. Once children were treated as miniature adults. Now adults expect to be treated as children. Everyone relies on the paternalism of the government, school, employer, and the church too. It’s a child’s world, where all your thinking is done for you, and every story must have a happy ending. All religions lead to the end of the rainbow, and the best church is the one where you find most reassurance. The hymn of the century is ‘Dear Lord, Hold My Hand!’ ”

I tried to interrupt this sermon by asking if he disapproved of the figure of the Shepherd, too. I only deflected the discourse. The pastor is outraged by the sentimentality with which that biblical figure is draped. If Christians today understood it, they would live more like David or Peter and walk in the steps of the Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep.

When he left, he was fervently calling for the church militant to replace the church juvenescent.

THE PROBLEMS OF YOUTH

Your July 6 issue is an excellent … study on the problems of youth today. Thank you for the reservoir of material that so many capable leaders have compiled for us.

First Baptist Church

Damascus, Va.

The July 6 issue of your magazine has … reached me. I have read four articles, among them the first, by Pitirim A. Sorokin, and the one by your Associate Editor, J. Marcellus Kik, and I must say that for sheer pessimism I do not know their equal. Perhaps everything they say is true; but there isn’t a ray of hope in either of these articles. If I preached in that fashion every Sunday morning, either my Church would soon be empty, or folks would die from sheer despondency.…

If some of your writers could get the idea that a little good is more powerful than a great evil, they might at least express a hopeful thought in regard to the future.… My people leave the sanctuary happy on Sunday morning, as much as to say: “I believe I can meet the temptations and trials of the world for another week.”

The Methodist Church

Trinidad, Colo.

Each of the writers shot straight from the shoulder in describing our present day problems that are affecting our youth.

Town and Country Church of Christ

Carmichael, Calif.

I hereby confer an “Oscar.” These articles show us plainly what we’re getting into.

Princeton, N. J.

I was impressed, quite favorably, with the total impact of this particular issue. If I might mention the four items that “made” the issue: 1. The stimulating article by Dr. Sorokin set forth with quietly authoritative force a major problem of our time. The high quality of this article, even if we happen to believe that Dr. Sorokin’s suggested solutions are not ultimately realistic, was enough to carry over the motley array of inferior “traditio-homiletico” materials which followed his article directly.

2. The head-on grappling of L. Nelson Bell in his fortnightly column, with the question of “bibliolatry.” If this article proves nothing else, it proves that Dr. Bell is a courageous layman. But it does prove something else, and that is that in spite of the fact that Dr. Bell does not travel too far from opening question to concluding answer, nevertheless he reveals in this particular column … that his spirit is akin to the spirit which evangelical Christianity has long needed in both its irenics and its polemics. 3. The editorial headed “The Delinquent Church,” in its frank admission that the blame for some contemporary ills must be shared by all branches of the Church, reveals an intellectual depth and a spiritual humility and frankness that, if continuing in this magazine, may well persuade many of us that CHRISTIANITY TODAY is, indeed, the church magazine of our time. 4. But I was overjoyed to find Edward John Carnell’s positive review of Paul Tillich’s most recent book, Theology of Culture. This is one of your more honest and fair appraisals of Tillich.… I would have only one major question for Dr. Carnell, and that is in regard to his statement that Tillich’s theology cannot be considered to be consistently biblical. Perhaps Dr. Carnell would also be willing to say this of every exegete, theologian, evangelist, and parish minister. For surely complete consistency is not one of the realized goals of men in this life.

Simpson Church, Methodist

Paterson, N. J.

May I thank you indeed for publishing Dr. Pitirim A. Sorokin’s article “The Demoralization of Youth—Open Germs and Hidden Viruses”.… I thought he was absolutely correct in pointing to the cultural component surrounding the pornographic and obscene sexual literature which has been lately produced and increasingly distributed among our young people. He correctly indicates that the solution to this problem calls not for some overwhelming effort to arrive at a definition of words but rather for the disinfection of our entire life and culture from the cheap and sordid.

Acts of commitment in reconstructing our life through a personal witness in terms of our own reading, T. V. listening, movie attendance and behavior in general represents the most constructive form of censorship. The aroused conscience of the American people will more effectively than any machination serve as a weapon in cleansing the culture of America from the viruses that today infect youth and adults. This was a most constructive article and you are to be complimented for publishing it.

National Director

Dept, of Interreligious Cooperation

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith

New York, N. Y.

At the risk of appearing unappreciative of the excellent article by Professor Sorokin, may I point out one important omission among the factors contributing to juvenile delinquency, namely: the glamorized sex “education” offered by many teachers in his own field of sociology both at the school and college levels. Sex, as Dr. Sorokin pointed out, is glamorized by TV, movies, advertisements and novels. It need not, however, be so glamorized in the classroom. The writer has taught college biology for over four decades and believes he knows whereof he speaks.

Please accept my sincere thanks for your most excellent periodical. As an Anglican priest, I appreciate what you are doing for true Christian evangelism—the only defense against the forces of evil that would destroy the world. Waukesha, Wise.

“Will Alcohol Destroy our Youth?” … is one of the most challenging articles that I have seen in 40 years in the ministry. It confirms many of the things that the church has been stressing, in principle, for some years.

Forked River, N. J.

Mr. Kik’s article on juvenile delinquency in the July 6 issue carries knock-out impact. So comprehensive, well documented, and scriptural in tone, it makes one fear for the future of our land. In fact, the main articles in this issue expose the moral conditions in our nation so unmercifully that it is hard to see how God can any longer withhold judgment. That we are sinking fast is evident, and that against the most moral and spiritual light any nation has ever had. God have mercy on us!

Professor of Practical Theology

Northern Baptist Theol. Sem.

Chicago, Ill.

Mr. Kik states that Christian churches have neglected this … juvenile delinquency [problem].… I want to reproduce this article and place it in the hands of headquarters of each denomination.…

St. Louis, Mo.

For a long time now I have been enjoying CHRISTIANITY TODAY as a magazine which is dedicated to the truth and glorifies our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of the world.… The July 6 issue was especially interesting and revealing. One major thought stands out after reading the various articles on juvenile delinquency.… The only thing that can help to solve the problems of youth as well as the problems facing all of us, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This must be taught and preached constantly in churches and schools. It must also be taught in the light of the fact that all men are sinners and subject to the wrath of God unless they have a faith in Jesus Christ their Saviour. The problem is how to get this message to the children and keep it before them. The Christian education of the children is the task and dutv of the church for our Saviour said: “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And what God said to Moses in Deuteronomy 6 is still in force today: “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.”

Many Protestant churches have taken these words to mean that they should establish parish schools in which Christ is the center, and in which all subjects are taught, not just in an atmosphere of God’s presence, but in an atmosphere of the love of Christ the Saviour.

Establishing such a school is one of the most expensive things a congregation can do, and at the same time it is one of the most worthwhile activities that a church can utilize to “train up a child in the way that he should go.” Naturally such a school must be one where Christianity and all it implies permeates and affects every class and every subject, so that the children grow up to know and believe that Christ is all-important in their lives and the life of the world.

The parish school should be followed by a Christian High School in which Christ continues to be the solution to all of life’s problems. Since it seems that the state can do no more than just mention God and his law in the schools (in some places not even that much), it becomes the urgent responsibility of the Christian Church to provide an education for citizenship here and hereafter by establishing and maintaining more and more Christian schools both on the elementary and high school level, so that the children now growing up don’t become delinquents.…

The idea of establishing and maintaining Christian elementary and high schools is not merely wishful thinking because it is being done, however to a very limited degree in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, as your news story in [the same] issue points out. You report that this body has 1,418 elementary schools and 16 high schools. In spite of the cost of maintaining these schools you report in the next paragraph: “The Missouri Synod has more foreign missionaries than any of the world’s Lutheran bodies.” This is cited to point out that you can educate thoroughly as well as evangelize thoroughly. A great percentage of pastors, teachers and missionaries are products of Christian elementary and high schools in this denomination.

Thank you … for a fine report of the convention as well as the excellent and enlightening articles in this issue.

Board for Parish Education Chairman

The Southeastern District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Hickory, N. C.

ANGLICANS AND OTHERS

In regard to the recent article in your issue of June 22 by Mr. P. E. Hughes: It is rather absurd for Anglicans to be subject to ridicule continuously for their insistence upon episcopacy when this insistence is at least in keeping with the opinion and practice of the great majority of Christians. Surely one cannot overlook Rome and Orthodoxy today or the history of the Church before 1519. Do these detractors of the Anglican position think that they are going to aid the cause of reunion by removing Anglicanism from this relationship with the East and with Rome? Or, one may ask, are these persons really concerned with the reunion of all of Christendom, East and West, Catholic and Protestant?

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

New Orleans, La.

Please allow me to invite your readers to examine for themselves the preface to the Anglican ordinal. (It will be found after the Psalter in the American Book of Common Prayer.) And then let them examine Mr. Edgcumbe Hughes’ edited version of the first paragraph and his deduction that this means no more than to “… define and justify the threefold Orders of Anglicanism.”

Hudson, Wise.

Anglicans do not … hold that denominational ministries are null and void in the sense that they have no spiritual efficacy, and in the early days of the Church, other “minor orders” functioned. Our only claim is that for us, within the Faith and Order of the Church Catholic, the threefold Orders of Ministers are necessary. Other ministries have limited themselves principally to the Preaching of the Word, which is only one facet, to us, of the work of Christ, however important.

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Mount Prospect, Ill.

The Anglican Church claims today that it has the Apostolic Ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons for several reasons: (1) It is the visible and concrete link with the Church of the past and with the historic life of Christ on earth. (2) It is the ministry not of the local church but of the whole Catholic Church of Christ. The three-fold ministry acts for the whole, not just a part of the church or a specific local congregation. When a bishop or priest gives absolution he readmits the recipient to the fellowship of the Body of Christ; therefore, one who bestows it must possess the authority of the whole of Christ’s Mystical Body. An Anglican bishop is a bishop of the whole Catholic and Apostolic Church, not just a district superintendent or administrative officer. (3) We believe that the Succession is the guarantee of valid ministrations. Whatever gifts God may bestow outside it, we are assured that His grace is to be found within it. On the side of doctrine, it is the pledge of Catholicity.

… The Canons of 1604 (9 and 10) … speak of non-conformist ministers “as schismatics … who separate themselves from the Communion of Saints as it is approved by the Apostles’ Rule, in the Church of England.” And, if such was not thought of until the Tractarian Movement, why the Anglican ethos of the Caroline Divines such as Bishop Jeremy Taylor? Also, what about Archbishop Laud? If it was disapproved of, it certainly was an act of Puritan government and happenings which led to such government, and not of the true English Church.

All Saints’ Parish

Nevada, Mo.

It is hoped that the Archbishop of Canterbury will answer the last half of this one-page report so ably presented by Mr. Hughes, i.e., answer in your pages.

It is interesting that “bishops-in-presbytery have been ‘utterly rejected.’ ” This is in contrast to the United Church of Canada’s admission that bishops must be accepted in the talks with the Anglican Church of Canada about union. Would a United Churchman care to comment?

St. David’s Presbyterian Church

Campbellville, Ont.

THE FICKLE WIND

“Spit not at your neighbor, lest the wind change directions, etc.” This was my major thought when I read the letter written by Mr.… Rowland (May 25 issue). Shame on you, Mr. Rowland! You have done a bit of spitting, too.

Immanuel Mission Covenant Church

Chicago, Ill.

When the human body no longer reacts to external stimuli one of three things has taken place: it is either anesthetized, desperately ill, or a corpse.

When a social order no longer reacts against flagrant sin it has become insensitive to evil or spiritually dead.

Where is the grace of righteous indignation of which we once were capable?

Where is the sense of moral anger which rebels and cries out against sins which are a stench in the nostrils of a holy God?

We have become so tolerant of evil that we mutely turn away while it expands and flourishes all about us.

Even as I write this I can hear the cry of “Negativism” which this article will elicit from churchmen who should know better.

Let me say with all the earnestness I can command: The human body which does react vigorously to infection is in grave danger: so too is the Church which fails to react against evil.

Our sense of values has become so distorted that we are inclined to accept the standards of the world rather than those given to us by a holy God.

Every one of the Ten Commandments is flouted today while, even within the Church, many try to rationalize these aberrations and excuse them in terms of the degenerate philosophies of the paganism by which we are surrounded.

The loss of the ability to be aroused over immorality—and those things which lead to immoral practices—is now so marked that those things once done in secret are now matters of common discussion.

What has happened to a generation in which there is so little outery against evil? What has happened to churchmen who condone in their own families immodesty and looseness of behavior which only too often leads to disaster?

What has happened to our national leaders when their votes against evil practices are usually predicated on “what my constituency wants,” and not on the moral issue itself?

The evidences of moral and spiritual deadness are in evidence on every hand. Even now we are entertaining as a guest a man who represents the very incarnation of evil.

We have become so enamoured with the word “freedom” that we have confused it with license. We are so anxious to be “liberal” that we forget God’s holiness cannot be liberalized. We are so concerned with “progressive” programs that we often fail to see they are reversions to discredited philosophies of the past.

There is much talk today about “prophetic preaching” and this is good. But when such preaching concerns itself primarily with the collective sins of society and ignores the soul-damning sins of the individuals of which that society is composed, it is overlooking the one hope of a redeemed society—redeemed people.

If one will study the minutes of the great denominational meetings one will find that much of the time is spent discussing matters which have no bearing on the eternal welfare of man. Why is there so much concern over the immediate and so little about the ultimate.

When we know that alcoholism is one of America’s great social problems why is the Church largely silent about social drinking—from which alcoholism proceeds?

When we are confronted with the fact that America, as a nation, has become obsessed with sex, why does the Church say so little about purity of life?

Hours are now spent in church courts lowering the standards regarding divorce and remarriage while not even a minute is devoted to the Seventh Commandment.

We believe the Church must share in the responsibility for America’s lowered moral standards. Too few have had the courage to speak out against that unending pressure to throw off those moral restraints which are a part of genuine Christian character.

Too many Christians have become enmeshed in the trends of our day and in so doing lost their inclination and right to speak out against evil.

The writer is on neither a witch hunt, nor is he speaking from ignorance. We know conditions have changed and that moral values have slipped to an unbelievable low. For a good many years we associated with a number of people who were classified as rather “rough” in those days: college and medical students, local politicians and police, professional baseball players and hangers-on. In all those years we never came in contact with a known homosexual.

Now these people are everywhere. The president of a theological seminary told us only last week that the president of another great Christian institution remarked that his great problem came from homosexuals, not from alcohol.

In the Old Testament Sodom and the revolting practices of that city are held up to us as examples of utter depravity.

In the letter to the Romans Paul speaks of this matter in the frankest way: “Men with men performed these shameful horrors, receiving, of course, in their own personalities the consequences of sexual perversity.”

What has happened which has permitted perversion to be regarded as merely a psychiatric problem? Why is alcoholism merely a disease and no longer a sin? Why is lewd literature merely the expression of our times and not an affront to society?

Why does evil become “art” when portrayed in attractive form from the stage or screen? Why is dishonesty so commonly condoned, provided the thief gets by with his crookedness?

These and many other perversions of right are so entrenched in our society that nothing less than a cleansing work of the Holy Spirit can bring about a change.

But the Holy Spirit operates in the minds and hearts of individuals. It is His purpose to fill men and through them to speak out against unrighteousness wherever it is found.

This is a matter of the gravest importance. There is every reason to believe that the judgment of God will fall on our nation because we have lost our own sense of righteous indignation over the evil which is flouted on every side.

In the epistle to the Romans we read: “Now the holy anger of God is disclosed from Heaven against the godlessness and evil of those men who render Truth dumb and inoperative by their wickedness … are you by your obstinate refusal to repent simply storing up for yourself an experience of the wrath of God in the Day when, in His holy anger against evil, He shows His Hand in righteous Judgment?” (Phillips).

A moral anger exercised without divine wisdom plays into the hands of the Devil. That which we need is a renewed cleansing of our own hearts and an infilling of the Holy Spirit. Then, and only then, can we stand in the breech and become the instruments of a righteous witness against which even the unregenerate will quail.

It may cost us dearly, but Christ’s own cannot count the cost.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2).

The first paragraph of the Epistle gives a summary view of its main subject, the finality of the absolute Revelation in Christ as contrasted with the preparatory revelation under the Old Covenant.

The Law And The Gospel

But in this diversity he still sets before us but one God, that no one might think that the Law militates against the Gospel, or that the author of the one is not the author of the other.

JOHN CALVIN

The pronoun us refers directly to the Jews of that age, to which class belonged both the writer and his readers; but the statement is equally true in reference to all, in every succeeding age, to whom the word of this salvation comes. God, in the completed revelation of his will, respecting the salvation of men through Christ Jesus, is still speaking to all who have an opportunity of reading the New Testament or of hearing the Gospel. The Christian revelation is to be traced to the same origin as the Jewish revelation. It is the same God that speaks to us, who speaks to the fathers; and as that God is one, the two revelations must be harmonious. The Law cannot be against the Promise.

JOHN BROWN

In that revelation of the divine will which the Bible contains, we have a series of communications, stretching through a course of many centuries, conveyed through individuals of different habits, tastes, education and talents, and characterized by the greatest variety of form and style. Amid all this diversity, however, of outward circumstances, the great Author of the whole remained from the first to the last the same. By whomsoever the message was borne to men, whether by patriarchs or prophets, or by the Son of God Himself; at whatever period it was announced, whether in the early dawn of the world’s history, or after “the fulness of the time” had already come; and in whatever form it appeared, whether clothed in symbols, or conveyed in the language of direct communication; whether set forth by some silent, yet significant type, or proclaimed by the living voice of some gifted seer; whether uttered in brief and naked terms, or wrapt in the gorgeous mantle of impassioned poetry, it was throughout the same Divine Spirit who inspired the messenger and authorized the message.

A. ALEXANDER

By His Son

In opposition to the gradual revelation of the mind of God under the Old Testament, the apostle intimates that now by Jesus, the Messiah, the Lord hath at once begun and finished the whole revelation of his will. So Jude 3, the faith was “once delivered unto the saints”; not in one day, not in one person, or by one sermon, but at one season, or under one dispensation, comprising all the time from the entrance of the Lord Christ upon his ministry to the closing of the canon of Scripture which period was not at hand. This season being once past and finished, no new revelation is to be expected, to the end of the world.

JOHN OWEN

The striking aspect of this statement is, that it appears (at the beginning!) in the epistle which leaves no stone unturned to show that the absolute and exclusive salvation is in Christ. This exclusiveness of salvation apparently does not at all conflict with the fact that God’s speaking in and by his Son is mentioned together with God’s earlier speaking “in divers manners.” The vision of the unique salvation in Christ, the High Priest, is no occasion whatsoever to devaluate God’s speaking and revelation in time past. To the contrary, God’s speaking is seen in its broad and varied scope: at sundry times and in divers manners. It is pluriform over a long historic period, a historic multifarious activity of God, which is placed next to “God’s speaking” by the Son, and this apparently does not in the least minimize and weaken Christ Jesus’ import, to the author’s estimation.

G. C. BERKOUWER

As in his person, in which dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, he rises above all classification and is sui generis; so the revelation accumulated in him stands outside all the divers portions and divers manners in which otherwise revelation has been given and sums up in itself all that has been or can be made known of God and of his redemption. He does not so much make a revelation of God as himself is the revelation of God; he does not merely disclose God’s purpose of redemption, he is unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The theophanies are but faint shadows in comparison with his manifestation of God in the flesh. The prophets could prophesy only as the Spirit of Christ which was in them testified.

B. B. WARFIELD

The one expression “in a Son” involves in itself a full antithesis to the fragmentary model revelation given to the fathers in the prophets. In the first place, there is only one agent of revelation instead of many, therefore the revelation is given in one gush instead of in many separate parts. Then the absence of the article in the phrase en huio gives it this meaning, that one standing to God in the relation of Son can make a revelation which shall be perfect in its character, therefore complete and final in contents. The thought is substantially identical with that expressed in the Fourth Gospel. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” A Son dwelling in the bosom of God, his Father, and having access to his inmost thoughts, is fit to be the perfect exegete of his mind: such is the implicit argument of both Gospel and Epistle. This view implies that the Son must be the last speaker: no more remains to be said.

A. B. BRUCE

The Last Days

In these last days. This is a mode of speaking which was peculiar to the Hebrews. It originated from the fact that, agreeably to divine predictions, they were expecting the advent of the Messiah. His advent was the grand epoch in the world’s history, and constituted a dividing line between its two great portions, namely, the time before his advent, and the time, or the ages, after it, which time would endure forever, since the Messiah’s kingdom would be fully developed only in the eternal state. Among the Hebrews who lived before this event, the time then passing was denominated this age, these times, this world; and the period after this event was designated by corresponding terms, chiefly by the expression the world, or the age, which is coming, or briefly, the world to come.

H. J. RIPLEY

Deep in the Amazon jungle an Ocaina Indian returned recently to his tribe. While away he had heard the Gospel explained in simple Spanish and had put his trust in Christ. Neither his education nor his elementary Spanish, however, had enabled him to read and understand the Spanish Bible. Forced to rely on his memory, he began to tell his fellow tribesmen of God’s Son who had come to earth and died for them. “But why did Christ have to die?” they asked. “Well,” he reported later, “I couldn’t quite remember what had been told me, but I told them that people have to die or the world would get too populated, so Christ showed us how to die.”

This man did not mean to pervert the truth. He was desperately in earnest as he tried to answer the honest questions of his listeners. But he had no place to find the answers. He needed the Word of God in his own Ocaina language, written right then, not years later.

The young Ocaina believer was not the first to fall into error for lack of the written Word. Centuries before, Mohammed had undertaken to proclaim to his people in their own language the true religion which he recognized had been communicated in Judaism and Christianity. He had some knowledge of what the Bible said, gained apparently by hearsay from poorly instructed Christians. Inevitable distortions were the result, and an apocryphal Christ—not the Christ of the Christian Scriptures—emerged in the Koran. When Moslems came to examine the Scriptures placed in their hands by tardy Christians, they concluded from their disagreement with the Koran that the Jews and Christians had corrupted the primitive revelation of Mohammed! During the past 400 years oral tradition without the written Word in their own language has given the Ixil Indians of Guatemala a travesty of even the simplest Gospel facts. “God” is a crochety old man who cannot control his world any more. Therefore he has his strong young son to keep order and prevent skullduggery. “Jesus Christ” is the son and has some very effective tricks whereby he keeps things under control. For example, one day Jesus was captured by some Jews who tied him up in a corner and sat down to celebrate with a pot of chicken stew. Jesus blessed the chicken. It jumped in the pot splashing chili into the eyes of the Jews. While they were wiping their eyes, Jesus escaped. The “apostles” are the twelve men who hung Jesus on the cross. Of the two thieves crucified with Christ, one was a liar, thus very bad, and could not be forgiven. The other was a good man who had merely killed another man, so Jesus could pardon him!

Surely God never intended that the millions of Islam, nor the 25,000 Ixil, nor even the few hundred Ocaina should have such a frightful caricature of the truth concerning His Son. All alike are the victims of oral tradition, doubly dangerous across language boundaries. That it might not be so, He gave mankind a book, “written that ye might believe” and “that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.” The Church’s missionary responsibility to give the authoritative Word of God to every man in his own language at the earliest possible moment is not a matter of population statistics. It is a matter of divine principle. God’s revelation of himself and his Son should be given to every man as God himself by his Spirit delivered it to the Church—written and in the language of the people.

The Cutting Edge Of Evangelism

The strength of evangelical Protestantism has always been in a personal living relationship to the risen Lord and a knowledge of, and obedience to, his written Word. From the “It is written” of Christ and the apostles to its twentieth century counterpart “The Bible says,” the written Word of God in the language of the people has been the cutting edge of evangelism, the source of strength and growth of believers, the rule of faith and practice for the Church, the bulwark against error, and the final authority for the spoken message. It is no mere happenstance that from its earliest days the Christian Church has been known as “the people of the Book.”

In carrying out her Lord’s command to preach the Gospel to every creature, the Church has recognized down through the centuries the importance of putting the actual written Word in the hands of the people in the language they are best able to comprehend for themselves, whatever the problems or cost of doing so might be. Even before Christ, Alexandrian Jews produced the Septuagint so they might understand the Scriptures read in their own synagogue. Jerome left his large congregation to find another preacher while he translated the Vulgate. Ulfilas invented an alphabet for the hitherto unwritten Gothic language. Wycliffe, Oxford scholar and linguistic pioneer, first translated the entire Bible into English, and he and his followers made by hand over 170 copies of this the first English Bible. Waldo hired priests to translate, then memorized whole Gospels in order to preach the Word. Elliot translated for a now extinct race, but his Pequot Bible served some 3,600 converts and 24 native preachers in its generation. Carey alienated supporters at home by giving time to the writing of grammars and dictionaries in order to lay a foundation for scholarly translation. The Serampore group translated and published Scriptures for languages among whom there were at the time no believers. By the time the Bengali New Testament came from the press there were four believers waiting for it. Four more opened their hearts to the Saviour the very first night after a copy was left in their village for any who could read. Morrison, in the face of opposition from employers, the death penalty for readers, and criticism from friends at home, plodded on to complete the whole Bible in Chinese. These and scores of others like them bear eloquent testimony to the high priority the Church has given to vernacular Scriptures.

The Language Of The People

This deeply ingrained realization of the need of the Scriptures in the everyday language of the people is further evidenced by the unprecedented demand today, on the part of national churches, for revision of existing Scriptures and further translation for those who as yet have only a part. Major revisions are now going on in more than 90 languages and further translation in another 175.

The fact that 1,127 languages have now received the Scriptures either in whole or in part (only 215 have the whole Bible) is no grounds for complacency. Some 2,000 languages spoken in our world today are still without a single verse of Scripture. No missionary-minded believer questions that these remaining tribes, many of whom are quite small, have a right to hear the Gospel. But that the Scriptures should be translated and published for them too is challenged by some on the “practical” grounds of limited finances, limited personnel, limited printing facilities, perpetuation of language differences, and political and ecumenical expediency. That one convert has less need of the Scriptures than a thousand converts, is neither logically nor theologically defensible. As a business venture there is a world of difference, but the Christian missionary enterprise is not a commercial concern, nor is it to limit its activities to those that are commercially profitable.

That missionary work to reach the remaining smaller groups should shift from the divine precedent and the historic practice of the Church and proceed without the Scriptures in the language of the people, for any reason, is a serious matter. To present every man perfect in Christ Jesus is the goal of all true missionary endeavor. The Scriptures are God’s means, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, the missionary, and the convert, to bring this to pass.

One has only to see the fruit of giving the Word to a small tribe to realize that it is spiritually profitable and that even “practical” reasons crumble before God’s manifest blessing upon his own Word. Moran, a Piro chief of the upper Amazon basin, came to the translator with the request that she work out some sort of Bible study for the Piro women. “Most of them need the help of the Word” he said. “They aren’t growing in the Lord as are their husbands.” He then added: “My wife is kind of different from the other women. When she does something wrong, I say to her, ‘Nina, God’s Word says so and so.’ And she says, ‘Moran, is that what God’s Word says?’ So I give her the Word and she reads it for herself and then she doesn’t do that any more. When I do something I shouldn’t, she says to me, ‘Moran, sit down!’ And I sit down. Then she says to me (soft and meek, like she always is), ‘Moran, doesn’t God’s Word say thus and so?’ So then I go and read it and by God’s help I don’t do that any more.” Children of the jungle—members of the twentieth century Church of the living God—people of the Book! Of the 1,000 Piros in Peru, over 600 have been born again by the Word of God in their own tongue. Today they are carrying on services in 12 different places and have already sent missionaries to adjoining areas. Was it “practical” to produce the whole New Testament for 1,000 jungle Indians? The reader will be glad to know that now at long last portions of the Scripture are available for the Ixil and in process for the Ocaina.

Bible Translation Progress

It is worth noting that the Bible translation movement has steadily accelerated throughout the centuries. From 100 A.D. to 1450 A.D. 33 languages received Scriptures, a rough average of a new language every 40 years. By 1800, 71 languages had some printed portion (including some but not all of the above 33), an average of a new language every 9 (or less) years; 1801 to 1830 86 more, or 3 new languages per year; 1831 to 1937 851 more, or 8 per year. Between 1937 and 1955 the average dropped to 4.6 new translations per year, but in the 24-month period 1956–57 35 more languages received something for the very first time, an average of a new language every 3 weeks! As we face the formidable task of giving the Scriptures to the 2,000 languages still to go, may we not lose heart but rise to new heights of attainment and to the completion of the task!

Twenty-five years ago two organizations came into existence, one specifically dedicated to providing the Scriptures for those still without them, the other a training institute to prepare workers for the linguistic research which must undergird such a program. The combined efforts of the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics have already resulted in portions of the Word being published for the first time in over 90 languages. Field work is in process in another 100 languages. Strategic planning for the extension of training facilities and placement of workers in the remaining 2,000 languages is now under way. This year, on the 25th anniversary of these two organizations, a “Call To Prayer And Special Effort To Reach 2,000 Bibleless Tribes In This Generation” has gone out over the signatures of outstanding Christian leaders in the earnest hope that God will stir the forces of all Christendom to the completion of this vital and basic task.

The essential nature of the task and the problems encountered are as they always have been. Unwritten languages are being given alphabets. Grammars, dictionaries and scientific linguistic articles are being published. Hand-typed copies, then limited field-duplicated translations, are tested and revised in actual use with the people before definitive printed editions are produced. Primitive tribespeople are being taught to read and are studying and teaching the Word of God. Because of the scientific and educational aspects of the work, governments have granted permission for and given substantial backing to the translation task, even where missionaries as such are prohibited. The modern science of descriptive linguistics plus developments in transportation and communication have made possible and speeded up the research and translation task even in the most primitive areas. The training facilities in America, Australia, and Great Britain, and the research and translation program now in progress in 11 countries in both hemispheres, have been of service to many missions and other organizations also dedicated to getting the Word of God to the peoples of the world and laboring in every part of the world.

Answer To The Problem

The answer to the problem of reaching the 2,000 Bibleless tribes is certainly not to be found in abandoning the divinely given and historically attested principle of giving the Word of God in the language of the people. The answer lies in a mighty working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of his own that will issue in a new sacrificial giving of time in prayer, of manpower, and of funds.

This is a strategic time for the Christian Church to reaffirm her unshakeable confidence in the Word of God, not only for her own need but also in the evangelization of the world. We are the “people of the Book,” but are we committed to giving it to all others in the same measure that we ourselves have received it, written and in their own language, whatever the cost? God is already committed to blessing such a program, for he has said: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

END

George M. Cowan is President of the Board of Directors of Wycliffe Bible Translators and Director of the Extension Department. He holds the B.A. from McMaster University (Brandon College) in Canada, and the Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary. He was one of a team of four who translated the New Testament into the Mazateco language of Southern Mexico for publication by American Bible Society.

(Part II will appear in the next issue.)

Is Matthew, our first canonical Gospel, a genuine and authentic production of an apostle? The answer to this question is at stake in the debate on the validity of the Mark-hypothesis. The question of Matthew’s authenticity is tied to the question whether it was known and used by Mark, or Mark was used by its writer. It is therefore of importance to decide whether Mark came first, as the Mark-hypothesis holds, or whether Matthew was written first.

The writer of “More Light on the Synoptics” (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 2 issue) tries to prove the Mark-hypothesis. He claims that Mark was written first and was used and adapted by the writer of our Matthew. His attempted proof of the priority of Mark is the most important part of his article. Therefore we will consider it first. We meet here a kind of argument often given for the Mark-theory. We are firmly convinced that it is not, and indeed in the nature of the case can never become, a valid proof. After pulling the attempted proof to the ground four distinct times by four separate handles, we will explain why, in our opinion, no one should accept the same article’s special pleading for Matthew’s genuineness and authenticity. And lastly, we have a point to clarify. Some readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY concluded that the present writer argued (“New Light on the Synoptic Gospels”) for totally independent origination of our first three Gospels. But this was not so.

The Internal Evidence

First let us recall the case for the priority of Mark given in “More Light.” “Weighty internal evidence pointing to the priority of Mark, however, exists not only in the linguistic minutiae of the Gospels but even more impressively in the selection and arrangement of the material.” Two kinds of evidence for the Mark-hypothesis are claimed: 1. Weighty internal evidence in the linguistic minutiae; 2. Weighty internal evidence still more impressive in the selection and arrangement of material.

As to this, the reader will observe that no evidence of the first kind is produced in the article “More Light.” What was asked for in “New Light” (November 10) was “a single, unequivocal piece of internal evidence—even if it were only a straw in the wind capable of showing which way the wind was blowing—that made it look as if something in Matthew had been copied from Mark.” A strong general assertion that there is much weighty evidence of a specific kind coupled with the absence of a single specific item of such asserted evidence is not impressive. What would be impressive would be one or more sets of parallel passages in Matthew and Mark accompanied by reasons for thinking that Matthew must have been quoting, or using, or adapting Mark rather than vice versa. Such evidence is sometimes offered. It sounds good until one hears other reasons why the same phenomena may be equally well or even better explained on the supposition that Mark was using, copying, or adapting Matthew’s accounts. Since no such evidence is adduced, however, no reply is necessary.

The only argument for the Mark-theory in “More Light” is based on weighty internal evidence in the selection and arrangement of material. The writer examines the three orders of events in three chains of narratives contained in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The argument here is basically neither literary nor historical. Three strings of beads might be put before us as a puzzle. We might be asked to determine from the different orders of arrangement of corresponding beads in the three strings which order of arrangement in which string was the original, and which orders of arrangement in the other two strings had been copied in part from it. Indeed, the reader will better grasp the real nature of this argument in “More Light” if he will transfer the reasoning process to something like three strings of beads or three rows of blocks. Thus the purely logical and argumentative aspect will emerge to view, and, as we shall show, vanish into thin air.

The argument presented in “More Light” is this:

If … one of our present Gospels provided the basic order of events which is followed by the other two, the pattern to be expected is this:

The pattern will be: B and C agree with A and therefore with each other (figure 6); or B agrees with A against C (figure 7); or C agrees with A against B (figure 8). We will not expect to find agreement between B and C against A (figure 9), for they do not depend on each other but on A.

A Hidden Assumption

The first handle by which we may take hold of this argument is a hidden assumption. The (mere) semblance of probability in the above statement arises from an unstated assumption. That assumption is that whoever wrote C must have had no knowledge of B. For otherwise anyone could say that where A and B agree, C follows their common order. But where he finds A and B in disagreement, C makes a choice. Sometimes he follows A’s order. At other times he elects to follow B’s. So that, unless we rigidly exclude the possibility that C (say Luke) could have known B (say Mark) as well as A (say Matthew), there is nothing strange at all in B and C agreeing against A (as in figure 9 in “More Light”). It only proves that C knew B. It has no force towards showing that B must have preceded A in time of origin. And therefore, the argument would have logical force only if restated with the addition of the following italicized words: “If … one of our present Gospels provided the basic order of events which is followed in total independence of each other by each of the writers of the other two, the pattern to be expected …” and so on. “More Light” employs this objectionable hidden assumption in the last words of its statement, namely, “for they are not dependent upon each other but upon A.” But since we do not exclude the possibility that Luke’s writer, coming third, may have known and used Mark as well as Matthew, and since no reason seems to appear for excluding this possibility, the argument is invalid.

Suppression Of Contradictions

The second handle by which we may take hold of the argument in “More Light” is an unmentioned range of contradictory facts. They are just the kind of facts assumed by its argument not to exist. They directly disprove the line of reasoning in the article.

The keystone of the argument in “More Light,” remember, is this: “Since Matthew and Luke are never found to agree against Mark in places where all three have corresponding elements, therefore, it follows that Mark must be first.”

The argument based on arrangement of material is invalid, because there are places in which Matthew and Luke agree exactly against Mark. These agreements are in sections where Mark has corresponding elements. “More Light” assumes and asserts that there are no facts of a special kind that would nullify its reasoning. Yet such facts do exist. The long and short of it follows: Marsh (in 1803) had asserted that Luke never agrees with Matthew except in those places where Mark also agrees. “But in fact however,” Holtzmann (in 1863) had countered, “Matthew and Luke even agree in the choice of single words and expressions, which Mark does not have in the passages in question.…” He then lists nearly 40 examples of such facts, and adds that this list could easily be enlarged were certain commonly used principles of textual criticism followed, such as choosing the harder readings of Mark as more likely to be the genuine ones.

Such facts as those noticed by Holtzmann not only directly contradict the argument in “More Light,” they point out its gravest defect. That argument says: “See the facts of agreement and disagreement in the order of the arrangement of the blocks and sections!” But why should we look at these data of agreement and disagreement alone? It virtually says: “We need only look at a fraction of the relevant data!” It skips over facts of agreement and disagreement in details. Yet the latter are of equal importance under the argument’s terms and assumptions. Indeed, they are of even greater significance because they show that in the smallest details of word choice Matthew and Luke do agree against Mark. Such agreements against Mark are just as relevant and important as any agreements in the order of events. In fact, they are more important. They show that in numerous places throughout the whole of Mark in materials common to all three Gospels Matthew and Luke agree against Mark in minute details. Such facts directly negate the keystone proposition in “More Light.” The only way to get around such facts on that argument’s conditions is to ignore their existence, or to print reconstructed texts of the Gospels that eliminate them.

Inverting The Argument

There is a third handle by which we may take hold on the “More Light” argument. We may pick up the same fish by its tail. In 1949 a friend of mine startled me. He said, “I have been working on the order of events in the first three Gospels. The facts of agreement and disagreement, as the modern books state them, have a very simple answer. That answer is that Mark came last.” His explanation (along with a little clarification of my own) runs somewhat as follows.

The “facts” are:

1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke sometimes all three agree in their orders of arrangements of events;

2. Matthew and Mark are sometimes found agreeing in order against Luke;

3. Mark and Luke are sometimes found agreeing in order against Matthew; but the claim is

4. that Matthew and Luke are never found agreeing in order of arrangement against Mark.

These facts immediately suggest that Mark came last, not first. When Mark, coming last, found Matthew and Luke in agreement, he adopted their order: hence we sometimes find all three in agreement. When Mark, coming last, saw that Matthew and Luke did not agree, he was forced to decide for one or the other, or for neither. Sometimes he preferred Matthew’s order: hence, he is found agreeing with Matthew against Luke. Sometimes he preferred to adopt Luke’s arrangement: hence, he is found agreeing with Luke against Matthew. In view of the fact that Mark gives almost nothing which is not in either Matthew or Luke or both, it is obvious that the writer of Mark, coming last, could practically always have obtained guidance from either Matthew or Luke if they diverged, or from both if they agreed. And when Mark inserted the few items not found in either Matthew or Luke, their insertion would not disrupt the continuity of agreement in order of events between Mark and either Matthew or Luke. The real reason, therefore (on this assumption), why Matthew and Luke never agree “to go against Mark’s order” is that Mark coming last, has never thought of defying the common judgment of his two predecessors as to the order of events, appearing in the Gospel history. This, surely, is a reasonable and logical explanation.

Divergent Possibilities

It will be noticed that this way of explanation is compatible with the assumption that either Matthew or Luke may have been the first Gospel. In either case, if Mark was last, the facts (i.e., the supposed facts) are suitably explained (i.e., can be equally well accounted for, which, by the way, is a very different thing). “Elementary, my dear Watson” is the really proper answer to my friend’s explanation. For this, of course, is the way several generations of scholars (Griesbach and the Tübingen School), all acute men, handled these facts for a number of decades in earlier days of Gospel studies. They did not walk away from them or around them. They picked up the fish by the tail. And how, now, can these facts, so neatly accounted for by supposing Mark was last written, be used to prove that it was our first written Gospel and the source of the other two?

Argument From Arrangement

The fourth handle for dealing with the proof attempted in “More Light” consists in the possibility of demonstrating that every argument based on “arrangement” of the materials is incapable of showing which Gospel is the earliest. Only five kinds of “literary” facts of agreement and disagreement in arrangement are possible. Only six orders of composition of our first three Gospels are possible. The five kinds of “literary” facts are:

Case I: Matthew agrees with Mark against Luke;

Case II: Matthew agrees with Luke against Mark;

Case III: Mark agrees with Luke against Matthew;

Case IV: Matthew, Mark, and Luke all disagree in their order of events;

Case V: Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree in their orders. The six possible orders of composition of our first three Gospels are: M-Mk-L; M-L-Mk; Mk-M-L; Mk-L-M; L-M-Mk; L-Mk-M. All of the five kinds of “literary” facts can be satisfactorily accounted for under any theory as to the order in which the first three Gospels were composed. The explanations which give a satisfactory account are:

1. Assuming Matthew was first, data of Case I are accounted for by supposing either that Mark copied from Matthew, and Luke departed from either or both of them; or, if Mark came last, that where Matthew and Luke disagreed he chose to adopt Matthew’s order rather than Luke’s.

2. Assuming Matthew was first, data of Case II are accounted for either by supposing that Luke copied Matthew, and Mark thereafter departed from either or both of them; or, if Mark came second, that he departed from Matthew, while Luke, where he found Matthew and Mark in disagreement, chose to follow Matthew rather than Mark.

3. Assuming Matthew was first, data of Case III are accounted for by assuming either that Mark had disagreed with Matthew, and Luke then chose between the two and decided to follow Mark; or, if Mark was last, that he, finding Matthew and Luke in disagreement, chose to adopt Luke’s order.

4. Assuming Mark was first, data of Case I are accounted for either by supposing Matthew came second and agreed with Mark, while Luke coming last went against both; or, if Luke came second, he went against Mark, and then Matthew coming last elected to adopt Mark’s order, preferring it to Luke’s.

5. Assuming Mark came first, data of Case II are accounted for either by supposing, if Matthew came second, that he rejected Mark’s order, and Luke coming third chose to follow Matthew rather than Mark; or, if Luke came second, that he rejected Mark’s order, while Matthew coming last chose to follow Luke rather than Mark.

6. Assuming Mark was first, data of Case III are accounted for by supposing either that Matthew came second and went against Mark, while Luke coming last chose to go with Mark’s order rather than with Matthew’s, or, if Luke came second, that he adopted Mark’s order, while Matthew coming last then decided to go against both of them.

Assuming that Luke was first, an option excluded by “More Light,” three more statements similar to those in 1–3 and 4–6 could be produced. The nine statements would cover all 18 possible permutations of the six possible orders of Gospel composition in combination with the three classes of literary data in Cases I–III We have not produced statements accounting for the data in Cases IV and V. They would consist of a series of disagreements or rejections in the one case, or of agreements in the other, under every possible order of composition of the Gospels. Now, therefore, since there is no possible way of ruling out the possibility that the author of the third Gospel may have known both his predecessors’ works, and since, further, no conceivable warrant exists for saying that in matters of mere arrangement any statement in 1–6 above is a priori impossible or improbable, it is logically impossible to mount any argument for the priority of Matthew or Mark (or, for that matter, of Luke) on any kind or combination of kinds of agreement or disagreement in matters of arrangement of materials.

Readers will recall Dr. Ludlum’s article “New Light on the Synoptic Problem” (November 10 and 24, 1958, issues), to which Dr. George Eldon Ladd replied with “More Light on the Synoptics” (March 2, 1959, issue). In this article Dr. Ludlum again disputes the modern critical view which maintains that Mark is the first of our canonical Gospels.

American culture and institutions were developed in the eighteenth century when freedom from external authority was emphasized in favor of individual freedom. Because of a series of revolutions in Europe, England, and later in the Thirteen Colonies, benevolent despotism gave way to a society in which the people were considered to be sovereign and delegated the power of government under a social contract to their leaders. Responsibility to God, both of those governing and those governed, was minimized or ignored. Deism, the favored religion of the upper classes, was merely an ethical religion lacking any dynamic basis in revelation to make it effective. The moral and intellectual autonomy of man was taught by the prevailing philosophies of the day.

The economic controls of mercantilistic theory, which restricted the economic freedom of the individual in the interests of the state, now gave way under the Industrial Revolution and the teachings of Adam Smith to freedom from governmental controls. Grave social injustices developed in the new factory towns. Freedom in many cases led to social disorder.

Spiritual Light And Freedom

Spiritual forces to cope with this unjust, socially irresponsible order emerged in the eighteenth century in Britain and the United States and made an impact upon society in the nineteenth century through social reform. George Whitefield found spiritual peace by faith in Christ in 1735 and linked a passion for evangelism with a zeal for social reform manifested in his work for his orphanage. Both Charles and John Wesley had similar conversion experiences in 1738. Whitefield became the orator, John Wesley the organizer, and Charles Wesley the hymn-writer of the Wesleyan Revival between 1739 and 1790. Field preaching, initiated by Whitefield, became a means to win the working people of England to Christ. They became the ardent supporters of the leaders of reform. The upper class leaders, nicknamed the “Clapham Sect,” were won to Christ during the Evangelical Revival in the Anglican Church between 1780 and 1830. The Clapham Sect, living in Clapham Commons, a suburb of London, included such men as Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, the wealthy banker, whose oval library was their headquarters, Thomas Clarkson and Zachary Macaulay, both expert propagandists, James Stephen, Sr., a capable lawyer, and their godly pastor, John Venn.

These men and their loyal followers in Methodism and the other dissenting churches sought in every way to make the Gospel relevant to the spiritual and social problems of their day. Missionary societies were founded to carry the Gospel to the needy people of other lands. In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was launched to meet the demand for Bibles. When the charter of the British East India Company was renewed in 1813, Wilberforce seized the opportunity by act of Parliament to have it changed so that missionaries were to be permitted to go to India. Others, such as David Livingstone, engaged in exploration to open up the path for the Gospel and legitimate commerce so that the natives might be reached with the gospel and the trade in slaves eliminated.

Impact On The Social Order

These people and their followers were also interested in ending slavery. Granville Sharp, although a layman in the law, studied the common law for two years and was able in the Somerset case in 1772 to secure a decision from the highest English court that freed about 14,000 slaves in England. The colony of Sierra Leone was founded by the Clapham Sect in 1787 as a home for the freed slaves and was supported by them at great financial loss until the British government took it over as a colony in 1808. Wilberforce obtained legislation in 1807 that banned Englishmen from trading in slaves. The Sect also created public opinion that led to a condemnation of slavery by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and to treaties with Spain and Portugal which, at a cost of £750,000 to the British treasury, banned slave trading by nationals of those countries. Charles Buxton with the aid of Zachary Macaulay completed the work of freeing slaves by securing the Act of 1833 which set aside £20,000,000 to compensate the slave owners for their loss of 700,000 slaves. Buxton and his friends then sought by committee study to encourage legitimate commerce, and to legislate to protect both the freed slaves and the aborigines. The protectorates of Bechuanaland, Nyassaland, and Uganda were assumed by the British government between 1885 and 1895 as a result of missionary activity to protect the natives from exploitation by white settlers.

Evangelicals were also interested in the spiritual and social needs of the poorer people of the laboring class in English factories. Robert Raikes in 1783 popularized the Sunday School. These Sunday Schools, first started in 1769 by Hannah Ball, and the Ragged School movement, of which Lord Shaftesbury assumed the leadership, gave instruction in the three “R’s” as well as the Bible. They were the forerunners of universal and compulsory education.

Elizabeth Fry, the sister-in-law of Buxton, and John Howard carried on the work of the Wesleys on behalf of prisoners in jails. Howard was able to secure legislation which improved prisons in England and Europe.

Shaftesbury, who was won to Christ by a godly evangelical nurse, Maria Millis, dedicated his life to the aid of the poor and oppressed. He sponsored legislation which bettered conditions for the insane and gave them some protection. He was responsible for laws which improved conditions and shortened working hours in the textile factories of England, which took women and children out of the mines, and which protected the brickyard workers and chimney sweeps.

Regeneration And Renewal

Study of the diaries, letters, speeches, journals, autobiographies, and biographies of these leaders demonstrates the spiritual springs of their social reforms. Each accepted the Bible as God’s inspired revelation which led them to faith in Christ as their Saviour (Rom. 10:17). Regeneration of the individual was for them a necessary starting point. This revelational-based faith brought a love into their lives which led them to serve others, both in and outside the church (Gal. 6:10). Such activities, especially in the case of Shaftesbury, were looked upon as means only to serve others in the light of the second coming of Christ. He had the words “Even so come, Lord Jesus” printed in Greek on the flap of his envelopes. He looked to Christ’s coming rather than to “human agency” as the only final solution to the world’s ills. These men did not feel that they could create Utopia by social reform, which the social gospel movement has tried to do, nor did they surrender to a pessimism which paralyzes Christian participation in society. Instead, they sought to “occupy” faithfully as Christian citizens until Christ’s Advent (Phil. 3:20–21).

In their preoccupation with social reform these men did not neglect the priority of evangelism and missions. They supported direct or indirect measures to evangelize the unsaved. Direct or indirect support to missions was also an important part of their program. They never forgot that the command of the resurrected Christ was to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

An Instructive Strategy

Their strategy can also be instructive to contemporary evangelicals. In each instance of reform they began by getting the facts. Sharp studied English law two years before he developed the principle which freed slaves in England. Clarkson boarded 317 ships in different British harbors before he found a sailor, whose name he did not even know, who gave him information on the slave trade. It was spiritual leadership coupled with logical facts which brought success.

With the facts available, these men used every legitimate means to create a Christian public opinion favorable to their demands for reform. Pamphlets, mass meetings, committees in churches, poems such as Cowper’s “The Negro’s Complaint,” and boycotts of slave-grown sugar were used to inform and to stir up the public to demand action. With this pressure for action based on enlightened public opinion, leaders in government could present their case supported by petitions and resolutions from the public. They would even cooperate in a common cause temporarily with men whose ideas they disliked.

It should also be noticed that they did not seek to use the church as a pressure group. Instead, Christian citizens, whose consciences had been enlightened by the teaching of pastors as to what biblical principles were involved, were asked to support special organizations. In that way, the church was freed for its work of preaching and teaching the Gospel. Too often, pious resolutions by church groups based on insufficient information do more harm than good. The Christian who joins in the exercise of his citizenship with others will accomplish more good.

Retreat from society while one awaits the return of Christ to take one out of a wicked world which is to be destroyed; socialist revolution to create a new order; the reformation of society by democratic social action, will all fail to meet the problems of the chaotic social order. These approaches either ignore society completely or seek to change the external environment without dealing with the problem of personal sin which is at the root of social disorder. Only the renovation of the individual life by the grace of God will provide the dynamic to energize the ethical potential necessary to bring about beneficial social change.

END

Earle E. Cairns has been Chairman of the Department of History at Wheaton College (Illinois) since 1948. He holds the A.B. degree from Municipal University of Omaha, Th.B. from Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Omaha, A.M. and Ph.D. from University of Nebraska. His book Christianity Through the Centuries has been translated into Japanese.