The fourth book of Moses is called Numbers in the English Bible, and this follows the usage of the Greek Septuagint translation. In the Hebrew it is called Bammidhbar (“In the wilderness”). The former name comes from the two census lists that appear prominently at the beginning and end of the book. The latter name, however, appears to be more descriptive, for the book of Numbers largely describes the wilderness wanderings of Israel. Numbers takes up the narrative of the wilderness journey close to the point where Exodus leaves off.

Difficulties In Numbers

The prominent feature of the census lists in Numbers needs a little explanation. Israel had no Bureau of the Census, nor were the people interested in mere vital statistics. This was not an ordinary census such as we are familiar with. The Hebrew word saphar often means to “count,” but it is not the word used in these lists. There is another word, paqadh which sometimes means “visit,” either in judgment or in blessing, but which also means to “number an army.” It really means to “muster troops.” To illustrate its usage, one may turn to 1 Kings 20:15 where Benhadad mustered an army against Israel, or to Joshua 8:10 where Joshua prepared for the battle of Ai, or to 2 Kings 3:6 where Jehoram mustered an army against Moab. The word does not mean merely to count; its meaning is technical and refers to raising an army. It was this fact that made David’s action in 2 Samuel 24 sinful. David’s sin was not in proudly counting his population, but in embarking on a campaign of war when it was apparently uncalled for. So in Numbers: the use of this word gives us the picture of Moses organizing the soldiers in preparation for the invasion of Palestine. After the first attempt failed and the wilderness wanderings were finished, Moses mustered the troops again in preparation for the assault upon Palestine under Joshua. For this reason only the fighting men over 20 years of age were numbered.

The tribe of Levi was also numbered, but for a different purpose. Instead of choosing a percentage of men out of each tribe for the carrying on of the tabernacle work and service, God chose to use the whole tribe of Levi. He substituted them for the firstborn on the principle that the firstborn belonged to God since he had spared Israel’s firstborn in the last Egyptian plague. The firstborn of Israel were therefore counted, the Levites also were counted and the difference adjusted by a payment of five shekels apiece (Num. 3:47). A problem arises here in that there were so few firstborn (22,273) among so many people (603,550 grown men). Different suggestions have been proposed, but it is probable that the trouble arises from our ignorance of what constituted a firstborn son. Possibly the firstborn was only counted as such when the oldest child was a boy (Exod. 13:15). Perhaps if a father and son in one family were both living and both firstborn, only one of them was counted in the reckoning. Possibly the number of the firstborn was reckoned with one from each family or clan rather than from each household—or there may have been some other restriction.

The size of the nation has also been a problem to some. From the number of 600,000 grown men, the total has been estimated at about 2,000,000. It is thought that such a movement was impossible. Indeed, critics are fond of saying that these figures are a backward projection of some of Solomon’s lists.

Now it may be admitted (as is pointed out in a note in the Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1220) that the transmission of numbers with unfailing accuracy was difficult in ancient Hebrew. Still, these numbers are similar for the various tribes and add up to a total which checks. The totals are about the same in the later list of Chapter 26 though some of the individual tribes changed rather widely during the 40 year interval. There is actually no basis for skepticism as to these numbers except the feeling that the Exodus really could not have been so large an event. But of course it could have been. We must not picture it as a military parade with everyone in step and banners flying. It was more of a mass emigration of nomad peoples. Out in the wilderness the camp may have spread out over hundreds of square miles at various times in order to forage the animals.

The figures are at least consistent with other similar figures. It is not a copy of Solomon’s list, for in David’s time the nation had over 1,300,000 soldiers (2 Sam. 24:9). Saul, a much weaker king, had 330,000 (1 Sam. 11:8). Rehoboam after the division of the kingdom had only 180,000 men in Judah (1 Kings 12:21). During the days of the Judges, the number is once given as 400,000 not counting Benjamin (Judges 20:2). Gideon mustered 32,000 men out of three and a half tribes in a time of heavy oppression (Judges 6:35) which compares favorably with Joshua’s 40,000 out of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh (Josh. 4:13). Comparison with Numbers 26 would show about 100,000 soldiers in these Transjordan tribes, but presumably half of them had to stay in Transjordan as occupation troops.

We should remember, also, that a handful of troops could not do what Joshua did. Ancient armies did not have 18 men in the factories for every one man at the front as we did in the last war. If he had, Joshua would only have had 33,000 men in his fighting force! And yet he could not put his whole army in the field at once. Many of these counted were infirm or IV-F! Many had to guard the camp and occupy what had been won. And yet at the height of his northern campaign, Joshua was able to capture the city of Hazor which had gathered to itself a large defensive coalition. The city of Hazor has lately been excavated and is estimated to have contained 40,000. Such a city, strongly fortified, and with numerous allies could not have been conquered by a handful of wandering shepherds. Joshua evidently moved at the head of a large and powerful fighting force.

We do not have the figures for many other ancient armies. Sennacherib claims to have taken 200,150 prisoners from the towns of Judah exclusive of Jerusalem. Shalmanezer claims that the army he led at the battle of Qarqar numbered 120,000. These were doubtless first line troops as they were operating 400 miles from their home base (see the documents in J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 288 and 280). The armies in Numbers thus appear to be of a reasonable size.

There is more to Numbers than problems. There are valuable lessons. There are beautiful lessons to be learned of the Lord’s guidance. The presence of the Lord was visibly symbolized in the cloud by day and the fire by night that hovered over the Tabernacle. And when that presence of the Lord removed, the people were to journey. The words of Numbers 10:33 probably do not mean that it went “before” the camp. The word may as well be translated “in the presence of” the camp. In the march as in the encampment the ark was in the middle of the people. The beautiful invocation of Numbers 10:35,36 is quoted by David in Psalm 68:1 and in Solomon’s prayer of dedication in 2 Chronicles 6:41 (cf. Ps. 132:8). It doubtless became a precious invocation in Israel.

Rebellions

But familiarity breeds contempt and the generation that refused the leading of the Lord at Kadesh Barnea rebelled many times both before and after that experience. They tired of their situation. After all, they had been used to plenty and security in Egypt. Now they had to adapt to nomad life in the edges of the desert and the oases of the Sinai peninsula. In Egypt they had security with slavery and surely could not worship God as they pleased. The Egyptian state was totalitarian and the king was God. In the wilderness, on the other hand, they could worship God according to their conscience and they had freedom, but with privation. Many there were who would look back at Egypt and be willing to sell their soul for a mess of pottage.

The individual rebellions recounted in Numbers cannot be treated in detail. At one time Miriam and Aaron grew envious of Moses because of his Ethiopian wife—apparently she was his second wife and quite possibly a Negro! His first wife may or may not have been living. Moses, the record says, did not defend himself, but God severely rebuked the pair for their actions. Numbers 12:6 is a remarkable divine commendation of Moses the great head of the prophetic line and type of “that Prophet” who was yet to come. God evidently spoke with Moses in great intimacy. Truly he was a chosen vessel. Some have taken exception to Numbers 12:3 where Moses is said to have been very meek. They say that Moses could not have written this or he would not have been meek! But customs differ in reporting such matters. Paul says about the same thing in Acts 20:19 and no offence is taken.

Sometime after the disaster at Kadesh Barnea came the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The rebellion was strong and a rather complete record is given of it in chapters 16 and 17. Korah’s men were consumed by fire from the Lord when they approached with their incense. And Dathan and Abiram and such of the congregation as stood with them were buried alive as the earth opened under them (went down “quick into the pit” merely means “buried alive.” There is no thought of a passageway to some underworld region). Another famous incident of rebellion is given in chapter 20 when the people murmured for lack of water. Such an incident is also recorded in Exodus 17 and some have argued that these are two accounts of the same incident. But it seems supercritical to feel that in 40 years of wilderness sojourning the people could not have complained about the lack of water more than once!

The rebellion at Kadesh Barnea was the most decisive of all. The story is brief, but the consequence of their lack of faith was 40 years of trouble. The people were encamped in the wilderness of Paran south of the area called the Negeb which Israel is developing today. The Lord told Moses to send out spies, one for each tribe, for a reconnaissance mission to gauge the resources of the land and the best way of attack. All the spies agreed that the land was attractive. All agreed that it included many well-fortified independent city states. The only difference was that Caleb and Joshua believed that the Lord was able to give them the land; the others did not. It would seem that the Israelites were as able to take the land of Palestine on the first attempt as later.

Conquest And Balaam

The conquest of Transjordan is given briefly in Numbers 21. In early times, the Amorite kingdoms of northern Transjordan had pressed down into the territory of Moab dispossessing the Moabites and driving them to the south of the Arnon canyon. Israel, in pitched battles with Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites, won all this territory north of the Arnon valley which is at about the middle of the Dead Sea. The record of this conquest is repeated more extensively in Deuteronomy 2 and 3 and Jephthah repeats the same story in Judges 11 when the Moabites laid claim to this area 300 years later. Interestingly, Numbers 21:28, 29 are quoted in Jeremiah 48:45, 46 in connection with Jeremiah’s woes upon Moab. This section, said to be “from those that speak in proverbs,” can only refer to the political situation before Israel invaded. The short songs in Numbers 21:14, 15 and 17, 18 also probably refer to this period of conquest. Verse 14 does not seem to speak of the Red Sea experience. “Sea” is not in the Hebrew. Septuagint and other evidence favors a translation something like the following: “It is said in the book of the wars of the Lord, a fire flamed in Suphah and in the brooks of Arnon.” W. F. Albright holds that verse 17 is only a title of the song mentioned (Hebrew Union College Annual, 1950–51, p. 7).

The time in Transjordan included the interesting contact with Balaam. We know little enough about him. He was from Aram, the mountains of the East (23:7), for example, hinter Syria. He was from the land of the children of Ammo (22:5, Hebrew). This place apparently can now be identified from the Idrimi inscription of about 1450 B.C. as a place in Syria near Aleppo (W. F. Albright, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, April 1950, p. 15). It has been much disputed whether Balaam was a worshiper of the true God outside of Israel like Melchizedek, or whether he was a heathen soothsayer through whom God truly spoke on this occasion. The latter is perhaps the easier to maintain since Balaam was later slain among the Midianites who had seduced the Israelites to go after idols (Num. 25 and 31:8).

The messages of Balaam first speak in general terms of God’s blessings upon Israel. It is of interest that Balaam quotes the old Abrahamic blessing (Num. 24:9; Gen. 12:3). Had he some contact with the Abrahamic tradition? Or was this a common proverbial way of giving a benediction? At last Balaam gets more specific. The prediction of a star from Jacob and a scepter from Israel had its fulfilment in all of the victories of Israel and the Davidic dynasty, but is to be fully fulfilled in the Messianic King of whom David was but a type.

The final chapters are somewhat parallel with the end of Deuteronomy. Numbers 27:12–23 gives the preparation for Moses’ death which took place only after the farewell addresses of Moses were given to the last assembly as recorded in Deuteronomy. As in the central portion of Deuteronomy, so here, there are various laws especially for the offerings and feasts (Num. 28 to 30). The arrangement was concluded for Reuben and Gad and half of Manasseh to stay in Transjordan but to send a contingent to assist in the invasion of Palestine (Num. 32). Chapter 33 is a summary of the places where Israel had encamped in the trek through Sinai. Of all the places mentioned it seems that only about two, Ezion Geber and Punon (modern Feinan) can be identified with any certainty. Finally, the boundaries of Palestine proper which Israel was to inherit are given in chapter 34. As in the Abrahamic promises, the boundaries go north as far as Hamath near “the great river, the river Euphrates.” Only in the heyday of David and Solomon did Israel’s control actually extend this far. But the biblical promised land includes what we speak of as Palestine, Transjordan, and Syria as well. The book of Numbers mainly is the record of Israel’s preparations to enter this promised land.

Outline

I. Preparations to leave Sinai (1:1 to 10:10).

A. First numbering of the host (1 to 4).

B. Miscellaneous laws and ordinances (5 to 10:10).

II. From Sinai to Kadesh Barnea (10:11 to 14:45).

A. The order of march (10).

B. Rebellions by the way. Taberah, the Quails, Miriam’s leprosy, the Defeat at Kadesh (11–14).

III. Wilderness wanderings (15 to 21:20).

A. Various laws (15).

B. Korah’s rebellion against Aaron’s priesthood (16–18).

C. Ordinance of red heifer (19).

D. Moses’ sin, Aaron’s death, and the fiery serpents (20 to 21).

IV. Conquests in Transjordan (21:21 to 25).

A. Conquest of Sihon and Og (21).

B. Balaam’s prophecy (22 to 24).

C. Mixing with Midian (25).

V. Preparation to enter Palestine (26 to 36).

A. Second numbering and appointment of Joshua (26 to 27).

B. Laws of offerings, feasts, and vows (28 to 30).

C. Further war with Midian (31).

D. Inheritance of two and a half tribes in Transjordan (32).

E. Summary of the wilderness journeys (33).

F. Arrangements for settlement in Palestine (34 to 36).

Literature

Helpful literature on Numbers is not abundant. The standard commentaries of Keil and Delitzsch, Lange, and Calvin are good. The special study of W. F. Albright, “The Oracles of Balaam,” Journal Biblical Literature, LXIII, 1944, pp. 207–233 should be mentioned. It maintains the antiquity of this section. An excellent treatment is given by Allan A. MacRae in The New Bible Commentary, edited by F. Davidson, Inter-Varsity, London, 1953.

R. LAIRD HARRIS

Professor of Old Testament

Covenant Theological Seminary

When Youth for Christ appeared dramatically on the religious scene in 1944, some evangelical leaders began to criticize it. Others postponed their criticism with the belief that the new “baby” was basically healthy and in time would grow up to make a large contribution to the cause of Christ. Youth for Christ is now in its fifteenth year, and I believe it is ready for a frank appraisal. Having worked with the organization and its leaders from the early days, but never as an official part of it, I think I have sufficient detachment to be objective, and enough knowledge to be factual.

A Baby Matures

There is no doubt in my mind that Youth for Christ has matured and has “put away childish things.” Some Christians, when they hear the name “Youth for Christ,” still think in terms of the “toys” that characterized the movement in those first years: loud bow ties and suits, spectacular programs of a sideshow nature, and some untrained, almost uncouth “workers” who posed as “youth experts.” If these elements are present in local YFC programs today, it is the exception and not the rule. To me it is a definite strength in YFC that the organization has matured without becoming an evangelical edifice with more past than future. Youth for Christ has not only remained true to the evangelical faith these past 15 years but it has retained its spontaneity and unique approach to evangelism. True to the slogan adopted then, it is “Geared to the times but anchored to the Rock.”

Specialists In Youth

There was a period in Youth for Christ’s history when the main purpose of the organization, namely, to win teen-agers, was temporarily eclipsed. Along with the teen-age ministry there was a program for servicemen, for church revival and evangelism, and for overseas relief. All these were good, but they were alien to the aims of Youth for Christ. The decision to specialize in teen-age evangelism was a turning point and, in my opinion, saved the organization from becoming just another evangelistic outreach. Youth work is demanding; it calls for a constant freshness of manpower and ideas to keep a movement creative and contemporary. The daring, dedicated young men who invade the ranks of YFC each year make for a spiritual renewal that guarantees emphasis on youth.

The caliber of Youth for Christ workers has become higher. “Anyone can work in Youth for Christ!” is no longer an accurate statement. The International Directors’ School, held twice annually, produces from 50 to 75 trained workers, pastors, and businessmen who are channeled into local YFC programs for first-hand experience. The YFC chartering program both develops new programs and helps to remove local organizations that do not meet the standards. This kind of organizational solidarity makes for progress and strength.

Lasting Results

The prophets of doom who announced that Youth for Christ would soon fade from the scene have, in some cases, changed their line to “The results are not lasting!” Undoubtedly in those early years many may have made a decision for Christ who were not properly nourished for Christian growth. But the fact that there are pastors, missionaries, and Christian workers today who were won to Christ in YFC meetings years ago is proof of fruit. More than one evangelical leader today received his early practical training in the Youth for Christ program: Dr. Billy Graham; Dr. Bob Pierce, president of World Vision; Dr. Robert Evans of Greater Europe Mission; and Dr. Robert Finley of International Students. The evangelical world can be grateful for these men.

While phases of the overseas ministry during the first years proved sporadic and more sensational than substantial, good roots were nonetheless planted in many places. YFC leaders are to be commended for concentrating in the 45 nations where the program is well grounded, rather than announcing, as they used to do, that YFC was active in 76 nations. This kind of “retrenchment” is not popular with many evangelicals, but it makes for a more lasting program. That which remains is substantial. The future is as rich “as the promises of God.”

Whatever a local pastor or lay Christian might say against Youth for Christ, there is much that must be said for it: Youth for Christ is composed of leaders who believe unreservedly in the power of the Gospel and the importance of prayer. Any secular organization with so little machinery would have collapsed in a year! Without the imposing structure of denominational prestige or financial support, Youth for Christ has made a phenomenal impact on cities and on entire nations. It is to be commended for maturing without institutionalizing, maintaining its emphasis on youth, putting evangelism and world missions in the foreground, and depending on the power of God.

Progress Without Planning

One gets the impression that Youth for Christ, like Topsy, “just grew.” First came the Saturday night rallies, then high school clubs, Bible quizzes, teen talent contests, a ministry to juvenile delinquents, teen films and literature, and other programs. The total organization does need co-ordination and direction in a long-range plan. And there is still too much “panic programming” as yet. President Ted W. Engstrom and his staff members have made a good beginning in their “Miracle Year” program for 1959, but I think it is time that we chart the course for the next decade.

One must remember, of course, that Youth for Christ is made up of independent local groups, and that the direction taken locally is not always the responsibility of the international office. Each local YFC ministry must be chartered to bear the Youth for Christ name and participate in the program, but the international office has no direct control over what is done on the local level. Some local organizations are an asset, others are a liability; but if there were a long-range program that tied each group closer to the parent organization, much more could be accomplished. I think it is a definite weakness that local YFC organizations can own an official charter, vote on official business at the conventions, and yet ignore the international program.

“I Sought For A Man”

Like many other religious groups, Youth for Christ today faces a manpower shortage. There are scores of major cities in America alone that have no YFC program, and the answer to this problem lies not with the Directors’ School but with each local YFC ministry. Youth for Christ could double its working force in a few years if each local director would adopt a “Timothy” and train him for the work. Furthermore, experienced YFC leaders need to move out into unreached territories and let others move up in the ranks.

There is always the danger of an organization becoming top-heavy by constantly adding new personnel to the headquarters staff. I believe that YFC’s emphasis should be on the development of area programs covering several states, rather than the promoting of one unwieldy staff at the top. A crew of specialists, responsible to the work of a given area, is likely to accomplish more than an international staff member who tries to cover the world. There needs to be a responsible “chain of command” before YFC can enjoy the expansion needed in our day.

For Such A Time

Youth for Christ is an organization that has the program, passion, and potential for world evangelism despite all its weaknesses and past faults. Young people are at the controls of the future. Even the new state of Hawaii boasts that 43 per cent of the population is under the age of 19. Dictators of the past, including Communists of today, have captured nations through the minds and hearts of youth, and the only way they can be fortified against totalitarian doctrine is in the spiritual freedom offered to them in Christ. Christian educators tell us that 80 per cent of our Sunday School pupils leave Sunday School when they reach their teen years. That fact strongly suggests the need for an agency like Youth for Christ to help fill this gap and reach those of this age with the Gospel.

During its 15 years of ministry, Youth for Christ has proven itself worthy of evangelical support. It has made mistakes, but it has also captured a great many young people for Christ. Perhaps Youth for Christ, working in and through churches and missionary agencies, will be the channel for a great spiritual awakening in the decade to come. Remembering that great Christian leaders like Charles Spurgeon, J. Hudson Taylor, John Calvin, D. L. Moody, and Billy Graham were converted in their teen years, I am prone to agree with Youth for Christ leaders that “unless we win teen-agers today, there may be no Church tomorrow!”

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Wisdom And Ignorance

Wisdom goes looking for a light,

And speaks not till that light is glowing.

Ignorance claims by day and night

It has all knowledge worth the knowing.

All things that perish or endure

Give us alike this implication:

Ignorance only is cocksure,

While Wisdom knows its limitation.

CLARENCE EDWIN FLYNN

V. Raymond Edman is President of Wheaton College (Illinois), from which have come many of the leaders in evangelical Protestant effort. On the fifteenth anniversary of the Youth for Christ movement, he writes a candid appraisal.

The growing dissatisfaction in our cultural milieu with the presuppositions, policies, and practices of the American public school system raises a question of some importance: “Who has the right to educate—the family, the State, or the Church?”

Within contemporary Lutheranism two approaches towards an answer to this problem may be discerned. One affirms that the family, as the basic (core) unit of society, has the right to educate or to delegate this right to the State or Church. The other says that each order of creation (family, Church, State) has a right to educate, and that each receives this right directly from God (that is, there is no delegation from one order to another).

However, it must be asserted that in either case no “right” to educate can exist without some corresponding responsibility in the sight of God to educate as he desires. The formula, “no rights without responsibilities,” holds true for all the so-called “rights” of man. This means that neither family, Church, or State has the right to educate unless such education presupposes and points to God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. What then does this imply? It implies three things:

1. The family as the basic order of creation normally exercises the dominant influence on a child for at least the first five years of life. But in our extremely complex and technological world the family is generally inadequate for the task of preparation for citizenship in the two kingdoms. Most parents are simply unqualified to instruct their children in these matters. And the few who are so qualified may not have the time nor the inclination. Therefore the Church and community must play a role in education.

2. The Church has received a mandate from its Lord to teach all nations. It dare not ignore or alter this responsibility. The only variable in this task of the Church is the form which its education may take.

3. The community (State) may have a right to educate or to supervise education (by insuring that minimum standards of facilities and health are met), not arbitrarily but under the Word of God. Whether the State receives its right to educate from God or from parents, it still holds true that this right is dependent upon and conditioned by the State’s recognition of itself as the agent of God.

Trend To Secularism

On the American scene today the Constitution has been juridically interpreted in such a way that the public school is prevented from fulfilling the purpose for which it was founded. Theoretically our public schools must be neutral in their approach to religion. Actually, however, such neutrality is impossible. Our public schools have become increasingly secularized. They are teaching the religion of democracy, or the religion of science, or the religion of life adjustment. This, of course, is not the case in all schools. But it is more and more the case whenever and wherever the courts are called upon to render decisions. There is no mistaking the trend toward secularization.

No conscientious and serious Christian can be satisfied with this situation. Several solutions have been suggested, as for example, revitalizing the Sunday Schools, creating Saturday and other supplementary schools, or released time classes. Another solution is the Christian day school as a full-time substitute for the public school, though not a parochial school in the Roman Catholic sense (with hierarchical or clerical control). Instead, the school would be under the auspices of one or more Christian congregations using the facilities of the parish. Rather than a church (institutional) school, it would be a school which is Christian in its presuppositions and orientation, where teachers could witness to their faith explicitly as well as implicitly, and in which the Gospel would be brought to bear upon all subject matter and in all areas of life.

The time has come for us to admit that the majority of our people are religious illiterates unable to articulate or defend the faith and unable to relate it to daily activities. The Christian day school is an answer to this situation—not the only answer, but an important one.

The time has come for us to repudiate also the notion that it is somehow un-American to criticize the public school. It needs to be brought down from its sacrosanct pinnacle. From an historical standpoint, the public school system in the United States developed as a supplement for the already extant private and religious schools. There were no public schools in the United States until the 1830s, and then they came into being only to take care of those who would not otherwise receive a formal education.

Christians today cannot be happy over certain policies of such powerful groups as the National Education Association. Furthermore, the increasing clamor for Federal aid and control is a danger signal too obvious to ignore.

Many practical difficulties are involved in establishing Christian day schools, as for example, in financing and securing teachers. Some will say that they are divisive in respect to the community at large, and that they hurt the public school. But true community is realized only in Christ. The existence of different denominations is also divisive, but we do not recommend that we put an end to denominationalism for that reason alone. Our society itself is pluralistic, voluntary, and competitive.

Churches that have operated schools have experienced the blessings of their endeavors. They well know the evangelistic outreach which such schools can provide. And they have been pleased with the quality of their graduates who have been students mature in the understanding of their faith and deeply committed to their Lord and Saviour.

It is probably true that most rural situations do not need such schools. But the urban areas need them. In American Protestantism today there are some 3,000 elementary and 600 secondary schools enrolling over 350,000 pupils. We must seriously face the issue of whether or not these numbers are to be expanded.

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Preacher In The Red

WHO PREACHES WHERE

I had exactly seven minutes in which to compose my mind before preaching in a North Dakota Presbyterian church. To my surprise there came in another minister all out of breath. He immediately proceeded to undo his suitcase. He hurriedly took out his robe and experienced great difficulty getting into it. I said, “May I ask why the preparation?” He said with a degree of authority, “I am preaching here today.” “I am afraid there is some mistake as I am preaching here today.” “Not today brother. I am here by appointment of my Superintendent,” was his answer. “But,” said I, “this is not the First Methodist church but rather the First Presbyterian church.”—The Rev. THOMAS B. LINDSAY, St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Emery, South Dakota.

Brooke Walker holds the BA. degree from Columbia University and is a graduate of Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary. He is seeking ordination in the United Lutheran Church.

All is not well in America’s most cherished religious A institution—the Sunday School. The message of the Holy Scriptures is devitalized by teachers who are victims of competitive forces in the field of Christian education. Pastors and leaders need to examine the place and use of the Bible in their Sunday schools.

Statistical interests are more compelling than spiritual values. A common question is, “How many did you have in Sunday School today?” The inquiry is not, “Did Johnny relate himself to Jesus Christ through his study of the Bible?”

Organization, administration and methods are being fostered ahead of the spiritual, abiding influences of a dedicated teacher in whom Christ is seen.

Secular influences are at work in the Sunday Schools robbing the pupils of the privileges of learning to know the Bible that will make them wise unto salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. A student can go through Sunday School with honors for perfect attendance for 10 years and still not be able to use the Bible effectively for his daily life.

Growth And Decline

There is a paradox in the Sunday school. While the movement continues to grow in enrollment (recent estimates place the national enrollment over 41,000,000 scholars) many quarters reflect a deterioration in the quality of Sunday School teaching. There are many factors that account for the problems. Sunday School work is not as simple as it may appear to many people. Actually, the Sunday School is a complex product of many forces. Some of these pressures have historical, theological, educational, and practical implications. Throughout the 180 years of Sunday School movement, the Bible has been popularized and neglected. In order to understand and appreciate the place of the Bible and the problem of teaching it today, we must consider the development of curriculum.

The Sunday School movement has enjoyed unprecedented development in the United States. Started by Robert Raikes in 1780 in Gloucester, England, the Sunday School idea flourished in the Colonies. John Wesley did much to foster schools in America.

The earliest Sunday Schools included secular subjects in the program. Reading, writing, simple arithmetic besides the catechism and the Bible were taught.

As the number of public schools increased and assumed the function of teaching secular subjects, the Sunday Schools became distinctly religious.

Use Of The Bible

By 1820 the Bible supplanted the catechism as the essential text in the Sunday Schools. There were several factors for this change in content. The English evangelical movement of the eighteenth century placed great emphasis on the Scriptures. There was a widespread zeal in the Sunday Schools for Bible reading and memorization.

The disorganized use of the Bible in haphazard memorization led to the development of the greatest single asset and liability to the Sunday School movement—namely, the printing of lesson aids as a supplement to the Scriptures themselves.

Of the printing of Sunday School materials since 1820, there has been no end. The earliest publications were closely associated with Scripture portions but the lesson system developed order out of chaos.

There was much competition among writers and publishers to provide “the auxiliaries” or “some substitute” to help the teachers. Albert Judson developed “A Series of Questions on the Selected Scripture Lessons for Sunday Schools.” A rival system known as “A New Series of Questions on the Selected Scripture Lessons for Sabbath Schools” came from a Sunday School superintendent in Princeton, New Jersey.

Again the Bible faced neglect. It was only a matter of time until the “quarterly” and “Sunday School materials” took precedence. The place and use of the Bible itself was soon smothered by the development of competitive materials.

Frank Lankard in his authoritative volume, A History of the American Sunday School Curriculum writes of a semi-biblical commentary to be used by teachers in the Sunday School. There were lessons on the Bible, Canon, Inspiration, Division of the Sacred Scriptures, Meaning of Testament, Languages Used, Translations, and The Reason the Book Was Given to Man.

The introduction of extra-biblical materials into the Sunday School curriculum began to compete with biblical materials. The next 40 years (1830–1870) was a period of turmoil. The lessons were material-centered. The growth and needs of the pupils in relationship to Scripture was neglected. Out of this confusion, efforts were made to improve the curriculum.

A Teaching Ministry

There was a growing awareness among leaders that the Sunday School was more than an assembly of pupils. The Sunday School was to be conceived as a teaching ministry by the local church. The appreciation of the differences in abilities and interests among pupils of divergent ages was hardly significant. The child was still considered a “miniature adult.” Before the time should come when the child would be “in the midst of them,” the leaders conceived of the International Uniform Lessons. This is a type of lesson in which the same text is to be studied by all ages, children and adults, on a given Sunday.

Giants in the Sunday School movement finally agreed on a principle of developing lesson materials selected from the Bible as a whole. At the Fifth National Sunday School Convention (1872) in Indianapolis, the delegates enthusiastically accepted the Uniform system of lessons. Secretary Warren Randolph later wrote: “These lessons are largely in use throughout our land by Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Moravians, Friends, members of the Reformed Churches, Adventists—a mighty host, to be enumerated only by millions …”

Rise Of Graded Lessons

This enthusiasm for the Uniform Lesson system was challenged by leaders who were dissatisfied by lessons that ignored the interests, needs, and abilities of the pupils of various ages. The scientific method was beginning to impinge upon the Sunday School movement. There was a great deal of agitation to experiment with methods of instruction designed to help the pupil understand the relationship of the lesson to his life. There was a tendency to challenge the idea of “teaching the lesson.” Why not “teach the pupil”?

A leader in general education at the turn of the century was eager to take up the cudgel in behalf of the pupil. The experimenter was Dr. William H. Harper, first president of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Harper was elected superintendent of the Hyde Park Baptist Church in Chicago in 1899. He was assured by the church that he would have freedom to direct the Sunday School as he pleased. The first Sunday he dismissed all the teachers and pupils from the school. The following Sunday the pupils were re-enrolled and teachers were assigned to their classes. The organization of the school was closely graded.

Dr. Harper led his staff in the preparation of “appropriate” materials for each grade. The principal purpose of the school was to serve the pupils.

The crusade for grading had many supporters. A principal leader was Mrs. J. W. Barnes who advocated the principle that the general purpose of the “Graded Lessons” is: “To meet the spiritual needs of the pupil in every stage of his development.” An evaluation of this effort at that time indicates a heavy reception for the idea that extra-biblical materials were worthy of a place in the Sunday School curriculum. Thus, a 13-year-old pupil should study religious heroes of North America such as Roger Williams and Francis Asbury along with David and Elijah of the Old Testament.

The impact of the contemporary theories of science, education, and liberal theology had so fascinated the builders of Sunday School curricula that they practically eliminated the Bible from a significant place in their planning. By 1922, the year the International Council of Religious Education was formed, thousands of Sunday Schools had lost the message of redemption based on the Word of God. Methodology was a dominant concern. The Bible was secondary except in the camp of those who held steadfastly to the evangelical Christian faith.

One defender of the Scriptures was a Presbyterian minister, Clarence B. Benson, who refused to capitulate to the trend of the times. He insisted that the heart of the curriculum must be the Bible. He had a ready field for experimenting with his ideas in the slums of Chicago near the Moody Bible Institute where he served as director of the department of Christian Education. Dr. Benson lived to see the day when the Bible-centered materials were gaining ground.

Two thousand miles away in Hollywood in the midst of the “Roaring Twenties” another Presbyterian, Miss Henrietta C. Mears, was proving that the Bible taught in language that the pupils can understand builds better Sunday Schools. She prepared closely-graded Bible teaching materials that attracted thousands to the local Sunday School. The enrollment jumped in two years from 400 pupils in 1927 to 4,200 in 1929.

The Word of God was vindicated in schools throughout America. Perceptive leaders had a growing concern that biblical issues dividing Protestantism were also dividing the Sunday School movement. Local churches were increasingly exercising the right to choose materials producing results in Bible teaching.

The Sunday School movement was suffering from a schizophrenic frustration—a desire to be modern and a desire to teach the Bible. There was no alternative. The split was inevitable. The promoters of educational methodology in the Sunday School tried to salve the conscience of their constituency by jargon which sounded reliable, but a close examination of curriculum materials indicated that liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, higher criticism, the social gospel, naturalistic educational theories and the like had so emasculated the use of the Bible that the Sunday Schools were spiritually ineffective.

In contrast, the denominational and independent publishers who threw their lot with a “Bible-centered” philosophy found a ready response for their literature from millions of common people and thousands of local Sunday Schools in all denominations.

Enormous sums of money have been invested by producers of Sunday School materials. The contrast between the drab “quarterlies” of 50 years ago and the modern format, multicolored, functional styles of Sunday School books today is astonishing. But appearances are superficial. The test of the literature lies in the place and use of the Bible. Does the teacher get into the Scriptures to learn Christ of whom they speak? Are the students required to use the Bible so that they will become wise unto salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and effective examples of Christian living? Too often the answer to these inquiries leaves men and women of discerning hearts with difficult choices. Sunday School materials that once could be trusted are now suspect. What shall be used for teaching aids?

From the great variety of Sunday School materials which are available to local churches today, who is responsible for screening the “wheat” from the “tares”? What criteria should be used for the evaluation of materials?

The primary responsibility rests upon the shoulders of the pastor. He is the educational leader of the Sunday School and the local church. The pastor is the master teacher; he is the voice of God leading the congregation. He must answer to God for the teaching ministry of the church. The criteria for his judgments must be the Scripture.

As the pastor goes, so goes the Sunday School. The wise pastor will recognize that the Sunday School offers the greatest single opportunity for the church to teach the Word and to reach the community with the Gospel.

The issue is clear. In the maze of competing forces, the pastor must decide what his volunteer teachers will teach precious souls in the framework of 60 minutes on Sunday morning. They cannot teach everything. The challenge comes to the pastor to show more concern for this problem and to become competent to fulfill his divinely-appointed task.

END

Milford Sholund is Director of Biblical and Educational Research for Gospel Light Publications. He holds the Th.B. from Western Baptist Seminary, B.A. from Wheaton College, and M.Ed. from National College of Education, Evanston, Illinois. Formerly he was Dean of Education and Associate Professor of Christian Education in Trinity Seminary, Chicago.

The world of today differs greatly from the world of St. Paul. Man, an earthbound traveler on foot 20 centuries ago, is covering distances at speeds greater than sound. With rockets and missiles now exploring outer space, Paul at one time was having difficulty sailing in a wooden ship safely to Rome.

Man power and horse-power have given way to the power of atoms and nuclear fission. With modern equipment one person can do the work done by thousands in Paul’s day. Epistles, laboriously written on parchment and delivered weeks later by personal messengers, have been superseded by communications media delivering messages across continents in seconds.

The Human Factor

All these advancements do not mean that man himself has improved and become morally better. He is still the same sinner, in need of the same Saviour of whom Paul preached. And the basic purpose and program of the Christian Church still flows from Christ’s command: “Go ye therefore, and teach.”

It is in preaching and teaching the unchanging truth of sin and the Saviour in a constantly changing world that the Christian Church finds its great challenge. To meet this challenge effectively, the Church has in each age made use of improved media of transportation and communication. Through the centuries, God has been with his Christians, as he has promised, to provide the necessary tools with which men might carry out the Great Commission.

For the early Christian Church, God provided a common world language. He used the Roman Empire to develop a highway and sea route system which was greatly advanced for that day. At the end of the dark and sleepy Middle Ages, God provided the printing press so that it was ready when the Reformation came. Today the car, the train, and the airplane are being used to speed the Word of God to all the world.

God has also provided special teaching tools for an age that is complicated, confused, and complacent. Radio and television are being used to tell the good news of salvation across land and sea. With multicolor printing presses, God has given us a whole kitfull of new and powerful teaching tools of audio-visual aids which include the slide, the filmstrip, motion picture, tape recorder, and record player. Thus, as radio and television are being used to reach the masses, audio visual materials are helping the local church consolidate the gains, and train the children, youth and adults placed within its care.

The Audio-Visual Aids

In industry, government, science and public schools, slides and filmstrips, motion pictures, and tape recorders, three-dimensional pictures and record players are being used as never before. Without audio-visual materials these units in our society could not function effectively. The age of space requires the use of space-age teaching tools.

Specialists in the field of Christian education have come to see the value of audio-visual methods and materials in teaching. And alert teachers are seeking to produce teaching situations in which the pupil will respond with interest, participation, and experimentation. It is audio-visual teaching, the appeal to the eye and ear, that bridges between teacher and pupils.

Nonprojected audio-visual aids have been in use for many years. Object lessons are as old as the art of teaching. Fifty years ago specialists were demonstrating that a child learns more through “the eye gate” than “the ear gate,” through blackboard illustrations, maps, charts and diagrams. These, they said, illuminated what might otherwise be abstract teaching. Reproductions of biblical art in full color made lasting educational impressions. The action picture strip, so familiar in comic supplements and magazines, were utilized to tell Bible stories or deal with life problems. And phonograph recordings added music and drama, an emotional thrust, to story telling or teaching situations.

Use Of The Projector

It is, however, in the field of projected visual aids that the greatest interest is now being shown. Tremendous progress has been made since the discovery of the opaque projector or the old-fashioned stereopticon. Particularly effective is the combination of projected film strips with phonographic narration. The large picture makes it possible for a whole class or audience to see the same picture at the same time. The teacher, always in control of the program, may introduce his special interpretation of the pictures, and questions may be raised by the pupils. In no way does a teacher abdicate his position in favor of a mechanical device; rather he uses the device to achieve his ends.

The motion picture adds the dramatic element of motion and action whereby the viewer is transported to the actual time and place of the lesson experience. Sound film adds dialogue and sets the mood through music or other sound. The fusion of sight and sound are tremendously effective for intellectual and emotional response. Distinctly educational films may show social situations illustrating need for Christian action. Or they may serve as vocational guidance. Others may demonstrate how to lead a worship service, teach a class or conduct a Vacation Bible School. In fact, the possible use of films and film strips is almost endless.

While some churches are utilizing the latest and best in visual aids, most educational leaders are failing to take full advantage of them. Part of the problem is the availability of sufficient quantity, quality, and variety of aids when needed. Production, distribution, and projection equipment are involved here; however, so much progress has been made in recent years by suppliers that it can be said responsibility for failure to use audio-visual aids in religious education lies chiefly with the churches and church schools.

Putting Tools To Work

Aggressive steps must be taken to put the power of the projected picture to work. Complacency at both the national and local church level must be replaced with the development of proper methods for better use.

Local pastors and teachers should learn how to use the projected picture in the local church program. Capable audio-visual aid directors should be added to church-school staffs.

Writers of Sunday School lessons should become better acquainted with teaching methods that involve projected pictures. Editors might do well to integrate and correlate available audio-visual materials with other helps in lesson manuals and teachers’ guides.

Colleges and seminaries should introduce courses that deal specifically with the application of audio-visual materials in church programs. National and local church budgets should include the best in audio-visual tools. Very few churches have a regular audio-visual aids budget, and many of these budgets are totally inadequate for the purpose intended. Industry and government find it worthwhile to invest huge sums of money in the development of this sort of thing. One wonders why the Church cannot see its value also.

Teaching Program Primary

The teaching program of the church is primary. The Christian Church has the greatest of all missions. Certainly, then, every God-given teaching tool should be brought into the service of the Christian Church. Throughout the ages God has provided the necessary means of communication for his Church to carry out his commands. In our day the power of audio-visual aids should be fostered widely in the preaching and teaching of “all things whatsoever he has commanded.” The Church must meet this challenge.

END

For the past several decades the Church has shown a growing interest in theology and, with that interest, an increasing demand that theology occupy a larger place in the content of the preacher’s message. This new interest is not confined alone to those who have always insisted upon the value of rightly dividing the Word of Truth, but is found among those who have disparaged creeds and theology for more than a generation.

The realization that the whole fabric of a moral civilization hangs upon something more than the pro nouncements of ethical codes is being forced upon the consciousness of the Church by the tragic failure of a message devoid of theology to construct either a spiritual Church or a moral society. Chaos faces the world; disintegration confronts the Church. The bankruptcy of man is driving the Church away from Athens to Jerusalem, from rationalism to revelation. “What saith the Lord?” This is the growing cry of the hour!

The Necessity Of Theology

As we survey the situation we are confronted immediately with the fact that theology is a necessity. The structure of the human mind demands it. The mind by which we apprehend truth demands thought, and by thought we mean systematic thought. God made man a rational creature; therefore he must think.

The attempt to divorce man’s religious life from his reasoning nature is an absurdity. This is proved by those who decry creeds. In their denial of creeds they are compelled by logical necessity to announce a creed. “I do not believe in creeds” is but an affirmation of belief (which is a creed) in a negative form. It could be stated, “I believe creeds are not worth holding.” But theology and creeds will cease to be only when man ceases to be man. Those who say “it makes no difference what you believe” give expression to the poverty of their own thinking, and are really guilty of contradicting their own natures. Can it be that with some this is but a subterfuge to cover their opposition to Christian truth and their unwillingness to submit to the wall of Jesus Christ?

Is it not strange that men will recognize the place of the physical and psychical sciences in life, but attempt to rule out the one science necessary to unify and give meaning to all knowledge—even the science of God? Let us not unconsciously fall into that error by slighting theology in our preaching. Let us not forget that among the sciences theology is still queen.

Theology is an absolute necessity in the development of character. For character is determined by ethical and spiritual ideas. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” is adamantine certainty. As the ancient quatrain sings it:

Sow a thought and we reap an act.

Sow an act and we reap a habit.

Sow a habit and we reap a character.

Sow a character and we reap a destiny.

The logic is faultless. Thought is the prime factor, the inaugurator of life’s destiny.

To live morally one must have some knowledge of right and wrong. To exercise faith in God one must have some knowledge of him. To accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord one must know something about him.

The Heart Of Theology

While there are many theologies (for men do think about God), we are concerned only with Christian theology. This we find in the written Word and supremely in the One who is the living Word which was with God and is God, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is such a vast range of truth in the Christian revelation that we must find the central and unifying idea which is the doctrine of God. All truth finds its meaning and unity there. Our idea of God conditions and determines all of life. From the values of human nature to the ethics of vivisection, from the modes of worship to the attitudes toward murder, from the value of sacrifice to the morality of a church bazaar—our thought will be conditioned by our idea of God.

As the idea of God is theology’s dominant note, the point of its clearest revelation becomes the central place of our preaching. That point we find in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again we are faced with such a wealth of truth that we must seek the nub of it all. Where does Christ give to us his supreme revelation of God? The answer is always the Cross. There the Beloved wrought out our redemption, in his precious blood, and in so doing gave us the clearest possible revelation of the mind and heart and will of God. Our theology, therefore, must be Cross-centered. Our preaching must be Cross-centered. Our living must be Cross-centered. Let us preach all phases of Christian truth, but let us never forget to make the Cross our center and circumference, our Alpha and Omega. Such preaching will always possess sanity and balance, and will result in permanent fruit. “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14).

Preaching Theology

Having seen the necessity for theology, and having discovered the heart of theology, the question arises: how shall we preach it?

As to method, I would suggest that one might follow the example of Dale of Birmingham and deliberately and directly preach labeled doctrinal messages. A series of sermons on the great ideas of the Church, such as God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, repentance, faith, man, atonement, regeneration, sanctification, the Second Coming, heaven and hell, cannot fail to bless both the preacher and the people.

Such an orderly presentation is of greater value than the hit or miss system, or rather lack of system, of mentioning one of these subjects now and then in any kind of sermon. Such preaching of doctrine harmonizes with the principles of teaching, conforming to the laws under which the mind operates. Moreover, our people ought to know the biblical meaning of those great terms. Today there is too flimsy a use of those great words. This is due in large measure to a careless disregard for the logical principles of definition. The result has been vagueness in thought with resultant confusion in living. Positive living can only arise from positive preaching, and that can only come from clear apprehension of truth, which is the result of clear thinking. Therefore, let us “gird up the loins of our mind,” meditate within the eternal truth, and preach doctrinal sermons.

Some may prefer the technique Phillips Brooks mastered, namely, the preaching of doctrine without labeling it, or saturating a sermon with theology. In his immortal lectures on preaching he concludes his analysis of the weakness of non-doctrinal sermons with these burning words:

The truth is no preaching ever had any strong power that was not preaching of doctrine. The preachers that have moved and held men have always preached doctrine. No exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience. Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn forever more; but preach it always, not that men may believe it, but that men may be saved by believing it.

Another method, expository preaching, which many believe is the ideal, possesses the values of the former minus its weaknesses. Such pulpit masters as Donne, Maclaren, and Morgan considered it the ideal. One thing of which we may be certain is this: it is impossible to expound the Word apart from the preaching of doctrine. Were we to have a generation of thoughtful, expository preaching, it would change the character of the Church. What a pity we have neglected such preaching in our American pulpit, and what a price we have paid on account of it.

Let us consider also the manner in which we should preach theology.

We must preach with vision. Vision is not foresight nor hindsight, but seeing the Invisible. “The things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned.”

We must preach with conviction. Conviction is power. Conviction is life. We have too many opinions and too few convictions. Opinions are valuable but they never started, sustained, or consummated a moral conflict. Even right opinions fall short of life. Nothing is so dead as a dead orthodoxy. Opinions may be stillborn convictions. They may be emerging convictions. Conviction is the reaction of the whole personality to an idea. Conceived in the mind and grasped by the heart, it issues forth into life in the dynamics of the will. Convictions are tyrannical, imperious, imperative. Not I may, but I must, is the logic of conviction. We may hold opinions, but we may not hold convictions. They hold us!

We must preach doctrine with passion. Without holy feeling the preaching of theology is a perilous and dangerous undertaking. Preaching apart from passion is worthless. Anyone who can think upon the great themes concerning God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and not be stirred in the depths of his soul has no place in the Christian pulpit. This is no plea for clamor and ranting; misbehavior of that sort grieves the Holy Spirit and is an impertinence to sincere emotion. Holy emotion under the control of the Holy Spirit may be revealed by the quiet speech of S. D. Gordon, or the majestic eloquence of Brooks; by the tranquil beauty of Jowett, or the blazing fire of Sunday.

Let us awaken to the awful solemnity of our calling, and with eyes fixed upon that

… Sacred Head, now wounded,

With grief and shame weigh’d down,

Now scornfully surrounded

With thorns, Thine only crown,

let us preach as dying men to dying men the Word of God.

END

Clarence S. Roddy is Professor of homiletics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Formerly Professor of English Bible at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, he has served as Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Portland

“The most wasted hour in the week.” In these words, Wesley Shrader, writing in Life magazine has characterized the one hour a week during which a minority of Americans receives formal religious instruction. One wonders if even the one hour in 168 is worthwhile for this purpose.

A Work Of Wonders

Though the Sunday School seems to limp along, it often accomplishes wonders. Only an all-wise God could utilize untrained volunteers, meager physical facilities, and limited materials to change the course of so many lives. Handicaps that would stagger the secular educator meet the underprepared but faith-filled teacher and superintendent, and the Lord gets for himself and us the victory. The truly dedicated teacher feels that time is so short for the learning of so much important content that the Sunday School hour should provide the most challenging, fruitful experience of the whole week.

The Demand Of The Times

Today, Sunday Schools should and must offer experiences that are unique. When William Wordsworth wrote, in the early nineteenth century, “the world is too much with us,” he knew less than half the secular pressures of the century to come. Over a span of several generations, our whole society has grown increasingly secular. American social institutions are bent on doing good to man without reference to the Eternal. Two objectives actually dominate our lives: acquiring more and more material possessions, and seeking the ultimate in pleasure. Many nominal Christians, young and old, live from Sunday to Sunday without contact with the things of Christ. In the day schools, activities are highly secularized, except for concessions to five carefully-rationed verses from the Old Testament, a mumbling of the Lord’s Prayer, and an occasional pantheistic assembly program designed neither to stimulate nor to offend. A popular superstition, shared by many evangelicals, holds that an insidious Fu-Manchu of education named John Dewey has dominated our public schools and fathered atheism in them. Those of us who have worked in several public school systems and have visited a good many others know that Dewey’s influence, both in “progressive teaching” and in secularization of the schools, is almost negligible. Sanely progressive teaching stems primarily from what God has permitted us to know about the nature and nurture of children, and about the ways in which people of all ages learn most effectively. Secularization has occurred precisely because we have wanted it.

The Evangelical Outlook

To fill a great spiritual void, we need evangelical Sunday Schools. The superior Sunday School of evangelical persuasion does much more than teach hero stories of the Bible, impart ethics and morals, and develop human relations skills. It uses as its cornerstone the Word of God; then it convicts young and old of their need of Christ as personal Saviour; and thirdly it stimulates consistent growth in the Christian life and experience of the pupil.

Numerous Sunday Schools do not qualify in these respects. Bible stories that are taught have the aspect of “cunningly devised fables.” The ethical and moral standards which teachers inculcate suggest merely that it pays to be nice. Usually, they neglect to develop in their pupils sufficient understanding of the plan of salvation and a corresponding gratefulness to God for the means of grace. Sunday Schools that pervert their function should go the way of other decadent institutions. They supply little that is not already supplied by humanistic enterprises elsewhere in our society. If their major objective is to develop additional smiling, pleasant heathen, with whom our civilization is already crowded, they should let better-equipped and better-organized agencies serve this objective. If they place heavy reliance on the biographies of biblical and church heroes, they should examine research data which suggest that teaching biographies of the great may have relatively little effect on the behavior of learners.

What, then, are some of the main features of effective, spiritually-oriented Sunday Schools?

1. Really effective Sunday Schools are staffed with genuine Christians who have been carefully selected and introduced to their work. The most vital element in the teaching process is the teacher. Sunday School teachers, who are ordained to a special task, should be selected with an eye to their own spiritual experience and beliefs, to their basic understanding of their teaching assignment, and to their probable adaptability in dealing with the age group with which they will work. Once assigned, the new teacher needs help in both individual and group settings so that he may grow in service. Because of increased volunteering by teacher candidates, Sunday Schools can be more selective in their choice of teachers than they could have been 20 years ago.

2. The best Sunday Schools base their teaching on the Bible, for they seek always to convince pupils of their need of Christ as Saviour. No other institution or organization is prepared to teach consistently the Christian verities. Because this is true, no Sunday School and no series of curriculum materials for use in Sunday Schools should dilute the concentrated Gospel message.

3. The most effective Sunday Schools teach clearly and repeatedly the plan of salvation. How many members of Protestant churches have experienced the new birth? Is the fraction nearer one tenth or one twentieth of the total membership? One wonders whether either the pulpit or the Sunday School has thus far begun to fulfill its major responsibility. Surely the pupils in our Sunday Schools should be reminded as often as possible, and in as many different ways, of the plan of salvation.

4. The best Sunday Schools recognize that their most significant aim is improvement in the value structure of the individual. Teaching about the Scriptures is relatively easy. Helping the individual to reorient his values through use of the Scriptures so that all things have indeed become new is much more difficult. Sunday School teachers should be intensely aware of the power of God to change lives. They should also be helped to convert the findings of secular educators about the process of valuing and re-valuing to the special purposes of Christian education.

5. Teachers in the effective Sunday School plan their work carefully. For adequate planning, teachers need to know their specific objectives, week by week. Rather than teaching too much at a time, which results in superficial teaching and learning, they should limit their subject matter, striving to make it as meaningful as possible.

6. Teachers in the best Sunday Schools vary their teaching procedures. They know that listening and reciting, the two commonest activities in Sunday Schools, often represent a low order of learning. By experience it has been found that audio-visual aids and pupil, participation, to mention two very general categories of method, do indeed assist the learning of the world’s most important curriculum content.

7. Teachers in the best of Sunday Schools seek practical applications of the precepts they teach. One of the major criticisms of the Sunday School has been a failure to help pupils put into action throughout the week the spiritual truths they have discussed abstractly on Sunday. More of our weekly assignments should begin with the words, “Suppose we try this week to show our love (or patience, or honesty) in these situations: … Next week, let’s report how we’ve done.” Correspondingly, fewer assignments would then begin with the fact-directed interrogatives, Why? When? Where? More assignments would begin with the expressions, Why? and What would happen if …?

8. Teachers in effective Sunday Schools maintain warm, friendly relationships with their pupils, and with their pupils’ families. Often, the best Sunday School teaching is informal. The glowing personalities of Christian adults then come into contact with the growing personalities of individuals who are spiritually less mature. In this climate of friendship, the teacher tries to encourage self-discipline in his pupils. He also stimulates independent thinking and a sense of freedom within a context of divine authority. The teacher’s relationship with the home is crucial in securing cooperation in the spiritual growth of children.

9. Teachers in effective Sunday Schools evaluate the results of their work. Sunday School teachers have too often assumed that their own and their pupils’ efforts were bearing fruit. But the alert teacher will ask himself, “How do I know how well we have succeeded in our work?” Then he will devise questions and activities to evaluate, both formally and informally, progress to date. Most questions and activities should test the learning of major ideas and concepts rather than memorization of simple facts.

10. Effective Sunday Schools supply their teachers with the best in materials. Broadly conceived, this statement refers to teaching aids and materials of all kinds. In impoverished churches, it means quarterlies secured from publishing houses. Some of these and other aids are obviously not evangelical, and sometimes the evangelical ones are of poor educational quality. However, one of the gratifying developments of the past 10 years has been steady improvement in the quality of basic materials.

11. The most effective Sunday Schools provide a program of in-service education for their teachers. Teaching, for the ablest of personnel, is a complex act; hence, even the most competent of teachers need help. Certainly inexperienced, volunteer teachers need a special long-term program of in-service education to build their competencies to the maximum.

The Spiritual Priorities

In view of the purpose of the Sunday School, the most important of the preceding eleven features are the spiritual ones. Any Sunday School that has the first three features serves, at least in a limited way, a function that is fulfilled by no other organization in our society. The degree to which a Sunday School possesses the remaining eight determines, in large part, the effectiveness of its teaching ministry.

Findings in individual and social psychology, as well as in the other social sciences, have confirmed the worth of Jesus’ own methods of teaching. When amateurs in education attack these methods in books and articles, they are attacking wisdom higher than their own. What did Jesus do in his role as Master Teacher? He dealt personally with individuals (e.g., John 4:7, 26). He started with people where they were and moved them patiently to new stages in their development (e.g., his dealings with Simon Peter). He encouraged problem solving (e.g., Matt. 16:13–20). He let his learners develop the questions and ideas that led to teaching incidents (e.g., Mark 9:17–29). He encouraged learning by doing (e.g., Matt. 14:25–31). He sometimes taught by action rather than by words (e.g., John 8:6–9).

In addition, of course, Jesus did many things that good teachers do today. He taught informally. He gave learners full opportunity for decision-making. He emphasized inner motivation as opposed to outward acts. He urged practical demonstration and application of what had been learned. And above all, he sought fundamental change in systems of values.

To Sunday School teachers one may say, “Try to follow the high, hard road of the Master. If you try, no one can legitimately ask, ‘Shall we close the Sunday Schools?’ “A pioneer in Christian education, Clarence H. Benson, has said: “If the Gospel is from God, why is it not more effective? Well, there is nothing wrong with the Sower, who is the Son of God, or the Seed, which is the Word of God. The difficulty lies in the soil, and in the sowing of the Seed, which has been intrusted to the teacher’s hands.… It takes time and patience to press beyond the mind and reach the soul and spirit of the individual. Only as the teacher thus approaches his task is there any assurance that the good Seed will not only get down into the soil, but also will have a resurrection in a transformed and fruitful life” (The Christian Teacher, Chicago, Moody Press, 1950, p. 7).

It would be a sad day for America if the Sunday School should close its doors.

END

Ronald C. Doll is Professor of Education in New York University. He holds the B.A., M.A. and Ed.D. from Columbia University. Co-author of Organizing for Curriculum Improvement (Teachers College, Columbia University) and The Art of Communicating (Macmillan), he has held positions as teacher, principal, superintendent and curriculum consultant.

That I should devote a page of Current Religious Thought to the subject of traffic needs explanation, and the fact that it needs explanation needs explanation. In the first place, my devoting the page to this subject needs explanation, so I feel, because the matter seems to be neither especially current, especially religious, or especially of the nature of thought. That that explanation needs explanation is because traffic really is current, religious, and of the nature of thought; therefore, it is surprising that anyone should think it necessary to apologize for treating this subject under the heading of current religious thought. But I think that my attitude, which I am here criticizing, is rather common and therefore significant. If it is as common as I think that it is, then the shallowness of our thinking is revealed in our thinking that this subject is shallow.

To show how common this attitude actually is let me relate an experience. Not too long ago in the company of some learned men a moral issue—an obviously moral issue—was being discussed. One member of this company, in the context of discussing that particular moral issue, took occasion to appeal to an analogy in the area of behavior, or rather, misbehavior, on the highways. Immediately another member of this learned company protested the irrelevancy of the remark on the ground that the analogy had to do with traffic and that had nothing to do with morals.

The first topic that comes to mind is religion and speed. Can one conclude from the miles per hour that a driver is a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Christian Scientist, a Romanist, or a pagan? Unfortunately, no. Alas for the vast majority, the Bible and speed limits have no relation to each other. There was a time when the minister we know best of any would regularly drive 70 miles an hour to conduct a prayer meeting or communion. Frequently when we rose to preach on the duty of keeping the law, we would have broken the law of the road in order to reach the pulpit. Many people who knew us only before our reform will be saying: Aha, look who is talking on the sin of speeding! For years we, who would not think of cheating in an exam or on an income tax return, would defy any speed limit if we saw no trooper behind a clump of trees or in our mirror (which we used to watch conscientiously). This is a confession, you are right. It was years before we broke under the relentless logic of Romans 13: if the powers that be are to be obeyed for God’s sake, and the powers that be make traffic regulations, then their regulations are to be obeyed for God’s sake. Now, since I have been enlightened, I could not be a Christian and drive 70 on a highway in Pennsylvania (except in the case of dire emergency for which I could conscientiously request a police escort if that were feasible). This is a confession, all right; but I make it not for myself alone, but for all those sinners who see no correlation between driving and duty. And their name is legion.

It is remarkable how many persons who, as pedestrians, are quite courteous Christian gentlemen and gentlewomen, but undergo a transformation (not unlike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) when they get behind a wheel. While they would not think of pushing and shoving on the sidewalk or in a corridor, they do the equivalent of it in a line of cars without batting an eye of their conscience. They tip their hats to ladies on the street and hold the door for elderly folk, but seated in a super eight they are not distinguishers of persons. Polite as the most refined and genteel in the drawing room, they are uncivilized savages when on Route 6.

There was an old Latin saying: in vino veritas—in wine there is truth. Inebriation gives vent to some uninhibited expressions. Is it possible that for many persons driving is a sober man’s alcohol under the influence of which he takes leave of his usual restraints and feels no moral inhibitions? We are reminded of the little boy who once asked his mother why it was that when father drove the car all the “pigs”, “vermin”, “dogs” and “toads” came out on the highway.

Speaking of traffic, consider this well-known slogan: “Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own.” Now the writer of that motto at least recognizes that the matter of driving is a moral matter. He appeals to a basal moral law of self-preservation. He seems to be arguing that we ought to be careful on the roads because we ought to preserve our lives as long as possible. While no one wishes to quarrel with the law of self-preservation or the morality of the same, this bald statement seems to us to be fundamentally nonmoral, if not immoral. To appeal to me to be careful for the sake of me with no consideration whatever given to the possible innocent victim of my otherwise careless driving seems like the crassest hedonism. While there may be nothing wrong in appealing to self-interest as one motive along with and subordinate to others, to appeal to self-interest disregarding all others’ interest seems unethical. Society may be better off if I am a careful driver. But, if I am a careful driver for no other reason than my own preservation, then society owes me no thanks. Somehow I cannot imagine our Lord, if he were in the business of writing highway slogans, penning such a motto. It would be easier for me to imagine him saying: “Drive carefully—the life you save may not only be your own but someone else’s.” Loving your neighbor as well as yourself applies to your fellow driver. The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount apply on the highway as well as elsewhere. Christian morality goes beyond the preservation of self.

But, then I can hear the cynic remark: What an anticlimax that would be. To which I suspect our Lord would say: What an unethical sentiment your remark is. After all, what does it profit a man, even on the highway, if he save his life but lose his soul? And does the immoral person not lose his soul, no matter how effectively he preserves his life—from traffic hazards or whatever?

A minister friend of mine recently put an article in his church bulletin on the morals of highway driving. Apparently there are many who need to be shown the relation between their Christianity and their motoring. How can a person be a Christian in the living room and not on the road? What kind of moral dichotomy is that which permits a man to be a saint behind a desk and a sinner behind a wheel? To be sure, Isaiah was not predicting modern travel when he spoke of a “highway for our God.” But may we not adapt his expression and call for a modern highway for our God? As a matter of fact, must not those who are on Isaiah’s highway, prove it by behaving as a Christian on ours? Is modern driving an irrelevancy in the realm of current religious thought? I think not.

What Is Orthodoxy?

The Case for a New Reformation Theology, by William Hordern (Westminster Press, 1959, 173 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Robert D. Knudsen, Instructor in Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Westminster Press is currently sponsoring an interesting discussion between what it feels are the three major options in Protestant theology. The first volume presents the orthodox position: The Case for Orthodox Theology, by E. J. Carnell. The next volume presents the liberal position: The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective, by L. H. DeWolf. The volume before us deals with the so-called neo-orthodox or kerygmatic theology. The discussion is the more interesting because the discussants did not know each other’s identity. They were only acquainted with the general plan of the series, and they were left to develop their arguments alone.

William Hordern is well qualified to represent the kerygmatic position. Over a period of years he has been in close contact with it. He is also the author of at least one other book on contemporary theology, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology.

At the center of his treatment is what he considers to be the major contribution of neo-orthodoxy, its idea of revelation. After a short review of the background of the newer theology, he proceeds to a discussion of faith and reason, of the nature of revelation, and of how we can know revelation is revelation. The second part of the book broadly treats the scope of theology under the headings of God, sin, and salvation. After a conclusion, the author presents a short bibliography of writings from the kerygmatic standpoint.

Hordern’s discussion is able. His presentation is clear, to the point, and helpful. There are many things in the book with which the orthodox Christian can agree, at least formally. He ought, for instance, to welcome the author’s emphasis upon the sovereignty of God, the idea that God’s revelation is self-authenticating, and the strong plea for the Reformation emphasis upon a theology of grace. Further, I am also ready with Hordern to ask orthodox theologians, who say that God’s revelation must pass the test at the bar of human reason, whether this demand does not set up a standard which is higher than God himself and does not injure the biblical idea of the sovereignty of God. We can also agree with Hordern that neo-orthodox theology is an attempt to pass between orthodoxy and liberalism. For an orthodox thinker, however, the question must always arise whether such a third position is really possible.

The neo-orthodox theology claims that it is a new reformation theology. In making this claim, however, neo-orthodoxy has sought to drive a wedge between the Reformers and orthodoxy, and center its attack on the theology of the seventeenth century. The Reformers are supposed to have seen the Word of God as a living confrontation; the orthodox are supposed to have corrupted the Reformers’ view by seeing revelation as a communication of information and viewing faith as belief in doctrine. We need not deny that there is some difference between the original Reformers and their seventeenth century followers; however, one who is orthodox feels too much at home with the Reformers to accept the neo-orthodox position concerning them. Our questions increase when we discover that neo-orthodoxy finds such supposed corruption in the Bible itself. Even the late books of the New Testament are supposed to have departed from the biblical view of revelation and are supposed to have overemphasized belief in doctrine. Our misgivings increase even further when we find that this neo-orthodox distinction even invades the authority of Jesus Christ. The orthodox claim that Jesus Christ was infallible is called docetism, the heresy which does not give due place to the humanity and to the historical nature of Christ. Hordern claims that nothing in the Bible is an infallible statement, not even the proposition that God is love; because even this idea is subject to misunderstanding (p. 64).

According to neo-orthodoxy, it is useless to speak of an infallible book, the Bible, which is gradually understood more deeply. Moreover, it is useless to speak of an objective revelation—out there—apart from the one who receives it. According to neo-orthodoxy, revelation is an event, a personal encounter between God and man. It is an event that leaves no canonical teaching behind. It is characteristic of the neo-orthodox theologies that they distinguish sharply between the revelation of a person and the revelation of information. The biblical revelation is supposed to be personal revelation, while orthodoxy is supposed to have corrupted the biblical notion in thinking of revelation as the revelation of information.

Orthodoxy has never claimed that the Bible revelation is simply a revelation of information, or that faith is merely assent to this information. Undoubtedly many persons have confused mere assent to propositions taken from the Bible with true faith. But orthodoxy has always called such assent “historical faith.” This historical faith has always been sharply distinguished from saving faith. While orthodoxy says that revelation is not merely the impartation of information, it must say nevertheless that revelation involves such impartation. In this teaching orthodoxy is in line with the Reformation and with the Bible. We can note an example from the writings of the Apostle Paul, who objected strenuously to the false teachers who had said that the resurrection was past already and had overthrown the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:18). Clearly for Paul faith involved a belief in certain divinely-given information.

To support the neo-orthodox view of the Bible, Hordern uses the illustration of the telescope (p. 70). When one uses a telescope, his attention is not on the telescope itself. The telescope is to see through. Likewise the Bible is to see through, to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Yet, what Hordern is asking us to do is to see the image of God clearly through a telescope with a cracked lens. Perhaps this is not even strong enough. Hordern quotes Barth, that the biblical writers have been at fault in every word (p. 67). The miracle of revelation is that God is able to use the human, incorrect statements of the Bible as a medium of his revelation. Perhaps it would be even truer to say that Hordern expects us to see the image of God clearly through a telescope with no lens at all!

As in his former book, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology, Hordern shows an openness. Even though he rejects orthodoxy, it is for him a live option. Nevertheless, he sees the issue sharply. For him the opposition between neo-orthodoxy and orthodoxy is not a minor one; it is a strife between two basically antagonistic positions. It is not surprising, therefore, that the conservative Christian must with regret set himself against neo-orthodoxy as well as the old modernism. For him neo-orthodoxy appears as a new form of modernism and not as a faithful interpretation of the Reformation theology.

That the conservative must take such a basic stand against neo-orthodoxy does not mean that he cannot benefit from reading such a volume as Hordern has written. Here in a short compass he can gain a clear and fresh insight into this new theology, presented by one who is fully abreast of the current discussions.

ROBERT D. KNUDSEN

Anabaptism Evaluated

The Free Church, by Franklin Hamlin Littell (Starr King Press, Boston, 1957, 171 pp., $6), is reviewed by Andrew K. Rule of the department of Church History and Apologetics, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

This book is a vigorous, often impassioned, plea for the “restitution” to the Church of the “practice of Christian Community,” which is defined as the practice of arriving at “consensus” within the Christian community by recognizing the freedom of all members to participate in discussion, and their obligation to be guided by the result. This, the author maintains, was the basic characteristic of “the Free Church” of Reformation times, which he seems to identify closely, if not exclusively, with the Anabaptist Mennonite movement. The theme and the plea are timely both in view of the recent re-evaluation of Anabaptism and in view of the contemporary stirring among “the laity” in various denominations.

The modern re-evaluation of Anabaptism here finds expression in the separation of “the radicals” and “the spiritualizers” from the main body of left-wing sixteenth century Protestantism, and the identification of Anabaptism with the latter. When this is done, the Anabaptists receive a much more favorable evaluation than was formally characteristic; and this happens with scholars who are not, like the author of this book, crusading Methodists addressing a Mennonite audience. Such a re-evaluation of them is probably just; but care must be taken in the process—and such care is not always taken—to be just to the major Reformers, the Roman Catholic leaders, and the secular rulers of the sixteenth century who saw Anabaptism in a very different light and treated it accordingly. The fact that it has since proved possible, step by step, to grant all the demands of the Anabaptists, without any dire consequences, does not prove that their advocacy of them as “a package deal” was not socially dangerous at that time. Dr. Littell has not sufficiently guarded himself from this historical injustice; and in particular, by lumping Calvin so consistently with the other Reformers, he has failed to discover, in that expression of the Reformation, the highly successful embodiment of free church principles for which he looks, with less success, to the Mennonites.

It is difficult also to find in this book any clear and consistently applied definition, connotative or denotative, of a “Free Church.” One finds it distinguished from the “territorial” church, the “established” church, the “clergy-centered establishments,” from the church of the Reformers, and from “American religion,” but no one of these terms is clearly defined nor are distinctions within them recognized. The thinking here is too much like the pinning on of labels, and some of it sounds like “ranting.” This is a shame, for the author in each case has a good cause and is obviously capable of more factually restrained judgments.

In spite of these criticisms, the reviewer regards this as a useful book. The very points of criticism are useful in stimulating thinking; and the main theme of the book is a challenge to a re-evaluation of the church—something that is vitally necessary in regard to the ecumenical movement.

ANDREW K. RULE

Contemporary Faith

Know Your Faith Series: I Believe in Immortality, by John Sutherland Bonnell (Abingdon, 1958, 83 pp., $1.25), Invitation to Commune, by Charles Ray Goff (88 pp., $1.75), and I Believe in Jesus Christ, by Walter Russell Bowie (69 pp., $1.25), are reviewed by Robert B. Dempsey, Minister of the Congregational Church of Carlisle, Massachusetts.

The first book is excellent and worth its price. Its appealing style will keep one reading to the end.

Bonnell presents the case for immortality convincingly and rightly distinguishes vague ideas about endless existence from the Bible’s rich concept of eternal life. The skeptic is viewed as one whose bleak life has no real anchor in the face of death.

For Bonnell, man has a soul which is incomplete without a body. When this house of clay is laid aside, there is a body waiting for us in a heaven that is nearby and not in distant spaces.

Evangelicals will agree with his presentation of the bodily resurrection of Christ and its meaning for triumphant living.

There are three weaknesses in the book. The author is explicit about Christ’s resurrection but leaves unanswered the question of the believer’s resurrection. Once he hints that the Christ of faith is not the Jesus of history, and thus much of what he says is negated. The greatest weakness is his failure to link significantly eternal life with the Atonement.

The second book is a devotional study on the Methodist communion liturgy and proper attitudes for a profitable participation in the Lord’s Supper. All will agree with the author that certain attitudes are essential. Two of these are provocatively expressed. Goff is best in his chapters on repentance and comfort. Those on love, faith, consecration, and confession are less effective. The chapter on reconciliation is undercut by the assumption of universalism that appears in the book.

Although he seeks to avoid the weaknesses of liberalism, Goff does not escape one of the most serious of these. His approach to communion is subjectivistic, with ultimately no right and wrong in its observance. It is repeatedly called the Way of Wonder, and its mystical qualities are emphasized. The worship aspects are completely in the realm of emotion and lacking in necessary doctrinal content. References to such topics as the Atonement and propitiation are unsatisfactory.

Of the three books, this last is the least rewarding. Bowie rightly presents a Christ whose life and principles possessed a certain sternness, but who was nonetheless gentle. While his insights into the humanity of Jesus present him as a figure of virility and strength with a zest for life and nature, there is little appreciation for the person and work of Christ. Death for his teachings was merely something he suspected would happen early in his ministry. However, he faced the tragedy bravely, and died the martyr’s death.

Bowie seeks to raise the Cross above meaninglessness, but does not succeed. A sense of sin comes not from the Substitute under the judgment of God but from the wickedness of His slayers. Love is not in the reconciliation through the blood but in the willingness of Christ to die so that men might have an ideal. The victory of the Cross was not over death but in “the great moral triumph of the great soul which had gone straight into the darkness of death without surrendering” (p. 53).

The author’s treatment of Christ’s resurrection and deity leave a great deal to be desired.

ROBERT B. DEMPSEY

Courage Of Conviction

Thomas Ken: Bishop and Non-Juror, by H. A. L. Rice (Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, London, 230 pp., 25s), is reviewed by G. C. B. Davies, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Trinity College, Dublin.

Few occupants of the English episcopal bench are more worthy of the adjective “saintly” than the subject of this book, Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Though the troublous times in which Ken lived form a necessary background to his life and work, we scarcely ever find them ruffling the serenity of his mind, so clear was his vision of the things unseen and eternal.

Yet we are not to imagine that Ken was spared personal concern with the trials which oppressed England during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Chaplain to the Princess Anne at the Hague, to King Charles II, and to the naval expedition of 1683 concerned with the demolition of Tangier; on the scaffold with Monmouth; making efforts to better the lot of the wretched rebels suffering under the ruthless Kirke and Jeffreys; one of the seven bishops in the Tower—Ken spent himself in the conscientious discharge of his priestly and episcopal duties. But with the arrival of “Dutch Williams” (to whom the author is scarcely fair), Ken’s implacable conscience forbad him to take an oath of allegiance to a de facto sovereign in the lifetime of another to whom he had previously sworn fealty in virtually the same words. On this point Ken was quite clear, despite the urgent persuasions of some of his friends.

In 1691 he was deprived of his bishopric, together with eight other bishops, all convinced of the same moral duty. Because of this, a great spiritual force departed from the church leaving open the field to those Latitudinarian influences which so sorely weakened her moral prestige in the ensuing century. For the last 20 years of his life, Ken found sanctuary at Longleat, the magnificent mansion between Frome and Warminster, home of his friend Lord Weymouth, and now the residence of the Marquess of Bath. To occupy his mind in retirement, he wrote verse of no outstanding merit, though his morning and evening hymns are familiar to many. Shortly before his death he ceded his bishopric to his friend of university days, George Hooper, in whose safe hands he was confident to leave his beloved flock.

We are indebted to the author for this finely written study which was obviously a labor of love. Mr. Rice at times makes little secret of his own sympathies. When pointing a moral from the days of Ken to our own times, he castigates the “pale pink intellectuals of a State-pampered age,” and ruefully comments that today Sabbath worship is “a mild and comparatively rare eccentricity.” Though bringing to light no new material, Mr. Rice has done well to set once more before us a figure to whom principle was all and expediency nothing. His verdict on Ken and the Non-Jurors carries a lesson of lasting significance. “However mistaken the twentieth century may adjudge to be the motives which led the Non-Jurors into the wilderness of privation, obscurity and neglect, it may well pay the passing tribute of a sigh in deference to men who had the courage of their own convictions and who were prepared to face whatever came their way of hardship, suspicion, and material loss.”

G. C. B. DAVIES

Twice-Born Men

Crusade at the Golden Gate, by Sherwood Eliot Wirt (Harper, 1959, 176 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, Dean of Faculty, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Crusade at the Golden Gate is a fascinating book. One cannot remain untouched as he reads the stirring story of Billy Graham’s Cow Palace Crusade in San Francisco. The spiritual diaries of men and women whose lives were changed reminds one of Twice-Born Men.

The author stands midway between antipodal poles—between those who can see no wrong in Billy Graham and those who can see no good. He realistically evaluates the Cow Palace campaign, and does so against the backdrop of San Francisco’s peculiar inheritance. No wild claims are advanced, no superlatives carelessly dropped. In measured yet moving terms he balances the benefits of the campaign over against the anticipated but unachieved results.

This is undoubtedly the best account of any of the Graham campaigns. Whatever be one’s personal viewpoint, he will not put this book down until he has read the last page. Nor can anyone help but be blessed if he comes to it with an open mind. For it is not really the story of Billy Graham, but of God working through Mr. Graham.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Itinerant Preacher

Seventy Years a Preacher, the Life Story of the Rev. William H. Moser, Ph.D., Militant Methodist Preacher, as told to Chester A. Smith (The Historical Society of the New York Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, Peekskill, N. Y., 1959, 110 pp., published by subscription), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

Books about preachers have a fascination for other preachers. This one, told briefly and well, is the story of a parson who itinerated a good deal, as Methodist ministers used to do. His duties were mainly in the Hudson valley, and everywhere he went he seems to have made an influence. President Eisenhower, as the title page of this book points out, said, “I like to see militant preachers.” Likely enough, Moser is a man whom Eisenhower would have admired. Interested in social reform, he fought the liquor traffic and Sunday moving pictures. Of a practical turn of mind, he gave some of his attention successfully to debt reduction and fund raising for church improvement. He saved some of his poorer congregations considerable sums by repairing their pipe organs for them. In one community he paved the way for municipal street lighting by installing lights on poles from the downtown area to his church.

Deeply spiritual, Moser conducted numerous revivals, held Wednesday evening prayer meetings, taught indoctrination courses, and led Bible classes. He visited his members faithfully, read the Bible to them, and prayed with them. He preached the Christian faith and life without manuscript and with power. Now, at 89 years of age, he is living in retirement with his wife and son at Ridgewood, New Jersey.

The volume abounds with anecdotes. Once his son, then not yet five years old, insisted on speaking at a prayer meeting. When given permission, he said (for he had listened well): “I have served the Lord for 40 years. Please pray for me that I may be faithful to the end.” One Christmas eve, in the early days of radio, his boys put the earphones of a primitive battery set on his head as he lay in bed. Broadcasting was sporadic in those days; the radio was silent, and Moser fell asleep. Suddenly he awoke in the dark room to hear the thrilling strains of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” The incident made a deep impression on him, and in time, he says, it became more than an impression. “It became a prophecy of the time when I shall fall asleep on earth for the last time, to be awakened by the angel choir in heaven.”

The contents of this book were related to Chester A. Smith, a well-known Methodist layman, himself a preacher and author.

The present volume is commended to all who wish to learn what it was like to be a Methodist pastor in the days of itinerancy, and to all who enjoy perusing the biographies of clergymen.

E. P. SCHULZE

Credo

I Believe in Man, by Frederick Keller Stamm (Abingdon, 1959, 77 pp., $1.50), and I Believe in the Church, by Elmer G. Homrighausen (Abingdon, 1959, 108 pp., $1.50), are reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Louisiana.

These two books finish up the “Know Your Faith” series to which Gerald Kennedy, Joseph R. Sizoo and others have contributed. I Believe in Man is an affirmation of man’s innate capacity for good. The author writes of Creation: “… (God) made man well and he endowed him with basic goodness.” To have endowed man with an evil nature, believes Dr. Stamm, would have been to create evil. In other words, if there was a Fall, the author never heard of it. And if he ever read Niebuhr, it was evidently with disapproval. As the dust jacket confides, “Dr. Stamm’s view of man is an optimistic one.” Add to this optimistic view a liberal view of Christ and a psychologist’s view of religious experience and you have this book. The viewpoint is one that died of old age and was given a decent burial long ago.

I Believe in the Church covers a less controversial subject. Very few people of whatever persuasion would find fault as the author argues that Christianity is not a solitary experience; that the Church, the body of Christ, exhibits God’s purpose for man and for history; that the Church is “necessary and integral (?) to God, to the Christian, and to the world.” Dr. Homrighausen writes warmly of these things and of the Holy Spirit who brings to believers the “inner quality” of Pentecost, thus uniting them to Christ and to his community, the Church, until Christ comes again. This book is a refreshing antidote to the other.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Stimulative And Suggestive

Sermon Substance, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker Book House, 1958, 224 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by H. C. Brown, Jr., Professor of Preaching, Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

Sermon Substance, by the author of Jonathan Edwards the Preacher and other books, deals suggestively and creatively with 100 ideas for a year’s preaching ministry.

In his introduction the author gives the clue to the purpose for his book: “The task of sermon preparation is a delight when the busy pastor knows what to prepare. But there are days when there is no stirring of the wind, and he feels like a ship becalmed. What then? Is it a denial of faith to lift a top sail in the hope and expectation that the wind will blow again? Here it is that sermon substance has a place of stimulus and suggestion [italics added].”

In the event that the author’s purpose is properly understood and correctly carried out, this book has value. But in the event that the author’s purpose is perverted by “too” busy preachers using the potentially useful substance as a “crutch,” then the book renders a disservice to the ministry. It is hoped that all who read will profit by the author’s lucid thoughts, ideas, illustrations, arrangements, and analyses of Scripture without one preacher resorting to the use of these materials as a substitute for prayer, meditation, study, exegesis, and hard sermonic labors. Let the volume be used to stimulate and to suggest meaningful messages to your mind.

H. C. BROWN, JR.

Nature’S Lessons

Thoughts Afield, by Harold E. Kohn (Eerdmans, 1959, 171 pages, 63 drawings, $3.75), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman, Department of English, Wheaton College.

I usually mark up rather badly the books which I review, but in this instance I refrained. The book is too lovely. It is hard for me to know which I like best—the charming pen-and-ink drawings, the essays themselves, or the fine general layout of the book.

The author’s method is to describe some colorful aspect of natural life in the woods of northern Michigan and then suggest its moral and spiritual implications. Because he loves nature and really knows valuable things about it, his depiction of it does not become a mere crutch to sermonizing. He is interested in the giant trees of the forest but equally excited about the trillium or even an almost microscopic particle of green called the duckweed. It is interesting to notice that he thinks nature is benevolent and that the preying of one animal on another is wholly free from hatred and therefore without the ferocity which human beings sometimes ascribe to it.

The book is lavish in anecdotes and the sort of remarks one likes to quote. “Take any shadow you please and trace it far enough and you will see that it is the dark side of a bright object, pain being the shadow of our wondrous capacity to feel, mistakes being the dark side of our glorious freedom to make choices.” “Selfishness that is blessed with the name of religion is selfishness still.” “The perfectionist can never enjoy anything on earth completely because the things of earth come with built-in blemishes.” To some people “prayer is a matter of mastering the right vocabulary, learning the magical formula that will assault God at His weakest points and make Him give in to their whims.… Prayer is resting for awhile in God’s greatness.” “Nothing in human experience is more attractive and winsome than a noble thought or emotion in the process of becoming a deed.” “One of the most pitiable sights on the face of the earth is lopsided virtue.” “No king ever made a man a knight. The best a king could do was to recognize the knighthood already present in the man.” There are many other such remarks.

The author is preacher, writer, and artist, and in each capacity does a worthy piece of work.

CLYDE S. KILBY

From the ends of Malaya, 315 missionaries and national workers (about 60 per cent of the Christian leadership) gathered July 7–10 for the All-Malaya Christian Workers Conference sponsored by World Vision, the Malayan Christian Council and the Central Malaya Christian Churches. Although Malaya is one of Asia’s oldest centers of Christian activity, after a century of modern missions its Protestant church membership lags at only 30,000.

Only one in 18,000 is a convert. The deepest problem facing the Christian witness in Malaya was dramatized by the absence from the Port Dickson conference of all Malays, who number more than 3 million of the 6,250,000 population. The religious fate of the Malays was virtually sealed, and Christian penetration ruled out, when the British empire, as a price for its colonial foothold, promised protection of Malay religion and custom, intrinsically Moslem. Although Malaya is in the United Nations, national punishment by fine or imprisonment for distribution of non-Moslem literature precludes signing the UN Declaration of Human Rights which stipulates religious freedom. Moslems dominate the government, and some observers regard their pressures “from the right” politically as potentially explosive in Southeast Asia as communist pressures. Religiously, Malayan Moslemism is not virile, often blending with animism and Hinduism. But it remains politically powerful. Any convert to Christianity would be cut off by family and friends, would be disinherited and his life might be endangered. A foreign missionary baptizing such a convert faces deportation by the government.

Under these circumstances Malayan Christians minister effectively only to the large population of aliens. The 200 Protestant missionaries face 2,300,000 Chinese, 750,000 Indians and Pakistanis, and 95,000 others. Among Chinese, the educated speak Mandarin, but other dialects are also widespread. In religion, they are Confucians, Taoists and Buddhists, although Chinese Christian churches and communities were planted by immigrants at the turn of the century. World Vision discussion groups were caried on in Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien as well as in English, which most Indian workers use as well as their own tongue.

Malaya’s fine network of highways, a heritage from British rule, enabled carloads and busloads of workers to attend from distant parts. Malaya is Methodism’s biggest educational field, and the Methodist Church accounts for 50 per cent of the churches, more than half of which are said to be evangelical. In Wesley Methodist Church of Kuala Lumpur, the Rev. Harry Haines, preaching to the largest congregation in the Malayan Federation (which does not include Singapore) addresses 650 persons Sunday mornings and 350 at night. In the past year his church added 150 converts. The church includes 10 nationalities, and the chairman of its board is the only Japanese permitted to remain in Malaya after World War II. The Anglican church accounts for 20 per cent of Malaya’s churches, with Presbyterians and Plymouth Brethren active among the many smaller efforts. Malayan Christian Council represents 92 per cent of the Christian work in Malaya.

World Vision subsidized the Malayan pastors’ conference with a minimal travel allowance, lodging and food. One Indian worker walked 50 miles to attend, while others borrowed automobiles. To quicken evangelistic passion, evangelical devotion and spiritual unity, among Christian workers, the movement’s leader, Dr. Bob Pierce, brought a team of American and Asian leaders. “We are gathered so God may interfere with our lives,” he said, “and do his sovereign work in us.”

Bishop E. Sobrepena of the Philippines, president of the East Asia Christian Conference, pleaded for a revival of evangelistic dedication by ministers and laymen, and told workers: “We fear most the imperialism or enslavement of sin, and we know that Jesus Christ can make us free.” Dr. Kyung Chik Han of Korea, who led his congregation from North to South Korea ahead of the Communist invasion, and now preaches to 4,000 persons in two Sunday morning services in Seoul, called for a courageous Christian witness in the segment of Asia containing half the world’s population. “Two voices are now calling to these multitudes,” he said. “Both welcome Western science. But one insists that Asian religions are best; it promotes a resurgence of the non-Christian religions. The other, atheistic materialism, declares that all religion is superstition. God has placed the Christian minority in Asia for a courageous testimony to the redemption that is in Christ.”

Dr. Paul Rees stressed the need of stewardship, Dr. Richard Halverson the importance of private devotional life and personal dedication, and Dr. Carl F. H. Henry led morning Bible studies. Dr. William Van Valin, California surgeon, accompanied the party.

As workers dispersed, some to Singapore 180 miles south, others fanning through the Federation from the Strait of Malacca to the South China Sea, they recalled Bishop Sobrepena’s bursting plea to “West and East, North and South, white and brown and yellow and black, to enter with new dedication upon the completion of the Christian task.”

Before separating, workers took up an offering to assist the poorer nationals in Burma in attending a similar conference, after discouraged and lonely students, Bible distributors, pastors and missionaries voiced new-found encouragement for the evangelistic task. Depleted by his Osaka crusade, Dr. Pierce did not continue to Burma with his team.

Three in four members of the Malayan churches are under 25. When older missionaries failed to return after World War II, some began in a new way to sense their own missionary duty. Most of Malaya’s missionary force is today scattered throughout the new villages established by the government when Communist terrorists established mountain strongholds, and reserve workers are lacking. A Malayan missionary crusade may not be in early prospect, but evangelical unity in prayer is widening and the sense of evangelistic urgency is being sharpened.

Oriental Tour

Editor Carl F. H. Henry is on a five-week tour of the Orient with World Vision.

On these adjoining pages are dispatches from the scene in which Henry assesses Christian progress in Japan and Malaya.

In his report on Japan, the Editor discusses reasons why missionaries there have not seen as many conversions as are reported from other mission fields.

The Malaya report tells how the Moslem religion is protected by law and how Christian evangelism is virtually limited to work among the large alien population.

Henry’s itinerary is also taking him to Formosa, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, and Hong Kong. He is part of a World Vision team which is holding pastors’ conferences at strategic points throughout the Orient. He is due back in the United States August 10.

Foreign Missions

Broadcast Ban

Missionary radio leaders are asking the government of Morocco to reconsider an order to prohibit private broadcasting as of the end of the year. Unless the directive is rescinded, missionary broadcasts from Tangier will be forced off the air. Among stations affected is the Voice of Tangier, which uses three towers to beam 750 Gospel-centered programs a month throughout Europe and the Middle East. Officials of the Voice of Tangier say the station provides for many behind the Iron Curtain the only source of spiritual food.

Report From Ecuador

Ecuador’s Auca Indian tribe continued to demonstrate friendliness toward white missionary women last month.

In June, the Aucas welcomed two new-comers: Mrs. Marjorie Saint, wife of one of five missionary men slain by the Aucas 31/2 years ago, and Miss Mardelle Senseny of the Gospel Missionary Union both spent several days with the jungle tribe. They were led down the trail by Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot and her four-year-old daughter. Mrs. Elliot, wife of another of the martyrs, planned to stay with the tribe for several months.

At the same time, Miss Rachel Saint, sister-in-law to Mrs. Saint, came out of the jungle after four months of studying the Auca language.

Roman Catholics

The Bible And Rome

The first encyclical (letter) of Pope John XXIII is a 10,000-word Latin document punctuated with some 49 biblical references. No new policies are apparent.

Said to be entirely the Pope’s own work, the encyclical covers a range of subjects from theology (“There are quite a number of points which the Catholic Church leaves to the discussion of the theologians”) to television and other mass communication media (“they can be the source of enticement to loose morals”). The Pope pleads for peace, condemns communism, and warns against unemployment. He makes a new overture “to those who are separated from the Apostolic See”: “we lovingly invite you to the unity of the Church.”

The encyclical’s first biblical reference uses Isaiah 11:12 to support an assertion that the Roman church is “set up a standard unto the nations.” (The “standard” is from the Douay; the King James and Revised Standard versions say “ensign.”) In a “concluding exhortation,” he says: “If anyone … has wandered far from the Divine Redeemer because of sins committed, let him return—we entreat him—to the one who is ‘the way, the Truth, and the Life’ (John XIV, 6).”

Church And State

Selecting Sides

Lady Chatterley’s Lover appeared last month to be lining up clergymen in support of Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield who had banned the unexpurgated edition of the book from the mails, while drawing out their criticism of the U. S. Supreme Court, which ruled that a New York state ban on the movie version was unconstitutional.

A U. S. District Court in New York subsequently upset Summerfield’s ban and declared the novel mailable. The Post Office Department was expected to appeal. Summerfield calls Lady Chatterley’s Lover “obscene and filthy.”

The Supreme Court ruling on the movie said the First Amendment to the Constitution “protects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper.”

A constitutional amendment was subsequently introduced before Congress aimed at overruling the court decision.

The Protestant clergy is believed to be largely in favor of a ban on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, though opinions doubtless are tempered by questions such as these: Will a precedent be established which could lead to undesirable censorship? Should decisions on what constitutes obscenity rest with post office administrators? Is obscenity adequately defined? (For a guide on where to draw the line, see “Demoralization of Youth: Open Germs and Hidden Viruses” in the July 6, 1959 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.) If the public chooses to accept obscenity, should churches—having failed to win support for a voluntary standard of morality-resort to legislation?

In view of questions raised and considering that the unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover has not been widely read, many religious leaders still prefer to address themselves to the problem of obscenity as a whole rather than censuring the novel by name. Nonetheless, a majority probably feel that a sweeping campaign against smut is long overdue.

Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches, said he “would be interested in cleaning up” literature intended “to arouse the prurient interest.” He urged, however, that “we safeguard ourselves on literature in which mention of sex is incidental.” He said he felt that the courts of the land had made clear a distinction.

Dahlberg spoke only for himself. An NCC spokesman said that its General Board has never taken an official position regarding the current obscene literature problem.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, secretary for public affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said “it will be a sorry day for the people of the United States if their government has no recourse but to allow the mails to become the channel of morally infectious literature.”

“It appears that the post office, attempting to protect the moral integrity of our society, has become the victim of a few judicial officials who have a proper regard for freedom of the press but who have lost their bearings in the moral aspects of public welfare,” Taylor added.

The Presidency

President Eisenhower told a news conference last month that “there is no reason” why a Catholic should not be elected to the U. S. presidency. He called it “a perfectly extraneous question.”

As to whether a Catholic could be elected President, Eisenhower said he had no opinion.

A few days later, a similar query was put to Democratic National Chairman Paul M. Butler: Would a Catholic presidential candidate be handicapped because of his religion?

“As a Catholic,” replied Butler, “and one who has been in politics 33 years, I certainly do believe that would be true, sadly enough.”

Ecumenical Movement

Getting Acquainted

“Observers” from the Russian Orthodox Church are expected to attend this month’s meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches on the Greek island of Rhodes. Two representatives from the church’s Moscow Patriarchate recently completed a month-long “get acquainted” visit to WCC headquarters in Geneva. The church originally refused to join the WCC, but leaders are believed to be reconsidering. Leaders of the ecumenical movement may soon announce a new invitation.