Shortage Of Man Power

Vocation and Ministry, by F. R. Barry (Nisbet, London, 1958, 184 pp., 12s6d), is reviewed by Talbot G. Mohan, Secretary of Church Pastoral Aid Society, London.

The established Church in England is facing a grave crisis through the steady decline in the numbers of its ministry. The author describes the ministry as “just dying on its feet” and gives some impressive statistics to prove his statement.

During the last half century the number of clergymen on the active list has dropped from 19,000 to 15,500, while the population has increased by several millions. In 1886 there were 814 ordinations; in 1956 the number was 496, and that was the highest for 15 years. Of this number 25 per cent were over 40 years of age. The average age of the clergy today is not less than 52. To maintain our present inadequate ministry requires 600 ordinations every year. In 1957 there were 478. This phenomenon is, of course, not confined to the Church of England. The free churches, the missionary societies, and the interdenominational missions are all facing the same problem.

The author is an English diocesan bishop with unique qualifications for writing on this subject; for throughout a long and distinguished ministry he has been closely concerned with the training of candidates. He reveals a transparent sincerity and earnestness. He is no sacerdotalist with a tractarian theory of apostolic succession. He longs to ‘declericalize’ the church. The laity must have their scriptural place—indeed the laity are the church and he praises the English Reformers for restoring this conception.

This book is full of wisdom, and, like everything that Bishop Barry writes, arresting, challenging, and of absorbing interest. It would seem unkind to criticize this valuable contribution to the consideration of a problem of such universal importance. But one wonders if the fundamental cause is understood, and if he concentrates on symptoms rather than on the root cause. The writer acknowledges that the majority of the population are being conditioned in an atmosphere which is less than pagan. But has the author taken into account the fact that the church itself has not escaped infection, and that its spiritual quality has been seriously debased by the substitution of conventional Christianity for an individual committal to the claim of Jesus Christ? Spiritual destitution could be the real cause of the lack of man power.

“The church in the Victorian age,” says Bishop Barry, “was rich in man power beyond dreams of avarice.” This was true because the nation could then be described as one of the most religious the world has ever seen. We were a people of one Book—the Bible which was accepted as the Word of God and was expounded in the churches Sunday by Sunday. Within living memory it could be said that in many factories and workshops the main topic of conversation on Monday was the Sunday sermon. Here surely is the answer to the problem of vocations for ministry; not how we can persuade men to offer themselves, but how we may create the conditions in which they will offer themselves without much persuading. We are told that it takes 20 parishes to produce one ordinand. But there are many parishes where an evangelical ministry (which would be frowned upon as ‘fundamentalist’) is producing a steady stream of ordinands. A diocesan Bishop said recently, “Just when we need more and more women workers, the number offering is getting less and less,” but the Evangelical College of St. Michael’s at Oxford is increasing its numbers year by year. It has already added to its accommodation and is seeking further expansion.

The author’s brilliant intellect makes it hard for him to accept the doctrine of assurance. He described it to the present reviewer as “wanting something to take home in a bag.” His conception of ‘salvation’ is that of man in the mass. “Anaemic idealism has no place in the theology of the incarnation. Drains and public health matter greatly in man’s pilgrimage to the Ideal City.” The redemption of the social order is surely an ideal which can only be reached through the redemption of individuals. Drains are important, but if the church is busying herself with drains and neglecting the eternal welfare of the souls for whom Christ died, it is failing miserably. The first task of the church is to persuade men to be reconciled to God.

The idea that contemporary society is different from any which has gone before can blind us to the fact that the human heart is the same in every age. Only the background is changed, but we must not be too obsessed with the background. Men and women in every age look for something authoritative and assured. A religion which is not sure of itself makes no appeal. When the author writes of the “myth of Christ’s ascension” it is abundantly clear that he is not denying its reality but describing the fact that it is beyond our conception. But the ‘man in the street’ associates ‘myth’ with something unreal and untrue, a fairy tale. Is it not just here that we must begin to examine the problem of the shortage of man power? Our English Reformers recovered the authority of Holy Scripture in the Church of England: we are steadily drifting back towards the pre-Reformation position. A church without an authoritative word will confirm the ‘outsider’ in his view that religion is all right for those who like that sort of thing. It will leave the churchgoer without any compelling motive to offer himself for a ministry which provides him with a brief cheery word about nothing in particular each Sunday.

The Bishop has some trenchant things to say about the use (or misuse) of the Church’s manpower and in a valuable chapter sets forth his plea for a ‘supplementary ministry,’ for example, the full ordination of men who would continue in their present occupation and be available to give help to the churches where it is most needed.

TALBOT G. MOHAN

Diagnosing The Church

The New Church in the New Age, by C. O. Rhodes (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1958, 256 pp., 21/-), is reviewed by S. W. Murray of Belfast, Ireland.

This survey of the Church in action is a diagnosis of the present predicament of religion as it affects the Church of England primarily. Written by one who combines the editorship of the Church of England Newspaper and the secretaryship of the Modern Churchmen’s Union, the volume shows how the influence of the Christian religion has declined to an alarming extent over the past half-century.

It is perhaps in diagnosis that Mr. Rhodes is best. Comparing the comparatively poor church attendance figures for England generally, he points out that there is a large listening population for religious programs. On the other hand, he confesses that in his lifetime he had only come across one person who attributed to broadcasting a decisive influence in the spiritual life.

Mr. Rhodes has some pertinent things to say about the Church of England—its organization, the theological college (he pays tribute to the evangelical colleges for their training and intellectual vigor), the Anglican communities, the power of the bishops, and marriage and divorce.

He has strong criticisms to make of the Billy Graham campaigns in London which he describes as a “spectacular failure.” He seems to have devoted his inquiries to the industrial masses primarily and quotes a newspaper survey taken some months after which revealed that the campaigns “were as good as forgotten and the permanent results statistically negligible.” He does not seem to have heard of churches which were revived and have been exercising a vital ministry since, or of the increasing evangelical influence in the universities and colleges. It is doubtful if Billy Graham claimed, as he asserts, either the Harringay or Wembley campaigns to be “the start of a great religious movement that would change the face of the country.” Redemption in the view of the author will be wrought through a “prophetic community.” The Church, he believes, “must be the home of advanced ideas.” Whether such a church will bear any relationship to the Church of the Apostles or of the Protestant Reformation is doubtful.

S. W. MURRAY

Anthropology

What, Then, Is Man?, a Symposium of Theology, Psychology, and Psychiatry (Concordia Publishing House, 1958, 303 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Theodore J. Jansma, Chaplain, Christian Sanatorium, Wyckoff, New Jersey.

This is the third in a series of “Graduate Studies” sponsored by the School for Graduate Studies, Concordia Theological Seminary (Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod). It is the product of five authors, with a common religio-philosophical basis, who worked together as a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Paul Meehl, head of the department of psychology at the University of Minnesota. This gives the book considerable cohesion in distinction from the loose collection and often opposing views one finds in symposia. It also differs from the general run of current books on religion and psychiatry in that it is frankly confessional (Lutheran) and specific in its theological orientation. It abounds in quotations from the Bible and doctrinal standards. At the same time it is sophisticated in modern psychology and psychiatry.

The committee set itself a fonnidable task—“to explain Christian doctrine to non-Christian psychotherapists; to explain psychology and psychiatry to pastors; to examine critically some of the relationships existing between these two systems of concepts” (p. 295). In the opinion of this reviewer they have succeeded remarkably well. They cannot be charged with obscurantism or one-sidedness which often mars the attempts at rapprochement between theology and psychiatry, and yet they have held firmly to the biblical view of man and the basic truth about man’s troubles—his alienation from God. In an area, so alive today, where evangelicals have been either indifferent, incompetent, or even hostile, this book is a valuable contribution.

THEODORE J. JANSMA

Critical Reconstructions

The Date of Ezra’s Coming to Jerusalem and The Building of the Second Temple, both by J. Stafford Wright (The Tyndale Press, London, 1958, 1s.6d), is reviewed by L. E. H. Stephens-Hodge of the London College of Divinity, North-wood, Middlesex.

Since it became fashionable to decry traditional views of the Old Testament, critical reconstructions of the history have acquired an aura of sanctity which makes them tend to resist further investigation.

Believing this to have happened in the case of the chronological sequence of Ezra and Nehemiah, Mr. Stafford Wright, principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, took as his thesis for the 1947 Tyndale Old Testament Lecture “The Date of Ezra’s Coming to Jerusalem.” First published in 1947, this has now been reprinted in a revised form which takes into account the comments of reviewers and others who have made reference to it, notably Professor H. H. Rowley. Mr. Wright ably maintains his position and shows that the traditional view, which makes Ezra and Nehemiah arrive at Jerusalem in the seventh and twentieth years respectively of the reign of Artaxerxes I King of Persia (464–424) agrees better with the known data than the view of C. C. Torrey that Ezra was a “creation” of the Chronicler who wanted a priestly figure to offset the civil leader Nehemiah, or the view of L. W. Batten in the International Critical Commentary by which it is stated that the Persian king in whose reign Ezra arrived was Artaxerxes II (403–359) and that therefore the two men were not contemporaneous. But the prominent position of two such men as Ezra and Nehemiah in a small, close-knit community like that of post-exilic Judaism militates against any theory of their being wrongly dated by the Chronicler 150 years later, even if our records do“show so little trace of any real contact between the two men” as demanded by the traditional theory.

Another problem raised during the period after the Exile is that of the date of the building of the Second Temple. According to Ezra 3:8 ff., the foundation stone was laid very soon after the return in 536 B.C. under Zerubbabel and Joshua. Was Zerubbabel actually in Jerusalem 16 years before? And if so, how are we to account for the mention of Sheshbazzar as the leader of the returned exiles in Ezra 1:8? Were Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar the same person? When did the rebuilding really begin? These and kindred questions formed the subject for a further lecture by Mr. Wright under the Tyndale Foundation given at Cambridge in 1952 and now published under the title “The Building of the Second Temple.”

Both these pamphlets should be carefully studied by those who are troubled by critical reconstructions which appear to do violence to the text of Scripture, and who wish to have a clear statement of conservative lines of defense presented in a reasonable and scholarly manner.

L. E. H. STEPHENS-HODGE

Religious Psychotherapy

The Psychology of Religion, by Walter H. Clark (Macmillan, 1958, 485 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, Psychiatrist, Urbana, Illinois.

There is a basic contradiction implied if not expressed in this title—a title that has been used several times in older books. How can a discipline that claims to operate within the canons of scientific method explain an aspect of reality that is supra-empirical?

The author has the important qualification of a thorough acquaintance with both sides of the dilemma. He is dean of the Hartford School of Religious Education and, although he writes as a psychologist, the ambivalence of his position is continually apparent. Concessions to the validity of Christian experience alternate with frequent reassertions of objectivity.

Clark draws heavily upon recent literature, including studies of his own, to extend the observations and opinions of older writers in the field. Conversion, mysticism, prayer, and worship are considered in separate chapters following a broad survey of psychological methods and the successive phases of religious growth.

In his treatment of conversion, Clark continues William James ‘sick soul,” a term that has laid a heavy taint of psychopathology upon much religious experience. In a chapter on “Religion and Abnormal Psychology,” Clark has made this association more explicit by elaborating Anton Boisen’s thesis of linking schizophrenia and religion. The inner activity of schizophrenia, says Clark, is essentially religious (p. 348), and the disease may actually favor the facing and thinking through of issues (p. 344). There is little clinical evidence for this view.

The author’s alternation between religionist and psychologist leads him into some surprising positions. His effort to identify religious experience with psychotherapy produces such statements as these: “Prayer has served to some degree as an inexpensive substitute for the psychiatrist’s couch” (p. 324); “One or two of the (conversion) case studies … will illustrate religious experience serving also as psychotherapy” (p. 366). One might as soon say something like this: “If you can’t afford psychiatry, don’t overlook religion as a low cost second choice.”

Surprising, too, is his acceptance of the Freudian concept of the death instinct. It is probably no less controversial when it is renamed the “death urge.”

Clark occasionally lapses from his scientific neutrality in displaying impatience with revivalism. His adjectives and metaphors seem to carry more animus than the statistics and his own more restrained conclusions seem to warrant (pp. 204, 213, 217). His term “conversion shock” is another tautological coin of little value. Nevertheless, Clark does make a fairly impartial appraisal of conversion, and it is apparent throughout the book that he is trying to put into practice the obligation he lays upon the student of religious experience—that is, to “be as scientific as he can.”

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

Catechetical Lectures

Is It True?, by Martin E. Hollensen (Wartburg Press, 1958, 197 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

The contents of this solid, useful, and sprightly volume consist of a series of catechetical lectures delivered by a talented and experienced pastor to prospective members of Emanuel Lutheran Church, Marion, Ohio.

The lectures cover the five chief parts of Dr. Martin Luther’s original Catechism, namely, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, and Holy Communion. Pages at the end deal with liturgical matters.

Is It True? is, of course, written from a Lutheran point of view, and Lutheran pastors might well adapt some of its materials, methods, and illustrations to their own adult classes. But, perceiving its logical and lucid argumentation, one suspects that almost any evangelical pastor could cull pointers from it for his own instruction periods. Then, too, its lively and brilliant style makes for exceedingly pleasurable reading. Because of its elementary exposition of doctrine, its stress upon real life situations, and its popular idiom, the book should also appeal to the layman who wishes to find out what Christianity is and how it works, or even to know more about the basic teachings of Lutheranism.

Perhaps notice should be taken of a few flaws. On page 167 Hollensen cites the use of the Greek verb baptizo “in Mark 7:3” as an argument against immersion. But the word used in that verse is nipto. Apparently he means Mark 7:4, where some manuscripts do have baptizo; but others in that place have rhantizo which is the reading preferred by Nestle in his editio vicesima. The noun baptismos, to which he also alludes in this verse, and baptizo in other passages better serve the cause of those who hold immersion to be unnecessary.

E. P. SCHULZE

Expository Helps

The Great Texts of the Bible, (Matthew, Volume 8) by James Hastings (Eerdmans, 451 pp., $4), is reviewed by the Rev. Cecil V. Crabb of the Rock Island Presbyterian Church, Tennessee.

Many preachers and students of the Bible are turning today to the older commentaries and expositors. To meet the demand this publisher has brought out a new edition of an older work called The Great Texts of the Bible. In this particular volume on the Gospel of Matthew, the author selects 27 outstanding texts from 18 different chapters which are largely representative of the thoughts in each chapter. In every study he gives a good discussion of the introduction and context, a sound exposition of the given verse, and then presents copious homiletical and illustrative material of a highly cultural literary order gleaned from many sources.

A work like this, if used properly, should be of great value to the average minister and Bible student. It should not be used, however, as a mere crutch but as an example and challenge to the reader in selecting great texts and themes, exercising sound exegesis, and adorning one’s messages with fitting illustrative material of high literary and biblical caliber. It is well to keep in mind that in any such selection of great texts, the personal element inevitably plays a large part. A work like this should inspire the minister to select other outstanding texts from other chapters and verses in Matthew that are in line with his own theological, homiletical and other religious needs.

CECIL V. CRABB

Know Thyself

A Genuinely Human Existence, by Stephen Neill (Doubleday, 1959, 312 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by James D. Robertson, Professor of Preaching, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

Here is a provocative study of man’s search for self-understanding, a study rich in insights from history, philosophy, and the modern psychological sciences. The author sets forth the complex emotional dynamics underlying human behavior, the frustrations and perversions that prevent man from living a “genuinely human existence.” Supporting his analysis with case histories from life and literature, he leads us to a sympathetic understanding of the human predicament. In so doing, he discusses the contributions resulting from the newer scientific approaches to the problem, yet at the same time reminds himself of the limitations of the scientific method in coming to assess human personality.

The thesis of the book asserts that Christ is the greatest revelation of man to himself. Jesus is the key to the understanding of human nature and destiny. “In him for the first time the full stature and reality of human nature was made manifest, and therefore he can serve as a criterion for the measurement of the normal and the abnormal, the sound and the unsound in human nature as we see it and as we experience it in ourselves” (p. 305).

But man in the process of thus measuring himself is never free from tension. Is not tension, counters the author, after all an inevitable part of adult life? When a living thing fails to react with its environment all tension is removed and life is no longer there. The significant thing is, the Gospels never fail to speak at these points of tension, whatever they may be. “The life and words of Jesus prove themselves effective as pointers to the accurate diagnosis of the ills from which man suffers. They serve also as indications of the way in which fulness of life may be recovered” (p. 306). The author makes a convincing case for the Gospels as the only fully satisfactory manual of mental health ever written.

On two pertinent questions Dr. Neill has little, if anything, to say; yet they are much in the reader’s mind. The book gives an excellent diagnosis of man’s struggle to know himself, it presents Christ as the key to a genuinely human existence; but it does not cast in bold relief the very natural question, What has God been actively doing about all this? It merely cites the fact that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are not just events among other events—but the Event, “the central happening of human history.” The other question is this: If a man concludes that Jesus was in fact the act of God in history, that he came from God, how should this knowledge affect his understanding of himself and of life as he experiences it? The author, who himself raises these questions in his concluding chapter, feels that they are of such magnitude that they must form the theme of further writing. One hopes for the appearance before long of another volume from his pen.

JAMES D. ROBERTSON

Power Of The Gospel

Adventurers for God, by Clarence W. Hall (Harper, 1959, 265 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Horace L. Fenton, Jr., Associate General Director, Latin America Mission.

There is no overabundance in our day of good missionary stories, well told. And oftentimes those that are written have a very limited circulation. It is good, therefore, to know that stories like those which comprise this book have first had wide dissemination through the pages of the Reader’s “Digest, and then have been given expanded treatment and a more permanent form in the book under review.

It is author Clarence W. Hall’s conviction that the popular conception of the missionary has changed greatly in recent years, and that the work of missions is more fully appreciated today than it was in former years. In this connection, he quotes a statement by Franklin D. Roosevelt, written shortly before his death: “Since becoming President, I have come to know that the finest type of Americans we have abroad are the missionaries of the Cross. I am humiliated that I am just finding out at this late date the work of foreign missions and the nobility of the missionary” (pp. 16, 17).

The author of this book has traveled to far places to track down these stories, and they speak the truth. The evangelical motivation is more evident in some than in others, and now and again readers may wonder at the inclusion of a particular story. But the overall impact of the book is great, and the reader continually has a feeling that he has been given a fresh understanding of the power of the Gospel, and of the great variety of ways in which it is being made known. There is human courage and endurance on display here, but above all, one sees the power and the grace of God. The book seems to reach a fitting climax in the story of the Aucas, and of the five missionaries who gladly yielded up their lives to make Christ known among them.

Well written, attractively illustrated by a great number of photographs, the book carries a real message. It may well be read by many who, like our ex-President, will confess that they have waited long before recognizing what is being done throughout the world by men and women worthily called “adventurers for God.”

HORACE L. FENTON, JR.

Calvin And Ecumenism

A variety of observances are being held to mark important anniversaries associated with John Calvin, French-born founder of the Reformed tradition followed by more than 40,000,000 Christians over the world.

Among highlights:—The World Presbyterian Alliance dedicated in Geneva the newly-restored Calvin Auditorium, historic church where Calvin and other Reformation leaders preached and taught.

—Summer-long nightly performances of a “Festival of Sound and Light” were inaugurated at the site of Geneva’s Reformation Monument.

—Pilgrimages were made to the Noyon, France, birthplace of Calvin, and to his home in Paris.

—The French Reformed Church commemorated its fourth centenary at a synod in Paris.

—A Roman Catholic newspaper in Geneva published a special supplement to help celebrate the occasion.

This year marks the 450th anniversary of Calvin’s birth and the 400th anniversary of the final edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, a now-famous work which represented a thorough, organized compilation of Calvinistic convictions. Geneva University also is observing its fourth centennial this year, having had its beginnings with the Calvin Auditorium.

The Geneva celebrations drew thousands of people from many countries. Some 5,000 gathered for a May 31 rally in front of the Reformation Monument, a wall set off by statues of Calvin and such other Reformation leaders as John Knox and Theodore Beza.

The service was followed by a mass picnic for hundreds of Protestant families in a giant exhibit hall.

Proceedings were relayed over Eurovision, a network of national television systems, to five European countries.

The “Festival of Sound and Light” was inaugurated the same evening. Concealed spotlights illuminated the statues of the Reformers while choral and orchestral music filled the night air. A voice reviewed the role of Calvin and his work.

On the following day, the Calvin Auditorium was rededicated with solemn, yet simple ceremonies witnessed by church dignitaries, civic authorities and university professors. A message was read from Dr. John A. Mackay, president of the World Presbyterian Alliance, which said in part:

“In the name of many millions of fellow Christians in the world-wide family of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, let me express our united gratitude and joy for the restoration of the historic shrine of Reformed Christianity.

“May the rededication of this sacred edifice, where the Christian faith was taught and Christian worship conducted 400 years ago, become the occasion for the spiritual renewal of all our Churches, and, through the grace of Jesus Christ, the great Head of His body, the Church, may a fresh consecration of us all to the service of the one Gospel and the one Church lead all Christians everywhere to pursue the unity and perform the mission of Christ’s “Church Universal.”

In Paris, the National Synod of the French Reformed Church commemorated the historic synod in 1559 at which their own church was organized on a Calvinist basis. On hand for the three-day session were delegates from English, Swiss, German, Dutch, and American Reformed churches, as well as Anglican and Orthodox representatives.

Pilgrimages to Calvin’s birthplace viewed a special exhibition of Protestant historical documents on display at the Noyon museum. Calvin was born July 10, 1509, and died May 27, 1564.

Le Courrier, Roman Catholic newspaper published in Geneva, came out with a special supplement to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the University of Geneva. In a leading article, Father John of the Cross Kaelin, chaplain to the Catholic student center at the university, said Catholic participation in the anniversary celebrations might appear surprising, but only at first sight.

“It would certainly have been inconceivable for our forefathers of the sixteenth century,” he said, “that we should associate ourselves without mental reservations with the celebrations commemorating the foundation of an institution whose origins go back to Calvin.” “However,” the priest said, “it is the times that have changed.”

“In fact,” he added, “our university today possesses a status of neutrality, positive and open, without in any way disowning a past with which it has a living link through its [Protestant] faculty of theology.”

The priest stressed the importance of the Catholic center in the university “through which the Church mainly expresses its presence and responsibility toward the 600 to 700 Catholic students.”

Ecumenical Emphases

Thirty-three Presbyterian and Reformed leaders used the Calvin anniversary occasion to promote the ecumenical movement. In an “Address to Our Fellow Christians After 400 Years,” they issued a new call for Christian unity which caused a leading newspaper to observe that it “seemed to portend a major shift in the Calvinist tradition.”

The appeal for unity came in a statement released in New York by the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Those who signed the statement represented some 21 countries.

“Churches, like people, cannot be themselves until they are each other’s,” the statement declared. “Apart from our brothers in all branches of the Church Catholic, the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches cannot fulfill their obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The message emphasized that “we ourselves are ready to accept all invitations from sister Churches to that comparison of opinion and experience in which Christians submit themselves afresh to the Lord of the Church.”

“And we issue our own invitations to all who would with us put their traditions and systems under the judgment of Christ, seeking His correction, and ready to relinquish what He does not approve,” it said.

“If separation from Christians with whom we disagree be sin, what shall we call our ignorance of, and unconcern for, Christians of our own family?” the statement asked. “We who confess the unity of the whole Church in Jesus Christ have no excuse for the turbulence and rancor we have too often loosed in the Church. So we pray that the same grace which can cover our offense will lead us toward the reconciliation, reunion, and renewal now in course.”

The New York Times added this interpretation to a news story of the statement:

“The leaders said they were speaking for themselves, and not for their several churches, but the message seemed to portend a major shift in the Calvinist tradition.

“John Calvin had no penchant for a world-wide reunion of churches. Yet many of those who signed the ‘address’ are leaders of the ecumenical movement within Protestantism.

“For example, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, who headed the committee that drafted the document, is not only chief administrative officer of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., but is also an official of the World Council of Churches.”

Others who signed the statement in addition to Blake included: Dr. John Baillie, a president of the World Council of Churches, and Dr. James S. Thomson, moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Drafting of the statement was initiated last summer, prior to the announcement by Pope John XXIII of a forthcoming Ecumenical Council, and consequently makes no reference to it.

Question Of Meaning

Few Vatican announcements have caused as much discussion in Protestant circles as the notice of an Ecumenical Council. In the case of Dr. W. Ralph Ward, minister of Mt. Lebanon (Pa.) Methodist Church, it provided material for a sermon entitled “What An Ecumenical Council Could Mean.”

Ward said the Pope has never consented to formal discussion on unity with Protestants.

“What is striking about the Pope’s call for an Ecumenical Council is that this is the very emphasis which, in the past half century, has come forth in the world-wide Christian movement,” Ward said. “But never officially has the Catholic church responded to the slightest degree.” The minister added:

Bible Display

A display containing what is believed to be the largest collection of Bibles in the United States will be open throughout the summer at the Open-Church Foundation Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The collection was started by Roger W. Babson, an educator and statistician who is a lineal descendant of John Rogers, translator of the Matthews-Rogers Bible in 1537.

Noteworthy Bibles in the exhibit include first editions of Martin Luther’s translation (1532), the Matthews-Rogers Bible, the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva Bible (1560) and the King James version (1611). Also displayed is one of the 33 known copies of the “George Washington Bible,” the only edition of the Scriptures printed by act of Congress.

“It was in January of 1928 that Pope Pius XI, in answer to a question as to whether it was lawful for Catholics to be present at or to countenance the conferences, gatherings, assemblies, or associations of non-Catholics which assume for themselves the name of Christian, gave an emphatic NO, and in a decree which carried the stamp of papal infallibility said: ‘Such efforts [that is, ecumenical] can meet with no kind of approval among Catholics.… There is but one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it.… Let them, then, return to their Father, who, forgetting the insults in the past heaped upon the Apostolic See, will accord them a most loving welcome’.… If the Ecumenical Council means what it could mean, the atmosphere between Roman Catholics and Protestants could change.… Roman Catholics … could stop telling their people that it is a mortal sin for them to visit or worship in a Protestant church.…”

Chruch And State

Religious Fellowships

Commissioner Lawrence G. Derthick of the U. S. Office of Education announced this month the award of graduate fellowships under the National Defense Education Act to include seven in the field of religious studies.

Derthick also reconfirmed the award of three fellowships to Emory University, announced earlier, in the field of Old Testament studies, and three fellowships to New York University in Hebraic and Judeo-Arabic studies, which will include research in Biblical archeology.

The new grants were three fellowships at Dropsie College, a Philadelphia Jewish institution, to expand its program in comparative religion; and four fellowships in the Department of Religious Studies of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

The program under which the federal grants are being made is designed to encourage preparation of graduate students who are pursuing doctor of philosophy degrees with the intention of becoming college teachers. The fellowships pay annual stipends ranging from $2,000 to $2,400 a year for three years for the fellows, and, in addition, pay the institutions up to $2,500 a year to defray costs of educating the student selected.

Dropsie had applied for the fellowships to strengthen its program in the teaching of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism.

Brown said the fellowships would assist in preparing potential faculty members to teach social ethics.

Protestant Panorama

In proportion to population, the Southern Appalachian Mountain region has more churches and fewer church members than any other region of the United States, according to a Berea College survey. Studied were 190 counties in mountains of seven states between Pennsylvania and Alabama.

Soviet authorities are reported to have taken over St. Mary’s Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, Latvia, for a “historical monument.” Built in the sixteenth century, the cathedral houses one of the world’s largest organs.

Among $235,000 in specific bequests, John Foster Dulles, the late Secretary of State, left $10,000 to New York’s Union Theological Seminary, $5,000 to Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, $5,000 to the National Council of Churches, and $5,000 to his second son, the Rev. Avery Dulles, a Jesuit priest.

More than 200 students took final examinations in Washington in the first Bible course ever offered via television for college credit. Most of the students who watched hour-long Saturday lectures passed the course and received two hours of credit applicable toward a degree at American University, a Methodist school. The course took up the life of Christ.

John M. Cabot, nominated to succeed Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce as ambassador to Brazil, is a Protestant. Mrs. Luce, former ambassador to Italy, is a Roman Catholic. Dempster McIntosh, a Protestant, has been nominated to succeed Cabot as ambassador to Colombia.

The Federal Communications Commission authorized Moody Bible Institute to operate a 47,000-watt, noncommercial FM broadcasting station in Chicago.

A nation-wide survey conducted by the research and survey department of the Methodist Division of National Missions indicates that three out of five of the denomination’s ministers work 50 to 69 hours a week, while one out of ten works 80 hours or more.

Under a new birth control policy, employees of Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare must refer clients on matters of conscience to their minister, priest, or rabbi. The new policy was adopted after state Attorney General Anne X. Alpern ruled that the department was within its rights in considering birth control for persons on relief when no religious objections were involved.

More than 150,000 children marched in Brooklyn’s annual Sunday School parade which marked the 130th anniversary of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union. Smaller parades were held in Queens. Public elementary schools were closed in both boroughs.

An American missionary couple who belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mr. and Mrs. L. E. Reinertson, were killed in an automobile accident this month in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Christian Men, Incorporated, released results of a survey this month which cited “less amateurish organizational pretending and more inspirational worship activities” as current church needs. The study was made through questionnaires completed by 400 men in seven church groups in Lubbock, Texas.

The Navy this month gave a citation to a Gordon Divinity School student who as an aeronautical engineer led development of the aerodynamic design of the “Terrier,” the Navy’s first operational surface-to-air guided missile. E. Arthur Bonney, 40, left the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University last fall to enroll at Gordon because he said “it was the calling of the Lord.”

The District of Columbia now has 451 Protestant churches, 41 Roman Catholic, and 7 Orthodox. There are also 16 Jewish synagogues, 1 mosque, 1 Buddhist and 1 Hindu house of worship. In metropolitan Washington, which has a population of 2,200,000, there are 1,251 places of worship, according to a census taken by the Council of Churches of the National Capital Area.

Continent Of Africa

Congo Cohesion

January’s tumultuous and tragic rioting which scarred the beautiful Belgian Congo capital of Leopoldville has not been erased entirely from the visitor’s view nor forgotten by those who witnessed police measures employed. Upon both European and African circles, however, has settled a period of temperate concern for faithful application of royal and parliamentary declarations outlining steps toward independence. The speedup toward self-government in territories and provinces, probably issuing in legislative and judicial autonomy during 1961, has boosted all the missions in their varying procedures toward passing to the indigenous church bodies full control of ecclesiastical affairs. Marked sentiment exists for development of the unity of churches already vaguely declared for some years under the device, “The Church of Christ in the Congo.”

[Several missions, reluctant to cooperate in the inclusive program of the International Missionary Council, plan an evangelical seminary just north of Stanleyville. Sponsors include the Africa Inland and the Unevangelized Fields missions, plus the Evangelical Free and Mission Covenant churches.—ED.]

This cohesion of mission-directed regional church bodies is now clearly expressed by participation since 1957 of African church delegates in annual plenary sessions of the Congo Protestant Council. It is expected that this formerly all-mission constituted council will become progressively dominated by Congolese delegates until it will serve as the forum for whatever expression the Africans will agree to give to their aspirations for spiritual unity in Christ. Of the 45 Protestant missions in the Congo and Ruanda Urundi, most belong to the council, and all the others, excepting Seventh-day Adventists, are associated or related by some financial support.

Problems and plans relating to primary and secondary education, still largely confined to Catholic and Protestant missions, and to the acute need for more and higher seminary-level training of Africans for the ministry assume an even larger share of the cooperative effort of mission and church leaders. More educational personnel with pedagogical competency and fluency in the French are needed everywhere in the Congo field. Several of the larger American and English missions (Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, Baptist) are seriously exploring for the creation of one faculté de théologie related to, and accredited by, the one State University, located at Elizabethville. The project may largely depend upon aid already asked of a Rockefeller fund administered under the International Missionary Council.

L. A. MCC.

Biblical Basis

Affirmation of biblical authority provides the basis for a joining of forces the extent of which reportedly has no precedent in the 100-year history of Japanese Protestantism.

Occasion of the cooperation is the Japanese Protestant centennial observance, to be highlighted by meetings of many groups throughout the islands. (See CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 13, 1959, issue.) One feature of the commemoration will be a series of October conferences to be sponsored by a specially-constituted centennial committee.

Dr. W. A. McIlwaine, veteran Presbyterian missionary and committee chairman, declared that about one-third of all Japanese Protestant ministers and missionaries are behind his group’s program. This represents, he claimed, the most extensive cooperation ever achieved within the Japanese Protestant community.

Basis for cooperation is belief in the following statement: “I believe that the Bible is the fully inspired, infallible Word of God, the only rule of faith and practice.”

Speakers for the centennial conferences will be Dr. Roger Nicole, Professor of theology at Gordon Divinity School, Dr. Edward J. Young, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, and Dr. Oswald J. Smith, pastor emeritus of the Peoples Church in Toronto.

Another feature of the centennial year will be a crusade scheduled for September 16-October 4 in Fukuoka with evangelist David Morken, associated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. After the Fukuoka meetings, Morken will conduct five other crusades in principal cities of Kyushu province.

Episcopacy And Union

Having hurdled to their satisfaction the problem of historic episcopacy, leaders of the two largest Protestant bodies in India are promoting a three-point merger program.

Talks have been going on for 10 years between the federation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India and the Church of South India, a union of Anglicans, Congregationalists, Methodists and Presbyterians. By 1956 a commission of the two bodies had drafted agreed statements on the law and the Gospel, the doctrine of election, the relation of creedal and confessional statements to the being of the church, and the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Then came the impasse: what to say of the historic episcopate.

Talks were deadlocked for more than two years. Then, earlier this spring, a joint commission of the two bodies met at Bangalore and finally agreed that “the presence or absence of episcopacy ought not in itself to determine the relationship of one church with another.”

The commission recommended (1) closer altar and pulpit fellowship, (2) preparation of a common catechism, and (3) the drafting of a constitution for church union.

The Church of South India has more than 1,000,000 adherents, while the Lutheran federation represents 10 Indian churches with a combined membership of about 653,300.

Report From China

The woman stood before the assembly with a furrowed brow beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat. “We should pray daily for Christians in China,” she said, and the crowd about her knew she understood whereof she spoke. The woman was Miss Helen Willis, a Canadian Brethren missionary who had just been expelled from Communist China. She was addressing the Missionary Prayer Fellowship in Hong Kong last month, only days after her arrival from behind the Bamboo Curtain. Here is the gist of her remarks:

She had operated a Christian book shop in Shanghai until last fall. Authorities finally closed the shop, charging that Miss Willis helped anti-revolutionaries.

Many Christians still stand firm for the Lord in the face of restrictions. Many of these had secretly brought her such scarce items as eggs, pork, fruit and vegetables.

Many pastors and Christian workers are imprisoned. Forty arrests were made following the closing of a single seminary. Private prayer is forbidden.

China’s most outstanding pastor, Wong Ming Tao, faced trial but his life was blameless. He underwent tremendous pressure in prison. Two men placed in his cell interrogated him day and night. Finally, his mind gave way and he signed a confession. He was subsequently released from prison, and his mind became normal again. Realizing he had signed a lie, he told authorities the statements were not true. “If they are not true, you must return to prison,” was the reply. Wong Ming Tao and his wife were reportedly in jail again as of the day Miss Willis left China this spring.

Government education begins in nursery school with children two years of age! Young people are taught that there is no God. The only Christian teaching comes from believing parents.

Last September, the government reduced some 150 Shanghai churches of all denominations to 20 state churches. Sermons became mere political addresses. “Love your country; love your church” became the motto. Chief target of propagandists: The China Inland Mission.

Miss Willis concluded her account with a confident reminder: “The church is still the Lord’s.” She left Shanghai with the words of a Chinese Christian ringing in her ears. He had come to the railroad station to see her off despite her urgings that he not make himself known. His parting words: “We are still looking for that revival.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rev. Franklin Claude Spurgeon, 56, general secretary-auditor of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in Philadelphia … Lutheran Bishop Simon Schoeffel, 79, in Hamburg, Germany … Dr. Florence Mary Fitch, 84, professor of biblical literature and dean of women at Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio.

Appointments: As president of Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois, Dr. George Beto … as professor of systematic theology and Christian apologetics at California Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Bernard Ramm … as assistant professor of New Testament in the Graduate School of Lincoln Bible Institute, Lincoln, Illinois, Dr. Austin P. Benjamin … as pastor of the Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, California, the Rev. Raymond C. Ortlund.

Elections: As moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Dr. Alexander Nimmo … as president of the Christian Reformed Church, the Rev. J. C. Gritter.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

The Fifth World Order Study Conference of the National Council of Churches urged churches to study its recommendations of U. S. recognition and U. N. admission of Red China. Cleveland delegates could hardly have suspected that their proposals would lead, in some quarters, rather to a study of the NCC and the question of its value to the churches. Some church bodies have decided that they did not require a year’s study before making a pronouncement on the Red China issue. The American Baptist Convention, meeting June 4–9 in Des Moines, Iowa, was one of these.

Indeed, this lively issue provided the only extended debate of the sessions. After a number of staccato-like two-minute speeches, with delegates still wishing to speak, the convention voted narrowly, 245 to 234, in support of U. S. policy which denies diplomatic recognition to Red China and opposes its admission to the United Nations. Added to a Committee on Resolutions report which merely asked study of the Cleveland issues, was an amendment introduced by Missouri lay delegate O. K. Armstrong, staff writer for Reader’s “Digest and former congressman. Mr. Armstrong urged an immediate stand in view of impending U. N. action in September on Red China’s usual try for admission. His amendment urged that recognition be withheld until Red China shows respect for human rights.

The amendment carried in face of warnings it would mean “embarrassing headlines,” “condemnation of the Cleveland conference and the ‘Hartford Appeal’ of the NCC,” and “repudiation of the leadership of Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg,” NCC president and a Baptist. Opposing the amendment: the Resolutions Committee; a new “Commission on the Initiatives for Peace,” which also had simply urged study of the Cleveland issues; the convention’s General Council, which had reported favorably on the Cleveland findings; and the Baptist Pacifist Fellowship.

A long list of adopted resolutions revealed the convention mind in other areas as favoring: accelerated negotiations for disarmament and elimination of nuclear weapon testing, but with effective controls; total abstinence from alcoholic beverages; planned parenthood; action to combat traffic in pornographic literature; anti-inflation measures; laws curbing labor union and management corruption; opposition to gambling in all forms; a stand against commercialization of Sunday; denial of tax money to sectarian schools and hospitals; the right to ask candidates for public office to state views on church-state relations; and removal of racial barriers in all areas of life.

Elected to succeed Mrs. Maurice B. Hodge as convention president was Dr. Herbert Gezork, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, president of Andover-Newton Theological School, thought an appropriate choice in view of a current convention campaign to raise seven and a half million dollars for Baptist higher education. Gezork ran unopposed, as did Dr. Edwin H. Tuller for the top full-time executive staff post of convention general secretary. Dr. Tuller succeeds the ailing Dr. Reuben Nelson and comes from the directorship of the convention’s Council of Missionary Cooperation.

Dr. Tuller had been one of several speakers to point out to the some 3,000 delegates and 4,500 registered visitors their convention’s worrisome lack of growth in membership and stewardship: e.g. American Baptist membership increased 5.4 per cent in the past 20 years as compared with the 71 per cent gain of ten other Protestant denominations in the same period.

Most nettlesome is the tremendous growth of the Southern Baptists, part of which American Baptists feel is at their expense.

Pre-convention sessions of the Ministers Council featured a forum on the Southern Baptist “invasion” into northern territory. An American Baptist spokesman was critical not so much of Southern Baptist penetration into the North as of the Southern Baptist practice of locating churches next door to American Baptist churches which makes for “actual competition.”

Steps are being taken to correct this practice, said Dr. Blake Smith, Southern Baptist minister from Austin, Texas. Dr. Smith spoke of Southern Baptist concern over a development which threatens continental Baptist unity “more seriously than the Civil War.” Southern Baptist loyalty to their convention program, he confessed, has led to “unethical behavior.” Differences in doctrine, culture patterns, worship forms, and ecumenical relations have created the desire of Southern Baptists who have moved north to begin Southern Baptist churches. Did you seek out these folk, “did you really want them?” chided Smith.

Speakers and literature at the Des Moines meeting probed causes of the denomination’s relative immobility, ranging from lack of theological convictions on the Bible and missions to the autonomy of Baptist polity.

But Dr. Jitsuo Morikawa, director of the Division of Evangelism, had a hope. Perhaps the American Baptist Convention would be used of God, he said, to effect a reformation of the church in America “because we are weak and painfully aware of our weakness,” for God has “chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty.”

Scotch Switch

A move toward merging state-associated churches in England and Scotland stalled in Edinburgh this month. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) rejected, 300 to 266, a plan to adopt a system of bishops as a step toward intercommunion with British Anglicans. (See also “Review of Current Religious Thought” on page 40.)

A joint committee two years ago recommended a system of Presbyterian bishops and Episcopal lay elders.

The assembly went on record as viewing the system unacceptable because it implied a denial of the catholicity of the Church of Scotland and the validity and regularity of its ministry within the church catholic.

A report of the Church of Scotland’s Inter-Church Relations Committee had submitted the merger proposals as “unacceptable in their present form.”

Following the vote, Dr. A. C. Craig of Glasgow University, convener of the committee for three years, announced his resignation.

“The Church of Scotland has made a switch in its policy and the church now needs a new man to take over,” he said.

Craig declared that doubt had been cast on the nature of the unity to be sought between the Presbyterians and Anglicans. He appealed anew to the assembly for promotion of unity moves with other churches.

“Sacramental union,” he said, “connotes far more than a mere dribbling kind of intercommunion affecting only a few individuals occasionally and in special circumstances.”

Craig said that if the assembly rejected this policy it would “in effect be turning aside from the main stream of the ecumenical movement.”

Christian Amendment

At a meeting in Seattle this month, the General Board of the National Council of Churches declared its opposition to a “Christian amendment.”

The board passed a resolution declaring that adoption of such an amendment to the U. S. Constitution “would confuse the issues involved in the church-state separation principle” and could lead to denial of religious liberty of non-Christian Americans.

Under the “Christian amendment,” perennially before Congress, a provision would be added to the constitution declaring: “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of Nations, through whom are bestowed the blessings of Almighty God.”

Another board resolution asked church groups and communicants to support responsible organizations and legislative programs discouraging “arbitrary discrimination” in the hiring of men and women over 40.

During its two-day session, the General Board was reminded of a year-long “program of education and world peace” to be launched by the NCC July 1.

Religious News Service reported that the program will entail distribution of long reading lists and audio-visuals and sponsorship of training seminars.

Dr. R. H. Edwin Espy, associate general secretary of the NCC, said the “peace project” will be undertaken by four commissions of the NCC Department of International Affairs in cooperation with social action units of the council’s 32 constituent denominations. He added that the commission will deal with four broad subjects: power struggle and security in a nuclear space age, overseas areas of rapid social change, changing dimensions of human rights, and international institutions and peaceful changes.

“Special consideration,” he said, will be given findings of the Fifth World Order Study Conference held last fall in Cleveland, where the project was initially made public.

A message of Cleveland conference, sponsored by the NCC Department of International Affairs, recommended U. S. recognition of Communist China and its admission to the United Nations. Although refusing to refer to the Cleveland findings as “official policy,” the NCC is nevertheless promoting their distribution.

Tactical Errors?

Attendance at the New York City United Protestant Evangelistic Rally at St. Nicholas Arena May 13–15 was “rather unsatisfactory,” according to the Rev. Richard L. Francis, chairman of the committee on arrangements for the Protestant Council of the City of New York.

The three meetings addressed by Dr. Harry Denman, guest evangelist, drew slightly more than 1,000 persons per night.

Rain on the opening night got the series off to a slow start, but Francis attributed most of the failure to several “tactical errors.” He said there should have been (1) more thorough preparation in local churches, (2) borough rallies to precede city-wide rallies and (3) a Sunday evening opening followed by series of nightly meetings extending at least a week.

Unitarians And Unity

Unitarian churches responding to a nation-wide plebiscite are reported to favor merger with the Universalist Church of America by a margin of three to one. The majority of Universalist churches also reported in favor of merger, but opponents said scarcely one-sixth of the communicants of both bodies had voted. Voting results were released last month just prior to the American Unitarian Association’s annual meeting.

The two bodies will hold a joint conference in the fall to vote on a merger which would bring together 105,000 Unitarians and 75,000 Universalists.

No Dictation

Delegates to the 16th annual convention of the Conservative Baptist Association of America voted to leave up to each member congregation its treatment of the race relations problem.

Officials explained that “this is in keeping with our belief that a church’s national organization should not dictate blanket principles to its individual churches across the country.”

Dr. B. Myron Cedarhold, general director, reported that the association now comprises 976 churches in 39 states.

Meeting in Cincinnati with the association were the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, which maintains 91 missionaries in 17 fields on the North American continent, and the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, which now has 375 missionaries serving on 13 foreign fields.

Dr. Vincent Brushwyler, general director of the foreign mission society, told 1,200 delegates that “unless God miraculously intervenes with revival on a world-wide scale, Christians are engaged in a losing battle from the standpoint of statistics.” He added:

“A most generous estimate would indicate that not more than two million are won to the Lord in any year throughout the world.”

Goal: Every Language

The American Bible Society distributed a record number of Scripture portions last year, according to a report made at the group’s 143rd annual meeting in New York last month.

The world-wide distribution total—16,629,486—included more than a million complete Bibles.

Dr. Eugene A. Nida, the society’s secretary for translations, said that as of December 31, Scripture portions were published in 1,136 tongues. The total included the complete Bible in 215 languages, New Testaments in 273, and at least one Gospel in 648.

Nida said there are still more than 1,000 languages and dialects in which no part of the Bible has yet been published.

As part of the annual meeting, commemorative parchment scrolls were presented representatives of Bible societies in Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. All are observing sesquicentennials of their founding.

After Australia

On Sunday night, May 31, Billy Graham flew out of Australia after an evangelistic series the like of which the continent has never seen.

In city after city attendance records were broken, unprecedented numbers came forward to register decisions for Christ, church leaders testified to a new spirit of cooperation between denominations, congregations were increased, and a great stimulus was given Christian work generally.

In the final phase of the meetings Graham followed up work of associate evangelists Grady Wilson in Perth, Joseph Blinco in Adelaide, and Leighton Ford in Brisbane.

In Perth the two Graham meetings drew a combined attendance of 65,000, largest in the city’s history. During the eight days of the crusade more than 100,000 attended, out of which more than 5,000 made commitments to Christ.

In Adelaide Graham addressed the largest initial crusade crowd of his ministry: 65,000. Weekday meetings which followed saw crowds of 35,000 and 45,000. Some 8,500 commitments were counted during the final three meetings.

Another record crowd was on hand in Brisbane, where Graham held his last Australian rally before some 80,000.

The Australasia crusade was witnessed by an aggregate of 3,250,000 of whom 142,000 recorded decisions for Christ.

Can it be said that revival has begun

in Australia? It is early yet to give a final answer. A preliminary observation is that the impact of the crusades varied from place to place. The greatest impact was in Sydney, where there was wholehearted support from strong churches. While strong support came elsewhere as well, no other city in Australia has as many powerful evangelical elements. The situation thus made for more thorough preparation in Sydney. With more people praying and working, the results were greater. Church life was correspondingly enriched.

L. M.

Reaching Japan

A World Vision-sponsored crusade in Osaka, Japan, drew an aggregate attendance of 96,200 and saw 7,467 record decisions for Christ.

Dr. Bob Pierce, World Vision president, spoke nightly for three weeks in Osaka’s Festival Hall. The crusade had the support of 400 churches in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area.

The climactic closing service saw more than 9,800 converge on the scene. Among the more than 5,000 who stood outside, unable to enter the jammed auditorium, 407 responded to the invitation and joined 406 who had been seated to make commitments to Christ.

(For another report on Christian activities in Japan, see page 33.)

Congressional Testimony

Red Atrocities

The House Committee on Un-American Activities released this month the full text of a consultation with five natives of the Red-dominated, Chinese-Korean mainland revealing persecution of Protestants behind the Bamboo Curtain.

(The House Committee on Un-American Activities has been the target in recent months of some leading churchmen who signed full-page advertisements in influential newspapers urging abolition of the committee.)

The holder of a Princeton seminary master of theology degree, the Rev. Samuel W. S. Cheng, testified that between 1949 and 1958, some 140,000 Christians had been killed on the Chinese mainland. Another witness told of a lady evangelist who was tied between two horses which were sent running in opposite directions. Still another described how, in order to get information, the Communists pour water into the mouths of victims until their stomachs swell.

The descriptions represented sworn testimony under questioning by Richard Arens, staff director of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Here the witness tells of Red “theology”:

ARENS: Do these churches [on the

Communist mainland] preach the Gospel of Christ?

CHENG: NO.

ARENS: What do they preach?

CHENG: At best they preach modernism; Christ the model for all humanity. They take away the divinity of Christ and point out he was a good carpenter, a good example for the working people to follow. At the worst they substitute Lenin the Father, Stalin the Son, and Mao Tse-tung the Holy Ghost, for the triune God of the Christians. They have completely changed the Christian faith. Where Christian teachings fit in with Communist aims, they are retained. Where they do not, they are eliminated.

The five witnesses came to Washington while on a tour of the United States under sponsorship of the American Council of Christian Churches in cooperation with the International Council of Christian Churches. All now live in free territory. They learn of mainland conditions chiefly through refugees. Cheng is superintendent of the Gospelaires Friends Mission in Taipei.

Arens asked the Rev. Shih-Ping Wang, East Asia director of the Baptist Evangelization Society International, whether the Communist system raised the morality of the people. This was the reply:

“No. There is no morality. 1. There is no morality because the love of the family is taken away. 2. There is no honesty and respect among men or between men. There is no human dignity, they are all like animals. 3. There is no guilt associated with the murder of individuals for the improvement of the state. 4. There is no prostitution on the mainland in the communes because there is no man-woman relationship except the sanctioned two hours a week granted by the government. In Communist Party circles, a woman must submit herself to any party member who desires her favors. If the woman refuses a party member, she may be thrown into jail or stripped and nailed to a wall until she dies. Another punishment is to cut the breasts off the woman who refuses.”

“They slapped our faces, kicked our bodies, and poured cold water on our heads,” recalled the Rev. Peter Chu Pong, now general secretary of the Hong Kong International Christian Leadership.

Do the true Christians in the large cities attend the propaganda churches?

“They stopped attending,” according to the Rev. Tsin-Tsai Liu, pastor of the Gospel Baptist Church in Taipei. “If it becomes known that they are true Christian believers, they are not allowed to take an active part in the church.”

Kyung Rai Kim, a newspaper editor in Seoul, gave his views on policies toward Oriental communism as follows:

ARENS: What effect would the diplomatic recognition of Red China and its admission to the United Nations have on Southern Korea?

KIM: We are against it. We Korean people in the Korean churches know what communism is. Many American Christian leaders do not know what communism is.

ARENS: Politically, militarily, what

would the effect be on Korea, Southern Korea, what would happen, do you think, if the United States were to diplomatically recognize Red China and Red China were admitted to the United Nations?

KIM: If the United States recognized Red China, it would be oppressing to the free nations. Indirectly it would tend to work towards the recognition of Northern Korea, which would have a very bad effect on our country, bringing about its permanent division. It would be an open door for the Communist agents.

Missionary Enterprise

Jungle Bound

Language remains the greatest obstacle in presenting the Gospel to the Auca Indians of eastern Ecuador. So says Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot, widow of one of the five missionary men slain by the Aucas more than three years ago. Mrs. Elliot established an initial contact with the savage tribe last fall and has been living in their jungle intermittently since then. She visited Quito last month during a four-week rest after her latest, three-month stay with the Aucas. During the Auca stay, she had the company of Miss Rachel Saint, a linguist and a sister of one of those slain, who said she would not come out of the Auca settlement until next month.

Mrs. Elliot said they are finding pronunciation extremely difficult. Syntax appears to be very complicated, she added. The Aucas seem to leave out words necessary to establish proper antecedents.

Nevertheless, she said, some of the tribes people appear to be learning much.

Mrs. Elliot declared that the most important prayer request in behalf of the Auca project was “that we might be able to manifest the life of Christ to these Indians and in the way Indians will understand, even before we have an acceptable command of the language.”

Wide publicity given the Auca work has resulted in numerous gifts. Mrs. Elliot said the financial needs were limited in that the scope of the work was small. She asked that interested parties channel contributions to other projects where immediate needs are more urgent.

Early this month, Mrs. Elliot and her four-year-old daughter headed back for the tribe. Mrs. Marjorie Saint, another Auca widow, also planned to enter the tribe for a short visit.

FLIES OR ANTS?

Our patriotic picnic was over, the crowd had left for the lakefront and the ball diamond, and I remained, a sluggard among the ants. These regimented hymenoptera, with their proverbial industry, were transporting cake crumbs to their colony headquarters. My observations were interrupted as I drove away a fly which had buzzed up from a puddle of root beer to light on my nose.

John Ruskin once wrote a tribute to the fly as the freest, most republican (I suppose we should say, democratic) creature on earth. He contrasted the fly’s impudent individualism with the instinctual slavery of the ant. Our bandstand orator of the afternoon had described communism as anthill collectivism. He too preferred the fly life.

I had supposed that Ruskin’s dry admiration for the fly was an expression of nineteenth century individualism. He also observed once that no human being was ever so free as a fish. (Since fish can catch flies and flies fish, so that we have both flying fish and fly fishing, it is difficult to decide which is the better symbol.) It now appears that the fly should be cast in a symbolic role in this century also. What is more existential than a fly buzzing against a window pane? Perhaps the beatnik fly in a lamp globe!

Are we to choose, then, the liberty of the rebel fly, or the burden of the adjusted ant? As I swatted at the fly that had returned to my cheek, I decided for the ant. Anthill conformity is probably not at all confining for ants, and its efficient pattern is far more satisfying than droning meaninglessness.

Or is there a better candidate for Insect of the Century?

Pastor Peterson came back from the ball game with a sprained ankle and rescued me from my musings. He pointed out that it is not surprising to find all insect analogies to be one-sided caricatures of human life. True human freedom is the liberty of the sons of God. The real liberty tree grows beside the stream of grace from God’s throne. Any view of liberty that ignores God becomes inhuman license or slavery; men live like ants or die like flies.

FAKERY AND SHAME

Your article “Fake Degrees in the Pulpit” (May 11 issue) has done a real service to the cause of Christ. Dyrness’ statement, “With shame we must admit that our conservative brethren in the ministry are more susceptible to worthless degrees …,” should really disturb the evangelical conscience. Besides correcting the doctrine of the liberals, your magazine should continue to Christianize the ethics of the conservatives.… Your prophetic voice will continue to be really prophetic if it is heard in a prophetic way in its own camp.

Editor

The Canadian Mennonite

Altona, Manitoba

Such … articles … will discourage honest, sincere men and women from falling into the trap of “buying a degree.” And it will perhaps close up some of these fraudulent institutions.…

First Presbyterian Church

Ava, Ill.

While I am in full sympathy in cracking down on the diploma mills and fraudulent schools, would it not be worth while if Dr. Enock C. Dyrness would take a crack at the unearned doctor’s degrees given by accredited institutions for other reasons than that of merit.

Northside Methodist Church St.

Petersburg, Fla.

The University of London informs me that after one has taken his bachelor’s degree in residence there, he may then qualify for his master’s or doctor’s degree through off-campus study. I understand this is also done in many other countries. If it were done here by our recognized institutions, would not these fraudulent schools disappear for lack of patronage? Should higher education be reserved for only those who have sufficient time and money to leave their employment and families and go back to school?

East Liverpool, Ohio

I should like to commend you heartily for two very relevant articles, “Christ and the Campus,” and “Fake Degrees in the Pulpit.”

Roger Hull, Jr. did voice great and timely convictions and his words are tremendous. But I cannot share altogether the pessimistic view that a large majority of college students are indifferent, or a great deal more indifferent than their parents back home. Each year since the existence of our all-student congregation we have averaged at least a 40 per cent Sunday worship attendance of the total on our rolls, and each year we have received new Christian commitments through baptisms and confirmations of students. Furthermore, the attendance of student officers at our monthly chapel council meetings is as good or better than the attendance of council members of town parishes I have served. Since my ministry here is but one scholastic year, I can cite these examples without becoming suspect of drawing any attention to any personal success.

University Lutheran Chapel

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Ind.

BIBLE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS

My three grandchildren will be returning soon to the public schools here after two years in the Government schools in Europe, to be told that their grandparents are intolerant, stupid, bigoted, and otherwise incapable of their proper guidance and training. I would like to have it explained … why they are required by law to attend a school which bans the Bible.… The public school system was doomed when teaching of the Bible was prohibited.

Washington, D. C.

PERSPECTIVES OF THE KIN

The age we live in demands that laymen in the scientific professions develop a knowledge of the philosophy of Christianity—of theology—in order to find meaning for what they have accepted pragmatically by faith. It is in just this position that your periodical comes. Not all is acceptable or agreeable, but all is provocative.…

The “letters to the editor column” has opened my eyes to the narrow-minded bigotry of modern Christendom and has shown me the necessity of tolerance about minor differences.

I wish I could honestly state that I read the various medical publications that come to my desk with as much avidity as I devour … CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Vancouver, B. C.

No matter how many Eutychuses there may be, it would be nice if all your correspondents of differing schools would observe the simple rule of Christian courtesy.

Charlottesville, Va.

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Winton, Minn.

I am now reading (for second time) Religion without Revelation by Julian Huxley. I live at Penney Farms …, where we have 20 breeds of Protestantism and nobody really doing any thinking. I am 92 years of age and have lived with a Bible in my hands all the time. I now think most of my teaching and preaching all these years has been erroneous.… The above … will furnish something of a reason … why I do not subscribe to your really excellent sheet. It is trying to prop what seems to me is a really lost cause.

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Kansas City, Mo.

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White Plains, N. Y.

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Muskogee, Okla.

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Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Ch.

Lancaster, S. C.

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St. Louis, Mo.

I am now eighty-seven years of age, and have been in the Baptist ministry over sixty years, but I have never read a paper that contained so many wonderful messages that can be accepted by evangelicals of so many denominations.

Shreveport, La.

To truly glorify God we must be careful to print only … what really is true to his Word in Scripture, and as you know most people today will not tolerate this—they demand the Arminian heresy, the denial of the true God who “will have mercy on whom he will have Mercy.”

Dundalk, Ont.

I find your magazine pertinent and stimulating. I am frank to tell you that it seems to me there is a bias toward Calvinism and against Arminianism, or Wesleyanism.

Northwest Nazarene College

President Nampa, Idaho

I do not enjoy reading your magazine.… At the very best it is 99% chaff in my opinion.… I am Pentecostal and I do not go for dead formalism or intellectualism. I would rather be a fool on fire than a scholar on ice.

No. Bonneville, Wash.

I want to know more about orthodox Protestant Christianity since I myself aspire to the Catholic priesthood.… We stand united in our mutual recognition that the Scriptures are definitive because they have, in a real sense, God as their Author.… Particularly interesting to me was the editorial “Theology in Ecumenical Affairs” (Feb. 16 issue). There can be real unity in Christ only if that unity includes unity in truth. Ecumenical discussions with those who do not subscribe to this fundamental principle are impossible, as you … so clearly stated.

Greencastle, Ind.

Strange as it may seem to you, Billy Graham is far from being God, and the Bible is far from being the Word of God.

Bucyrus, Ohio

• Billy Graham, of course, has never claimed to be God, but he has honored Scripture as the Word of God written as did Jesus (John 10:35) and the apostles (1 Thess. 2:13).—ED.

I appreciate your doctrinal soundness, spiritual depth, interesting news, and helpful articles which are often a help in sermon building.

Dearborn, Mich.

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Burbank, Calif.

From the very first issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I have read and enjoyed the magazine thoroughly. After joining the faculty of Bethany Bible College I began using it in connection with my classes in contemporary theology.

You might be interested to know that we have made a card file of the writers and the “thumb-nail” sketch of their lives which you give … and by so doing build a reference file which is proving very valuable.

Bethany Bible College

Santa Cruz, Calif.

As a seminary student I want to say that the articles in this magazine have done much to help me stand firm for the fundamentals of the faith. I think that every paper I wrote for the various theological courses, and especially my B. D. thesis, which was on Luther’s doctrine of the Christian life, with special reference to justification and sanctification, contained quotations from various articles.… I have a complete file of CHRISTIANITY TODAY issues, and I am amazed at how many times I go through back issues for material. For example, in preparing a series of messages on the Gospel of St. Mark, I received much help from the article dealing with Mark, especially the list of good commentaries.… One of the things I especially like about the magazine is that the articles are of lasting interest, and are as valuable one or two years later as they were at the time of publication. I don’t honestly think I can say the same thing about any other Christian publication that I receive.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

I enjoy your magazine very much. Some of it is over my head, a little, but if I read it, later I find parts of it have registered—to my great benefit.

Corodado, Calif.

Your last issue just simply nauseates me. I’ve tried to read the magazine—but now am convinced it does me more harm than good.

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East Cleveland, Ohio

I, for one, appreciate the mature adult context of the editorials, and the differing opinions I find quite refreshing.

Jonesboro, Ind.

Forgive me for failing to take the time to thank you for the best religious magazine that comes to my desk. Your uncompromising faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures is surely reassuring in this age of skepticism and unbelief. I appreciate the very fine articles, especially those of the gifted editor.

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I do not want to miss a copy of it. Many of the articles are worth the price of a year’s subscription. Nelson Bell’s page is worth much to me.

Sharpsville, Pa.

To me, … “A Layman and His Faith” … is worth the price of the subscription … alone. The statements are so clear, so close to God’s word, that it is a pleasure to read them.

Brockton, Mass.

A word of commendation … for Eutychus and his witty penetration of the essentially anti-Christian implications of the jargon of existentialism, Bultmannism, etc.!

The Rectory

Katonah, N. Y.

May God bless you in your continuing effort to present fundamental Christian verities to the intellectually discriminating, theologically conservative, sociologically compassionate, and spiritually humble.

First Methodist Church

Conway Springs, Kans.

Your magazine, for the most part, lives in the past and is very useless in coping with contemporary problems with meaningless “nice” Gospel phrases.

Central Congregational Church

Jamaica Plain, Mass.

I enjoy this magazine very much, but do not know how much longer I shall be able to read it. Eyes are growing dim with the years, and I have already entered the octogenarian class.

You may be interested in knowing that the first of my giant anthologies—Christ and the Fine Arts—now of age (21 years since it was first published in 1938), is now revised and enlarged. More than 300,000 copies of this giant anthology have been sold, and it has gone round the world in its circulation during the past 21 years.

Los Angeles, Calif.

I look forward to every issue without ever having been disappointed. It is wonder-food for an old lady who loves the Lord Jesus and who draws nearer the Heavenly Gate month by month to be so encouraged on my journey (I am 81) by the articles and editorials.

Hawkesbury, Ont.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has … done so much to deepen my spiritual life …, done more than any other earthly experience to lead me to near “oneness” with our Saviour.

Fairmont, Minn.

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Brevard, N. C.

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Phoenix, Ariz.

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Palmyra, Pa.

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San Francisco, Calif.

Preponderance of this-worldism of religious emotional intellectualism.…

Berkeley, Calif.

I cannot too highly express my appreciation to all responsible for initiating and maintaining this excellent publication. How it keeps one’s mind “on the stretch” and in the way of basic issues.

The Baptist Parsonage

Paradise, Nova Scotia

I praise God for the … need filled by your scholarly magazine, one of which a Christian can be proud and not feel that the Lord is dishonored by inferior workmanship.

Springfield, Vt.

As I was bringing Senator Carlson in from the airport in a taxi, our conversation wandered across many things. The taxi driver interrupted us and displayed a large Bible that he carried in his cab and made reference to the fact that he had heard Billy Graham and Bob Pierce on the radio regularly and had committed his life to Christ, and now was actively interested in Christian things, including the regular reading of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. This is a further evidence of the extent of the influence of the paper.

Asst. Minister

Park Street Church

Boston, Mass.

It has been a source of encouragement and enlightenment … and appears to be improving as time goes on. You may take that word “improving” any way you like—either in the old Scottish way of “standing the test” or “getting better.”

Strathroy, Ont.

Are the “four freedoms,” as publicized by Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill during the early days of World War II, an attainable goal or are they a cruel mirage?

Only those who have lived under the tyranny of governments that curtail or deny personal freedom can appreciate the blessings which we in America have always enjoyed and take as a matter of course.

But the “four freedoms,” in a measure, go beyond those things which man may demand as his inherent right under a free government.

Freedom of speech and expression is certainly ours, but it may be used only within the limits of the common good. This does not imply the right to libel, to bear false witness, nor to assassinate somebody’s character. However, it does guarantee to those enjoying its privilege the right of opinion, criticism, and giving public expression to views on any subject, provided that such expression is not seditious or lewd.

Freedom to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience is another blessing which obtains where the basic freedoms are to be found. That some confuse freedom of worship with freedom from worship is a question which someday they will have to reckon with God.

Without minimizing the vital importance of separation of Church and State, one wonders whether those minorities which would prevent all children from coming under religious instruction in public schools, even on a voluntary and released-time basis, are not being permitted to impose freedom from worship on those who sense their need of and dependence upon God.

Freedom from want is not necessarily a good thing. It is not within the province of the Church or the State to promise to all of its citizens material benefits for life. The scriptural principle is twofold: those who refuse to work have no right to expect food; but when a Christian sees a brother in need of help, it is his duty to assist that brother to the best of his ability.

There is another aspect, however, to the problem of want. God at times permits people to experience privations in order that the experience may draw them back to him. It was hunger that drove the Prodigal to a realization of his plight. Material need frequently turns people back again and again to a despair of separation from God and a sense of dependence upon him as a loving Father.

Freedom from fear, the final promise of the “four freedoms,” offers from the political standpoint a hope that should be realized wherever there is responsible government. Men should dwell securely and safely from molestation. Their homes should not be subject to unlawful attack or invasion. Agencies of protection should be active, efficient, and impartial.

But there is another aspect of this matter. Fear can be a healthy reaction. It can be the agent by which man is startled and stimulated to protective action. It is a God-given instinct by which life is protected and prolonged.

There is an unhealthy fear of what others may think—“The fear of man bringeth a snare.” On the other hand, all men should have a righteous fear of the holy and living God. For Christians such fear becomes a reverential trust through the atoning work of Christ.

At the time of year when we Americans think of that freedom which brought into being our great nation, and the freedoms which have been a part of our heritage since that day, we should be wise indeed if we considered what is at stake when we turn freedom to license and dissipate our God-given rights for imagined gain.

Freedom to live and think and act without fear of restraint is one of man’s greatest blessings. And it has always been granted in those places where faith in God has established the climate, and where the dignity of man and his responsibility to his Maker are basic. We in America probably take our political freedom for granted. In so doing we have failed either to understand or oppose with strength those forces abroad which deny and destroy every God-given right of mankind.

Some of us have lived in or seen this blight in other parts of the world. The beginning of it may be overwhelmingly ruthless or deceptively insidious. Soon after China came under Communist domination, some of the Christians made this astute observation: “When the Communists first take over, they tien, tien t’eo (nod their heads in approval). Then they iao, iao t’eo (shake their heads with disapproval). Finally, they sah t’eo (cut your head off).”

Whatever methods are used when coming into power, communism sees to it that the basic freedoms disappear and regimentation, compulsion, and oppression take their place.

There is a higher freedom, however, that has not been mentioned. It is the freedom which comes from knowing and trusting Jesus Christ. Millions who enjoy all that freedom can offer in a land such as ours are pathetic slaves to sin. They are slaves because they were born in that condition, and because they have never been emancipated by the Great Emancipator. Freedom was effected on the Cross, but men continue to live bound to the ways of life that end in death.

Even Christians can be slaves to unworthy or harmful practices. How often we belie the faith we profess by rudeness, impatience, criticism, and prejudice! How often an unbelieving world fails to see in us the fruit of love, joy, and peace, all of which come from the indwelling Spirit!

The freedom which comes through faith in Christ knows no national, racial, or political boundaries. The Gospel says that men may know the Truth and be made free. Here is to be found the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. It is an emancipation from the demands of the Law which no man could keep. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” is a practical reality, not a meaningless phrase.

We see then one of the many paradoxes of the Christian faith which the unregenerate can never grasp. God’s values and man’s are totally different. Despotism may hold man under its iron heel, but it is incapable of restraining the spiritual freedom that springs through faith. In like manner the “freedom” which a nation such as our own offers to her citizens does not in any way deliver men from the dominance of sin.

For the Christian there remains the certainty of ultimate and complete freedom, not only from the limitations of time and space and circumstance but also from the tears, sorrow, and death which are a part of our earthly heritage.

“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

This may be called the “Fifth Freedom” and it lasts for eternity.

Because of the faith and perspective of Nehemiah himself, the book of Nehemiah might well furnish sermon, reference, and planning material for a modern building program. Nehemiah furnished leadership which demonstrated the deep religious nature of his building task and that it was not just a “superficial and external” challenge “to get a job done.” Along with the fine religious stimulus, the book also supplies valuable historical information on the period after the return from the Exile. Information contained herein is not to be found elsewhere.

It has been customary to emphasize the differences in the perspectives of Ezra and Nehemiah, and to stress a large variation in purpose. Their personalities were different. Ezra was stern and somewhat harsh, while Nehemiah was more loving and understanding. Nevertheless it is wrong to classify Ezra as the “religious” reformer and Nehemiah as the “political” reformer. Nehemiah was interested in political reform but only as a means of making possible a covenant commitment of a religious nature. If the terms must be used, then Nehemiah was both a religious and a political reformer.

Title And Date

Lack of Massoretic notation after Ezra 10:44 and the use of the title “Second Esdras” in the Septuagint for Ezra-Nehemiah combined would suggest that the two were originally one work. Because of the striking similarity of 2 Chronicles 36:22 and Ezra 1:1–4, Chronicles too may have been part of the larger volume. However, a fifteenth century division definitely established “Nehemiah” as a book in its own right. If once it was part of the trilogy of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, then the date can be easily ascertained. The genealogy of David extended six generations beyond Zerubbabel (1 Chron. 3:15–24). Allowing 30 years for each generation, there is a total of 180 years which, when subtracted from Zerubbabel’s date, gives us 340 B.C. as the earliest possible date of the writing. Mention of Jaddua as high priest in Nehemiah 12 is an aid to approximating the date since Josephus reports that Jaddua was high priest at the time of Alexander the Great, about the year 332 B. C.

Historical Setting

Though once mighty under Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 B.C.), the Babylonian empire reached a state of weakness and decay when Nabonidus became so engaged in his study of ancient history and archaeology that affairs were neglected and the kingdom itself was entrusted to his son Belshazzar. This aided the benevolent Cyrus of Persia in continuing his successes until in 539 B.C. he conquered even Babylon. By decree of Cyrus, conditioned upon their payment of taxes and continued loyalty, many Jews were then able to return to their homeland.

It was because of the policy set by Cyrus and continued by his successors that both Ezra and Nehemiah were able to return home during the reign of a certain Artaxerxes. With Artaxerxes I dated in 464–423 B.C., a seventh year return of Ezra (Ezra 7:8) and a twentieth year return for Nehemiah (Neh. 2:1) would place the returns at 458 B.C. and 444 B.C., while Ezra may have returned in the seventh year of Artaxerxes II, or 397 B.C. Thus the tradition of return would be reversed with Nehemiah having preceded Ezra.

Nehemiah was contemporary with the high priest Eliashib (Neh. 3:1) while Ezra was contemporary with Johanan (Ezra 10:6) who was Eliashib’s grandson (Neh. 12:22). The Elephantine Papyri from the little island at the first cataract of the Nile point to 408 B.C. as the time when Johanan filled the priestly office. Sanballat was governor of Samaria during Nehemiah’s time (Neh. 6), while possibly his descendants were Ezra’s thorns (Ezra 2–6). Nehemiah 12:26 actually names Ezra after Nehemiah and while Nehemiah’s work was to rebuild the walls, there is some evidence that Ezra found them already rebuilt (Ezra 4:12; 9:9). Ezra found many people in Jerusalem while Nehemiah seems to have arrived there before things were built up very much (Neh. 7:3, 4). All of this would suggest that there was no chronological intent in the biblical arrangement of Ezra before Nehemiah.

But one must not be hasty in concluding that the chronology of Nehemiah-Ezra is established fact. It is still a matter of needed research. The Elephantine material which has played such a prominent part in the discussions is itself inconclusive. In a critical note on “Hanani-Hananiah,” C. G. Tuland of the University of Chicago (Journal of Biblical Literature, 77, June, 1958, pp. 157–161) makes a good case for equating the Hanani of papyri 30, 31, with the Hananiah of Nehemiah 1:2; 7:2, Nehemiah’s brother. Should this be true, it would again place Ezra prior to Nehemiah since the date of Hanani of Elephantine was 445–419 B.C. Furthermore, if the ministries of Ezra-Nehemiah were under an Artaxerxes of two periods, it is strange that the author did not distinguish them to avoid confusion. It is doubtful also that Ezra found the “walls” already built, for the word for that which Ezra found was “gader” (fence). The wall which Nehemiah rebuilt is generally spoken of by the term “chomah.” The question is far from settled.

Content

Perhaps the book can best be comprehended through a three-fold division: A. Survey of Jerusalem’s Walls and Initiation of Work (chaps. 1; 2); B. Building the Walls (chaps. 3–6); C. Preparation for a Great Revival (chaps. 7–13).

A. Survey of Jerusalem’s “Walls and Initiation of Work, Chapters 1; 2.

Through Hanani his kinsman, Nehemiah received word of the destruction of Jerusalem’s walls (1:1–4). It must have been a recent catastrophe, for certainly Nehemiah would not have broken into grief for walls that had been destroyed over a hundred years ago. Perhaps the walls, rebuilt with the temple in 516

B. C., had been newly attacked by Jerusalem’s troublesome neighbors.

His response through an earnest prayer of confession and petition speaks well for the character of Nehemiah. “To whom one prays” is to be identified as Yahweh, the covenant God (1:5). “How we should pray” (1:6), and for “what we should pray” (something specific) is to be seen in Nehemiah’s request that the Lord grant him success and mercy in the eyes of Artaxerxes concerning this important matter (1:11).

Because of faithfulness to his master, and under the guiding hand of God (2:8), Nehemiah received both the king’s blessing and the grant of some materials for his journey and mission. Upon arrival in Jerusalem, he began his work in interesting fashion.

To avoid arousing both external and internal opposition, Nehemiah surveyed the Jerusalem situation at nighttime. His was an effort to count the cost involved, and then at the right moment he would make the announcement of his task. A premature announcement could have hampered what he felt deeply to be God’s mission.

Nehemiah’s strategy was to stimulate the “initiative” of the people (2:17–18) by showing what was needed, and then wait until they themselves responded with the desire to build. With the support of his people, Nehemiah was ready for opposition (2:19–20), for he knew that the cause was right (tsedaqah), which implies that Sanballat’s was not (2:20). Furthermore, the cause would not fail, for it was God’s and not man’s (2:20a).

B. Building the Walls, Chapters 3–6.

Superficially reading the names of the peoples who participated in the work, one finds the pattern a little monotonous. However, chapter three is a specimen of a division of labor and efficient cooperation. The completion of the task through the harmonious labor of so many individuals and groups speaks well for Nehemiah’s ability as a genuine leader. The contagiousness of a fine spirit is evident. When the example was set of repairing that part opposite one’s house, others followed the pattern (3:28, 29).

A willingness to work nullifies neither obstacles nor opposition. Nehemiah’s opposition presented itself in three ways: (1) External ridicule and conspiracy (chap. 4). Fearing their inability to control a walled city, Sanballat and his followers engineered a conspiracy that spread. But the turbulency of the hour was overcome through prayer (4:4), work (4:6), the cognizance of a noble goal (4:14), and through alertness (4:17). (2) Internal dissension (chap. 5). The difficulty of the work had already caused some to become faint-hearted (4:10), and the spark of complaint soon grew to a flame hitting against the task where it hurt most, namely, the people’s material means. They cried that the project was too costly (5:1 ff.). Complaint about financial affairs was increased by exorbitant interest rates charged by the wealthy class (5:4 f.). Discontent was more intense because of wives within the homes who were not dedicated to the necessity of their own important task (5:1). (3) Active opposition to the leader (chap. 6:1–14). The effort of Sanballat and Tobiah to stop the work soon gave way to a personal attack upon Nehemiah. The methods they used are the same employed today: deceit (6:2), feigned friendship (6:7), and the fabrication of false charges for the purpose of ruining Nehemiah’s reputation.

But the work was of God and so the project, started in the beginning of August, was completed in September (6:15). Less than one year had passed since in November of the previous year Nehemiah had received the very distressing news (1:1).

C. Preparation for a Great Revival, Chapters 7–13.

A sense of responsibility to consolidate the opportunities in a revived commitment to the covenant law resulted from the successful conclusion of the project. That the accomplishment of the building task was accompanied by a recognition of divine providence is to be seen in the part which various activities played in revival effort.

The recovered census of 7:5 is approximately the same as that of Ezra 2:1–70. Both for the purpose of ascertaining the population and dwelling of the city’s residents and of securing the purity and separateness of the new community (7:4, 5, 73), a new enrollment was needed.

Though placed with the book of Ezra in early Greek editions, chapter eight is more properly placed here just as one finds it in the Hebrew. The chronology involved is uncertain. It is the “seventh” month of which year? Had Nehemiah a long ministry before Ezra appeared, or was there a recall of Ezra from retirement? What consideration should be given to the fact that many scholars regard the three contexts where Nehemiah and Ezra appear together as suspect (Neh. 8:9; 12:26; 12:36)?

At any rate, the words of the book commanded great reverence, so much so that the people stood (8:5) for a half day (8:3) to be reminded of its demands. Through the tediousness of a translation (8:8) they were attentive (8:3). Much reverence had been learned through the hardness of the years.

Such a conviction of their negligence ensued that sorrow was accompanied by a revival of the Feast of Tabernacles (8:14), the ancient festival commemorative of God’s providence (Lev. 23:34 f.). With this time of repentance (8:9; 9:1), their wise leader seized upon the occasion to remind them that repentance could lead to joy (8:11 f.).

Lest the occasion be but a passing emotion, Ezra took this as an opportunity for an historical reminder of God’s dealing with them. Major events of significance in Israel’s covenant history were reviewed. Israel’s theology was summarized as she was confronted with creation (9:6), election (9:7), redemption (9:9), covenant (9:13), providence as seen in the gift of Canaan (9:15), sin as viewed in the rebellion of the monarchy (9:26), judgment as stressed by the time of exile (9:27), and grace as represented by the fact that they were once again in the promised land (9:31). So graphic was the presentation that a renewed covenant was made. That this time of commitment was widespread can be ascertained from the fact that groups symbolic of all the peoples signed the covenant pledge. There were civil (10:1), religious (10:2 f.), and lay leaders (10:14 f.). This commitment bore fruit in work and spirit as evidenced by the resettlement of land and by the enlistments of the various registers as recorded in chapters 11 and 12.

Often the repentance of men is shallow and at times short. Thus, upon Nehemiah’s return to Persia (13:6) impurity developed in religion and life. Fearless man of conviction that he was, Nehemiah returned and manifested his godly concern and righteous indignation through the expulsion of the impure Tobiah (13:4–9), the restoration of levitical support (13:10–14), Sabbath reforms (13:15–22), and thorough mixed marriage reforms (13:23–29).

Did ever a man work so diligently to accomplish reforms that would be pleasing to the living and righteous God of Israel? Regardless of loss of personal popularity Nehemiah worked hard and diligently to remove disobedience from the hearts and lives of the Israelites. Certainly he had cause to anticipate that God should remember him (13:31).

Bibliography

Introductions and commentaries of diverse backgrounds have much to offer: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (International Critical Commentary), by Loring W. Batten; Introduction to the Old Testament, II, by Aage Bentzen; Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge Bible), by H. E. Ryle, and An Introduction to the Old Testament, by Edward J. Young. Other helpful sources are the following: “The Date and Personality of the Chronicler,” Journal of Biblical Literature (40, 1921, 104–124), by W. F. Albright; A History of Israel, by W. O. E. Oesterley and Theodore H. Robinson; “The Chronological Order of Ezra and Nehemiah,” The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays in the Old Testament, by H. H. Rowley; and “Hanani-Hananiah,” Journal of Biblical Literature (77, 1958, 157–161), by C. G. Tuland.

RALPH H. ELLIOTT

Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

A local incident is fairly representative of a situation developing throughout the nation. The council of the PTA, concerned about juvenile delinquency, publicly demanded that certain magazines be withdrawn from the newsstands because, it alleged, they were demoralizing, particularly in their sex emphasis. The city’s daily newspaper gave editorial approval, saying, “We think the PTA members who have shown initiative in helping to make our city a decent place for children and young folk are deserving of support by every parent.” In response to this pressure the agency handling sales banned 25 men’s magazines of the “girlie type.”

Immediately several professors in the law school of a large university in the community protested the extra-legal proceeding. On a single day 300 students of the university signed a protest, similar to that of their professors, urging that such censorship over reading matter available on the newsstands violated the freedom of the press. They asked that it be discontinued. These opponents insisted: “An axe has been used where a scalpel was appropriate; freedom of the press is one of the most important and most deeply cherished of our constitutional rights; a publication is not obscene just because it is offensive to some persons; the magazines in question have not been legally proven obscene in a single instance; if obscene magazines are appearing, there are legal means to deal with them, rather than the haphazard and untrained judgment of a small private group.” The opponents concluded their argument thus: “We prefer to trust in the traditional orderly processes of government to determine such delicate and complex questions rather than to rely on even a public-spirited pressure group.”

An effort was made to provide for a public hearing, with both sides presenting their views, but the PTA council declined to have anything to do with it. Could it have been that their opponents had convinced them they were wrong? Or that they discovered somewhat to their chagrin that after all the banned magazines were read mainly by adults? Or that the sales agency intimated that it expected soon to resume distribution?

Some Salient Facts

Without presuming to pass upon the merit or demerit of this local action, perhaps we may use the occasion to point up some pertinent considerations.

First, it is true, according to Senator Estes Kefauver, who has seen the evidence, that some of the most objectionable publications and photographs are distributed to children, even mailed to them. Further, it must be observed that immense numbers of people in the United States are becoming attentive to what seems to be an alarming growth of pornographic publications.

The Postmaster General, who holds the high responsibility of passing upon what is mailable, is reported as about to ask Congress for a stiffer law. The law now reads: “Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, printing or other publication of an indecent character … is hereby declared to be nonmailable matter, and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any postoffice or by any letter carrier.” Law enforcement agencies complain that they are only partly able to restrict the distribution of “printed filth.” Why? Must enforcement always await formal complaint?

Special Agent Charles E. Moore Jr. of the FBI says: “Local action by church and civic groups is the surest way to put smut salesmen out of business and rid newsstands and drug stores of obscene publications.” Obviously this suggests use of free speech rather than forcible control. It should be accepted to mean, however, that churches and civic groups not only have the right of free speech to express opinion but have a duty in helping to form a moral public opinion by their exercise of that right, especially in respect to evil license.

Actually the problem is by no means new. It is as old as civilization. Censorship was demanded in ancient Greece and Rome. It has been a major weapon of autocratic governments from the days of the Caesars to the latest example of the Communist dictatorship which prohibited Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. It was the chosen instrument of a church in the Inquisition and remains in force with that authoritarian church in respect to dress, printing, drama, and painting, and much else, so much so that the church is accused of telling a man what he can think, what tastes he shall cultivate, and how he must behave along all lines, except drinking and gambling.

Perhaps the loudest and most lasting protest against censorship in respect to printing was made in 1644 by John Milton. Milton addressed his Areopagitica to the English Parliament against a decree of the Star Chamber that all printing should be entrusted to the Archbishop, the Bishop of London, and the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge. The practical effect was to give Archbishop Laud absolute control over every press in England. He used his authority after the manner of the papists whose practices were most detested by the Presbyterian Government of the time.

Milton’s masterpiece is strong meat, likely too strong to be palatable to many people. In it he declared that the attempt to keep out evil doctrine by censorship is “like the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting the park gates.” He reminds his readers that ideas are spread as effectively by word of mouth as by the use of printing. He argues that censorship, if attempted over printed matter, to become effective must be extended to apply to garb, pastimes, eating, in fact to almost everything. Moses, Daniel, and Paul and the Church Fathers, he claimed, by precept and example, enjoined freedom in the pursuit of knowledge. Milton ended with a paean to England which through freedom of the press had come to be recognized as “a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit.” In a final burst he prayed, “Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, according to conscience, above all liberties.”

The American Tradition

The founders of our Republic, steeped in Milton and resentful of the arbitrary proscriptions of a Laud, wrote into the first article of the Bill of Rights a guarantee for the freedom of utterance. We are not shocked when we read that Thomas Jefferson, on being informed that a book has been suppressed, exclaimed:

I am really mortified to be told that in the United States of America a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of a criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the Civil Magistrates. Is this our freedom of religion? Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold and what we may buy? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or a layman, simple as ourselves, to set up his reason for what we are to read and what we must believe?

It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not.… For God’s sake let us hear both sides, if we choose.”

A Spiritual Approach

Desperate situations require desperate remedies. If pornography is regnant anywhere, interested citizens should consult the district attorney. They should, even before resorting to court action, endeavor to take all possible positive steps without the use of force. An influential Christian magazine editor advises that our real reliance must be upon spiritual disciplines which produce “a sensitized conscience.” A home counselor asks if those whose children are susceptible to corruption from salacious literature have provided an abundance of attractive wholesome literature for their homes. A pastor advocates adequate church libraries with a promotion of the offerings that will win readers. The churches should, he says, seek a power of persuasion and enlistment that will induce high standards and produce good taste. Their task is to teach youth to approve that which is excellent. Others have worked at maintaining a joyous social program that is Christian.

It is of the utmost importance that Christians try to see life whole, and not fatuously imagine that youth is lost through a single evil. An educator of wide experience recently declared that if one should today single out a sole factor in the creation of sex sins, it would be the scanty dress which obtains in Christian homes as well as in those that are godless. Another thinks that reading, which according to reports is now at a minimum, is far less corrupting than what is served upon screen and television. These opinions, and many others that might be quoted, add up to the conviction that home training, effective evangelism, and Christian education must confront the evil elements in our society and overcome evil with good.

Curiously enough censorship, whether operating openly or behind the scenes, whether officially constituted or asserted by self-appointed groups, has usually tended to ignore flagrant moral infractions and gravitated toward suppression of political policy on religious heresy. Generally censors have been notorious for partisanship and arbitrariness and almost universally hated for a ruthless disregard of human rights and freedoms. Who, then, is qualified to serve as a censor? Is Cato or any of his ilk anywhere? It is the arrogation of individuals or groups who assume superior ability and authority to become guardians of people’s choices and behavior, according to private canons, that arouses resentment. Democracy usually refuses to tolerate such. It is free, however, to give judgments on all matters without setting up committees to impose individual views on others apart from due process of law.

END

Dr. Joseph M. Dawson has served Southern Baptist causes effectively for more than half a century. Born in 1879 in Texas, he received the B.A. degree in 1904 from Baylor University which also conferred on him the D.D. in 1916. Dr. Dawson was cited in 1955 by Protestants and Other Americans United for his contributions to religious liberty. He is author of America’s “Way in Church, State and Society.

The National Council of Churches has promoted 10 books on social ethics. Sponsored by its Department of the Church and Economic Life, the project was launched 10 years ago under a large subsidy from the Rockefeller Foundation. Most of these books now also appear in popularized paperback summaries.

A member of the NCC’s General Board has suggested purchase of these books as gifts to church libraries. His endorsement describes the 10 volumes as “tremendously effective tools for your Christian work—the product of nine years of research by top economists, theologians, political scientists and psychologists.… You will find in these books invaluable insight … for use in all your efforts at guiding men toward that larger understanding which we know to be so essential to their effective Christian living.”

Other Christian leaders have taken exception on the ground that some of the volumes reflect left wing social philosophies. An influential layman has described the NCC’s promotion of this series of volumes on “The Ethics and Economics of Society” as “one of the boldest attempts to use the church for the purpose of disseminating the Collectivist philosophy that I have so far run across.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has sought an objective verdict on this series of studies by inviting 10 leaders to submit 350-word reviews with an eye on the presuppositions of these volumes. The several books are not lacking in individual differences. But the reviewers are in general agreement that the underlying bias of the series favors the “New Deal society” against a limited government, free enterprise, private property philosophy, even though this thesis is resisted in some of the volumes.—ED.

Goals Of Economic Life

Goals of Economic Life, edited by A. Dudley Ward (Harper, 1953, 470 pp., $4), is reviewed by J. Howard Pew, Director, Sun Oil Company, and President of the Trustees of the Foundation of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

Launched by the old Federal Council of Churches some years ago, this book, Goals of Economic Life, supposedly to determine to what extent our economic system is consistent with Christian principles, provides the introduction to the whole series of books on ETHICS AND ECONOMICS OF SOCIETY. It contains 15 essays, each by a different author taking his own approach to the subject, be it that of a philosopher, social scientist, biologist, anthropologist, economist, psychologist, or theologian. Such rarified atmosphere makes for strange observations which often fail to check with either Christianity or sound economics.

But the National Council takes cover in assuming no responsibility. Charles P. Taft makes this unequivocally clear in his Foreword to the book: “The National Council of Churches has taken no official position and assumed no responsibility regarding the content of any of the volumes.” This is tenuous cover, indeed, when it is stated specifically in the Introduction that the 15 authors were selected “with an eye to the requirements of the project …,” and in view of the aggressive promotion given to the “project” by the National Council.

Can the National Council sidestep responsibility so easily? It is incredible that a business man of integrity could or would hold himself aloof from any responsibility for the wares he produces or sells. By that same token it is incredible that the National Council can hold itself aloof from even a quasi endorsement of the authors’ theses which—give or take some points here and there—seem colored by Kremlin instructions to Party workers in our country to cast doubt on the efficacy of the free market system of economics and to advocate measures which would substitute government control or ownership for private control and ownership of property, and in other ways regulate the lives of its citizens. Such would be a sad day for freedom and Christianity. To this much of the world today gives dramatic testimony.

The final chapter—the summation and Statement of conclusions—was left to the skillful pen of Reinhold Niebuhr, but who, according to an earlier statement by his colleague, John C. Bennett, “follows the Marxist pattern in his political thinking.…”

Such Marxist overtones seep insidiously through the whole book. It lacks Christian motivation. It lacks a realistic understanding of the relationship between the Christian ethic and economics. And it is my conviction, in contradistinction to the statist philosophy that emerges from its pages, that Christianity and freedom are inexorably tied together, and the free market is but one of freedom’s parts.

Organizational Revolt

The Organizational Revolution, by Kenneth E. Boulding (Harper, 1953, 286 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Dr. Hudson T. Armerding, Dean, Gordon College.

This work is a descriptive and analytical study of the organizational revolution which today is of compelling significance. The author, an economist, demonstrates competence as a social scientist by his balanced and perceptive treatment of the subject. Despite the sponsorship by the National Council of Churches, Professor Boulding asserts that he writes in this volume as an individual, not as a spokesman. Inclusion in the text of verbatim comments by his critics supports his assertion that he is contributing to a discussion.

With the descriptive material there can be little disagreement. Some of the author’s analyses, however, are controversial, for his assumptions are those of the so-called classical economist. He insists, for example, that to the capitalists in their corporate activity should go the credit for the Western world’s economic development, including the improved status of labor. This is a viewpoint too little articulated today, but one bound to be vigorously challenged.

In attempting to explain the causes of the organizational revolution, Professor Boulding stresses the interaction of society and its environment. This, he believes, has become dynamic because of technological advance, particularly in communications, and not primarily because of a response to social needs. According to the author, sanctions governing group behavior locate primarily in human or social imperatives with the distinctive tenets of Christianity adjudged too intensely personal to be effective for organizations or groups. This apparent failure of the author to utilize Christian perspectives is nowhere more evident than in his suggested solutions to the major problems of the organizational revolution. In endorsing a limited world government as a practicable expedient to resolve the organizational dilemma, he does not even speculate upon what part the return of Christ or the establishment of the kingdom of God might play in this process.

The contribution of this study to the perspective of the Church, therefore, will be determined largely by the wisdom and skill with which informed Christians utilize such materials in relating revelational truth to the contemporary scene.

Social Responsibilities

Social Responsibilities of the Businessman, by Howard R. Bowen (Harper, 1953, 276 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by the Rev. Edmund A. Opitz of the senior staff of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Readers of this book may feel that businessmen are unwarrantedly lumped together as a class, and then singled out as the group in our society most in need of reformation. If they do, their suspicions are not without foundation. In effect, this book asks businessmen (to paraphrase the old leading question), “When are you going to start behaving responsibly?” If they were to protest the impropriety of starting an inquiry with an accusation, Dr. Bowen would inform them that, “In general, Protestant thinkers are … suspicious of arguments used by businessmen that their power is being used—or will be used—benevolently and point out the frequent proclivity of men in a given social class to hold views consistent with the interests of their class” (p. 35). The men in the dock are presumed guilty, and no testimony in their own behalf, it is alleged, can rise above mere special pleading.

This hardly qualifies as fair play. There are scoundrels in every walk of life, and virtue is not limited to the professions. The producer of honest goods and services has a vocation which doesn’t suffer by comparison with any other. Moreover, no businessman is just that and nothing else. Like most of the rest of us he functions in many capacities; as a citizen, a husband, a father, a churchman, a neighbor, second clarinet in the town band, coach of his son’s Little League team, and so on. In each of these roles he acts as a responsible person, trying to meet the moral, aesthetic, and legal demands that are made upon him. He is the same many-sided person when he enters his place of business. In his role as a businessman he manufactures some item, such as men’s suits; or runs a store selling a variety of merchandize; or operates a service, such as a garage or laundry. In no one of these pursuits does the businessman consult merely his own inclinations, as if they were hobby activities; he tries to form an estimate of the economic needs and wants of other people which he might be in a position to fulfill on a voluntary exchange basis.

As a result of his work, goods and services appear on the market in competition with all other products available to the buying public. If he wins customers, he prospers and makes a profit while they enjoy goods and services not otherwise available to them. The sum total of human satisfactions is increased, and no one is enriched at the expense of anyone else. But sometimes the customers turn in a negative verdict; there are no sales, and consequently no profits. In such a situation some businessmen have turned to government for a monopolistic grant of privilege—in which case they cease, in strict definition, to be businessmen. If Dr. Bowen understood the distinction between monopolist and businessman he might have written a more valuable book.

Income And Its Use

American Income and Its Use, by Elizabeth Hoyt, Joseph McConnell, Janet Hooks, and Margaret Reid (Harper, 1954, 362 pp., $4.00), is reviewed by Donald Grey Barn-house, Editor, Eternity Magazine.

American Income and Its Use maintains that the Christian Church should utilize the strengths of capitalism and the welfare state to formulate a practical, working compromise which will benefit society in general.

This volume contains five studies: “The Ethics of Consumption,” by Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Professor of Economics, Iowa State College; “Distribution of Income and Consumption,” by Margaret G. Reid, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago; “The Changing Family and Its Dependents,” by Joseph L. McConnell and Janet M. Hooks, both of the University of Illinois; “Conclusion: What Lies Before Us,” by Dr. Hoyt; and “Ethical Aspects of Income Distribution and Consumption,” by Walter G. Muelder, Dean of Boston University School of Theology.

The writers of this book believe that private wealth should serve the best interests of society. They do not believe that this can be achieved, however. They recognize the weaknesses of state socialism, and they do not believe that laziness should be encouraged, nor incentive destroyed.

Dr. Muelder sums up the study thus: “An adequate Christian stewardship, with a philosophy of vocation, recognizes the spiritual significance of detachment, non-possessiveness, and even renunciation, but it proceeds from a new motive and a vision of inclusive community responsibility. There is a need to restore the awareness that even man made things come ultimately from God. There is a need to see the diversity of gifts and talents in men in terms of the mutual service which all can render” (p. 317).

According to Dr. Muelder, the theological basis of this approach is the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Herein, I believe, lies the weakness of this book. The problems of the world arise not primarily from a faulty view of economics but from man’s faulty relationship to God. Although this view of the Christian social ethic aims at a Christian goal, nevertheless any attempt to build a better world with inferior material is bound to fail. The primary purpose of the Christian community is to so live before men that they see us as a people redeemed by Jesus Christ. Only thus can men know the true Fatherhood of God and exercise the true spirit of brotherhood.

Christian Values

Christian Values and Economic Life, by Howard R. Bowen, John C. Bennett, William Adams Brown, Jr., and G. Bromley Oxnam (Harper, 1954, 272 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Harold J. Ockenga, Minister, Park Street Church, Boston, Massachusetts.

This is the last of a series of treatises purporting to set forth a Protestant economic ethic, to be used as a standard in attempting to solve the complex problems resulting from our rapidly changing social institutions. The authors reaffirm commitment to the value and integrity of the individual, the character of government as a tool for service of the people and the capacity of human life for essential decency and justice. A sincere interest in human welfare, in avoiding totalitarianism, and in being Christian marks the work throughout. The reader (and I read the entire book) is impressed with the desire of the authors to grapple with difficult problems and to apply permanently valid Christian principles.

These principles are declared to be “a religious perspective, a sensitive concern for the human consequences of all economic behavior, a spirit of dedication and self-criticism.” The biblical doctrine of the depravity and hence the selfishness of the human race is lightly referred to and the biblical admonitions about the responsibility of wealth are emphasized. Responsibility corresponding to power of unions, management, farmers and government is recommended.

The authors all believe government must take a large responsibility and initiative in controlling and directing the economic life of the nation. Basic is their belief that the people have given a mandate to government to prevent a serious depression, to control inflation, to relieve unemployment, to set a subsistence support to the family unit, to care for the aged, to maintain educational opportunities.

Lack of faith in the law of supply and demand, in the self-regulating power of a free market, in the processes of capitalism, is evident. Large graduated income taxes are advocated even in a peace economy to enable the government to more equally distribute income and to lift the level of the masses. The profit motive as such is not condemned except when disproportionate to other motives and interests. Equalitarianism of incomes is repudiated in the interest of initiative, but stress is placed on social responsibility. The authors lean upon government regulation, control and direction of economic life to right the wrongs of society under Christian idealism. The work is critical of capitalism, but affirms belief in modified capitalism. This modified capitalism gives large place to the state in the economic order. But Christianity is identified with no form of social order.

The governing view is that of the social gospel stemming from Walter Rauschenbush. Personal evangelism is associated with laissez-faire capitalism. The book’s preoccupation is with the brotherhood of man, social justice, and labor’s rights. We cannot take exception to the application of the Christian ideal in a changing society, but can ask, what is this ideal? This whole study lacks the lift and incentive of “the eternal view.”

The resulting impression of the book is that though the authors repudiate socialism by name, they lay the groundwork for socialism in their resort to the state’s activity in the economic order. At best we have here no answer to socialism or communism or fascism.

The American Economy

The American Economy—Attitudes and Opinions, by A. Dudley Ward (Harper, 1955, 199 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by the Rev. Irving E. Howard, Christian Freedom Foundation.

The main drive of the classical economists was to find laws written into the nature of things which govern economic activity in the same inexorable fashion as the laws of physics and chemistry. In their search for these laws, they leaned heavily upon deduction, but not without observing the activity of the marketplace.

The reaction against the classical school provoked an inductive approach to economics which stimulated the gathering of statistics. This has made a worth-while contribution to the understanding of economics, but it has been carried to excess. All “fact finding” is useless unless the facts are interpreted, but the interpreter of facts must first select his facts from the overwhelming mass, and then he must interpret them. In both activities he is guided by some given philosophy. Knowledge is never arrived at by “fact finding” alone.

Nevertheless, the pretense of “going to the facts” and being “completely objective” became popular in the so-called “social sciences.” The American Economy-Attitudes and Opinions by A. Dudley Ward is an example. The Reverend Ward, a Methodist minister and graduate of Union Theological Seminary, is now Executive Secretary of the Board of Social and Economic Relations of the Methodist Church. Director of Studies for this series on ETHICS AND ECONOMICS OF SOCIETY, he compiled this sixth volume which reports the results of individual interviews and group discussions in various parts of our country.

While the volume pretends to be a random sampling of public opinion, a collectivist social philosophy clearly lurks in the background. Social justice by means of government intervention and social injustice as a result of “laissez-faire capitalism” are the two alternatives that are suggested. For example, one group is reported as concluding: “The social order of the day tends to reward, at least economically, the dishonest.” The possibility of social cooperation and economic justice resulting from a genuinely free market is never raised. Questions used in the interviews and discussions were loaded. One questioner frankly reported: “It had never occurred to these people that there were tensions such as so many of the questions in the questionnaire suggest.”

The American Economy—Attitudes and Opinions is evidence that a purely inductive approach to social and economic problems is an impossibility. Pretending to be engaged in objective fact finding is an excellent way to mold opinion while the people so molded think they are coming to their own conclusions.

Business Ethics

Ethics in a Business Society, by Marquis W. Childs and Douglass Cater (Harper, 1954, 191 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Maxey Jarman, Chairman of the General Shoe Corporation.

It is difficult to understand the purpose of this book. Published as part of a survey sponsored by the National Council of Churches, it apparently has as its general thesis that “the Social Gospel is being grounded in a deeper theology.” It does not clarify that deeper theology, nor does it bring into focus the ethical problems of a business society.

A large part of the book is made up of quotations from a miscellaneous group of writers and speakers. Since many of these quotations are necessarily given out of context, the original meanings are frequently obscure.

The authors apparently have no personal knowledge of the actual conduct of business or the ethical problems involved. Few of the many quotations are by men active in business affairs. The absence of definite proposals or recommendations or clear discussion of many real ethical problems that do arise in business produces confusion. For example, there are a number of statements of politicians and professors about a growing concentration of power in big business. Yet several references, including statistics, show that small business and the total number of individual businesses are growing at a faster rate than big business.

There is evidence of a much greater concern about the material side of life than the spiritual side. But, supposedly, the book is written from a religious point of view. An indication of the viewpoint might be drawn from this quote: “There is no tendency [by the National Council of Churches] toward an easy acceptance of … complete socialism.” Consider the implications of this statement.

The book is scholarly but disappointing and lacking in worth. It confuses rather than clarifies. It has many pious platitudes, but has no strong message.

Mass Communication

Responsibility in Mass Communication, by Wilbur Schramm (Harper, 1957, 392 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by V. Raymond Edman, President, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Out of wide experience in newspaper and research work this Stanford University professor has presented a realistic approach to the problem of mass communication in mid-twentieth century America, and a careful evaluation of solutions. After surveying the historical background of communications since Gutenberg’s fifteenth century press, he depicts the tremendous power that has now accumulated to mass communications. The problem of responsibility to control communication is accentuated by the very largeness of the media, their relative fewness, centralization, mechanization, and distance from the general public.

Historical experience has proposed four approaches to the problem of responsibility for communications. They are the old authoritarianism based on medieval concepts such as the divine right of kings and the authority of one church; and second, the newer authoritarianism such as communism or fascism which in reality exercise totalitarian control over every aspect of national life. These two philosophies are ruled out at once. The third is libertarianism with its eighteenth century laissez-faire doctrine in which “free market of ideas” is alleged as inevitably banishing error. Twentieth century conditions call for a review of this basic concept of freedom so as to maintain liberty and require responsibility.

After an excellent and well-documented discussion on ethics in mass communication, the major problem is faced: whose responsibility is it to preserve and to promote the freedom and corresponding responsibility of the press, radio, television, and movies? The government is the ready answer of some social planners. But Schramm declares this to be the worst possible solution. He states clearly: “Our kind of mass communication system will be more healthy if the government keeps its hands off as much as it possibly can.” The government’s responsibility is to promote the public interest, and not to augment its power. However, experience has shown that the government moves into areas of responsibility not assumed by others. A large measure of social control can be exercised by the public if it is alive, articulate, and discriminating.

The major responsibility is on the media of communications themselves. Self-regulations and self-imposed standards are quick ways for assuming increased responsibility; however, most self-imposed codes have evidenced only minor effectiveness. The “czar” of an industry like motion pictures is, of course, an employee. The development of professional attitudes is a slower method, but is more promising in the long run. While mass communications can hardly become a profession like medicine or law, it can personalize professional responsibility and develop attitudes and programs for deepened responsibility to the public. If the media and the people are indifferent to their responsibilities, or are unwilling and unable to assume them, sooner or later government will take over.

Spiritual values as such are largely overlooked in this thought-provoking volume. But there is the suggestion that our basic freedoms must have a religious basis. In discussing libertarianism, Schramm quotes Toynbee who declared that “in relinquishing our hold on Christianity, we have deprived our belief in freedom of its religious foundations.”

Organized Labor

Social Responsibilities of Organized Labor, by John A. Fitch (Harper, 1957, 237 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University.

Under this title one would expect to find arguments imposing some moral obligations on organized labor, especially since the Introduction says that the inquiry is based on Christian assumptions. One’s expectation, however, is largely disappointed. A few mild criticisms of the labor movement are made in the last two chapters, but the bulk of the book is almost totally historical.

Furthermore, the Christian assumptions are discarded in chapter one. The author speaks of ethical concepts, not as the commands of God, but as the outgrowth of human experience. The basis of moral conduct is asserted to be the result of man’s search for an acceptable way of life. “Social responsibility, then, is a response to the generally accepted code of behavior … and a sense of obligation to its major and most firmly established principles” (p. 4). Thus majority opinion, with no norm by which to correct or oppose it, is substituted for divine revelation.

The majority opinion which controls the selection of historical detail and by which the concluding criticisms are made is largely the opinion of labor officialdom. Thus Charles P. Taft in the Foreword can assert that the labor revolution of the past years “has been accomplished without violence.” F. Ernest Johnson in the Introduction speaks of “the stern measures provided for in the Taft-Hartley Act.” The author in several places shows his hate of the Right to Work Laws. Religious scruples against unionism are to be “compromised” by extorting dues from the resentful worker but graciously allowing him to be absent from meetings (p. 70). Indeed, one gets the impression that the author disallows all rights of minorities. He also admits (p. 46) that in President Truman’s 1945 conference the unions refused to specify a single area within which management decisions could not be questioned.

The author quotes Walter Reuther with apparent approval: “We have to assume ever increasing social responsibilities.” These include all national politics, foreign affairs, and public education. Only a person for whom the unions can do no wrong, for whom official union opinion is the norm, can acquiesce in this bid for unlimited power.

Farm Leadership

Social Responsibility in Farm Leadership, by Walter W. Wilcox (Harper, 1956, 194 pp., $3), is reviewed by Horace H. Hull, President of Hull-Dobbs Enterprises, Inc., Memphis, Tenn.

About half the book under review deals with the general farm picture in America. The author quite accurately relates the history of price stabilization, “surpluses,” migratory workers, farm credit and soil conservation.

The second half of the book surveys the leading farm organizations and summarizes their policies. The largest, the American Farm Bureau Federation, stands for limited, constitutional government, and free market farming. It vigorously opposes price supports, subsidies and other government interventions. Its opposite is the Farmers Union, which supports the welfare state idea, calling it the “legislative economy.” This group recommends a political program of “immediate action to eliminate rural poverty and to solve the problems of low income farm families. As many of these families as wish to remain in farming should be enabled to do so through assistance of federal and state programs.…”Somewhere between these two organizations is the National Grange. An appendix is devoted to farmer cooperatives.

Now for the ethics of the book. “Equity,” writes the author, “is perhaps the most important of the ethical considerations which have shaped our economic institutions, (although) such ethical norms as honesty, truth, and productivity also have left an indelible imprint.” Equity is defined as “even-handed impartiality.” Dr. Wilcox rightly regards equity as “a basic ethical goal in our society.” As the reviewer sees it, fair play as an ideal is based on the recommendation that all men in some aspects (but by no means all) are equal before God and the law.

However, there are those who have the conception that equality, fair play, and equity embrace a political redistribution of the economic spoils, a dividing of the wealth, the philosophy of “from one according to his ability to another according to his need.” The fact that these theses on social and economic life have been distributed under sponsorship of the National Council of Churches by no means guarantees the justice and equity of the pronouncements which some would beguile us into believing are true Christian principles. The effort to make us equal in a materialistic sense necessarily means the abandonment of fair play, justice, the rule of law and equity—both in concept and practice. Dr. Wilcox says as much, but hardly recognizes the implications. His first instance of how “considerations of equity come into play” deals with the effect of welfare state legislation.’some individuals, communities, and groups will gain,” he says, “if a proposed legislative or administrative action is taken; others will lose a part of their current economic advantages.”

Every piece of welfare state legislation is of this character: deliberately and on principle some people are hurt for the assumed benefit of other people. Such political action really denies the principle of equity. Nor is the principle restored by further political action which tosses a sop to the losers at the expense of a third group in society. This third group doesn’t like the short end of the deal either, and seeks redress by putting a fourth group at an economic disadvantage; and so it goes ad infinitum. We must indeed admit that this is the way things now are. But this is not the way things ought to be. “Injure no man” is the basic minimum of every sound moral code. Certainly, a religiously sponsored ethic for economic life must, at the very least, meet this minimum demand. The principle, “one man’s rights cease where he begins to trespass upon the rights of another,” is hardly subject to debate.

What good is the United Nations? Should a Christian support it? These two questions at the present time receive very different answers from Christian people.

One group is frankly and outspokenly antagonistic. The United Nations has no Christian basis, it is purely secular, and it is heading for world government. Therefore, the Western, so-called Christian nations, should pull out.

At the other extreme are people who hold quite a different view. To their way of thinking the United Nations is a bulwark of peace for it obliges the nations to discuss their mutual differences, and helps to bring better living conditions to the “have-nots” of the world. Christians, they hold, should support it wholeheartedly because it is doing what Christianity demands: practicing the love of one’s neighbor.

A Christian Criticism

Neither of these views, however, seem to be completely valid. The United Nations, like any other human institution, must be looked at critically from the Christian point of view. It has possibilities of great good, but it also has possibilities of great evil, so that one can never voice absolute praise or absolute condemnation. Rather one must endeavor to see its good points, its bad points, and even speak for points which might be improved.

Since the United Nations is primarily a political institution, we might begin our evaluation by recalling the Christian evaluation of political government in general. The basic biblical datum is that all civil government is the creation of God (Rom. 13:1 f.). It exists not for the purpose of preaching the Gospel or administering the sacraments but to maintain peace and justice, that men may be able to live upon this earth with at least a certain amount of personal and economic security. This is true of all governments, whether or not they recognize even the existence of God. An evil government usually is the result of evil in the body politic, but it is still the creation of God, subordinate to his purpose which is the working of his will to his ultimate glory.

Consequently, the Christian must recognize government, both his own and that of another country, as a divine creation existing under the rule of God. Concerning this, Paul exhorts (1 Tim. 2:1, 2) Christians to pray for their rulers that they may do that which is right for the preservation of peace. At the same time, however, the Christian has an obligation to oppose any attempt of the civil magistrate to go outside the proper bounds of his sphere of activity, that is, to interfere in spheres which pertain to other aspects of life, such as the church and the family. If these areas are intruded upon, the Christian then has the right and even the duty both passively and actively to resist, for his first duty is to obey Christ who is Creator and Lord over all spheres of life. Thus in spite of any threats of suffering or of death, the Christian’s duty is first to Him who is over all rulers and magistrates.

When we apply this touchstone to the United Nations, we must first of all ask what are the UN’s present objectives? By the charter of 1945 it appears that two basic purposes are involved: the maintenance of international equity and peace, if necessary by the use of force, and the solution of the nations’ economic, social, and cultural problems, without any infringement of national sovereignty. In both these fields the UN has so far achieved desired aims. With some success it has dealt with conflicts in Korea, the Near East and other areas, while at the same time it has exercised a beneficial influence in helping men to better their material position in this world. Thus although it has not done all that it might in either field, it has a number of accomplishments to its credit.

On the other hand it has also had its failures, as in the case of the Hungarian revolt; and there remains the danger of similar tragedies in the future. At the present time the UN is a forum for discussion, but if it contents itself with mere talk, or if one unprincipled group of nations should gain control it might well become an instrument of world-wide oppression. Even if this did not happen, but it simply degenerated into a sort of international Donneybrook Fair with every nation or small group of nations seeking its own advantage irrespective of the rights of others, it might become a monster powder keg which would bring destruction instead of peace and security. Like any other human organization it may deteriorate into a gigantic instrument of evil rather than of good. Until it does, however, one must take it as it is.

Negative And Positive

In this state of affairs, it would seem that the Christian’s attitude to the UN should be both negative and positive. He should oppose, for instance, any attempt of UNESCO to interfere in matters beyond its proper sphere of activity. He should be very distrustful of any motion on the part of the UN to interfere in a member country’s internal affairs. If the Western nations ever agreed to such actions, they would lay themselves wide open to UN intervention for the establishment of communism, should Russia and her satellites ever gain even a temporary majority. In other words, were the UN to become a super-state, it would be dangerous not only to national sovereignty but to individual human liberty.

At the same time the Christian should have a positive attitude towards this international parliament. He should not in any sense deny that the United Nations has achieved much for mankind generally. He should recognize that by the common grace of God it has and can continue to maintain a modicum of world peace. Similarly it has been instrumental in bringing material help to millions of people suffering from poverty, hunger, disease, and ignorance. Some have maintained that this has played into the hands of the Communists, but that is not the fault of the UN. Rather it is due to the lack of foresight by some of those who purport to lead the West.

Many Christians feel, of course, that there is still plenty of room for improvement, and with this most people, be they Christian or not, would heartily agree. Some believe that the first requirement is to force Russia and her allies to leave the UN. Others hold that a better idea would be to let Red China in so that she could speak for herself rather than have Russia act as her mouthpiece. There are plenty of other Communist nations in the UN, they maintain, so that there seems to be no reason for opposing the seating of Red China. Added to these assertions are the plans of the World Federalists and others who are seeking some changes in the United Nations’ charter.

The Believer’S Duty

What then is the Christian’s responsibility in all of this? It would seem that the ordinary Christian must realize that his first duty is to be as good a citizen as possible of his own country. What is more, he should realize that he is responsible to take an active part in his nation’s political life. He should endeavor to see that his country does its part and strives to act in a truly Christian way when dealing with others. This does not mean that he should favor the sentimentality and romanticism which often passes for Christianity in international relations, but rather he should call for firm realism which alone can see how Christian love may be made effective.

To be specific, he should oppose any attempt to hand over to the UN the responsibility for his nation’s defense. That is the national government’s responsibility which it cannot evade. Indeed, he should be very distrustful if, on the pretense of relying on the UN, the government should reduce its military forces to the point where defense would be impossible. This was what happened to the democratic powers in the 1930s with disastrous results, and it should not happen again. Only as the individual nations fulfill their obligations faithfully in matters of military preparedness will the UN be able to help maintain peace. In the economic and social spheres the same principles apply, for the UN can accomplish no more than the states composing it wish and are capable of accomplishing.

Yet in all of this the Christian has equally great responsibility in recognizing that Christ is still Lord over the United Nations. He has the duty of praying in faith for its leaders, the members of the Security Council—even the Russians—that they may do that which is just and true. Too often Christians are ready to criticize and carp, but they are completely unwilling to pray with heart and soul for those who hold in their frail hands the political, economic and physical destinies of the world’s people.

The Christian, on the other hand, may never place his ultimate trust and hope in human institutions, for none are absolute. They change and alter in the movement of time. Consequently, although the United Nations has the responsibility today of bringing peace that men may dwell together without fear, the Christian does not expect that, even under the most favorable circumstances, it will be entirely successful. Peace only comes when man truly has peace within, which means peace with God. For this reason, the Christian’s greatest contribution to the UN’s efforts toward peace is the bearing of a faithful witness to the grace of God in Christ. Yet even this will not bring perfect and absolute peace upon this earth, for that will come only when Christ has returned as Lord of lords and King of kings.

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W. Stanford Reid is Associate Professor of History at McGill University, Montreal. He holds the Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania. His published writings include the book Problems in Western Intellectual History Since 1950.