The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is in session in Edinburgh and the news has just come through that bishops-in-presbytery have been (to quote The Times) “utterly rejected as a proper price to pay for unity with the Anglican communion.” This adverse decision regarding the proposal contained in the Joint Report on Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches (discussed on previous occasions in this column) that Presbyterianism should take episcopacy into its system was not unexpected. During the past week the discussion on this subject has been proceeding in the pages of The Times. It was sparked by a leading article, published on the day of the opening of the General Assembly, which observed that “the longer the Church of Scotland has looked at the proposal that it should take in bishops, the firmer has been its stand against it,” and we were reminded that “close on two-thirds of sixty-two Scottish presbyteries have spoken outright against the suggested change for Scotland, and the opposition of many of the rest can be inferred from their dour comments and questions.” The deep reason, “as revealed in the presbyteries’ reports,” continued the editorial, “is that the Scottish Church as a whole devoutly and sincerely believes that closer relations between two communions of the same faith should not be made dependent on changes in polity and structure. Why, it is asked, should closer unity require closer uniformity? The center of the present deadlock is to be found at precisely that point.” Scottish churchmen “had hoped that full intercommunion might be granted once the Churches pledged themselves to work towards unity.” They have been unable to escape the conclusion that “the Anglican insistence on the principle of episcopacy” has the effect of calling in question the validity of their own Presbyterian orders.

The following day there appeared a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury who, after describing the editorial phrase “Anglican insistence on the principle of episcopacy” as “strange words,” drew attention to the declaration of the Ordinal of the Church of England “that from Apostolic times there have been the three Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons in Christ’s Church and that these Orders are to be continued, reverently used and esteemed in the Church of England.” Referring to the opinion concerning episcopacy not only of the Anglican communion and of the Roman, Orthodox, and other ancient churches, but also of the Church of South India and of the planners of reunion in Ceylon and North India, and of the Faith and Order Conference of 1927, the Archbishop asserts that “the problem here is for the Church of Scotland to show on what grounds this deeply established principle of Church Order is no longer to be regarded as requisite for progress in Church unity.” He repudiates the suggestion that there is any intention to pass adverse judgment on the spiritual status of the Church of Scotland and unequivocally affirms that “though between our two Churches there are diversities of gifts, ministrations, and workings … yet we are both within the same body of Christ, under the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God”—an affirmation, surely, which all would applaud.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement in turn called forth letters from Dr. Nathanael Micklem, doyen of Congregationalist scholars, and Dr. G. W. H. Lampe who, besides being professor of theology in the University of Birmingham, is a clergyman of the Church of England. “I should be prepared to argue on historical grounds,” says Dr. Micklem, “that the structure of the Church of Scotland, of which I am not a member, is much closer to the organization of the Church in the early centuries than is the Anglican; but the historical argument is not decisive. If, as he says, the Archbishop does not question the spiritual status of the Church of Scotland, why will not or cannot he receive communion in a Scottish church?”

Professor Lampe maintains that the Archbishop’s assertion that both Church of England and Church of Scotland are within the same Body of Christ, under the same Spirit, the same Lord, “must surely imply that we share the same Sacraments,” and, further, that “if … we acknowledge that the same Lord is truly present at his Table in both Churches, we ought to give practical effect to that recognition by some official encouragement, on the Anglican side, of the intercommunion which is already widely practised by individual communicants.” It is his conviction that “such a practical demonstration of our existing unity in Christ would show that Anglicans mean what they say when they assert that they are not ‘passing adverse judgment on the spiritual status of the Church of Scotland’.”

There are many members of the Church of England, including the author of this article, who are cordially in sympathy with the viewpoint of Professor Lampe (which, after all, is entirely in harmony with the faith and practice of historic Reformed Anglicanism), and also, it may be added, with his repudiation of “the ‘pipe-line’ theory of the transmission of sacramental grace.” The Preface to the Ordinal of the Church of England does no more than define and justify the threefold Orders of Anglicanism: it does not in any way seek to legislate for other Churches whose Orders do not correspond with those it has approved. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England, indeed, significantly make no mention of episcopacy as an essential ministry of the Church of Christ. For example, Article XIX (Of the Church), which we would otherwise have expected to make some pronouncement on this subject, says nothing at all about Orders, but simply affirms that “the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” Episcopacy, though integral to the structure of the Church of England, was never demanded as a necessity either for the preaching of the pure Word of God or for the due ministration of the Sacraments for the Church of Christ in general, and it was only last century that, with the rise of the Tractarian Movement, the sacramentalist doctrine of episcopacy as the “essential” ministry came into the Church of England. Prior to that, the full validity of the Presbyterian Orders of the Reformed Churches in Scotland and on the Continent had been recognized and approved. A return by the present leaders and spokesmen of the Church of England to this historic position would do more than anything else to prepare the way for the realization and practical expression, especially at the Lord’s Table, of Christian unity with other Protestant churches.

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.

I am 19 years old.… I first came into contact with your magazine when I babysat for my pastor.… I was really impressed by the articles I read, and I read all his old copies. The issues are so well put and really make their points clear. I thought you might appreciate knowing that your magazine appeals to teen-agers such as I.… Enclosed please find $5 for a one year’s subscription.…

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.

Penney Farms, Fla.

I want to thank you for the contents of CHRISTIANITY TODAY which, in my opinion, is the best paper of its kind published in America today.… We Presbyterians, of course, have our denominational paper which is tops in its field, but you are covering a far wider and more general area and are doing it magnificently.

Grace Presbyterian Church

Kansas City, Mo.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is filling a precise need in the evangelical world of thought and doing it very precisely.

The Presbyterian Church

White Plains, N. Y.

Your paper is the only one outside of my denominational literature that I read.… Much good can come from articles and material contributed from different denominational sources.

Hope Lutheran

Muskogee, Okla.

I’ve never found such an unbiased … magazine, denominationally speaking. Baytown, Tex.

I have been valiantly struggling against a subscription to “another” religious journal. With your March 2 issue my will to resist has been completely demolished! Please … enter my subscription to the most helpful and exciting religious publication in this country today.

Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Ch.

Lancaster, S. C.

Excellent publication …, particularly your … issue of … March 16.… God bless your testimony against the many watered-down pseudo gospels of “liberal” (?), “modernists” (??), who are enslaved and ancient unbelievers.…

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

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.

I can truthfully say that no magazine comes to me that so completely fills my wishes for a Christian presentation of everything a minister should have to enlighten and inspire him for the great work into which he is called.

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.

East Cleveland Baptist Church

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.

Church of Christ

Bellefonte, Ark.

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.

Your very able and high-level paper is long overdue for our field, and I read the copies … avidly, wishing all preachers might have this help. I am retired now, after a ministry since 1895.…

Brevard, N. C.

I am a charter member, and, as long as our precious Saviour tarries and permits me to inhabit this earth, I desire to remain on your mailing list.

Phoenix, Ariz.

I want once again to express my Christian devotion to all who work on your magazine. Your ministry has been the main influence, humanly speaking, which has kept me from abandoning evangelicalism. When I verged on losing faith in the doctrine of plenary inspiration, it was CHRISTIANITY TODAY that held me true.

Palmyra, Pa.

Let me express to you the praise I give God for the intellectual gain and the Christian thrill which is mine with every issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

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.