The sudden change in political administration in Ghana last July has resuscitated freedom among Ghanaians and has alleviated much of the political uncertainty. Lt. Gen. F. W. K. Akuffo released at least thirty-two political detainees, lifted the ban on party politics, and has promised to restore civilian government by this July. Elections for a new president and parliament are slated for June 18.

Since winning independence from the British in 1957, Ghana has been under two civilian governments and two military administrations ushered in by coup d’etats. Over the past seven years, under military administration, the country experienced its worst inflation and depression, food shortages, and labor unrest.

Only a year ago, there seemed to be little hope for peace, agreement, and reconciliation between the armed forces and civilians. The former military ruler, Gen. I. K. Acheampong, had declared that his proposed union government concept (armed forces, police, and civilians forming a cooperative government) had received overwhelming approval from Ghanaians in a March 1978 referendum.

Most Ghanaians greeted the general’s announcement with suspicion since he had violated referendum stipulations. The electoral commissioner had instructed that all ballots be counted in public at each polling station, but Acheampong (when his plan was believed to be falling behind in the tally) disregarded the commissioner’s regulations and ordered that all ballots be counted in army barracks.

Opposition from top civilian politicians intensified. The division between the army and police and the civilians grew wider, making a clash appear inevitable. Alarmed at that prospect, some military officers within the government demanded and obtained the big general’s resignation and retirement from the armed forces. Two years of hectic student demonstrations and nationwide strikes against military dictatorships have ceased. But although the struggle for a return to party politics may be over, the struggle for ideal political philosophies continues to haunt the nation. At least seventeen political parties have been formed since lifting of the ban on January 1.

Their ideologies range from liberal democracy to radical Marxist-Leninist socialism. West Africa (in its Jan. 29 issue) reports that one such party, called the People’s Revolutionary Party, has vowed to establish people’s revolutionary armed forces and police and people’s revolutionary militia to “liberate Ghana from the vicious yoke of imperialism, neocolonialism, fascism, capitalism, and semi-feudalism.”

These events have convulsed the economic, political, and, in some instances, the social institution of Ghana, but have not affected the spiritual vitality of the church in Ghana, nor have they deterred it from aggressive evangelism. Christians in Ghana are witnessing more than ever. Believers flock into churches for all night prayer meetings and Bible studies.

Church leaders are searching for new ways and means to resolve some of the theological problems that face the country. The Christian Council of Ghana, founded in 1929, is exploring measures to cope with educational, social, and spiritual needs of member churches.

John Bergen’s idea of a “Worker’s Bible College” has generated special interest in Bible education among the working evangelicals in the cities. Bergen, a Sudan Interior Mission missionary, has organized an evening Bible college in Accra (and its twin city, Tema) which allows Christian workers to attend Bible college after a day of labor. Enrollment is increasing each quarter. Some evangelicals are calling for Bible schools of this variety in all major cities in the country. But a lack of teachers, finances, and facilities are major deterrents.

The church, through the political and social crisis of the past seven years, has learned to rely increasingly on prayer. One church leader declared, “The changes in the administration and the peaceful atmosphere in Ghana now would not have been possible without Christians praying.”

The political turmoil in Ghana for the past few years has challenged the church to reevaluate its view of the church’s relationship to the state and the role it should play in social justice. For example, a conference of Ghana’s bishops last year called on the government to facilitate and encourage free, frank, and open discussion on the form of government for the country. The bishops also requested that the type of government proposed for the country should be predicated on all fundamental human rights. The church in previous years showed little concern for social justice; but it is now an issue that stares the church in the face.

Although Ghana enjoys freedom of religion and phenomenal church growth, evangelicals face several problems. It is only by the grace of God that the common Ghanaian is able to earn his daily bread. Economic statistics indicate that to feed a family of average size for one day costs more than a laborer’s daily wage. The high cost of living has affected financially missionary endeavor. Church-planting missionary couples in northern Ghana could expect to pay rent of more than $400 a month. Scarce foreign exchange currency has made the importation of literature and other religious goods difficult.

Evangelicals have yet to find answers to such plaguing problems as polygamy, the disinterest in marriage among Christian youth unable to afford a Western-type wedding, and the low educational profile of most preachers and church workers.

Catholicism is also a major challenge. Roman Catholics make up 12.5 percent of the entire 9.5 million population of Ghana. The liberal Catholic stance on polygamy and on some cultural practices woos more converts each year.

Strong agitation by some religious leaders for the “africanization” of Christianity (incorporating African traditions into Christianity to make it more palatable to the African) is causing major concern for many evangelicals who seem to be groping for theological defenses.

The Presbyterian Church of Ghana celebrated its 150th anniversary in August and September of last year. The massive celebration included an exhibition at the Accra central library, an official opening of the church’s new press center, and a special service at the National Sports Stadium, attended by head of state Akuffo (a member of the church, educated in Presbyterian schools).

The moderator of the Presbyterian Synod, in his anniversary address, stressed that the church needs to educate people to the virtues of life through modern means of communication, such as radio and TV, rather than talk too much about the morals of the state. But, he added, the church cannot educate people on morals and virtues alone without the cooperation of the state machinery.

Unlike other evangelical churches, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana has caught a vision of the need for vocational education for Christian youth. It has instituted vocational centers in some parts of the country to train youth in skills such as carpentry, masonry, and agriculture. Such training has long been neglected by the church in Africa—the very areas of study that will determine the economic and social course of that turbulent continent.

The proliferation and mushrooming of indigenous (Ghana-based) churches is perhaps the greatest threat to Protestant and Orthodox churches in Ghana. Such churches have grown phenomenally because most Ghanaians find their manner of worship compatible. The beating of drums accompanied by energetic hand clapping, foot tapping, and dance exactly suit the Ghanaian. Strict, cold, liturgical worship services evoke scanty impact, if any. In most Presbyterian and Baptist churches, the Western hymnals remain shelved at the back of the pews for show. Churches no longer use them as frequently as they did less than a decade ago. The hymns have been replaced by short choruses composed from everyday experiences of the people in their own culture that reflect vital, relevant faith in Jesus: a change needed for generations.

Heroes have disappeared. They have been replaced by superheroes—fantasy creatures.

If the 1960s and early 1970s became an age without heroes, an age of the anti-hero in literature and on the stage and the screen, the past few years have seen the emergence of a new and somewhat perplexing phenomenon, the superhero. Since “superheroes” are confined in large measure to the pages of children’s comics, it may seem out of place to take them seriously enough to discuss them in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Yet what children are taught to a large extent determines how they will act as adults, and what adults teach children tells us a great deal about how adults think—or, as the case may be, fail to think. Of what significance is it that true heroes have disappeared, to be replaced by superheroes?

A hero is a human being who through discipline, bravery, determination, and perhaps divine assistance accomplishes seemingly incredible feats. Heroes generally must be good and serve a good cause, though sometimes brave and generous men in the service of an evil cause are deemed to be heroes—usually tragic but noble figures. Thus Robert E. Lee is honored by most of those who disapproved the cause of the South, and Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” appears as one of the last heroes of modern times, though the cause he served was truly evil.

A superhero, by contrast, is not a real human being, but a fantasy creature—Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, et al. Superheroes, unlike the heroes of Greek mythology, have no Achilles’ heel. Superman himself is vulnerable to the mineral kryptonite, but of course he will never be killed by it—unlike the great Achilles. Unlike the more traditional heroes of folklore and of reality, modern superheroes have no moral context. They are generally in the service of “good” and against “evil,” of course. But the good that they serve is undefined, undistinguished, unmotivated, and the evil they oppose is likewise.

It is no doubt significant that one of the most successful novelists today, Mario Puzo, whose massive tales (such as The Godfather) have no heroes, but only cynicism and anti-heroes, was engaged to write the screenplay for Superman. It is due to Puzo’s ability that the details of an essentially trivial and incredible tale hang together in such a way as to make it all vaguely believable. But it is probably also due to Puzo’s basically cynical orientation that the good in Superman—which is abundantly evident—is without origin, frame, reference, or goal. In this it resembles the good of another modern counterfeit, Close Encounters—it is alien good, good simply by being alien. And there is a serious moral problem here: if it is the alien power, the infant stranger from the planet Krypton, who is good by virtue of his origin, then the implication is that we human beings, who do not share that origin, are under no obligation to be good, not to speak of being heroic.

There are many parallels—and they cannot all be accidental—between the infant who comes to earth from the heavens (outer space) and the One who came from heaven. Marlon Brando, the wise Kryptonian who sends his son to earth to escape the destruction of his planet, speaks of his hopes for mankind, and of “giving them my only son.” But the parallels are defective, for there is nothing divine and good about being Kryptonian. The movie’s first scene involves the “eternal” judgment—itself a literally blasphemous concept—of Kryptonians who are not good but criminal. This itself may be a kind of parallel to the fall and banishment of Satan before the creation. In any event, Kryptonians are not good by virtue of being Kryptonian. In fact, they do not seem to be good for any reason at all.

Superman happens to be good, was good even as Superboy. But he can afford to be good, for no one can harm him, no one can touch him. It takes no special effort of will or courage for him to do the right thing, as for a human hero. The fact that he is not tyrannical is, of course, in some way commendable—yet it seems to tie in with his deep naïveté that makes good seem rather foolish by comparison with evil. What the impact of Superman’s good on small viewers will be is hard to predict. Perhaps the fact that he, with his superpowers, is unequivocally committed to the good will impress them and encourage them to imitate him in doing good. Will older viewers get the message that good is a luxury possible only for those with impossible superpowers?

The Superman phenomenon is a mystifying one, and I must confess to being perplexed by it. If Star Wars was an old-fashioned heroic tale not unlike Homer’s Iliad, showing uncomplicated good in virtuous (manly) and successful combat with uncomplicated evil, and Close Encounters a drama of enlightenment through contact with alien good, it is not clear what Superman is. It would be convenient to say that it is a satire on true heroism and on the good; that may be true, but it seems unlikely that it is a deliberate satire. It is more likely to be a true reflection of the situation of Modern man, in which man—with the image of God ineradicably planted within him—somehow longs for something and someone good, but has become so cynical that he can postulate good only in an impossible person and situation.

If the anti-hero was a denial of the claim that any human acts like a hero, Superman and the superheroes, which show heroic qualities only in superhumans, may be a denial that heroic qualities exist at all. If they can manifest only in unreal persons, then they can hardly exist.

Perhaps the fundamental difference between heroes and superheroes lies in this: the tales of heroes, from Homer to the present, have been told by bards who knew men they regarded as heroes and honored them for it, who believed in heroism, and who hoped that their hearers, young and not so young, might one day perform heroic deeds themselves. The superhero phenomenon seems to be a catering to the deep-rooted human desire to have heroes and heroic qualities to admire and emulate. The catering is done by those who are fundamentally cynical and who do not believe in what they are presenting. Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that the way to destroy true gospel preaching was not to prohibit it, but to subsidize a thousand bad preachers in a thousand pulpits. Is it inconceivable that one way to destroy any stirrings of true heroism is to spread fundamentally unbelievable examples, impossible to imitate, on tens of thousands of movie screens and eventually on millions of television screens?

There is another aspect of unreality in the Superman story that is worthy of some thought, particularly by those concerned for the deteriorating relationship between the sexes. In Superman, as in Star Wars and Close Encounters, there is a modern, liberated woman—essentially, a very sympathetic character. Yet, unlike Helen of Troy and Andromache in the Iliad, or even Princess Leia in Star Wars, Lois Lane’s independent, individual life seems almost extinguished as she takes on the role of Superman’s votary. Lois makes this quite explicit when, after her celestial piggy-back ride, she speaks of having been “with a god.” Even Hercules was but a demigod, and Achilles a mortal man. Confronted with supermanliness, the tough, cynical, and liberated Lois Lane is speechless with a wonder that seems less like sexual love than reverential awe. Why has Lois’s conduct and attitude not been mocked in the circles of women’s liberation? Can it be that a large part of women’s ire at men stems not from male prerogatives but from the pretense on which those prerogatives are based? In other words, that if there were some substance undergirding them—as there is in Superman’s case—women would not refuse to admire admirable qualities? Lois Lane’s reaction to Superman may be seen as the expression of the way men, even less than super-men, wish women would react to them. On the other hand, the lack of outcry at the figure of Lois Lane indicates that women can recognize genuine virtue and admire it.

Virtue, the reader may recall, is from the Latin vir, man, and corresponds roughly to the English manliness; to be virtuous is to be what a real man should be. The fact that “virtue” and “virtuous” have come to be terms of disdain or ridicule in modern usage may merely express the fact that there are so few true men who are virtuous and possess virtues. Virtue nevertheless still has its admirers, even when exemplified in an unreal man, a Superman. The deep question that Superman poses is this: does it tell us, and will we believe, that virtue is to be admired and emulated—or that virtue is an impossible dream, to be found only in a man who can fly?

Although Superman is an unreal tale, told by those with a far less Christian view of reality than the far more fantastic J. R. R. Tolkein, it does provide us with a real moral. Strength, exercised in a good cause, is not ridiculous but admirable; and virtue, if real, will be respected—perhaps even imitated. The early Christians challenged the idealized humanity of Greek statuary not with ideal pictures of saints, but with real lives of human beings who were not only “called saints,” in Paul’s language, but acted like them. They exhibited Christian virtues that were not only worthy of admiration, but found imitators. The fantastic, nostalgic response of Americans, and indeed of people all over the world, to the somewhat simple, even simple-minded virtues of Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobe, and now of Superman should encourage us to try to exhibit not unreal virtues, but real ones. We may be greeted with derision—but inevitably also with imitation.

Harold O. J. Brown is professor of theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

My first term of sabbatical study at the University of Michigan was in its last week when President Carter startled the world with his announcement that the United States would establish diplomatic ties with Communist China on January 1, 1979. It is not that there has not been ample indication of movement toward formal ties between Washington and Peking. Things have been brewing ever since 1972. The shock was rather from the incredible insensitivity with which a loyal ally was treated and from the evident disregard for the security and human rights of 17 million friends in Taiwan.

In a series of telephone calls to China Evangelical Seminary colleagues in Taiwan and the U.S., my thoughts kept going back to the strong words of hope expressed in Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea” (NASB). (As Chefoo school boys during World War II we had sung these confident lines while being marched off to a Shantung concentration camp.)

In his second epistle, Peter describes various phenomena relating to the end times and concludes with the rhetorical question, “What sort of people ought you to be?” Now, in this time of testing for the church in Taiwan, we too must address this question. It seems to me that there are three important dimensions to the Christian’s response.

1. Upward—As with the Psalmist who saw the Lord standing firm and strong amid the earth-shattering events around him, so the church must have a deepened awareness of God’s sovereign presence. In a phone conversation with Grace Kao, a CES faculty-in-preparation at Wheaton Graduate School, her response to the unilateral breaking of ties with Taiwan was quiet but very confident: “President Taylor,” she said, “God is on the throne!”

The Christian’s awareness of this fact involves not only a recognition of God’s sovereign role in world history, but also, equally important, a submission to his lordship in daily life. Jesus once said to an enthusiastic group of followers who wanted to be his disciples, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21, NASB).

2. Inward—In a time of testing such as this, the church in Taiwan must also have a deepened awareness of the unity of the body of Christ. External pressures, rather than creating a divisive effect among Christians, should, by the grace of God, instill in us a deeper love and understanding for one another.

The church has often turned to the Book of Nehemiah to find a blueprint for its renewal. As that courageous leader led his countrymen in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, he was keenly aware that the only way the Jews could succeed in the face of their enemies’ duplicity and intimidation was to be firmly united in their common task. Internal contradictions threatened to tear their society apart. Nehemiah’s decisive action and personal example in a simple lifestyle and concern expressed in concrete ways for the less fortunate members, knit the community together in new bonds of strength. The walls were rebuilt and God’s people were prepared to face the greater task of national reconstruction.

3. Outward—Finally, in this time of testing the church in Taiwan must have a deepened awareness of its mission. Recrimination against unfaithful friends or self-pity in adversity are negative responses unworthy of followers of Jesus Christ. The positive example of Chinese Christians is stirring.

Bob Chang is doing graduate study at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Old Testament as a member of CES’s faculty-in-preparation. His wife, Margaret, and their two children are in Taiwan. In the course of our telephone conversation following President Carter’s announcement, Bob said, “Haven’t we been praying for the Lord to open the door for the gospel in mainland China? I hear that next year 5,000 graduate students will be coming to the U.S. from China for study. This is going to place before the Chinese churches and Bible study groups in North America an unprecedented opportunity for witness. We must pray and prepare now.” There was no note of apprehension or uncertainty in Bob’s voice. Daily we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” and that’s what the focus of this CES graduate’s life is all about. Amid storm and testing, uncertainty and danger, the disciple of the Lord presses on in the fulfillment of Christ’s commission.

And so the church in Taiwan is facing a time of testing. What will be its response? An important chapter in the history of the Chinese church will be written if, with a deepened awareness of the Lord’s sovereign presence and the unity of the body of Christ, we move resolutely forward to win this generation for him.

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

The deep black leaves of holly,

the stiff exclaiming pine—

Winter green

which pricks my fingers stickily, mysteriously.

Why, Lord of Life, this severest vestige

of earth’s warm life

left to us in winter?

Do you disapprove the raucous spring,

the rush of summer,

the soft greens growing where they will?

Does winter’s sluggish cold

demand the suitable demeanor

and show its rasping winter-life as warning?

No, Resurrection Lord, No!

It is to show the secret hardihood.

To those who have the gift of life

there is no law of season:

tough curls and rays of green

offer hymns of praise to God

Who never leaves us desolate.

JANICE SCHUH OKULSKI

Teng Hsiao-ping’s visit to America has focused attention upon the far-reaching changes taking place in China at this time. Visitors to China before 1978 could never have imagined that the changes of the past few months were possible. Less than two years ago a prominent Christian leader, after returning from China, wrote: “What of the future? One can assume that the leadership of China will hold to its present policy of self-reliance, declining all offers of aid and assistance from mission societies, Peace Corps volunteers, United Nations agencies, and other persons or groups bearing gifts and services. Chinese government representatives in Peking and foreign capitals politely declined offers of help at the time of the earthquake disaster in Tangshan in the summer of 1976. Liberated from a century of humiliating foreign incursions and dependence, the Chinese will not easily surrender their present self-sufficiency.”

The principle of self-sufficiency advocated by Mao Tse-tung has now been laid aside in favor of Teng Hsiao-ping’s drive to modernize China. Instead of struggling against the “Four Olds” of the Cultural Revolution (ideology, customs, habits, culture), the people are now called to unite in a struggle to achieve the “Four Modernizations.” Industry, agriculture, technology, and the armed forces are all to be modernized. To attain this goal the country is being opened to foreign investment, Western technicians and teachers, and tourism. Thousands of Chinese students are preparing to study in the universities of Europe and North America. Huge loans are being negotiated with capitalist countries. Not only engineering firms, but also Coca-Cola and American hotels are being welcomed.

With the normalization of relations between China and the United States it seems certain that there will be increasing opportunities for communication between the two countries. For the first time in many years it is possible to correspond with friends in China. Only a few months ago Westerners living in China complained of the difficulty of making meaningful contacts with Chinese friends. But now, at least in the larger cities, which are visited by tourists, people are eager to talk with those whom the government describes as honored guests.

In the summer of 1978, on a short trip into the mainland, I was impressed by the people’s friendliness. Young people were delighted when I stopped and talked to them in Chinese. Sometimes I was invited into homes, and interesting conversations developed. There was a keen desire to have contact with the outside world. Having been isolated from it for so long, the Chinese are eager for opportunities to be exposed to ideas and thought patterns that have long been forbidden.

We must, however, realize that tourists and business people visit only a few carefully chosen centers. Our tour group visited one rural commune, which is a showplace for thousands of visitors. The gracious and very gifted deputy head of the commune described the improvements that had been made, and skillfully handled the diverse questions. Heads of families entertained groups of tourists in their homes. This commune was well prepared to give a good impression to their honored guests, but thousands of villages and vast areas of China are hidden from the outside world. A few of those villages will be visited by overseas Chinese, who will receive a much more realistic view of Chinese society.

It is obvious that the people of China are enjoying the relaxation that has come with the opening up of communications with the West. Many are asking if the “Great Leap Outward” may also result in freedom for Christian witness in China.

The reversal of Mao’s policies during the Cultural Revolution has led to a great reduction in the amount of time required for political discussion and self-criticism. This, together with freedom from constant political campaigns (in which Christians were frequently targets of attack), has made life easier for the followers of Christ. Current campaigns are aimed at bringing about modernization of the country and are less concerned with ideological orthodoxy and revolutionary zeal, though a person’s political views still play an important part in determining his or her position in society. The relaxing of pressures against religion has resulted in some Christians being released from prison and labor camps.

Another hopeful sign for Christians has been the permission given for some selected Western literature to be made available to the people. As publishers from Europe and America tour the country and Western books again appear in the shops it will be less dangerous to be found reading the Bible. A Chinese Christian who had sent two pages of the Bible to a friend in China in 1977 gave me a copy of the notice which his friend received from the local customs office. It simply stated that “as anything detrimental to the political, economic, social and ethical good of the people is not allowed to enter the country, the two pages of the Bible cannot be received. Please tell your friend not to send such materials in the future.” A few months ago an overseas Chinese Christian was taken to the police station because he was found giving out portions of the Scriptures to people in a Chinese city park.

I was told when I was in China that it was dangerous to be found reading the Bible. But now there are signs of change and it is quite possible that the Bible may be regarded as a legitimate piece of Western literature. Chinese journalists returning from a tour in America have reported back home on the important place that the Bible holds in American society. They found it in their hotel rooms and on the desk of the President in the White House.

For the first time since 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began, the Institute for Religious Studies in Peking has opened its gates. The director, Jen Chi Yu, told an interviewer that “religious studies helped develop an understanding of history, philosophy, art, literature, and political thinking,” adding that “religion cannot be separated from politics.”

While it may become easier for Christians to read the Bible, that does not mean that the basic government attitude toward religion has changed. Chao Fu San, deputy director of the Institute for Religious Studies and once known as a Christian leader, told a visitor that “Gods arise from fear.” He went on to say that the Chinese no longer need religion since scientific knowledge of nature has brought a better understanding of life and death. “The relationship between man and man has changed in a Socialist society which is not self-centered. Everyone in China today has a purpose in life—to help the revolutionary cause—and no longer has the personal fears of the past.” Many young people who have become extremely disillusioned by the political power struggle of the past twelve years would not accept that optimistic view of life.

So, in spite of the present trend toward a more liberal attitude, we may well ask whether there will be a place for the Christian faith in modern China. Some believe that there will be a return to the pre-Cultural Revolution policy: “The United Front” will be emphasized, promising freedom to the Christians, and urging that those who believe in God and those who do not should work together in the building of the new China.

The government-sponsored “Three Self Movement,” which was used to control the church up till the time of the Cultural Revolution, has never been completely dismantled. It practically disappeared under the onslaught of the Red Guards, but some of its top leaders were protected. One who has long been a leader of the “Three Self Movement” is the main government spokesman for Christianity in China today. He frequently reminds visitors of the church’s link with Western powers and describes missionaries as “tools of Imperialist aggression.”

In an interview with visitors from America he described Christians in China as decreasing in numbers. He attributed this decline of Christianity first to the Imperialist background of the church and, second, to the fact that, in the past, people went into religion mainly because of suffering. “They wanted to get medical help, education, support. This drew them into the churches. Another reason for people to be religious in those days was the disharmony among families. In the new China the life of the people has improved a great deal.”

When asked “Would you agree that Christianity will die out in China when today’s Christians die?”, he replied “I would not be too surprised if that were to be the case, but I think there are bound to be people, if in small numbers, who with all their political enthusiasm will still believe that it is Christian faith and teaching that will give them answers about ultimate questions. A Christianity which has divested itself of harmful background things can satisfy the needs of these people. But such people will be few. I do not foresee the evangelization of all or even half of China. Protestants are about one-tenth of one percent.”

This leader of the “Three Self Movement” probably knows very little about the hundreds of house churches and small groups of believers who have been meeting secretly. On one occasion he told a visitor that there was no need to bring Bibles into China, the churches had plenty—whereas in fact Bibles are desperately scarce and have to be shared among many people.

The church in China today has been purified through suffering. Although without church buildings, regular times of worship, or the organizations that we associate with institutional Christianity, the Chinese church continues as the living body of Christ. Rooted in the home and integrated into the family system, it is free from the Western trappings of the past. It is unlikely that Chinese Christians would want to return to the old church buildings.

It is also unlikely that today’s Christians would want to be organized by the “Three Self Movement.” In the 1950s the government used the “Three Self Movement” to introduce political indoctrination into the churches. Many young people became so dissatisfied with the mixture of politics and religion taught by pastors who had been constantly undergoing political training, that they left and joined small house groups which were considered illegal.

According to the constitution of the People’s Republic of China (Article 46), “citizens enjoy the freedom to believe in religion and freedom not to believe in religion and to propagate atheism.” That freedom of belief, however, is limited to personal belief and does not include freedom to hold meetings for worship or for the propagation of religious beliefs.

During my visit to China, I was told by one of the guides that individuals may believe privately and the government cannot control all that goes on in the home. I shall never forget being greeted by an old man in China with the words, “I am a Christian but I cannot tell anyone.”

On another occasion a young man was explaining to me that although old people might believe in religion, the young people are all Marxists. He went on to say that they did not have any opportunity to study religious faith and then added “We’re free to believe or not to believe.” A few minutes later, however, one who had listened to this conversation came up to me and said “We are not free to believe.” There had been a Bible in his home, but it had been destroyed. He described his sense of frustration and spiritual hunger—which could be satisfied only by Christ.

During the Cultural Revolution, religion was regarded as one of the “Four Olds” to be struggled against. Temples, mosques, and churches were desecrated. The institutional church completely disappeared. I visited a number of church buildings closed or used for other purposes. Only in Peking and Shanghai will the visitor see churches in which services are held (mainly for the benefit of foreigners). Probably similar churches will be opened in other centers in the near future. Although the cross has been removed from church buildings, one is very conscious that the true cross of Jesus is still found in the lives of disciples, many of whom have suffered greatly. One Christian doctor who has now come out of China told me that his city originally had eighteen churches. Under the leadership of the “Three Self Movement” these various congregations were finally consolidated into one church. At the time of the Cultural Revolution this church was also closed and a great bonfire was made up of a thousand Bibles collected from the homes of Christians. YMCA secretaries were made to kneel around the fire, and some who were badly scorched took their own lives. Christians throughout China suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution.

Last summer I was introduced to a friend who had just come out of China. As soon as he heard my name he recognized me: thirty years ago he was a student attending a conference arranged by the China Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. As he told the story of these past thirty years, I realized how costly it had been for him to remain true to his Lord. Because of his active Christian witness he had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Some of his colleagues who greatly respected him because of his professional skills managed to get him released after five years, but with the arrival of the Red Guards he was in trouble again and was sent to hard labor in the country. Through it all he and his wife remained true to their faith in Christ. The violence and excesses committed by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution are now repudiated by the present government, and blame is placed upon the influence of the “Gang of Four.”

Before the Cultural Revolution, two schools of thought contended with one another inside the government. One party believed that with adequate atheistic education religion would naturally die out, while the opposition insisted that religion is a poisonous influence in society and must be forcibly suppressed. With the Cultural Revolution the “strong arm tactics” prevailed.

If the government today recognizes that Christians have the right to meet together for worship, the “Three Self Movement” may become more active. One of its leaders says, “The Party thinks that religion itself is bad, but building up Socialist China is a task for all people who can be united in it, and is more important than struggling against religious faith.” Therefore, when the government needs the support of the church or desires to be known as maintaining religious freedom, Christians will face less opposition. They can, however, never be sure that the situation may not change and bring further persecution. There always has been an ebb and flow in the church’s relationship with the government. This was seen in the early days of the Revolution. During the “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” campaign, people were encouraged to speak out, and some criticized the government for oppressing Christians. Later they found themselves in trouble.

Communism uses different strategies at different times. It has one clear overall goal to which it is striving but there are also limited objectives. Strategies may be changed for pragmatic reasons, in order to achieve one of those limited objectives. Mao Tse-tung believed that religion and dialectical materialism are like fire and water and cannot coexist. Russia was criticized on the grounds that the Soviet Union permitted too much religious freedom and entered into a dialogue with Christianity. But Teng Hsiao-ping sees another limited objective and realizes that, in light of it, it is advisable to allow more freedom for the religious elements in society.

In view of increasing communications between China and Western nations, Christians in North America are asking what they can do to encourage the church in China.

First, we must clearly understand what is taking place there, and the tremendous task that confronts any government of so large a nation. To bring unity and to provide basic material needs for daily living for such a vast population presents greater problems than we can fully imagine. Although the standard of living is still very low, we can be thankful that in most parts of the country people have food to eat.

Second, we need a balanced view of what has happened during these past thirty years under Communism. Glowing reports of an almost perfect society from people who visited carefully prepared situations are now being questioned by more realistic reporting. Crime is still a problem in the cities, and corruption in high places has been reported in the Chinese press. At the same time we should recognize the material progress that has been made and appreciate China’s pride in its independence and freedom from foreign domination. Although the freedom of the individual has been very much curtailed in China, it is also true that the country is not plagued with the extreme individualism and selfishness which characterizes so much of our own society. We must approach our Chinese friends with humility, recognizing the terrible failures and corruption in Western civilization, and willing to listen to their explanation of positive aspects of life in China.

Chinese journalists and students coming to study in America will be impressed by the high standard of living and personal freedom, but may well be appalled by the decadent life style, wastefulness, selfish individualism, and constant media bombardment of sexual propaganda and stories of violence. At the same time they will find all kinds of religious programs and see churches filled with prosperous people on Sunday. What kind of impression will they receive from Christianity in America?

Awareness of our own failures must not, however, prevent us from seeing the tragedy of a nation seeking to build on a purely materialistic basis, with the rejection of all spiritual values. Freedom to have sufficient to eat and wear is not enough; there must be freedom from the bondage of thought control. A closed system destroys creative thinking and imprisons the mind, not allowing even the possibility of other world views, to say nothing of the existence of deity outside of man himself.

The idealism behind the frequently quoted slogan “Serve the People” can easily be destroyed in power struggles and conflicts between various factions such as those that followed the death of Mao Tse-tung. Secular humanism, on which China today is seeking to build her society, so often confuses technical ability with moral capacity. In the end, it finds that the selfishness of the human heart is the greatest obstacle to success.

As Christians we must be deeply concerned to see the spread of the gospel of Christ throughout China. We recognize the overruling hand of God in the history of these past years and we affirm his love for all the peoples of China. God uses non-Christian governments to fulfill his purposes. But we also hold fast to the conviction that salvation is in Christ alone and it is through the church that the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known (Eph. 3:10).

Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations is binding on the church today and requires our obedience. That does not necessarily mean a return to the methods of the past. The door is not open to foreign missionaries. It is open to Chinese Christians. Christians from other nations who enter China as businesspeople, technologists, teachers, or students can display the love of Christ through humble service and witness to their friends and colleagues. Whatever steps are taken to help the church in China must be taken at the request of Chinese Christians. To help in the preparation of radio programs and literature we need men and women who have a thorough understanding of Chinese culture and the thought patterns of the people of modern China. They will have to understand the prejudices against Christianity resulting from the fact that more than half of China’s population has lived all their lives under Communism. From kindergarten they have been taught to struggle against Imperialism. On the first day of our visit to China we went to the museum. While the guide gave a talk in English, I wandered around reading Chinese explanations of the exhibits. Under a picture of a mission hospital was the statement that “the missionary came not because he loved the people nor wanted to heal them, but because he wanted to manipulate them for his own political ends.”

Chinese students who come to study in America may express amazement that intelligent people should still have religious faith. They have been taught that, on the basis of scientific materialism, religious superstitions have been proved false and are quite irrelevant to the new Modern society. If, however, they are invited into Christian homes they may see the reality of faith in the lives of those whom they may come to love and respect.

Often these opportunities to witness to international students are missed by Christians who express great interest in foreign missions. A Chinese friend told me a few days ago about another Chinese student who some years ago became very bitter against America. After taking his Ph.D. in engineering he was refused permission to travel to mainland China. My friend, with whom he counseled, urged him to get to know Christians. He visited an American church, but they thought he was a laundryman and suggested he go to the Chinese church. Later while attending a conference in Europe he slipped away to Switzerland and made arrangements to go to China. He returned to his own country with a deep prejudice against Christianity and wrote an article in one of the leading newspapers criticizing American Christians. He had found, however, that his mother was a devout believer in Christ. When he was sent by the government to Africa his mother begged him to bring her back a Bible. Being constantly surrounded by other Chinese, it was very difficult for him to inquire about a Bible. One day, however, he entered an African food shop and saw some Christian literature on the table. He asked the proprietor if he could get him a Chinese Bible. This Christian man promised to try, but on his return the next day the owner of the shop told him he could not find one. Rather, he gave him one in English, suggesting he translate portions of it for his mother. He did this when he returned to China, and, as a result, became a Christian himself.

Another Chinese with a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry had a completely different experience. It was through a Christian family in America that he became a Christian. After attending several Inter-Varsity conferences he felt he must return to his family in China. In his last letter to me, written just before reaching Shanghai, he quoted the words of Paul, “but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” … “It does not matter,” he said, “whether I live for six weeks or six years, if only I may finish the task given to me by my Lord.” If we are to share his vision and finish the work committed to us, we need to give ourselves to prayer for China.

China today presents the greatest challenge that the church of Jesus Christ has faced in all its long history. Over nine hundred million Chinese, almost one quarter of the world’s population, constitute the world’s largest bloc of unevangelized people.

China is not a closed country. The hearts of Chinese Christians scattered throughout the land are open to heaven, and the Spirit of God continues to work in and through their lives. But their witness is given in the midst of great difficulties. Except in the case of some Islamic nations and smaller communist states, no other country has been so closed to the gospel of Christ as China. Now that doors are opening for more communication with the West, churches outside of China should respond to these new developments by forming “study-prayer groups” through which they will seek to understand the situation in China and give spiritual support to Chinese fellow members of the body of Christ. God’s purpose, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” has not changed. It includes China.

The supernatural Christ of the creeds has been relegated to the dustbin of superstition.

A mid the sweeping changes in recent theology, one landmark stands superficially intact: Christendom acknowledges Jesus as its fundamental datum. No little confusion exists, however, about Jesus’ identity and character. How should naturalistic, modern man interpret the first-century itinerant prophet? Dietrich Bonhoeffer during his Nazi imprisonment put it this way: “What is bothering me incessantly is the question … who Christ really is, for us today.”

Jesus himself posed this question to his followers near Caesarea Philippi: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” (Matt. 16:13). Numerous views on this were advanced; Peter alone perceived that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16).

From Pentecost to comparatively recent times, Peter’s confession of Christ was upheld as the church’s standard of orthodoxy. The councils of Nicea (A.D. 325) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451) affirmed Christ’s full deity and humanity cojoined in the God-Man. The great pillars of Christendom—Augustine, Aquinas, the Protestant Reformers—and the principal confessions of Protestantism all came down on the side of the received Christology.

The eighteenth century, however, brought a frontal assault on orthodox doctrine. Renaissance humanism in philosophy and science invited theologians to accept only those phenomena they could observe in nature. Following the theological Enlightenment, the supernatural Christ of the creeds and confessions was relegated to the dustbin of superstition and ignorance. The traditional concept of “true God, true man” was deemed an absurdity. Since then, modern Christologies have emerged that tend to produce an impoverished Christ. We will assess six of them here.

1. The mythical approach. This began in the nineteenth century with the idealism of Kant and Hegel. Assuming the a priori impossibility of the supernatural, theologians in this tradition insisted that the New Testament Christ existed merely as an idea or ideal in the minds of Jesus’ disciples. This gave way to a more sophisticated approach. Imposed upon the simple carpenter of Nazareth, assert the followers of Bultmann, are mythical accounts of a preexistent deity who became incarnate, overcame demons, rose from the dead, and who will return to earth to subdue evil powers. “Modern men take it for granted,” said Bultmann, “that the course of nature and history … is nowhere interrupted by the intervention of supernatural powers.”

Oxford scholar John Macquarrie freely employs the myth motif to assess Jesus Christ. He argues that the biblical writers sought to express Jesus’ divinity by transposing aspects of his history into the framework of Greek mythology. He holds that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension “are partly historical, partly legendary, partly mythical.”

Harvard theologian Gordon Kaufman likewise insists that Christ’s preexistence, incarnation, virgin birth, and atoning work are “fantastic mythological notions.” Embedded in the myth, however, is the truth that God was profoundly present with the man Jesus.

While the older rationalists sought to eliminate the deity of Christ by exegetical means, today’s naturalists do so by regarding the New Testament documents as mythical. Evangelicals, however, approach Scripture with no anti-supernaturalist illusions. The Lord who created the universe by the word of his power also became man in Jesus of Nazareth. No room exists in Scripture or history for those who exclude God from a mechanically conceived universe. Contemporary psychic and occult phenomenia confirm that the cozy, predictable world of the closed system is open to challenge.

2. The existentialist approach. This view tries to interpret the alleged myths in Scripture in terms of human possibilities and decisions. For example, Bultmann argues that to speculate about Jesus’ deity is improper, but to focus on “self-examination and radical consideration of the nature of one’s own existence” is legitimate for modern man.

John Knox likewise insists that myth is a vehicle to express the concrete meaning of our existence. The traditional concepts of Christ’s “humanity” and “divinity” answer “not to ideas or thoughts about him, but to the church’s experience of him.” In a similar vein, R. M. Grant feels that the essence of Christology is not Christ but human existence. Titles that ascribe deity to Jesus—“Alpha and Omega,” “Lord,” “King”—simply express his unusual dignity. When the New Testament alludes to Christ as God, argues Grant, it upholds “the supreme meaningfulness of Christ in relation to human existence.”

J. A. T. Robinson’s viewpoint is similar. The myths surrounding the man Jesus must be expounded in terms of the new realities of human experience. The myth of the resurrection signifies for Robinson the new possibility of life in the spirit, and the myth of the ascension asserts “Christ’s ascendency in all the processes … that shape the lives of groups and individuals.” The bishop’s banality emerges when he demythologizes the parousia myth to “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

To reduce the objective reality of God down to mere aids for self-understanding allows man to be the measure of all things. Evangelicals do not deny that Christ helps us to understand ourselves better. What they do dispute is that Jesus Christ can be adequately represented solely in terms of human experience.

3. The dialectical approach. This postulates that everything is contrary to something else, that no statement can be considered apart from its opposite. Since every theological statement is partial, divine truths cannot be captured in a single, timelessly valid, propositional statement. Tillich defined the dialectical method as “the way of seeking for truth … from different points of view, through a ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ until a ‘Yes’ has been reached which is hardened in the fire of many ‘No’s’ and which unites the elements of truth promoted in the discussion.”

Karl Barth used the dialectical method to speak of the infinite and ineffable God who transcends rational comprehension. In Romans, Barth declares that finite man cannot know anything of the infinite world; therefore Jesus as the Christ can be comprehended only as “Problem” or “Paradox.”

In his earlier dogmatic work, Christliche Dogmatik, Barth developed more systematically his understanding of “God and man in the Person of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.” He writes: “To eliminate the word ‘and’ and speak of ‘God-man,’ or he who would make out of Jesus Christ one name Jesus-Christ, is to depart from dialectical theology.” Because Jesus Christ is the revelation of the majestic and terrible God, the union of God and man in human flesh is a logical impossibility. So Barth explains this impossibility, not by a static creed but by an irreconcilable dialectic, with ineffable deity on one side and ordinary humanity on the other.

Emil Brunner also insists that theology must be dialectical to portray the true paradox of the gospel. Only patently contradictory statements express the paradox that God became man in Christ. He sees the doctrine of the Two Natures and of the Trinity as “logical absurdities … [that] express the inconceivable miracle of revelation.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Vincent Taylor also make use of the dialectical method. “It might be thought,” states Taylor, an English Methodist, “that in using restraint in speaking of the deity of Christ, we are robbing Him of his true deity; but so far from doing this, we are enhancing it.”

The rationalist views the doctrine of the human-divine Christ as a logical impossibility. But the dialectician prefers to hold in tension the “antithetic” concepts of humanity and deity in Christ. Orthodoxy, however, insists that the special revelation of God is consistent and coherent rather than contradictory. Through analogies meaningful to human beings, God communicates truthful, noncontradictory knowledge as he himself perceives it. Since Scripture faithfully reflects God’s knowledge, we can know truly what God has disclosed concerning his Son.

4. The functional approach. This view claims that Christ can be known only indirectly through the effects of his work. Functionalists insist that “action” is more important than “being.” Thus contemporary liberal theology is more concerned with the events in Jesus’ life than with his person; close scrutiny of Jesus’ deeds would be a return to the biblical perspective.

Oscar Cullmann typifies this viewpoint: “When it is asked in the New Testament ‘Who is Christ?’, the question never means exclusively, or even primarily, ‘What is his nature?’, but first of all, ‘What is his function?’.” More pointedly, Cullmann declares that “Jesus himself is what he does.”

In a similar vein Norman Pittenger argues that the central question of Christology can only be “What was God doing in Christ?” Theologians have spent too much time focusing on Jesus’ “natures.” We are on safer ground, Pittenger asserts, in claiming that Jesus’ “divinity” corresponds to “God’s act in the manhood of the one who dwelt in Palestine.” Later the church coined the phrase “diety of Christ” to express its belief that Jesus was the special vehicle of God’s activity.

In The Human Face of God, J. A. T. Robinson readily identifies with the functional way of representing reality: “The Christ is the one who does what God does, who represents him. He stands in the place of God, speaking and acting for him. The issue is not where he comes from or what he is made of. He is not a divine or semi-divine being who comes from the other side. He is a human raised up from among his brethren to be the instrument of God’s decisive work.” Robinson maintains that this view of Christ is faithful to the dynamic Hebraic concept of God. Functionally Jesus was “divine,” but essentially he was not.

Those who hold that “God is what he does” admit that they know nothing about the nature of the Being who acts. Who is this Otherness? One of God’s greatest acts was his self-disclosure through the Incarnate Word.

5. The humanitarian approach. According to this view, Christ’s significance lies in his concern for man’s plight and anguish in the world.

In an attempt to reinterpret faith for a secular age, Bonhoeffer portrayed Christ as the model humanitarian—“the man for others”—transcendent only in his relationship with humanity. By replacing the unanswerable question “How can Christ be both man and God?” with the relevant human question “Who is he?”, Bonhoeffer shifts the focus of Christology to the world and to Christ’s being there for us.

M. M. Thomas, former chairman of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, develops Bonhoeffer’s concept of “the man for others.” Negating the biblical concepts of sin, personal conversion, and the wrath of God, but stressing his secular relevance, Thomas characterizes Jesus as “the New Adam,” “bearer of the New Humanity,” and “the New Creation.” Christ represents the new stage in the natural evolution of man; he is the ideal of what man can and shall become in the utopian progress toward the new order of creation. To follow Jesus in a broken world means to join him in transforming the oppressive power structures that impede the realization of man’s full humanity. Thomas’s caricature of Jesus lends itself to Marxist doctrines of man and society—notions that have become prominent in Thomas’s radical religious humanism.

Black theology’s left wing develops this humanitarian emphasis in a similar radical direction. Emerging black theologians represent Jesus as “the Liberator,” “the Emancipator,” or “the black Messiah” who struggles against the so-called white racist power structure. In an essay entitled “Jesus the Liberator,” James Johnson, Jr., argues that Christians should stop speculating about the person of Christ and unite around Jesus’ teaching—that manifesto of liberation uttered in language “extreme, extravagant, explosive as hand grenades which are tossed into the crowds.” Albert Cleage, a spokesman for black theology, insists that “Jesus was a revolutionary black leader, a Zealot, seeking to lead a black nation to freedom.”

Although the humanitarian emphasis incorporates valid insights, it amounts to upholding Jesus as nothing more than a mere man whom God indwelt in an unusual way. But the humanitarian model is inadequate for the One the church proclaims as Savior. To qualify as Redeemer of mankind, Jesus must be not only a man, but authentically God. As Athanasius put it, nothing created can unite the creature with the Creator.

6. The evolutionary approach. The evolutionist envisages a world in continual flux and development. Process theology builds on this idea of the new coming from the old. In our constantly changing world, lower “levels” of the natural order are ascending to the level of spirit. Process theology’s ultimate reality is not substance, but the dynamic, energizing process itself.

Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin adapted the modern evolutionary vision of the universe in the form of a unique Christ-centered metaphysic. Teilhard’s theory of complexity consciousness postulates that matter relentlessly presses toward higher consciousness levels. The end product of evolutionary gestation would be a super-organism embracing material and immaterial forms in a union of common consciousness whose center is called the “Omega-point.”

Theologically, the goal of this development is the Christification of the cosmos. By a brilliant synthesis of scientific and Christian perspectives, Teilhard concludes that the Omega of science and the Christ of the Bible, as two centers of cosmic convergence, coincide. Since humanity and the cosmos collectively will be perfected in the whole Christ, the Lord who assumed an evolved body is simultaneously the author, the product, and the goal of the evolutionary process.

In his book Christology, a thoroughly eclectic thinker, J. A. T. Robinson, weaves process concepts into his formulation of the person of Christ: “This insistence on Jesus being a genuine product of the process, with all the prehistory of man in his genes, is, I believe, one of the distinctive presuppositions of a twentieth-century Christology.… To be a member of the species homo sapiens includes having genes and chromosomes shaped and transmitted by millions of years of evolution. No one can just become a man out of the blue: a genuine man (as opposed to a replica) can only come out of the process, not into it.” Thus Jesus was not a special creation of God from the heavenly realm, but a man born, bred, and evolved through nature and history.

In pure-blooded form, process theology bows before the idol of scientific evolutionism. Since Jesus is simply a product of the cosmic process, his preexistence, Incarnation, and divinity are exposed to radical reinterpretation.

At the heart of the modern views of Christ is the post-Enlightenment revolt against biblical supernaturalism. John Knox articulated the shift in outlook when he said, “It is impossible, by definition, that God should become a man.” Yet a plain reading of Scripture confirms that at the foundation of the Christian faith is a supernaturalism which refuses to be boxed in by scientific naturalism.

Further, contemporary theology insists that Christ is beyond the reach of human knowing. Since the concepts of “being,” “essence,” and “nature” have been appropriated from Greek philosophy, the traditional two natures category of Chalcedon must be abandoned; no relationship between the Father and the Son can be established on the ontological level.

In response, evangelicals claim that the triune God who acts and who may be existentially encountered is also the God who is. We can know Christ both as Subject and as Object, and possess both practical and theoretical knowledge of God. Unless we have objective knowledge of God, the idea of God lacks all meaning. Unless we can talk cognitively of the God who is there—that is, make statements about Christ’s transcendence, preexistence, and Incarnation—no criteria exist to distinguish Jesus from any other man. Knowing something concrete about Jesus is indispensable to knowing him.

Let us return briefly to Peter’s encounter with Jesus at Caesarea Philippi. In response to Simon’s forthright confession of Jesus as the Anointed Messiah and Son of God, Jesus said, “You did not learn this from mortal man; it was revealed to you by my heavenly Father” (Matt. 16:17, NEB). Our Lord’s retort proves that we can responsibly confess Christ only on the basis of special revelation. From the biblical perspective, the person of Jesus Christ is a spiritual mystery (1 Tim. 3:16). Finite and sinful man cannot of himself unfold the profound reality that God became man in Jesus of Nazareth. Any attempt to explain the mystery of Jesus Christ apart from Scripture will be doomed to failure.

Kant precipitated current developments by suggesting that revelation was inimical to a critical philosophy of religion. When theologians thereafter began to assert that portions of the Bible were factually erroneous, the loss of the biblical Christ inevitably followed.

From a careful reading of Scripture, Christians conclude that Jesus Christ is coequal with the Father in being, purpose, and action, and that he became man at the Incarnation without for a moment ceasing to be God. Assertions about Christ’s essence and nature are inherent in the biblical revelation. John’s Gospel repeatedly identifies Jesus with the self-existent “I AM” of the Old Testament (John 8:24et al.). Jesus’ bold declarations “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10:38) imply an ontological unity with the Father.

Paul, who spoke much of the existential character of Christ’s saving benefits, plainly taught that in Christ “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:10). Paul’s majestic hymn of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation (Phil. 2:6–11) and his statement that Christ “became poor” (2 Cor. 8:9) point to his preexistent, essential unity with God the Father. Similarly the Epistle to the Hebrews, which thoroughly stresses our Lord’s humanity (Heb. 2:11, 14, 17), asserts also his deity in both functional and ontological categories: “He reflects the glory of God, and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

Jesus Christ, the eternally changeless and timelessly relevant Person, should not be relativized to accommodate the ebb and flow of modern secular thought. We must reject the liberal assumption that modern perspectives are an advance over those of the past. Jesus’ response to the contemporary critic might prove similar to his retort to the Pharisees: “You have no idea where I came from or where I am going. You judge by human standards” (John 8:14, NIV). Those who depreciate special revelation and depend upon their own insights have an imperfect understanding of our Lord’s heavenly origin and his earthly task.

Norman Pittenger, an eminently modern scholar, insists that “whether we like it or not, things are different nowadays.” Evangelicals, in contrast, confidently stand with their early Christian brethren who proclaimed their Lord’s humanity, deity, and redemptive work by the acrostic ΙΧΘΥΣ—“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

“What Is the Matter With German Theology?”

Under this headline the prominent Protestant monthly of West Germany, Evangelische Kommentare, ran a series of articles that invited leading theologians to give their views on German theology. The series, now available as a book, created quite a stir. It reveals a general feeling of crisis, depression, and resignation. Peter Stuhlmacher, the New Testament scholar of Tübingen who succeeded Ernst Käsemann, declares his discontent with the outcome of the whole demythologization debate and calls for a “post-critical exegesis of Scripture.” Just as startling is the contribution made by Gerhard Ebeling, senior theologian of Zürich University, and one of the past allies of Rudolf Bultmann. His response to the question posed is well worth our attention, both as a signal and because of its substance.

Ebeling concentrates on the need to relate theology to life, a focus oft neglected in much theology. He labels much current theology “unproductive productivity” where the essence of theology has evaporated into either abstractionism (“a sublime reflection of reflection”) or the journalistic craze for the latest ideological fashion. Efforts to reform the study of theology have been of no avail: theology has tended to become subject to alien interests because it has lacked its own sense of direction.

In contrast, Ebeling has a solid touchstone of theology in his basic distinction between world and God, between our visible life and our eternal life. To think and live under the perspective of eternity is the unique property of faith. But this, Ebeling observes, has constantly been ignored. The Christian concepts of sin and of hope have been reinterpreted in a secular manner, and a secular optimism of progress has deceived man concerning his true situation: that he is facing death. The vocal theological movements of recent years, trying to link theory and practice, theology and life, have ignored the realities of sin and eternal life, and have merely looked for the secular efficiency of faith. Political change has become the measuring rod of faith, with faith being reduced to the motivation for political change. Theologians have moved into the sphere of influence of Marxism.

For Ebeling, there is in the Christian message no promise for an overall social betterment, but rather the commission to contain the effects of sin as well as possible. He looks for faith’s relation to life in the context of prayer, worship, and church. They are the conditions without which there can be no Christian theology. With strong words Ebeling points out that every theologian must be a member of a particular church. No one can be a theologian who does not exercise faith in his own life. Personal piety, intimate knowledge of Scripture, and spiritual experience—so sadly lacking in the lives of many theological students—are a precondition for some theology. Summing up his concerns, Ebeling writes: “Not only the credibility of the subject matter of theology, but also its dignity as an object of study suffers when the content (Gehalt) of faith is not being brought to a corresponding form (Gestalt) of faith. To put it bluntly: the doctrine of God has its touchstone in prayer, Christology in worship, and pneumatology in the actual existence of the Church.”

Gerhard Ebeling is not out to counter the this-worldliness of present-day theology with an emphasis on otherworldiness. On the contrary, he asserts that the Christian theologian’s task is to witness with his own life to the presence of eternal life in this life. But there can be no outer visibility without an inner change; no universality of horizon without the application to the individual. It is with these perspectives that Ebeling calls for a reorientation of theology in its work of relating doctrine to life.

This is a remarkable clarion call for the conversion of theology—coming from seemingly liberal quarters. I salute it. It makes me think: is there somewhere a similar consciousness and assessment of theology from an evangelical point of view, accompanied by a similarly courageous call for new directions? If not, is it because evangelicals need to widen their horizons of concern?

Jonah once was taught to have mercy with Nineveh. Evangelicals, too, must learn to think and pray for the needs not only of their own local church or denomination, but also of the whole of Christendom, even of humanity. We need to have compassion with the Nineveh of theology where there are also “more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11). We need to leave our citadels of orthodoxy and move into the battlefield as first-aiders instead of as Pharisees, in order to “by all means save some,” even if we draw fire from both sides. At this point, can the answer be separation? With it we might just avoid the situation of the Good Samaritan.

Then we have the reminder of the apostolic exhortation, “Do not pronounce judgment before the time” (1 Cor. 4:5a). People change, and a situation of crisis sometimes brings forth unexpected things, even from theologians. And of course, evangelicals would be well advised to heed Ebeling’s standards lest they fall into the very traps from which he tries to rescue theology. It is painful to see that the necessary turn from theory to practice should again have produced social theologians who have forgotten the heart of the Christian message. Could not evangelicals who have discovered their social conscience do better?

Finally, since the theological situation never seems to be settled before the Lord returns, could we perhaps learn to entertain limited alliances with theologians who seem to be moving in the right direction even if they don’t come from our own background or starting point? It would certainly be a strong witness to the fact that we wish to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and not the confirmation of our own religious milieu.

Klaus Bockmühl is professor of theology and ethics, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

New Year’s resolutions are overrated. Why should we pick that arbitrary time to revaluate ourselves and our behavior? I think it would be far more American to dispense with New Year’s and put all our efforts into Spring Training.

Look what Reggie Jackson, Tommy John, and other baseball luminaries do. They work hard all summer, what with a gruelling schedule of some 100-plus games, traveling across the country, baseball chapel services, and so forth. Then, they slough off in the winter. Gravity pulls them and their stomachs lower than is good for them. (Some truly committed players, of course, play winter ball.)

Then comes Spring Training. It begins sometime in February in a warm, lush climate—Florida or Arizona, for example—a kind of retreat atmosphere. (Coincidentally, Lent comes during Spring Training). The Dodgers and the Twins, the Yankees and the Cubs and the Red Sox push and punish their bodies. They’ve only got a short couple of months to get in shape for those hot summer games.

It’s too late once you step onto the field, take your positions, and hear the umpire shout “play ball” (by the time this is printed, Opening Day will be over). Sensational defensive plays and rigorous base running only happen if Spring Training has been adhered to.

What’s Spring Training like? Well, you want to avoid certain foods. There is an old tradition in the church that sleek souls go with slim bodies. And gluttony is, after all, one of the seven deadly sins. Right. Baseball managers agree. They want their players (but not necessarily themselves) in trim form.

Then hours. When in training, you’ve got to get enough sleep. No late, late shows or the I-just-want-to-finish-one-more-chapter excuse. It’s hard to hit the long ball or go the extra mile if you’ retired.

And exercise. Extra inning ball games and the good word in season require well-tuned muscles. If you have slacked off over the winter, start slowly and build your strength daily. It’s not easy to spend hours on the field or on your knees. Pray a little, then do some sit-ups. Read a verse or two and think about it while you do some leg lifts. A little ingenuity would go a long way.

It’s too bad Paul didn’t know about baseball. I can just hear him telling those Corinthians, “You keep your eye on the ball and level off your swing. Dip your shoulder into the ball as it comes over the plate. Don’t you know that a home run hitter gets the prize?”

EUTYCHUS IX

To Whom Much Is Given

Philip Yancey has done an excellent job in profiling Francis Schaeffer (March 23, issue). While I agree with your Editor’s Note, I believe that in addition to possibly wanting to “argue a point or two” with Schaeffer, his message is far over the head of the great mass of true believers. Thank goodness that God provided a simple gospel to be understood by “simple-minded people” as well as the “profound thinkers.” To those people who are given the capacity to reason and expound the Scriptures, such as Schaeffer, much intellectual activity will be expected. To those who have received from God different gifts, there are different expectations. There are many people who fall between the simple-minded and the profound thinker, and who fortunately can accept and stand firm on their “basic Christianity” even though unable to defend it with the logic and reasoning of Francis Schaeffer. I personally praise God for both ends of the spectrum and truly believe that although Francis Schaeffer would expect the man who is capable of profound thinking to engage in that activity, he would rejoice over the man who is not so naturally inclined to stand on his Christian principles on the basis of faith alone.

TERRILL A. PARKER

Atlanta, Ga.

I have a couple of qualms about Francis Schaeffer. He sometimes seems (to me) to generalize and simplify to a point where he is fighting mock-up dragons he has constructed himself and not actual beasties. When I saw the title, “Francis Schaeffer: A Prophet for Our Time?” I feared your answer would be a syrupy, adoring yes. Instead I found an article which was wonderfully honest and positive about a man who is a significant voice in Christian theology (even if I’m still not sure what decade he lives in).

L. M. STEWART III

New Providence Baptist Church

Confidence, Iowa

Prominent Position

I appreciate the prominent position CHRISTIANITY TODAY accorded my article, “Singleness: His Share for Me” (Feb. 16, 1979). I am unhappy, however, about the way in which it was presented. Changing the title and placing it within the framework created for it makes my article appear out of focus and robs it of much of its impact. I was writing about homosexuality, not singleness per se. I touched on singleness only at the one point where the two matters are congruent—a point which is seldom considered and on which it is time that someone spoke out. Your focus made me appear to be presenting the negative side in a “pro and con” discussion on singleness, which was far from my intention. It also baffles the reader for the first several paragraphs, for he can see no relationship between my picture and your frame—enough to make him stop reading and so miss my whole thrust. I am well able to write an article affirming singleness, as anyone who knows me or has read my book on singleness will know. My balanced judgment on the matter is that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Here I was speaking to a totally different but increasingly pertinent point, which your treatment of my article has dulled.

MARGARET CLARKSON

Willowdale, Ont.

It seems that everywhere one turns lately, the subject of “singleness” crops up. So, it was not surprising to find that CHRISTIANITY TODAY had picked up the topic (Feb. 16, issue). Not surprising, but somewhat disturbing. The more I read, the more strongly I feel that to constantly verbalize our disappointments and our weaknesses is to encourage a negative outlook on life. “This is not to say that it is easy to be a Christian single: It is not,” says Margaret Clarkson. I do not venture to disagree. But neither is it easy to be a Christian wife. Or a Christian teen-ager. Or a Christian businessman. It is not easy for any of us to be a Christian in this fallen world. So why try to outdo each other in drawing attention to our own particular difficulty? The church needs to get back to the attitude of Philippians 2:4—“Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” If the eye and the ear spent less time in fruitless discussion over who was functioning under the greater difficulty, there would be a lot more seeing and hearing done.

HEATHER L. SHANTZ

Toronto, Ont.

Margaret Clarkson’s “Singleness: His Share for Me” truly reflects the wisdom which only age allows. Having seen her picture on the bottom corner of the page before I read the article, I must admit that I was expecting old-fashioned, spinstery advice on being single. As I read, however, I was awestruck by the richness and originality reflected in her thought. Her devotion to God has brought clarity to her situation which, fortunately, she has been allowed to share with us all. Praise God for his preparation of her to enlighten us.

WILLIAM R. BAKER

Schaumburg, Ill.

Economics And Justice

All of Ronald H. Nash’s admittedly valid arguments about the dangerous willingness of liberalism to allow the state too much power (“The Economics of Justice,” March 23) are also true of the equally dangerous willingness of conservatism to allow large private corporations too much power. All power tends to corrupt; both the state and large business can threaten freedom and justice. The arguments of both liberals and conservatives are one-sided often, and apply to themselves as well as to their opponents. The vision is still struggling to be born.

THE REV. FREDERICK BARKER

Madison, N.J.

As a long-time conservative and a Christian I wish to express to you my deep appreciation for your publishing Dr. Ronald Nash’s article, “The Economics of Justice.” This is the first article I’ve seen in CHRISTIANITY TODAY by a knowledgable conservative. Your willingness to present both sides demonstrates the superiority of CHRISTIANITY TODAY over some other evangelical magazines. Dr. Nash would be the first to admit that the whole conservative world view cannot be encompassed in one article. After hearing the conservatives falsely stereotyped for so long, this article was like a breath of fresh air. Here’s hoping you will give us more.

FRANK VOSLER

New Albany, Ohio

Sensitivity Expected

William Conard’s report of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Mexico in the March 2 issue, “A Magnetic Pope Tugs at Opposing Latin Forces” attempted, and largely succeeded, to capsulate the complex significance of this papal journey. I, as one of the few Roman Catholics at Fuller (a graduate student in systematics), can begin to appreciate evangelical sensitivities about some Roman Catholic beliefs and practices. In turn, I should think that Conard could have been more sensitive to the great strides Roman Catholics have made to understand their beliefs and practices in more biblical and ecumenical terms, especially since the Vatican Council II. Thus, I winced at Conard’s phrase, “the Pope’s adoration of Mary.” Though everyone admits there have been grave abuses at the popular level (and the Vatican Council and subsequent encyclicals of Pope Paul VI have called for reform here), few evangelicals seem prepared to admit that official Catholic teaching permits only veneration of Mary (dulia, veneration, for saints; hyperdulia, special veneration for Mary; but latria, worship or adoration, for the Trinity only). Several other times in his report, Conard misses opportunities to be truly fair to official Catholic teaching; but I pass these instances over, to go on to a point of agreement and a few clarifying remarks.… I pray that CHRISTIANITY TODAY will continue its already significant efforts to report Catholic news more and more fairly. The Lord bless your ministry of Christian journalism.

PAUL F. FORD

Pasadena, Calif.

Too Evangelical

Since Bruce Springsteen is a favorite artist of mine, I was pleased to see a review of his music, “Singer Bruce Springsteen: No Respite from Rebellion,” in the March 2 issue. However, I believe Mr. Evearitt is far too simplistic and, unfortunately, too decidedly evangelical in his estimation of Springsteen. Springsteen does far more than “adopt a James Dean persona” to perpetuate rebellion in its third decade. He asks, in light of his own experience, serious questions about the nature of human existence. It is lamentable that Mr. Evearitt in particular and, I believe, evangelicalism in general, fails to appreciate the accuracy with which artists like Bruce Springsteen portray the pathos of the human dilemma.

MICHAEL MALONE

Washington, D.C.

Frank E. Gaebelein passed his eightieth milestone this spring. CHRISTIANITY TODAY joins him in remembrance of the day, and in joyful celebration of God’s gift of this splendid Christian leader to the church of Christ. Dr. Gaebelein was for many years headmaster of The Stony Brook School in Long Island. Under his guidance, the school set a unique pattern for secondary education that was both throughly Christian and academically superb. From his experience as an educator, he wrote a highly regarded volume on the Christian philosophy of education (Christian Education in a Democracy). Beginning in October 1963, Dr. Gaebelein served for three years as coeditor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. As a member of the committee for the revision of the Scofield Bible (called the New Scofield Bible), he followed in the footsteps of his famous father, Arno C. Gaebelein, a principal consultant for the original Scofield Bible. More recently, as stylist for the New International Version and as general editor of the twelve-volume Expositor’s Bible Commentary, he continues to serve the evangelical cause with distinction long after ordinary mortals have withdrawn from a life of productive scholarship. Your friends at CHRISTIANITY TODAY and a host of friends around the world congratulate you, Dr. Gaebelein, and never cease to give God thanks for you and your vigorous witness for evangelical faith.

Also, in this issue David Adeney, veteran missionary to the Orient, and James Hudson Taylor III, President of China Evangelical Seminary (Taiwan), explore the significance of our new China policy for Christian missions and the church.