One who wishes to engage in current religious thought needs to understand some current religious words. In this two-part article we will give definitions of four such words, as requested by readers. They are taken from well-known theological dictionaries by permission of the publishers. “Fundamentalism” and “Neoorthodoxy” are from “The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church,” J. D. Douglas, general editor (Zondervan, 1974). “Evangelical” and “Liberalism” are from ‘Baker’s Dictionary of Theology,” Everett F. Harrison, editor-in-chief (Baker, 1960). “Neoorthodoxy” and “Liberalism” will appear in the December 17 issue.

FUNDAMENTALISM. A conservative theological movement in American Protestantism, which arose to national prominence in the 1920s in opposition to “modernism.” Most interpretations of the movement try to explain it in socioeconomic or psychological terms, but the movement was rooted in genuine theological concern for apostolic and Reformation doctrine growing out of American revivalism. Further confusion has arisen from repeated reference to five basic doctrines (or “five points”) of fundamentalism, supposedly springing from the Niagara Bible Conference of 1895.

Fundamentalism should be understood primarily as an attempt to protect the essential doctrines or elements (fundamentals) of the Christian faith from the eroding effects of modern thought. Such doctrines include the Virgin Birth, the resurrection and deity of Christ, His substitutionary atonement, the Second Coming, and the authority and inerrancy of the Bible.

The roots of fundamentalism go back into the nineteenth century when evolution, biblical criticism, and the study of comparative religions began to challenge old assumptions about the authority of the biblical revelation. At the same time new ethical problems accompanied the emerging urban-industrial society in America. Men such as William H. Carwardine and Washington Gladden appealed to the Christian conscience and advocated what came to be called a “social gospel.” The so-called higher criticism (historical and literary, in contrast with textual) of the Bible entered the mainstream of American Protestantism following the Civil War. By World War I higher criticism was generally accepted in seminaries and colleges. This success came, however, only after strong resistance. Heated debates took place in scholarly journals. Baptists dismissed professors such as C. H. Toy and E. P. Gould, and Presbyterians held heresy trials of C. A. Briggs and A. C. McGiffert. By the turn of the century, major conflict … appeared certain.

A significant offensive against modernism was launched in 1910 with the publication of the first of The Fundamentals. By 1918 the term “fundamentals” had become common usage, but “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” were coined in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws, Baptist editor of the Watchman-Examiner. Laws proposed that a group within the Northern Baptist Convention adopt the name “fundamentalist.” During a conference in Buffalo, New York, in 1920, Laws and his associates accepted the title. This group, popularly called “The Fundamentalist Fellowship,” were moderate conservatives, who believed that the modernists were surrendering the “fundamentals” of the Gospel, namely, the sinful nature of man, his inability to be saved apart from God’s grace, the indispensability of Jesus’ death for the regeneration of the individual and the renewal of society, and the authoritative revelation of the Bible. This group, the first to apply the name “fundamentalist” to itself, was identified neither with dispensationalism nor with a crusade against evolutionary teaching. They asserted repeatedly that they were concerned only about the preservation of the central affirmations of the Christian faith.…

A more militantly conservative voice [was] raised in 1923 with the formation of the Baptist Bible Union. Composed of Baptists from the South and Canada, as well as the North, the union broadened the fundamentalist cause to include the struggle against evolutionary teaching.

Among Presbyterians, the conservative position was championed by J. G. Machen of Princeton Theological Seminary. When he refused to break his ties with the Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions, he was tried and found guilty of rebellion against superiors. Thus evolved the Orthodox Presbyterian and Bible Presbyterian churches.

Gradually “fundamentalism” came to be used loosely for all theological conservatism, including militants, moderates of the Laws type, and a scholarly type represented by Machen. Due to the tactics of certain leaders, the fundamentalist image eventually became stereotyped as close-minded, belligerent, and separatistic.

In the 1950s a growing number of conservatives attempted to set aside the fundamentalist label. Harold John Ockenga was one of the first to propose “new evangelical” as an alternative. He called for a conservative Christianity which held to the central beliefs of the Christian faith, but which was also intellectually respectable, socially concerned, and cooperative in spirit. Since the late fifties this perspective has deepened and broadened. Carl F. H. Henry, Edward John Carnell, the periodical CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and other individuals and groups have been identified with the new evangelicalism, which considers itself the heir of the spirit and purpose of the original fundamentalists.

EVANGELICAL. The evangelical Christian faith is the “good news” or the “glad tidings” that God has provided redemption for man. It affirms that salvation from sin is obtained through the grace of God, not that it is earned by good works or given because of merit on the part of man. It sets forth the basic Christian doctrines, such as: the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, miracles, the substitutionary or vicarious suffering and death of Christ as an atonement for the sins of his people, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven, his personal and glorious coming again, the resurrection and judgment of all men, heaven and hell.

The most important issue between evangelicals and others is that of biblical authority. The evangelical insists that Scripture is the word of God written, and that it is therefore infallible in its original autographs. When this tenet is granted the other doctrines of the evangelical faith follow as a matter of course.

Two special uses of the word evangelical should be noted. In patristic literature the Gospel records are sometimes referred to as “the evangelical instrument,” or “the evangelical voice.” In our own time, in Europe, the word may be used as the equivalent of Protestant, or still more narrowly, as meaning Lutheran.

Every two yearsCHRISTIANITY TODAYreports the religious aspects of the national elections and publishes a census showing the religious lineup of the new Congress. The following story updates extensive election and campaign coverage in the November 19 and preceding issues. This year’s census (right) was compiled by news assistant Brigid Spillane.

A born-again Southern Baptist deacon and Sunday-school teacher may have won the White House in the recent national election, but a record number of Catholics will be holding forth in Congress next term, according to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S findings. Catholic representation increased by six for a total of 129 in the Ninety-Fifth Congress, the most in the nation’s history.

Overall, there were no sharp shifts in congressional religious-affiliation listings. Presbyterians continue to take it on the chin, having lost six seats (they lost twelve in 1974). This gives them a total of sixty in the new Congress. The downward trend applies also to other main-line denominational groups. The United Methodists and the United Church of Christ are each down by three, the Episcopalians by two, the Baptists by one. The Lutherans and the Churches of Christ each gained two, however. (Because of the difficulties involved in trying to pinpoint the exact Baptist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran denominations cited in affiliations, these groups have been listed generically in the census.)

In other changes, the Jewish have increased by three, the Reformed Church in America by two, the Latter-Day Saints by one, and the “Christian” or “Protestant” category by four.

Another clergyman was elected to Congress: Republican John Danforth, an ordained Episcopalian who defeated Democrat incumbent Stuart Symington, a fellow Episcopalian, in a Missouri Senate race. He joins ordained congressional incumbents who were reelected: Catholic priests Robert F. Drinan of Massachusetts and Robert J. Cornell of Wisconsin, Robert W. Edgar of Pennsylvania (United Methodist), Andrew Young of Georgia (United Church of Christ), John Buchanan of Alabama (Southern Baptist), and delegate Walter Fauntroy of Washington, D.C. (Progressive National Baptist). All but Buchanan are Democrats.

In each category, the Senators are listed first in bold face, then House members. Asterisk (*) denotes apparent winner.

Baptist (55)

Byrd (D-W.Va.)

Ford (D-Ky.)

Hatfield (R-Oreg.)

Helms (R-N.C.)

Johnston, Jr. (D-La.)

McClellan (D-Ark.)

Morgan (D-N.C.)

Talmadge (D-Ga.)

Thurmond (R-S.C.)

Andrews (D-N.C.)

Ashbrook (R-Ohio)

Barnard (D-Ga.)

Bevill (D-Ala.)

Bowen (D-Miss.)

Brinkley (D-Ga.)

Broyhill (R-N.C.)

Buchanan, Jr. (R-Ala.)

Burlison (D-Mo.)

Carr (D-Mich.)

Carter (R-Ky.)

Cochran (R-Miss.)

Collins (D-Ill.)

Collins (R-Tex.)

Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.)

Daniel (D-Va.)

Diggs, Jr. (D-Mich.)

Fauntroy (D-D.C.)

Ford (D-Tenn.)

Gammage (D-Tex.)

Ginn (D-Ga.)

Gore, Jr. (D-Tenn.)

Grassley (R-Iowa)

Hefner (D-N.C.)

Hightower (D-Tex.)

Hubbard, Jr. (D-Ky.)

Ichord (D-Mo.)

Jenkins (D-Ga.)

Jones (D-N.C.)

Jordan (D-Tex.)

Long (D-La.)

Lott (R-Miss.)

Mann (D-S.C.)

Mathis (D-Ga.)

Mattox (D-Tex.)

Mollohan (D-W.Va.)

Natcher (D-Ky.)

Nix (D-Pa.)

Pepper (D-Fla.)

Perkins (D-Ky.)

Risenhoover (D-Okla.)

Runnels (D-N.Mex.)

Shipley (D-Ill.)

Teague (D-Tex.)

Wilson (R-Calif.)

Whitley (D-N.C.)

Presbyterian (60)

Anderson (D-Minn.)

Baker, Jr. (R-Tenn.)

Bellmon (R-Okla.)

Bentsen (D-Tex.)

Case (R-N.J.)

Chiles (D-Fla.)

Church (D-Idaho)

Culver (D-Iowa)

Curtis (R-Nebr.)

Glenn (D-Ohio)

Jackson (D-Wash.)

Pearson (R-Kans.)

Stennis (D-Miss.)

Williams, Jr. (D-N.J.)

Applegate (D-Ohio)

Breckenridge (D-Ky.)

Broomfield (R-Mich.)

Brown (R-Ohio)

Brown (R-Mich.)

Cornwell (D-Ind.)

Duncan (R-Tenn.)

Eckhardt (D-Tex.)

Edwards (R-Ala.)

Evans (D-Colo.)

Fountain (D-N.C.)

Fuqua (D-Fla.)

Gibbons (D-Fla.)

Hammerschmidt (R-Ark.)

Harsha (R-Ohio)

Hillis (R-Ind.)

Holt (R-Md.)

Horton (R-N.Y.)

Johnson (D-Calif.)

Johnson (R-Colo.)

Jones (D-Tenn.)

Kelly (R-Fla.)

Kemp (R-N.Y.)

Kindness (R-Ohio)

Long (D-Md.)

Martin (R-N.C.)

McCloskey, Jr. (R-Calif.)

McEwen (R-N.Y.)

Meyner (D-N.J.)

Moorhead (R-Calif.)

Preyer (D-N.C.)

Pritchard (R-Wash.)

Rahall, II (D-W.Va.)

Rose (D-N.C.)

Schulze (R-Pa.)

Seiberling (D-Ohio)

Slack (D-W.Va.)

Stratton (D-N.Y.)

Thone (R-Nebr.)

Ullman (D-Oreg.)

Vander Jagt (R-Mich.)

Walker (R-Pa.)

Wampler (R-Va.)

Watkins (D-Okla.)

Whitten (D-Miss.)

Wright (D-Tex.)

Christian Church (Disciples) (5)

Bafalis (R-Fla.)

Bennett (D-Fla.)

Evans (D-Ga.)

Skelton (D-Mo.)

Winn, Jr. (R-Kans.)

United Methodist (80)

Bayh (D-Ind.)

Bumpers (D-Ark.)

Clark (D-Iowa)

Dole (R-Kans.)

Eastland (D-Miss.)

Huddleston (D-Ky.)

Inouye (D-Hawaii)

Long (D-La.)

Lugar (R-Ind.)

McClure (R-Idaho)

McGovern (D-S.Dak.)

Metcalf (D-Mont.)

Nelson (D-Wis.)

Nunn (D-Ga.)

Riegle, Jr. (D-Mich.)

Sasser (D-Tenn.)

Schmitt (R-N.Mex.)

Scott (R-Va.)

Sparkman (D-Ala.)

Tower (R-Tex.)

Abdnor (R-S.Dak.)

Allen (D-Tenn.)

Ammerman (D-Pa.)

Beard (R-Tenn.)

Bedell (D-Iowa)

Brademas (D-Ind.)

Brooks (D-Tex.)

Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.)

Chappell, Jr. (D-Fla.)

Chisholm (D-N.Y.)

Conable, Jr. (R-N.Y.)

Corman (D-Calif.)

Crane (R-Ill.)

Davis (D-S.C.)

Devine (R-Ohio)

Dickinson (R-Ala.)

Duncan (D-Oreg.)

Edgar (D-Pa.)

English (D-Okla.)

Fithian (D-Ind.)

Flynt, Jr. (D-Ga.)

Goodling (R-Pa.)

Gudger (D-N.C.)

Hamilton (D-Ind.)

Hawkins (D-Calif.)

Holland (D.-S.C.)

Huckaby (D-La.)

Jenrette, Jr. (D-S.C.)

Keys (D-Kans.)

Lent (R-N.Y.)

Mahon (D-Tex.)

McDonald (D-Ga.)

Miller (R-Ohio)

Mineta (D-Calif.)

Mitchell (R-N.Y.)

Nichols (D-Ala.)

Pickle (D-Tex.)

Quillen (R-Tenn.)

Rhodes (R-Ariz.)

Roberts (D-Tex.)

Rogers (D-Fla.)

Sebelius (R-Kans.)

Sharp (D-Ind.)

Sikes (D-Fla.)

Skubitz (R-Kans.)

Smith (D-lowa)

Smith (R-Nebr.)

Staggers (D-W.Va.)

Steed (D-Okla.)

Steers, Jr. (R-Md.)

Stockman (R-Mich.)

Stokes (D-Ohio)

Taylor (R-Mo.)

Treen (R-La.)

Waggoner, Jr. (D-La.)

Whitehurst (R-Va.)

Wiggins (R-Calif.)

Wilson (D-Tex.)

Wylie (R-Ohio)

Young (R-Fla.)

Jewish (27)

Javits (R-N.Y.)

Metzenbaum (D-Ohio)

Ribicoff (D-Conn.)

Stone (D-Fla.)

Zorinsky (D-Neb.)

Beilenson (D-Calif.)

Eilberg (D-Pa.)

Gilman (R-N.Y.)

Glickman (D-Kans.)

Gradison, Jr. (R-Ohio)

Holtzman (D-N.Y.)

Koch (D-N.Y.)

Krebs (D-Calif.)

Lehman (D-Fla.)

Levitas (D-Ga.)

Marks (R-Pa.)

Mikva (D-Ill.)*

Ottinger (D-N.Y.)

Richmond (D-N.Y.)

Rosenthal (D-N.Y.)

Scheuer (D-N.Y.)

Solarz (D-N.Y.)

Spellman (D-Md.)

Waxman (D-Calif.)

Weiss (D-N.Y.)

Wolff (D-N.Y.)

Yates (D-Ill.)

Lutheran (16)

Hollings (D-S.C.)

Magnuson (D-Wash.)

Armstrong (R-Colo.)

Badham (R-Calif.)

Bergland (D-Minn.)

Clausen (R-Calif.)

Dicks (D-Wash.)

Ertel (D-Pa.)

Frey, Jr. (R-Fla.)

Haggedorn (R-Minn.)

Marlenee (R-Mont.)

Milford (D-Tex.)

Quie (R-Minn.)

Simon (D-Ill.)

Snyder (R-Ky.)

Spence (R-S.C.)

Episcopal (64)

Brooke (R-Mass.)

Byrd, Jr. (I-Va.)

Chaffe (R-R.I.)

Danforth (R-Mo.)

Goldwater (R-Ariz.)

Hansen (R-Wyo.)

Haskell (D-Colo.)

Hathaway (D-Maine)

Heinz III (R-Pa.)

Mathias, Jr. (R-Md.)

Matsunaga (D-Hawaii)

Pell (D-R.I.)

Proxmire (D-Wis.)

Roth, Jr. (R-Del.)

Stevens (R-Alaska)

Wallop (R-Wyo.)

Weicker, Jr. (R-Conn.)

Adams (D-Wash.)

Alexander (D-Ark.)

Anderson (D-Calif.)

Andrews (R-N.Dak.)

Ashley (D-Ohio)

Aspin (D-Wis.)

Bolling (D-Mo.)

Butler (R-Va.)

Byron (D-Md.)

Coughlin (R-Pa.)

Daniel, Jr. (R-Va.)

Derrick (D-S.C.)

Edwards (R-Okla.)

Evans, Jr. (R-Del.)

Fish, Jr. (R-N.Y.)

Flowers (D-Ala.)

Goldwater, Jr. (R-Calif.)

Hughes (D-N.J.)

Ireland (D-Fla.)

Kasten, Jr. (R-Wis.)

Ketchum (R-Calif.)

Kostmayer (D-Pa.)

Leach (R-Iowa)

Lloyd (D-Calif.)

McFall (D-Calif.)

McKinney (R-Conn.)

Mitchell (D-Md.)

Meeds (D-Wash.)*

Montgomery (D-Miss.)

Moore (R-La.)

Moorhead (D-Pa.)

Myers (R-Ind.)

Myers (R-Pa.)

Neal (D-N.C.)

Pattison (D-N.Y.)

Regula (R-Ohio)

Reuss (D-Wis.)

Satterfield, III (D-Va.)

Sawyer (R-Mich.)

Steiger (R-Wis.)

Traxler (D-Mich.)

Trible, Jr. (R-Va.)

Van Deerlin (D-Calif.)

White (D-Tex.)

Wirth (D-Colo.)

Wydler (R-N.Y.)

Young (R-Alaska)

United Church Of Christ (22) (Includes Congregational)

Burdick (D-N.Dak.)

Griffin (R-Mich.)

Humphrey (D-Minn.)

Stafford (R-Vt.)

Akaka (D-Hawaii)

Baucus (D-Mont.)

Bingham (D-N.Y.)

Downey (D-N.Y.)

Emery (R-Maine)

Findley (R-Ill.)

Ford (D-Mich.)

Fraser (D-Minn.)

Jeffords (R-Vt.)

Lloyd (D-Tenn.)

Patterson (D-Calif.)

Pike (D-N.Y.)

Railsback (R-Ill.)

Schroeder (D-Colo.)

Shuster (R-Pa.)

Thornton (D-Ark.)

Wilson (D-Calif.)

Young (D-Ga.)

Eastern Orthodox (4)

Abourezk (D-S.Dak.)

Sarbanes (D-Md.)

Tsongas (D-Mass.)

Yatron (D-Pa.)

Governors

Roman Catholic

Apodaca (D-N.Mex.)

Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.)

Byrne (D-N.J.)

Carey (D-N.Y.)

Castro (D-Ariz.)

Edwards (D-La.)

Garrahy (D-R.I.)

Grasso (D-Conn.)

Judge (D-Mont.)

Kneip (D-S.Dak.)

Longley (I-Maine)

Lucey (D-Wis.)

O’Callaghan

(D-Nev.)

Perpich (D-Minn.)

Teasdale (D-Mo.)

Methodist

Blanton (D-Tenn.)

Boren (D-Okla.)

Edwards (R-S.C.)

Hammond (R-Alaska)

Wallace (D-Ala.)

United Church of Christ

Ariyoshi (D-Hawaii)

Godwin, Jr. (R-Va.)

Milliken (R-Mich.)

Episcopal

Briscoe (D-Tex.)

du Pont, IV (R-Del.)

Exon (D-Nebr.)

Herschler (D-Wyo.)

Eastern Orthodox

Dukakis (D-Mass.)

Presbyterian

Askew (D-Fla.)

Bennett (R-Kans.)

Carroll (D-Ky.)

Hunt, Jr. (D-N.C.)

Pryor (D-Ark.)

Rhodes (R-Ohio)

Thompson (R-Ill.)

Jewish

Mandel (D-Md.)

Shapp (D-Pa.)

Lutheran

Andrus (D-Idaho)

Bowen (R-Ind.)

Link (D-N.Dak.)

Baptist

Busbee (D-Ga.)

Finch (D-Miss.)

Ray (D-Wash.)

Rockefeller, IV (D-W.Va.)

Thomson, Jr. (R-N.H.)

Christian Church (Disciples)

Ray (R-Iowa)

Latter-Day Saints

Matheson (D-Utah)

Unitarian-Universalist

Lamm (D-Colo.)

Snelling (R-Vt.)

Unaffiliated

Straub (D-Oreg.)

Roman Catholic (129)

Bartlett (R-Okla.)

Biden, Jr. (D-Del.)

DeConcini (D-Ariz.)

Domenici (R-N.Mex.)

Durkin (D-N.H.)

Eagleton (D-Mo.)

Kennedy (D-Mass.)

Laxalt (R-Nev.)

Leahy (D-Vt.)

McIntyre (D-N.H.)

MeIcher (D-Mont.)

Moynihan (D-N.Y.)

Muskie (D-Maine)

Addabbo (D-N.Y.)

Ambro (D-N.Y.)

Annunzio (D-Ill.)

Archer (R-Tex.)

Baldus (D-Wis.)

Bauman (R-Md.)

Beard (D-R.I.)

Biaggi (D-N.Y.)

Blouin (D-Iowa)

Boggs (D-La.)

Boland (D-Mass.)

Bonior (D-Mich.)

Breaux (D-La.)

Brodhead (D-Mich.)

Burke (R-Fla.)

Burke (D-Mass.)

Carney (D-Ohio)

Cavanaugh (D-Nebr.)

Clay (D-Mo.)

Conte (R-Mass.)

Corcoran (R-Ill.)

Cornell (D-Wis.)

Cotter (D-Conn.)

D’Amours (D-N.H.)

Dent (D-Pa.)

de la Garza (D-Tex.)

Delaney (D-N.Y.)

Derwinski (R-Ill.)

Dingell (D-Mich.)

Doad (D-Conn.)

Dornan (R-Calif.)

Drinan (D-Mass.)

Early (D-Mass.)

Erlenborn (R-Ill.)

Evans (D-Ind.)

Fary (D-Ill.)

Flood (D-Pa.)

Florio (D-N.J.)

Foley (D-Wash.)

Gaydos (D-Pa.)

Giaimo (D-Conn.)

Gonzalez (D-Tex.)

Hanley (D-N.Y.)

Harkin (D-Iowa)

Harrington (D-Mass.)

Harris, II (D-Va.)

Heckler (R-Mass.)

Hollenbeck (R-N.J.)

Howard (D-N.J.)

Hyde (R-Ill.)

Jacobs, Jr. (D-Ind.)

Jones (D-Okla.)

Kazen, Jr. (D-Tex.)

Kildee (D-Mich.)

LaFalce (D-N.Y.)

Lagomarsino (R-Calif.)

Lederer (D-Pa.)

LeFante (D-N.J.)

Leggett (D-Calif.)

Lujan, Jr. (R-N.Mex.)

Luken (D-Ohio)

Madigan (R-Ill.)

Markey (D-Mass.)

Mazzoli (D-Ky.)

McDade (R-Pa.)

McHugh (D-N.Y.)

Metcalfe (D-Ill.)

Mikulski (D-Md.)

Miller (D-Calif.)

Minish (D-N.J.)

Moakley (D-Mass.)

Moffett (D-Conn.)

Mottl (D-Ohio)

Murphy (D-Pa.)

Murphy (D-N.Y.)

Murphy (D-Ill.)

Murtha (D-Pa.)

Myers (D-Pa.)

Nedzi (D-Mich.)

Nolan (D-Minn.)

Nowak (D-N.Y.)

Oakar (D-Ohio)

Oberstar (D-Minn.)

Obey (D-Wis.)

O’Brien (R-Ill.)

O’Neill, Jr. (D-Mass.)

Panetta (D-Calif.)

Patten (D-N.J.)

Pressler (R-S.Dak.)

Price (D-Ill.)

Rangel (D-N.Y.)

Rinaldo (R-N.J.)

Rodino, Jr. (D-N.J.)

Roe (D-N.J.)

Rooney (D-Pa.)

Rostenkowski (D-Ill.)

Roybal (D-Calif.)

Rudd (R-Ariz.)

Ruppe (R-Mich.)

Russo (D-Ill.)

Ryan (D-Calif.)

Santini (D-Nev.)

Sarasin (R-Conn.)

Stanton (R-Ohio)

St. Germain (D-R.I.)

Thompson, Jr. (D-N.J.)

Tonry (D-La.)

Vanik (D-Ohio)

Vento (D-Minn.)

Volkmer (D-Mo.)

Walgren (D-Pa.)

Walsh (R-N.Y.)

Whalen, Jr. (R-Ohio)

Young (D-Mo.)

Young (D-Tex.)

Zablocki (D-Wis.)

Unitarian-Universalist (11)

Gravel (D-Alaska)

Packwood (R-Oree.)

Stevenson, III (D-Ill.)

Blanchard (D-Mich.)

Burton (D-Calif.)

Burton (D-Calif.)

Cohen (R-Maine)

Edwards (D-Calif.)

Fisher (D-Va.)

Poage (D-Tex.)

Stark (D-Calif.)

Churches Of Christ (6)

Allen (D-Ala.)

Burleson (D-Tex.)

Flippo (D-Ala.)

Hall, Jr. (D-Tex.)

Latta (R-Ohio)

Sisk (D-Calif.)

Latter-Day Saints (11)

Cannon (D-Nev.)

Garn (R-Utah)

Hatch (R-Utah)

Young (R-N.Dak.)

Burgener (R-Calif.)

Clawson (R-Calif.)

Hansen (R-Idaho)

Heftel (D-Hawaii)

Marriott (R-Utah)

McKay (D-Utah)

Udall (D-Ariz.)

Unaffiliated (5)

Hayakawa (R-Calif.)

Frenzel (R-Minn.)

Kastenmeier (D-Wis.)

McCormack (D-Wash.)

Zeferetti (D-N.Y.)

Christian Science (3)

Percy (R-Ill.)

McClory (R-Ill.)

Rousselot (R-Calif.)

Others

Apostolic Christian

Michel (R-Ill.)

Assyrian Catholic Church of the East

Benjamin, Jr. (D-Ind.)

Bible Church

Quayle (R-Ind.)

Christian Methodist Episcopal

Burke (D-Calif.)

Churches of God in North America

Guyer (R-Ohio)

Evangelical Free

Anderson (R-Ill.)

Cederbere (R-Mich.)

Free Methoaist

Symms (R-Idaho)

Reformed Church in America

Caputo (R-N.Y.)

Maguire (D-N.J.)

Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints

Tucker (D-Ark.)

Schwenkfelder Schweiker (R-Pa.)

Seventh-Day Adventist

Pettis (R-Calif.)

Stump (D-Ariz.)

Seventh-Day Baptist

Randolph (D-W.Va.)

Society of Friends

Forsythe (R-N.J.)

Robinson (R-Va.)

‘Christian’ Or ‘Protestant’ (21) (No Specific Denomination)

Cranston (D-Calif.)

Hart (D-Colo.)

AuCoin (D-Oreg.)

Badillo (D-N.Y.)

Bonker (D-Wash.)

Cleveland (R-N.H.)

Coleman (R-Mo.)

Danielson (D-Calif.)

Dellums (D-Calif.)

Fascell (D-Fla.)

Fenwick (R-N.J.)

Gephardt (D-Mo.)

Hannaford (D-Calif.)

Krueger (D-Tex.)

Lundine (D-N.Y.)

Moss (D-Calif.)

Pease (D-Ohio)

Pursell (R-Mich.)*

Roncalio (D-Wyo.)

Studds (D-Mass.)

Weaver (D-Oreg.)

Richard G. Lugar, the Republican who defeated Democrat incumbent Vance Hartke in the Indiana contest for the U.S. Senate, lists himself as a United Methodist lay minister. Hartke belongs to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

There was a lot of talk this year about organized campaigns to get avowed Christians elected to public office. CHRISTIANITY TODAY found no single nationally coordinated organization carrying out this aim. There were, however, local and regional pockets of such activities involving evangelical groups. The most prominent of the groups was perhaps California Christians Active Politically (CCAP, pronounced “see-cap”).

CCAP, an offshoot of another group known as Creative Ministries (with which it shared staff and telephones in Walnut Creek, California), was headed by Pat Matrisciana, a former staffer with Campus Crusade for Christ and the Berkeley-based Christian World Liberation Front of the Jesus-movement era. Its stated purpose was to help get Christians elected to office. It provided support to ten of sixteen candidates it listed as “qualified Christians” in California running for state and national offices. Four of the ten were elected to state office. CCAP’s support included fund-raising drives, rallies, campaign consultation, and direct-mail advertising, according to Matrisciana. Other former Campus Crusade staffers joined him in the effort.

Candidates backed by CCAP had to meet the qualifications of elders in the third chapter of First Timothy, and their political opinions had to be based on the teachings of the Bible, said Matrisciana. Most of those backed were Republicans, but party affiliation did not matter as long as the candidates met biblical qualifications, the CCAP people insisted.

Singer-entertainer Pat Boone headed the CCAP executive committee. Other members included: San Diego pastor Tim LaHaye, Full Gospel promoter George Otis, prophecy author Hal Lindsey, Frank White of Knott’s Berry Farm, state assemblyman Bob Burke (he lost his election race), Bill Voit of the Voit Rubber Company, publisher Bob Hawkins of Harvest House, and broadcaster-author Margaret Hardesty.

Shortly before the election the American Jewish Committee (AMJ), expressing displeasure at religion-oriented campaign activities, released a list of twenty-one apparently born-again congressional candidates being promoted by evangelical groups. Only two won: Republican Robert Badham, a Lutheran in predominantly Republican Orange County, California, who defeated Judith Hall, a Jew, and Eldon D. Rudd of Phoenix, a Catholic and retired FBI agent who squeaked by his Democrat opponent by only 700 votes to take the seat vacated by John Conlan, an evangelical defeated in the primaries in his bid for the Senate.

Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the AMJ suggested that the AMJ’s publicity had a role in the defeat of most of those listed. He told Los Angeles Times religion reporter Russell Chandler that he felt “the notion of creating a ‘Christian Congress’ has not died, though in this election it has suffered a substantial setback.”

Interviewed by Chandler, some of the winners and losers in congressional races said that the “Christian issue” had been a factor though not a decisive one.

In a New York congressional race, Presbyterian minister William Harter failed to unseat Democrat Matthew McHugh, a Catholic. Other losers included two former baseball stars known for their evangelical witness, both Republicans: Wilmer Mizell (Christian and Missionary Alliance), who failed to regain the North Carolina congressional seat he lost in 1974, and Bobby Richardson (“independent evangelical”), who lost in South Carolina.

Benjamin Bubar was also among the losers. The superintendent of the Maine Christian Civic League ran for the presidency on the Prohibition party ticket, managing to garner 25,000 votes in nine states. “Church leaders let us down,” lamented a party leader.

In Minnesota, Catholic Richard Nolan was reelected to Congress despite attacks by challenger James Anderson linking him to Transcendental Meditation. Anderson accused Nolan of attempting to “convert fellow congressmen to the guru’s strange practices” and of supporting the teaching of atheism.

In a shift that will send Minnesota governor Wendell Anderson, a United Presbyterian, to the Senate to replace Vice President-elect Walter Mondale (also a United Presbyterian), Lieutenant Governor Rudy Perpich will move up to become the state’s first Catholic governor.

A number of issues that were up for vote were followed closely by church groups:

• California voters defeated a proposal to permit greyhound racing, and they rejected by a 5 to 3 margin Proposition 14, a measure designed to facilitate union organizing of farm workers (both sides spent more than $1.5 million on the campaign; many church social-action units backed the proposition).

• A proposal to legalize slot machines was turned down in Delaware.

• Casino gambling in Atlantic City was approved by New Jersey voters despite widespread but underfinanced (less than $20,000) church opposition (see editorial, page 36). As a result, some church groups around the nation are threatening to cancel meetings scheduled to be held in the city.

• State lotteries were endorsed in Colorado and Vermont, and Las Vegas Nights using gambling devices were okayed for charities in New York City.

• Measures to restrict the use of throwaway bottles and cans, fought by the beer and liquor interests among others, were adopted in Michigan and Maine but defeated in Colorado and Massachusetts.

• Sunday-closing laws were repealed in Maryland counties adjacent to Washington, D.C., and in Massachusetts, where voters agreed to allow absentee voting by persons whose religious convictions conflict with election dates.

• Massachusetts voters also passed an Equal Rights Amendment but soundly rejected a gun-control proposal.

• Parochaid-type proposals that would qualify students in independent colleges and universities for state aid lost in Nebraska and Alaska.

The Faithful: How They Voted

Veteran election-statistics analyst Albert J. Menendez, a journalist in Washington, D.C., made a study of the results of the recent presidential election. In it he attempted to track the religion factor in voting patterns. The following information is excerpted from the report he filed.

America’s normally Republican evangelical-conservative Protestant (ECP) voters apparently gave Jimmy Carter at least 40 per cent of their votes in his narrow victory over President Ford. In fifty key counties with significiant ECP population, Carter won an impressive 49.4 per cent of the vote, a dramatic increase of 20 per cent over McGovern in 1972. Of the estimated 16 million ECP votes cast nationwide, Carter won at least 6.4 million and Ford 9.6 million, surveys indicate. Ford’s 3.2 million majority was not enough to overcome the Catholic, Jewish, other Protestant, and unaffiliated majority for Carter. This swing to Carter, in addition to his 92 per cent landslide among black voters, was a major part of his success.

The importance of the ECP vote can be demonstrated in a comparison between 1976 and 1968. In 1968, Nixon had an estimated 7.2 million votes more over Humphrey among theologically conservative Christians, which narrowly overcame the 6.7 million lead for Humphrey among Catholics, Jews, and “others.” This year, Carter got only a five-million edge over Ford among these non-ECP voters, but by cutting Ford’s lead to 3.2 million among the conservative Christians he squeezed out a victory. This reversal in the ECP vote was the decisive factor in Carter’s Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania victories. In Missouri, for example, which was fairly close in 1960, 1968, and this year, Carter won 55 per cent in areas classified as evangelical or conservative Christian strongholds, compared to Kennedy’s 38 per cent. This more than offset the small decline in Catholic precincts.

A poll at Wheaton College among students and faculty found Ford favored about 67 to 30 per cent. However, since only 10 per cent of the students identified themselves as Democrats (versus 50 per cent Republicans and 40 per cent Independents), Carter’s showing is seen as respectable.

The Carter victory was substantially due to the swing of Protestant voters in general, not just evangelical ones; they gave him at least a seven-point higher percentage of their vote than is the norm for a Democratic presidential candidate. However, Carter dropped up to 6 per cent among Catholics and between 5 and 10 per cent among Jews. National surveys varied, and a careful precinct-and-county analysis is not infallible, but it appears that 68 to 75 per cent of Jews, 55 to 57 per cent of Catholics, and 46 per cent of Protestants voted for Carter.

Carter did well in counties not recognizably evangelical or denominationally homogeneous. In upstate New York, for example, far away from any southern migratory patterns that may have intermingled with religion to give Carter a solid showing in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana, he ran far better than Kennedy in thirteen predominantly Protestant counties. He made remarkable 14 per cent gains over Kennedy in five Protestant rural counties in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and he bested Kennedy by 15 per cent among Iowa Protestants.

Individual Protestant groups also gave Carter a favorable showing. His fellow Baptists gave him a clear majority, the first time since Truman in 1948 that they had given a Democrat a victory. This pattern was especially true throughout the southern and border states. He even carried two rock-ribbed Republican Baptist mountain counties in Alabama and Georgia that remained loyal to Alfred Landon, and he piled up record votes in east Tennessee, carrying several longtime Republican areas.

Carter won an impressive 52 per cent victory in heavily Lutheran counties throughout the midwest, surpassing by far McGovern, Humphrey (in Minnesota, even), Kennedy, and Stevenson. To a great extent, the Lutheran farm vote was essential to the Carter upset victory in Wisconsin.

Methodists broke even, demonstrating again their middle-of-the-road status.

The decline in the Catholic vote for the Democrat nominee was due in part to religious factors, including the abortion issue and Carter’s forthrightness in speaking about his faith. He did better than Humphrey and McGovern in some Catholic areas, worse in others (suburban St. Louis County, 31 per cent Catholic, went for Ford by 50,000 votes although it had gone for Kennedy by 9,000).

On the Republican side, President Ford’s major showings among religious groups came from Mormons in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada, from Dutch Reformed voters in Michigan and Iowa (a landslide 74 per cent), and from Seventh-day Adventists. There is no national data for Episcopalians and Presbyterians, but their affluence, high-education and suburban-residential patterns, and historic Republican preference probably resulted in a 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 edge for Ford.

It was evident that late in the campaign some shifting took place in the so-called evangelical bloc that was so solidly behind Carter only a few months earlier. This can be attributed in part to the controversial Playboy interview of Carter and last-ditch White House efforts to let evangelicals know that President Ford, too, was born again—and one of them.

The modest religious realignments in the 1976 election will fascinate political analysts for years to come, but their significance should not be overrated. After all, the American voter is unpredictable, and every eight years since 1952, the party in power has been ousted. It may be that a successful Carter presidency will bring more Protestant voters back to the Democratic party, but any long-range predictions must be held in abeyance.

What Is Evangelization?

Mission Trends No. 2, edited by Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky (Paulist or Eerdmans, 1975, 279 pp., $2.95 pb), is reviewed by Charles E. Hummel, director of faculty ministries, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Evangelization is the keynote of this volume on contemporary mission trends. The first in the series featured the nature and goals of the Christian mission, while the next will deal with Third World theologies.

The volume is remarkable for its breadth of view and depth of perception. The authors of the twenty-two essays run the spectrum from evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal to Roman Catholic. Equally varied are the racial and cultural perspectives, from American and European to African, Latin American, and Asian. Most of the essays first appeared as addresses, magazine articles, or reports, rather than as theological treatises, and they are very readable. Their length ranges from one to twenty-five pages.

Amid this diversity runs a strong current of urgent concern to understand how the Gospel can be effectively proclaimed in every continent and culture. This collection of essays is not a puzzle whose pieces can be neatly fitted together to form a blueprint for action. It is more a gem with many facets, each reflecting an aspect of evangelization or its impact in a specific situation.

The writers do not focus on techniques but go to the heart of the theological and ethical issues in mission strategy. The first section, seven essays under the umbrella “Mandate and Meaning of Evangelization,” deals with evangelism, conversion, and church membership. John Stott sets the stage with a clear exposition of the biblical basis of evangelism. He shows that the Church’s mission is broader than evangelism; “mission” describes its total service, everything the Lord sent the Church into the world to do as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Social and economic concerns are a part of this mission. A vital dimension of it is evangelism, spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Paul Löffler’s exposition of conversion, the human response to evangelism, draws on Old and New Testament teaching. He affirms that this personal reorientation toward God has corporate as well as individual consequences: “There is absolutely no gap between turning to God and its realization in the personal and social spheres.”

Ecuadorian René Padilla takes American “culture-Christianity” to task for preaching man’s reconciliation with God while denying man’s reconciliation with man in certain areas of alienation. This “truncated Gospel” provides the basis for “religious clubs with a message that has no relevance to practical life in the social, the economic and the political spheres.” Padilla makes it clear that every culture tends to tame and shape the biblical message for its own comfort. But he focuses on the American version because its influence in world missions is so great. This hard-hitting essay tests the extent to which we are willing to hear such criticism and take corrective action.

The second section of nine essays is headed “Priorities and Strategies.” Especially stimulating are perspectives from India and South Africa. Samuel Rayan relates evangelism and development in the sense of liberation and humanization. “How does faith in the Crucified link up with social action, political conflict and economic development?” He shows the urgency of this question for the Church in India, where for centuries colonial missions were content “to tailor the Gospel to suit the economic and political interests of their sponsors.”

Manus Buthelezi writes from his experience of the black agony in South Africa. He believes that now is the time for the black to evangelize and humanize the white and to “discover a theological framework within which he can understand the will and love of God in Jesus Christ outside the limitations of white institutions.”

Ralph Winter’s article on crosscultural evangelism defines three kinds of evangelism in terms of cultural distance and difficulty. E-1 evangelism involves witness to a non-Christian within one’s own culture. E-2 reaches out to someone nearby with a different social status or dialect or tribal membership that constitutes a cultural barrier. E-3 evangelism involves a radically different culture with its own language and customs. E-2 and E-3 are “crosscultural” and therefore more difficult than E-1. Winter notes that four out of five non-Christians in the world today are beyond the reach of any E-1 evangelism.

The strategy for evangelism calls for special E-2 and E-3 efforts to cross cultural barriers and establish strong evangelizing churches and groups that then carry on effective evangelism at the E-1 level. This model is also valuable for evangelistic efforts in our own home communities, as we try to evangelize special groups out of our E-1 sphere. Winter’s is the most practical chapter, in itself well worth the price of the book.

A short third section deals with pluralism in the Church and the world. Emmett Carter considers problems of unity and diversity. A study document defines and relates concepts of Christian witness, common witness, religious freedom, and proselytism.

A final section of three essays gives new perspectives on other faiths and ideologies. Of special interest in view of recent developments in China is Donald MacInnis’s “A New Humanity in People’s China.” He describes the profound changes that have transformed the psychocultural identity of the Chinese people. While God is doubtless at work in the lives of individuals, “Christianity incognito will fail to reach others for conversion to Christ.… An identifiable community, the Church as the body of Christ, is needed within society at large.”

As valuable primary source material the appendix gives excerpts from documents produced by such gatherings as the WCC’s “Salvation Today” conference in Bangkok and the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.

The editors did well in their selection of writings for this volume. And the introduction they provide for each essay whets the reader’s appetite for the stimulating pages to follow.

What’s Coming?

Images of the Future: The Twenty-first Century and Beyond, edited by Robert Bundy (Prometheus, 1976, 239 pp., $12.95), Religion 2101 A.D., by Hiley H. Ward (Doubleday, 1975, 247 pp., $7.95), and Understanding Tomorrow, by Lyle E. Schaller (Abingdon, 1976, 144 pp., $3.95 pb), are reviewed by Carl Townsend, director, Center for the Study of the Future, Portland, Oregon.

Each of us lives in the past, the present, and the future. Our past molds and shapes us, giving us a personal history. Our rituals and liturgies are a link to the past and what has gone before us. We also live in the present, sensing and experiencing the very reality of life. The future, however, gives us hope and vision. Our dreams and destiny lie in the future.

In earlier decades there was little fear or concern about the future. Change was slow and fairly predictable. It was easy to adapt to the changing world as one grew. This is no longer true. In the last few years we have experienced an increasing rebellion against any kind of authority; an increasingly sensate and pluralistic society; a growing suspicion of institutions; a depletion of many natural resources; the “liberation” of blacks, women, youth, and homosexuals; rapidly growing unemployment and (for some) increasing leisure; and the growing influence of the computer and other forms of technology in our life. During the last year, for example, our church in Portland has changed geographic location, changed facilities, changed its organizational structure, and changed its accounting procedure to enable better tracking of a budget that has doubled in size. We have also experienced a considerably change in the membership of the church.

This “Big Revolution,” as Schaller calls it in Understanding Tomorrow, is occurring at an ever increasing rate. “The person who can grasp the nature and direction of the Big Revolution will have an enormous advantage over those who do not comprehend this concept in both understanding and in responding to the changes that are a part of the second half of the twentieth century.”

For this reason the dreams and images we hold of the future are very important. The futurist does not predict the future; he creates images and visions of various alternative futures. From these we chose, creatively participating in making the future we desire come to pass. God’s Holy Spirit, working through us, becomes the actualizing force.

Polak, writing the opening essay in Images of the Future, says we must consciously work toward creating the future we desire or else the great decisions of the future (e.g., genetic manipulation, resource management, behavior modification) will be made by someone else. If we refuse to take responsibility for the future, others will make the future—both theirs and ours. “It is not a choice between having or not having any images of the future, but between good images—worth living and dying for—and bad images, which we cannot accept without betraying ourselves.”

The remaining six parts in this volume build on the thesis developed in the first part and take as subjects the futures movement and images of the possible, images of world trends and problems, images of human progress, non-male and non-white images of social reconstruction, religious imagination and the future, and images of education and learning.

The editor, Robert Bundy, writes in his own essay that most of us are now excluded from decisions about the future. The decisions are largely made by others and sold to us by way of Madison Avenue. Although as a society we are rich in information, in most areas of our lives we experience a poverty of information because we have shifted the decisions to the specialists. This leads to a narrow perspective and a poverty of imagination in forecasting and planning. There is a real need for “people centers” in our communities (both social and religious communities) to channel information and give a wider base for decision-making.

Lester Brown and Roy Fairchild, building on this, write that education is now recognized as the primary vehicle for social change. Few problems are as challenging as that of devising an educational system adequate for our needs in the late twentieth century. Education becomes the key in informing people of the need for change and motivating the acceptance of new ideas. Learning modes will soon consist more of networks than of buildings. With terminals and microcomputers in our homes, information will be mapped to each person profiled to his or her own needs. Televised courses and newspaper courses will grow a hundredfold, and information networks to provide legal, medical, and other professional help will be expanded. (At our Center for the Study of the Future, we are already using a microcomputer to match information to requests.)

A dozen new theologies carry us from our present age to the future. In the section on religious imaging, Elise Boulding groups these into four models: the existential, the radical Christian-secularist, the signals-of-transcendence model, and the sacration model. The author gives examples of each, adding that the “work of the Christian is to extend the concept of Koinonia into the secular world, helping to build new types of communities to cut across ethnic, national, class, and other boundaries.” We witness from community, yet this community is very difficult to achieve today because we have no common myths or stories.

One difficulty with this book is in assimilating the wide variety of views expressed by writers of many nationalities and religious persuasions. The cohesion is difficult, but Bundy does an excellent job of bringing them together. An epilogue weaves a fabric of ideas from this group of notable writers.

I recommend this book to the serious student as well as to those pastors and religious leaders involved in the process of change. In many churches change is happening fast. Our worship services need to help us more in bridging the past to the future. Our myths, liturgies, and symbols give us a link to the past. We also need a sense of calling, of our mission in the future. The whole congregation needs to be involved in this imaging process. In this sense the worship experience can become a “rite of passage,” carrying us into the future with a minimum of shock.

Hiley Ward’s Religion 2101 A.D., in contrast, is written in a style that is easy to read and digest. Ward, a religion writer for the Detroit Free Press, interviewed hundreds of notables in the futures field. His opening two chapters give a panorama of what can be expected in the future: high-strength structural materials, super-duty fabrics, seven-foot television screens, telepathic sermons, behavior control, special pills for special groups of people, increased I.Q., improved healing methods from mind control, people who look the way they want with no defects and with lifetime immunization from diseases, cloning, cyborgs (people with artificial parts), and genetic manipulation. Many of these technological developments are already a reality.

At the same time, says Ward, there are new religious experiments that are just as intriguing. Biersdorf, speaking at the 1973 “Insearch: The Future of Religion in America” conference, said in his keynote speech that here and there persons and communities are already creating new patterns for the future. “They are modeling the future now, so that surveys of 1980 will record their effectiveness in changing the shape of organized religion.” These groups can be effective in creating change, even though some of them may go out of existence or continue as minority forces.

Biersdorf put together a list of two hundred groups, of which fifty-six reported in detail to the Insearch conference. These included Pentecostals, house churches, communal groups, liturgical experiments, work communes, special agencies, meditative communities, and experimental congregations. In summary, Biersdorf noted that the groups had a common denominator in that whatever their intentional goals, they were preoccupied with the realization of an intimate community. In an earlier Insearch conference, Andrew Greeley said he believes the critical question is whether organized religion is ready to accept the authentic working of the Spirit in these underground communities. We are moving away from denominational polarities. The new polarity, says Bruce Larson, is the person versus the impersonal.

From this catalogue of contemporary experiments, Ward takes us on a space-age trip to the cities of tomorrow with their super-computer gods that automate the confession (this will free the priest for more critical theological activities).

Where is the institutional church in this? The cultural crisis of our age is leading to a new affirmation of the spiritual. The saints of tomorrow will be different and could be unheralded until we can change with them. The tide has come and gone, but we find ourselves on a different shore. Schillebeeckx believes the paths around the institution will determine the shape of the church of the future. Karl Rahner believes that a general church is not possible, and that the church will be characterized by a diversity of groups. The effective spiritual tension will continue to exist with a definite change in religious language by 1990 and 2000. Elmer Towns thinks most of the main Protestant denominations face a dim future. They lack identity and a dynamic theology. Martin Marty agrees with Towns in part, adding that most denominations are remote, impersonal, and bureaucratic. The religious giants have all departed.

Worship in the future will be more of the experimental, with new rituals and liturgy. There will be new uses of music and dance. There will be new emphasis on worship in the home.

Ward includes an appendix of 134 groups that are dealing with the future (including UFO groups and those of the military-industrial establishment). Some of the addresses are dated, but the list is a good starting point for correspondence with leading futurists.

Schaller’s Understanding Tomorrow is primarily a collection of statistics and information showing current social trends and their relation to the church and the religious dimension. The primary difficulty is that Schaller’s projections are based on trend analysis, which is inadequate in itself as a method for grappling with the future.

An example of this is his third chapter, which forms the thesis of his book. Here he says that we are in a rapid revolution, moving from a survival-oriented culture to an identity-oriented society. We find more meaning and recognition as persons than as performers of a task.

I agree with Schaller that our society has, indeed, moved to an identity crisis, but this is no guarantee that we will continue to move in this direction. In fact, many futurists and economists believe we are on the threshold of moving back rapidly to a survival-oriented society, and they foresee an impending economic collapse. Trend projections, in this sense, become inaccurate, and can be dangerous, lulling us to a false sense of security. We need to envision more about where the Holy Spirit is calling us, and then work backward from the future, using trend projections only to show us how to actualize our calling.

Schaller is excellent, however, in his advice to churches that find themselves caught up in change. His writings are based on many years of consulting with churches, and here he has much to offer. His final chapter suggests that we can no longer work with simple answers. In our complex world the intuitive response is generally counter-productive. The person or community who can envision or image where it wants to go and how the vision can be brought to reality has an enormous advantage over the person or community that is without a clear sense of identity in the midst of today’s change.

Many of the trends and changes Schaller mentions are particularly important for the near future of the church. In addition, anyone who uses imaging methods (and Schaller does at times) needs to be aware of trends.

All three books have a deficiency that continues to concern me as I read the writings of most futurists. Few seem to give us much insight into the work of the Holy Spirit in the community of the future. The Holy Spirit, acting in history, is both the illuminator (giving us the vision and image) and the enabler (giving us the power to actualize the vision). Until we become more aware of this power, we can expect little redemptive change.

Briefly Noted

Two meritorious books of photographs of church buildings, suitable for Christmas giving, nicely complement each other. Holy Places of Christendom by Stewart Perowne (Oxford, 160 pp., $12.95) covers the whole of church history and focuses on the stately. There are some non-church scenes. Pioneer Churches, photographs by John deVisser, text by Harold Kalman (Norton, 192 pp., $27.50), is restricted to North America, with a different sort of stateliness. Probably most of the buildings are wooden, and the range of denominations represented is broad.

Everyone who has the four-volume Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (published 1962) needs to acquire the Supplementary Volume edited by Keith Crim (Abingdon, 1,046 pp., $17.95). Preparing supplements every decade or so is an excellent idea that other reference-work publishers should consider. Of the more than 650 entries, 140 are completely new.

An expensive combination of “how to write” information (any help in this area is better than none) with data on presidents, states, countries, religions, art, and the like that are generally available in annual almanacs makes up the Quick Reference Encyclopedia (Nelson, 880 pp., $24.95).

The Catholic Encyclopedia by Robert Broderick (Nelson, 612 pp., $24.95) is a very curious offering. It comes from an evangelically controlled publisher, but there is no entry for “Evangelicalism” (nor for “Fundamentalism,” though there is one for “Jesus Movement”). There is an entry for “Franciscans” (the author studied at St. Francis Seminary) but none for “Dominicans” or “Trappists.” We are told that “current negotiations are under way for the Evangelical United Brethren to be merged with … the Methodist Church.” That merger was completed in 1968! No reference work is perfect, but …

Collegians In The Sixties

Radicals in the University, by Edward E. Ericson, Jr. (Hoover Institution Press, 1975, 281 pp., $11), is reviewed by William H. Young, professor of education, Barrington College, Barrington, Rhode Island.

This book offers a persuasive analysis of the rise and fall of the youth movement on college and university campuses in the 1960s. It traces the development of the ideology of the New Left movement from early pronouncements by the Students for Democratic Action to futile efforts to keep the radical impulse alive in the early 1970s. This study provides an intriguing insight into how this movement succeeded in capturing the imagination of so many university students and young faculty for a brief period in the last decade and why its revolutionary ideals so quickly lost their impact.

Ericson is a dean at Northwestern College, a Christian liberal arts college in Iowa. His central thesis is that contradictions inherent from the beginning in the goals of the New Left remained unresolved throughout the sixties and eventually led to its dissolution. He argues that the movement failed because its dual goals of personal and political liberation were defined in terms that produced unresolvable internal conflicts. Among the early radical leaders, a fervent desire for personal fulfillment and freedom inspired a quest for radical alternatives to existing social and political structures. Commitment to political revolution to achieve liberation for oneself and others eventually led to rigid Marxist forms of expression. Ultimately, however, radical politics proved an insufficient vehicle for integrating the hopes for personal and social freedom among young radicals. Disillusionment, bitter in-fighting, and factionalism were the inevitable outcome.

A case study of radicals in the fields of language and literature shows the two-headed character of this movement. Young teachers committed to its ideals could not reconcile their professional concerns and their political commitments. Teaching and writing about language and literature often seemed irrelevant and even inconsistent with their political radicalism. Their chief professional task involved the study and transmission of the great literary tradition of Western civilization, but their political theory led them to question this tradition and the place of the humanities in the university. In the end, these radicals chose politics over professionalism.

In a concluding essay Ericson carries his thesis one step further by viewing the radical movement as a quasi-religious phenomenon. The radicals frequently used religious metaphors to describe their experiences and motives. They sought to provide a unifying core of beliefs to govern all of life, and their quest for personal and social salvation had deep moral and spiritual dimensions. This study even shows that the radical movement took on characteristic features of sectarian religion, including heresy-hunting, proof-texting, and appeals to infallible authority. But revolutionary politics failed as a substitute religion for the same reason it failed as a movement for liberation: it could not satisfy the spiritual needs of the young radicals themselves.

The book, therefore, is of particular interest to evangelicals. They will find in it testimony to the inability of a quasi-religious political movement to satisfy the moral and spiritual impulses that originally brought it into being. The further this radicalism moved toward political activism and rigid ideology, the more alienated became its young adult adherents, whose idealism had profound spiritual roots. Ericson’s study helps the reader understand what shaped the radical movement and why its growth and demise cannot be understood in purely secular terms.

New Periodicals

The New Review of Books and Religion began in September as the successor to Review of Books and Religion and Seabury’s New Book Review. Librarians, professors, and others who are interested in serious (but not overly technical) religious books will want to see it regularly. The editor-in-chief is Iris Cully, who teaches at Lexington Seminary. Monthly, $10/year (815 Second Ave., New York. N.Y. 10017).

Theological Education Today is a quarterly replacement for Programming. First issue was in April. The scope is worldwide, and the name was changed to broaden the subject matter to include all educational methods. (It is not a news sheet.) Sponsor is the World Evangelical Fellowship, to which checks should be made; $3 airmail, $1.50 surface (address: J. E. Langlois, Les Emrais, Castel, Guernsey, U.K.).

Commenting on Ecclesiastes’ curtain speech about “pleasing words” and “words of truth,” G. S. Hedry says: “In the ancient world authorship was held of small account, so small indeed that the names of many authors of antiquity have been lost. The question men asked of a book was not ‘Who wrote it?’ but ‘What does it say?,’ and there was no need for an author to make a profession of modesty, since his work was not regarded as a personal achievement or a feat of virtuosity” (The New Bible Commentary Revised, D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer, eds., 1970, p. 578). While that observation says less than some of us would say about the biblical writers, it nonetheless holds a powerful message for many of the rest of us.

For all that, I shall risk a few reminiscences and venture some comments on evangelical literary production.

Some thirty years ago, the only book this converted journalist had written was A Doorway to Heaven, a readable work on the Pacific Garden Mission now long out of print after some eleven editions. An evangelical publisher telephoned me from his Hawaii vacation spot to offer a $10,000 advance royalty if I would write a newspaperish biography of Jesus. The invitation rather stunned me. Who was I, I mused, to write a life of Jesus? Besides, the thought of thus turning Christian realities into a profit bothered me. My negative decision at that time helped to reinforce a growing determination to devote my writing energies to solid advancement of the cause of biblical truth.

When I wrote Remaking the Modern Mind I soon learned that many believers who have a lively evangelistic interest in Christianity do not at the same time have serious intellectual propensities. Even a fellow college alumnus wrote the alumni office that he had read Remaking twice but still couldn’t figure out what I was saying. By contrast, when in New Delhi I was covering the World Council of Churches assembly, a Christian leader sought me out for a word of personal thanks. “In my university studies my Christian faith was under heavy pressure,” he said, “and I want to thank you for the book that held me steady.”

In recent days a publisher has issued the first two of my four volumes on God, Revelation and Authority, themes of essential and even of supreme importance in theology today. If, God helping me, I complete the total effort by 1980, I will consider the four volumes to be my final contribution to the evangelical witness, unless I subsequently yield to pressures to write also a candid autobiography entitled Confessions of a Nonconformist.

Few readers, least of all those not at home in serious reflective thought, sense the toll in time and energy that serious writing takes—the long hours, the impact on family life, the self-restricted social opportunities, the pre-empted weekends and vacations, the ceaseless reading to stay abreast, the tedious editing and re-editing (in which I have providentially had the help of a gifted wife). My own library of about 10,000 volumes, now being dismantled and contributed piecemeal to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has provided a costly but invaluable and indispensable insight into the best minds of the ages.

Ours is not a time when American Christianity has been intellectually strong. Neo-orthodox theology deliberately took an anti-conceptual stance and, along with existential theology, rejected cognitive knowledge of the invisible world. Even the older rationalistic modernist theology in time tilted more and more toward anti-intellectualism. Fundamentalism, to be sure, emphasized the indispensability of revealed doctrines, but it pursued theology mainly in an evangelistic context and largely ignored the task of earnest philosophical confrontation. Technically oriented scholars were the exception, and one can be grateful for Gordon H. Clark, Cornelius Van Til, Edward John Carnell, and others who in their evangelical concerns interacted with the contemporary theological revolt. None of the evangelical writers here at home gained the literary power, reading audience, and wide impact of C. S. Lewis, though D. Elton Trueblood, espousing a kind of evangelical rational theism, alternated serious and popular works with considerable literary flair. Among British evangelicals, relatively few engaged in serious philosophical-theological writing; most of them lent their energies instead to biblical studies.

Many American evangelicals tend to be suspicious of higher learning and measure Christian credibility only by the yardstick of conversion. Various disconcerting signals of evangelical weakness have been the forfeiture of Christian university possibilities; the move toward an evangelical doctorate only in the context of missionary concerns; the fact that most significant philosophical contributions now come mainly from evangelical scholars teaching on secular university faculties (Alvin Plantinga at Calvin is a noteworthy exception); the limited scholarship support for serious evangelical graduate study and research effort; and reader interest among evangelicals in primarily intellectually undemanding literature.

The brighter side of the picture over the past generation is the appearance and growing demand for theological symposiums, Bible commentary series, modest encyclopedia efforts, theological and ethics dictionaries, and a few works in the area of biblical theology. The market for these works is largely among ministers and seminarians, however. Lay men and women have yet to share widely in an intellectual theological awakening; their usual concerns are stimulated mainly by polemical works, and some of their pastors set little example in reading and discussing serious religious literature. Among some Christian college students, however, we see a gratifying upturn of interest in intellectually rewarding evangelical books; this parallels what is happening in the religion departments of some secular universities. Serious evangelical students are realizing that neglect of the rational foundations of Christian theism and failure to confront the radically secular, positivist, and existential alternatives to biblical theology will only make less and less credible their own faith in the self-revealed God.

In a time of trouble the Apostle Paul solicited his “cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:13). He did not, however, reserve his reading for the hours of critical need only. He was versed most deeply in Scripture, as we all need to be. But he was also a well and broadly read man, qualified to enter into dialogue with the unbelieving world of his day, to unmask its misconceptions, and to present a convincingly relevant alternative.

We have just been having a few days of rest beside the Mediterranean Sea. A raging three-day wind and rain storm made us conscious of the sound of the waters day and night, pounding against rocks, crashing against the shore. We stood fascinated but with a feeling of respect tinged with fear as we watched a point on the rocks one afternoon: the water whirled and was sucked out into the sea, making a shallow area that suddenly seemed attacked by mountains of waves, higher than any of the rest, that crashed and thundered in to refill the drained-out area. The sound of the pounding waves kept us awake between four and eight o’clock in the morning as the wind rose and water washed in gusts against our windows. The sound of many waters penetrated our consciousness with the realization of power, power that human beings can do nothing about. Here is the power that is connected with floods, tidal waves, and breaking dams, the power that gives sudden illustration of the frailness of human defenses. Water—the sound of power. Many waters—the sound of great power, which demands some kind of attention.

“Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory” (Ezek. 43:1, 2). In describing the appearance of the living creatures he saw, which are to be seen in the future by many others, Ezekiel says this: “And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host …” (1:24). Again here the voice of God the Almighty is compared to the noise of waters. John in Revelation 1:15 describes the One who stood before him, saying in part, “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.” The voice John heard as Jesus spoke in all his glory was not to be compared with that of the meek and quiet Jesus whom John knew as a daily companion earlier in his life. John’s description of the voice of the glorified Lord in all his power is the same as Ezekiel’s: it was like the sound of powerful waters, the kind of sound that permeates the whole atmosphere, shuts out other things, penetrates and awakens.

Come now to David’s description of the voice of the Lord in Psalm 29:3–9. “The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.… The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; the LORD shaketh the winderness of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, and discovered the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.” Not only is the sound a sound of power, as God speaks, but results take place that no man can accomplish with his finite voice.

The voice of God is unique in the universe. When Jesus spoke in his voice, which had not yet the sound John was later to hear, the winds and the waves obeyed him. The sea suddenly became calm, so that the disciples not only might be safe from the danger of drowning but might have demonstrated to them very vividly the powerful results of Jesus’ voice. The sounds of wind-blown rain, seas raging in storms, tidal waves sweeping houses into rubble, waters unleashed from too frail dams, remind us of the sound of God’s voice. And they remind us also that his voice can change things that man can do nothing about. The results of God’s voice speaking in authority are awesome.

Although both Ezekiel and John were overcome by the awesome sound of power when they heard the Lord’s voice, they were able to report what the Lord said. In Ezekiel 43 we are told in verse 6, “And I heard him speaking unto me …,” and in the next verse, “And he said unto me.…” The content is full of very clear warning and judgment of the sin of turning away from God, of commiting spiritual adultery by following false gods and false teaching. There is the warning followed by a promise: “Now let them put away their whoredom … and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.”

The powerful voice of God warns of judgment, and the same voice expresses his compassion for those who come back to him in his given way. We are to listen with the same intensity of awe we feel when we observe the power of water. His spoken truth is not for us to judge or edit; we are to listen, absorb, understand, and bow.

What is it John heard said by the voice that sounded to him as the sound of many waters? “Fear not: I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hades.” That same voice speaks on in chapters that follow with strong messages to the seven churches, and to us. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7). “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna …” (2:17). In chapter three the voice should penetrate any who have “an ear” with which to hear: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed.… Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:17, 18, 20).

The voice of God speaks with power and with clarity. In Revelation 12:11 the “overcomers” throughout the centuries are described, those who have listened to the voice of God in his written and preserved word and have followed what God has said: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

Sixteen years ago nineteen-year-old Robert Zimmerman moved from Minnesota to New York City. He left behind his past, his family, and his name. Ahead was his new life as Bob Dylan, influential singer-songwriter. Over the years countless artists have recorded Dylan’s songs, and he has toured the world. Dylan is one of the three major trendsetters in popular music, the other two being Elvis Presley and the Beatles. The press has hailed him as a prophet, a leader, a teacher, a messiah, a poet, the voice of young America, and the conscience of his generation. Dylan says he’s just a songwriter.

Throughout his career Dylan has reflected his religious upbringing. Raised in a strict Jewish home, he fills his songs with religious language, biblical references and characters, and theological questions. He views man in the light of the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Man must choose to follow God and truth or fall into death, decay, and ultimate judgment.

“Gates of Eden” (1965) says the world is evil but “there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden.” Dylan sees the world as “sick … hungry … tired … torn/It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born” (“Song to Woody,” 1962); as a “concrete world full of souls” (“The Man in Me,” 1970); and as a “world of steel-eyed death and men who are fighting to be free” (“Shelter From the Storm,” 1974). Technologically advanced America threatens human freedom, feels Dylan, who confesses that “the man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen/But that’s just because he doesn’t want to turn into some machine.” In “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” (1965), his sermon in song line by line decries the phoniness of society’s games. “Human gods” make “everything from toy guns that spark/ To flesh colored Christs that glow in the dark.” “Not much is really sacred,” Dylan concludes.

Early in his career Dylan wrote many finger-pointing songs about man’s inhumanity to man. He sang out against racial prejudice, hatred, and war. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” perhaps his most famous song, asks, “How many ears must one man have/Before he can hear people cry?”

Freedom and sin are major themes in a number of Dylan’s songs. “With God on Our Side” (1963) is a satirical justification of war. In “Masters of War” (1963) he lashes out at the war profiteers who make money from young men’s lives. He concludes that “Even Jesus would never/Forgive what you do.” This cool, calculated evil will be punished, for “All the money you made/Will never buy back your soul.” Dylan retells the story of Abraham and Isaac in “Highway 61 Revisited” (1965). Abraham questions God, who replies, “You can do what you want Abe, but/The next time you see me coming you’d better run.” Abraham complies, knowing that peace with God comes only through obedience to God’s directives. Ten years later Dylan reiterated that in “Oh Sister”: “Is not our purpose the same on this earth/ To love and follow His direction?”

Hard Rain, his most recent album, contains a live concert version of “Lay, Lady, Lay,” written in 1969. Dylan adds these lyrics: “You can have the truth/But you’ve got to choose it.” Is man ultimately responsible for sin? Is man really free? Yes, man is free to choose to obey or disobey divine directives, but he is responsible and will be judged (“I’d Hate to Be You on That Dreadful Day” and “Whatcha Gonna Do?,” 1962).

Dylan reads the Bible, and his favorite parts are the parables of Jesus. The album John Wesley Harding, recorded in 1968, two years after his nearly fatal motorcycle accident, contains a song patterned after those parables. “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” tells of Frankie Lee’s thirst for wealth and his sensual lust, which ultimately bring his downfall and death. Frankie Lee denies that eternity exists. Dylan moralizes, “Don’t go mistaking Paradise for that home across the road.” So many people fail to think of anything besides their own quest for wealth; eternity means nothing to them. “Three Angels” (1970) play horns atop poles as people, oblivious, hurry by. “Does anyone hear the music they play?/Does anyone even try?”

Dylan views man spiritually. In “Dirge” (1973) he confesses, “I felt that place within/ That hollow place/ Where martyrs weep/ And angels play with sin.” In “Simple Twist of Fate” (1974) he writes of one who “Felt that emptiness inside/ To which he just could not relate.” Man’s spiritual cavity too often remains vacant.

Dylan has criticized the established religious institutions. “Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. The churches are divided. Can’t make up their minds and neither can I,” he said early in his career. He hit at the attempts of churches and preachers to be relevant in “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” (1966):

Now the preacher looked so baffled

When I asked him why he dressed

With twenty pounds of headlines

Stapled to his chest

But he cursed me when I proved it to him.

Then I whispered. “Not even you can hide.

You see, you’re just like me.

I hope you’re satisfied.”

Religious institutions are impotent: “The priest wore black on the seventh day/ And sat stone-faced while the building burned” (“Idiot Wind,” 1974).

Dylan views God pantheistically. “I can see God in a daisy,” he told an interviewer. “I can see God at night in the wind and rain. I see creation just about everywhere. The highest form of song is prayer. King David’s, Solomon’s, the wailing of a coyote, the rumble of the earth.” In his modern-day psalm “Father of Night” (1970), Dylan praises God as the creator of night and day, heat and cold, loneliness and pain. He is the Father of all “who dwells in our hearts and our memories,” the “Father of whom we most solemnly praise.” Dylan’s prayer for his generation and all succeeding people is outlined in “Forever Young” (1973): “May God bless and keep you always,” may you “know the truth,” be righteous, upright, and true and “stay forever young.” For as he wrote earlier, “He not busy being born/ Is busy dying.”

“Sign on the Cross” (1967), perhaps Dylan’s most enigmatic song, says that the sign on Jesus’ cross can never be forgotten—“And it’s still that sign on the cross/ That worries me.” Men cannot escape that symbol and what it means.

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (1972) deals with death. “I Threw It All Away” (1969) points to love as the ultimate force for good in the world. “Oh Sister” tells of dying, being reborn, and being “mysteriously saved.” “Shelter From the Storm” finds Dylan wearing a crown of thorns and bargaining for salvation. “Long Ago, Far Away” (1962) warns that those who promote brotherhood might end up hanging on a cross. “Isis” (1975) speaks of quick prayers that easily satisfy. Priests recite “prayers of old” as the face of God appears in the streets in “Romance in Durango” (1975). “Joey” (1975) pictures a God of retribution who will punish evil acts.

Bob Dylan pioneered the message song; he remains at its forefront. He asks metaphysical questions and tries to give some answers, which are less than Christian. But he has affected many young people and continues to do so. We need to understand what kind of spiritual guidance he gives.

Daniel J. Evearitt is the assistant pastor of Tappan Alliance Church, Tappan, New York.

For Tolkien Fans

Late last summer at an informal gathering in Bethesda, Maryland, J. R. R. Tolkien’s daughter, Priscilla, announced that the long awaited The Silmarillion was finally at the publisher’s. And Tolkien devotees have more than that book to look for. Letters From Father Christmas, written for his children when they were young, and a new biography will soon be published.

Clyde Kilby’s delightful anecdotal book entitled Tolkien and The Silmarillion, published last spring (Harold Shaw), provides a good introduction to the Oxford don. C. S. Lewis’s comment that he served as Tolkien’s “midwife” becomes clearer after Kilby tells us of his disorganized, eccentric manner of work. And we also understand why it has taken Tolkien’s son Christopher so long to put The Silmarillion into publishable form.

In its Writers for the Seventies series Crowell has reprinted a 1972 Warner volume, J. R. R. Tolkien, by Robley Evans. Evans adds little to Tolkien criticism; both style and content are relatively undistinguished.

Those who enjoy Tolkien will want to read Patricia A. McKillip’s latest novel. The Riddle-Master of Hed (Atheneum, 228 pp., $7.95), the first volume of a trilogy, has several things in common with Tolkien’s work. It takes place in another world and tells of the end of an age. The plot turns on a quest, though of a different nature from Frodo’s. Some of McKillip’s names sound elvish, and language and names are central to her story.

By her clever creations McKillip saves her story from being merely derivative. She makes the vesta, an animal “broad as a farmhorse, with a deer’s delicate triangular face,” live. The ability of a man to change shape, to become a vesta, provides her with a striking image. Her description of what it’s like to be a strong, free animal, warm and white against the cold snow, has a dream-like quality. Protagonist Morgon’s Great Shout splits the High One’s house from top to bottom, and ends the first volume. That conclusion is a cliff-hanger; I hope the second volume will be published soon.

Another story for older children and adults (nine and up, says the book jacket) from Atheneum examines Margaret Redmon’s life after death. Song of the Pearl (158 pp., $6.50) by Ruth Nichols is a difficult book to follow. She mixes a little reincarnation with some apocryphal sayings of Jesus, a gnostic hymn (the title of the book is the hymn title), a little Indian superstition, and some other religious ideas. (Nichols is a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at McMaster University.)

The story is interesting. But the religious implications are so intertwined with the plot that I doubt whether nine-year-olds would appreciate it at even the simplest level. Nichols’s talent is wasted in this religous story.

Ursula K. LeGuin, best known for her science-fiction stories, has written a lovely short tale, Very Far Away From Anywhere Else (Atheneum, 89 pp., $5.95), for older children and adults. This, too, can be called a religious book, but in contrast to Song of the Pearl it is simple, unaffected, moving. Why am I different? What do I want from life? How shall I live? What things are worth sacrifice? The narrator and his friend discover the answers to some of these questions as the story progresses. LeGuin uses the first-person style effectively, allowing it, as well as the plot, to show the protagonist’s maturation.

CHERYL FORBES

Low-Grade ‘Plot’

Gong! The scene changes. Another gong. Another scene changes. Gong.… And so on throughout the film. Those gongs are the most memorable part of a less-than-grade-B film—C-minus, perhaps.

The Passover Plot, released by Atlas Films, is a silly movie made from that bad book by Hugh Schonfield so much talked about a few years ago. The story, à la Romeo and Juliet: Jesus takes a drug to slow his heart to an imperceptible beat. He’s crucified but never dies. Thus a fake resurrection. The movie is fairly faithful to the book, and it’s obviously unbiblical. Add to the weak plot poor pacing, both under- and overacting, and a badly written and edited script.

Most of the actors are television rejects. The pauses Jesus makes between phrases slow the film to a crawl. His face is expressionless, his voice inflection free. His movements are rigid, studied, self-conscious. Another character (his name is unimportant; in fact, it’s difficult to tell who is who) shrieks all his lines in a hoarse, rasping voice—and he lisps. His facial muscles do double duty; he’s supposed to be a Zealot. John the Baptist is a little better, though he, too, is portrayed as wild-eyed.

Is the plodding “Passover Plot” a put-on?

Pilate is the only character worth watching, but unfortunately he is off camera most of the time. He looks and sounds natural, unlike the rest of the cast, who either scream or moon. The sympathies of the audience go to Pilate and not the oppressed Hebrews. Creaking Caiaphas calls Pilate “governor,” which jarringly comes out “guv’nuh.” He sounds as if he belongs in My Fair Lady.

The script-writers attempt to sound biblical and literary. But they undercut their efforts by throwing in such American slang as “lay low.” Perhaps the whole thing is a put-on.

Occasionally the cameramen give us some nice touches, and visually the film is not badly edited. A particularly effective shot comes when John the Baptist is arrested. He has just baptized a woman and stands in the water waiting for other converts to step forward. The crowd is afraid of the Roman soldiers on horseback watching nearby. As John turns in the water to see what has mesmerized the crowd, one of the Romans rides into the water, and the camera shows us the pounding horse’s hoofs flailing and churning the water.

The good camera work is too often undercut by the director’s bad blocking. At the end of a Jewish uprising the bodies of the victims are seen lying equidistant from one another in the sand. Most of the scenes have a rigid, tableau-like appearance. That lack of fluid movement, too, slows down the pace.

The producers of The Passover Plot are trying to cash in on the renewed religious mood in this country. We can count on not only reviews but also word of mouth to thwart them.

CHERYL FORBES

When Northern Ireland’s constitutional convention dissolved in disarray last spring, many observers predicted a new outbreak of killing, a stepped-up IRA offensive, even open civil war. That never happened, and now the Peace People have proved once again the folly of trying to prophesy events in that troubled country.

Recently, Protestant and Catholic women, fed up with eight years of violence and empty political rhetoric, joined in an unprecedented show of unity. Some 20,000 of them marched together in Belfast to demand peace. No one was more surprised than the beleaguered citizens themselves, and few expected anything to come of it. However, the movement has grown, and while both the IRA and Ian Paisley have denounced it, one Belfast paper editorialized, “the ordinary, decent Northern Irishwoman and man have found their voice, and they like the sound of it better than the voices that have been loudly raised in their name over the last eight years.”

More Americans confess to not understanding the Northern Ireland conflict than to not understanding the Middle East or the situation in Cyprus or Africa or other world hot spots. The most frequently asked question: “Is it a religious war?”

The ugly spectacle of two Christian bodies resolving their differences through violence makes most Christians shudder. Yet bloody battles in the name of Christianity are nothing new. Right after the Reformation, Catholic-Protestant wars raged in Europe, and churchmen all too often had a hand in assassinations, massacres, and political machinations.

Although the Ulster conflict has been complicated by religion, it is much more than a denominational war. Political power, civil rights, economic discrimination, deep-seated political differences, group identity and survival—all these factors enter into a fight in which the two sides are termed “Protestant” and “Catholic.”

No one is arguing doctrine. Although a few Protestant politicians express anti-Catholic sentiments, Protestant militants aren’t fighting to protest the papal claim to infallibility or belief in the presence of Christ’s body in the Lord’s Supper. IRA leaders generally lean so far to the political left that the church has excommunicated them, and many are atheists. The Queens University students who kicked off the present spate of troubles in 1968 were declared Marxists.

Is it a religious war? No one is arguing doctrine. But tribal instincts are strong, and both Catholics and Protestants fear that their way of life is in danger. Churches have not done all they might to cool the flames.

Tribal instincts are strong, and both Protestants and Catholics fear that their way of life is in danger. Religion, however, as a Time essay writer put it, “always a receptacle for ultimate aspirations, can enlist the best and the worst in its congregations. In conflict, religion can be used—or perverted—to call up supernatural justifications for killing.” A few Protestant extremists in Northern Ireland sound disturbingly like Luther, who wrote, “He who will not hear God’s Word when it is spoken with kindness must listen to the headsman when he comes with his ax.”

The Ulster struggle, however, is not a throwback to the sixteenth century, even though there is a case for handing the blame for the deep sectarian feeling back to England. Without question, over the years the Westminster government inflamed the animosities between the two groups as a means of controlling the country. For example, when Irish lands were confiscated, the justification offered was protection against the papacy. Actually, it was protection against Spain and France that England had in mind.

The Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Penal Laws of the early 1700s deprived Catholics of basic civil rights such as education, property ownership, and participation in public life. Lord Randolph Churchill, trying to oust the liberal Gladstone as prime minister in 1886, played what he called “the Orange Card.” He kindled the fears of Northern Protestants to believe that “home rule would mean Rome rule.”

H. M. Carson, a minister in Bangor, points a finger at history but aims it at the sixteenth-century reformers. He says they failed to deal with the Roman view of the state as sacred, and cites men such as John Calvin and John Knox, who thought in terms of national churches. When the seventeenth-century planters came to Ulster, they came not only as English and Scots but as Anglicans and Presbyterians. The cause of Ulster soon became the cause of Christ, and the conflict one between the people of God and the people not of God. Carson adds, parenthetically, that when one sees what the so-called Protestant population is like, one realizes how absurd that idea is.

“Under this kind of thinking,” Carson wrote, “the Protestant minister becomes an Elijah on Mt. Carmel facing the apostate ruler … and confronting the priests of Baal (for Baal read the Roman Catholic church).

“By New Testament standards, however, this is a false equation. No one nation today stands where Old Testament Israel stood. The Church of Christ is not the religious aspect of the nation but is the community of faith drawn out of the nation.”

Carson is one of many who bemoan the political involvement of ministers, especially as they commit churches to a political position. Although he doesn’t name the Reverend Ian Paisley in his writings, Carson is aware that Paisley is the chief exponent of this position. It is difficult to deny that it is a religious struggle when a man clearly states, as Paisley has, that he is fighting a religious battle. For him, no doubt, it is religious. The following passage from Paisley’s Protestant Telegraph is typical of his arguments:

“Ulster Protestants are passing through a time of tremendous testing. The Socialist government at Westminster is intent on their destruction. Harold Wilson, the puppet of Cardinal Heenan, and Mr. Callaghan, the puppet of Harold Wilson, are out for our destruction. Ulster is, in fact, to all intents and purposes under direct Westminster control, with a military dictatorship geared to placate the Roman Catholics and browbeat and ‘jackboot’ the Protestants.” (The Protestant siege mentality comes through here as strongly as the anti-Catholicism.)

Paisley’s anti-Catholic rhetoric has contributed immeasurably to the hardening of sectarian positions in the last six or seven years. How, for example, does someone on either side respond when he reads in the Protestant Telegraph, in an article about the sale of Hitler statuettes in Germany, the suggestion that they “make a statuette of the greatest war criminal that was never hanged, Pope Pius XII.” Paisley’s speeches are filled with more than bigotry and hatred. They are violent in nature and have contributed directly, as the Cameron Commission concluded, to riots and to bloodshed.

Just how influential is Ian Paisley and his Protestant Telegraph? No doubt he stepped into a leadership vacuum in the early seventies and struck a responsive chord with a majority of the Protestant working class. Then, as positions hardened, he swung many moderates behind him. And as Albert Menendez says in The Bitter Harvest, “it is doubtful that ultimate peace can come to Ulster unless the Protestants who subscribe to these views can be convinced that their fears are largely groundless.”

While for Paisley it is a religious battle fought on the political level, many of his followers no doubt are more interested in the political part of it. Close associates of Paisley formed the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, some of whom were no doubt instrumental in reorganizing the Ulster Volunteer Force. The original UVF was the illegal Protestant paramilitary group formed by Lord Edward Carson in 1912, and it forced the division of Northern and Southern Ireland. Since it was reorganized in the late sixties, the UVF has been responsible for dozens of bombings, shootings, and deaths. Most outside observers agree that Ian Paisley’s rhetoric gave birth to the new Protestant volunteer movement.

A second focal point for anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland is the Orange Order. At the close of the eighteenth century, Protestants, again feeling the threat of the Catholic majority, began forming secret societies that coalesced into the Orange Order. Its main purpose has always been to maintain Protestant supremacy, and it is impossible today to measure the immense influence it has on the social and political life of the country.

The Orange Order is a major factor in keeping Protestants convinced that the real enemy is Rome, and many rank-and-file Orangemen (some 100,000 in Ulster) believe that the Vatican was behind the civil-rights protests as a ploy in its plan for world conquest.

On July 12 each year the Orange Order sponsors the marches that on dozens of occasions have led to violence. Thousands of orange-sashed marchers with bowler hats, beating large drums, parade through the streets. Their very presence provokes strong Catholic antagonism, and they often feed these feelings with anti-Catholic taunts and jeers. These bring stones, rocks, and bottles down on the marchers, and the battle is on.

This, by the way, is the organization that teaches its members to respond, when asked why they are Orangemen, “Because I desire to live to the Glory of God, and, resisting every superstition and idolatry, earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.”

To what extent, then, are the churches to blame for the current situation? Could they, if they so willed, exert more influence for peace?

Certainly they have made the expected pronouncements. At regular intervals, or after some particularly bloody incident, leading churchmen deplore the violence and the current state of war. Bishop so and so “condemns the foul and callous bombing of the pub in the Falls Road.” Or the moderator of the such and such church says, “When will we come to our senses and sit down together to work out our differences?” Every major church group has made a dozen such statements, and hundreds of sermons have been preached on peace, brotherhood, non-violence, and the like.

But all too often the speeches of churchmen, while calling for an end to violence, also heap fuel on the fire by pinning blame on the other side. After the bitter battles of Belfast and Londonderry in August, 1969, Cardinal Conway called on his people to “remember that Protestants in general are good Christian people.” Yet at the same time he threw the blame at the feet of Protestant mobs. Immediately three leading Protestants attacked the cardinal’s statement.

Protestant and Catholic clergy have, of course, been conditioned by the same culture and history as their flocks. They also feel the weight of heavy community pressure. Any sign of reconciliation or offer of peace may be taken as weakness or straying from the faith and could bring on them the scorn of their own people.

Christians find it hard to admit that their faith can be a factor in a shameful scandal such as that in Northern Ireland. No doubt faith is not to blame. But that which has passed for religion in Ireland and in many parts of the world since the fall of man has certainly been a large part of the problem. On top of that, the churches and church leaders who bear the name of Christ have contributed significantly to the blot on his name.

Many thinking people in Northern Ireland have looked at churches’ involvement (or lack of it) and rejected the institution and its basic message. As one local editorial writer put it, “it is no wonder that so many honest men and women avoid the hypocrisy of such ‘Christianity’ and in the process opt for a fairly civilized life, based on roughly asserted secular values that at least have some aesthetic appeal.”

On the other hand, individual acts of Christian love abound, even though their effect on efforts for peace is negligible. There was, for example, the pastor who was sitting in his office before a Sunday-evening service when word came of trouble down the street. “My place is down there,” he said, and he ran from the church. At the riot scene he found two groups hurling rocks, bottles, and curses. He also found an Anglican rector, two curates, a parish priest, and a Methodist minister. The clergymen linked arms and formed a human barrier between the two mobs.

Then there is the Methodist minister who takes his people caroling each Christmas in a Catholic section; the mill worker who lost both legs in a bomb blast but feels no bitterness; the young man who once threw rocks at the soldiers but now plays gospel songs on his guitar in the army canteen. And there is the priest to whom the army turned for help to quell a riot; he walked up to a group of angry women and said, “Sure, and do you know what they tell me? That all the good-looking women are going home.” That brought a good laugh and broke up the crowd.

Another place where the sectarian wall has toppled and where bitterness and prejudice seem to have dissolved is within the charismatic movement. It has spawned a half dozen or more weekly meetings in which Presbyterians, Brethren, Methodists, and other Protestants pray, sing, study the Bible and worship with Catholics, an almost unheard of event before this. While the charismatic movement in Ireland is lay oriented, leading Catholic and Protestant clergymen are involved.

A few leading churchmen have also risen above sectarianism. Some Protestant clergymen dared to meet with IRA leaders to help bring about a temporary ceasefire one Christmas. Others on both sides have braved scorn and recriminations to make meaningful contact with their opposites. But they are a minority.

Writers and commentators in Ireland generally avoid any great show of optimism. When asked about the future, they often devise scenarios—if A were to happen, then B would follow.

Many Christians pray for revival and for peace, but the two are inseparably linked in their minds. There seems to be an assumption that if God is going to do anything, it must be to bring an end to the troubles. Peace is viewed more politically than spiritually. The most frequently quoted Scripture verse in the country may be Second Chronicles 7:14—“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Of course, if Christ genuinely changes a life, it will show up in behavior. If love and patience and longsuffering and peace replace hatred and bigotry and fear and unrest in a large number of lives, why shouldn’t we expect it to touch all areas of life and bring peace to a weary land?