The Negro Church Becomes The Black Church

If Christ Is the Answer, What Are the Questions?, by Tom Skinner (Zondervan, 1974, 219 pp., $2.95 pb), The Black Experience in Religion, edited by C. Eric Lincoln (Anchor/Doubleday, 1974, 369 pp., $3.95 pb), A Black Political Theology, by J. Deotis Roberts (Westminster, 1974, 238 pp., $3.95 pb), The Negro Church in America, by E. Franklin Frazier, plus The Black Church Since Frazier, by C. Eric Lincoln (Schocken, 1974, 216 pp., $2.95 pb), are reviewed by James S. Tinney, Ph.D. candidate in political science, Howard University, Washington, D. C.

The “Negro” church has died, says C. Eric Lincoln; and in its place there now exists the new “black” church, an unapologetic force determined to lead the fight for social and spiritual justice in America. As the “Negro” church was structured and conditioned by accommodationism, the new “black” church is undergirded by a sanctified belligerence.

To this basic premise all the writers here considered give assent, although their individual interpretations sometimes modify or expand this thesis slightly. Skinner, for instance, allows that the black church “has historically been the most powerful social institution” while emphasizing that it needs to be revolutionized further. Roberts views the black church as liberating its people and others only when it emphasizes reconciliation, and as such, he may be seen somewhere in transition between the old and new definitions. (His book also offers little that is new and is, for all practical purposes, a restatement of his earlier work, Liberation and Reconciliation. In no sense does it live up to its title claim to be “a black political theology”.

At any rate, Lincoln’s counterposing of the old and new formations of black religion should be viewed against the backdrop of Frazier’s 1964 work, The Negro Church in America. It is appropriate that Frazier is here reprinted and bound together with Lincoln’s updating and reassessment. Frazier, as long-time chairman of the Howard University Department of Sociology, became the earliest leading black sociologist (along with W. E. B. DuBois). Lincoln is chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Fisk University.

Frazier is often criticized by the newer black sociologists for failing to recognize the continuity of the African past with modern Afro-American experience, and for being preoccupied with an assimilationist black middle class, as well as with so-called negative features he ascribed to black religion. These criticisms are aimed at the work reprinted here, among others; witness the following: “The Negro church and Negro religion have cast a shadow over the entire intellectual life of Negroes and have been responsible for the so-called backwardness of American Negroes.” It was Frazier who also predicted that the church would “crumble” as blacks became integrated into the larger society. Lincoln’s statement, then, that the “Negro” church has died may be viewed as recognition of the Frazier prophecy or as its contradiction (i.e., the continued resistance of white society has led to a more viable and resistant strain of black religion), depending on one’s point of view.

In The Black Church Since Frazier, Lincoln attempts to interpret how his mentor would have viewed the Black Power movement, the rise to prominence of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), and new trends in black religion.

The best overview of what black church scholars currently are thinking and emphasizing, however, is the anthology, The Black Experience in Religion, also compiled by Lincoln. More than two dozen articles from leading journals are reprinted under five general subject sections: black church structures and modes, black theology, black protest and the church, black cults and sects, and linkages to African and Caribbean religions.

Throughout this volume common conclusions are reached by most writers—a phenomenon that may seem all the more remarkable since nearly every major religious tradition is represented, including writers from those who labor in predominantly white denominations and those who do not. Some of the unified themes that constantly reappear include: (1) black religion is in contradistinction to white religion in that it is more humanistic, more biblical, and more dynamic, and is the only instrument capable of calling the nation to reform. (2) The black church holds a proper balance between individualism and community, the sacred and the secular, experience and tradition, rationality and emotional content, and social and spiritual salvation. (3) The genius of black religion lies with these movements that have remained closest to the masses and have not negated African survivalisms. (4) Black theology should emphasize the favored, but not exclusionary, position of blacks (some would add other oppressed classes or groups) as God’s choice people, and should functionally advance the causes of black social and political liberation.

The omission of Skinner from the Lincoln collection is most glaring since the book is otherwise very comprehensive in its representation. Although Skinner is located within the stream of black religion as interpreted in the Lincoln anthology, the collection does not include a black evangelical with an interdenominational ministry such as he. Indeed, it is almost impossible to talk about black theologizing or ministry without taking Skinner into account. For this reason, the latest Skinner book should be read hand-in-hand with the anthology for a more complete understanding. Its easy-to-read question-and-answer format also makes it more accessible to the average reader.

Biblical Studies In Tribute

New Testament Christianity For Africa and the World, edited by Mark Glasswell and Edward Fasholé-Luke (London: SPCK, 221 pp., £5.95), and Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation, edited by Gerald Hawthorne (Eerdmans, 1975, 377 pp., $9.95), are reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, associate professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

These two volumes of essays are dedicated to two scholars who probably have never met and who live in totally different parts of the world but who have, in many respects, had remarkably similar ministries. Each has been a pioneer in academic work, particularly in setting an example for students to follow when the immediate cultural context was not favorable to the intellectual enterprise.

Harry Sawyer, to whom the first volume is dedicated, is an African theologian—the first African theologian to be honored by a Festschrift—who has done as much as any man to lay a solid foundation for academic theology in West Africa (Sierra Leone). Merrill C. Tenney, recipient of the second, is an American who through long years of teaching, first at Gordon Divinity School and then at Wheaton College Graduate School, has probably done more to initiate two generations of North American evangelicals into the ways of biblical scholarship than any other man. As is clear from the writings of each, and also from the biographical appreciations and personal notes included in each collection, both Sawyer and Tenney are churchmen as well as scholars; and both have given themselves primarily to teaching and academic administration rather than research, though each has made significant contributions through his writings.

New Testament Christianity For Africa and the World contains eighteen essays on a wide variety of historical, biblical, and theological topics by European and African scholars. Among the more interesting ones related to the New Testament are “Nations in the New Testament” (N. A. Dahl), “Paul’s Speech on the Areopagus” (C. K. Barrett), and the superb “Interpreting Paul by Paul” (C. E. D. Moule). Of theological interest are “Justification by Faith in Modern Theology” (H. E. W. Turner) and “Towards a Theologia Africana” (K. A. Dickson), neither of them earthshaking but both full of common sense and acute observation.

But perhaps the most stimulating are the articles devoted to the history of missions: “Missionary Vocation and the Ministry” (A. E Walls) and “The Missionary Expansion of Ecclesia Anglicana” (M. Warren), both containing incisive observations that, if noted, will provide valuable lessons for mission leaders even today. Finally, the essay in which Fasholé-Luke seeks to relate the ancestor veneration of African traditional religion to the Christian doctrine of the communion of saints will doubtless prove controversial; but it should not be dismissed out-of-hand since it advocates not the practice of baptizing a pagan doctrine but rather the seeking of a point of contact between the old customs and the new fellowship in Christ without compromising sound doctrine.

Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation contains contributions by twenty-eight of Dr. Tenney’s former students, again treating a wide variety of biblical and theological subjects. With a few exceptions the essays are more technical than those contained in the Sawyer volume, and they are also generally longer. Among the notable contributions are the following. Historical: “The Development of the Concept of ‘Orthodoxy’ in Early Christianity” (R. A. Kraft) and “The Power of Giving and Receiving: Reciprocity in Hellenistic Benevolence” (S. C. Mott). Old Testament interpretation: “Were David’s Sons Really Priests?” (C. E. Armerding). Biblical theology: “The Weightier and Lighter Matters of the Law” (W. C. Kaiser), “The Deity of Christ in the Writings of Paul” (W. Elwell), and “The Holy Spirit in Galatians” (G. E. Ladd). New Testament criticism: “The Composition of Luke 9” (E. E. Ellis), “The Johannine Prologue and the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel” (E. J. Epp), “Bultmann’s Law of Increasing Distinctness” (L. R. Keylock), and “Literary Criteria in Life of Jesus Research” (R. N. Longenecker). New Testament exegesis: “Sins Within and Without: An Interpretation of 1 John 5:16–17” (D. M. Scholer) and “The Limits of Ecstasy: An Exegesis of 2 Corinthians 12:1–10” (R. P. Spittler). And finally, theology: “Charismatic Theology in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus” (J. E. Stamm) and “Christology and ‘the Angel of the Lord’ ” (W. G. MacDonald). Unique among the contributions is a careful, even beautiful translation of the until recently little-known Paschal Homily of Melito, bishop of Sardis (d. ca. A.D 190), by the editor. This, in my view, is easily worth the price of the book and should be a part of any library. And there are other worthwhile contributions that I do not mention because of lack of space.

Two impressions stood out after I had read this thick and rather technical tome. Paramount of these is the impact one man can have on his students, and through them on the world. The twenty-eight contributors represent nearly that many different academic institutions, both Christian and secular, and serve in four countries. True, not all of them have followed their former teacher in all their later conclusions (but then Tenney has never been one to expect his pupils simply to repeat his opinions back to him), but each one has, in his own way, followed the teacher’s example of honesty and excellence. Secondly, I was impressed by the developing maturity of contemporary North American evangelical scholarship. Gone are the days when faithfulness to the Bible implied an anti-intellectual stance or an unscholarly obscurantism. And if this is so, Dr. Tenney, under God, is one of the people most responsible for the new situation.

Promising Beginning

The Southern Hill and the Land Beyond, by Pauline Davies (Eerdmans, 1975, 149 pp., $2.45 pb), is reviewed by Cheryl Forbes, assistant editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

This series of short stories or vignettes is tied together by an overall theme, the return of King Gerald. The author uses a picture-frame technique in the first and last stories. When the book begins, King Gerald reigns, his enemy comes, and he leaves. He returns at the end of the book.

As a unified, consistent story, the volume fails. Too many questions are left unanswered, too many details remain unexplained. What is King Gerald’s golden box? What happens to it after the enemy takes it? Why does the king suddenly leave? The first two vignettes are excellent first chapters to two different books—interesting, imaginative, and fantastical, with few allegorical overtones. I hope Davies takes at least one of these ideas and writes a full-length fantasy. She certainly has the ability.

Some of the other chapters work well as short stories, and in places remind me of some of George Macdonald’s best tales (which can be found in Gifts of the Child Christ, two volumes, also from Eerdmans). The best story in the book is the longest one, “Kerry and the Westels.” She describes her creation, the westels, simply and hauntingly. Davies successfully evokes an atmosphere aching with sadness.

Her too heavy use of allegory and explicit Christian doctrines at the end of the book weakens the ending. King Gerald descending in a mist, with his people dressed in white gowns and veils—he says, “The people have become my bride”—indicates a failure of imaginative power and a surrender to an easy resolution. With a little more thought and work Davies could have created new images for us.

Considering the inability of most Christian writers to produce acceptable fiction, I am pleased to recommend Davies’s first book. There are some fine things in it, with evidence that as she practices her art she should produce compelling and consistent fantasy.

The Riches Of Paul’S Thought

Paul: An Outline of His Theology, by Herman Ridderbos (Eerdmans, 1975, 587 pp., $12.95), is reviewed by William S. Smith, missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Patrocinio, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

What Professor Ridderbos did for the Synoptic Gospels in The Coming of the Kingdom he does for Paul’s epistles in this monumental study.

What is the key to Paul’s thought? The fact that in the death and resurrection of Christ, the history of salvation has been completed. In Christ the old world of “the flesh” has been replaced by the new creation of the Spirit. And since Christ is the second Adam—“the One” representing “the many”—all those “in Christ” or “with Christ” share in that new creation, now, already! The consummation, however, is still future, at the coming of Christ. Thus the Church now lives in tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” Along these Christological, eschatological lines, Ridderbos unfolds the various themes of Paul’s preaching. A few samples follow.

On Christ:

Without any doubt Christ is for him [Paul] the Son of God, not only in virtue of his revelation, but from before the foundation of the world, God, to be blessed forever. But as such he is from before the foundation of the world and to all eternity God-for-us. It is not the Godhead of Christ in itself, but that he is God and God’s Son for us which is the content and foundation even of the most profound of his Christological pronouncements [p. 77].

Thus no purely functional Christology, but no abstract ontological Christology either.

On sin and the law:

For Paul the striving of man to obtain his righteousness before God in the way of the works of the law is doomed to failure not only because man cannot come up to the fulfillment of the law as God requires it of him, but because it is already fundamentally sinful to wish to insure oneself righteousness and life; indeed this is the human sin par excellence. This insight, which one may surely call the foundation of Paul’s whole view of man outside Christ, can be characterized as a radically deepened concept of sin [p. 142].

What implications for evangelism!

On legalism:

Pauline Ethics has no place for the “legalistic” view of life in the sense that the law would cover all “cases” of the Christian life and the right use of the law would consist only in a logical particularizing of the individual pronouncements of the law.… Insight into the will of God for concrete life situations is no less dependent on faith in Christ, being led by the Spirit, and the inner renewal of man than on the knowledge of the law [p. 286].

On the ecumenical church:

For the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are more than can be comprehended by one man, one church, and—we may add to this—one generation [p. 245].… Nor can one restrict this unity to the sphere of what is invisible and hidden [p. 394].

On solidarity with the world:

The thought is never that the same solidarity exists between believers and unbelievers as between believers and other believers. For the love that is of God cannot attain its end outside fellowship in and love for Christ (1 Cor. 16:22). For this reason the church, even when love of neighbor is demanded of it in its full scope, is always addressed on the ground of what is peculiar to it and not what it has in common with those “who are without”; and for the church the real purpose of the demonstration of wisdom, humanity, love toward others must always be that these may be won for Christ and that the name of God may be praised [p. 300].

On election:

What prompts Paul to hark back again and again to the divine purpose is not an abstract predestinarianism or reference back to God’s decrees as the final cause in the chain of events, but the designation of sovereign, divine grace as the sole motive of his work of redemption in history [p. 350].

On baptism and the supper: all the emphasis here falls not on some supposed symbolism, but on union with Christ and on real participation in the benefits of his sacrifice and resurrection.

Both of them … establish contact with the death of Christ—baptism as baptism-into-his death, the Supper as communion with the body and blood of Christ [p. 424].

In dealing with the riches of Pauline thought, Ridderbos achieves an admirable balance throughout; the phrases “on the one hand” and “on the other hand” recur again and again. Paul furnishes us with one instance after another of careful exegesis. (And we can never know what Paul wrote without knowing why he wrote it!) For Ridderbos the text of the New Testament is the authorized, apostolic tradition, and he bows before it even when it leads him to differ from his own Reformed tradition. Last of all, we see in this book how beautifully practical and pastoral “theology” can be.

Paul is not easy reading; the translation faithfully reflects the often long and complex sentences of the Dutch. I very much missed the italics used so extensively in the original. The title of the last chapter raises a question in either case, but might “The Lord’s Future” be less problematic than “The Future of the Lord”?

Our profound thanks to the author, translator—Dr. John Richard de Witt—and publisher (the price is only half that of the third Dutch edition!). May Paul, through Paul, continue to disturb and comfort the people of God!

At an alumni meeting recently, a friend of mine told me about his greatest problem. He is the pastor of a large church in Los Angeles and, in addition to the regular weekly services, teaches five Bible-study groups. “I need at least twenty-five new illustrations each week just to stay afloat!” he confided.

Most pastors are dogged by the question, Where can I find timely, relevant illustrations? Books of illustrations are of little help. Their material is often dated, and at best they yield only one or two really usable stories.

But there are other more productive sources. Books in local college or public libraries contain a limitless supply of useful illustrative material. All we need to know is how to use these reference tools. Then, by setting aside time each week, we can draw what we need from these inexhaustible reservoirs of information. A little reflection on this factual data and we have our illustrations.

For a good source of current information, the New York Times Index is the place to look.

I will deal here with only two of these basic sources of material, the New York Times Index and Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). Those desiring additional ideas might consult pages 253–56 of my book, The Minister’s Library (Baker, 1974), and note in particular how to use such works as The Annual Register of World Events and Facts on File. And those who need illustrative information for special occasions can read up on how to use The Book of Days, Famous First Facts, and other reference works dealing with the origin of the many events scattered throughout our calendar.

I use the New York Times Index for up-to-date, authoritative illustrations whenever I am preparing a sermon, getting ready to teach a Bible-study group, or writing an article. The Times boasts that if it does not record an event, “then it never happened.” Entries in the Index are arranged alphabetically by topic and are taken from the Late City edition of the paper—the edition that is microfilmed and becomes a part of the holdings of most institutional and public libraries. Each entry is accompanied by a synopsis of the article. Often the synopsis contains enough information that one need not look up the newspaper itself.

The sermonic use of current events has an appeal to listeners. They have a “handle” on this kind of information, because they have read about it in newspapers or news magazines or heard about it on TV.

Index sections on “heavy” topics like abortion, children, divorce, drugs, education, and marriage are overflowing with usable data, all there ready for us to take. In doing research for this article, I decided, however, to avoid these areas of great social concern and concentrate on more obscure subjects. I chose the danger of the commonplace.

Under “Accidents and Safety” in the Index, I found columns of facts, human-interest stories, and other information about the unheeded dangers that are all about us. These included not only incidents such as fires, pills inadvertently swallowed by youngsters, children getting hurt while playing in abandoned buildings or being asphyxiated in old refrigerators, but also information about the millions of dollars being spent in research by the Commission on Public Safety. But there was no mention in other parts of the Index of any special plans or commissions to safeguard the spiritual or moral well-being of our nation’s young people.

Included in the Index are statistical tables on topics such as alcoholism, crime, debt, divorce, family mobility, gambling, and population growth. In addition, in each annual volume there are capsule summaries of events that have taken place in the Middle East over the past twelve months—something that cannot fail to please those who preach on prophecy. And there is an abundance of material on sports, changes taking place in our life-style, the plight of minority groups, firms (“thumbnail” reviews), and so on.

The New York Times Index is published semi-monthly with annual cumulative volumes. It can become a most valuable resource tool for new illustrations.

A similar work is Public Affairs Information Service. PAIS contains entries on everything from abandonment to Zionism. Like the Index, it is arranged alphabetically by topic and is complete with information on all the issues of current concern. In contrast to the Index, the data in PAIS comes from books, pamphlets, reports of public and private agencies, and journals. In preparing this article I chose as topics old age and those themes that would highlight a series of messages on the Minor Prophets.

PAIS listed the kind of practical material one could use in challenging the members of a congregation with the needs of the elderly. Each entry carried a reference to a journal article or a publication. Most of the articles contained human-interest stories as well as a wealth of practical information on the everyday problems of the aged.

Anyone choosing to preach on the Minor Prophets will find his time spent with PAIS amply rewarded. PAIS is filled with information on social problems—the rich exploiting the poor, the perversion of justice, crime and corruption, and the like. Anyone who works with PAIS for an hour or two is likely to be ready to retrieve the writings of the Minor Prophets from the limbo to which modern neglect has confined them.

The Times boasts that if it didn’t record an event, it didn’t happen. Entries are arranged alphabetically by topic from the Late City edition. For facts and figures on a myriad of topics, look there.

PAIS is published weekly. There are cumulations of the material five times a year, and the fifth cumulation becomes the annual volume.

The New York Times Index and Public Affairs Information Service are available in nearly every institutional or public library. The material they offer is timely and readily accessible, and far more rewarding than even the latest book of illustrations!—CYRIL J. BARBER, director of the library, Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology, Rosemead, California.

Michael E. Haynesis minister of Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, and a black, native Bostonian. He serves as senior member of the Massachusetts Parole Board, and is on the board of Gordon college. He also served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Busing is not the real issue in Boston, as I believe is also true in other sectors of our nation. Since I know the Boston situation personally, I will use it as my focal point.

First, the problem is racism. Certain minorities are not wanted, not liked, and/or feared. Many bugaboos, superstitions, and stereotypes have been resurrected, if they ever were dead, against blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities.

Second, some people have found the issues of integration and busing advantageous. Because of greed and overt political ambition, they are willing to exploit the school situation for their own self-aggrandizement and political advancement.

Third, too many flame-feeders wanted to keep the busing crisis alive because they have profited by it, particularly in overtime pay, while the situation remained heated. That is the economical issue.

Psychologically, the cost of busing cannot be measured: the drop-outs who ultimately may become wards of the state, on welfare or in prisons; the still birth of possible doctors, teachers, scientists, and useful citizens. Economically, it cost Boston in the first fourteen months some $25 million to correct this evil situation consciously and deliberately perpetuated by certain city fathers and mothers over the past decades. Some 1,800 police are diverted from other duties as they continue to maintain surveillance over children, school personnel, buses, and buildings. Over $7 million has been expended in police overtime to date. The outlay of public money continues to soar for additional school personnel, bus monitors, civilian school security people, and trouble-shooters.

For decades children in Boston and elsewhere have been bused without bitter opposition. And evangelical churches across the country are developing bus ministries. Old and young are bused across all kinds of neighborhood and town boundaries, in and out of color, caste, and class ghettoes to attend Sunday schools, worship services, and mid-week church programs. Why is that right and school busing for integration wrong?

Boston symbolizes part of the great tragedy of America. And we are celebrating “liberty and justice for all,” our Bicentennial. God forbid that because of our selfishness and innate hatreds, our unwillingness to love our neighbors as ourselves, our failure to recognize, redress, and rectify evils too long perpetrated and tolerated, our Bicentennial celebration becomes a death watch at the bedside of a sick, decaying nation that refused to do that which is right in the sight of God.

Green lights blink in double eyecatching announcement. The name beside the lights can be read easily with eyes searching for confirmation of a specific destination—Beirut, Rome, Ankara, Tokyo, New York, London, Zurich, Chicago, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Houston, Amsterdam, Frankfurt. What can be read by watchful eyes is suddenly further confirmed as a deep voice announces in two or three languages the departure gate.

I observed this procedure for some hours recently. We were filming in an airport, and since my job was just to watch the crew’s coats and extra equipment, I had plenty of time to watch and think. Blink-blink, blink-blink, green signals pulling eyes to check the accuracy of plane number and seat assignments. People, people, people, of all nationalities, all races, all ages, all sizes and sorts—all with several things in common: their passports have been checked and are in order, their baggage has gone through the controls and has passed inspection, they have walked through the arch with the electric test declaring that they are not taking any forbidden weapons. They have fulfilled the requirements for going from where they are to another place. But can each one know, with absolute assurance, that he or she will reach that destination?

There are such things as storms, faulty motors, sabotage, and highjacking. Machines can fail, and human beings can fail, and enemies can succeed in destroying what they set out to destroy, so that the expected destinations are never reached.

The certainty of having a destination with a name, and a ticket, and the official permission to board a plane, is not a guarantee of arrival. The life jackets under the seats, the oxygen masks being demonstrated a few minutes after takeoff, emphasize the fact that no absolute guarantee is possible when one is depending upon man and machine.

Many people have troubled feelings about their destinations as they travel, whether for pleasure, or business, or in flight from wars or earthquake regions. However, far more universal is the recognition that there is another kind of “going” that everyone has to face, whether he or she packs a suitcase, buys a ticket, makes a plan, or not.

A five-year-old child of a woman in my Bible class here in Switzerland recently was in the bedroom with her little brother, three and a half, when he died choking, with croup. “Mother, Mother, he has gone! I’m alone! Philippe has gone!” Although she had never seen death before, this little girl recognized that Philippe had gone away. Where? What destination is ahead when people “go” in this way? Can one be absolutely sure of arriving there when the time comes to “go” out of the body, to somewhere else?

The Lord Jesus was speaking directly to that haunting fear when he said so clearly,

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also [John 14:1–3].

Don’t be fearful about the journey ahead; don’t worry about where you are going or how you are going to get there. If you believe in the first Person of the Trinity, God the Father, believe also in the Second Person of the Trinity, the One who came as a light into the world not only to die for people but to light the way to a certain destination. This One, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, provides the ticket, is himself the light, will guide our footsteps along the way, and is even now preparing a specific, definite mansion, a place for us who are on our way. He not only promises with the absolutely certain promise of God that he is preparing the place, but states that he himself will one day return to take us there in resurrected bodies.

Hebrews chapter eleven is speaking of those who have believed, and who are part of the family of the living God, and who desire a better country, a heavenly country. Is their desire a fanciful idea, wishful thinking? God states to them, and to us, in verse sixteen, “God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

There is a certain destination ahead for all who have come through “The Lamb” into the family of the living God. That destination is a very real city, a place so definite that God can say that because of the existence of this place, he is not ashamed to be called the God of those who are expecting to go there, nor to be called the God of those who are suffering tribulations, persecutions, hardships, afflictions, weariness, pain. He is not ashamed to be called the God of those who are having a hard journey, because the destination is perfect and sure.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). When God makes a promise and declares a prophecy, even a “simple person” may be sure of the fulfilment of that promise or prophecy. God has what no human being has, the absolute power to fulfill his promises. When God states that there is a destination that is real, and also perfect, there is no doubt about its existence. When God explains the requirements for getting, there, and they are fulfilled, no storm or enemy can intervene and “hijack” or “kidnap.” God the Son is able to say,

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man [any created being] pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all; and no man [no created being] is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand [John 10:27–29],

God, who spoke to the Israelites concerning a land of brooks of water, a land of wheat and barley and vines, a land of oil olives and honey, a land where they would eat bread without scarceness (Deut. 8:7–9), also speaks of the destination ahead of us with just as much certainty in Hebrews 12:22, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.” John was describing a real destination when he said, “I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband … having the glory of God; and her light was like unto stone, clear as crystal” (Rev. 21:2, 11). This is an absolute destination, based on the promises of an absolute God.

What about the temporary “destinations,” our day-by-day “journey” through time and space in present history? Is there any assurance that the “now” is protected? Isaiah 52:12 gives assurance, as we step into the “next thing” whatever that is for you or for me, that the Lord who is preparing the future destination cares about the details of the now: “For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your reward.” He will go before, and be our rear guard, this One of whom we can say, “For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death” (Ps. 48:14).

EDITH SCHAEFFER

He Wasn’T Good For The Game

At the conclusion of the World Series last October, Sparky Anderson, manager of the World Champion Reds, made an earth-shaking announcement. Sparky said that the 1975 World Series had been “good for baseball.” The close games, the exciting plays, the contested calls had given the game a shot in the arm, according to Anderson.

Two months later, Joe Morgan (also from the Reds) was voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player. Joe said his selection was “good for baseball.” A little man who played well-balanced ball (Joe ran, hit, and fielded well) had proven that the big, homerun sluggers don’t always have to win the award.

Not everyone is good for baseball. I can think of two pitchers who weren’t. One was Jim Bouton, who wrote a bestselling exposé (aren’t all exposés bestsellers?) of the players and the game. Another was Bo Belinsky, who threw a no-hitter, used a combination of iodine and baby lotion to develop a deep tan, and was considered a genuine flake. When Jim and Bo left the scene, I’m sure some managers said, “I’m glad they’re gone. They weren’t good for the game.”

Personally I don’t know what’s good or bad for baseball. But those quotes made me wonder. If Jesus were to arrive today, would most Christians say, “You know, he’s good for Christianity”?

I don’t think so.

Jesus would seem inconsistent to some. (Inconsistency doesn’t win awards.) Jesus would announce the kingdom was at hand and then tell some of those he healed not to tell who did it.

He would alienate the establishment. (You don’t preserve the unity and integrity of the game by alienating the establishment.) Being compassionate toward losers and tough on the religious winners is not the way to win friends and influence people.

And he would probably be misquoted by the media. (What did he say, Jack?) In general to most twentieth-century Christians, Jesus would seem weird. A man with a mission who said his burden was light and then demanded so much.

And when he finally left the scene and headed for the cross, I’m afraid many would say, “It serves him right. I’m glad he’s leaving. He wasn’t good for the game.”

EUTYCHUS VII

Politics Or Theology?

“Missionaries, Not Mercenaries” (Editorials, Jan. 2) makes a valid point in the final paragraph when it states that “all American missionaries should be put ‘off limits’ to the CIA.” To introduce this laudable position, however, by implying that Helmut Frenz, exiled bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile, is some sort of “mercenary” is unfortunate at best, and vicious distortion at worst.

Even the harshest interpretation of the role of Frenz in ministering to prisoners of conscience and their families would rule out “meddling in politics of a host nation.” This is like saying that John the Baptist was meddling in the politics of Herod when he pointed out the immorality of his court.

What is a missionary supposed to do in order to be faithful to his Lord’s expectations: “I was in prison and you visited me”? Compliment the police force for warrantless arrests, secret detentions, and false reports of whereabouts? Frenz interpreted his mission to provide documented histories and legal defense for the prisoners, and food and shelter for their families, and all U. S. Lutheran officials have supported him in this activity.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY may call this getting involved in the politics of a nation. I think it is the very embodiment of your final sentence: “Emissaries of Jesus Christ should be free to represent only him, and their only offense should be the offense of his cross.” Because Frenz has participated in that offense, he is out of favor with the government of Chile. The WCC made no mistake in inviting him to speak. In Nairobi I heard him talk not as a politician but as a theologian about what it means to enter into the suffering of others as a witness of God’s love. You owe Frenz an apology.

EDWARD C. MAY

Director, Office of World Community Issues

Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.

New York, N. Y.

Exciting Excerpt

Dr. Lindsell’s forthcoming book The Battle For the Bible is going to be a marvelous one! The excerpt in the article “The Christian Source of Truth” (Dec. 5) was so exciting that I have been passing out copies right and left. It is just the kind of modern-mind proclaiming of the authority of Scripture that is the most urgently needed today.

ROBERT M. METCALF, JR.

Chairman

Christian Studies Center

Memphis, Tenn.

The Nairobi Amendment

I would like to commend you for a number of excellent features in your issue of January 2. The interview with Rachel Saint is thought-provoking and stimulating.

In particular, as a delegate to the Nairobi Assembly of the World Council of Churches, I would like to comment with appreciation on your two articles dealing with that assembly. The article by the editor seems to me quite fair and perceptive, except that he makes one significant mistake. This mistake, fortunately, is corrected in the news coverage on Nairobi later on, where it is clearly stated that, contrary to Dr. Lindsell’s statement, the U.S.S.R. was specifically named as a country in which serious violations of religious liberty are alleged. The strong action to institute a serious study, with early reporting, regarding this issue, indicates how seriously the assembly took this whole matter.

DAVID M. STONE

Executive Vice President

United Church Board for World Ministries

New York, N. Y.

• We stand by both the Nairobi article (pp. 10–12) and the news coverage (pp. 31–35). The proposed amendment by Jacques Rossel of Switzerland would have named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a violator of religious freedom, but this wording was not included in the assembly’s final document. Instead, the accepted version spoke of the “alleged denial of religious liberty in the U.S.S.R.” Thus the WCC’s top governing body refused to charge the U.S.S.R. with violating human rights while easily voting to do so in the cases of other nations.—ED.

Historical Scale—Shifting

Mark Shaw’s “The Spirit of 1740” (Jan. 2) appears to be an attempt to shift the scales of historical interpretation. Unfortunately, his interpretation of the Great Awakening and its influence on the “Spirit of ‘76” presents a simplistic either-or cause for what was in reality a complex generation of spirit. He sees the commonly understood cause of the Revolution as that of taxation (“the trigger issue”), which is an oversimplification in the extreme. True, the Great Awakening is one of the foundation stones in the building of an American spirit, but to give it predominance over the taxing issue and all other issues is a parochial view at best. John Adams said that “the Revolution started before the war commenced. It was in the hearts and minds of the people.” Much was in the hearts and minds of the people—some minds held very high and noble ideals of self-government; others held mundane materialistic concerns, having lost huge sums of money through British curtailment of colonial smuggling.

Without going into a lengthy historical discourse, I would like to comment on the “previous alienation of heart and mind” that Shaw mentions as dating to 1740 and solidifying in 1776. The Pilgrim fathers came here out of an alienation of heart and mind. So did the Quakers, Presbyterians, and Catholics. The colonies were founded in a large part by separatists who saw here an opportunity to exercise greater control over their personal lives. A separate spirit existed throughout the colonial period based on personal experience, remoteness, and local self-government.

We will get a lot of shallow history this year. I was disappointed to see it in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. There are certainly inspiring thoughts from the Spirit of ‘76, that spirit that culminated from many sources, secular and religious. The one that we evangelicals should find especially inspiring is that the Revolutionary spirit grew from a very small minority and never engulfed a majority of the people during the war. But the spirit prevailed. Let us not lose that perspective for our faith and His Spirit.

Sewell, N. J.

WAYNE E. MORLEY

Sewell, N. J.

ERRATUM

James S. Tinney was the author of the news story “Angola: Practicing Christians” in the January 16 issue. His byline was inadvertently omitted.

Black ‘Box’ Is Best

First came Jesus Christ Superstar, then Godspell, and now the best modern musical to date about the life of Jesus, the all-black Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. Conceived and directed by award-winning Vinnette Carroll (Dont Bother Me I Can’t Cope) and composed by Alex Bradford (also from Dont Bother Me), the musical had an extended run at Washington, D. C.’s historic Ford’s Theatre before going to New York. Bradford, who is director of music of the Greater Abyssinian Baptist Church in Newark, also sang and performed in the show. His wife Alberta plays the piano.

Part one in song, modern dance, and narration tells the passion of Christ. Wearing costumes muted in color with geometric designs, the performers enter one at a time to begin the breathlessly energetic gospel show. The audience is immediately introduced to Jesus. A soloist, designated as the preacher, asks the audience, “Do you know Jesus?” Throughout the production, which, like Godspell, is not confined to the stage, the audience is questioned and cajoled about Jesus. There is no waffling here about who Jesus is or about why he died and rose from the grave.

The combo and singers blend well and keep the audience clapping and shouting. But the dancers provide much of the visual enjoyment. During the death and crucifixion of Jesus, drums and dancers achieve a rare perfection. As the singers intone “kill him kill him,” Jesus’ body jerks and moves painfully with each drum beat, the two beautifully synchronized. Jesus hangs motionless with a staff under his arms between two other cast members for the Good Friday crucifixion scene.

The title of the show comes from the warning Pilate’s wife gives her husband before he gives the order to crucify Jesus. She has a dream and tells Pilate, “You don’t know what the Lord told me cause you weren’t there. Pilate, your arm’s too short to box with God.”

While Jesus hangs from the blocks-built hill on stage, the preacher walks through the audience, singing, “Somebody here don’t believe in Jesus. I’m glad I believe.” As he kneels at the foot of the hill Jesus is taken from the cross and laid on the stage floor. After a moving a capella solo the dancers surround Jesus, who leaps in the air, is caught by three men, and is carried back to the top of the hill triumphantly alive.

Critics who did not enjoy part two perhaps did not understand its purpose, or have never been to a black worship service. In part one we learn what happened to Jesus, and in part two we have the response of performers and audience. The cast comes out in orange costumes reminiscent of choir robes. And the first song reinforces that this is the praise part of the performance. “Didn’t I tell you he’d be all right?” they exclaim. All during the second half Jesus stands with his staff in a yellow robe at the top of the hill, the risen Lord reigning over his congregation.

The structure of the second half, like the structure of a black worship service, provides freedom for ad lib lines and innovative singing, depending on the enthusiasm and nature of the audience. The night I attended the woman who sang “I love you Jesus” finished the song with her face wet with tears. As she moved from center stage with piano and organ holding the last chord, the audience clapped and shouted amen. She began singing again, a moving improvisation of the gospel song, obviously not part of the staging.

Members of the audience testified to their faith in Jesus in responding to such questions as “Do you know Jesus?” and “Does Jesus take care of you?” The cast closed the show with everyone singing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” If the house lights hadn’t been raised, the audience would surely have stayed for another two hours of singing and praise.

Certainly Your Arms Too Short to Box With God is the clearest presentation of the Gospel seen on any stage. Add to that good singing, fine instrumentation, and excellent dancing and you have a combination that is hard to beat.

CHERYL FORBES