Few current terms are less precise than “theological pluralism.” It is used to indicate, now a denominational policy, now a theological outlook, now a form of theology. The term gains prestige from the fact that our society is pluralistic. Should not Christian theology, then, grant “equal rights” to all shades of doctrinal opinion?

This sounds impressive, if one does not take seriously the claim of the Christian faith to present One who makes exclusive demands upon our lives. In the light of His claims, the appeal to democratic practice to justify theological pluralism seems to be a misapplication of a socio-political concept.

Theological pluralism rejects the Reformation principle of sola scriptura. In place of the finality of Scripture for the Christian faith, it substitutes a complex of “authorities.” Alongside historic creeds and confessions are placed newer and equivocal “creeds” so that the symbols that formerly were normative for Christian bodies become but part of a series of “statements of faith.”

Various figures of speech are used to justify this dilution of Christian doctrine. Earlier the illustration was the tripod: authority was said to rest upon three “sources,” revelation, tradition, and experience (or revelation, experience, and reason). More recently the favorite figure is the quadrilateral: authority is said to be derived (presumably in equal quantities) from revelation, tradition, reason, and experience.

As a gesture to the past, older standards and symbols are retained. But the juxtaposition of alternate “creeds” alongside those based upon biblical authority drains the latter of current validity. Appeals to historic faith are met with equivocations and evasions. Pluralistic thinkers refer to the differences of opinion concerning specific doctrines over the past nineteen centuries and to the religious wars, as if these proved the impossibility of any normative Christian belief.

Besides diluting Christian authority, theological pluralism also serves to give legitimacy to all sorts of deviations from historic faith. The advocates of pluralism do not merely acknowledge the presence of a wide range of beliefs within the churches. They also permit all who hold these forms to consider themselves Christian. All this is done in the name of toleration and fairness.

A practical result is that this permits the modification of ordination vows. Those who have radically departed from their former commitments can now live in clear conscience. The concept of theological pluralism makes “honest men” of those who have abandoned the faith to which they pledged fidelity.

In place of a commitment to the Scriptures as the infallible Word, there are such shabby substitutes as “the Bible is a witness to the Word,” or “the Bible witnesses to Christ in today’s world.” Such expedients permit pastors and theological teachers, to work comfortably within their institutions, no matter how gently their thinking deviates their denomination’s historic standards.

Theological pluralism offers also a symbol around which to rally the loyalties of confused constituencies. They are permitted to feel that all shades of belief, and those holding them, are being treated democratically. When one looks more closely, however, the openness and total fairness is more sham than reality. Liberal power-holders in the churches show no intention of surrendering power to non-establishment hands. They appear nervous when conservative minority groups congregate in an area and appear to threaten the established power base.

Some evangelicals have hoped that the pluralistic stance would gain equal time and equal treatment for evangelical groups within liberal church bodies. So far this is a forlorn hope. True, there are token gestures toward those who base their convictions upon biblical authority. Occasionally one of them is called as a guest professor to a liberal seminary—but for one or two semesters only, never as a regular faculty member. Evangelicals are invited to theological conferences—but they are excluded from caucuses where policies are hammered out. Their stated convictions seldom appear in resulting pronouncements.

Advocates of theological pluralism operate from the centers of ecclesiastical power. They gain prestige from the fact that ecumenical, liberal Christianity has produced many secularized philosophers of religion in recent years, but few theologians. As a consequence, the few who really “do theology” gain a large hearing. Their prestige is enhanced by the fact that they advocate views that appear to give legitimacy and honesty to developments within liberal churchmanship.

Seventy years of wrongheaded theological education have produced a climate in the church world of today that demands either legitimation or renewal from the ground up. The latter would require changes at the roots of things, which would be vastly too expensive to the theological establishment. The alternative is tempting.

One is reminded of the Indian who had to follow poorly marked trails through the forest. He had to depend upon marking a tree every hundred yards or so in order to return to his home. An enemy who wished to cause him to get lost did not obliterate the marks; he merely marked all the trees.

Advocates of theological pluralism often seem to operate on the basis of vivid rhetoric rather than fair dialogue. Many of the figures of speech that they use, notably those by which they attempt to redefine the “basis for religious authority,” are designed more to impress than to instruct, more to conceal than to reveal. Such formulations make explicit that which has long been implicit in theological liberalism, and give status to what has been de facto for years.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that for all the openness that the term seems to imply, theological pluralism is in reality a word game. It serves to divert the attention of the unwary from the crisis posed by the major departure from historic Christian faith in much of Christendom. It may also foster hope for a dispersal of ecclesiastical influence among non-establishment groups, a hope that seems unwarranted. When accommodations are made in the direction of evangelical minorities, they are tactical and superficial and contain little of substance. In practice, the term “theological pluralism” may serve merely to deflect attention from the techniques by which the theological status quo, which is at the root based upon humanistic rather than theistic principles, is perpetuated.

My staff and I had a long interview-type discussion with five Christian college presidents several weeks ago. The fruit of that discussion will appear in our pages later, but I wanted to share my personal reactions with our readers. We need Christian colleges desperately, and higher education is a vital necessity for the Christian Church. We should pray for our Christian colleges, support them with our money, direct students to them, and encourage them to provide us with information filtered through a Christian world and life view that will help us to face the future realistically and unafraid.

British correspondent J. D. “Jim” Douglas last month traveled to Austria to cover a major international meeting of Seventh-day Adventists. The only non-Adventist journalist at the event, he shared a dormitory room with West Indians from London, interviewed SDA president R. H. Pierson (see box, next page), was himself interviewed by SDA media people (Douglas is an author and theological authority of wide repute), and engaged in some good-natured ribbing. At one point he impishly pointed out to officials that they had allowed the sixtieth anniversary of the death of SDA prophetess Ellen G. White to go unnoticed the previous day. In an equally impish touch, an SDA editor published the rebuke in the conclave’s daily bulletin. Jim’s report of the meeting follows:

The fifty-second World Congress of the Seventh-day Adventist Church came to Vienna last month, and in a thunder-storming welcome the Danube unprecedently burst its banks. In addition to 1,750 delegates from nearly all the 193 countries where Adventists work, many others came as visitors. Local people swelled attendance to about 10,000 at the first Sabbath (Saturday) meeting in the Stadthalle.

It was the first time the SDA congress, which is held every five years, had moved outside the United States. This was done to stress the church’s international nature and to encourage a wider representation of delegates and visitors. The policy paid off, for every eastern European country was represented except churchless Albania. A standing ovation was given seven delegates present “through the kindness and courtesy of the government of the U.S.S.R.”

All sessions were conducted in English and German, with translations in six other languages transmitted via headsets. The congress convened principally to elect administrators and to carry out constitutional business of the 112-year-old church. (Policy matters are generally dealt with in annual council meetings, which explains in part why there was little theological discussion throughout.)

Reported statistics were impressive: a membership increase over the past year of 131,305, to 2.5 million worldwide (all but 800,000 outside North America), with more than three million in Sunday school. Nearly one million of the SDA’s members were added to the rolls in the last ten years. An SDA executive said that in Central America one new church with an average membership of 125 is being formed every twenty-four hours. Total global giving last year reached $348 million.

SDA distinctives were easily detected. A pre-conference press release, making it clear that Adventists neither smoke nor drink, added: “Nowhere in the Stadthalle will be found cigaret ashes or refuse from either of these indulgences.” Even non-smoking teetotaler journalists, if they wanted to eat on congress premises, had an adjustment to make: the vegetarian body had banished all meat dishes from restaurants and food stalls. Catering and all other business activity disappeared with the onset of the Sabbath, which Adventists observe from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

There were other differences, other emphases. The Adventists came across as a people homesick for heaven. President R. H. Pierson, 64, of Washington, D. C., reelected to a third term, in his opening address said: “Our hearts are humbled by the thought that long ere this the work of God should have been finished, and his people should have inherited their heavenly home.… They do not wish their lives to delay that precious event longer.”

Terminology tended to be esoteric. When Adventists spoke of God calling us “to be truly one in Christ Jesus,” it meant unity among Adventists. “The remnant church” and “God’s people everywhere” referred to God’s Adventist people everywhere. “Lands untouched by the Gospel” were those which had not heard the Adventist message. Adventists spoke as though they were tackling world evangelization singlehandedly. Many other utterances echoed that of Vice-President W. Duncan Eva: “God has committed to the Seventh-day Adventist Church the last task to save the world. We have God’s package deal … the Gospel from beginning to end.”

Allusions to other Christian churches were few and usually critical. The congress did pay tribute to the Evangelical Churches of Germany, which gave $4 million toward relief work in South America and North Africa in cooperation with the Adventist relief program. And William Fagal, director of the Adventist telecast “Faith For Today,” read to the congress a letter from Billy Graham received last year in reply to congratulations on the evangelist’s twenty-fifth crusading anniversary. Fagal further declared that God had permitted the invention of television, not to entertain but to present God’s message of hope for a dying world.

Adventist enthusiasm and joi de vivre permeated everything. It was announced that a special offering to fund new work in medical, educational, and evangelistic outreach had brought in about $2.5 million so far, and was expected to reach $3 million. Especially noticeable was the vitality of SDA young people, many of whom told moving tales of their participation in the church’s missionary program in remote areas and difficult circumstances. The church now operates 4,296 schools and colleges, three universities, 362 hospitals and clinics, and fifty printing plants throughout the world.

Outside observers got the impression early in the congress that the SDA structures are well organized and oiled. There was a tendency at business sessions to delay open discussion until a few minutes before the session was due to end, then adjourn with a promise of continued discussion later, perhaps toward the close of another session. Occasionally a nervousness was sensed, a shying away from sensitive areas or, as one American delegate put it, from “going too far in an open session.”

Some disquiet was evident when in one of the few controversial subjects raised openly, delegates accepted an official recommendation that “any member who persists in taking legal action against the church shall be rightly subject to the discipline of the church.” (The measure evidently was prompted in part by a 1973 California court case in which a woman employed by an SDA publishing firm field a class action involving an issue of equal pay and benefits. The woman has been dismissed, and the court decision is still pending.)

A CALL TO JOIN THE REMNANT CHURCH

More laypersons, women, and non-Americans are finding their way into the leadership circles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said SDA president R. H. Pierson in an interview with CHRISTIANITY TODAY correspondent J. D. Douglas. But, he conceded, the top executive positions for the most part are still held by clergymen, and he did not offer any predictions regarding trends at that level of leadership.

He was non-committal on the question of ordaining women. “We do not wish to take this step until we are very sure,” he said, “but discussions are going on at present. Because this is a world church we want to move forward in unity, and not all parts of the earth are yet ready for this step.”

He regretted platform inferences that only Adventists preach the Gospel.

Other exchanges:

Question. One frequently hears expressions like “The Bible and Ellen G. White say …” Does this mean that Adventists put the writings of Mrs. White on a level with Scripture?

Answer. We believe God inspired Mrs. White to write what she did, but she always thought of herself as a lesser light calling attention to the greater light given in the Bible. Her writings help us to understand the Bible. They do not take the place of the Bible.

Q. What do you mean when you speak of “God’s remnant church”?

A. We believe, from our reading of the book of Revelation and other parts of Scripture, that today God has a remnant church, the last before the coming of Jesus. Seventh-day Adventists do not teach that only they will be saved. God’s people are in all the churches. We believe that before Jesus returns many will respond and join the remnant church.

Q. Does this mean they will join the Adventist church?

A. We believe that our message will call many of them to join us in preparation for the coming of Christ.

There is some uneasiness in Adventist circles about the sparse lay participation in the church’s higher councils. Circulating at Vienna was Spectrum, an American independent Adventist journal, which cited the ratio of laypersons to ministers in the church’s courts. At the congregational level it is ten laypersons to one ordained minister. At the next level, the conference, there may be six ministers to one layman conducting the church’s business. In the union conference, higher up, the ratio is ten ministers to one layperson. At the Vienna congress, said Spectrum, taking statistics from the 1973–74 Yearbook, there were roughly twenty ministers to one layman (official sources protested that lay participation was greater, but could not immediately give a figure).

The church’s 353-strong executive committee, continued Spectrum, comprises 311 ordained ministers, forty non-ordained but denominationally employed and licensed persons, and only two laypersons. Three other key committees have no laypersons at all. Said Vice-President Willis J. Hackett, a clergyman: “As long as we hold ministers responsible for the success of the church, they must have authority as well.” Nonetheless, in the platform proceedings at Vienna many tasks were assigned to laypersons. They gave reports, offered prayer in their own national languages, and announced hymns.

Another sensitive issue is the place of women in the church. Speaking about International Women’s Year, Vice-President Neal Wilson—also a clergyman—said: “An organization is strong to the extent that it utilizes the abilities of all its members.” On another occasion a British delegate drew applause in suggesting it was not enough to “pay lip service to the contribution of women,” and indicated his dissatisfaction that the church did not ordain women. (The non-attributable remarks of many loyal Adventist women interviewed reflected considerable dissatisfaction with their comparatively subordinate role.) The delegates did vote to make press officer M. Carol Hetzell head of the SDA department of communication. She is the first female department head since about 1917, when a woman ran the Sabbath-school department.

Expressing fiercer opposition was a small rival Adventist group that mounted a demonstration in the park opposite the Stadthalle, complaining that the main body had departed from Adventist principles. President Pierson, replying to a reporter’s query, said he was unaware of their presence or their grievances.

Some traditionalists in the SDA family feel that Adventists have grown slack in proclaiming and applying SDA distinctives, and that this has resulted in a delay of Christ’s return. A theological shift of sorts has indeed occurred over the past years, thanks mostly to a renewal movement that began among SDA young people and has been felt throughout the denomination. “There is more emphasis on the heart of Christianity—on knowing Christ personally and on living the Christian life—and less concern about the doctrines of the church,” explains an SDA official. More attention is being given now to personal study of the New Testament than in the past.

Considerable international good will was generated by the congress. For example, music groups from several lands included a high school chorus from Takoma Park, Maryland (world headquarters of the SDA), and a youth ensemble from New England. After the congress these two groups traveled to Poland, where they performed in a number of cathedrals and at the government palace in Warsaw. Among the dignitaries at the palace concert were Polish Communist leader Edward Gierek and President and Mrs. Gerald Ford, who greeted the 100 teen-agers with handshakes and commendations. In city after city the performers were told they had changed the image of American youth in the minds of many Polish people. “We are pleased to see a group with such a serious dedication to great music,” said a church leader.

No figures were available about the total cost of the congress in one of Europe’s most expensive capitals, where delegates staying at the Hilton paid a daily room rate of about $45 and the Stadthalle snack bar charged fifty-six cents for locally bottled Coca Cola. Many visitors maintained a good spirit through harrowing circumstances. One Greek pastor with his wife and four sons slept on the floor of a local Adventist church and existed on bread, butter, honey, and bananas—a rare, inexpensive commodity in Vienna.

(The 1980 congress will be held in Dallas.)

Scandal In Hungary

The tense situation of church-state relations in eastern Europe sometimes produces incidents serious enough to filter through the maze of threat and censorship and reach the West. Such is the case of Methodist minister Tibor Ivanyi, recently sacked for his part in revealing an alleged plot of bribery and corruption involving the president of the Free Churches of Hungary, Sandor Palotai.

Sources in Budapest told a CHRISTIANITY TODAY correspondent that Palotai attempted to divert to a Swiss bank account $5,000 of a $50,000 gift donated by American Methodists for the purpose of building a church in Hungary. The 10 per cent pay-off was allegedly his price for getting building permission from the authorities. According to Ivanyi, members of the secret police and the government Minister of Cults were involved with Palotai.

The protesting Ivanyi was brought before a church court on a minor charge of “ignoring rules which limit gospel preaching,” found guilty, and handed over to state authorities. This action divided Hungarian Methodist ministers, who voted their support for Ivanyi by 10 to 7.

The state replied by ousting the ten Ivanyi supporters from the ministry. This deprives them of salary, child allowance, driving license, and access to state medical facilities, which even convicted criminals are not usually denied.

When new ministers were appointed to replace Ivanyi and his backers, their church services were boycotted. Most of Ivanyi’s members showed up at the church to ensure that his successor could not enter, even when police arrived on the scene. Later, police returned to raid a church service at which the 160 members present were noted. When they appeared at their places of employment they found they had been dismissed. Since unemployment is an offense in Hungary, these people were later charged and jailed for three days, according to the sources.

Meanwhile, claim some Hungarian Christians, “misleading information” is being sent to church leaders in the West in an attempt to cover up the corruption disclosed by Ivanyi.

LOUD AND CLEAR

A Minsk, USSR, radio station replied to a listener who requested that future programs include broadcasts of church services, sermons by priests, and reviews of current religious journals. The listener had written: “At present we are compelled to listen to anti-religious propaganda which is of no interest to us.” The request, responded the station, concerns Soviet legislation on the separation of church from state and school from church. To broadcast the material requested, it said, “would be a gross violation of the law.”

KESTON NEWS SERVICE

Confrontation In Kenya

Separatist leader Carl McIntire billed the ninth congress of his International Council of Christian Churches as “the greatest confrontation in defense of the Word of God in ICCC history.” It turned out to be a highly publicized confrontation between the ICCC president and Kenyan immigration officers. They deported the New Jersey radio preacher two days before the scheduled adjournment of the meeting.

As the congress opened in Nairobi’s modern Kenyatta Conference Center July 16, McIntire hailed the country as one “which has been made a land of religious liberty by its president, Jomo Kenyatta.” His keynote address, however, was devoted mostly to a defense of the ICCC and to attacks on Communism and on the World Council of Churches and a plea for Africans to reject them. He specifically condemned the WCC’s program to combat racism and charged that its grants to African “guerrilla” groups were a means for encouraging communism in Africa. Some Kenyan politicians, journalists, and churchmen began immediately to take issue with him and suggested that he was taking religious liberty a bit too far.

The congress program continued in the same vein, and verbal counter attacks continued in the secular and religious press and in Parliament. The first official confrontation came the day after McIntire’s press office handed out a statement on the Northern Ireland situation. In the document, the British government’s attitudes toward Ulster and Rhodesia were compared. British leaders were blasted for opposing the white leadership of Rhodesia in its determination “to uphold Christian civilization” in the face of “great hostility from Black Africa.”

McIntire and two aides were summoned the next day to the Foreign Office in Nairobi and warned to tone down their political pronouncements. He was asked to apologize for the statement on Rhodesia. He refused personal responsibility for the document but apologized for the mistake made by his information officer in releasing it.

A parade permit that had been granted to the ICCC was canceled, and government officials told McIntire that he should cancel the invitation he had sent to exiled Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn to speak to the congress. From the platform McIntire then attacked Kenya’s restrictions on his freedom. He claimed that the WCC was working in unison with the government and that liaison was being handled by local Presbyterians.

WORDY

Two Northern Ireland clergymen stepped into the pulpit of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (Unitarian) in the Ulster town of Larne one Friday night last month and left fifty hours and twenty-five minutes later, claiming to have delivered the world’s longest sermon. A Reuter news story said Robin Williamson, 40, and Robert McKee, 25, beat the previous known record by more than two hours and raised $23,000 for charity. They stated it took them two and a half years to write the 500,000-word sermon.

The next morning immigration agents sent orders to the airport to delay a Rome-bound plane’s departure until they could get him on board. They first mistakenly went to the hotel room of his brother, retired Army colonel Forrest Mclntire, who was taking a bath. The brother, after he returned home to Oklahoma, was quoted, by an Oklahoma City newspaper as saying he gave the agents “the worst old-fashioned Army cussing in forty years” when he discovered they were looking for his brother instead of him.

The ICCC president was eating breakfast in another hotel when the government representatives found him. After some delaying tactics, he was hustled into a car without his baggage and with only a few shillings in his pocket. On the way to the airport he was served the deportation order. His wife followed him out of the country on another plane.

McIntire’s Christian Beacon report on the incident was headlined, “I Was Kidnapped.” He promised to write a book on his experiences.

Estimates of the number attending the Nairobi sessions varied from 3,000 to 5,000, and a congress resolution said delegates came from forty-eight nations. According to the Beacon, the council admitted twenty-eight denominations as new members, most of them from Africa and India. This brings the officially announced total of constituent bodies to 230, many of them small groups that have separated from other denominations over alleged liberalism. The ICCC also reelected McIntire as president and planned its next congress at his movement’s properties in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Not only did the East African country kick McIntire out before he finished his own meeting there, but immigration authorities prohibited his reentry later this year when the World Council of Churches holds its fifth General Assembly in Nairobi. In a letter to “ICCC Brethren” he reminded them that he has reported all previous WCC assemblies, and he declared that the WCC was using the Kenyan government to limit freedom of the press.

Wycliffe: Contracting Opposition

Anthropology professors from Colombia’s National University have charged the Wycliffe Bible Translators-run Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) with “proselytism” and “neo-colonialism.” The group does not want the government to renew its recently expired contract with SIL, which began work there in 1962.

The statement issued by the group says in part that Wycliffe serves “neocolonialism’s plans, politics, and conceptions,” and tries to make imperialism legitimate.

According to Wycliffe executive Clarence Church, such charges have been made before. “For the past seven or eight years,” he explains, “there has been a growing belief that any foreign group working in Colombia is exploitive.” Although Church doesn’t think these latest charges will jeopardize the long-term work of Wycliffe in Colombia, he says he “wouldn’t want to play down the opposition. Any time things like this make the wire services, it’s serious.”

CHERYL FORBES

Crusading In Ulster

For the first time in over six years, a major evangelistic campaign was conducted in troubled Northern Ireland. This summer John Haggai of Evangelism International preached for three weeks in the Belfast suburb of Balmoral, with an average attendance of 3,000. Support for the meetings was generated when the evangelist met a panel of hostile interviewers on a television channel. He also addressed some 300 influential business leaders at a mayor’s prayer breakfast and visited the Belfast prison. There were bomb scares at the team’s hotel, but none at the crusade site.

Moratorium (Later)

At a meeting of the executive committee of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), members repeated their call for African Christians to consider a moratorium on foreign missionaries and funds as an aid toward achieving an authentic African Christianity. But the group also voted to seek $500,000 in grants and loans from U. S. mission boards to help construct a new headquarters building.

Canon Burgess Carr, an Anglican, was reelected general secretary. In other action, the group reaffirmed its support for liberation movements opposing white minority governments in southern Africa, and it pledged to work at developing a theology that is both “universal” and relevant to Africans.

Color Change

Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, has changed its admission policy to permit the enrollment of unmarried black students beginning this fall. The school, known for its fundamentalist and separatist heritage, has excluded single blacks “to safeguard our Bible convictions against interracial marriage,” explained BJU president Bob Jones III during public debate of the school’s policies last year. (Some married black students had been admitted in the past.)

Earlier this year the Internal Revenue Service announced that church-related schools refusing to admit students on racial or ethnic grounds would lose their federal tax exemptions, even if such policies are required by religious beliefs. BJU became involved in litigation with the IRS, but school officials said the IRS position did not prompt BJU’s change of policy.

Jones said that the school “as a Christian institution cannot be in violation of the law,” and that it was “forced by a tyrannical government to obey a law whether we like it or not.”

As for convictions, BJU intends to keep its guard up. Interracial dating will not be permitted.

Book Boom

While many other industries are struggling to keep their sales figures from dropping, the religious book trade continues to bound ahead. Leading the way, say observers in the religious book field, are the volumes with a conservative, evangelical viewpoint.

When members of the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) met in Anaheim, California, in July, they learned that their combined sales increased an average of 20 percent in each of the last two years. This represents “stronger growth than in almost any industry in the nation,” observed John Bass, CBA executive vice president.

In the general publishing field there has been an increase of just under 10 per cent in sales since 1967, according to the Association of American Publishers. In contrast, the volume of religious sales during that period has jumped over 16 per cent. Publishers Weekly in a special religious book issue in July noted that it is not only the stores which have done well. “Beyond this,” reported the trade journal, “are a half-dozen significant religious book clubs, numerous mail order houses, church stores, seminary book rooms, house party (like Tupperware) jobbers, discount operations, door-to-door agents, and perhaps a dozen major national rack distributors.”

CBA stores in 1974 sold more than $303 million worth of books, Bass said, and if sales of Christian books by non-members and through direct mail operations were taken into account the figure would exceed a half-billion dollars.

Why are people buying more Christian books? In a Los AngelesTimes report on the CBA meeting and the burgeoning market, Russell Chandler quoted Chuck Sauer of Concordia Publishing House: “People are trying to get back to basics—the Bible is one. Why? They’re searching for security.”

Chandler reported that at least thirty-six religious books had had sales in excess of one million copies within the past five years. Topping the list was Kenneth Taylor’s Living Bible with more than 18 million in print. Taylor’s paraphrase in other formats has sold an additional eight million copies.

“A few years ago,” reported the National Religious Bestsellers newsletter, “a religious best seller enjoyed an annual sale of 10,000 copies. Now, even the No. 10 title on the cloth list sells better than 75,000 copies.”

Women are faring especially well in the evangelical market. Whereas the average best seller listing in Publishers Weekly includes only 15 to 20 per cent women authors, female writers were responsible for 70 per cent of the cloth best sellers on the CBA list during the first half of 1975.

With 5,000 attending (and the event is not open to the public), the 1975 CBA convention was the largest yet.

MONUMENTAL CONCERN

Under pressure from the European Common Market, the Church of England will revise its Churchyard Handbook. Last published in 1962, the handbook specified that tombstones and graveyard monuments “shall be of English oak or natural stone quarried in Great Britain.” The forthcoming edition will merely recommend “teak or oak or natural stone” with no mention of country of origin.

“We had a visit from the EEC,” explained editor David Williams.

Ministering To Children

Childhood Education in the Church, edited by Roy Zuck and Robert Clark (Moody, 1975, 500 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Catherine Day, CHRISTIANITY TODAYstaff.

Most Sunday-school teacher preparation focuses on familiarizing the teachers with the materials they will be using. Childhood Education in the Church approaches preparation from the perspective that if you first understand the child’s emotional, physical, and mental development, you can more effectively prepare the material and present it. Leading Christian educators, seminary professors, Christian-education directors, and Sunday-school curriculum writers, have contributed twenty-nine articles that provide a balance of Christian educational philosophy (although Piaget and Ginott have had some influence), childhood development, theological conceptualization of children, and teaching methodology, as well as administrative guides for various programs. Sound thinking and preparation has produced a functional textbook for the Christian-education programs of all churches.

The book displays a fine balance between the theoretical and practical aspects of education. Sound educational principles are presented in clear and simple terms (but not simplistically) so that each Sunday-school teacher, whether an engineer, accountant, or sales clerk by profession, can have some grasp of children’s development and capabilities at various age levels. This is something that has all too often been ignored in deference to “knowing the material.”

The book is divided into seven sections. The first deals with the challenge of teaching children. Donald Joy, associate professor of Christian education at Asbury Seminary, sets the tone for the whole book with a thought-provoking essay on “Why Teach Children.” He sets forth the scriptural reasoning and responsibility for education, as well as recognizing the historical and sociological patterns set. He takes his standard from such verses as Matthew 12:48–53, Ephesians 4:25, and Luke 12:48.

The second section deals with the development of children from birth through sixth grade. V. Gilbert Beers, the president of Creative Design and author of children’s books, and Elsiebeth McDaniel, editor of pre-primary and primary lessons for Scripture Press, are perhaps the best known contributors to this section. But all the contributors are well qualified. They discuss the physical, mental, and social characteristics and development of the various age groups. This is the kind of information that the student of education gets in his most basic classes, and yet it is material that few Sunday-school teachers are taught.

Possibly the most helpful section is the third, which deals with the child’s ability to grasp theological concepts and the degree to which a particular concept is understood at a specific age level. V. Gilbert Beers has drawn up tables to show what doctrinal concepts the various age levels can grasp, listing the statements the child might make to express his perception of topics such as God, Jesus, the Bible, home, Sunday school and church, and angels.

Two principles that are understood from the outset of the book function most importantly in this section. (1) There is no such thing as the perfectly average child who fits into each category set for his age group. Each child develops at his own rate; the descriptions offered are merely guidelines. (2) A child is not a little adult to whom the same things are taught, only in smaller doses. He has his own reasoning, needs, and abilities.

The last sections fall under the general category of methodology. Part four provides how-to information in basic areas of evangelism, storytelling, creative activities, visual aids, music worship, and stewardship. Part five offers program suggestions and tells of organizational structure aids within church agencies other than Sunday school, such as clubs, Bible schools, camps, and child-care programs. The most significant contribution in this section is that in which co-editor Robert Clark discusses leadership and the use of materials. Taking Dwight Eisenhower’s explanation that “leadership is the ability to get a person to do what you want him to do, when you want it done, in a way you want it done, because he wants to do it,” Clark suggests means for achieving this end, especially as they relate to the development of the leader’s character. His cataloging of organizational methods include training classes, worker seminars, and apprenticeship, as well as basic job descriptions.

Part six delves into the more specialized skills of working with exceptional children: gifted, retarded and handicapped. While much of this material offers nothing new in the field, to those unfamiliar with the special problems and needs of this group it should be very helpful.

The last section moves away from the areas that are generally understood to be in the direct domain of the congregation to consider briefly the home and the Christian elementary school.

This book presents some of the most complete and yet concise material available on the whole topic of childhood education. The bibliographies at the end of each chapter are useful guides to further information. Many churches are questioning the effectiveness of their Sunday schools and their teacher preparation. This book can improve the teachers’ understanding of their pupils and provide some innovative methodology, thereby offering new life to the Sunday school.

Where The Wall Falls

Freedom Under Siege—The Impact of Organized Religion on Your Liberty and Your Pocketbook, by Madalyn Murray O’Hair (Tarcher, 1974, 278 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by John Wagner, attorney, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

That incorrigible scourge of Christianity in our day—the self-professed atheist who has blasted everything from praying in schools to Bible-quoting from the moon—has lashed out again. This time she attempts to document the infiltration of religion into all facets of tax-supported public life.

Filled with historical data, cases in point, and statistics, the book extends from colonial history to current loopholes for church-connected giving. It falls short of being a mighty blast at religion, although I am sure that the author, who is a lawyer and an ex-Presbyterian, intended it to be just that. Neither is it a rapier thrust, for the book lacks literary style and wit. It is clearly written and put together in an orderly way. But Madalyn O’Hair is clearly not George Bernard Shaw nor H. L. Mencken. She clearly is, however, an anti-supernaturalist, and she resents any kind of connection between organized religion and the established social order framed by law. This is to say that she takes the First Amendment (that Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”) very strictly. She is for absolute separation.

Her book makes interesting, even fascinating reading. It shows the multiplicity of ways in which governments—federal, state and local—help religious organizations by laws that either favor them financially or let them speak their message through tax-supported institutions, often treading on the toes of non-adherents in the process. After a review of colonial debate over church-state relations and the eventual adoption of the Constitution, she discusses the influence the churches have had on education and moral questions—prayer in public schools, parochaid, censorship of books, and such current controversies as abortion and birth control. While the Roman Catholic Church comes in for a large share of her wrath, Protestants are by no means exempt.

The history and culture of America have deep roots in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. O’Hair deplores the fact that religious moralists have often succeeded in laying down the law for everyone. But it seems to me that this is inevitable so long as practicing Jews and Christians are elected to legislative bodies. One would hardly expect them to vote for legal positions contradictory of their own ethical ideals.

The third section of the book deals with the church as “big business.” The author goes into the tax-free status of church property and income, the large investments of denominations and para-church organizations, and the tax breaks created in their favor by the intricacies of the internal revenue code with regard to benevolent giving.

Did you know that some churches own hotels and business buildings donated by businesses that they then lease back to the businesses for their continued use, thereby giving the business donors sizable tax breaks, and creating fixed assets and income for the churches? O’Hair does, and she apparently has devoted innumerable days to investigating these matters.

She cites also the numerous hospitals, day-care centers, retirement homes, and housing developments owned and operated by churches or church-related entities but financed by taxpayers. Whether this is good or bad depends on your feelings about the scope of the First Amendment. But in any case, she shows that public tax money in great gobs goes to church enterprises like these.

Does it infringe on religious freedom if the astronauts quote Genesis from outer space? I doubt it. But when Roman Catholic or Protestant leaders try to obtain public tax money to support a denominational school system, then that is quite another question. These are touchy matters with which the courts and legislatures must continue to deal, and about which Christians must prayerfully think out their position. The constitutional principle of church-state can mean many things in many situations. O’Hair does not come up with all the right answers, but her book does start us thinking about the implications of it all.

Preaching: Reliable, Relevant

Crisis in the Pulpit, by Chevis F. Horne (Baker, 1975, 144 pp., $4.95), Preaching For Today, by Clyde E. Fant (Harper & Row, 1975, 196 pp., $8.95), The Living and Active Word: One Way to Preach From the Bible Today, by O. C. Edwards, Jr. (Seabury, 1975, 178 pp., $7.95), and Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching, by Clyde E. Fant (Nelson, 1975, 180 pp., $3.50 pb), are reviewed by C. D. Hansen, pastor, First Church of the Nazarene, Lowell, Indiana.

Two words being talked about by churchmen of every persuasion these days are renewal and relevance. Everyone seems to have his own idea of what renewal is and what is relevant to the desired renewal.

For preachers struggling with these questions, Crisis in the Pulpit and Preaching For Today provide an answer. They incisively examine renewal and relevance in the pulpit. All preachers should read them.

The more readable is Crisis in the Pulpit. If when he begins the book the reader doubts the centrality of biblical preaching in the worship service, he won’t when he has finished. Horne has been pastor of the First Baptist Church of Martinsville, Virginia, since 1948, and his experience backs up what he says. He writes in simple and direct language, skillfully presenting his material in such a way that the book is difficult to lay down. This is a fresh look at some very old problems confronting the preacher and his congregation. Horne is at home with the Bible and makes abundant use of it to expound his points. The redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ runs through the book like a scarlet thread.

Horne draws upon the great masters of preaching to bolster the truth he presents; among those whom he quotes are James S. Stewart, John Wesley, W. E. Sangster, Phillips Brooks, Helmut Thielicke, and Richard Baxter.

He insists that preaching must not be fragmentary but must be to the total man, using the total Bible: “history, law, poetry, prophets, gospels, letters, and apocalypses.” Holding that the Church is to be servant-oriented, he wants preaching, like Christ, not only to draw people into the Church but to send them back as servants into a sin-darkened world. He believes that renewal of the Church is possible only through a renewed pulpit and that this cannot occur if the message is reduced to the theoretical or abstract.

Closely akin to this work is Preaching For Today by Clyde E. Fant, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Richardson, Texas, co-editor of the thirteen-volume Twenty Centuries of Great Preaching (Word), and a former professor of preaching at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. The style of the book is sometimes a little difficult, but the subject matter is not. Once past the rather tedious, textbook-style first three chapters, the reader finds flow and rhythm.

Both Horne and Fant examine the pulpit crisis. Fant traces the history of pulpit criticism from New Testament days to the twentieth century, speaking of “heated blasts” and “shelling of the pulpits.” Horne sees the crisis as being produced by four converging crises: “faith, the institutional church, authority, and communication.” In the end, dealing with the matter in separate ways, they come to the same conclusion: there is hope for the preached Word. Fant points out that God’s Word is never irrelevant even though the preacher’s preaching may be. Three of his chapters should be required reading for every preacher: “We Are Men Like Yourselves,” “Credibility and Charisma,” and “Impact, Communion, and Shock.”

Of special interest is his discussion of expertise, trustworthiness, and ignorance. He records a terse statement by Phillips Brooks that should be indelibly engraved on every minister’s mind: “In many respects an ignorant clergy, however pious it may be, is worse than none at all. The more an empty head glows and burns, the more hollow and thin and dry it grows.”

Fant has some unusual ideas on sermon preparation that might not grip all. For those tied to a written manuscript, his “oral manuscript” method might be a way of deliverance.

He makes a good point about focusing on the wrong things, such as “eloquent diction, precise enunciation, dramatic gestures, impressive facial expressions, resonant tone, even correct breathing.” One who does this may find that “by the time he is ready to speak, he is either paralyzed or galvanized.”

Both Fant and Horne want the preacher to be contemporary, but neither would endorse the type of contemporaneity advocated by O. C. Edwards, Jr., dean of Seabury-Western Seminary, an Episcopal school. He begins with the method of constructing sermons on a purportedly contemporary basis. Then in the second part of the book he gives examples of sermons prepared by the method detailed in the first part, basically a one-point sermon with very little reference to the Bible. The sermons deal mostly with secular matters, and an attempt is made to contemporize the Bible around such themes as politics and the price of meat.

The best setting for such a sermon is to get everyone comfortably settled at the parish house, Edwards tells us. Then with a cigarette or pastry and a cup of coffee one preaches formally for about ten to fifteen minutes. This is followed by two to three times as much time discussing the sermon.

Edwards does not believe in announcing a text; he thinks that most congregations have very little familiarity with biblical texts and that when the text is announced most of the audience is lost immediately. Perhaps this explains why he draws most of his ideas and illustrations from secular sources, including Playboy, rather than from the Word of God. There is a place in preaching for the use of outside materials. But to build the sermon primarily from sources other than the Bible is to defeat the purpose of making the Word living and active. Edwards’s method gives a strong clue to where the pulpit crisis began.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a passionate advocate of church renewal and insisted upon relevance. But he believed in the prominence of preaching and felt every sermon should be an event. He insisted that nothing was more concrete than Christ’s voice speaking through the sermon.

In Fant’s other book, Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching, he enables the reader to take a new look at this great theologian. He includes Bonhoeffer’s lectures on preaching, never before translated into English. Bonhoeffer, (1906–45) has been a controversial figure among evangelicals. He has often been misquoted and misunderstood.

Headed for a brilliant academic career, young Bonhoeffer felt the call to the pastoral ministry. His father was disappointed at his son’s decision, but later wrote, “Now, seeing the Church in a crisis that I never thought would be possible, I see that what you have chosen was very right.”

The young theologian worked hard at preaching, believing that the renewal of the Church lay in this area. He believed that preaching must be steeped in the Word of God, for this was the authority needed to present the truth. Relevance for Bonhoeffer was not merely a matter of rehashing events of the day. Rather he identified it with the specific interests of God’s Word.

Of great interest is his lecture entitled “The Pastor and the Bible,” which deals with the way a pastor should view and study the Bible. Especially delightful and informative is the chapter “How Does the Sermon Begin?”

Fant has done a laudable job of assembling this material and putting it together in a style that is readable and direct. For critics of Bonhoeffer this volume may help to erase some erroneous and jaundiced views about him. One need not agree with all aspects of his theology to profit from reading his views on preaching. Indeed, if many of his views were taken to heart, we would not have the crisis in the pulpits that is so widely noted today.

BRIEFLY NOTED

TSF Bulletin, widely recognized as one of the best evangelical theological journals, is merging with the heretofore irregularly appearing Themelios under the latter’s name and is to appear three times a year. The first joint issue is scheduled for this fall and is to be designated Themelios 1975/3. At only $2.50, an annual subscription is one of the best buys in scholarly writing. Order from IFES, 10 College Rd., Harrow, Middlesex, HA1, 1BE, England.

The Most Dangerous Game: A Biblical Expose of Occultism, by Don Basham and Dick Leggatt (Manna Christian Outreach [Greensburg, Pa.], 126 pp., $1.95 pb), The Adversary: The Christian Versus Demon Activity, by Mark Bubeck (Moody, 160 pp., $2.25 pb), The Devil You Say?: Perspectives on Demons and the Occult, by John Chalk et al. (Sweet, 159 pp., $2.95), Angels, Elect and Evil, by C. Fred Dickason (Moody, 238 pp., $2.95 pb), Satan: His Person, Work, Place, and Destiny, by F. C. Jennings (Loizeaux, 254 pp., $2.50 pb), The Real Satan: From Biblical Times to the Present, by James Kallas (Augsburg, 111 pp., $2.95 pb), The World of Unseen Spirits, by Bernard Schneider (BMH Books, 157 pp., $2.95), Satan: The Prince of Darkness, by Fredk. Tatford (Kregel, 118 pp., $1.95 pb), and A Manual on Exorcism, by H. A. Maxwell Whyte (Whitaker, 126 pp., $1.25 pb). These books share a basically evangelical and biblically centered approach. Moreover, they are sober rather than sensational. The Jennings and Tatford works, being reprints, do not refer to more recent manifestations, which has advantages. Dickason and Schneider also present the biblical data on the holy angels.

Call to Discipleship (Logos, 138 pp., $3.50 pb), and Disciple, by Juan Carlos Ortiz (Creation, 158 pp., $5.95). These two rather similar books deal with the experiences of the author, pastor of a Pentecostal church in Buenos Aires. They present controversial and provocative views of why and how a church is truly revived.

Key to the Bible: Volume I (Alba, 186 pp., $1.45 pb), Volume II (189 pp., $1.65 pb), and Volume III (206 pp., $1.75), by Wilfrid Harrington. Useful as an introductory survey along the lines of mainstream academic biblical criticism and as an example of where contemporary Catholicism stands. The author teaches in the supposedly conservative Catholic country of Ireland, but doesn’t believe that, e.g., Peter wrote either epistle bearing his name.

Vision and Betrayal in America, by John B. Anderson (Word, 130 pp., $4.95), Profile of a Christian Citizen, by C. Welton Gaddy (Broadman, 125 pp., $1.95), Politics Is a Way of Helping People, by Karl Hertz (Augsburg, 150 pp., $3.95 pb), and The Unraveling of America, by Stephen Mousma (Inter-Varsity, 228 pp., $4.95 pb). A congressman, a denominational executive, a seminary professor, and a college professor express similar convictions on the necessity for Christian political involvement, especially in the wake of Watergate. They present politics as one of many aspects of a Christian’s life and witness. The authors are, respectively, Evangelical Free, Baptist, Lutheran, and Calvinist, and both Republicans and Democrats are represented.

Deuteronomy, by J. A. Thompson (InterVarsity, 320 pp., $7.95). Ninth and latest addition to the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, a series that we wholeheartedly recommend as the best currently in progress on the Old Testament.

The Dating Game, by Herbert Miles (Zondervan, 168 pp., $5.95, $2.95 pb), I Pledge You My Troth, by James Olthuis (Harper & Row, 148 pp., $7.95), The People You Live With, by O. Quentin Hyder (Revell, 192 pp., $4.95), and Your Troubled Children, by Elizabeth Skoglund (David C. Cook, 105 pp., $1.50 pb). Four evangelical treatments of man-woman-children relationships. Miles addresses numerous specific questions pertaining to the teenage dating and courtship years, with more emphasis on pre-marital relationships than the title implies. Olthuis offers a new perspective on the man-woman relationship, using the old word “troth” (look it up) as the vehicle; his book is a refreshing, biblical view of marriage, family, and friendship. Hyder’s book, a sequel to The Christian Handbook of Psychiatry, gives a psychiatrist’s approach to the whole spectrum of family problems. Skoglund gives good advice on parent-child relationships, drawing from her professional experience as a counselor.

A Reader in Political Theology, by Alistair Kee (Westminster, 171 pp., $2.95 pb). Excerpts from twenty-four writings of the past decade or so, representing the so-called theologies of hope, revolution, development, liberation, and black experience. Special reference to how these theologians relate Christianity to the need for leftward political change. Good overview of this perspective, but hardly a balanced presentation of various Christian stances.

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Volume I, by C. E. B. Cranfield (T. & T. Clark, 444 pp., £7). The International Critical Commentary, the most widely known English scholarly series, had its last previous addition in 1951 (I and II Kings). Now the series is being revived, both to cover some books previously omitted and to replace dated volumes. Cranfield, who with J. A. Emerton is now the general editor, rewrote the first half of the widely commended Sanday and Headlam volume (which first appeared in 1895). All theological libraries will need to acquire this series.

First Corinthians, by Hans Conzelmann (Fortress, 322 pp., $19.95). A translation from a 1969 commentary by the prominent German scholar is the latest addition to the Hermeneia series.

Truths That Transform, by D. James Kennedy (Revell, 160 pp., $4.95). An attractively bound exposition of sixteen doctrinal themes related to salvation (e.g., predestination, assurance) by the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida. Simply written and biblically based, from a moderately Calvinist stance. Wide margins for notes.

Matthew—Thy Kingdom Come, by John Walvoord (Moody, 260 pp., $5.95), The Gospel of John, Volume I, by James Montgomery Boice (Zondervan, 444 pp., $9.95), Letter of Joy, by Arnold Bittlinger (Bethany Fellowship, 124 pp., $2.45 pb), The New and Living Way, by George Turner (Bethany Fellowship, 240 pp., $3.50 pb), and Exploring Revelation, by John Phillips (Moody, 288 pp., $5.95). Five new commentaries on New Testament books, all by evangelicals. Walvoord, writing on Matthew, concentrates on Christ the King, seeking to show why Christ did not establish his kingdom at his first coming. Boice’s volume on John, the first of five on this Gospel, goes only through chapter four, giving an in-depth study, but in a style that will be appreciated by lay readers also. Bittlinger explores Phillipians in a contemporary style, emphasizing the theme that Paul, prisoner at the time, has written of joy. Turner’s book is an exposition of Hebrews, written especially for pastors, teachers, study groups, with an analytical outline, topical studies, and illustrative material. Phillips attempts to outline Revelation, expound it verse by verse, and relate modern events and trends to the prophecies.

Religious Reading (Consortium Press [821 15th St. NW, Washington, D. C. 20005], c. 250 pp., $9.95 pb). The first of what is intended to be an annual guide. Some 2,000 books published in 1973 and 1974 are grouped into forty-one categories (with a title, but no author, index). About a third of the titles have brief, non-evaluative summaries. Both popular and technical works are included. Some improvements should be made in future editions, but this is a good beginning. Librarians and booksellers should support the venture, and many individual readers will also find it well worth their while.

A Layman’s Handbook of Christian Doctrine, by Herschel Hobbs (Broadman, 142 pp., $2.50 pb). A Baptist leader offers brief explanations of numerous biblical themes, from “adoption” through “doubt” and “patience” to “Zion.” Crime, Rape and Gin, by Bernard Crick (Prometheus, 96 pp., n.p.). A humanistic approach to the problems of violence, pornography and drug addiction. Crick advocates little or no state censorship and increased social persuasion and pressure. It is interesting to note arguments that are similar to those of Christians who, on other issues, oppose legislation to correct injustices because one “can’t legislate morality” and should only work to get “men’s hearts changed.”

Getting Straight About the Bible, by Horace Weaver (Abingdon, 151 pp., $3.95). An approach to four controversial topics: creation, inspiration and interpretation, prophecy, and extraterrestrial life. Caricatures evangelical views.

Beneficent Euthanasia, edited by Marvin Kohl (Prometheus, 266 pp., $10.95, $4.95 pb), Freedom to Die, by O. Ruth Russell (Human Sciences, 352 pp., $14.95), and Death by Decision, by Jerry Wilson (Westminster, 208 pp., $7.50). Three discussions of the legal, ethical, moral, and historical aspects of euthanasia. Kohl has collected a score of essays. They generally argue for “mercy killing,” which is called “beneficent euthanasia.” Russell also supports euthanasia, using humanist arguments and outlining practical steps such as voluntary euthanasia statutes. Wilson’s treatise reaches some of the same conclusions, but his arguments are more “God-centered.” Improving medical technology makes this controversial subject increasingly practical, and evangelical ethicists need to be prepared to participate in the debate.

The Christian Teacher and the Law, by Christopher Hall (Christian Legal Society [Box 2069, Oak Park, Ill. 60303], 40 pp., $2.50 pb). Guidelines for Christians who teach in public schools on how much visibility their faith can have. Interesting and timely.

An Analysis of the Greek New Testament, I, by Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor (Pontifical Biblical Institute [distributed by Loyola University Press, 3431 N. Ashland, Chicago, Ill 60657], 456 pp., about $7.50). Volume one (Matthew-Acts) of an extremely useful tool for the person who has studied only a little Greek or for the pastor who has forgotten most of the Greek he learned in seminary. Contains a glossary of grammatical terms and a table of verb forms. Purists may not approve, but novice Greek students will doubtless receive this work with enthusiasm.

The Sexual Celibate, by Donald Goergen (Seabury, 266 pp., $8.95), Sons of Freedom, by Gini Andrews (Zondervan, 191 pp., $4.95), Secrets of Eden, by Jim Reynolds (Sweet, 191 pp., $2.45 pb), and Marriage, Sexuality and Celibacy: A Greek Orthodox Perspective, by Demetrios Constantelos (Light and Life [Box 26421, Minneapolis, Minn. 55426], 93 pp., $3.95). Four different perspectives on human sexuality. Goergen examines the celibate choice and its relation to human sexuality. Andrews addresses single men specifically, using a question-answer format in giving a woman’s perspective on questions confronting men. Reynolds’s book is essentially a guide to biblical teaching on the whole range of sexual behavior. Constantelos addresses his fellow Eastern Orthodox on that tradition’s historical approach.

A Challenge to Education, two volumes, edited by Walter Lang (Bible-Science Association [P.O. Box 1016, Caldwell, Idaho 83605], 155 pp. each, $2 each pb), Canyon of Canyons, by Clifford Burdick (Bible-Science, 78 pp., $1.95 pb), and Scientific Creationism, edited by Henry Morris (Creation-Life [Box 15666, San Diego, Calif. 92115], 277 pp., $3.95 pb). Numerous essays from proponents of creationism. The Lang volumes contain addresses on a variety of biological and geological topics. Burdick shows how the Grand Canyon fits into a six-day-creation, young-earth theory. Morris has edited a more systematic overview, especially for school teachers, to provide alternative comments to evolutionary texts.

Files don’t contain everything. This was one finding by the burglars who broke into the office of psychiatrist Dr. Lewis Fielding in search of information to be used against Daniel Ellsberg. E. Howard Hunt must have been very disappointed over the psychiatrist’s files. But not as disappointed, perhaps, as he might have been with Mr. Ellsberg’s rabbi’s files!

Clergymen often keep only the scantiest records. When the chief element is spiritual, something as tangible as written records might seem out of place. But the clergyman who doesn’t keep files of any kind is depriving himself of an extremely useful tool.

To knock filing is inconsistent. The Bibles we read and preach from are indexed. What else are verse numberings but a filing tool? One of the most valuable volumes in Bible study is an analytical concordance, such as Young’s or Strong’s. Both are fat word files.

Among the benefits filing offers the minister are these:

1. Filing conserves time. Saving the right papers can save time (which in turn may help us “save” others). Most clergymen would agree that knowing where to look for answers is almost as good as knowing them. When one comes across a well articulated position, he does well to keep it handy. Filing spares our minds from needless wheel-spinning.

2. It saves duplication. Filing is nothing more than efficiency and good stewardship applied to ideas. A minister who files nothing, not even his sermons, will quite probably get bogged down in needless duplication and frustrating repetition.

3. It develops a better memory. Memorization skills are increased by reinforcement and review. Filing material and periodically consulting recorded information makes repeated impressions on the mind. Recollection comes easier. It is a fact of learning that when one writes out something it doesn’t evaporate from the mind as quickly.

4. It improves sermons by stimulating thought and by supplying concrete particulars. Probably the outstanding believer in filing in colonial America was Cotton Mather. He kept an enormous commonplace book entitled Biblica Americana in which he collected interesting information and illustrative material. He urged aspirants to the ministry to maintain similar file reservoirs. Jonathan Edwards could not have written his famous treatise on The Will without a lifetime habit of jotting down ideas on small pieces of paper as he rode along and pinning them to his coat for later use.

The benefits of preserving information and ideas are no less today. Seminal thoughts, striking illustrations, incisive arguments, epigrammatic sayings are badly needed and greatly missed when we want them and can’t find them.

When one starts filing, the urge is to file everything and become encyclopedic. But to keep everything is foolish. What we file will depend on our interests, needs, standards—and room. Continual discernment and discrimination is essential.

An occasional file purge may be necessary. As a general rule, keep pacesetting articles, definitive articles, or those written by experts in their field. We ought to be open, too, to preserving the off-beat, the original, the satirical and whimsical.

I file articles alphabetically and according to books of the Bible in steel cabinets. Citations from borrowed books, excerpts from my own library, interesting facts and statistics I put on 3 × 5 cards or papers. I have often been grateful for a gripping anecdote culled from my extensive 3 × 5 file, started two decades ago. My messages have occasionally benefited from pungent illustrations garnered from other speakers. And I have used cards to record incidents for which at the time I had no useful application. Rather than build a sermon around a story, I have saved the story to fit into a biblical text I would handle at a future time.

I find the 3 × 5 file the most useful filing technique, for these reasons: (1) it is cheap compared to others that are marketed; (2) it is portable—a card containing a single illustration can readily be used in the pulpit; (3) it suits my method of preparing sermons: I write a sermon out on 3 × 5 pieces of paper, one thought paragraph per paper; then I can play conceptual solitaire and slip in a 3 × 5 from my file that rounds out the presentation, before I type the sermon up in manuscript form.

We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit in keeping our files as much as we need the help of the Holy Spirit in drafting our sermons. Filing what is interesting at the time can have a later unexpected use. When I was in seminary I came across an intriguing statistical compilation of the Hindu attitude toward cows. I had no immediate use for it but filed it nevertheless. A few years later I taught a college course on “Man’s Religion,” and my lecture on Hinduism was enhanced by some little known but interesting information about the Hindus and cows.

There is a danger that filing will degenerate into gimmicks and mechanical manipulation. James S. Stewart rightly advised, “If a passion for mental tidiness leads you to [elaborate card-indexing of illustrations], well and good: only beware lest the mechanism of cross-references and the like becomes despotic!” (Heralds of God). The process of sermon preparation is not simply putting the right illustration in the right place, but of having our hearts as well as minds in tune with the Almighty as he has revealed himself in the blessed Word of truth.

Filing, obliquely and indirectly, serves heart preparation in the exposition of the Scriptures. For in filing pruning is always going on. Clip and file. And throw away! Periodicals, in my view, rarely deserve to be saved complete. Few ministers have unlimited space; few congregations have unlimited funds to move them! There may be many things in your file that are on atonement but will not blend into your presentation on the atonement. Some of them may, however, serve well another sermon on the death of Christ. With our lives and with our files the supreme question is not just, Is it truth?, but. Is it appropriate?

The file over our file is Scripture. Let that be your final screen and censor. Solid biblical theology will enable you to sift through the chaff. But don’t be too severe on some chaff—after all, God made that, too. Remember, there are a lot of secular details in the Bible, especially in the prophecy of Ezekiel. A secular reference can be a plate for serving up the wholesome fare of Scripture. Although non-theological information does not feed the soul, it can keep up interest. Let your facts, your findings, your file serve the grand purpose of making the divine truths more palatable and more penetrating.—The Reverend JOHN LEWIS GILMORE, Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church (United Church of Christ), Worland, Wyoming.

The churches were full. In my imagination the same thing was taking place in many of them. People with cheerful expressions were eating sandwiches as the organ played. “Mine has such a lovely roast-beef flavor.” “Mine is turkey with herbs.” “Mine tastes like fresh tomato and lettuce, though the texture is strange.” “Mine is honey and peanut butter.” Hungry people being filled? Nourishing food becoming a part of each person’s growing body? No. Then what is taking place in this flight of fancy?

These “sandwiches” are filled with sawdust. Cleverly flavored sawdust is filling people’s stomachs, giving them a comfortable, full feeling. Cleverly prepared imitation bread filled with imitation meat, imitation vegetables, imitation honey, has been handed out and eagerly accepted, eaten without question. People walk out, thinking they have been fed. “Wasn’t that a lovely lunch? So tasty and satisfiying.”

What a tragedy it would be if well-flavored imitation food with no nutritional value were placed on the plates of hungry people. Physical illness would soon result, and in time death. “What a fiendish plot!” we would say, if nations succeeded in luring their enemies into “eating” to their own destruction without any resistance.

What would be worse—sawdust sandwiches fed to physically hungry people or sawdust Christianity fed to the spiritually hungry? When is it more important to examine the content of “food” being handed to us, when it is a silver platter of sandwiches or a silver platter of pulpit eloquence? Are we meant to open our mouths and swallow anything that is being served? No. The food we need has been carefully described for us, so that we have a base from which to judge, a sample with which to compare.

It was while hearing a discussion of what some board examining young candidates for the ministry felt was most important that my mind became filled with this picture of thousands of people eating sawdust sandwiches Sunday by Sunday. Two young men were refused ordination because they would not say they would take part in services to ordain women as pastors. One pastor said in effect that it did not matter whether a pastor believed in the virgin birth of Christ (or other such things!) as it would not hurt any other person if he did not, but that not to believe in the ordination of women was to dispossess other people and hurt them. What an attempt to flavor sawdust so it would taste like roast beef! To toss away the importance of belief in the virgin birth and insist instead upon belief in the ordination of women is a mind-boggling thing.

“And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34). Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, the virgin-born Son of God, who “was in the beginning with God” and without whom “was not anything made that was made”—this Jesus is moved with compassion because of the hungry people who need spiritual food that will nourish and bring lasting health.

The moment comes when physical food is needed also, and the command comes, “Give ye them to eat” (Mark 6:37). The undershepherds were to give food to the hungry, but where was it to come from? “He looked up to heaven and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes he divided among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled” (vv. 41, 42). The same powerful God who was able to feed the Israelites with manna day after day in the wilderness multiplied the nourishing bread and fish so that the thousands were fed properly. The physical food was not false: it was made by the Creator of all things, and it was passed out in real baskets by the disciples, who were commissioned to give what Jesus had prepared. Jesus speaks later to Peter and to the many “Peters” who are the true undershepherds or pastors, saying, “Feed my lambs.” The feeding is to take place with that which Jesus has prepared, a precious basket full of real food.

The Pharisees, who did not believe in the virgin birth, who did not believe Jesus was truly the Messiah, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, are accosting him with questions. The disciples are seeking answers so that they will know more about this One in whom they are coming to trust. Jesus speaks clearly and strongly:

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?… Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.… Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.… Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not [John 6:27–36].

Bread is to be given to the hungry. That bread is the “flesh” of the Son of God, who through the virgin birth became Son of Man that we might have this flesh. The Bible tells us that the angel Gabriel was sent from God “to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.… And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for … thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.” Mary herself had a perfect right to find this hard to believe: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” The angel gently answered her question: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The angel went on to tell Mary whom she could share her news with: another woman, her cousin Elizabeth, who also had a miracle in her body in that she had become pregnant in her old age. Elizabeth was prepared to believe that “with God nothing shall be impossible.”

Some believed Jesus when he spoke to them face to face; others were those of whom he said, “Ye have seen me, and believe not.” It is a serious thing to give a person the task of serving bread when he cannot distinguish bread from sawdust.

“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.”

Francis A. Schaeffer,leader of L’Abri Fellowship, Huemoz, Switzerland

If evangelicals are to be evangelicals, we must not compromise our view of Scripture. There is no use of evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger, if at the same time appreciable parts of evangelicalism are getting soft at that which is the central core, namely the Scriptures.

We must say with sadness that in some places seminaries and individuals who are known as evangelical no longer hold to a full view of Scripture. The issue is clear: Is the Bible true truth and infallible wherever it speaks, including where it touches history and the cosmos, or is it only in some sense revelational where it touches religious subjects? That is the issue.

The heart of neo-orthodox existential theology is that the Bible gives us a quarry out of which to have religious experience but that the Bible contains mistakes where it touches that which is verifiable—namely history and science. But unhappily we must say that in some circles … neo-orthodox existential theology is being taught under the name of evangelicalism.

The issue is whether the Bible gives propositional truth (that is, truth that may be stated in propositions) where it touches history and the cosmos, and this all the way back to pre-Abrahamic history, all the way back to the first eleven chapters of Genesis, or whether instead of that it is only meaningful where it touches that which is considered religious. T. H. Huxley, the biologist, the friend of Darwin, the grandfather of Aldous and Julian Huxley, wrote in 1890 that he visualized the day not far hence in which faith would be separated from all fact, and especially all pre-Abrahamic history, and that faith would then go on triumphant forever. This is an amazing quote for 1890 before the birth of existential philosophy or existential theology. He indeed foresaw something clearly. I am sure that he and his friends considered this some kind of a joke, because they would have understood well that if faith is separated from fact and specifically pre-Abrahamic space-time history, it is only another form of what we today call a trip.

But unhappily, it is not only the avowedly neoorthodox existential theologians who now hold that which T. H. Huxley foresaw, but some who call themselves evangelicals as well. This may come from the theological side in saying that not all the Bible is revelational, or it may come from the scientific side in saying that the Bible teaches little or nothing when it speaks of the cosmos.

Martin Luther said:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

In our day that point is the question of Scripture. Holding to a strong view of Scripture or not holding to it is the watershed of the evangelical world.

The first direction in which we must face is to say most lovingly but clearly: Evangelicalism is not consistently evangelical unless there is a line drawn between those who take a full view of Scripture and those who do not.

Painful Preaching

In pre-Revolutionary New England, to call someone a painful preacher was a compliment. It meant that he took pains to preach soundly, and usually at length, which was considered a sign of sound faith.

Many present-day Americans no longer have the ability to appreciate such painful preaching, especially if it lasts more than twenty minutes. Some attribute this shortened attention span to the influence of television, where the content is cut into small chunks and sandwiched between commercials. The avid TV-watcher can hardly be expected to digest a sermon that runs along for half an hour or more.

Many forward-looking clergy have attempted to adapt their preaching to the public taste. In many ministerial circles, the twenty-minute rule is adhered to more scrupulously than the Ten Commandments, or even the regulations of the Internal Revenue Service.

On the other hand, evangelicals soon realized that when all else fails, the long sermon may be taken as a token of orthodoxy. Most people today have difficulty understanding even relatively crude theological distinctions, not to mention the fine points that often separate orthodoxy from heresy (as in the difference between homoousios and homoiousios). But almost everyone can tell time.

In America, there is something almost sacred about the hour between eleven and twelve on Sunday morning. A service that begins at eleven is usually expected to end at noon. And that is almost always a sign of a spiritless, soft-living, fleshly approach to worship (to borrow a few phrases from Luther, who did not respect the twenty-minute rule). One way evangelicals have of breaking the mold is to begin earlier—at 10:45 or 10:30. No one expects a sermon to end at 11:45—it’s not a natural time for anything. And once the natural sixty-minute limit has been passed, the clock offers little further motivation to stop. It is now suspect in conservative circles to end a sermon on the hour or to preach less than three-quarters of an hour. One gifted preacher we know changed his service time from 11:00 to 10:30 so he would not be limited to one hour—and now the service usually ends around 12:30.

Painful preaching was an important thing in the seventeenth century. But the point was to take pains, not to cause them. Remember the first Eutychus, O preachers, and beware! If you need forty-five minutes to get your message across, take them. But if you have only fifteen minutes’ worth, you can let the people go at 11:55 without feeling you have betrayed the faith. Good listeners are hard to come by. Don’t abuse them.

Mad Beauty

Some people are beautiful when they are angry. Ms. Adeney (“Do Your Own Thing—As Long As You Do It Our Way,” July 4) is one of them! And she tells the truth. Thank you.

Bethany Christian Reformed Church

Gallup, N. M.

Battle Help

I enjoyed Carl F. H. Henry’s “Footnotes” article on “The Battle of the Sexes” (July 4). I believe that he said some things which have been needed and certainly were helpful to me as I have worked in this area.

President

Grand Canyon College

Phoenix, Ariz.

Bryan: Changing The Taste

I thoroughly enjoyed the article by Robert Linder, “Fifty Years After Scopes: Lessons to Learn, A Heritage to Reclaim” (July 18). I still remember with great appreciation the viewing of the movie Inherit the Wind. Surely that left a very bad taste in my mouth. The article cleared the air for me, demonstrating the viability of biblical creation, morality, and most of all salvation based on a reliable Scripture.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church

Union Grove, Wise.

It is good to see someone stepping out of mid-twentieth century America to find models for evangelical political action. However … Professor Linder should not be surprised to find that Bryan was abused by the press.… Bryan was not a “shining knight” to all Americans (after all, he lost three presidential elections). To the Eastern Establishment he was a “dangerous” man who went about condemning “Wall Street,” corporations, monopolies, and banks. To large numbers of people his solutions were simplistic …

An attack on Darwinian evolution was more than an attack on a scientific theory. Darwin’s theory had become the cornerstone of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy, and that philosophy had swept America in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Spencer’s social Darwinism became a principal support of laissez-faire capitalism.… To attack Darwin was to attack the underpinnings of their philosophy.

Redlands, Calif.

It is good to be able to say after fifty years under a cloud that “Bryan’s personal and political reputation is being restored, and evangelicals are rediscovering a respected hero of the faith.” One reason, overlooked by Professor Linder, why Bryan was so vilified was because of his lifelong dry position. For many years he was a popular platform speaker for the Anti-Saloon League of America.… At the fifteenth International Congress Against Alcoholism held at Washington, D. C., he [said]:

I believe the two greatest reforms for which the world awaits today are the abolition of war everywhere, and the driving of intoxicating drinks from off the earth. And I am praying that our own beloved land may, in the providence of God, be permitted to lead the world in these two great reforms, and if we can do so, we shall have placed to the credit of the nation the two greatest services that any nation has been able to render to mankind.

Editor, The American Issue

American Council on Alcohol Problems

Washington, D. C.

Good Snipping

I write particularly to encourage your news department.… Many times what you present is stuff which newspapers have no space for.… Lately I’ve been taking the opportunity to cut out and “snip edit” some of your news accounts, pasting them in a notebook for future reference. I thank you very much for your magazine.

St. Louis Park, Minn.

Enjoying Violence

I want to respond to the second point of the editorial, “Coping With Crime” (June 6).… Studies show there is no correlation between rape and pornography. It appears that the rapist commits his crime not out of a desire for sex but out of his hostility toward women. His is an act of violence. It just might be that the increase of rape is due to the tremendous growth of violence in America.

We Americans exhibit contradictory attitudes when it comes to violence. We abhor child abuse, cruelty to animals, beatings of our senior citizens, or the assassination of world leaders, but we enjoy violence on the football field as well as in our movies or TV programs.

I do not condone the sale of pornographic literature, but I wish to state that as Christians we ought to speak to the violence of our American culture with the same fervor that we speak out against pornography.

Social Work Department

Eastern College

St. Davids, Pa.

Continuing Presbyterians

I was distressed to see that you gave great prominence to the semicentennial of the United Church of Canada (“Canada’s United Church,” by J. Berkley Reynolds, June 20) and, so far as I could find, did not even mention the fact that The Presbyterian Church in Canada is celebrating its centennial. While it is true that possibly two-thirds of the members of The Presbyterian Church in Canada did, for a variety of reasons, leave their church and join the newly created United Church of Canada, The Presbyterian Church in Canada did not, in spite of what Dr. Chown and the government acts said, become part of The United Church of Canada but did continue and is still a very important part of the life of Canada.

Melita, Manitoba

‘Crisis’—Correct But Confusing

Your July 18 editorial entitled “One More Time: The Crisis in Higher Education,” though largely correct in pointing out the danger of a Christian college’s over-reliance on government funding, was quite confusing in that it did not set out the continued independence of Christian colleges as a separate discussion from that of secular collegiate attitudes. In addition, the editorial’s basic thrust all too painfully endorsed the cross-flag assimilation which Christians of late have attempted to distinguish.

The first fallacy on the latter point was to compile several characteristics Christians find undesirable and to label them “left.” Many persons with leftist inclinations deplore the ideas of legalized abortion or marijuana. Moreover, some of the goals of the left, e.g., economic leveling and social cooperation, can uncompromisingly be fit into a proper biblical social view.…

The second basic fallacy was the imputation that there exists a categoric and necessary correlation between Christianity and Americanism, “America as we have known it.” The obvious response is that much of what we know about America is patently non-biblical, and that in some circumstances, the goals of the left may more closely emulate the biblical social principles we are commanded to proclaim.

Chicago, Ill.

Stein: Fine On Wine

The article by Robert H. Stein on “Wine-Drinking in New Testament Times” in the June 20 issue is the best thing I have ever read on the subject. It makes many Bible passages much clearer, and it focuses deftly on a raging contemporary problem. Evangelical Christians can be helpful by taking seriously a problem which plagues many people and which needs responsible handling these days.

Field Representative

National Division

Board of Global Ministries

The United Methodist Church

New York, N. Y.

Feeling Articulation

Thank you for publishing “Why I Oppose the Ordination of Women” (June 6). Elisabeth Elliot has aptly articulated much of what I feel but have not known how to express. I am an ex-feminist and have seen both sides of the coin. I am now really finding my identity as a woman, wife, mother.

Anderson, Ind.

ERRATUM

In the August 8 news story on the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, William Kohn was erroneously identified as head of Partners in Mission, the mission wing of the dissident ELIM movement. Although initially associated with the group, he later became pastor of a church in Milwaukee. James Mayer is the mission head.

Ingmar Bergman: Through A Glass Darkly

Stendhal said that “a novel is a mirror carried along a roadway”; it reflects not only the passing scene but the one carrying the mirror. The same is true of films. Ingmar Bergman’s films may be about the validity of art, as in Hour of the Wolf, or the scourge of war, as in Shame; but they are more a reflection of himself. His early life was deeply influenced by his fear of and isolation from his father, a Swedish pastor; by the making of a cinematograph and the new world that this opened up for him; by the writings of Strindberg and Kafka; and, in his late teens, by his loss of Christian faith, of, soon after, his first love, and then of a close friend.

A little later Bergman flirted with what he calls “a sort of refined existentialism.” Although he reacted against the conventions of bourgeois society, he did not jettison moral categories. He finds no inconsistency between this attitude and “my basic view of things,” which is “not to have any basic view of things.” He is committed to existentialism in part because he sees Christianity as being “deeply branded by a very virulent humiliation motif.” For Bergman, the idea of God is that of “something destructive and fantastically dangerous, something filled with risk for the human being and bringing out in him dark, destructive forces instead of the opposite” (Bergman on Bergman, Seeker and Warburg, 1973).

Before directing films, Bergman spent many years in the theater. He has maintained what is essentially a film repertory company, one that is renowned for consistently superb acting and deeply imaginative and supple direction. Perhaps it was Smiles of a Summer Night that established him as a European rather than a Swedish director, a position consolidated in 1956 with The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.

The key to Bergman’s search and success may be found in his statement that he has “never been able to keep myself from believing that I’m in charge of so sensitive an instrument that it should be possible to use it to illuminate the human soul with an infinitely more penetrating light” (Cahiers du Cinéma) 1956, No. 61: Ingmar Bergman, “Qu’est-ce que ‘Faire des Films’?” The Seventh Seal portrays a man who searches for understanding through understanding alone and who in the process becomes impervious to his fellows. Loss of faith in God is apparent in the film; God is silent because he is not there. Also present in the film is the horror to be found in man’s putting to death the positive qualities by which he lives. (For an extended study of this and other films, see my Images of man: A Critique of Contemporary Cinema, Inter-Varsity, 1974.)

Similar themes may be observed in Wild Strawberries; the story of a doctor whose work was healing, yet who strangled, as it were, any life with which he came in contact. He walks through the arches of the years emotionally uneducated, insensitive to self-knowledge. Both the knight in The Seventh Seal and Dr. Berg in Wild Strawberries, as well as the pastors in Winter Light and Cries and Whispers, long for knowledge, by which they mean an explanation of the suffering and seeming pointlessness of life. Time and again Bergman’s characters ask for verbal confirmation that God is there and life has meaning. But there is only The Silence, and in Cries and Whispers “it’s all a tissue of lies.” The Touch, too, is concerned with the question of God’s existence. Despite the idea of God as destructive and dangerous, man’s nature revolts against the idea of there being no God. Yet it may be asked if in fact Bergman, along with many like-minded people, hates God not because he is not there but because he is there.

Bergman is much concerned with exploring human relationships. He views sincerity in personal relationships as the summum bonum of achievement for a fallen man. Love is often the cause and the effect, but it is frequently seen as tainted and sour; in Smiles of a Summer Night it is said that “sincere love is a juggler’s act” and “a detestable business.” “Love is another word,” says Jons in The Seventh Seal, “for lust plus lust plus lust and a damn lot of cheating, falseness, lies and all kinds of other fooling around.” The quarreling of the couple in Wild Strawberries, the adultery of the wife in The Touch, the corroding passion in A Passion, the disillusionment in Summer Interlude, the horror of the failure of communication of husband and wife and of sister and sister in Cries and Whispers—these are examples of gangrenous relationships. Occasionally this gloom is offset by truth and beauty, as illustrated in the married life of Jof and Mia in The Seventh Seal.

Bergman recognizes the instability of our sense of self, the insecurity and hurt that flow from a loss of identity and the absence of love. This is brilliantly evoked in Cries and Whispers, where, with the exception of Agnes, the characters cannot reach one another and therefore flail at one another in alienation and fear, in their “constant misery and torment.”

There seem to be firm traces of deep inferiority complexes and an almost sadistic intention for characters to humiliate one another in many of Bergman’s more recent films. Perhaps this is most observable in his latest, Scenes From a Marriage. Scenes is a remarkable, deeply moving and disturbing work that implies, as reviewer T. E. Kalem observed, that there is “something endemic in the institution of marriage itself that both curdles love and incubates hate” (Time, September 30, 1974). It would seem also that in the absence of God’s love (for there is no God), human love is the surrogate. Although erotic love persists after the couple have separated, an understanding of themselves as persons who need to go on working at a relationship is as far from them as ever.

Many of Bergman’s films seem to be collages of melancholy plummeting to despair. There is hope, however, even amid the many images of death and time to be found in the films—hope portrayed in, for example, the person of the child and strolling players in The Seventh Seal and the maid with her simple faith in Cries and Whispers. But perplexity and confusion continually surface. We can never know for sure whether we are watching the hopelessness and despair of dramatically “distanced” characters or Bergman’s own despair. Yet one gets the impression that both he and his characters are imprisoned within themselves. His world appears to be limited to despairing and perhaps desperate characters.

Why this attitude of despair? I think it is a symptom of galloping existentialism with the tensions and inconsistencies that this brings. The greatest of these tensions is that modern man does not know what to do with what he knows deep down he is; there is no objective framework into which to fit his uniqueness. Here grows the unassuaged despair. There is no hope because there is no absolute truth.

Bergman, like other brilliant and sensitive directors, reflects and promotes today’s thought-forms and life-styles, embossing his creativity on his view of the world, whether that view is illusory or real. With biblical insights, psychological perception, and inventive genius he refines and redefines the nature of man in himself and in his relationships, creating not only another film but a work of art. He reveals Man, unredeemed man. His films reflect the agony and the ecstasy of fallen man trapped in a universe where God is thought to be dead.

DONALD J. DREW¹Donald J. Drew is a college lecturer in English literature in Kent, England.