Book Briefs: November 22, 1974

The Facts Of Christ’S Life

Jesus: The Fact Behind the Faith, by C. Leslie Mitton (Eerdmans, 1974, 152 pp., $2.85 pb), and A Lawyer Among the Theologians, by Norman Anderson (Eerdmans, 1974, 240 pp., $3.95 pb), are reviewed by Charles C. Anderson, chairman, Division of Religion and Philosophy, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kansas.

Life-of-Jesus research continues to attract a good deal of attention in print. These two books are somewhat unusual, one from the perspective of the public addressed, the other from the perspective of the discipline of the writer. C. Leslie Mitton is the editor of the Expository Times and an ordained Methodist minister who has done considerable writing on New Testament subjects. Norman Anderson is director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London and an Anglican layman who, in addition to his legal activities, has written and edited works in the field of religion, primarily comparative religion.

Mitton writes for ministers and school teachers, not for scholars. After a good, brief introductory chapter on the course of investigation in the twentieth century, and a second chapter demonstrating that our main source materials for the life of Jesus are the Gospels, he tackles the question of the historical accuracy of the Gospels. While he finds the skepticism of Bultmann unwarranted at many points, he is convinced that the early Christian community modified and even created incidents concerning Jesus and sayings attributed to him. Yet he insists that knowledge of the historical Jesus is important, and after listing his reasons for such a belief, he proceeds to enumerate criteria for distinguishing the historical from the nonhistorical, criteria similar to those noted frequently in recent works on the subject.

As a result he concludes that there are three classes of materials in the Gospels: (1) “those elements which may be accepted without credulity”; (2) “those which must be eliminated as nonhistorical”; and (3) an “indeterminate category” which he regards as “possible but uncertain.”

Against this background he treats in successive chapters aspects of Jesus’ “character and bearing that can be accepted as authentic,” historical facts that can be considered authentic, and the teaching of Jesus that may be regarded as authentic. In the second of these chapters there is a particularly good section on Papias’s remark that Peter was one of Mark’s sources of information. Mitton feels that this should be taken much more seriously than it has been in critical circles and proceeds to support his contention.

Anderson’s book is a critique of many of the assumptions of higher-critical research. The first four chapters investigate the question of the historical Jesus, chapter five is a discussion of the atonement, and the final chapter is a commentary on John Robinson’s book, The Difference in Being a Christian Today.

Anderson’s treatment is valuable because it is the reaction of one who is not in the discipline of New Testament studies to the works of those who are. As C. S. Lewis noted, biblical criticism has become ingrown, and it is refreshing to hear from one who is willing to question some of its basic presuppositions. Anderson comes down much more assuredly on the side of the historical accuracy of the New Testament records than does Mitton. He is unwilling to accept the assertion that the presence of proclamation in the Gospels rules out historical reliability. He questions the assumption of a tremendous time gap between the life of Jesus and the writing of material contained in our Gospels. He observes that scholars of other disciplines accept the reliability of the accounts more readily than some theologians, and he notes the eye-witness character of many of the canonical gospel accounts as compared with those in the apocryphal gospels.

Over half of his treatment of the historical Jesus is concerned with the resurrection, because he rightly sees this as particularly important. The first of his two chapters here is on the basic historicity of the resurrection. He first presents Bultmann’s mythical view of the resurrection and allows Barth and Künneth to challenge it. He finds Barth’s criticism valuable, but questions his and others’ attempt to distinguish between ordinary history and supra-history.

In his second chapter on the resurrection Anderson treats the biblical evidence for it. He prefaces his remarks with the observation, “The attitude with which many contemporary theologians and biblical scholars approach that evidence seems to me to approximate much more closely to that of a counsel for the prosecution than that of a judge who tries to weigh the evidence.” He refutes purported contradictions in the New Testament record regarding the resurrection, e.g., the assumption that in Luke there is no allowance for Galilean appearances and an immediate ascension, and that there is no mention of an appearance to Peter in the Gospels except for an “awkward insertion” in Luke. He then investigates six matters of debate regarding Paul’s resurrection account in First Corinthians 15. He finds some of the issues inconsequential and others resolvable without a denial of the accuracy of the records.

It is particularly appropriate that he, a lawyer, should write on the atonement. Here again he finds the New Testament portrayal convincing and rebuts modern criticisms of it.

While he finds certain values in Robinson’s book, he also notes numerous inadequacies in it as he observes, “One of the distinguishing marks of a Christian, in any age or generation, should surely be that, while he in no sense ignores the importance of the ‘life he now lives in the flesh,’ he is able to view this life, in some measure, in the context of eternity.”

Certain features of both books could have been improved. It is perplexing that Mitton does not deal with redaction criticism, and in view of his own mention of the rise in historical estimate of the Gospel of John, it is surprising that at many points he takes it so lightly. One could also hope that Anderson had read more continental and American authors, e.g., on the resurrection, but this may perhaps be excused in view of his disciplinary orientation.

Evangelicals would naturally prefer the approach of Anderson to the subject of inspiration of the Scriptures. He feels that the Holy Spirit aided the writers in the production of the books, although he does not take refuge in this as a means of avoiding biblical criticism. Mitton holds no such view and as a consequence falls back too often on what was likely to have happened in the first century Christian community.

Both books are well worth reading, Mitton’s for a summary of the current state of New Testament criticism on the subject, Anderson’s for instruction on where the inadequacies of many of these recent investigations lie.

Credible And Comprehensive

Philosophy of Religion, by Norman L. Geisler (Zondervan, 1974, 416 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Michael H. Macdonald, associate professor of German and philosophy, Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, Washington.

There are two basic ways to view the philosophy of religion. One is to give a historical survey of the main personalities, movements, and debates; the other is to consider some of the key problems, drawing from philosophical debates when appropriate. Norman Geisler’s Philosophy of Religion does the latter. (For more information concerning books on philosophy of religion see Colin Brown’s “A Note on Books” in Philosophy and the Christian Faith.) It is divided into four broad sections: God and experience, God and reason, God and language, and God and evil. After each of the seventeen chapters the author gives a brief summary, frequently repeating significant points.

Geisler defines religious experience by identifying two fundamental factors: (1) an awareness of the Transcendent; and (2) a total commitment to it as something ultimate. He demonstrates, from the standpoint of both the believer and the non-believer, that man is “incurably religious,” and concludes that there is no good reason to doubt that men have many types of religious experiences. The question is whether these experiences correspond to anything outside the mind, i.e., whether they have any objective reference. Geisler attempts to show that they do.

Before turning to Geisler’s views on the traditional arguments for God’s existence, we should note that many philosophers today feel that natural theology, in the sense of a coherent knowledge of God and his relation to the world without reference to revelation, is a blind alley. And it must be admitted that all too often the Christian apologist has been in the position of a schoolboy who knows how the argument should come out and, not finding any sound proof, ends up by unsuccessfully improvising.

Yet the credibility of biblical theism would undeniably be enhanced were one able to state a formally valid theistic proof. A proof would at the very least be psychologically persuasive, and that alone should keep us going. Furthermore, the fact that a proof has not heretofore been stated does not mean there never will be one. Admittedly, however, theistic arguments can convince only those who take to complex abstract reasoning. It is very easy to lose one’s way among the arguments and to begin to build castles in the sky. Many are the nooks and crannies where abstract truth can seemingly be found and subsequently lost again.

Fortunately, Geisler is well aware that the traditional rationalistic arguments for the existence of God, even were they to hold water, would not bring us to the God of Christian faith and experience. He does not attempt to turn the Christian message into an esoteric philosophy, for men encounter God in their total personalities through the Gospel, not through abstruse theological arguments. Geisler points to the difference between “the basis of believing that there is a God and the basis for believing in God. One needs evidence to know that there is a God there, but he needs faith to commit himself to the God which the evidence indicates is really there.” Geisler thus attempts to build a bridge between those who stress God must be verified (the verificationists) and those who do not (the fideists).

Geisler treats in detail the various proofs for God’s existence, e.g., the teleological, cosmological, ontological, and moral arguments. He gives a good history of each. His conclusion on the ontological argument merits note: he makes the somewhat startling observation that the final fatal criticism of the ontological argument is that it is logically quite possible that nothing even existed at all, including God. Yet while non-being is a logical possibility, something undeniably does exist, and with this observation the argument has gone from the a priori ontological to the a posteriori cosmological.

Geisler attempts to make a case for the existence of God based on man’s present experience as a finite, dependent being. Man expects to be able to fulfill his basic needs; he anticipates that there are solutions to his problems. Therefore the premise based on experience is that “what men really need really exists.” It is contrary to human experience to suppose that what men really need is not there; ergo God is. Nietzsche of course maintained that a belief or need, no matter how necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with absolute reality and truth, and while Geisler is aware of this kind of “logical possibility,” he does not give it much weight. Yet even on the empirical level, this need for God has more to do with quality than duration (i.e., quantity) of life. There is a difference in kind between the need for water to quench one’s thirst and the existential need for God. The objects compared must be of a similar nature for a strong argument based on analogy, and since many of his analogies are dissimilar, the argument is, in the main, weak.

Turning to the so-called problem of evil, we can legitimately ask: Why does evil remain in the world at all? The allknowing God could have prevented it; the all-loving God should do away with it; and the all-powerful God has the ability to destroy it. The theist cannot deny its presence, and, after studying various alternatives, Geisler shows that we must affirm that God created free beings who would sin. Even if the theist maintains that God did not know what free beings would do, he did know what could happen, which in fact did happen. Geisler finds the basis for man’s greatest dignity and worth in that “God so loved him that he gave him the freedom to reject His love.”

Geisler further admits that this is not, in the words of Leibniz, “the best of all possible worlds.” However, his “out” is that “it is the best of all possible ways to achieve the best of all possible worlds.” He contends that this imperfect moral world is “the necessary precondition for achieving the morally perfect world,” and, in Kantian fashion, he claims that the achievement of this goal is possible only if God is infinite, for nothing less could guarantee the outcome.

Further work is needed here. As Geisler admits, if one can make a case that this present world is not the best possible way to achieve the best possible moral world, then his answer to the problem fails. Is evil conclusively a necessary condition for a greater good? Why could the infinite God not have made man to understand imperfection fully without having to experience the process? Geisler’s answer is that even an omnipotent God cannot do what is impossible. Christ prayed: “… if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” We must assume it was not possible. I do not argue with this biblical example, but the aforementioned philosophical question remains: Why did not God make man to fully comprehend imperfection without having to experience it?

This book is meant for the serious student. It is an unemotional, scholarly, oftentimes computer-like analysis, which might be tedious to anyone but the devoted. It is not designed to be read through in bed with pleasure. Geisler has done his homework; he has digested and made use of the best scholarship. And he is non-evasive, not begging off even on the most difficult questions.

Geisler has entered this arena with a positive and comprehensive case of his own, and although I find some flaws in it, my more general evaluation is quite positive. The book deserves to be read and studied. Geisler has realized many of his objectives, even though it is clear that his solutions to the problems of philosophy of religion should continue to be critically discussed.

The Life Of Trueblood

While It Is Day: An Autobiography, by Elton Trueblood (Harper & Row, 1974, 170 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Lewis Rambo, graduate student, University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, Illinois.

David Elton Trueblood is probably one of the most widely read authors of religious books in the United States and is certainly one of the most influential figures in the church-renewal movement. Like his previous thirty-one books, this autobiography is lucid, as well as filled with a sense of urgency and vitality.

Rather than writing a chronological account of his life, Trueblood writes chapters on various facets of his career; for example, he tells of his life as a professor, an author, a minister, a Yokefellow, a father. He also tells of his childhood in Iowa as the son of pioneering Quaker parents who instilled in him the love of learning, piety, and hard work. The sections of most interest to a wide audience concern his work as an author and as the founder of the Yokefellows.

Trueblood began his publishing career in 1935 with The Essence of Spiritual Religion. It was The Predicament of Modern Man (1944), however, that brought him to national prominence. The book dealt with the spiritual crisis facing the entire Western world, then embroiled in a war international in scope. The war was a symptom, according to Trueblood, of a deeper and more profound crisis: the loss of spiritual direction and the loss of meaning. Modern society was a “cut-flower civilization,” by which Trueblood meant a society that would die because it had been severed from its sustaining roots. His later books, such as The Life We Prize, The Company of the Committed, and Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish, seek to articulate specific remedies for the spiritual crisis of our time.

Trueblood founded the Yokefellows because he believed that small groups could effect profound and fundamental changes in the spiritual lives of individuals and churches. The small groups struggled not only with the intellectual issues involved in the spiritual crisis but also with the development of a devotional life based on such disciplines as prayer, daily Scripture reading, and mutual concern. From this work with small groups emerged a transdenominational, informal organization of men and women who sought to revitalize their local churches and to apply their faith to their jobs and family life. During the last two decades, under the leadership of Trueblood, the Yokefellows have established numerous institutes and retreat centers and expanded their work in many directions—the most dramatic being their successful work in penal institutions.

A brief review cannot do justice to the scope and diversity of the life and work of Elton Trueblood. It is enough to say that this book gives us a glimpse at his life from his own perspective and that he writes about himself and those who have influenced him with warmth and candor. In my opinion, the most noteworthy achievement of Elton Trueblood is that he has been able to maintain the intellectual integrity of the Christian faith while at the same time being unashamedly committed to a rich devotional life.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

Burundi: The Tragic Years, by Thomas Melady (Orbis, 110 pp., $4.95), and No Place to Stop Killing, by Norman Wingert (Moody, 125 pp., $1.95 pb). Perhaps as many as 5 per cent of the people of a central African republic were slaughtered in the spring of 1972 because they had some education and were of a different (and larger) ethnic group than their rulers. Numerous Christian leaders were slain. The then U. S. ambassador and an evangelical relief worker present factual, heart-rending accounts.

God’s Inerrant Word, edited by John Warwick Montgomery (Bethany Fellowship, 288 pp., $6.95). A dozen essays by the editor and six other theologians, including J. I. Packer and Clark Pinnock, capably defending the entire trustworthiness of Scripture.

All We’re Meant To Be, by Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty (Word, 233 pp., $6.95). A valuable contribution by evangelicals to the discussion about the role of women. It seeks to deal not only with the current scene but also with the relevant teachings and practices of Scripture.

Tolkien’s World, by Randel Helms (Houghton Mifflin, 167 pp., $5.95). Many Christians who have enjoyed reading Tolkien will want to read this book about his writings.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Crusade, by Lee Fisher (Creation, 102 pp., $4.95). Anecdotes from Billy Graham’s ministry.

Explosion of People Evangelism, by Donald C. Palmer (Moody, 191 pp., $2.95 pb). Detailed case study of Pentecostal growth in Colombia.

The Beginning, by Les Woodson (Victor, 154 pp., $1.95 pb), The Art of Staying Off Dead-End Streets, by Richard DeHaan (Victor, 156 pp., $1.75 pb), The Prophet Isaiah, by Victor Buksbazen (Spearhead [475 White Horse Pike, Collingswood, N.J. 08107], 511 pp., $7.95), Daniel in Babylon, by Felix Zimmerman (Gibbs [2303 Roosevelt Road, Broadview, Ill. 60153], 195 pp., $4.95), The Freedom Letter, by Alan Johnson (Moody, 220 pp., $4.95), and Colossians and Philemon, by Ralph Martin (Attic, 174 pp., n.p.). Commentaries on, respectively, Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Daniel, Romans, Colossians, and Revelation, by evangelicals, for non-specialists. Martin’s is part of the New Century Bible and is especially noteworthy.

Beyond the Exit Door, by Robert Vetter (David C. Cook, 109 pp., $1.25 pb), and Tracks of a Fellow Struggler, by John Claypool (Word, 104 pp., $3.95). There are a lot of books on healings. Here are two by mourners of the unhealed. The first is by Gordon-Conwell Seminary staff member whose wife dies of a malignancy, leaving three young children. The latter consists of four sermons by a Baptist pastor whose ten-year-old daughter died of leukemia. Honest sharing of struggles with grief.

The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700), by Jaroslav Pelikan (University of Chicago, 329 pp., $16.50). The price is high but the value is greater for any who want to understand the Eastern churches. No other Westerner is better equipped than Pelikan, an orthodox Lutheran, to write on the subject. This is the second volume of his projected five-volume study, The Christian Tradition.

The Commonweal and American Catholicism, by Rodger Van Allen (Fortress, 218 pp., $4.50 pb). A very interesting study of the influence of Commonweal, a well-known, independently lay-sponsored weekly, now fifty years old.

Luther and the Peasants’ War, by Robert Crossley (Exposition, 164 pp., $8). Careful account of Luther’s actions and reactions by a history professor at St. Olaf. Well researched and written.

The Fervent Prayer, by J. Edwin Orr (Moody, 236 pp., $5.95). Report of the impact of America’s revival of 1858 on the rest of the world. Emphasizes the influence of Moody as an outgrowth of the movement. More for the amateur.

Gurdjieff: Making a New World, by J. G. Bennett (Harper & Row, 320 pp., $8.95). Although most of us have never heard of him, Gurdjieff founded a growing religious cult. A sympathetic treatment.

Medicine Power, by Brad Steiger (Doubleday, 226 pp., $6.95), and The People of the Center, by Carl Starkloff (Seabury, 144 pp., $4.95). America’s first ethnic group, the Indians, have their spiritual heritage reported sympathetically.

The Origin and Destiny of Man, by Francis Nigel Lee (Presbyterian and Reformed, 119 pp., $2.95. pb). Five lectures inaugurating the Memphis-based Christian Studies Center by its scholar-in-residence, a prolific author from South Africa.

The Most Revealing Book of the Bible, by Vernard Eller (Eerdmans, 214 pp., $3.95 pb), and A Personal Adventure in Prophecy, by Raymond Kincheloe (Tyndale, 214 pp., $6.95 and $2.95 pb). Two contrasting commentaries for the layman on the last book of the Bible. Eller’s purpose is more “to amble through it as a book to be read and enjoyed rather than treating it as corpse to be dissected or a cypher to be broken.” Kincheloe’s discussion facilitates intensive personal study but also incorporates many elements that Eller faults. Don’t read only one.

Christian Love: Campus Style, by Phillip Giessler (Dillon/Liederbach, 180 pp., $4.95). Short letters from a pastor to a young college friend, adapted for daily reading by other students.

Demons, the Bible, and You, by Russell Hitt et al. (Timothy Books [Industrial Commons, Newtown, Pa. 18940], 128 pp., $1.75 pb). This is one of the better among countless recent books on Satan and his angels. Many of the ten chapters first appeared in Eternity.

Through It All, by Andrae Crouch (Word, 148 pp., $5.95), The Autobiography of William Jay (Banner of Truth, 586 pp., $7.95), The Quiet Prince, by Edwin Groenhoff (His International Service, 127 pp., $5.95), C. S. Lewis: A Biography, by Roger Green and Walter Hooper (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 320 pp., $6.95), Livingstone, by Elspeth Huxley (Saturday Review, 224 pp., $12.50), Uncle Cam, by James and Marti Hefley (Word, 272 pp., $6.95), Daws, by Betty Lee Skinner (Zondervan, 391 pp., $6.95), John Winebrenner, by Richard Kern (Central Publishing House [Box 2103, Harrisburg, Pa. 17105], 226 pp., $6.95, $4.95 pb), and God Made Them Great, by John Tallach (Banner of Truth, 135 pp., $4.95). Lives of several evangelical leaders of the past two centuries. Crouch is a leading gospel singer. Jay was an English pastor. Groenhoff tells of Mel Larson, an American editor and writer. Green and Hooper offer a major study of perhaps the most influential orthodox apologist of our time. Huxley’s book on Livingstone is accompanied by numerous illustrations. “Cam” and “Daws” were the founders of, respectively, two of the foremost specialized agencies of our time, Wycliffe Bible Translators and The Navigators. Winebrenner was a German-American revivalist who founded one of the groups denominated “Churches of God.” George Muller and Isobel Kuhn are among the five subjects of Tallach’s book.

Ideas

Missions: From All Six To All Six

The Editors

Some ideas die hard. In missions some mistaken ideas that have prevailed for the last hundred years have finally met their end. One is that missionary outreach is the white man’s burden. A second is that the ever-present Western missionary must always be in authority over younger churches.

The younger churches have come of age and have called for the end of dominance by foreign missionaries. As a result, missionaries have been withdrawn from areas where churches have become self-governing and self-supporting. But this right idea has led to another wrong idea—that the day for the “foreign” missionary is over.

Some are now saying that there is no need for missionaries to cross geographical, linguistic, cultural, and economic barriers, that the job of evangelism can now be left to churches and Christians who will evangelize in their own localities. This is a tragic error. There are more than two billion people who have not heard of Jesus Christ. They are not located in places where the Gospel is openly, freely, and continually preached. There are no near neighbors who can reach them; they must be reached by missionaries who cross cultural, geographic, and linguistic barriers. To suppose that the existence of churches in India, for instance, means that all Indians can be reached without the crossing of barriers is nonsense. Thousands of large groups of Indian people cannot be reached unless Christians from other areas, whether they be Indian, Chinese, Latin American, American, or something else, learn new languages, move into new geographical areas, and become enmeshed in new cultures. There is no other way.

All the churches of Jesus Christ in all parts of the world are charged with the responsibility of becoming missionary communities that will send their people across the barriers that separate them from the unreached millions. Every church that has matured since it was founded by some missionary activity must now be a sending church instead of a receiving church. We cannot be content to let missionary agencies divide up areas among themselves and assume responsibility for the evangelization of larger numbers of people than they have the manpower to work with. Donald McGavran has estimated that a single missionary family cannot work with a community numbering more than five thousand people. If this is true and if there are at least two billion who have not heard of Christ, then it follows that not thousands or tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of missionaries are needed to finish the task of world evangelization. And if the population of the world continues to increase at the present rate, then it is likely that seven or eight hundred thousand missionaries will be needed.

The International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne this past summer made it clear that there are thriving Christian churches around the world. It revealed also that these churches have leaders who in spiritual qualifications, intellectual acumen, and commitment are just as able as the missionaries who brought the churches into being. The missionary task is no longer the exclusive responsibility of the West. It belongs to every church everywhere. Missionaries must come from all six continents and go to all six continents if the job is to be done. Missionaries from Latin America and Mexico may need to come north to reach some of the peoples of North America. And it may be easier for some Americans to preach the Gospel to some of the peoples of Africa than it would be for other Africans to do so. It may be easier in some areas for blacks to reach whites and whites to reach blacks than for whites to reach whites and blacks to reach blacks. It may be easier for Latin American Christians to reach Muslims in India than it would be for nearby Hindus who have become Christians to do so. At the Lausanne congress, missionary theoretician Ralph Winter delivered a paper on this subject that may well become a standard treatise of the needs of this new age.

Lausanne’s Continuing Committee, selected according to the guidelines made at the congress, will meet in Mexico City in January. Once it gets organized and gets down to its business—the evangelization of the world—one of the main items on its agenda should be the matter of how to enlist, develop, equip, and send evangelists who will, in the words of Donald McGavran, “cross the cultural, linguistic and geographical barriers, patiently learn that other culture and language, across the decades preach the Gospel by word and deed, and multiply reproductive and responsible Christian churches.”

The Onus On Democrats

In its post-election mood the United States lies somewhere between a parent who has just spanked children for misdeeds and an employer who has replaced an errant office force. The feeling is a mixture of gratification, a release of indignation, and a growing anxiety over what change can now be expected.

Democrats now have a great opportunity to build a strong sense of corporate responsibility in both the House and Senate. They will have little ground for excuse in case of failure.

Inflation is the most talked-about issue, but perhaps the most important moral question that the new congress will face is abortion. Anti-abortion political strategists hope the Senate will pass a constitutional amendment that will reverse the Supreme Court’s decision.

Christians On The Couch

Sigmund Freud denounced belief in God and declared that religious faith is a form of neurosis. Since then, many psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychotherapists have discouraged patients from piety, and therefore many Christians in need of psychiatric help have hesitated to seek it.

But Christians know that the mind of Christ promotes mental health rather than mental illness—that, in the words of Dr. Rudolph Calabrese, “Christianity and mental health go together.” Dr. Calabrese and his eleven colleagues in the Christian Institute for Psychotherapeutic Studies use traditional methods of psychotherapy—but with a difference. Although they do not try to proselytize, they answer their patients’ questions about the meaning of life directly from a Christian perspective. We hope that other Christians who work in this important area will follow their lead.

Catharsis Or Corruption?

Against the charge that pornography and the depiction of violence tend to produce socially harmful or even criminal behavior, one line of defense is to deny that literature and art have any influence on action. Such an argument is absurd. Leaving aside the value of literature and the other arts in themselves, mankind has cultivated and studied them in large measure for their value in the educational process, i.e., their potential to develop a love of the beautiful and the good. If art, “good” or “bad,” cannot influence, then all education that is not purely pragmatic or technical is based on a delusion. Likewise, advertising is a staggering waste.

A second defense is to claim that the portrayal of reprehensible violence and sexual behavior, instead of encouraging imitation and therefore violation of legal and moral standards, has the effect of purging members of the audience of socially unacceptable impulses and thus making them better and more harmonious members of society. This supposed purgative or purifying function is called by the Greek name catharsis.

The persistent portrayal of violence on screen and television—even when accompanied by a ritual acknowledgment that “crime does not pay”—does not have a cathartic effect on the violent inclinations of viewers, particularly of the young. Instead, it creates and fosters violent tendencies, and it promotes violent imitation in real life.

Although it is now widely agreed that violence in entertainment does not have a cathartic effect but rather the contrary, some people still maintain that pornography—including the explicit portrayal of depraved and vicious sexuality—can have such an effect. But again the contrary is true. As Professor Victor B. Cline of the University of Utah points out in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times (issue of October 16, 1974), we now have incontrovertible empirical evidence that pornography can and does cause sexual deviancy in a wide range of subjects.

The Christian who desires to follow the biblical pattern for his personal life and in the education of those committed to his care will therefore shun not only gross and debasing displays of violence but also “entertainment” that is pornographic in nature. But is he justified in telling society as a whole, inasmuch as it is not committed to biblical principles, that there are areas in which more than internal self-restraint is called for?

We have been conditioned to think of “censorship” as bad, and indeed much that we understand by the term is clearly unacceptable in a free and democratic society. But there are varieties and degrees of censorship, just as there are varieties and degrees of police protection. About pornography Dr. Cline says, “Society has to set some limits when the possible harm is seen as too great to be tolerated. I think that point has long since been passed.” He is right.

Scholarly Religion

The city of Washington, accustomed to all sorts of visitors, was host to some 2,500 college and seminary teachers of religion at the end of October. What drew them was the annual meetings of five of their professional societies, including the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. Such meetings, besides serving obvious social purposes, enable people with similar, often lonely interests a chance to read and discuss papers while they are still in preliminary form. This work is usually carried on in relatively small groups; during the Washington gathering there were often more than twenty of these groups meeting simultaneously.

Outsiders need to understand that for most religion scholars their field is related to the personal and institutional practice of a religion somewhat as the field of political science is related to practical politics. Probably the writers of most of the papers, even those who were convinced adherents of some particular theological viewpoint, avoided pronouncing on whether the subject they were discussing was an expression of the will of God. Doubtless the scholar who announced the discovery of a votive mouse in an ancient sanctuary at Ai would not advocate undertaking a vow like that for which the mouse was used, but there was no need for him to voice his feelings on the matter. This position of neutrality, which is confusing to many laymen, is certainly preferable to having the consensus of beliefs of academic religion scholars propounded to students as the only truth!

Although highly technical papers dealing with old topics were numerous, there was a noteworthy trend toward the scholarly consideration of relevant contemporary matters. Sections on the role of women, the religions of American Indians and other minorities, the study of occultism, and the study of popular, devotional religion of ordinary Americans were interspersed with such traditional sections as archaeology, the arts, ethics, Pauline studies, the history of Christianity, and Asian religions.

Evangelical participation in such conclaves, though proportionately very small when compared to the number of practicing evangelicals in the country, is growing. While the main thrust of evangelical learning ought obviously to be conveyed in a context permitting forthright proclamation of truth, there is nevertheless a vital role for those who are called to serve in situations where much of the time neutrality supposedly holds sway.

The Week Of The Bible

Those who accept the Bible as God’s revelation, authoritative for doctrine and for principles of behavior, do not need a special “week” to remind them of the Bible’s importance. However, publicity surrounding National Bible Week, November 24 through December 1 this year, can be used to alert others to the existence of a source for answers to many fundamental questions. And a lot of people are now realizing for the first time that unaided human learning cannot provide all the answers to these questions.

In accepting honorary chairmanship for the week, President Ford quoted his favorite passage: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5, 6). This does not mean that each of our steps is God-directed just because we make some perfunctory acknowledgment of dependence on him. But if one maintains a proper humility about his ability to perceive and implement God’s directing, these verses are indeed a good introduction to the purpose of Bible Week. God’s Spirit guides men principally through a good and practical knowledge of the Scriptures. Let us be increasingly diligent in making them known.

The Gratitude Attitude

If there were no Thanksgiving tradition in North America, any attempt to start one now would probably be a fiasco, given the mood of the day. We are not a thankful people. Our observance of Thanksgiving tends to be very perfunctory. Yet we have far more to be thankful for than those early settlers, both in Virginia and in Massachusetts, had.

The more we have the more we want, it seems, and the less likely we are to be thankful.

Mutual Submission

Must wives obey their husbands? What do we mean by “obey”?

Ephesians 5:22, beginning “Wives, submit yourselves …,” is often read as the start of a new section of the Epistle (the modern, evangelical commentators F. F. Bruce, Francis Foulkes, and William Hendriksen, among others, do this). Even if the admonition is then correctly placed in the context of a profound and self-sacrificial love of husbands for their wives, as the commentators mentioned carefully do, this rather abrupt beginning to the table of duties of the Christian life may lead to a misunderstanding of the Christian wife’s duty to submit.

This problem is less acute if one reads as many older commentators do and lets the previous section end naturally with the thanksgiving of 5:20. John Calvin, Charles Hodge, and C. I. Scofield begin the new section at 5:21: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” Calvin points out:

God has bound us so strongly to each other that no man ought to endeavor to avoid subjection; and where love reigns, mutual services will be rendered.… But as nothing is more irksome to the mind of man than this mutual subjection, he directs us to the fear of Christ.

In order to understand what follows, we must understand the significance of mutual submission, also enjoined in First Peter 5:5, Romans 12:10, and Philippians 2:3. Calvin sees the submission as a voluntary humbling of our pride, “that we may not be ashamed of serving our neighbors.” Hodge sees it as reflective of the essential equality of people and of their mutual interdependence.

In an age of near-total independence of other persons and more and more dependence on the impersonal state, attention to this mutual responsibility to one’s fellow Christians is very important. Because Paul goes on to treat specific interpersonal relationships and lay down particular duties, and because those relationships and duties are deprecated as “arbitrary” in the modern world, it is important to see their connection with the more universal relationship and duty. The passage is often understood in a one-sided way. But as Bishop Charles Gore comments on the verse:

It is indeed absurd to speak as if St. Paul were, in this passage, mainly emphasizing the subjection of the woman, whether this be done from the conservative side, “to keep women in their place”; or from the point of view of those who desire her emancipation, in order to represent St. Paul, and so Christianity as a whole, as giving to women a servile position.… In essential spiritual value men and women are equal.… There is nothing servile in the subordination required of the woman.… Christ even is subordinate.

The subordination or submission required, first of all Christians to one another and then of wives to husbands, is not the same as the obedience required of children (6:1) and servants (6:5). The idea of submission as used here implies voluntary accommodation to the other; where absolute authority is present, there is no exhortation to submission. The “submission” of the Christian wife should not be exaggerated to resemble to the obedience required of a child. And although in one relationship submission is required of one partner in a special way, it also is required of all Christians generally. As Calvin comments on First Corinthians 11:7 (“Man … is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man”), “Both sexes were created in the image of God, and Paul exhorts women no less than men to be formed anew, according to that image.”

With this background clearly in mind, we can understand the wife’s submission to her husband, Ephesians 5:22 and Colossians 3:18. It is not to be seen as a servile or oppressive state, for outside this particular relationship it is common to all. It is part of the divine order within which—but not outside which—we can experience freedom and personal affirmation. And a Christian husband who has failed to obey the general command to mutual submission may well expect to experience bondage and personal conflict in his marriage relationship.

- More from The Editors

Theology

Who Is the Snob?

Edith Schaeffer

Snob class. Snob value. Snob school. Snob hotels. Snob clothing. Snob cars. Snob attitudes. Snob treatment. Snob advertising. Snob professions. Snob recreation. Snob clubs. Snob churches. Snobs.

The dictionary says snobs are people with exaggerated respect for social position or wealth, those who feel ashamed to have any connection with people whom they consider socially inferior to them.

It is easy to shut the dictionary and feel that the description fits a certain type of person, “certainly not me.” One’s memory may bring a parade of types in front of the mind’s eye, the kind of people who have hurt us with varieties of snubbing, with squashing remarks, with a tone that cuts like a lash. “How glad I am not to be a snob.”

But are we safe from being judged snobbish by God? How often do I, do you, look down from a pinnacle of self-satisfaction upon the lowly miserable people “below” our mountain. “Oh, but I feel warm and open toward all minority groups,” says one person with fervor. And a friend nearby chimes in, “I’m careful to be like Jesus was. I’d sit right down on the sidewalk with beggars or junkies. I just couldn’t be snobbish.” Another friend adds, “Me too. I’m the captain but I don’t mind inviting privates for dinner.” And another, “No class barriers for me. I work with my hands, and nuts to my university degree. I’m going to be a shoemaker.”

There is indeed a breaking of barriers going on, but the danger is that subtle new “mountains” are being formed, with new categories of people below as the snubbed ones. New divisions are being made, but the judgments taking place are as sharp as ever. The same old feelings of superiority are being experienced, although the outward appearance of the people looking “down” may have changed.

People who went to public schools sometimes look down on those who attended private schools. People who have never been in government circles feel a kind of superiority to those who have won elections. Those who live in city flats may feel superior to people who have farms or any large property. The “liberated woman” may feel superior to men. Those who are the critics may consider themselves intellectually superior to those who have painted the paintings, written the music, given the lectures. When we are in a sailboat we may scorn those in a yacht. We may ferret out the weaknesses of co-workers so that we can feel superior to them. Not one of us is free from the danger of playing the snob.

Jesus spoke this parable unto certain people who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others”:

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted [Luke 18:10–14].

“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?… Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye” (Luke 6:41, 42).

What danger we are warned of! One day we will go into the presence of the Creator of the universe, who is all knowing. We should certainly be sure that we are not coming into his presence as snobs.

How often are we in the place of the Pharisee? “I am so glad, God, that I haven’t cheated like that man did, that I haven’t lied as this one has, that I haven’t been leading a majority group but have always been in a minority one, that I have eaten poor food and slept in a poor bed. O God, how glad I am that I am so humble!” “God, I am thankful for my education and understanding, so glad not to be like …” “O God, I am …”

What is it? What is the beam? The beam can be the sin of neglect, the sin of omission, as well as a wicked thing we have done or thought. The beam can be pride in humbleness, as well as pride in riches or power. The beam can be a feeling of superiority to people above us socially, as easily as to those who have less in money or status or education. The beam can be, in Jesus’ words, trusting in ourselves that we are righteous and despising others.

The puffing up of self is very subtle. People have felt that buttons caused pride, and as time went by the ones who did not wear buttons were in danger of having more pride in not wearing buttons than anyone ever had in wearing them.

In the “causes” we espouse we are in danger of taking pride in putting aside the former cause of pride. People are proud of long hair, or short hair. People are proud in a wrong way of being white or black. People are proud of being old or young, of being humble or of being in power. People are proud of knowing other people, or of not knowing other people. There are all sorts of “buttons” to wear or to refuse to wear, and pride in the wearing or not wearing can turn us into snobs as we come to the Lord.

There are conditions placed upon us in our approach to the living God, and we are not to brush them aside. When we come to God in prayer, our first requirement is to come with our sin cleansed away because we have come through Jesus, who died so that we might have access to God. By dying, Jesus made it possible to break down the wall of separation that sin put up between man and God. We can come and communicate with God the Father in Jesus’ name.

But as we carefully read his communication to us, we are warned that there are certain things for which we need to ask forgiveness. We need to be careful to recognize these in ourselves and to speak openly to God about them.

These things are the “beams” in our eyes, which are huge to God, but which we are apt to rationalize or not even see. We try to remove a tiny speck in someone else’s eye, God tells us, while we ignore the enormous log in our own eye.

“Take time to look for the log, and be honest with yourself. Don’t be easy on yourself. Don’t be embarrassed to tell yourself how inconsistent you are being.” This is what we are being told. Then when we have discovered something that needs to be changed to be in line with the drastic teaching of God’s word, we need to speak about it to God, and ask with the publican, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

- More from Edith Schaeffer

Tools For Teaching Bible Geography

“The lord said to Abram: Now raise your eyes and look from where you stand northward, southward, eastward and westward, for all the land you are viewing I will give you and your offspring forever” (Gen. 13:14, 15). When God spoke those words Abraham was standing at Bethel, which is nearly 2,900 feet above sea level. From that elevation he must have had a magnificent view of the land that would play such an important role in history.

Most of us know little about the physical features of Palestine. Yet an understanding of Bible geography contributes to an understanding of the teachings of Scripture.

For example, in Matthew 20:18 Jesus said to the Twelve, “We are going up to Jerusalem.” Why up? Because Jerusalem is located in a mountain range at an elevation of about 2,600 feet. Just down the mountain from Jerusalem is the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, 1,300 feet below sea level.

As a child I always pictured the “wilderness” in which the children of Israel wandered in terms of the forests around me in the Pacific Northwest—lush green trees and underbrush, almost jungle-like in spots. I don’t recall ever seeing a picture of the Sinai wilderness as it really is—a bleak, barren, but beautiful desert. Once I discovered this, the wilderness wanderings took on new meaning. God’s provision of food for forty years in a barren wasteland is much more of a miracle than it would have been had they been traveling in a forest. And how vital it was that the Israelites’ shoes not wear out, since they had to walk on scorching sand.

“ ‘Come on! Let us mold bricks and thoroughly bake them,’ ” said the people about to build the Tower of Babel; “so they had brick for stone and asphalt for mortar” (Gen. 11:3). Why brick instead of wood or stone? The answer is obvious when you study the geography of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Lumber and stones were scarce. Clay for making bricks was abundant.

What part did geography play in the development of such a high civilization in ancient Egypt? We’re all familiar with the beautiful furnishings found in the tombs of the Pharaohs, the majestic pyramids, the hand-carved sphinx. Look for a moment at a map of Egypt. There’s the Sinai Desert on the east, the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Sahara Desert on the west. Would not these natural barriers hold back invaders so that a potential military force could work as artisans instead?

To study Bible geography adequately and teach it to your congregation requires tools. The starting point is a good Bible atlas, such as Baker’s Bible Atlas, The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas, or The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands. For more detailed study The Macmillan Bible Atlas is a valuable source.

Listed below are a number of maps well suited for teaching Bible geography to small study groups or for use during a sermon. Many are available from your church supplier. Others you may want to order on your own. A list of publishers’ addresses is provided at the end of this article. (I do not necessarily recommend the entire contents of all publications listed.)

OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCIES

The overhead projector is one of the most valuable tools available for teaching Bible geography. And a number of excellent overhead transparencies are available.

The David C. Cook Publishing Company offers two kits of overhead transparencies. “The Holy Land” includes one basic Holy Land map with seven overlays showing Bible history from the twelve tribes to the 1967 boundaries. Also included are two map duplicating masters to use with your students and helpful background material for the teacher. “The Spread of Christianity” contains eight color transparencies and two duplicating masters tracing the area of Christ’s ministry, Paul’s journeys, the spread of Christianity and advent of modern missions, and major religions in the world today. $7.95 per set.

Two outstanding boxed sets of transparencies are available from Broadman Press. “Bible Map Transparencies” includes twenty-eight color transparencies with overlays showing such things as geographical areas, historical eras, and routes of travel. “Bible Lands, Past and Present” contains twenty-five transparencies and overlays. This set is especially good for teaching biblical archaeology. You’ll find five maps plus chronological charts, pictures of archaeological finds, keys to ancient languages, and other helpful materials. Each set has a printed guide with helpful information about each transparency. $40 per set.

For modern-day maps of the Middle East, four of the Hammond Map Transparency Series will be of help: “Iran and Iraq,” “Near and Middle East,” “Israel and Jordan,” and “Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus.” Each color transparency comes with four overlays. The top overlay is clear so you can write on it. $7.50 each.

The Bible Believers’ Evangelistic Association offers one four-color transparency map of modern Israel, showing Abraham’s journey, the Exodus, and other things. The overlay illustrates one idea of the territory the Jews will possess during the 1,000-year reign of Christ. $6.95.

An excellent History of Man Series of transparencies is available from Milliken Publishing Company. Ten sets of transparencies in the series particularly relate to Bible history from “Sumer and Babylonia” through “The Byzantine and Moslem Empires.” Each set contains twelve full-color transparencies (maps, pictures, charts, and so on) and four or more duplicating masters for use with students. There is also a teacher’s guide with helpful background information for each transparency. The set on “Sumer and Babylonia” is especially good for teaching about life in Abraham’s day. Write for a catalog or order on thirty-day approval. I highly recommend the ten books in this series. $6.95 per set.

RELIEF MAP

For full understanding of the terrain of the Holy Land a relief map is a must. Kistler Graphics has an 11″×14″ full-color vinyl relief map entitled “New Testament Palestine” for $4.95.

WALL MAPS

Among the more attractive wall maps are the following:

“Abingdon Pictorial Bible Maps—Set D” (Abingdon Press). Contains six four-color 17″×24″ maps with graphic illustrations, charts, drawings, and notes. Covers early eras in Hebrew history through the spread of Christianity. $2 per set.

“Standard Bible Maps and Charts” (Standard Publishing). Six four-color maps and two charts, 19″×24″. The illustrations are particularly suitable for younger children. $2.50 per set.

“Broadman Class Maps” (Broadman Press). Six four-color maps, 25″×25″, available singly ($1.75 each) or in a set ($9.25). Mounted on wooden half-rounds at the top. Cover “The Biblical World, 2000–1500 B.C.” through the “Missionary Journeys of Paul.” The two maps just mentioned are also available in “Giant” size, 50″×37″, mounted on wooden half-rounds for $5.95 each.

SLIDES/FILM/FILMSTRIP

Showing slides of the Holy Land? Don’t forget to include some map slides to locate specific towns and areas. Matson Photo Service offers several 35mm map slides. Write for a catalog.

A fourteen-minute color film entitled “A Pictorial Geography” is available from Family Films; it shows the geographical importance of Palestine in Bible history. Part of “The Land of the Bible Series,” it rents for $9. Also available from Family Films is a fifty-one-frame, twelve-minute color filmstrip entitled “Geography of the Holy Land.” It surveys the four natural divisions of Palestine, recalling some biblical events associated with them, and sells for $11 with a 12” record.—MARILYN MCGINNIS, freelance writer, formerly on the editorial staff of Gospel Light’s Teach magazine, Los Angeles, California.

Eutychus and His Kin: Gastronomic Preferences

Eutychus Vi

Recently United Methodist leaders resolved that “sexual preferences” (such as homosexuality) should no longer be a bar to admission to the (Methodist) ministry. Predictably, there were loud objections raised to this decision, particularly by those concerned about the morality taught by the Bible, the decline and fall of Western civilization, and related matters. It is not our place here to quarrel with such objectors, except to point out that if they suppose they will be able to influence the decisions of any major denominational body with concerns of this nature, they may be overly naïve.

In any event, it is not really our task in this column to look to the past; our eyes are on the future. (Those interested in the past may find that the Methodist demarche goes far toward recovering some of the Canaanite and classical pagan strands of America’s multi-faceted religious heritage.)

What really concerns us more is the way in which these administrators, in their zeal to end some traditional forms of discrimination, have crudely and harshly overlooked one of the oldest and at the same time most oppressed alternative life-styles. We are referring to those who have “unconventional” preferences as to what (or whom) they consider edible (gastronomically qualified). Heavily value-laden words such as “cannibalism” have served to prejudice people against the long-standing custom of recycling edible human portions. Serious consideration of viable options has been shifted.

It is well known to many animals, not only to man, that the human organism, particularly if well fed, is highly nutritious. In an age of burgeoning population pressures and increasing stringency of non-human meat supplies, it seems short-sighted to insist on closing one great source of food value to a hungry world. Ecclesiastical bodies, as a first step, ought to drop the foodist term “cannibalism” and either speak scientifically, of anthropophagy (which sounds quite harmless), or else put the question into its sociological context by speaking of “gastronomic democracy.”

Those who prefer gastronomic democracy should no longer be subject to prejudice and discrimination on the basis of what (or whom) they consider edible. Only when gastronomic preferences have been abolished as a criterion for the ministry will our Methodist friends be able to feel with satisfaction that they have carried out the total transformation at which their recent action on sexual preferences hints.

Revealing Controversy

The West Virginia textbook controversy reveals much about the current ambivalence of American Christians seemingly caught up as much or more in the American way of life than a distinctive Christian way of life. The varied reactions that you reported among Christians involved in the debate not only illustrate the appalling lack of solidarity in the Body of Christ in the United States but provide some insight into the reason behind the absence of a Christian consensus of any sort (News, “West Virginia Uproar: Contesting the Textbooks,” Oct. 11). It seems that when it comes to the everyday realities of life like work, education, play, economics and politics, we Christians tend to find our identity not in Christ but as Americans.…

We must not think that the problem of providing a Christian education can be solved simply by trying to patch up the old public education system with a little religious surgery and some Bible-verse Band-aids. We need to work on setting up an alternative network of Christian schools on all levels showing the world that the healing power of Christ’s redemption extends to the realm of education as well. Certain groups of Christians (such as the Christian Reformed Church) have always recognized Christian education to be a priority. It is time that the millions of American evangelicals do likewise.

The Christian Government Movement

Pittssburgh, Pa.

About Time

Right on in regard to the editorial “Laziness in the Church” (Oct. 11). It is about time that someone had an editorial on this subject.

Petersburg United Methodist Church

Petersburg, Pa.

Another Side

Jesus ’74 was a beautiful thing, but it did have it problems (News, “Farm Fellowship,” Aug. 30). Most of them stemmed from the inexperience of the leadership. The first words spoken to me by the directors were, “The only problems we’ve had so far were those caused by musicians. If we had our way, we’d never again invite musicians to a Jesus festival”.… At Jesus ’74, each enlightened group was more defined. Larry Norman, according to popular belief, was no longer a Christian. Several factions boycotted the evening programs and designated special prayer services for Andrae Crouch because his music was “too rock ’n roll.” And during the performance of The Randy Matthews Band, the Board of Directors pulled the plug because, as they admitted later, they didn’t appreciate the style of music. At the same time, a small group backstage was praying that the demons be cast off-stage. Is it really any wonder that performers get discouraged?

Personal Manager for Randy Matthews Dharma

Nashville, Tenn.

Adam Next

Meg Woodson deserves thanks for a fine article (“He Loved Me—He Loved Me Not,” Oct 11). She shows great sensitivity to the biblical account, showing the fall to be the great tragedy it was.… Now let’s have Adam’s story!

Dallas, Tex.

As a brisk chill of autumn fresh air feels renewing after a long, hot summer, so it was with the reading of Meg Woodson’s story. [It] was told with a life and a creativity capturing the birth and death of innocence and of us. After hearing that “story” literalized, demythologized, and scrutinized from Sunday school to seminary, it was refreshing to read what Eve had to say.… Previously, only in C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra have I read words so weighted down with the heavy reality of the Fall. I must thank Meg Woodson for the creative freshness with which she told of our beginning “in the beginning.…”

Drexel Hill, Pa.

By Phone

I want to thank you for the editorial “Serving by Phone” (Oct. 11). You have written supportively of our efforts to help people by providing Christian-based telephone counseling, crisis-intervention services. Let me report that we now have sixty-two Contact centers in twenty-three states and another dozen in preparation. These teleministry centers involve 8,000 lay men and women who are responding to an average of 800 calls a month in each center.

Executive Director

Contact Teleministries U.S.A., Inc.

Harrisburg, Pa.

ERRATUM

Our November 8 cover listing “Revival and Repression in Romania” had already gone to press when the decision was made to postpone the story.

- More from Eutychus Vi

The Refiner’s Fire: Multi-media

Seeing Wycliffe In A Clear Light

Early in the missionary translation career of W. Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators and related organizations (Summer Institute of Linguistics and JAARS, Wycliffe’s air and communications arm), a Cakchiquel tribesman of Guatemala said to him, “If your God is so great, why can’t he speak my language?”

Using that theme Wycliffe Bible Translators and Clear Light Productions developed a multimedia show, “If Your God Is So Great,” which had its premiere in Washington, D. C., last month during a celebration to honor Townsend, when he received the second annual Thomas Nelson Bible translators award.

Clear Light, which also produced CRY 3 (see November 24, 1972, issue, page 46), has blended the timeless message of the Gospel, and Wycliffe’s approach to preaching that message in an increasingly popular communications technique. God speaks, and throughout the thirty-minute production, his words are emphasized. From Apollo 8’s blastoff and the reading of Genesis from the spacecraft to the concluding words from the Book of Revelation, “And God said” reverberates in sight and sound.

Although the opening music by Richard Strauss, “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” seemed incongruous with the idea of God speaking, the movement of the music provided an appropriate climax to a three-screen spread of the earth as photographed from the moon by astronauts.

Modern technology plays a big part in how Wycliffe spreads the words of God. Bulldozers and computers, slide screens and projectors—all are part of the work of Wycliffe. A specially built mobile unit will carry “If Your God Is So Great” to schools and churches throughout the country.

Unlike some missionary films, this one avoids sentimentality. Humor and hard work show through. Sensitivity to the production as art as well as sincere belief in the message are evident. Melding such elements as “Jesus Loves Me”—in an updated folk version—with the faces and voices of other cultures serves to capture the universality of God’s call. The production also subtly shows Western man glutted by repetition of the gospel message. A blurred screen indicates the hurried movement of a man anxious to change a radio station from a sermon to secular music.

Wycliffe and Clear Light are to be congratulated for producing an effective combination of art and the Evangel, a rare achievement in evangelical circles.

CHERYL FORBES

NEWLY PRESSED

Final Touch, Love Song (Myrrh, a division of Word, Waco, Texas 16703; GNR-08101). The final album by one of the most popular Jesus rock groups, now disbanded, mixes country blues and a soft, Lettermen-like vocal blend. The most successful cuts, such as “Since I Opened Up the Door,” which opens the album, are on the country side. “The Cossack Song,” based on Ezekiel 38–39—each song has a text—uses some interesting instrumentation, though the view of Armaggedon may offend some (“Now if I was in the Red Army/I think I’d take a permanent leave …”). On side two “Book of Life” stands out, with an authentic hillbilly sound and amusing lyrics: “I keep my thumb between the pages/And my heart in the book.”

Seeds, Barry McGuire (Myrrh, MST-6519). Released in 1973, this latest album of the former lead singer of the New Christy Minstrels is exceptional. All the cuts are good, but the upbeat numbers such as “Last Daze Waltz,” “Enter In,” and “Lear Jets/Father’s Song” have more impact than some of the ballads. McGuire’s instrumentalists provide good support, and Mike Omartian gives the final professional touch with his fine string and horn arrangements. The 2nd Chapter of Acts, backup group on this album, has a new album of its own on the Myrrh label.

The Supreme and Determining Aim of Missions

Robert E. Speer

It is the aim of foreign missions that is to be defined, and not the aim of the Christian Church in the world, or of the Christian nations of the world. There are many good and Christian things which it is not the duty of the foreign missionary enterprise to do. Some things are to be laid, from the beginning, upon the shoulders of the new Christians; some are to be left to be discharged in due time by the native Christian churches that shall arise; and there are many blessings, political, commercial, and philanthropic, which the Christian nations owe to the heathen world, which are not to be paid through the enterprise of foreign missions. It is the aim of a distinctive, specific movement that we are to consider.

It will help us in defining it to remind ourselves, for one thing, that we must not confuse the aim of foreign missions with the results of foreign missions. There is no force in the world so powerful to accomplish accessory results as the work of missions. Wherever it goes it plants in the hearts of men forces that produce new lives; it plants among communities of men forces that create new social combinations. It is impossible that any human tyranny should live where Jesus Christ is King. All these things the foreign mission movement accomplishes; it does not aim to accomplish them.

I read in a missionary paper a little while ago that the foreign mission that was to accomplish results of permanent value must aim at the total reorganization of the whole social fabric. This is a mischievous doctrine. We learn nothing from human history, from the experience of the Christian Church, from the example of our Lord and his apostles to justify it. They did not aim directly at such an end. They were content to aim at implanting the life of Christ in the hearts of men, and were willing to leave the consequences to the care of God. It is a dangerous thing to charge ourselves openly before the world with the aim of reorganizing states and reconstructing society. How long could the missions live, in the Turkish Empire or the Native States of India, that openly proclaimed their aim to be the political reformation of the lands to which they went? It is misleading, also, as Dr. Behrends once declared, to confuse the ultimate issues with the immediate aims; and it is not only misleading, it is fatal. Some things can only be secured by those who do not seek them. Missions are powerful to transform the face of society, because they ignore the face of society and deal with it at its heart. They yield such powerful political and social results because they do not concern themselves with them.

It will help us also to remind ourselves that we must not confuse the aims of missions with the methods of missions. It is an easy thing to select ȧ method with a view to the accomplishment of some given end, and then, because the end is difficult of accomplishment, because the method is easy of operation, because its results, apart altogether from the main aim, are pleasant and useful in themselves, it is easy to exalt the method into the place of the end. Have not many of us seen this same happen, to be quite frank, in our schools? We establish a school with a view to the realization of our aim; the aim becomes a difficult thing, the maintenance of the school is an easy thing. It is a good and civilizing thing in itself, and by and by we sacrifice for the lesser good the greater aim. Our method rises up into the place of our end and appropriates to its support for its own sake that which the aim had a right to claim should be devoted to it for the aim’s sake alone. Let us once and for all distinguish in our minds between the aim of missions and the results and methods of missions.

Having cleared the ground so far, what is the aim of foreign missions? For one thing, it is a religious aim. We cannot state too strongly in an age when the thought of men is full of things, and the body has crept up on the throne of the soul, that our work is not immediately and in itself a philanthropic work, a political work, a secular work of any sort whatsoever; it is a spiritual and a religious work. Of course, religion must express itself in life, but religion is spiritual life. I had rather plant one seed of the life of Christ under the crust of heathen life than cover that whole crust over with the veneer of our social habits or the vestiture of Western civilization. We go into the world not primarily as trustees of a better social life; we go as the trustees of His life who said of himself: “I am come that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly.” “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

“The aim of missions,” to borrow President Washburn’s phrase, “is to make Jesus Christ known to the world.” You can adopt other phraseology, if you please. You can say the aim of missions is the evangelization of the world, or to preach the Gospel to the world. And if we understand these terms in their scriptural sense, they are synonymous with the phrase which I have just quoted. But many of us will persist in using them at less than their scriptural value. And to make perfectly clear what the aim of missions is, I paraphrase them in these other words—the aim of foreign missions is to make Jesus Christ known to the world.

And almost any method, almost any agency, may be recognized as legitimate which subjects itself with utter fidelity to this supreme aim. As Alexander Duff said years and years ago, in a conference in this city which was the prototype and forerunner of this:

The chief means, of divine appointment, for the evangelization of the world are the faithful teaching and preaching of the pure Gospel of salvation by duly qualified ministers and other holy and consistent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, accompanied with prayer and savingly applied by the grace of the Holy Spirit; such means, in the providential application of them by human agency, embracing not merely instruction by the living voice, but the translation and judicious circulation of the whole written Word of God, the preparation and circulation of evangelical tracts and books, as well as any other instrumentalities fitted to bring the Word of God home to men’s souls, together with any processes which experience may have sanctioned as the most efficient in raising up everywhere indigenous ministers and teachers of the living Gospel.

I call that fair and broad. It sets out openly a range of mission effort that will throttle and restrict no useful missionary enterprise, and it exalts to a predominant and royal place the supreme end of making Jesus Christ known to his world.

I choose this language because it does not lift off our shoulders the burden of responsibility that we cannot escape, and it does not lay there a burden of responsibility that we cannot bear. We dare not say that we have done our duty when we have spoken Christ’s name to the world, or that we have made Jesus Christ known to the world when we have given the world such a proclamation of Christ as would suffice for us who already know him to take in the full meaning of the message. Neither, on the other hand, dare any man tell us that we are to struggle, hopeless, under the burden of the world’s conversion. We cannot convert one single soul; how shall we convert the world? Yet, midway between the position of no responsibility and of all responsibility, we stand sharing something with God, sharing also something with our brethren of the world. We cannot sever ourselves from that link of loving sympathy which binds us to His life. We are meant to be, between His life and their death, channels of the grace and salvation of God.

The aim of missions is to make Jesus Christ known to the world with a view to the salvation of men for that eternity which embraces alike the time that is to come and the time that now is. We cannot narrow salvation to but one world, this one or the next. And yet, even so, I have not exhausted the statement of our real aim. It is not a purely individualistic gospel with which we are charged. Our duty lies certainly to our own generation, but it does not stop there. We are bound to preach to every person in the world the Gospel that Christ is his Saviour; we are bound also to make known to the world that there is a body of Christ, which is his Church, and to gather up these saved men into visible churches which shall be outward evidence of the body of Christ, and shall secure to the Gospel an influence and perpetuity which institutions and not individuals must supply. We owe it to Henry Venn, one of the strongest minds that has ever worked on this missionary problem, we owe it to Dr. Warneck, to Rufus Anderson, that this element in missionary policy and duty has been properly emphasized. We are to establish and foster native churches, self-extending, self-maintaining, self-directing, which shall carry out to their own people, whom we may not reach, the message that has come to them, and shall carry down into the generations that are to come after them the blessings which we have given them as their own. This is the aim of foreign missions, to make Jesus Christ known to the world with a view to the full salvation of men, and their gathering into true and living churches in the fields to which we go.

And this is our supreme aim. It is a just thing to challenge the world to sympathy with missions, because of the philanthropic and social results that missions achieve, and the heroic spirit which they display. But our supreme aim is neither to establish republics or limited monarchies throughout the world, nor to lead Chinese or Hindu people to wear our dress, nor to remodel their social institutions where these are already wholesome and clean. Our supreme aim is to make Jesus Christ known.

I make room in my view of the world for all other forces than ours. I believe that God is King, and that as surely as his hand is upon us today, and upon the work of missions, it is upon all the great forces that are making this world. I will not acknowledge that the force of political influence has escaped from his control, that he stands impotent before the commerce and civilization of the world. I believe his hand is upon those things; that they play at last into his mighty purposes; that they are but part of his tremendous influence; that they and all the forces of life do but run resistlessly on to the great goals of God. But I believe also that these things are but as chaff before the wind, are but as “the fading dews of the morning before the roaring floods,” compared with the power that we hold in our hands from His pierced hand, who died and rose again, and who is King of them that reign as kings, and Lord of them that rule as lords. This is the supreme aim of Christian missions.

It is also its determining aim. We must confess that we have lost sight, too often and too sadly, of the determining character of our mission aim. We have sometimes allowed ourselves to drift into methods of work that presuppose a quite contrary aim. When we lift off the shoulders of a new native church, for example, the burdens that it must bear, if it is ever to grow, we think we are dealing kindly, while we are taking its life and are false to our own supreme aim. We are here to do our own work, and not other people’s work, or the work of other agencies or other forces. Our methods of work, in their proportion, in their perpetuation, should be ruled as with an iron hand by the supreme and determining aim of our work.

And not alone the methods of missions must be brought into utter subjection to their supreme and determining aim, but our spirit and the spirit of the enterprise must be ruled by that aim. We propose for ourselves no promiscuous and indefinite project; we have set before ourselves, sharp, distinct, and clear, the aim and purpose that have been given us to pursue. We have our own clear piece of work to do, and with a spirit as clear as our work, fruitful, persistent, indomitable, we are to go out, our spirit ruled, as well as our plans, by the aim and purpose of the work that has been committed to us by our Lord.

And, my friends, many of you not distinctively and technically related to the mission work, there is a relation between this aim and your spirit, too. Those who, in the Christian churches at home, are responsible for this enterprise, are not summoning the Christian Church to any miscellaneous and undefined task; they are calling it to a project plain, clear, simple, practical. The Church could do the work if it would, if this aim ruled its spirit.

I was glad to read on the first page of our program those dying words of Simeon Calhoun: “It is my deep conviction, and I say it again and again, that if the Church of Christ were what she ought to be, twenty years would not pass away till the story of the Cross would be uttered in the ears of every living man”; and there came back across my memory this morning the words of a resolution of the American Board, adopted, I believe, at its annual meeting in Hartford, in 1836, that in view of the signs of the times and the promises of God, the time had arrived to undertake a scheme of operation looking toward the evangelization of the world, based upon the expectation of its speedy accomplishment. Sixty-four years have rolled by since then. The promises of God have not been abrogated. Each passing year has only given them fresh authentication, has only touched with new hope and glory the signs of the times. We stand here today before these same promises, vindicated by two generations more of trial, face to face with an open and appealing world. Has not the time now come at last, for action, for great action, for a serious attempt by the whole Church to attain our aim?

- More from Robert E. Speer

The Money Revolution in Missions

Everett L. Cattell

Taipei is now just as expensive to live in as Washington, D. C., and Tokyo and Hong Kong are more so. This hard and revolutionary fact comes from cost-of-living indexes prepared by the U. S. State Department.

The developing nations of the Third World are quickly moving into modernity and higher standards of living, and the world is now showing an economic interdependence that makes inflation, unemployment, recessions, or their opposites no longer local phenomena but worldwide conditions. My own Christian service has put me in the position of observer of these changes. Twenty-one years in India as a missionary taught me much about poverty, but a recent visit after thirteen years’ absence showed an unbelievable advance. Then twelve years in the United States as the president of a Christian college taught me much about cost accounting and a new sense of stewardship of resources in Christian service. Now, a year of post-retirement teaching in Taiwan is revealing to me the tremendous revolution going on in these advancing nations.

Through the years the missionary sending bodies have been completely conditioned by the idea that missionaries were sent to “primitive peoples” or to “underdeveloped nations,” where the powerful American dollar did wonders. This became, perhaps unconsciously, a standard factor in fund-raising and giving.

First of all, the missionary could live abroad for a pittance. The amount was so small that most churches could afford to support their own missionary, or even a family. This made the church people feel that they were doing nobly, and it also reflected glory on the missionary. By Western standards he was obviously living very sacrificially. But in the eyes of those to whom he went, he was quite a rich man.

Second, there was fund-raising appeal in the simple fact that a small gift, little missed by the donor, would accomplish much: $10 would support an orphan for a month (and he might become a famous leader), or $1,000 would build a magnificent church.

Those days are gone forever. In Taipei, for example, people are very well dressed and well fed. Slums are fast being removed. Wages are rising, and prices have nearly doubled during the year I have been here. My heart aches for missionaries whose pitiful allowances are now completely inadequate. This is partly because of inflated prices, and partly because of the compulsiveness of the rising standard of living.

The sending churches must almost overnight revolutionize their giving mentality. No longer are the majority of missionaries going to primitive peoples, and no longer does the American dollar do wonders.

We now have to realize that it costs just as much to operate a mission in Taipei or Tokyo or Hong Kong, or a host of other cities, as it would in Cleveland or Boston or St. Louis. In many cases it will cost more to maintain a missionary in Taipei than a pastor in Pittsburgh. To comprehend and to act on this simple fact will call for a complete revolution in the thinking of sending churches. Perhaps this is part of our punishment for not getting on with the job sooner.

Whole new dimensions of stewardship are called for. Those whose income is at the national average or below will find (as many are doing) the joy of going beyond the tithe by exploiting the “faith promise” principle. This is a covenant with God to give a certain sum to missions, above one’s regular tithe, if God brings in the extra and unexpected income with which to pay the extra sum. Those with incomes well above the national average—and for many this means four to ten times the national average—need to have a private session with God in which they acknowledge that they are not, as Christians, at liberty either to hoard wealth or to “live it up.” Such a person should, in the presence of the Lord, decide on a figure that adequately covers the basic living needs, of himself and his family and provides for his retirement; this he should accept as the “living” part of his income, while the balance goes to the Lord’s work. If his income is large, he may need to handle this giving in the pattern of a foundation.

A revolution is required not only in mentality and in giving but also in management of giving. The standard motivations for giving, emotion and habit, are no longer adequate. Now missionary giving must become far more intelligent and spiritually basic. Emotional appeal is not enough. The conscientious steward must know the basic principles of the mission of the church, what the order of priorities is, and which mission agencies are reasonably efficient in their programs.

So far we have dealt with the money revolution at the sending base. But the implications are equally drastic for missionaries on the field. Radical and even revolutionary change in mentality and in methodology is required among missionaries and their sending boards.

Probably the most important change in thinking would be to shift the focus of attention away from the person of the missionary to the making of objective and strategic plans. Instead of starting with available personnel and finding things for them to do, missions would set objectives and goals, make plans for achieving them, and then seek workers to fit the plan. Since home constituencies know the missionary better than the needs of the work, we have all fallen into the easy trap of making the missionary central. This has hindered the development of the church and led to problems in turning over authority and responsibility to nationals.

The problem is aggravated in missions that require missionaries to raise their own support. This tends not only to foster the acceptance of workers with inadequate screening but also to center the objective of the mission, not in the success of the field work or a well-planned program, but in the number of missionaries sent. Unlimited expansion becomes a goal, measured by how many new missionaries are being sent out; questions of whether they are needed or how they will be used may be bypassed.

So the first item in the change of mentality is to start with planned objectives, not personnel. The second is to develop efficient methods. This involves cost accounting and the elimination of duplication and overlap.

Heretofore each denomination or society has felt justified in maintaining its own institutions so as to give its own particular slant. The waste and inefficiency of this procedure has been possible only because the American dollar went so far, and the home constituency did not ask intelligent questions.

Taiwan well illustrates this problem. For a long time nearly all work on the island was Presbyterian, and there was enormous success in planting churches. After the war there was a hasty influx of evangelical mission bodies. The island was already well covered with Presbyterian churches, largely made up of third-or fourth-generation Christians and needing revival. But very few of the newcomers had any vision of losing themselves in the service and revitalizing of the existing churches. By and large the new societies settled in to do their own thing, and many adopted exotic methodologies that did not call for the slogging work of church planting.

It is still true that not more than 5 per cent of the population is counted Christian. The evangelistic task is enormous. But there seems to be no point at which Christian leaders come together for strategic, islandwide planning. Obviously the most potent action for evangelism would be to turn the nominal Christians in the Presbyterian churches (numerically much greater than any other) into vital, witnessing Christians. But there is little vision for this on the part of missions busy—one might say overly busy—turning their own wheels. Church-growth studies have their adherents, and many individuals are concerned about church planting. A few, but only a few, missions have given themselves successfully to this priority.

Can we afford this kind of inefficient and ineffective effort? Is it still important to get foreign denominational labels planted in Taiwan and slightly different emphases embodied? Or has the time for a cooperative and all-out effort to plant the Christian Church everywhere and to bring a high percentage of the people of Taiwan to Christ?

There is also a need for revised thinking about those works that are directly auxiliary to the life of the church, such as production of Bibles and theological education for pastors.

Currently three different groups (and perhaps a fourth) are each attempting to produce a new Chinese translation of the Bible for the use of Chinese churches. They have found money, formed committees, and started translation work, without pooling the services of Chinese who are Hebrew and Greek scholars. Some even think they can make the translation from new English translations. This is an extremely unfortunate situation. It is a terrible waste of resources and may easily lead to the confusion of having in the Chinese churches no standard translation but a variety of versions, none of which is really satisfactory. The scholarship is available, but the competitiveness of the agencies keeps them from getting together. This is a capital illustration of what we can no longer afford, and a real indictment of our sense of stewardship.

In the field of theological education there have been, besides the two older Presbyterian seminaries, at least half a dozen others operated by evangelicals. The academic standard of each is that of the theological college—students admitted from high school (or less), a four-year course leading to a Th.B. degree, and in some an additional two years for a B.D. Recently, as a cooperative effort, the China Evangelical Seminary has been set up, accepting university graduates and giving a Master of Divinity degree in three years. The two Presbyterian seminaries have 100 and 200 students. The other seminaries are small. Three have about forty or fifty students. Others have as few as fifteen.

One can say categorically on the grounds of cost accounting that no seminary in Taiwan is big enough to be efficient. The most crucial factor in a cost study of an educational institution is the faculty-student ratio. For the liberal arts college in the States it is well established that 1 to 20 is both academically and fiscally defensible. The non-Presbyterian seminaries on Taiwan, taken as a whole, have a faculty-student ratio in the neighborhood of 1 to 4. It is not unheard of for a Bible school to have more teachers than students. Fortunately, the heads of evangelical institutions are holding serious talks to see what steps they can take to consolidate.

From an efficiency standpoint, evangelicals would do well to concentrate on one undergraduate and one graduate institution on Taiwan. There are usually three divisions in a seminary: biblical, theological, and practical. Ideally the minimum faculty should be two men with doctoral qualifications, plus pastoral experience, in each division. In Bible there should be an Old Testament and a New Testament man. In theology, one with biblical and the other with philosophical orientation. In practical theology, one should have pastoral and the other religious-education orientation. Granting these six teachers and applying the formula of 1 to 20, we find that the minimum ideal student body would be 120.

When missions go it alone, costs soar. And when they use available workers instead of securing personnel to fit a plan of theological education, the result is usually that the faculty is unbalanced and represents marginal specialties instead of the basic core subjects, and worse still, that piety, or availability, is substituted for academic competence. The time has come for all missions to face these realities. It is not good stewardship of resources to substitute loyalty to denominational distinctives for competence and excellence in advancing Christ’s cause. In Taiwan discussions are proceeding, as they must everywhere, to see what theological concessions can be made and how theological distinctives can be protected in realistic cooperation among evangelicals.

I have used Taiwan as an illustration of a typical field and theological education as a particular area in which cost consciousness and cooperative planning are greatly needed. These simply illustrate a whole range of fields and areas where these principles must become operative. We can afford no less. And we must answer to God for our stewardship.

Evangelical cooperation has always been right. Can it be that what we were not willing to do because it was right, we may now do because of economic pressure?

- More from Everett L. Cattell

The Unanswered Prayer of Edinburgh

“Let the earth hear His voice” was the theme of Lausanne 1974. At Edinburgh 1910 the heart cry had been “Let the world hear at least once!” Now sixty-four years later it remains to be seen how much the International Congress on World Evangelization, held this past summer in Lausanne, Switzerland, contributed to the fulfillment of that unanswered prayer.

During the nineteenth century, known as the Great Century of world missionary effort, the Evangelical Alliance brought together evangelicals of all Protestant denominations for fellowship and prayer. Rouse and Neill relate these conferences to the evangelical awakenings and call them “another manifestation of Pietism in its nineteenth century form.” Massie traces the origins back to Wesley, the Moravians, and Whitefield. Latourette says that rationalism had so penetrated Protestantism that the founders of the Evangelical Alliances sought national and worldwide communion with those holding to Reformation doctrine in whatever denominations or countries they were found. These conferences were characterized by a zeal for evangelism and foreign missions.

The cardinal point in the early objectives of the alliance was unity within the framework of “the infallible word of God” and the witness of the Holy Spirit that believers are children of God. In a book published in 1847 J. W. Massie records that “the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with … the eternal punishment of the wicked, are doctrines … recognized without one differing judgment” (The Evangelical Alliance: Its Origin and Development). Conferences of the Evangelical Alliances responded to the theological problems confronting evangelicals in their generation.

Lausanne may be seen as a combination of the Evangelical Alliance conferences of the last century, which centered on the defense of the Scriptures and evangelism, and the great missionary conferences of the nineteenth century that culminated in the New York 1900 Missionary Conference.

The growth of the missionary-conference idea was one of the most striking aspects of the mission scene in the second half of the nineteenth century. The period was one of enormous missionary vitality. These conferences had their origins in the societies on the mission fields, and there were conferences in such places as Bombay (1824), Shanghai (1877), and Japan (1888). Dr. Alexander Duff of India brought the conception to New York in 1854, and from there it spread to Liverpool in 1860 and to London in 1888 (1,576 missionaries and mission representatives attended this one), culminating in the outstanding New York 1900 Missionary Conference addressed by such greats as Hudson Taylor, Robert Speer, John R. Mott, and A. H. Strong. On that occasion Taylor warned that the danger confronting missions was to depend to much on methods, machinery, and resources and too little on the power of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel.

The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910, strongly influenced by leadership from the youth movements, attempted to harness and organize these strong nineteenth-century missionary forces for world Christianization through evangelism. Gerald Anderson, writing in The Theology of the Christian Mission, notes the market changes that took place between New York 1900 and Edinburgh 1910: “At the beginning of this century a large part of the missionary movement, had a passion for souls that stemmed from an emphasis upon the rapidly approaching judgment day and a strong sense of obligation to save the heathen from eternal damnation.”

But at the Edinburgh conference two notable new points appeared: first, an understanding and sympathy for the nobler elements in the non-Christian religions, and second, a compromising of “the universal and emphatic witness to the absoluteness of the Christian faith” by a new attitude of “charity and tolerance.”

Earlier missionary conferences were unhesitant in proclaiming the infallibility of the Scriptures and their supreme authority, but Edinburgh 1910 tolerated non-evangelical viewpoints in the desire to conciliate and unite all Christians in one final effort for world evangelization. The change seemed slight and unimportant to some, but the results became apparent in the decades that followed as the evangelical majority in the International Missionary Council slowly but surely decreased in numbers. At Bangkok 1973 its voice was insignificant.

This decade has some outstanding similarities to the years preceding that great 1910 World Missionary Conference. Edinburgh 1910 stood astride two great eras of Christian world missions. The epoch-making missionary efforts of the nineteenth century took the gospel message to the major continents of the world. Optimism ran high. It appeared that Christian countries of the West would be able to launch a final magnificent effort that would complete the task commanded by the resurrected Lord. Edinburgh 1910, however, really marked the end of that Great Century of missions launched from the days of William Carey, for World War I brought an abrupt finish to the dream of a Christian world.

After the theological loss of many major denominational missions, evangelical evangelism has regrouped its forces, and optimism is again running high in many evangelical missionary circles. Reports of evangelistic response and church growth in South America, Indonesia, Korea, Africa—and the United States—are most encouraging. Third World churches and leaders are showing signs of maturity and foreign-mission vision, surpassing some areas of the tired West.

Edinburgh 1910 met on a missionary crest between two centuries, and Lausanne 1974 came at another high point in world evangelism and missions. Such things as the energy crisis, political instabilities, liberation movements, and governmental scandals, however, gave credence to Billy Graham’s assertion in his Lausanne address that the “world may be standing at the very brink of Armageddon.” Edinburgh 1910 did not realize that it was only four years removed from the conflagration of World War I, a struggle among “Christian” nations!

Prior to both conferences the interest of students in foreign missions had reached record-breaking proportions. By 1909 the Student Volunteer Movement alone was directly responsible for recruiting nearly 4,400 foreign missionaries. Its spiritual successor, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, held its Tenth Triennial Missionary Conference at the end of 1973, and among the 14,000 registered students, more than 5,000 signed cards expressing an interest in missionary service. Other reports indicate a deep desire among many students to find their places in God’s service.

Both pre-conference eras knew theological controversy and confusion. At the turn of the century the theological works of Harnack led churchmen toward union based upon the minimum doctrinal statement of the Christian faith rather than upon essential biblical doctrines. Ritschl envisaged the establishment of the Kingdom as an ethical reign of Christ upon earth. The “fundamentalists” in the United States contended with the “social gospel” advocates. James Orr, speaking in 1907, made it clear that the controversy centered around the Scriptures. “The Bible is an Evangelical book,” he said.

To say that, again, is to say that the Bible contains a Gospel for the world, that this Gospel is of God, that it is a Gospel which the world needs, and without it must perish, and furthermore, that this Gospel is the essence of the book—is the very thing that makes it what it is.… It is the Bible itself … that in these days is being discredited [Maintaining the Unity, London: Religious Tract Society, 1907, p. 143].

Students of the conciliar movement recognize these same issues existing today in the World Council of Churches’ approach to evangelism and world missions. Conceptions of the inspiration, authority, and unity of the Scriptures have been modified and refined to fit an ecumenical theology of inclusivism. Geneva 1966, Uppsala 1968, and Bangkok 1973 have all revealed the horizontal preoccupation of the WCC and its Division of World Mission and Evangelism, the successor of the International Missionary Council launched as a result of Edinburgh 1910. The predominant voices of the modern ecumenical movement seem to disparage traditional evangelism and world missions. Attention is focused upon the needs of society, upon the liberation of mankind from racial inequity, economic exploitation, and social injustices—laudable objectives, but woefully devoid of that vertical salvation whereby sins are forgiven and one is prepared for eternity as well as for temporal life on earth.

Also noteworthy is the influence of great revivalists and evangelists in the two conferences. John R. Mott, who in some respects succeeded the outstanding evangelist of the nineteenth century, D. L. Moody, as a Christian statesman and evangelist, led Edinburgh 1910 in its vision and its Continuation Committee, which culminated in the International Missionary Council, 1921, and the World Council of Churches, 1948. Lausanne 1974 was the second world evangelism congress convened under the spiritual leadership of Billy Graham. The first was in Berlin, 1966.

In view of these striking similarities, the differences become more vivid. First, Edinburgh was primarily a conclave of Western missionary endeavors even though it was worldwide in its dimensions and vision. It could not have been otherwise in that day. Lausanne 1974 took seriously the growing evangelical voices and bodies around the world, recognized their place under the authority of Christ, and fully accepted them as equals. There was no question about the spiritual and intellectual stature of leaders from non-Western continents who were among the speakers. Non-Western delegates responded warmly and with wisdom to questions concerning the transplantation of Western culture to their continents and their churches, for they recognized the likelihood of bringing their culture to others in their own missionary endeavors.

Second, Edinburgh was committed to the omission of all controversial theological questions in which the participating churches or societies differed among themselves. Lausanne 1974 was theological and was founded upon the infallible Bible. The biblical conclusions of Berlin 1966 left a solid evangelical foundation for Lausanne 1974. Many in the Lausanne leadership were known for their belief in and commitment to the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, the fundamental truth binding the conference together. Lausanne chose to select evangelical delegates from those nominated by national committees and took steps to ensure the evangelical stance of each participant. The opening address of Billy Graham was an outstanding evangelical declaration of purpose.

Third, the results of evangelism following Edinburgh 1910 were to be assured by the participation of “the best minds.” The implementation of evangelism seemed to reside more in the organizational abilities of these “minds” than in promotion and propagation of the Scriptures. Organization and administration rather than the Scriptures were seen as the instrument of the Holy Spirit. Liberalism and the social gospel had destroyed confidence in the Bible among many in missionary leadership. Lausanne 1974 endeavored to maintain a delicate balance between the mission methods made possible by Western technology and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures. While it did not question the validity of what modern technology and missiology have made available, Lausanne was not swept away by a mechanistic evangelism that dehumanizes the unconverted by a plethora of statistics and techniques. The necessary work of the Holy Spirit was seen as ultimate in the communication of the Gospel to unregenerated hearts. Although Lausanne again declared allegiance to an infallible Bible in its covenant, it seemed weak in calling Christians to “preach the Word.”

Fourth, much in Edinburgh gave the impression that there were “Christian” lands not in need of foreign missionary activity. The “Christian” populations of South America and Europe, for example, were not considered subjects for foreign missions. While the necessity of an individual and personal commitment to Jesus Christ was maintained, the inclusivist spirit of the conference distorted its response to spiritual need in “Christian” as well as “non-Christian” lands. Lausanne remained true to its heritage and its message despite possible political or financial implications or ecclesiastical pressures. It decisively rejected non-evangelical inclusivism and pleaded for the proclamation of the Gospel to those growing millions of people who have never heard.

Fifth, at Lausanne unity and further cooperation in evangelism were grounded in the infallibility of Scripture.

The theological nature of Lausanne, based upon an inerrant Bible, was evident from the opening address by Billy Graham. Theological issues separating evangelicals from the WCC conceptions of evangelism were clearly and positively treated. The historical position of mutual respect for doctrinal differences among evangelicals was maintained, but speaker after speaker underlined the theological errors of the contemporary conciliar movement in its preoccupation with horizontal or temporal salvation to the seeming exclusion of the individual need for personal conversion.

While Edinburgh 1910 was also essentially evangelical, a conciliar spirit prevailed among the leaders, and they began to equate the work of world evangelization with the conciliar spirit of church unity. That is, they said that only a united Christian church could establish an adequate testimony for world Christianization. Organizational unity became the basis for promoting world evangelization. Lausanne 1974 found spiritual unity already present through Christ even though many races, denominations, and countries were represented.

The Lausanne Covenant was written in simple, unequivocal language, readily translatable into the major languages of the world. The crystal-clear message will prove to be continued source of encouragement for the people of God around the world and a model of evangelistic theology for decades to come if the Lord tarries.

Sixth, the Continuation Committee of Edinburgh and the International Missionary Council were limited administratively and evangelistically by the missionary societies on one hand and the national councils on the other. The IMC was a service mission to missions, collecting information, publishing studies, and convening world conferences. Lausanne 1974 has foreseen a structure in which world evangelism can be actively promoted and developed. The future will depend upon the selection of people unquestionably committed to the Scriptures and the theology and work of evangelism.

Seventh, as in the organization of the IMC in 1921, Lausanne recognized national or regional councils as essential to international fellowship. Western domination is to be avoided. The work of the Holy Spirit in history was seen as making nations and regions mutually sensitive to the particular national gifts given toward the accomplishment of a worldwide task.

In the tradition of the Evangelical Alliance of the nineteenth century, evangelism was emphasized by those who were united by common faith in the authority of the Scriptures. This responsibility was recognized by participants from countries around the world. As in the earlier missionary conferences, cross-cultural evangelism was accepted as the responsibility of each church so that the earth might hear His voice.

Lausanne 1974 focused on the strategy of evangelism in all the nations of the world. It endeavored to combine a knowledge of the world’s needs. Its work does not begin to be as impressive as the eight volumes that grew out of the Edinburgh 1910, the results of the surveys and studies made by various commissions. Yet Lausanne and its covenant may, by their practicality, precision, and directness, do more to stimulate world evangelism than did Edinburgh with its theologically blunted edge. Hardly a decade after Edinburgh, missionary leaders were divided over the nature of the Christian message. In its covenant Lausanne 1974 spoke out clearly, decisively, and biblically regarding the Christian message. The theological pluralism of the IMC and the DWME has continually made a decisive biblical message difficult if not impossible.

In its desire to have representation by all Christian confessions united in evangelism, the Edinburgh 1910 Continuation Committee found itself upon an unsteady and uncertain non-theological basis. Lausanne 1974 remembered its biblical heritage and did not bow either to the contemporary exponents of the old social gospel or to the vocal theological progressives still in the evangelical ranks who would weaken the stand on verbal inerrancy in order to include more evangelicals.

Lausanne revealed the growing strength of evangelical Christianity, gave it a new visage, showed its worldwide presence, and presented evangelical churches and the world with a biblical theology of evangelism. Lausanne 1974 profited from Edinburgh’s strengths as well as from its mistakes. A great deal of money, time, and effort was expended, but Lausanne 1974 will justify itself many times over if it implements the lessons Edinburgh has taught over the last six decades.

What’s behind the Idea of a Missionary Moratorium?

One of the most hotly debated topics at the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne last summer was a “moratorium on missions.” The concept means, generally, the withdrawal of missionaries and mission money from a place that has been the object of missionary work.

The concept (but not the name) was expressed in 1971 when eleven anthropologists, sponsored by a committee of the World Council of Churches, published a document (the “Declaration of Barbados”) calling for the withdrawal of missionaries working among Indian populations in Latin America. The purpose, according to the anthropologists, was to encourage the survival of Indian cultures. The thesis was rejected by many other anthropologists. A year after its release the Barbados report was evaluated by another WCC-sponsored group, meeting in Asunción, Paraguay. This group, too, rejected the implications of the Barbados document.

Among evangelicals, the moratorium concept was something of a “sleeper” coming out of the World Council of Churches’ “Salvation Today” conference at Bangkok two years ago. A resolution advocating a moratorium was issued there, but most books and articles giving an evangelical response to Bangkok did not take up moratorium as a big issue growing out of that world meeting. Now it is becoming a major debate.

At first glance there seem to be plausible arguments for a moratorium. The Lausanne Congress itself demonstrated dramatically that the Church has been established in the major nations of the world. The roster of speakers from around the globe provided convincing evidence of mature and capable leadership. Reports at Lausanne showed that the Church is growing more rapidly in other parts of the world than in North America and Europe.

The moratorium discussion reached Lausanne primarily because of the presence there of its principal proponent, the Reverend John Gatu, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. He brought up the concept in the East Africa Strategy Group, arguing that a moratorium was needed because the presence of missionaries and mission money was hindering the national churches. The churches have been unable to assert themselves for their mission in Africa because they are controlled by missionaries and their money, he said. The resulting tension between missions and the national churches debilitates energies and reduces vision. With resources coming from outside, Gatu argued, there is inadequate stimulus to develop local resources of leadership and money. This hinders the development of a national church’s identity and “selfhood.”

The question of how to engage in world evangelization brought the moratorium debate into sharp focus at Lausanne. Would the churches that have been formed around the world become (as Gatu argued) more aggressive in evangelism and outreach if they were divorced from the missions that have nurtured them? Would their new sense of “selfhood” thrust them into a wider outreach?

It was in this context that the Lausanne Covenant gave what some considered a nod of approval to the moratorium concept. Within a paragraph making a strong appeal to the whole Church to exert every effort to reach the unevangelized people of the world, the covenant says:

A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church’s growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelized areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service [italics added].

But in no sense can this be called an endorsement of the call for moratorium, nor can it be compared with the shrill voices clamoring for the withdrawal of all missionaries and money. On the contrary, it is speaking of ways to make the existing resources go further in an ever more aggressive missionary work by the whole Church. In reality, the statement as it is worded is an academic one, for who can ever say that a country has been “evangelized” (which is the condition of the statement)? Has the United States, for example, been evangelized? If not, it is a candidate, not for moratorium, but for missionary efforts by churches from other countries. Evangelization is a continuous process in which every generation in every country has to be confronted with the claims of Jesus Christ. The covenant confirms that evangelization is the task of the whole Church in the whole world until Jesus comes.

Mission strategists differ, as did the congress participants, on how the churches can achieve self-identity and involvement. Many strategists believe that most of the desirable goals expressed by Gatu in his call for a moratorium can better be reached more effectively in other ways.

One way to develop self-identity and enter into full brotherhood with the church bodies of the world is to become involved in missions. A number of national churches, with the quiet encouragement of the missions that nurtured them and still work alongside them, have formed missionary societies and are sending out missionaries to other nations and to other cultural and linguistic groups within their own nations. There is strong evidence that this move has done more to provide the churches with “selfhood” and a sense of being a vital part of the universal church than a moratorium could possibly accomplish. Mission leaders in the West are acknowledging that their concept of establishing autonomous, self-supporting churches fell short at one very critical point: the churches need also to be missionary-minded.

The very nature of the Church is missionary. The churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that have sensed the call and have become missionary in a very direct way are showing vigor and growth locally as well as in their missionary activities. This doubtless accounts for the fact that a recent study found a surprisingly large and growing involvement in missions from the Asian, African, and Latin American countries. Three thousand missionaries from those areas of the world are already serving as missionaries, according to the book Mission From the Third World (edited by James Wong, Singapore: Church Growth Study Center, 1973). Japan reported thirty-two sending agencies that support missionaries to some twenty-five countries, mostly in Asia, but also in North America, South America, and Europe. These agencies have formed an association known as the Japan Overseas Missions Association. Korea reported seven missionary agencies and also has a cooperative organization called Korea Foreign Missions Association. A total of forty-six countries reported having missionary agencies.

Many leaders of this emerging missionary thrust from the Third World were at Lausanne. Their principles and philosophies are being formulated and their goals established. They will be a major force in the evangelization of the world in the coming decade. The moratorium debate did not dampen their enthusiasm for the work of missions. On the contrary, their enthusiasm for missionary work was contagious in the congress, stimulating many participants to determine to return to their nations to develop missionary programs.

The call for a moratorium has slowly gained world prominence since it was formalized at Bangkok in 1972 as a resolution calling on Western churches to withdraw missionary personnel and support for a period of time. The All Africa Conference of Churches, meeting in Zambia last May, adopted this resolution:

To enable the African Church to achieve the power of becoming a true instrument of liberating and reconciling the African people, as well as finding solutions to economic and social dependency, our option as a matter of policy has to be a moratorium on external assistance in money and personnel.

The concept was debated at the June, 1974, meeting of the American Society of Missiology. Opponents argued that while serious problems do exist in relations between missions and the national churches that they have planted and nurtured, there are other ways of attacking the problem. Many leaders from the national churches have indicated that they want change, but change through realignments that will enable the churches to establish their identity while retaining the maximum evangelistic strength in order to reach the multitudes who have not yet been reached with the Gospel. The rebuttal by some missiologists present was that such church leaders are not to be taken seriously because they cannot see the problem objectively while being recipients of aid. The missiologists contended that missions should proceed with a moratorium even when requested not to do so by their churches.

Definitions of moratorium vary. In its more extreme form the concept calls for the withdrawal of all missionaries and all financial support for a specified period of time, or even for an indefinite time. This call has proved very attractive to some large denominational missions that are already in trouble because a lay revolt against their radical political adventures has dried up a large part of their missionary resources.

For those who do not have an acute conviction of the lostness of man, and of the uniqueness of Christ, it seems to be no problem to ignore the vast unevangelized multitudes.

At the June, 1974, meeting of the Association of Professors of Missions, missions professors related to the movements sympathetic to the moratorium idea spent considerable time talking about what they ought to do when they do not have missionaries to train and do not have missionary work to present to ministerial students. Some felt they should now work to open up a world perspective in students. They should teach U. S. Christians how to influence public opinion concerning American industry’s overseas involvement and other political, social, and economic issues.

The need for improved relations between missions and the national churches was acknowledged at Lausanne, but the idea of a broad moratorium appeared to be rejected by most leaders from the Third World and from the Western nations.

Retired Archbishop Erica Sabiti (Anglican of Uganda) expressed his opinion at a news conference shared with John Gatu and others. Sabiti expressed doubt about the practicality and the spirituality of a moratorium. He pointed out that the Uganda revival had created both leadership and resources in the church there: a thousand pastors are serving self-supporting churches, he said, and fifteen out of sixteen bishops are Africans. This development of “selfhood” came not through a moratorium but through revival.

At a gathering of Latin American evangelicals there was general opposition to moratorium as a solution to the problems. The Mexican delegation specifically asked missionaries to continue their work in Mexico.

Samuel Odunaike, president of a denomination in Nigeria, president of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, and a businessman, departed from his message on the role of laymen to present a strong call for continued missionary work.

Dr. Byang Kato, general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, who attended the All Africa Conference of Churches, later commented on the moratorium issue as it was handled at Lusaka. “One disturbing thing in the discussion was the type of attitude manifested,” Kato said. “It was obviously vindictive. Every expatriate missionary was branded a neo-colonialist, out to exploit the African.” Kato found that while the ACCC was talking of withdrawal of external money, 97 per cent of its own budget comes from outside Africa. “While ecumenical leaders are pleading for a moratorium, they inconsistently hop from one country to the other” (traveling on foreign money). Kato feels that “their thesis apparently amounts to the position that if the support comes from Geneva, it is justified, but if it comes from elsewhere, it is servitude money.”

As to a more reasonable and spiritual approach, Kato commented:

Gradual transfer to African leadership is our objective. The leading of the Spirit of God and the universality of the church are factors to be considered. A Kenyan may be called by the Spirit to serve in England and a Scot may be called to serve in Latin America. A call for moratorium seems to be merely an emotional appeal without adequate consideration of the ramifications involved.

Taken as a whole, the Lausanne Covenant did not assume a nation to be evangelized when a small national church has been established and become self-governing. The covenant calls for the evangelization of 2.7 billion; obviously some of these people live in countries that have established churches. The “unevangelized” remainder in a country where Christians form a small minority continues to be a matter of grave concern to those who are serious about sharing the Gospel with all people. The covenant supports the idea that instead of discussing moratorium it is much more appropriate to talk about harnessing all the resources of the Church worldwide to witness to the unreached within every country. To remove thousands of missionaries who have language proficiency, cultural acumen, and well developed skills that are being effectively used would be a reckless waste of resources. Unquestionably each resource should be carefully evaluated and plans made to reassign unproductive resources (both workers and money) to better use. Many missions are doing this while at the same time they are seeking to improve relations with the national churches. Tensions can be developed into creative tensions that improve the capabilities of both mission and church.

With this view it does not seem incongruous for missionaries from other nations to be working in Japan (where fewer than 1 per cent of the people are Protestant Christians) while Japanese churches send missionaries to other nations. It is in order for Korea to send missionaries to the United States to help evangelize those who do not know Christ while at the same time Americans are serving in Korea.

The awakened interest in missionary outreach in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is a remarkable moving of the Holy Spirit. It is creating an awareness of mission and a calling that stimulates the Church and calls for sacrificial commitment of leaders and resources.

It is an interesting sidelight that minorities in the United States are also being awakened to the missionary challenge that is being dropped by so many under the influence of the moratorium debate and the loss of a financial base. The North American Congress of Chinese Evangelicals, meeting at Wheaton, Illinois, last August, gave attention to its potential role in worldwide evangelization. Some black evangelical leaders in the United States have been consulting with missions leaders with a view to finding greater involvement in missionary outreach. At Lausanne some 100 blacks from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean met together with the idea of mobilizing Christians of African descent to reach out in evangelization.

This concurrent awakening of missionary zeal in the Third World and in minority churches in the United States could very well serve two very important functions. It undoubtedly helps meet the need for identity; there is no greater source of self-awareness for a church than to know it is involved in a divine mission that requires all the resources and leadership it can muster. Furthermore, it helps take up the slack for the traditional sending missions that for either lack of finances, lack of vision, or other reasons are sending fewer witnesses. God has outlined a missionary effort that is to continue until the return of Christ. He is demonstrating that he will find witnesses to carry it out.

The leaders of a great part of the newly awakened missionary thrust were present at Lausanne. The debates on missionary themes and the resulting strong missionary consensus will have a deep and lasting effect upon the direction of the great new missionary thrust.

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