Missouri Synod: The Showdown

The long-expected showdown over alleged theological liberalism in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) got under way late last month amid a flurry of actions. There were these developments:

• On January 20 the conservative-dominated controlling board of Concordia Seminary (St. Louis) suspended the seminary’s president, John H. Tietjen, 45, for alleged malfeasance and advocacy of false doctrine.

• In reaction, the students voted the next day to boycott classes until the issues are settled.

• Late on January 21 about 40 of the 43 teachers of the so-called liberal faculty majority and a dozen seminary staffers declared themselves suspended in solidarity with Tietjen.

• The board appointed conservative professor Martin H. Scharlemann, 63, as acting president, a move rejected by many of the teachers.

• The board also replaced three liberal department heads with conservatives, retired three liberals, and withdrew nineteen elective courses from the catalog.

• Educators of the American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America spoke out in defense of the Concordia faculty majority.

• At month’s end fourteen LCMS district presidents huddled in St. Louis to draft recommendations concerning Concordia and the doctrinal controversy within the denomination. These were to be submitted to an unscheduled meeting of all thirty-eight district presidents in Chicago this month.

• Also at month’s end the LCMS board of directors was deliberating behind closed doors, and opposing forces were lining up throughout the denomination.

• Meanwhile, the LCMS board of missions fired South Asia secretary James Mayer and created a task force to study—and possibly restructure somewhat—the missions program, prompting a revolt of virtually the entire eighteen-member missions division headquarters staff in St. Louis.

Most of the trouble stems from attempts by LCMS leaders to implement actions taken at the denomination’s tumultuous convention in New Orleans last summer (see August 10, 1973, issue, page 40). At that convention the delegates adopted a strongly worded statement on biblical inspiration and interpretation that had been drafted by LCMS president Jacob A. O. Preus, a conservative concerned about liberal trends at Concordia. The statement was made constitutionally binding, and the delegates instructed Concordia’s board to examine the teachers in light of it and to deal with Tietjen. (Prior to the convention Tietjen and the faculty majority had voiced opposition to the statement.)

A long list of charges were cited in the board’s suspension of Tietjen last month. They include administrative irresponsibility, failure to discipline faculty members, defiance of Preus and LCMS officials, taking part in protests, allowing false teaching on campus, and the like. Tietjen, seeing “no possibility of a fair and impartial judgment,” said he would defend himself no further, even though it might cost him his pastoral credentials as well as his job. Despite legal assurances that he could win in court, said Tietjen, he decided for scriptural reasons not to file a lawsuit.

The charges are “absurd—a piece of harassment and propaganda,” asserted the faculty majority. The teachers appealed to Preus either to direct the board to proceed promptly with establishing their guilt of teaching false doctrine (for which they should be replaced) or to take the lead “in clearing us—John Tietjen and all the rest of us,” at which they would return to the classrooms.

Preus, pleading that due process could take months, several times asked the professors to go back to their jobs. He held out three options to them: repent, resign, or await due process. The board promised to act “with all deliberate haste.”

Tietjen complained of efforts behind the scenes to arrange an immoral “deal” whereby he would resign and accept a call to a church job in a friendly district. In exchange, he said, there were promises that a moratorium would be placed on actions against faculty members and that charges against him would not be pursued. Such possibilities were indeed being discussed at top levels in the LCMS; some had been initiated by LCMS information officer Vic Bryant and Concordia’s publicist Larry Neeb. Preus and Tietjen were kept informed of progress. Bryant says the talks should be seen as attempts at “conciliation,” not deals.

Concordia, with about 600 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students, is the largest Lutheran seminary in America.

The resident students voted 274 to 92 (with 15 abstentions) to stay out of class until the board makes public which faculty members are false teachers and why. They also launched a campaign to travel to LCMS churches throughout the nation to plead their cause. Meanwhile they ignored pleas of Scharlemann and the board to return to classrooms. (Conservative sources said they could come up with enough instant faculty members to complete the school year if the regular teachers continue the strike, but if the students stay out the school would be forced to close.)

In a further controversial move the board voted to appoint Scharlemann to replace Alfred Von Rohr Sauer as head of the exegetical department, Richard Klann to replace Robert W. Bertram as head of systematic theology, and Robert Preus (Jacob’s brother) to replace John Constable as head of historical theology. Robert Preus was also named vice president of academic affairs; he will serve as Scharlemann’s executive officer.

The dissident faculty majority members said they could not in good conscience accept Scharlemann as president, and they called on him to resign, a request he ignored.

A capacity crowd of more than 1,600 persons filled the Concordia Field House in a display of enthusiastic support for Tietjen and his colleagues. It was sponsored by Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), a national coalition organized in opposition to Preus and the Missouri Synod’s conservative leaders. In one section sat a cluster of children of Concordia professors, waving signs bearing the message: “We’re behind our fathers.”

Religious Broadcasters: Someone Understands

If a standing ovation and a long line of well-wishers are an indication, members of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) organization feel they’ve finally found an official of the Federal Communications Commission who understands them: FCC commissioner Richard E. Wiley.

Wiley, a United Methodist, was one of the main speakers at last month’s annual meeting in Washington, D. C., of the 31-year-old National Religious Broadcasters organization. The event drew nearly 1,000 delegates—a record.

Telling it straight out, Wiley urged the broadcasters to emphasize a personal God and the necessity of rebirth, to use their “electric pulpits” to reach the unchurched “and those who do not know the Lord.” He told them to stop airing “parochial” programs that reach only a select few, to distinguish between gospel preaching and the promotion of partisan sectarian philosophies, and to eschew programming that is essentially a pitch for contributions. Such programming, he asserted, only demeans the true Gospel.

In an interview, Wiley described himself as a “concerned, committed layman” with conservative religious roots. He said the NRB speech was one of the few times he’d expressed his religious views strongly in public. (Appointed to the FCC in January, 1972, Wiley is reportedly in front place to succeed Dean Burch as FCC chairman. Burch’s departure is imminent.)

The convention as always featured a number of well-known musicians and speakers, panel discussions, and workshops. Campus broadcasters met to form a new association to service their sector, Canadians discussed plans for an NRB type of group in their country, and overseas broadcasters spoke of forming an international association under the umbrella of the World Evangelical Fellowship (most NRB members are evangelicals).

Some 150 women attending the three-day convention toured the White House and met briefly with Mrs. Nixon. Later she told reporters that many of the women voiced support for the President. “I asked them to pray for the press,” she added.

Clearly, however, NRB attention centered on the FCC and its regulations. In accepting an NRB merit award, chairman Burch said the relation between the FCC and the NRB is “just right: the FCC is not your best friend, but neither is it your worst enemy.” A question-answer period with FCC officials dealt mostly with the issue of religious discrimination in employment practices and with an FCC-inaugurated study of its so-called Fairness Doctrine.

The discrimination issue stems mostly from a case involving station KGDN in Seattle, now awaiting a court decision. Two years ago it was charged with violating FCC regulations by requiring certain religious beliefs as a condition for employment (see February 16, 1973, issue, page 50). After an NRB request last year for an interpretation of the rule, the FCC broadened its position, saying that writers, producers, and other staff concerned with content can now be required to hold beliefs similar to those of the employer (previously only on-air staffers were included).

The FCC’s review of its fairness regulations is part of a program to update rules and clarify them for broadcasters, Wiley said in the interview. He denied charges circulating in some circles that the FCC is engaged in a conspiracy to silence Christian broadcasts. (Radio preacher Carl McIntire and his followers have stirred up a movement in Congress to overhaul or scrap the fairness rules. Senator Sam Ervin is a leading critic of the FCC, and he has spoken out in McIntire’s behalf. After a six-year struggle, McIntire last fall lost his bid to renew his license for station WXUR in suburban Philadelphia, the first to be silenced in a matter involving the Fairness Doctrine.)

Wiley insists that loss of license will occur only where there are “unreasonable, flagrant, and abusive violations of the rules.”

FCC officials say that complaint mail involving religious broadcasters is “miniscule.” They point out also that more religious stations than ever are operating.

And so, while the broadcasters feel they’ve found someone on the FCC who understands them, it is evident that the broadcasters for the most part have understood the FCC.

BARRIE DOYLE

Canada: Raising The Standards

On his recent visit to Canada, Anglican bishop Stephen Neill, who has held important posts on three continents, was quoted as saying that Canadian clergy have traditionally had one of the lowest standards of theological education in the world.

The situation seems to be changing, though, at least for evangelicals. Optimism prevailed among thirty-three Christian leaders who met last month for a one-day conference on graduate-level evangelical theological education in Canada. The conference, held at Toronto’s Ontario Bible College, was called by church-history professor Ian S. Rennie of Regent College in Vancouver. Representatives were invited from all Canadian theological colleges that have an essentially evangelical orientation. Also present were key evangelicals teaching at other schools, along with some who have special interest in the matter, such as Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship personnel.

Among the varied institutions represented were established theological colleges, such as Acadia Divinity College (Baptist) of Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and Wycliffe College (Anglican) of Toronto; Bible colleges that have recently developed seminary programs (Winnipeg Bible College); experimental institutions such as Regent College, which concentrates on lay-theological education at the graduate level; and the Institute for Christian Studies of Toronto, which focuses on foundational research in the traditional academic disciplines.

All conferees reported a growing interest in graduate studies at their institutions plus plans for expansion. Currently there are about 330 full-time graduate students in the institutions represented, plus part-time and extension students. Plans were announced for several new theological colleges and graduate divisions.

The conference concluded with a call for evangelicals to cooperate in expanding graduate theological education, and a committee was elected to plan further discussions.

W. WARD GASQUE

Watch On The World

Keeping watch on the world is one of the functions of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), which represents over 55 million communicant members in 137 church bodies in 80 countries.

Its bonds of fellowship extend through Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, and United churches around the globe. Two-thirds of alliance members are in Third World countries, and three are in the Soviet Union.

President James I. McCord of Princeton Seminary, area council secretary of the WARC, describes the alliance as “the most international of all non-Roman Catholic organizations.” It takes freedom seriously, he claims, because its members historically have come from minorities that have had to struggle for religious freedom.

This may explain why the North American Area Council (NAAC) of the WARC, meeting at Stony Point, New York, last month, dealt with specific alleged violations of human rights and suppressions of individual freedom in various countries.

Among those singled out was the United States. The Committee on Civil and Religious Liberty urged NAAC churches “to use all the means available to them to encourage the adoption [by the United States] of a policy of general amnesty toward those who have refused to participate in Viet Nam.”

United Church of Canada leader Ernest E. Long reported on the recent detention and arrest, on charges of violating Selective Service laws, of three young men born in the United States but now citizens of Canada. They are the Reverend Tom York, a United Church minister, James Ince, a student at York University, and Gavin Naeve, now working in Bermuda. The arrests of the first two took place when they visited the United States, while Naeve was in transit through a New York airport.

“Such arrest of Canadian citizens will constitute confirmed harassment of many such young people,” said Long. NAAC delegates agreed to ask the American Civil Liberties Union to investigate such cases, and they also asked U. S. church bodies to intervene with American officials on behalf of nonresident aliens.

Another area of discussion was South Korea and the conflict there between church and state (see February 1 issue, page 40). Delegates applauded South Korean Presbyterian churchmen for their leadership in the freedom cause, assured churches there of NAAC solidarity with them, and authorized a press statement expressing concern for destruction of religious and civil liberties in Korea.

Additionally, the council condemned the use of torture on political prisoners throughout the world following a report by the Reverend Edmond Perret of Geneva, secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, who attended a fall conference on torture sponsored in Paris by Amnesty International.

Elsewhere on the agenda there were reports on doctrinal and ecclesiastical conversations being carried on between WARC and Catholic, Lutheran, and Orthodox theologians. Long was elected NAAC chairman, succeeding a layman from Trinidad, Samuel A. Meighlal. The eighty delegates included six from Guyana and two from Jamaica.

DECOURCY H. RAYNER

Books

Book Briefs: February 15, 1974

What Are We To Do?

Dictionary of Christian Ethics, edited by Carl F. H. Henry (Baker and Canon, 1973, 726 pp., $16.95), is reveiwed by Stephen Charles Mott, assistant professor of Christianity and urban society, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

The social concern of the Evangelical is now receiving public attention unprecedented in this century. Positively, over the past quarter century, and especially in the past decade, there has been a slow but steady increase in expression and actions of concern for political and social problems. Negatively, some recent observers see evangelicals as the religious core of a projected new conservative political majority.

The appearance of this first dictionary of ethics to be written by evangelicals is therefore timely. Fittingly, the volume is edited by the man who twenty-six years ago most effectively called for a renewed social conscience of evangelicals—Carl F. H. Henry.

Contemporary evangelical ethics has a marked diversity, and the editor has obviously sought to reflect this diversity in the approximately 260 authors he has chosen. Scholars who have taken a strongly critical political stance appear beside others who tend to defend national policies and economic institutions. Calvinist and Arminian, Covenantal and Dispensational, Lutheran and Anabaptist traditions are represented. Unfortunately, to my knowledge no black or female authors appear. Some foreign authors make helpful contributions; the volume would have been strengthened further by representation from the vigorous Latin American evangelical social thought.

Even more commendable is the comprehensive span of topics. The volume should lay to rest any impressions that evangelicals are concerned only with personal and interpersonal vices and virtues. All areas of ethics are covered and are covered well. The direction of the book as a whole and of most of the writers is to deal with the contemporary problems. The editor has been so thorough in his coverage that one has to think hard to come up with any possible additions.

Some of the longer articles that most impressed me with their fine, balanced presentation and helpful bibliography were: anthropology; Bonhoeffer, Dietrich; contextual ethics; drugs; environmental pollution; evangelism, ethical aspects; genetics; juvenile delinquency; language, ethical; person and personality; poverty; rights; social ethics.

Other articles were equally solid but lacked bibliographical suggestions. In a volume whose purpose is to introduce the reader to a subject, too many articles fail to suggest where to go for further information.

In the face of its diversity, characterizations of evangelical ethics must be general and somewhat problematic. From the dictionary we can say, and the conclusion seems valid from other evidence, that evangelical ethics, while affirming the necessity of the ordinary institutions of society, is strongly supportive of the individual. This support is expressed in two distinct and often opposing ways. One expression is the defense of the freedom of the individual from formally organized controls. The other expression is the control of environmental factors that limit individual growth and expression.

This characterization, of course, corresponds to the basic division in American political thought. Evangelical ethical beliefs are consciously grounded, however, in the religious roots of Anglo-Saxon cultural values, at a time when the increasing secularization of these values carries a threat to their future. The ethic is highly principial. Evangelicals derive their sense of justice, realistic caution, respect for the sanctity of life and the dignity of the individual, and transcendental reference from the Scriptures, which play such a direct role in the evangelical religious experience. This ethic directs a great deal of attention to personal motivations and self-control; increasingly, however, attention is being given to responsibility for the social environment and collective behavior (cf. the article on “Social Ethics”).

Because of the constant biblical reference in evangelical ethics, the dictionary provides a bounty of materials on biblical ethics. Fine articles are written on the biblical perspective, such as the articles on animals, Babylonian ethics, Egyptian ethics, the golden rule, law, slavery, and virtue. Articles appear on ethical topics rising specifically out of biblical concerns, such as interim ethics and wisdom literature. Major topics of biblical theology are covered, and a discussion of the relevant biblical material forms a significant portion of many of the articles.

The strength of the biblical material in these articles often lies in a comprehensive synthesis rather than in a presentation of helpful material from cultures that are background to the Bible, a reference to source, form, or redaction considerations, or a sensitivity to socio-economic perspectives in the biblical material. This latter lack, however, is not uncommon in non-evangelical scholarship. In this volume, this lack is seen, for example, in a neglect of the radical social stance in the Beatitudes as the Lukan beatitude on the poor is elided into a spiritual interpretation of the Matthean form. Jesus’ ethical teaching is presented without a perceived continuity with the Old Testament prophets. Second Corinthians 8 and 9 do not enter the discussion of Pauline ethics. Isaiah and Old Testament ethics are discussed without reference to justice or poverty.

The stereotype of the evangelical as a superpatriot, blindly following his government into whatever war, injustice, or corruption it may be involved in, should be dispelled by this dictionary. One article after another—civil disobedience, demonstration, genocide, military service, patriotism, war, murder, protest, nationalism, conscientious objection—speaks of the duty to work against acts of government that violate God’s claims upon the Christian.

The volume shows a maturity of thinking by evangelicals in the areas of medicine, biology, and psychology. The several specialists writing in these areas reveal a critical apprehension of scientific theory, a balanced reflection on the ethical issues, and a sensitivity to individual and social welfare.

One characteristic of the dictionary is the lack of professional ethicists among the authors. Out of the 260 authors, fewer than twenty are professors of ethics or belong to the American Society of Christian Ethics. Of course, not all professional ethicists can be identified by these criteria, and the editor also makes use of experts in many fields tangential to ethics. The count does reflect the relative youth of evangelical ethics and the lack of priority that the teaching of ethics has in the curriculum of evangelical colleges and seminaries. Nevertheless, the articles on the whole clearly evidence scholarly care and solid ethical reflection.

There are occasional articles where the lack of day-to-day involvement in ethics has led to omission of some points that are customarily of concern in contemporary ethical discussion. In some articles (e.g. “Adiaphora,” “Asceticism,” “Self-control”) the essential background in Greek ethics was missed. Augustine is discussed without reference to the influence of The City of God in Western realism. Barth’s use of analogies between church and state is not noted, nor is the alleged weakness of the social dimension of his thought owing to its radical transcendental character. The concept of the neutrality of the scientist is discussed without reference to the fears that it can lead to the use of his work for anti-social purposes. John Bennett’s contributions miss his conception of “middle axioms.” The biblical doctrine of the wholeness of man is noted for understanding the body but not the resulting social implication in terms of responsibility for alleviating suffering. The alleged difficulty of forming a social ethic out of Bultmann’s theology because of its individualism and de-historicism is not noted; a similar criticism is not considered in the otherwise fine article on existentialist ethics. The great political significance of Calvinistic ethics is not disclosed out of the implications that the Reformed tradition has drawn from the doctrines of the sovereignty of God and the depravity of man. Finally, the listing of Walter Rauschenbusch’s works does not include his most evangelical work, The Righteousness of the Kingdom, which not published until 1968 and is a fine treatise on personal, biblical faith and social concern.

The articles pertaining to labor unionism indicate a continuing separation between the labor movement and conservative Protestantism. The expression of this separation in the volume is atypically conservative, but even evangelical activists in general have more contact with the poor and minority groups than with the labor unions. Under “Employment” it is stated that apart from law or contract the employer has the right to determine exactly how service is to be performed; the relationship is that of master-servant, differing from that of master-slave in that it is voluntary (cf. the cross-reference under “Master and Slave” to “Industrial Relations”; “Labor Relations”). Minimum wages are characterized only as creating unemployment. Inflation is attributed to wage pressure on profits without acknowledgment of the controversy on this point or the inapplicability of the claim to our current inflation. An article, “Right to Work,” is written by a member of the National Right to Work Committee.

On the whole there is a lack of Christian realism about the significance of power along class lines; and there is a neglect, in favor of concern for “monopolistic unions,” of weak unions, racial discrimination in unions, and the lack of unionization in many needy parts of the work force. There is a basic neglect of treatment of the responsibility of the worker to his fellow workers.

In general the dictionary would imply that evangelicals are less critical of current economic practices than of political and social practices. This impression reflects more the selection of authors for many of the articles than evangelical ethics in general. Some articles take a more critical approach. The article on socialism, however, is written by a leading Christian defender of capitalism; and he presents a distorted description, separating socialism from its historic concern for the individual and the democratic character of many of its forms. The articles on property and wealth force a foreign discussion of the “right to private possessions” onto the biblical materials. Several references are made to a normative “work/eat ethic” although no attempt is made to exegete the context of Second Thessalonians 3:10. While one certainly agrees with indictments of Stalinist and Maoist societies, the articles on Communism and Marxism freely mix Marx’s ideas with Stalinism with the effect of hiding the inner Marxist tension regarding the individual and also the powerful inner Marxist “ethic” despite external denouncements of morality. However, a moderate criticism of capitalism is raised in several places, and the editor acknowledges a move away from an uncritical championing of capitalism.

The dictionary is written from an evangelical perspective and for evangelicals. Its application of evangelical faith and its attention to biblical data merit a place for it on library shelves beside The Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Westminster, 1967), edited by John Macquarrie, also a fine volume but written from another theological perspective. The Baker dictionary also has some additional topics and is printed in a more attractive and readable form. Only an evangelical framework could account for the selection of the articles on contemporary Protestant ethicists. The impressive social achievements by evangelicals in the first decades of the industrial revolution are duly, if uncritically, noted. An historical apologetic note appears more than once, explaining the decline of concern in the twentieth century as a reaction to the extremes of the liberal social-gospel movement. There also at times is a tone of ecclesiastic harping against the right and especially against the ecumenical left. The late Samuel R. Kamm contributed several sound articles on constitutional questions. “Suffering” is approached with the honesty that its author, the late Addison H. Leitch, subsequently brought to his own suffering.

Evangelicals, in their efforts to reach a renewed world-life view, are surprisingly neglectful of their Puritan forebears. The Puritans’ significant contributions to Anglo-Saxon social and political institutions are missed in many articles.

Despite the qualifications, I heartily recommend this dictionary of Christian ethics to the educated lay person, the pastor, and other non-specialists. A widespread reading of its contents will lead to a fuller development of evangelical ethical understanding and social action. The more I read through its pages, the more my respect increases for it and for my fellow evangelicals.

Not Quite What It Claims

Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, by J. Barton Payne (Harper & Row, 1973, 754 pp., $19.95), is reviewed by John F. Walvoord, president, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

Spurred by rapidly moving world events, including the return of Israel to its promised land, scholars as well as lay students of Scripture have turned to prophecy as the key to understanding our times. In no preceding century of the Church has there been such a revival of the study of prophecy by both conservatives and liberals. During the last century, congresses on prophecy have been held featuring as many as thirty speakers, and countless books have appeared on prophetic themes. The changing world situation in the twentieth century has given many evidences of preparation for the end of the age.

This means that J. Barton Payne’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy is keyed to our times, and should appeal to a wide variety of readers. Almost half a million words are crowded into its 754 pages. The author is a competent, conservative Old Testament scholar, known for his defense of the inerrancy of the Bible and for his own brand of historical premillennialism interpreted from the post-tribulational rapture point of view.

The publisher’s claims are extravagant. The book is billed as “the complete guide to scriptural predictions and their fulfillment.” It is said to discuss “every verse” of prophetic matter in Scripture, to identify “every probable point of fulfillment whether in the past, present, or still in the future,” and in its 1,817 entries to cover “all the biblical predictions in both the Old and New Testaments.” As 8,352 verses are declared to be prophetic, in volume more than the New Testament, such claims cannot be fulfilled, though the work includes fourteen tables, four summaries, four statistical appendixes, five complete indexes, and a bibliography.

Although the work has many commendable features, it does not live up to the publisher’s claims. I made a spot check of its treatment of difficult prophetic passages. For Ezekiel 38–39 there is less than a page of discussion, placing the battle at the end of the millennium, which is one of five common premillennial interpretations. The promise that the book “identifies every probable point of fulfillment whether in the past, present, or still in the future” is clearly not fulfilled.

Revelation 17–18, another hard prophetic passage, is interpreted as fulfilled in the fall of Rome in A.D. 476 and also to be fulfilled at the end of the age. This interpretation is typical of the author’s treatment of many passages: he finds both historic and prophetic fulfillment. The discussion falls far short of dealing with every verse or presenting all possible interpretations.

A page is devoted to the important Abrahamic promise given in Genesis 12, the key to premillennial interpretation, but the discussion is considerably less detailed than the footnote in the New Scofield Reference Bible on that passage. In claiming millennial fulfillment of the promise of the land, Payne’s later discussion of Genesis 15 (pp. 161–63) is more extensive and helpful.

Readers will find the introduction—150 pages—well written and. in fact, worthy of separate publication. However, its organization is rather complex. Many principles of prophetic interpretation are given, and laymen will find it hard to grasp the author’s point of view. The importance of literal interpretation in prophecy, while mentioned, is not given sufficient prominence, possibly because Payne tends to spiritualize prophecies that are not necessary for his particular point of view.

Payne is hampered by his peculiar view of eschatology. Broadly, he is characterized as a premillenarian and a post-tribulationist. However, unlike most who follow this point of view, he also believes in the possibility of Christ’s return at any moment. This necessitates a spiritualization of all the prophecies that deal with the end of the age leading up to the second coming of Christ, in sharp distinction to the fact that he takes the prophecies concerning the millennium as literal. In his spiritualization of end-time events he goes far beyond what is normal even in amillennialism, and it seems to me that he is inherently inconsistent in his application of principles of interpretation to prediction in general.

Taken as a whole, the work is a mine of information. But it lacks ip a central, unified approach. Unless one consults all the fourteen tables, the four summaries, and the other statistics, he cannot be sure he has all the author’s material on any given point. Accordingly, the work will be far more helpful to the scholar who already understands the subject than to the novice.

Payne is to be commended for his attempt to be irenic and fair to all parties. This sometimes leads him, however, to approve more than one interpretation of a passage. His interpretation of the chronological events in his chart on the Book of Revelation is presented as historical premillennialism as held by the early Church. However, it is the author’s own peculiar brand of historical premillennialism, which views Revelation as largely history.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

The Birth, Care and Feeding of a Local Church, by Donald J. MacNair (Canon [1014 Washington Bldg., Washington, D. C. 20005], 212 pp., $4.95). Practical suggestions on starting and nourishing new churches. Thorough presentation of all facets.

The Kink and I, by James D. Mallory (Victor, 224 pp., $1.45 pb). A Christian psychiatrist’s guide for dealing with a variety of personality problems common to most of us. Filled with warm illustrations and sound biblical and psychiatric advice.

A Manual of Demonology and the Occult, by Kent Philpott (Zondervan, 191 pp., $2.95 pb), and Chains of the Spirit: A Manual For Liberation, by Tim Timmons (Canon [1014 Washington Bldg., Washington, D. C. 20005], 86 pp., $1.25 pb). Biblical studies of the occult. The first dwells on defining the demonic and tracing it in Scripture, while Chains focuses on biblical dealing with the occult as it applies to today. The first is a handy reference book, the latter a practical aid in dealing with Satan.

Conflict and Resolution, by Paul A. Mickey and Robert L. Wilson (Abingdon, 160 pp., $4.50). Presents conflict as a healthy means to an end when it is handled properly. Series of case studies that attempt to set forth constructive means of dealing with the conflicts that arise within the Church. Questions to ponder. No solutions.

Sex Education in Home and School: A Guide For Parents and Teachers, by A. Vandermaas (The Norris Place [P.O. Box 931, St. Catherines, Ontario], 140 pp., $3.50 pb), and The Sex Thing, by Branse Burbridge (Harold Shaw, 124 pp., $1.25 pb). Guides to sex attitudes and training from a basically Christian perspective. The first is for the adult, written by a physician. The second is for the older teens. Sound advice, non-innovative.

Building Town and Country Churches, by Harold Longenecker (Moody, 122 pp., $1.95 pb), and A Guide to Church Planting, by Melvin Hodges (Moody, 85 pp., $1.50 pb). Both set forth the need for establishing new churches. The first then suggests briefly many plans for developing the suburban and rural church. The second focuses on evangelizing for a church’s beginning. The first is more broad-ranging and practical, the second more theological.

Vox Evangelica, Volume VIII, by D. J. Wiseman et al. (London Bible College [Northwood, Middlesex HA6 2UW, England], 80 pp., n.p., pb). The five essays that make up the eighth in a biennial series include “Law and Order in Old Testament Times,” “Micah’s Social Concern,” “The New Testament Approach to Social Responsibility,” and “Some Contemporary Evangelicals and Social Thinking.” Very worthwhile.

Sparsa Collecta, Volume 29 in Supplements to Novum Testamentum, by W. C. Van Unnik (Brill [Leiden, Netherlands], 409 pp., 148 guilders). Essays on New Testament subjects by one of the most distinguished Dutch scholars of the present day. More than half of them focus on Luke-Acts, where the author has sided with the conservative critics. Should be in every university, theological seminary, and Bible college library.

The Day the Dollar Dies, by William Cantelon (Logos, 149 pp., $2.50 pb). A hard look at money in relation to the Second Advent with the prophecy that all will have a number on their flesh. Somewhat misnamed because Cantelon deals with other questions, but holds out hope of a brave new world when Christ comes again.

Intelligible and Responsible Talk About God: A Theory of the Dimensional Structure of Language and Its Bearing Upon Theological Symbolism, by Robert Allen Evans (Brill [Leiden, Netherlands], 237 pp., 64 guilders). A concise, thorough, and technical study dealing with the problems of language in several modern theologians and philosophers, including Bultmann, Tillich, and Cassierer.

Protestants in Modern Spain, by Dale Vaught (William Carey Library, 153 pp., $3.45 pb). Factual study of the growth of Protestantism in the last thirty years.

Caged Light, by Jerold Savory (Judson, 96 pp., $2.50 pb). A modest but intelligent study of themes in the Book of Job and comparable themes in other literature throughout the ages (from Dante to Shakespeare to MacLeish). The author deals insightfully with the inner conflicts in Job—the problems of suffering, piety, challenging God, rebellion, and others—and their counterpart motifs in later works. Although Savory presents Job as either a folktale compiled by several authors or an epic poem, this confusion does not diminish the value of his literary comparisons.

The Feminine Factor, by Eric Mount, Jr. (John Knox, 190 pp., $6.95), The Unique World of Women, by Eugenia Price (Zondervan, 245 pp., $3.95), and The Creative Homemaker, by Mary LaGrand Bouma (Bethany Fellowship, 185 pp., $2.45 pb). Three distinct views of woman. The first, a man’s observation, establishes the rights of the Women’s Lib movement, and applies the principles of “I’m OK—you’re OK” to the movement. The second, from a single woman’s view, is an imaginative survey of the lesser mentioned women of the Bible, with application drawn to today. The last is a married woman’s view of the challenge and fulfillment of marriage with biblical guidance. The first is rather radical theorizing, while the latter two have more practical application.

The New Face of Missions, by Edgar Trexler (Concordia, 96 pp., n.p., pb). Foreign missionaries are increasingly working, as they must, in cities, but many home-base supporters still have a rural image of missions. This book tries to bring them up to date.

Do I Have to Be Me?, by Lloyd H. Ahlem, (Regal, 202 pp., $2.45 pb). A study in self-acceptance and growth from a Christian perspective by an eminent California psychologist. Biblically based and most practically presented.

Resurrection!, edited by Edward Fudge (C. E. I. [Box 858, Athens, Ala. 35611], 131 pp., $4.95). Seven essays in honor of Homer Hailey upon his retirement from thirty-three years as a professor of Bible, including treatment of the evidence for Christ’s resurrection and its relation to his deity, Christian living, modern theology, and the Old Testament.

Portrait of a Shelter, by Sylvester Jacobs (InterVarsity, 128 pp., $9.95). Those who have read about L’Abri and have read the books by Schaeffer and others can now see this spiritual shelter in Jacob’s sensitive collection of photographs.

Shaping Your Faith: A Guide to Personal Theology, by C. W. Christian (Word, 254 pp., $5.95). Attempts to help the reader understand what theology is, how to formulate his own, and what tools are necessary for evaluating it and that of others. The idea is good, but the author’s explanations of the backgrounds and problems of various doctrines are more likely to confuse the reader than to prompt him to theologize for himself.

Myths About Missions, by Horace L. Fenton (InterVarsity, 112 pp., $1.50 pb). The director of the Latin American Mission has written an insightful and much needed corrective for some misconceptions about missions. Excellent for college students and as a mission-study book for the local church. Could be used as a study book in preparation for a church missionary conference.

How to Find Time For Better Preaching and Better Pastoring, by Joseph McCabe (Westminster, 112 pp., $4.50). Based upon actual experience, the key proposal involves preparing fewer sermons each year by exchanging pulpits, repeating, and borrowing (with acknowledgment). Worth considering and adapting.

How to Talk With God, by Stephen Winward (Harold Shaw, 149 pp., $1.45 pb), Plain Talk on Prayer, by Manford G. Gutzke (Baker, 182 pp., $2.95 pb), and Prayer in the Spirit, by William Doty (Alba, 154 pp., $4.95). The first two are general guides for the beginner, providing basic “how to” explanations. The last is a more theological “how to” view of the Catholic charismatic involvement in prayer, by a priest within the movement.

To Rule the Night, by James B. Irwin with William A. Emerson (Holman, 251 pp., $6.95). Astronaut’s account of a trip to the moon and his life-changing realization of God. Although the writing style is not polished, the book makes interesting reading.

Peter Parker and the Opening of China, by Edward V. Gulick (Harvard, 282 pp., $12), and To China With Love, by Pat Barr (Doubleday, 210 pp., $7.95). For the missionary-story enthusiast. The first is the biography of a medical/theological missionary to China. The second traces the careers of several Protestant missionaries in China from 1860 to 1900. Both are well documented.

The Last Third of Life Club, by Jerome Ellison (Pilgrim, 157 pp., $5.95), and Religion After 40, by John C. Cooper (Pilgrim, 124 pp., $4.95). Opposite views of the years after forty. The first, concurring with Carl Jung, sees this as a time to mentally prepare for death. The second is a call for those over forty to see worth and significance in their positions, to reject the youth syndrome rampant in America, especially in religion, and to assert themselves.

Theologically, the work differs considerably from the premillennial, pre-tribulational view normally advanced in popular conferences on prophecy and usually held by those who specialize in prophecy. Even his post-tribulationism differs from contemporary post-tribulationism, such as is advanced by George Ladd, which regards the tribulation as a literal future period. Payne’s spiritualization of the tribulation in order to make possible the imminence of Christ’s return conditions his exegesis of many passages about the end of the age.

It is rather unfortunate that what is intended to be a standard work on prophecy is more of an exposition of the author’s peculiar point of view than a presentation of what is normally found in conservative prophetic works today or expressed in prophetic preaching as heard in evangelical pulpits. Carefully used, however, it can provide a great deal of useful information. It will undoubtedly be consulted by students of all points of view as a significant contribution to prophetic interpretation today.

IN THE JOURNALS

The TSF Bulletin from Britain has long been one of the best evangelical scholarly journals. Now with the formation of a Theological Students Fellowship for America (as another branch of InterVarsity) this thrice-yearly periodical is available from an American address. Although TSF is primarily for religion majors in universities and for seminarians, pastors and teachers can profit greatly from affiliating with it and receiving the bulletin. As an incentive for new subscribers, Kenneth Howkins’s outstanding book, The Challenge of Religious Studies, will be given as a bonus. An American supplement to the bulletin will also be provided (233 Langdon St., Madison, Wis. 53703; $3/year).

The Near East Archeological Society is composed of evangelical scholars who are interested in the light that archaeological research can shed upon the Bible and early Christianity. A recently expanded publishing program now brings two newsletters plus a larger bulletin each year. The 1973 newsletters include annotated bibliographies and reports of excavations at Tell Hesban. Recent annual bulletins have included major articles on evidence from artifacts that supports an early date for the Exodus, and a discussion of the problem of the three walls of Jerusalem (12262 Conway Rd., St. Louis, Mo. 63141; $5/year [$3 for students, $15 for institutions]). The society’s publications deserve wider circulation than they have had.

A major new journal has recently been launched on the sea of American scholarship, The Journal of Religious Ethics. The first issue (Fall, 1973) contains eight articles, including “The Virtue-Obligation Controversy,” “Jewish Ethics and the Virtue of Humility,” “Nonviolent Resistance,” and “The Metaethics of Paul Tillich.” Seminary and Bible-college libraries as well as specialists should subscribe (order from CSR Executive Office, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5; $8 for the first three issues [$10 for institutions]).

Minister’s Workshop: February 15, 1974

John Lewis Gilmore

A sermon that carries over into the blank pages of the hearer’s next day is every preacher’s ideal. And so the task of determining how to hold an audience and give the sermon staying power is worthy of any preacher’s time.

To isolate certain techniques is no guarantee that God is committed to them. He can use the conviction of a speaker’s voice, the cogency of his reasoning, or even the light in his face. There may be nothing remarkable about the messenger, nothing brilliant about the message. It may simply be that circumstances prepared a heart to receive God’s word with gratitude. With most hearers, however, the preacher has to earn, awaken, or build interest, rather than merely feed or maintain it. He must concern himself with such matters as these:

1. Text. Most church announcements carry the title rather than the text. But simply listing a text can create curiosity. When I was a university student, Reginald Thomas had just become pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Every other Philadelphia preacher listed his topic; Thomas listed only his text. As a new Christian I found this exciting. After looking up the passage I would wonder, “Now what is he going to say on that?”

2. Title. A title can lure a person to church and linger in his mind long after he leaves. But drab titles have no coaxing ability, no memory stickiness, no enduring ring. Of course, we may be surprised by what lies behind a seemingly lackluster title. F. W. Robertson’s titles were unspectacular, but his sermons weren’t. Nevertheless, dull titles can impede interest.

3. Introduction. Starting a sermon with the throttle wide open does a lot to get it moving. To keep attention we must first get it. A shocking statement at the start works some of the time, but overdone it loses its force. The trouble with making a big splash so early is that it is hard to repeat through the remainder of the message. Most listeners are with you at least for the first few minutes, anyway.

4. Body. The real body of a sermon is not the middle section but the sentence. Poor sermons result when sentences are pasty and pale, when they are too long or lifeless or both. Long sentences may serve well in theological books, but they invite boredom in sermons.

Usually, pungent words should come last. “Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end,” advise Strunk and White in their well-known Elements of Style. The hearers hang onto the words and wonder, “Where is he taking us?” Remember too that verbs, more than adjectives, make the sermon vibrant and moving.

5. Digressions. Sustained argument, though sometimes necessary, is usually self-defeating for those unaccustomed to intricate reasoning. Loose logic or long logic can lose them. One way to let up a little is to illustrate. Be careful, however. Scrapbook sermons, though they may have hearer appeal, usually fail to provoke spiritual motivation. Digressions should be like switchbacks: you can’t climb a steep mountain by going straight up, but you can make it if you ascend gradually in a seemingly roundabout way. Illustrations rest the hearers on the climb to the peak, or when done imaginatively can actually be part of the climb.

6. Conclusion. The conclusion should be not a catch basin but a trap door—notable not for what it holds but for where it leads. Suspenseful conclusions are like the pause before rounding a corner and entering into a new room. Summing up, therefore, detracts by retracing steps. If a sermon is meant to issue in decision and action, then recapitulation should be left out.

What goes wrong when a sermon fails to generate interest? Some causes are correctable. The following may seem minor, but they can have a detracting influence.

1. Announcing the outline at the start may be a hindrance, because it either concentrates too much attention on the form, instead of the substance, or leaves nothing in reserve. Not knowing what is coming next is appealing.

2. Two ineffective kinds of sermons are the too abstract and the too negative. Fuzz on a peach was God’s finishing touch for a fine fruit. But fuzz on ideas is a mistake. To the detriment of good times in the courts of the Lord, abstractions issue from many pulpits in a regular stream. Another kind of sermon that is sure to kill interest and suspense is the harangue. Preaching, of course, presupposes authority. But when overdone this causes the listener to turn the sermon off or puts him in a bad, unreceptive mood.

3. Familiarity needn’t be a hindrance to creating suspense. Jesus’ parables had familiar settings. Ordinary objects and events were given surprising applications. After the listener identified with the story, a strong point was made. Unlike the pedantic Sadducees, our Lord caught his hearers off balance by contemporizing truth in disarmingly simple language. First cousin to imagination in preaching is individuality, which brings—in John Arthur Gossip’s words—“the something extra, the touch of you, that is likely to grip the mind.” By using current happenings, real-life situations, and personal references, our Lord elevated the familiar into the fascinating.

Henry Ward Beecher contended that “a sermon is not like a Chinese fire cracker to be fired off for the noise it makes.” True, but most people go to fireworks displays not for the noise but for the spectacular, colorful show splashed on the black canvass of the night. With each lighting there is suspenseful silence.

In the darkness of the grandstands, groans are heard when there is a dud. Groans, however, are suppressed in the subdued light of a hushed sanctuary when there is a dud in the pulpit. A preacher may sputter and spit fire at the start of the sermon, but if his materials are poorly put together, then nothing interesting happens beyond watching the fuse burn down. Fireworks fail mostly because of packaging. Inspect your sermons carefully, before you light up. Faulty craftsmanship may be behind the fizzles.—The Reverend JOHN LEWIS GILMORE, Worland, Wyoming.

- More from John Lewis Gilmore

Theology

Limited and Unlimited

Edith Schaeffer

The following is a guest column by Edith Schaeffer, L’Abri Fellowship, Huémoz, Switzerland.

What far reaching effects the limitation of oil has had! Here in Switzerland there is no driving on Sunday, and quiet roads wind down the mountainsides empty except for walking people or flying birds. City streets are the scene of roller skating and horseback riding. One feels on Sundays as if the clock has been turned back to a pre-automobile time, a time when people passed one another slowly enough to speak.

But time does not turn back, and the shortage of one essential product like oil points out our dependence on a limitless supply of a variety of things. Come to the end of one thing and many other things are affected; but more than “things,” human beings are affected. Suddenly there are no jobs in some industry, and as in a chain reaction other factories become silent. Depression! Depression in one country spreading to other countries. A “world depression” is an idea skulking in men’s imaginations today, a fear taking form in their hearts. Limited oil, limited gas, limited warmth, limited food, limited transportation—the future shows signs of bleakness.

Human beings are also depressed, frustrated, or at least annoyed by their own limitations. People with too much to do are frustrated by the limitation of time. People with too many places they feel they need to be are frustrated by the limitation of space. People with many talents and ideas are frustrated by the limitation of energy, by the frailty of the human frame, by the constantly recurring need for sleep. Some people who are full of ideas are frustrated by a limitation of talent or ability to carry them out. Persons with physical inadequacies are frustrated by the limitations of their own bodies. People who realize that the passing of time has made a difference to them personally are frustrated by the limitation of abilities they once felt were unlimited.

And human beings in their specific areas of limitation bring about a reaction in other human beings, as well as in history. Limited joy, limited peace, limited quiet, limited strength, limited interest affect not only the person but also others whom that person touches.

Why dwell on the gloomy idea of limitedness? First, because it affects every one of us, and second, because there is a solution. We have an unlimited God, who created a limited universe. There is not an unlimited supply of oil in the ground, and there is not an unlimited supply of energy in a human being. We are dependent upon an unlimited God.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus”—a promise from the living, unlimited God to his limited, needy children of every century. In this day of empty store shelves, empty oil tanks, empty gas tanks, consider another passage: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?… For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:31–33).

An order is given. First, “take no thought”—that is, stop worrying. Stop being afraid in the middle of the night. This is a negative order.

In the place of worrying, however, a positive thing is commanded. The second thing to do is to put first the realities of the truth concerning the existence of God and our truly being in his family. This doesn’t mean quoting platitudes to one another but honestly crying out to God in our need, and feeling the wonder as we cry of having an unlimited Person to cry to and to come to with our needs. However, the practical outworking of that is meant to be a demonstrable area of putting him first in some way. How? I would say allowing his interruptions to come first, before our definite schedule.

We have a deadline to meet for gathering in the wheat, making the candles, selling the insurance, writing the report, cooking the meal, whatever is on today’s schedule, and suddenly a phone call, or a person at the door, or a letter presents us with an urgent need to give some spiritual help, to teach a Bible class, to talk to someone by telephone or letter or in person. It is in these practical moments where it will cost us time or energy or money that we make the decision to put the kingdom of God first. When a factory owner has to choose between making more profit and sharing with his workers, he has a chance to put the kingdom of God first. “Seeking first the kingdom of God” does not mean comfortably giving a couple of hours a week in church and writing a check to a good cause; it means an openness, a sensitiveness to being led by the Lord in ways that interrupt the putting of our own interests first, materially, physically, psychologically.

The third part of the “condition” placed upon our receiving “all these things” is seeking His righteousness. How can we know anything about this? Our righteousness is so very limited.

We find out how in Philippians 3:8, 9, as well as in many other places. Think of this during the next quiet moment you have, perhaps as you are waiting for a traffic light to change: “I count all things but loss [I count everything as unimportant] … that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”

The righteousness that we are meant to be seeking, then, is something he has already provided for us in unlimited supply. He has told us that his strength is made perfect in weakness, and that his grace is sufficient for us. This assurance was given to Paul after he had asked that a “thorn in the flesh” be removed. The answer God gives his children is always a real answer. Sometimes that answer is the supplying of the actual thing asked for, specifically and definitely. At other times the answer is the supplying of grace to bear the thorn, quietness in the middle of a continuing storm, comfort in the midst of a continuing sorrow.

We need not continue in depression, frustration, annoyance, as we are caught by a limited supply, whether spiritually, physically, or materially. In the middle of the night, or while waiting for the traffic light, don’t worry anxiously, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, do let your request be made known unto God. And then the peace of God, which passes the understanding of yourself, of others watching, of demons waiting for you to be destroyed, of angels looking to see if you’ll have a victory, will keep your fearful heart and your mind that fills so easily with nagging worries. And it will all be through Christ Jesus, the Second Person of the unlimited Trinity.

- More from Edith Schaeffer

Ideas

The Power of Negative Thinking

Edward De Bono tells of an ugly money-lender who once offered to cancel a merchant’s big debt in return for the merchant’s beautiful daughter. When the merchant balked, the money-lender proposed a gambling scheme, and the merchant had to agree to it because he could not repay the loan.

The money-lender said he would put a black pebble and a white one into an empty money bag, and the girl would have to reach in and take one out. If she picked the black pebble, she would become the money-lender’s wife and her father’s debt would be canceled. If she took the white one, she would stay with her father and the debt would still be canceled. But the girl noticed that the lender, in picking up the pebbles along the pebble-strewn path where they were bargaining, slyly put two black ones in the bag.

The negative thinker would see such a situation as hopeless. He would say there was no way out, and resign himself to his fate.

This is a time of year when many people find themselves in depressing straits. It’s a dull period generally on the calendar, with recreational opportunities at a minimum. The weather in many areas is cold and dreary, and spring seems a long way off. Some great hopes we had for the new year may already have been dashed. The political and economic situation is anything but encouraging. In short, much of our environment may appear to be part of a conspiracy of discouragement.

Thanks to that incurable optimist Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, much has been said about the power of positive thinking. But negative thinking also has power, a dangerous kind of power. We might better term it the menace of negative thinking.

Negative thinking can affect us physically. It can be debilitating. Stresses in mind do somehow influence the organs and organisms in the body so that bodily health is adversely affected. Negative thinking can really make us sick.

We can also be affected psychologically and socially by negative thinking. We can get downcast, frustrated, pessimistic, and mentally fatigued. This leaves us useless for effort that requires good use of the mind, and irritable and withdrawn in relationships with others.

Worst of all is what can happen spiritually when we get into the grip of negative thinking. One of the devil’s favorite tricks is to wear a Christian down to the point where is feels defeated in his devotional life and in his life of service for God.

What is meant by negative thinking? How much is legitimate and how much can we take? Can it be avoided? Overcome?

Negative thinking operates from the assumption that individually or collectively or both, the future is hopeless, or at least that there is no point in trying any more. Sometimes negative thinkers contend that they are simply being realists, but there is a distinction. It is one thing to acknowledge problems and discouragement. It is quite another to throw up one’s hands in despair, and become a fatalist. One can be a realist without being a pessimist. Negative thinking is a cop-out, a surrender that leaves others to solve the tough problems.

But there are always some who will not surrender: no matter how desperate things are, they will work to make them better. Every situation eventually has a resolution, one way or another. So what the negative thinker does is to invite someone else to determine the outcome. It’s particularly sad when the negative thinker is a professing Christian, because his withdrawal may leave the situation to non-Christian or anti-Christian forces.

Thank God for those who persevere. Edison was such a man. It is said that he failed to get results from about 10,000 experiments with a storage battery. Yet he refused to admit total failure. “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” he said. His perseverance led to numerous life-enriching inventions, including the incandescent lamp, which Edison developed only after he had gone through thousands of dollars’ worth of fruitless experiments.

That is the kind of spirit we sorely need in a February that appears to offer more than the usual grimness. It is the spirit expressed vividly by the people who brought mankind through World War II: “The impossible just takes a little longer.”

The Bible is very positive. “Ask and it will be given to you,” Jesus said. “Knock and the door will be opened to you.” Paul declared that God “always leads us in triumphal procession” (New International Version), that “I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” and that “my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Coming back to the maiden in distress, with whom De Bono begins his stimulating and fascinating book New Think, we find her drawing a pebble out of the bag. Without looking at it she lets it drop to the path, where it is lost among all the others. “Oh, how clumsy of me,” she says. “But never mind—if you look into the bag you will be able to tell which pebble I took by the color of the one that is left.” The remaining pebble is black, of course, and the money-lender dares not admit his dishonesty.

This ingenious stroke De Bono uses to illustrate the advantages of “lateral thinking” over conventional thinking, which is too quick to conclude that there is no way out of a problem. The Christian must also weigh every situation in terms of its moral demands. But in subjecting ourselves to God’s laws we are availing ourselves of his incomparable power and wisdom as well.

Dollars For Democracy

Among the many lessons of Watergate is the extent to which the need for campaign contributions virtually forces candidates for office to pay undue heed to special interests. It is not wrong to call one’s special interest to the attention of the government. What is harmful is when comparatively well-organized groups such as labor unions, industrial giants, or farmers are able, because of large and concentrated campaign donations, to get favors while unorganized groups such as consumers, middle-income taxpayers, or commuters are not.

As Christians placed by God in a representative democracy, we share responsibility for promoting good government. One small step is provided by law on the federal income-tax return. Each taxpayer can designate $1 of his federal tax to be diverted into a 1976 Presidential Election Campaign Fund. All he need do is check the box on line eight of page one of that famous form 1040 or 1040A. It does not increase his payment to the IRS at all.

The money so designated goes into a common fund to be distributed to the major and any minor parties in 1976 according to a predetermined formula. While this means that the taxpayer gives, indirectly, to parties he may not like, it also means that those who are elected can be more concerned—in deed as well as word—with the common interest, since they will not have been allowed to accept contributions from special interests.

Spartanism—On Whose Terms?

The tremendous rise in prosperity of the highly developed nations since World War II resulted in part from the availability of plentiful, cheap oil. This availability has also made them very dependent on the favor of their foreign suppliers. West Germany, for example, depended on oil for only 21 per cent of its energy supply in 1960, but now that figure has risen to 55 per cent, and almost all its oil comes from Arab lands.

Now the Arab oil embargo, ostensibly designed to compel consumer nations to support their cause against Israel, has been followed by huge price increases—fourfold or more so far, with promise of still higher prices to come. Viewing others’ misfortune as their opportunity, non-Arab oil-exporting states, including Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Canada, have joined the cartel to exact ever higher prices. Some underdeveloped countries—India, for example—face the prospect of wiping out their foreign-exchange reserves in order to pay for their modest but essential energy needs. Hardworking countries like Japan that have achieved a measure of prosperity through tremendous effort may soon see their favorable trade balances turned into an economic disaster.

Having taught the industrial nations to depend on them, the oil exporters now seem convinced that they can dictate to them. In effect the oil-rich Arabs and “honorary Arabs” (the non-Arab oil-producing states) are telling the industrial nations to adopt a Spartan style of life and do it quickly, with no grumbling.

Perhaps a more Spartan life-style would be good for the affluent, soft-living industrial states. But dictating to others simply because one has cornered the market on a vital commodity is a risky business. Particularly if they are Spartans.

Striking Back

January was the month for revenge in sports. In boxing, Muhammad Ali decisioned Joe Frazier in what was billed as “the world’s greatest return match,” three years after the first fight, won by Frazier. In basketball, UCLA got back at Notre Dame, trouncing “Our Lady” for having snapped its eighty-eight-game victory streak the week before.

The two big events stirred up some adrenalin among sports fans after a rather ho-hum football season. Despite all the head-knocking that is a part of the action on the gridiron, the year produced very few exciting contests. The pro picture would have been notably dull had it not been for O. J. Simpson’s rushing record of 2,003 yards. No wonder Secretariat did so well in the voting for best male athlete of the year.

With the coming of spring training in baseball, we are reminded that America’s traditional favorite pastime, though one of the least violent sports, often turns out to be the most interesting. Baseball may not be as physically demanding as other sports, but it still has a lot going for it. These are days when Christians need to contribute an extra share of effort in holding down social hostility. Baseball helps.

Louis Cassels

Journalism lost a pioneer with the death last month of Louis Cassels, United Press International correspondent and religious columnist. He was a reporter of superb ability, one whom UPI editors called upon for very tough stories like Little Rock and Kent State. But Lou deserves to be remembered primarily for the role he played in reintroducing to North American newspapers interpretative coverage of religious affairs. He and George Cornell of Associated Press broke ground in the fifties by inaugurating weekly columns that talked about matters of faith.

Cassels wrote several books, which, like his news reports, boiled down complex principles. His theological views unfortunately reflected something less than an evangelical position on the Bible. He battled courageously, however, for fundamental truths such as the reality of the Resurrection and the transcendence of God. He grew up a Southern Baptist and subsequently became an Episcopalian, but he communicated to all varieties of Christians. Five years ago he told a convention of the Protestant Church-Owned Publishers Association that modern men are “sick and tired of being told what they can’t believe. They want to know what, if anything, they can believe. They feel they’ve been cast long enough in the role of captive audience for theologians engaged in a reckless competition to see who can administer the rudest shock to the faithful.” He further told the publishers, “If you persist in handing out stones when people ask for bread, they’ll finally quit coming to the bakery.”

Those who knew Cassels were aware that he lived what he wrote. He was personable, gracious, and always helpful. His Christian spirit was well illustrated in a gesture not long before his death, a column on freedom of speech that defended Carl McIntire, who over the years had attacked Cassels unmercifully and sought to get him fired.

On Daring To Be Different

Many of us dismiss the world’s great evils with a passive shrug. After all, what can one person do? How can the individual buck a powerful system? Perhaps it was possible in a simpler era, but not in the modern world.

But the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn refutes the idea that one human being cannot effectively challenge a massive evil force. And the Christian above all others should believe in individual potential, knowing that the Spirit-led person is energized by the omnipotent God.

Solzhenitsyn is the greatest living Russian novelist. But The Gulag Archipelago, his latest book, is history, not fiction, and it is his most courageous work to date. He documents the atrocities of Soviet labor camps between 1918 and 1956. In a Russian edition published in Paris, the book runs to 606 pages. It is being translated into English by Harper & Row.

The book is perhaps the most embarrassing barrage to hit the Kremlin since it first came under Communist control. So far the Soviet bosses seem stymied. And there is apparently more to come. The Gulag Archipelago (“Gulag” is the acronym for the agency that incarcerated political prisoners, while the “archipelago” refers to prison camp “islands”) is said to be only the first two sections of a seven-part work dealing with Soviet terror.

This is an example of what one person can do.

From The Pulpit To The Board Room

During the 1960s, many clerics and ecclesiastical bureaucrats turned their attention from the pulpit to the political platform. Now many of them are moving on to the corporation board room, it seems. A number of churches and church agencies are planning an all-out push this spring to influence several major corporations currently doing business in certain areas where the churches disapprove of the way things are run—especially in South Africa and Portugal’s overseas territories.

Some churches and their subsidiary boards already held big investments in companies involved. The United Presbyterian Church, for instance, owns about 44,000 shares of Exxon with a book value of about $4 million, and two boards of the United Church of Christ own 65,500 shares of Newmont Mining, book value approximately $1.8 million. One agency, the United Church of Christ’s Center for Social Action, has acquired three token shares in each of two of the target companies, thereby gaining the right to attend and vote at stockholders’ meetings. The Church Project on United States Investments in Southern Africa intends to use the leverage provided by stock ownership to persuade the companies involved to do as the Project thinks right (see News, February 1 issue, page 41).

Certainly it is legitimate for stockholders—especially major ones—to try to influence the companies of which they are part owner to do business in a particular way. There may be some question whether shareholders who have only token holdings have the moral right to enlist media and other outside pressure to manipulate companies—and through them the other shareholders’ interests. There is also the question whether the initiative taken by the various churches in these highly selective cases really represents the convictions of their constituencies. Is it necessarily less moral for American oil companies to do business in Portuguese Guinea than for American wheat dealers to do business with the Soviet Union? We are all long since familiar with what Sir Arnold Lunn called “selective indignation.” Such indignation is aimed against the oppressors only of those whom Jacques Ellul calls the “interesting poor”—e.g., against the Europeans who dominate South Africa’s black majority, but not against the Arabs who have killed a substantial portion of the black population of the Sudan.

One might also ask whether churches in fact ought to be major stockholders in commercial enterprises. Perhaps companies should try to turn the tables by packing session and vestry meetings. That way we would get not only more spiritual principle in the conduct of business affairs but also more efficiency in church management. It may be an interesting spring.

Rapping With Humanists

A while back (September 28 issue) we commented on “Humanist Manifesto II,” which views religion and particularly Christianity as outmoded relics of the irrational and superstitious. In response to the reactions, the January/February issue of the Humanist airs the matter further.

In this issue Paul Beatty, minister of a Unitarian Church in Indianapolis, describes himself as “an agnostic leaning toward atheism.” “Man,” he says, “must take his destiny in his own hands.” “My primary commitment is to the humanistic frame of reference that sees man as the only value center that we know about.” If Beatty’s views are typical among Unitarian clergymen, is there any reason why the Unitarians should not close their churches promptly and get out of the religion business? It is difficult to respect an agnostic/atheist who uses “churches” theoretically committed to a belief in God as a parade ground for his disbelief.

Sidney Hook, emeritus professor of philosophy of New York University, asks, “If a man ‘thinks’ he is the Messiah—a human experience—does his thinking make it so? If a man or woman ‘thinks’ that he or she has heard God’s voice, does it mean that God has really spoken?” Hook says that with John Dewey he sees humanism as “a religion whose practitioners bow down neither to God nor man and in which human beings grow to their full rational potential, not by kneeling, but by thinking, acting and learning from experience.” But, one might respond, if Sidney Hook “thinks” that God has not spoken, does it mean that God has really not spoken? No; millions of people can testify to having heard His voice. Hook is quite correct in asserting that God is inaudible to him, of course, and for a reason he cannot see.

Paul Kurtz, the editor of the Humanist, writes: “Thus in answer to the question, can one believe in God and still be a humanist, we need to ask of the believer: What do you mean by ‘God’? If it is still a transcendent divine being or reality who created man and influences and controls his destiny, then the answer is ‘No’.…”

Yes, Mr. Kurtz, that is indeed what we mean by “God.” We acknowledge and worship the very kind of God you dismiss—a transcendent divine being who created man and controls his destiny—and we urge all men everywhere to behold this God, who became flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus Christ!

Lifting Up The Son

When the devout Pharisee Nicodemus came to Jesus with his questions, Jesus did not only tell him, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). He also alluded to the unique rank of the Son of man, descended from heaven (v. 13), and to his ministry: he must be lifted up, as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness (v. 14). The reference to “lifting up” may have seemed ambiguous to Nicodemus—it could be understood simply in the sense of “exhibiting, displaying.” Jesus used the same expression during the week before his crucifixion: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). The evangelist explains that he was referring to the way in which he would die. At an earlier point in his ministry, he had warned those who objected to his calling himself the bread of heaven, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44), and now he speaks of himself at his crucifixion, “drawing all men.”

A public execution was a spectacle that drew a crowd, and there was one at Jesus’ crucifixion—but for the most part it was composed of his enemies, of mockers, and of the merely curious. Few of them were drawn there by the Father in the sense of John 6:44. Apparently there is an inherently fascinating power in the death of Christ, for the portrayal of his crucifixion has never lacked spectators. The Passion has provided the theme for many major musical compositions, some of them by complete unbelievers. The most recent example is the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. It is almost as though those who are not persuaded that he is the Saviour, who cannot accept that he rose again, lives today, and will return to judge the earth, resist the Resurrection, but somehow need to keep reminding themselves of his death, as though to reassure themselves that he is really gone and will never come back to trouble them.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142), one of the most problematic of the medieval theologians, spoke of the crucifixion and death of Christ as the perfect revelation of God’s love, a revelation that makes it impossible for us to go on denying that he loves us and fearing to entrust ourselves to his hands. Indeed, the suffering and death of Christ are a perfect revelation of God’s long-suffering love, and, contemplating them, no one should remain hostile or distrustful toward God. But in fact countless thousands do: they are drawn to the place where Jesus is lifted up, to the Cross, but they are drawn only to stare, to scoff, or to be entertained.

In the ancient Greek tragedy Hippolytus, the hero’s “tragic flaw,” which set the whole terrible tragedy in motion, is often described as “tardiness of nature,” a hesitancy to recognize ordinary human love and respond to it. If we can speak of “tragedy” in a Christian context, then there is no greater tragedy than the spectacle of crowds being drawn to the Cross, but too tardy in spirit, too cold, or too blasé, to believe.

Eutychus and His Kin: February 15, 1974

The Claim For Equal Names

It is a well known but little considered fact that the Roman Catholic Church, thanks to the simple historical accident of being older, has taken over almost all of the good names for churches, church colleges, and other religious institutions. It has most of the attributes of God and major doctrines and almost all of the canonical saints. This sometimes leads to droll results, especially on the sports pages, as when we read, St. Paul Slays Our Lady 46–6.

Some old-line Protestants have managed to name a few things after the Great Reformers (Calvin Dumps Holy Cross, 22–0), but this is rare. The Lutherans have contrived to secure a few common doctrines (Church of the Resurrection), but have generally failed to nail down those that are characteristic of Protestantism (Church of Plenary Inspiration). So much Lutheran effort was expended in the effort to capture some doctrines and a few saints’ names that the Missouri Synod threw in the towel and calls all its colleges and seminaries Concordia (not to be confused with Principia, which is Christian Scientist).

Episcopalians, hearkening back to the squatter’s rights enjoyed by their Anglican cousins in Britain, do go on using saints’ names. But the Reformed tradition (Congregationalists, Presbyterians, “Dutch Reformed,” et al.) and most Baptists, Methodists, and independents have just given up and settled for place and denominational names and numbers (First Congregational Church, Presbyterian Hospital, Countryside Bible Chapel). When they dare to claim individuals’ names, it is only those of recent heroes undisputedly theirs (Moody Bible Institute, Spurgeon’s College), or even—to make certain, perhaps, that no one will try to take the names from them—those of still living luminaries.

Obviously the working principle is that Roman Catholics may claim all common saints and doctrines, with the Episcopalians and some Lutherans allowed to share a few of them, while most evangelicals are absolutely forbidden access to them. What fundamentalist could get away with establishing a St. Athanasius Bible Church?

As is usual in cases of long-standing discriminatory practices, it will be argued that Protestants are happy with the names they have, that they don’t want any of the others, that they would feel uncomfortable going to Irenaeus Theological School or Atonement Hospital, and the like. Indeed, Protestants have been deprived in this way for so long that many of them no longer even recognize it as deprivation.

What is clearly called for is legislation, with mandatory enforcement and equal-opportunity safeguards (perhaps on the level of a U. N. resolution, since the problem is worldwide), enjoining Catholics from continuing to use more than their quota of saints and doctrines. Protestants who lag behind in taking over the vacated names could be encouraged by suitable federally funded programs. If no such safeguards are enacted, evangelicals may someday lose even the rights they now have—and this magazine could become First Evangelical Fortnightly of Washington, D. C.

EUTYCHUS VI

Key Of Excellence

Congratulations on the especially worthwhile issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for January 4. It would seem as if everything in it is keyed up to excellence and interest.

ROGER NICOLE

Professor of Theology

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

South Hamilton, Mass.

Unity’S Highlights

Klaas Runia’s article, “A ‘New’ Christology Challenges the Church,” in the January 4 issue was an excellent review and reminder of the absolute importance of a biblical doctrine of Christ. His conclusion that the advocates of the new Christology begin with a faulty view of Scripture is certainly valid. The article highlighted the need for unity on the doctrines of the written and living Word of God in Christian endeavors such as evangelism and missions, be those endeavors churchwide or on an individual basis. There is one point that could have been clarified by Runia. The uninformed reader may assume that the H. Berkof to whom he refers is the same as L. Berkof, the systematic theologian.

ROBERT P. LIGHTNER

Assistant Professor of

Systematic Theology

Dallas Theological Seminary

Dallas, Tex.

I would … like to point out a painful but obvious inconsistency in Runia’s work. After describing the current trend in Christology and correctly identifying its basis, he then indicates the ramifications thereof by stating that “we can be saved only by God himself.” Quite so! If Christ is less than God, then he cannot save or even be an instrument of salvation. Rather he himself must be no more than an object of salvation, not essentially different than you and I. Yet with all this behind him, Runia writes, “I do not deny that the advocates of the new Christology also see Jesus as their Saviour and Redeemer.” Using his own reasoning, it follows that those who do not accept the scriptural teaching on the deity of Christ have abandoned the very basis of his saving and redeeming work.

WILLIAM ELLIOTT

Associate Professor of Bible

Western Baptist Bible College

Salem, Ore.

I am surprised Runia didn’t make reference to C. S. Lewis’s sermon “Transposition,” in The Weight of Glory, for it helps greatly in the debate. Lewis’s main point is that there is a principle operating in life in many ways. The principle always involves the reduction, the simplification of something complex down to something simpler. A painting is thus the reduction of a three-dimension scene to a two-dimension scene. Translation sometimes involves the cramming of twenty-six vowel sounds into five. When you take complex music for an orchestra and reduce it to a single melody for a flute, you are transposing. We have a complex array of emotions, says Lewis, and they have to be channeled in groups through our less numerous physical reactions so that one “feeling” has to do double duty for being in love and experiencing fear. In the Christological debate this applies to the necessary simplification of God so man can understand him. God, therefore, is the orchestra. Christ is the flute. Christ is, therefore, God within reach of our understanding and experience. We understand man perhaps the best of anything in this whole creation because we are men—so God transposes himself down into a man so we can get the picture.

(THE REV.) MILES FINCH

Polson, Mont.

Fitting Theory

In reading “The Refiner’s Fire” in your January 4 issue, on Dali’s “Christ of St. John,” I was much taken by the analysis.… Between the foot of the cross and the horizon of Port Lligat is suspended a nuclear mushroom cloud. This, I think, fits her theory well, and explains “the mysterious, dim beam of light that seems to fall from the cross.” I appreciated the article. It is about time that someone competently demolished Dali’s blasphemous stuff.

JAMES B. JORDAN

Hurlburt Field, Fla.

Janet Johnson’s critique on Salvador Dali’s art reflects a classic example of extensive research and shallow thinking. It doesn’t take much interpersonal communication and observation of church decorum to realize that most Protestants automatically reject art relating to the crucifixion of Christ by way of association with “catholic” or “worshiping a dead Christ.” This would be reasonable if it related to the adoration of the host or unbelief in the resurrected Christ. However, it does not validate a rejection en toto. After all, is not every picture of Christ merely an artist’s conception? To answer the author, does any picture of Christ really speak the Truth?… I find it disturbing that many evangelical Christians cannot appreciate a person’s artistic talent because of their interpretation of a presumed philosophy. Certainly an individual’s concept of Christ, to some degree, will reflect his own experiences, personality, and perhaps even his occupation (mathematician, architect, scientist, etc.).

ROGER A. PINNEL

Philadelphia, Pa.

Blatant Breach

I read David Haddon’s article on Transcendental Meditation (“New Plant Thrives in a Spiritual Desert,” Dec. 21) with alarm, and promptly forwarded a copy to my congressman, Omar Burleson of the Seventeenth District of Texas. He forwarded my letter to HEW, and they verified that $21,540 had been spent on TM to alleviate drug abuse. Deputy Director Besteman said: “The retrospective accounts obtained from the meditator sample indicated that the use of drugs declined sharply during the period of practicing transcendental meditation.” The Maharishi Yogi “donated his services to this training effort.…” My protest to the congressman that this was a serious breach of the separation of church and state was to no avail. He perfunctorily mailed their reply to me. I think we should flood Congress with mail on this subject. The legal niceties used by the Supreme Court to prevent tax rebates for private education are in vivid contrast to this blatant attempt to introduce an Eastern religion into the public schools. My congressman’s letter justified this program on the basis that “the grant … was done on an experimental basis in the hope that it might alleviate the national drug problem.” I would venture to say that Christianity has done more than TM to alleviate drug abuse. How about an NIH grant to the “Jesus People” to fight drug abuse?

Washington, D. C.

J. D. NORVELL

ERRATUM

In the January 4 news story “Rome-ward Bound?” the phrase “papal infallibility” was incorrectly referred to as the main reason for the split between Rome and England. The term should have been “papal authority.”

The Refiner’s Fire: Comics

John V. Lawing, Jr.

Some years ago in “Li’l Abner” Al Capp satirized the popularity of comic strips in America by having General Bullmoose, wealthiest man in the world, corner the market on Fearless Fosdick, the most popular comic-strip in America, so that no one could read it but himself. In the ensuing panels little old ladies strangled newsstand operators and average citizens stormed the newspaper office wreaking mayhem on the editor.

It was only a slight exaggeration. David Manning White and Robert Abel, in their book The Funnies, an American Idiom, tell of an editor who decided to drop “Harold Teen,” then at the height of its popularity. Twelve thousand telephone calls and four thousand letters changed his mind.

When Capp conducted a contest to provide a horrible-looking face for Lena the Hyena, more than one million readers submitted entries.

Our love of the comics has been used to prove that it is impossible to underestimate the American taste. But the popularity of the funnies crosses all lines of status and education. Research shows that the comics are read and enjoyed in about the same proportion among both highly educated persons and those who have not been to college.

Comic-strip buffs are fond of pointing out that Woodrow Wilson, one of our most intellectual presidents, read “Krazy Kat” before his cabinet meetings.

In 1962, the influential critic Gilbert Seldes lavished praise on “Krazy Kat” in his book The Seven Lively Arts:

Krazy Kat, the daily comic strip of George Herriman, is, to me, the most amusing and satisfactory work of art produced in America today. With those who hold that a comic strip cannot be a work of art I shall not traffic. The qualities of Krazy Kat are irony and fantasy—exactly the same, it would appear, as distinguish The Revolt of the Angels; it is wholly beside the point to indicate a preference for the work of Anatole France, which is in the great line, in the major arts [Sagamore Press, 1924, page 207].

Studies also show that more than half of the newspaper readers in America have a favorite comic strip. In fact, the comics are probably the most revealing cultural expressïon we have.

British anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer commented in The American People: A Study in National Character:

As one travels about the country one may be unable to learn what is happening in Congress or at the United Nations meetings; but there is no excuse for ignorance of the latest adventures of Li’l Abner, Joe Palooka, Skeezix Wallet, and the numerous other protagonists of these synthetic fantasies. With the notable exception of the New York Times, almost every American newspaper carries comic strips. They are one of the few important bonds (the films being another and the presidential elections a third) uniting all Americans in a common experience [quoted in The Funnies: An American Idiom by David Manning White and Robert H. Abel, 1963, page 2].

Although he lived into the forties, apparently no one asked Bud Fisher what his thoughts were when in 1907 he brought forth what was to become the first successful daily comic strip. The hero, Mr. A. Mutt, was joined by a recruit from an insane asylum in 1909, and the strip became “Mutt and Jeff.”

There were signs even then that this wedding of pictures and text had a powerful attraction. Two hotly competitive papers, Hearst’s Morning Journal and Pulitzer’s World, had already been using weekly comic supplements in their pursuit of higher circulation. The weekly supplements paved the way for introduction of “A. Mutt” as a daily feature in the San Francisco Chronicle.

By 1920 the comics had become an integral part of American newspapers. Putting in their appearance in this period were such long-lasting entries as: “Little Orphan Annie,” “The Katzen-jammer Kids,” “Popeye,” “Bringing Up Father,” “The Gumps,” “Barney Google,” “Gasoline Alley,” and “Krazy Kat.”

The thirties saw the proliferation of the adventure strips, such as “Tarzan,” “Buck Rogers,” “The Phantom,” “Mandrake the Magician,” and “Prince Valiant.”

In the forties and fifties cartoonists plumbed the depths of popular taste and came up with the soap-opera strips such as “Mary Worth” and “The Heart of Juliet Jones.”

Not everyone has been pleased with the popularity of the comics. In 1954 psychiatrist Frederick Wertham’s book The Seduction of the Innocent tried and convicted the comics of high crimes against humanity. As his title implies, Wertham states the comics helped to create immoral and anti-social behavior in their readers. Wertham’s selection of data and his accuracy have been questioned by other investigators, and the book is now generally discredited.

Wertham seems to have made two naïve assumptions: that the audience of the comics was composed exclusively of juveniles and that the funnies create attitudes in their readers.

One of the reasons for the sweeping success of the comics is that they accurately reflect the American myth. They show our hopes, fears, ideals, loves, and hatreds.

To the degree that there is a god in the comics he’s the genial spirit who sanctifies American life and ideals. He’s the one who helped us win the Second World War, the one who helps those who help themselves and who tells us to help others and it will all be all right.

Partly as a result of their national syndication and diverse audience, the comics seldom mention God or religion overtly. One notable exception was a “Pogo” strip by Walt Kelly showing a huge cliff engraved with the words “GOD IS NOT DEAD. He’s unemployed.” The moral was, I suppose, that God is there to be used.

An exception is the seminal Christianity that occurs in “Peanuts” and that has been more than amply discussed by Robert Short in The Gospel According to Peanuts.

If the world of the comics reveals a strange, eclectic gathering of conflicting ideals, it’s because the American culture exhibits that same phenomenon.

We have compassion for defenseless Little Orphan Annie, but we feel merciless toward her tormentors. We are not at all disturbed when they are dispatched into the hereafter with a bomb or are transported to some nether land by Punjab’s cape.

“Little Orphan Annie” and “Doonesbury” are both testimonies, in different ways, to our admiration of rugged individualism.

“Dick Tracy,” “Steve Roper,” “The Phantom,” and a host of other adventure stories attest to our love of violence and riskless vicarious adventure and to our belief in the triumph of justice.

The family situation comics show that we believe in happy marriages and happy families—even when we don’t attain them.

Cartoons like “Peanuts,” “The Wizard of Id,” and “B.C.” show that we have a keen sense of the incongruities in human experience.

Andy Capp, of course, is a part of our fantasies of being irresponsible without having to face the consequences.

And our love of happy endings is attested to by “Mary Worth.”

If Christian communicators want to know what currents are flowing in the mainstream of American life, let them turn to the funny papers.

- More from John V. Lawing, Jr.

An Intercepted Memorandum on Guerrilla Warfare

David L. Dye

With apologies to C. S. Lewis.

As I wrapped the garbage the other day, a scrap of yellow onionskin caught my eye. It was a letter, scrawled in a barely decipherable, old-fashioned hand. By chance I had found another communication in the now well-known series of letters to young Wormwood from a shrewd old devil, his uncle Screwtape (the rest are in C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters). It read as follows:

DEAR WORMWOOD:

You need to be brought up to date on some recent management decisions of the Lowerarchy. Our Father Below is scorching his regular staff meetings about the upsurge in Enemy guerrilla activity. I can remember when we had essentially all the popular support of the earthlings, even though—and precisely because—most didn’t know or care that we even existed. Men then did the will of our Father Below thinking that they were following their own inclinations or, more hilarious, that they were pleasing our Enemy! Fortunately these attitudes are still common among your Perishioners (sic).

But people are becoming more aware of us. (There’s a rumor among the lower managers here that this awareness is part of a BOTTOM SECRET plan that we middle-level spirits are not party to.) Awareness of our operations in itself hasn’t produced the Enemy guerrilla activity. Whenever a human dedicates himself to the Enemy, he becomes aware of us along with other spiritual realities. This fact calls for some strategies that have been discussed in other memoranda. It is the guerrilla activity that concerns us just now.

The guerrillas are common people who are motivated personally by the Enemy. That is the real danger in the guerrilla movement, since common people will attract other common people to ally themselves with the Enemy. They are much more dangerous than the Enemy’s regular paid professionals, because we can usually get our Perishioners to discount as biased whatever the professionals say.

But the amateur, the guerrilla, is loyal to the Enemy himself, without any organization that pays his salary. He studies the Enemy Command Manual and regularly communicates directly with the Enemy himself, motivated by his relationship rather than by duty, or by the need to prepare a formal talk. Guerrillas obtain direct help from the Enemy leader, who reminds them of that unspeakable time when our Leader actually had the Enemy killed and yet the tables were somehow turned. For reasons we cannot fathom, the Enemy’s people are enabled to resist our best efforts whenever they consider their Leader’s ignominious treatment and unexpected recovery of the battle initiative. It then becomes difficult to convince them to ignore or obey the Enemy Command Manual. Worse yet, they may foment rebellions among our subjects as they tell of their personal relationship with the Enemy.

Enemy activity in the common people is not a new threat to us. Even the Enemy himself, in coming to earth, lived as a common man and drew most of his first foul followers from among the uneducated and unsophisticated. This switch in Enemy tactics caused our Lowerarchy to develop a marvelous and still useful strategy: formalize, organize, and institutionalize the guerrilla movement. Note the methods and results.

To “formalize” involves letting the guerrillas think of the Enemy Command Manual and their communication channels as ends in themselves. Concentrate their concern on the forms of communication between themselves and their Leader rather than on the content. Anyone who desires to serve the Enemy will then be required to do so within the limitations imposed by the formalism. Becoming thus preoccupied they will soon forget about the meanings of the terrible events that spawned their movement and that would otherwise serve to focus their attention on their Leader and from him derive abilities to resist us.

For example, if in their meetings they tell one another what they are learning personally from the Enemy Command Manual, then you might formalize their meeting procedures. Let them get used to certain phrases or words—even those of their Manual will do—so that these expressions become the only acceptable forms in the group. Similarly, activities during their meetings can be formalized. You can multiply the benefits by helping different guerrilla groups develop different sets of acceptable activities and expressions for use in their own assemblies. Use your imagination plus the common tendency of humans to let their methods become their goals.

To “organize” involves getting these various guerrilla groups to look to their human leadership for guidance and opinion, rather than to the Enemy himself. With very little help from you, these leaders will establish their committees and boards, their own methods and goals, activities and meetings—in short, organizational machinery that can also become an end in itself—along with more formalisms to justify them. This properly channels the guerrilla zeal and devotion away from the Enemy Leader himself and toward the organizational goals. Typical useful goals for you to suggest are more or new emotional experiences, more members, better community acceptance, defense of the fundamentals of the faith (by which they should mean that their particular interpretation of the Enemy Command Manual is the only possible correct one). Added benefits again result if you can arrange for different groups to argue about which organizational goals best please the Enemy.

To “institutionalize” is the next step after formalizing and organizing. This involves setting the beliefs and lifestyles of these now ex-guerrillas into cultural patterns. When they have convinced themselves that their particular life-style is consistent with their faith, the various subcultures among the Enemy’s people are easily isolated. This forces them to defend their established lifestyles and cultural patterns against those of others of the Enemy’s people. Nowadays long hair, rock music, political views, concern for social issues, and the nature and purpose of the Enemy’s spiritual gifts are useful issues that different subcultures can defend in the name of the Enemy. When a human’s faith and devotion have been properly institutionalized, he no longer has the mental categories needed to wage a personal, spontaneous, guerrilla-type rebellion against our Father Below, whom even the Enemy calls “The Prince of this World.”

It shouldn’t be too hard for you to start this process of formalization and organization among the Enemy guerrillas in your Perish. One technique is to use the human tendency to embrace extremes. Provoke overreactions. Remember that formlessness (among those particular subcultures that value it) can be formal, and that lack of organization can be made an end in itself and thereby organized. Many of your younger Enemy guerrillas have a well-founded fear of the already institutionalized Enemy camp. This may seem to be a problem to you, but you can use it by deflecting these young, dedicated irregulars away from the real war and getting them occupied with the defects in the Enemy’s institutions, producing overreactions in both the institutions and the guerrillas. The young, in rejecting the form and organization, will move away also from the discipline demanded of them in the Enemy Command Manual. The old, already institutionalized, will organize and formalize even more tightly to protect their limited and manageable understanding of the Enemy. The young ones will then be easily led to formalize their informality, to organize their fear of organization, and eventually to institutionalize both their formalisms and organizational methods.

Another proven approach is simply to attract some of the guerrilla leaders with the lure of notoriety, profit, or status in their groups and subcultures. This is so obvious that I need not dwell on it for such an able tempter as you, my dear Wormwood.

There are some potentially grave situations where the Enemy has begun spontaneous guerrilla activity within the very institutions we thought were safely preoccupied with their forms, ritual, and organization. These guerrillas require special care. If the threatened institutional leaders react against these spontaneous spiritual movements in their midst, the guerrillas may be strengthened. Therefore, our strategy should be in this case to welcome the guerrillas into the institutional structure and to formalize their disgusting activities into rituals that can gradually lose their personal meaning and become acceptable to us. In other words, our old “substitution of means for ends” trick.

So you see, there are many ways to deal with the present upsurge of Enemy guerrilla activity, and they are methods that we have already used and found quite successful. Because of the Enemy’s mistake in making man free either to follow him or to rebel and follow us, we can often induce his own people to formalize, organize, and institutionalize even their supposed devotion to him. Our guerrillas are active, too, so don’t be discouraged, my slimy nephew.

We cannot know how the battle will come out, of course. Even though the Enemy Command Manual has been widely published—a seemingly stupid breach of intelligence—we can only surmise what some parts of it mean, especially when it predicts happy days for us, with many defections from the Enemy, but then hints darkly that the Enemy will suddenly strike and prevail over our Home Base. Perhaps it will happen again as it did when our Father had the Enemy dead and buried only to see the horrible thing arise victorious. Our Father, according to his closest staff (for only they are allowed to see him), still has a nasty, ulcerous scar on his head from that battle.

Remember your mission: take best advantage of the situation. Work to formalize, organize, and institutionalize the Enemy guerrilla activity, thereby forcing the Enemy to seek other ways to continue his battle.

Your affectionate uncle,

SCREWTAPE

Director, Dirty Tricks Department

P.S. Pass this along to Glubose and others.

- More from David L. Dye

Theology

Should the Christian Argue?

Robert W. Smith

How to contend for the faith, literally.

It is 8:45 and Dr. Seymour Johnson, a forty-ish, exciting professor-author from the state university, summarizes the evening’s lecture on “Ethical Values in an Unethical Age” by saying:

And so we conclude that the Indian, the Chicano, the Black, and the Italian have fallen heir to neither their constitutional nor statutory rights because Whitey, the only and ultimate source of value for ethnic groups in our country, has aborted his social, ethical, and legal responsibility.

You muse on this briefly, realize others are applauding, then pick up your notebook and coat and slip out the rear exit, remembering your 9:00 obligation elsewhere.

“But that’s not true!” you say to yourself. “No man nor group of men ultimately provides the values and determines the worth of anyone else. God does that. If man did, it would require but a stroke of the legislative or judicial pen to deprive others of that worth, as indeed we see repeatedly in history. I’m going back to talk with him about that.”

“No, maybe I shouldn’t. He’s a lot smarter than I am—I’d simply make a fool of myself. Besides, arguing only drives wedges between people; it never accomplishes anything. And he does have a right to his opinion.”

So the opportunity to challenge a questionable statement slips through your fingers.

Some Christians think it is unseemly to argue about God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. They may maintain that the Christian may discuss but not argue.

I will attempt to show, however, that (1) debate, argument, is a God-given method of inquiry, and is no more immoral than a plumber’s wrench or the back seat of a Mustang, though both may be used for immoral ends; and (2) not only may the Christian argue within the will of God, but sometimes he must unless he is willing to permit error to go unchallenged.

I

Argument might be loosely defined as a verbal attempt to get a receiver to accept a viewpoint. The New Testament has two Greek words for it: eris and dialegomai.The first of these suggests strife and contention—negative qualities for the Christian, as Paul, the only user of the word, clearly shows (e.g., Rom. 1:29 and Titus 3:9). The second word means debating, mingling thought with thought—the sort of thing that went on at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), or when Paul confronted the Areopagus or Felix (Acts 17:17; 24:25).

A well-constructed argument has three essentials. First, a thesis: “Jesus was in fact the Christ”; “The ultimate solution to interpersonal problems lies in God, not guns”; or “Jones can do that job better than Brown can.” Second, evidence to support the thesis, such as statistics, examples, and quotations. Finally, argument requires a spokesman, a person who (1) has done his homework and has a good foundation for his position, (2) respects his opponent, and (3), for purposes of this discussion, is empowered, controlled, by the Holy Spirit. Assumed in all this is the ability to handle the language.

II

So much for the nature of argument. Now, what precedents has the believer for using it?

If one confines himself to Scripture alone, he soon discovers a host of witnesses and practitioners who found argument indispensable to their ministry. Why? Because in a sense God needs us. He needs spokesmen who can use nature and rhetorical art to awaken wandering men.

Aristotle and John Stuart Mill declared that truth and justice are inherently stronger than their opposites. But most of us today, on empirical grounds, would reply that life does not bear out this hope, at least in the short haul. Twelve million Jews who lost their lives in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere in the 1930s and ’40s bear eloquent testimony to this. False impressions need correcting. Gaps in data must be supplied. Incorrect conclusions must be challenged. So argument finds its place.

The biblical writers clearly perceived this truth. We must not only go forth into all the world and proclaim but must also be ready to answer every man who asks us reasons for the hope within (1 Pet. 3:15). When challenged, we must have done our homework in order to meet the cross-examination of a thinking person or to refute his error. Indeed, Jude mandated his readers to “contend for the faith,” because ungodly men “pervert the grace of God and deny our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Furthermore, we need argument to get more facts in order to make important decisions. Getting facts often requires argument about the procedure for obtaining them, their significance, and the like. If the Christian held that argument was morally wrong, he would be hypocritical to build on the foundation of non-Christians who through argument obtained facts that were useful to the Christian. Suppose, for example, that the local police and prosecuting attorney were in league with the numbers racket, and the attorney’s office suppressed evidence important to an investigation. Prosecution would be nearly impossible. The Christian layman and lawyer would have not only the right but also the obligation to contest this suppression.

Then we also have precedent for it in the way Scripture pictures the search for truth. Take for example that famous invitation of Isaiah 1:18, “Come now and let us reason [argue] together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

We counter, “Impossible! I have done too much!”

GOD: “It is possible if I say it is. I have done more at Calvary than you have even thought of.”

WE: “That’s ridiculous, God. I have blasphemed your name, ridiculed those who follow you, lied, stolen, cheated, played musical beds. How can simply praying to one I have never seen have any possible connection with the things I have done?”

GOD: “All this I know, my son, and more. But as far as the East is from the West, so far will I remove your sins—if you want me to.”

And so the debate rages, sometimes for years. It will never end in a stalemate. We will lose every time, though we may think we have the better end of it.

Jesus never hesitated to argue with people if that was the most effective means of getting at the heart of the matter. As a great teacher, however, he was never interested simply in mental gymnastics, as were medieval schoolmen; his goal was to tear down barriers men erect against God. He not only warded off the attacks of opponents but thrust his points to the heart of his foes, as a fencer jabs with a rapier. He used reproach, fiery indignation, even sarcasm, and so effectively that at times his opponents slinked off with their tails between their legs. They feared to engage him in the mortal combat he handled so well.

Unlike Socrates and Aristotle, who were more concerned about the intellectual search for truth than for the searcher himself, Jesus sought to bring men into the life more abundant. Exposé of fallacies did not suffice. Commitment and discipleship were his goals. He sought always to get at the essence of the questions, sometimes passing by the outward form of them—as with Nicodemus (John 3) or the woman at the well (John 4)—to probe the depths. He knew which points to explore and which to avoid. The cutting edge of his argument pealed away the mishmash and phony fronts men hide behind so that many could say, “No man ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46).

Probably some of us secretly wish that Jesus had not argued so much. We prefer the gentle Jesus meek and mild. Matthew’s account (23) mystifies us as we see Jesus lash out at the scribes and Pharisees with, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” (“hypocrites”six times), “You blind fools …,” “You serpents.…” Their boxed-in God vexed him and broke his heart—a picture that never embarrassed the writers who saw him as one pressing hard for truth and changed lives.

Following the Ascension the early Church was nearly torn apart on the critical issue of law versus grace (Acts 15). Imagine the debate in that first ecumenical council as the radicals (Peter and Paul) contended with the conservatives (the Judaizers) about the essence of the Gospel! Certainly the apostles spoke with all the power they could muster. They did not see moral fervor as evil, and neither should we. To be lukewarm in such matters compromises the righteousness of God.

III

But one need not look far to discover problems in arguing. Perhaps the most difficult for the Christian to handle is that of pride or simply wanting to win. He loses his perspective, forgetting that love seeks not its own benefit, and that on most issues he sees through a glass darkly.

“But one may also see, in arguments, a flaring of tempers,” protest some. Of course! And so it was with Jesus, Paul, and a million servants of God who have confronted men with truth in Jesus Christ. If ideas grip a speaker and they become part of him, he cannot dissociate himself from them, nor can his opponent. The communicator will feel threatened and so will his listener, because an attack on the idea often appears as an attack upon the man himself. Someone has said that “the love of truth is humanly inseparable from the wish to spread the belief in what one holds to be true.” While I may wish to distinguish the idea from the desire to propagate it and from myself, seldom in the heat of battle will I succeed. Voices will rise, tempers will flare.

Some will counter that argument accomplishes very little; hence it is unnecessary in the long scheme of things. For them the encounter of truth and error is like unhomogenized milk: truth will rise to the top while error settles at the bottom.

Not so. Shapers of public opinion—radio-TV, newspapers, spokesmen for a dozen causes, yes, and also other Christians (as Paul found repeatedly)—are often on the side of the Enemy. Unless God’s man and woman wage an uphill battle, the fortress at the summit will surely remain in the Enemy’s hands. Truth, often suppressed by sin and ignorance (Romans 1:18), needs effective spokesmen if it is to prevail, as Augustine clearly pointed out in Book IV of his De Doctrina Christiana.

Unnecessary wrangling may come because one has not wisely picked his audience. He can waste valuable time and energy if he argues with the wrong person or at the wrong time, and Scripture points out that reasoning with a fool provokes laughter and rage (Prov. 29:9).

“I don’t feel up to it. I don’t have the training or the knowledge. Someone will ask questions I could never answer. I’ll just let my life speak for Him,” some will plead.

Of course you are not worthy of serving as God’s messenger. Who is? Who would claim enough goodness, justice, and mercy to tell of His greatness? Furthermore, anyone who thinks his life is consistent enough, Christhonoring enough, to lead another automatically to the Saviour is either a trifle naïve or a little self-righteous, or both. Ask a man’s wife how consistently holy he is, or query the husband about his wife.

If it is true that one who does not work should not eat (2 Thess. 3:10), so it is true that one who does not study should not argue. We should read, do our homework—and not just in the Bible, for our opponents will seldom start with that premise.

Other Christians contend that debate and argument never won anybody to the Kingdom, so we should eschew them.

To this, several replies are needed. First, what does the objector mean by “debate and argument”? Wrangling and ’tis-’tain’t bickering, or giving reasons for the position one holds? None of us would defend the former, but most of us would the latter. Second, upon what grounds does he think that no one was ever won by argument? Acts shows the contrary when Paul argued in Thessalonica, Athens (Socrates’ hometown), and Corinth (17:1–4, 16 ff., 18:1–17). Indeed, the churches in two of these cities were born in argument. Third, what is our purpose in life? Is it to win converts or to bring honor to God? Manifestly, the latter, though we are happy if the two mesh (Eph. 4:15). One seeks then to bring home accuracy, precision, and insight, all the while remembering Plato’s statement, “What I say may not be the truth, but the truth is something very much like this.”

IV

What, finally, results from the Christian’s contending in a God-honoring way? Several things, both negative and positive.

In the first place he may lose the argument, not only because he may not have adequately prepared himself but because he may defend the wrong position or use shoddy arguments and evidence. He then deserves to lose. All of us have lost some encounters, but the losses can teach us to regroup our intellectual forces and find better ways of handling the situation and ourselves. Or we may win the battle but lose the war—or lose the battle and ultimately emerge victorious in war.

Further, we may come away looking stupid. But the Christian is called to be a fool for Christ’s sake (1 Cor. 4:10)—though not to be a fool, period. He must be willing to be thought stupid because of his radical belief that man apart from the Master is monotonously sinful.

He may also lose a friend. The truth of the Cross empowered by the Holy Spirit alienates, hurts, and often drives a wedge in friendships, even in family relationships. But the arguer must make certain that it is the offense of the Cross and not that of his personality. Few of us really enjoy having enemies, but we shall have them if we stand for important matters. (We cannot turn the other cheek if no one has yet struck us on the first one.) If our opponent refuses to accept the eternal truth of Scripture, ultimately we can do nothing except pray for and love him. At the same time the believer would do well to remember Aldous Huxley’s statement that “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Fortunately, we can also point to positive results. Initially, debate runs the chance of falling on good soil, springing up, and leading the listener to a fuller perspective on God and truth. And what could be more important! Not only is God honored because of such changes, but this rational approach coupled with love and respect for one’s opponent (Eph. 4:15) assumes a higher view of man than that held by the demagogue or propagandist, for it places a premium on his cerebral processes. The propagandist’s low perception of men as objects to manipulate projects him into the role of the pied piper.

Moreover, argument can help preserve its own constitutional right. If we do not exercise this prerogative, the privilege of free speech may seem unimportant to those extremists who wish to remove it. What many people use, one can usurp only with great difficulty. Liberals take pot shots at conservatives and vice versa, and each with its dissent helps keep alive the privilege of open and free encounter of ideas.

Then, too, social reform can come from the intellectual encounter of two people, and often does, as we know from the Luther-Eck encounter in Leipzig (1521) or from the long and difficult slave-trade debates of England’s William Wilberforce.

Furthermore, one’s own position will often change. Significantly, some of the strongest, most effective Christians on the contemporary scene are men and women who attended colleges and universities where they were forced to listen to contrary views and question them. I do not mean we should compromise on the key points of sin, redemption, the deity of Christ, and the like; what can give way are the trivia that too often occupy us. Heresy and contrary views force us to rethink our positions.

In the dynamic process of change, one or two facts lodge in one’s mind. Then a chance comment by a trusted friend or an article by a respected author will make a similar point, though perhaps on quite a different subject. Later one may see in life an extreme application of his own position that shocks and embarrasses him. In the end he shifts, not over to his opponent’s side, but to a modified position. And perhaps his opponent, too, will move closer toward the truth.

Let us not shirk our Christian responsibility to try to correct error. But when we differ with others, let us do it not with spite or vengeance but with the spirit of Christ. In a sense the believer, like Socrates, is a midwife in the world of sacred thought, for he seeks to bring to light truth as he perceives it. If he loves and respects others, he has a clear mandate to do his forensic part.

Perhaps, dear reader, you should have talked with Dr. Johnson after all.

- More from Robert W. Smith

Theology

The Mystery of Scripture

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Toward a definition of the Bible’s two natures.

The collection of writings that we call the Bible bears the names of different men, such as Moses, David, and Jeremiah in the Old Testament and John, Paul, and Peter in the New; and it is written in human language, not the speech of heaven (if there is such a thing). Yet from the earliest times the Bible has been known in the Church as the Word of God and accepted as the revelation God gave to man.

Today, however, so many discordant voices are raised for and against the Bible that large numbers of church people are thoroughly confused over the place and purpose of the Scriptures in the Christian life. Some say that the Bible is totally divine, others that it is totally human; some that it is partly human and partly divine; some that it contains the word of God; others that it becomes the word of God to anyone who is helped by it. In general, however, Christians who acknowledge the supreme authority of Holy Scripture in all matters of faith and conduct would agree that it is both human and divine. But this conjunction of the human and the divine in Scripture, while in itself a mystery, is subject to much misunderstanding in the Church today.

In examining the nature of Scripture it is important to bear in mind the purpose of Scripture. The Bible has a function within God’s scheme of redemption; this is clearly defined by Paul when he advises Timothy that the sacred writings “have power to make you wise and lead you to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15, NEB). According to the apostolic understanding, then, the Bible belongs within the redemptive purposes of God. Its primary function is to communicate to us men the good news of the gracious provision made in Christ for our eternal salvation.

The message of Scripture, moreover, is addressed not only to the mind but also to the will of man, indeed, to the core of his being and to the whole of his being. It follows that the authoritative reality of the Bible is a matter not merely of doctrine but also of experience. Confronted with the Bible, man faces not a philosophical option but a message of redemption that makes absolute demands on the totality of his being. It calls for his response, the response of his whole person: intellect, will, and feeling. Only thus can he experience its truth.

The radical nature of the experience to which Scripture calls a man is underlined by the fact that the consequence of man’s sinfulness (the essence of which is his willful disregard of his Creator’s authority) is that he is deaf and indeed dead to the word of God (cf. Eph. 2:1ff.). He is in no state to respond. His only hope is that God, by the inward operation of the Holy Spirit, should speak His reviving word to the center of his being and rouse him to newness of life. Unless God acting in grace and power does for him what he in his spiritual deadness cannot do for himself, his condition is indeed desperate. Like Augustine of old, he must cry to God to give what he commands; for only the voice of God, which at creation called all things into existence, is able to restore life to the dead and, as it were, remake man as a new creation in Christ.

As the command of Christ enabled the lifeless Lazarus to rise and come forth from the tomb (John 11:43 f.), so in the new life of regeneration the Christian experiences the coincidence of the word of God and the work of God. God, who at creation said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” speaks again in the new creation and in place of the darkness of death causes the light of his glory to shine in man’s heart (2 Cor. 4:6). This dynamic and transforming moment of encounter and reconciliation with him whose authority the Bible bears is also for him who experiences it the moment of the authentication of Scripture as the word of God. By the hidden activity of the Holy Spirit the word of the Gospel addressed to man in Scripture becomes at the same time the work of the Gospel experienced in the entirety of his being. He now willingly and gratefully recognizes and obeys the word of Scripture as the word of God. Reborn, he instinctively places himself under its authority. In this way the purpose of Scripture becomes effective in the life of man.

Plainly, therefore, the message of the Bible relates not merely to the intellective faculty of man but also and necessarily to the entire being of man. As word of God it is addressed initially to man as a rational creature able to receive and understand it. The intellectual level is the first level of its impact. But as word of God it is addressed to man in the wholeness of his humanity. The sword of the Spirit penetrates beyond the mind to the inmost depths of man’s being. It thrusts deep because it comes with the vitality and energy of God himself (Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12 f.). It is a means of knowledge, indeed, and particularly self-knowledge in the presence of God; but beyond all else it is a means of transformation, because the wisdom it brings is, as we have seen, wisdom that leads to salvation.

That is why the biblical message is so radical: it goes to the root (Latin, radix) of the human predicament. Man’s problem is more than intellectual; it is existential. God alone is self-subsistent, and as the Creator of the universe he is the source of all being. Again, God, whose knowledge is comprehensive and who created the universe in accordance with his mind and purpose, is the source of all knowledge. Man’s sinful suppression of the truth concerning the eternal power and deity of his Creator is indeed an act of the grossest irrationality, but it is also an act of suicide, since the denial of God is not only the denial of the source of man’s knowledge and rational faculty but also the denial of the source of his being (cf. Rom. 1:18 ff.). Sin accordingly strikes at the very root of man’s being; it corrupts his nature as man; it severs the lifeline linking the creature to his Creator. The sinner’s deep need is for a new nature, a new birth, a restoration of life and of meaning to his existence, and only the Bible’s vital message of regeneration and justification in Christ meets that need.

These considerations indicate both the radical and the unique character of the Bible and its message. It cannot be treated as a mere textbook or technical directory on a par with other religious or philosophical handbooks. It is God-given before it is man-made. It is a record not of one aspect of man’s age-long search for God but of God’s reaching out to man in mercy and grace. More particularly still, it is the record of God’s last word to man, spoken in the reconciling person and work of his Son, the incarnate Word (Heb. 1:1 f.; John 1:1, 14).

But the written word that witnesses to the incarnate Word is not just a word of the past, for by it God continues to speak powerfully in the present to us and to every succeeding generation. Because it is God’s word it is therefore a transcendental word. It is not limited to one time or one place. That word, in conjunction with the vitalizing action of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, is a fully existential word. It finds me and speaks dynamically to my condition.

Hence the apostles’ recognition of the perennial relevance of Scripture. They perceived how, with wonderful freshness, it applied to their need and their situation (see, for example, Acts 4:25 ff.); and so it has ever been throughout the history of God’s people. Word and Spirit together constitute the vital sword of the Spirit, so much so that, while the Church holds that God is the primary author of Scripture, as distinct from the human or secondary authors, we may go further and, with Abraham Kuyper, speak of God as the perpetual author of Scripture. Indeed, God the Holy Spirit, who enables us to receive and respond to the word of the Bible as the word of God in bringing us to newness of life in Christ, also ceaselessly, through the whole course of the Christian life, illuminates the page of Holy Scripture for us. He quickens our understanding so that we are able to appropriate more and more fully the great treasures of its truths and promises. Thus he constantly and increasingly authenticates the word of the Bible to the believing heart.

The Bible, then, is far from being the word of God in a vacuum, or an irrelevant object suitable only for stupefying the ignorant, like the Ephesian statue of Diana that was reputed to have fallen from heaven (Acts 19:35). It is not a word uttered and lost, as it were, in the infinities of outer space. On the contrary, it is the word of God to man. As such, obviously, it must be comprehensible to man, expressed in human language, and adapted to the finite capacity of man. The finiteness of man’s faculties and the inadequacy of human language belong to the humanness of Scripture.

How then can we regard the biblical writers as competent to communicate the infinite truths of God and his purposes? To reduce these writers to the level of mere passive instruments who set down word for word what the Holy Spirit dictated to them would do violence to their humanity and would disregard the marks of human personality and industry that are evident throughout the Bible. Scripture itself should leave us in no doubt that the human authors are active instruments; and they are active, intellectually and physically, precisely because they are human. Their humanity is not suppressed or suspended by the activity of the Holy Spirit, nor are their personalities subdued to the passivity of typewriters or tape recorders.

Many attempts have been made to separate what is human from what is divine in the Bible, to determine where the human ends and the divine begins. It has been suggested that a distinction can be made between structure and content: the words come from man but the thoughts from God. But it is impossible to isolate thoughts or truths from the words in which they are expressed. Another suggestion is that the narrative or historical passages that simply record facts are attributable to man, while the doctrinal passages that communicate truth are from God. But this distinction is completely alien to the biblical perspective. Factuality is not separable from truth. The history of Israel in the Old Testament is permeated with doctrinal significance, and the message of the Christian Gospel is rooted in the events of Bethlehem, Good Friday, and Easter.

Last century, John Henry Newman even proposed an analogy between the statements of the pope and the statements of the Bible: as the pope’s obiter dicta, or incidental utterances, do not have the same measure of authority as his proclamations ex cathedra, which alone are held to be infallible, so, Newman suggested, in the Bible “mere unimportant statements of fact” that are not doctrinal could be placed in the category of obiter dicta. But for one who, like Newman, believed that Scripture was divinely inspired in its entirety, this notion created more problems than it was intended to solve. In any case, these and similar “solutions” presuppose a false disjunction between the human and the divine in the formulation of Holy Scripture and depend so on the exercise of subjective judgments that no two minds can be expected to agree on where exactly the line is to be drawn.

The relation between the divine and the human in the Bible must be examined along other lines. The key is in the fact that man is God’s creature, made in the image of his Creator, with the consequence that man’s true humanness is dependent on the unbroken Creator-creature relationship, in which he joyfully lives his life to the glory of God and finds the freedom of his being in obedience to the will of God. Man’s alienation is the result of his sinful disruption of this fundamental relationship. But in Christ, God graciously restores that relationship. The incarnate Son, indeed, displays the perfect harmony of the human and the divine that is man’s true fulfillment. In him there is full and free cooperation of the two natures, without conflict or confusion. The union of the divine and the human in Scripture reflects the union of the two natures in Christ and is a reminder that man was created for fellowship with God.

In Jesus we see the realization of that complete harmony between man and God—the harmony for which man was created, which was destroyed by sin, and which is restored redemptively in Christ. He, the only really free person who has walked this earth, came for the express purpose of performing the will of the Father. In this lay his freedom and fulfillment. Thus he declared: “I cannot act by myself; … my aim is not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30; cf. 4:34; 8:29; Heb. 10:7, 9). In Christ man recovers his true manhood, and with it that harmony of relationship with God which alone gives meaning to his existence.

The apostolic writers of the New Testament were themselves new men in Christ. In fulfillment of the particular promises given them by Christ (John 14:26; 15:26 f.; 16:13 f.), they achieved their human potential as they came under the control of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of fulfilling their function as scriptural authors. Divinely inspired but none the less (indeed all the more) in genuine freedom, they became the agents of the divine will as in the performance of this task a perfect communion of the human and the divine was effected.

Interestingly enough, it is in Roman Catholic circles that this creation/redemption analogy is found. Karl Rahner, for example (to quote a contemporary scholar), writes as follows:

He is a true human author whose own authorship remains whole and inviolate at the same time as it is permeated and embraced by that of God. Only in this sense can he be called God’s “instrument.” In this form of instrumentality, God’s authorship does not merely tolerate full human authorship, it demands it. Making a man a mere amanuensis would not enhance the divine authorship at all.

And again:

Divine inspiration frees rather than limits human individuality. It does not imply some unexplainable compromise between God and man, but is rather an instance of the basic relationship between God and his creatures: the two factors, dependence upon God and personal autonomy, vary in direct, not inverse proportion to one another. This holds good in the economy of salvation no less than in creation [Inspiration in the Bible, 1961, p. 15].

Thus, while we must recognize the limitations both of human competence and of human language, and acknowledge that God is indeed totally other and higher than man, we must not imagine that there cannot be a full and harmonious operation of the human and the divine in the production of Holy Scripture. As Creator and Redeemer, God establishes and reestablishes a relation of communion and fellowship with his creature man, and in the inspiration of prophets and apostles (redeemed but still imperfect men: 1 Cor. 13:12; Phil. 3:12) he sovereignly heightens that harmony so that there is a perfect accord between the divine will and the human performance, and the true potential of human nature is brought to expression.

This does not explain the mystery of Scripture, any more than our recognition of the union of the two natures in Christ explains the mystery of his incarnate person; but it does help to define it. A mystery, however, it must remain, and the man who reaches the point where he thinks it is no longer a mystery may be sure that he is now in error.

- More from Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

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I

II

III

IV

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