Masters Of The Faerie Romance

George MacDonald, by Richard Reis (Twayne, 1972, 161 pp., $5.50), and Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, by Paul Kocher (Houghton Mifflin, 1972, 247 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Glenn Edward Sadler, associate professor of English, Point Loma College, San Diego, California.

Had they ever met, George MacDonald and J. R. R. Tolkien would have found they had much in common. Artistically, MacDonald’s essay on “The Fantastic Imagination” would have suited Tolkien’s well-known one “On Fairy-stories”; the two writers would have had in common the belief that goodness is greater than evil; moreover, MacDonald’s universalism would not have offended Tolkien’s Catholicism. And both, of course, wrote about “little people” and tree-spirits.

The rediscovery and increasing popularity of MacDonald’s and Tolkien’s fiction and their unique contribution to what some critics are now considering a new genre, the Faerie Romance, is the subject of these two studies by English professors Reis (Southeastern Massachusetts University) and Kocher (Stanford). Each book offers a survey narrative, at times in depth, of the writer’s theory of artistic creation (secondary world building), major philosophical and religious ideas, and moral imperatives, and an evaluation of their myth-making talents. From both an academic and a popular reader’s point of view, Kocher’s restatement of Tolkien’s blending of fantasy and reality in his epic myth of Middle-earth is superior in content and style to Reis’s thesis approach to MacDonald’s Victorian fantasies and novels.

Reis considers MacDonald to be a “time-server, one who catered to a debased popular market,” because he gave up writing romances, after the semi-failure of Phantastes (1858), and turned to “realistic” novels instead. That MacDonald continued to write fairy tales, then equally out of fashion, and put some of his best moments of fantasy in stories like At the Back of the North Wind and Sir Gibbie seems to negate somewhat any such neat classification of his fiction.

In theology, Reis finds MacDonald to be “thoroughly unorthodox and even heretically eccentric,” an adherent to a “private religion which to MacDonald was distinctly Christian.” Like other mystics before him, MacDonald followed Swedenborg and Boehme in attributing revelatory belief also to extra-biblical sources in nature, dreams, and visions, without seeing any contradiction between the Scriptures and the creative process of the imagination. Confronted as a boy by a harsh Scottish Calvinism, MacDonald moved toward universalism, trying to find a place for all living things in God’s redemptive plan. Arguing that God had made nothing in vain, he believed in the immortality of animals (in their original state) and thought that the heathen would eventually come to repentance, though Hell would exist for those who would not repent. Such beliefs lost for him his only pastorate, so he became a critic and novelist.

MacDonald’s “realistic” novels, says Reis, suffer from the faults of Victorian fiction generally: “conventional, proper, optimistic, didactic, sentimental, verbose.” In contrast, his fairy tales and romances display his genius and are his masterpieces, a view held also by C. S. Lewis and W. H. Auden. Reis’s discussion of MacDonald’s “Imaginative Fiction” and “The Symbolic Muse” in his romances are informative chapters and provide a good introductory study. But what of MacDonald’s “mythopoeic” gift? Here Reis’s study ends.

Professor Kocher begins his entertaining treatment of Middle-earth at precisely this point, showing how “the Tolkien style in creating secondary worlds did not spring full-blown,” as some say, “but developed out of his experience in writing The Hobbit.” Through the linguistic evolution of its inhabitants, and the geographical history of Middle-earth, Tolkien developed “his characteristic combination of the familiar with the unfamiliar,” his trademark thereafter.

Newly Published

Trinity Studies: Volume II, edited by Steve Anderson, Mark Asp, and Stuart Robertson (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School [Deerfield, Ill. 60015], 108 pp., $2 pb). Five articles by students and younger teachers associated with Trinity make up the second in an annual series. Included are “Women in Paul’s Life,” “Rousseau and the Defense of the Faith,” and “Titus and Corinth.”

History of Primitive Christianity, by Hans Conzelmann (Abingdon, 190 pp., $8.50). Early church history through A.D. 100. Portions of the book based on historical documents (many of which are included in the appendices) are valuable. Other portions relating more directly to Scripture interpretation are questionable. Best suited for scholars.

Is Life Worth Living?, by Floyd E. Mallott (Brethren Press [1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, Ill. 60120], 124 pp., $4.25). An interesting introduction to Ecclesiastes. Literature teachers can find it helpful.

Many Witnesses, One Lord, by William Barclay (Baker, 128 pp., $1.50 pb). Reprint of a fine introductory book on the unity of the New Testament.

Paced by God, by Morris A. Inch (Word, 125 pp., $4.95). Deals with each man’s relation to God and man. Good material, but presupposes a flexibility and theological awareness that most of his proposed readership (evangelical youth) does not have.

Christian Deviations: The Challenge of the New Spiritual Movements, by Horton Davies (Westminster, 133 pp., $2.75 pb). A third and major revision of a popular book explaining and evaluating from a moderately orthodox standpoint ten active groups, some close to historic Christianity and others alternatives to it. Provides helpful analysis of sectarianism and direction for further reading.

The Sexual Christian, by Urban Steinmetz (Abbey, 98 pp., $1.50 pb). Frank reflections on sexuality and marriage by an unconventional Roman Catholic trying to be both realistic and faithful.

Bold Under God, by W. Phillip Keller (Moody, 141 pp., $2.95 pb). Interesting biography of Charles Bowen, missionary to western Canada.

Make the Bible Live, by Glenn O’Neal (BMH [Box 544, Winona Lake, Ind. 46590] 136 pp., $2.95 pb). Outlines preaching techniques to communicate a biblical message effectively. Seminary-level instruction.

Social Ethics Among Southern Baptists: 1917–1969, by George D. Kelsey (Scarecrow [Box 656, Metuchen, N.J. 08840], 274 pp., $7.50). An impressively broad and well researched book. Its generalizations are kept very close to the “grass roots” attitudes through the heavy use of sources such as state Baptist newspapers and convention minutes. The author retains a high degree of objectivity in covering such topics as state, war, education, prohibition, and race.

Father Coughlin, by Sheldon Marcus (Little, Brown, 317 pp., $8.95). The life of an influential Catholic, especially during the thirties. He was a fighter for the common man but also an archetype of the right-wing “Christian” ideologue and a master of the mass media. Worthwhile for the political education of Christians on a very practical level.

Mystery, Magic, and Miracle: Religion in a Post-Aquarian Age, edited by Edward F. Heenan (Prentice-Hall, 180 pp., $5.95). Very interesting analysis of religion today and its various manifestations. Includes interviews and firsthand reports, such as Satanist Anton LaVey’s testimony and Timothy Leary’s first published description of LSD-induced religious experience.

Genesis: A Commentary, by Gerhard von Rad (Westminster, 440 pages, $8.50). Translated from the German, a thoroughly revised edition of a major scholarly commentary.

Power, Greed, and Stupidity in the Mental Health Racket, by Walter Fisher, Joseph Mehr, and Philip Truckenbrod (Westminster, 173 pp., $5.95). Not the muckraking attack implied by the title, but still critical of the entire Freudian-hospital-disease-cure model on which most mental-health institutions are based. Suggests the significant limitations of psychoanalytic counseling, especially in institutional settings.

The Great Church-State Fraud, by C. Stanley Lowell (Luce, 224 pp., $7.50). Documents the growing cycle of church-state cooperation, breaching traditional constitutional separation, and suggests some dangers of this trend. A valuable book in this area. Lowell is editor of the magazine Church and State.

Jesus in Bad Company, by Adolf Holl (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 157 pp., $5.95). An attempt to separate the true Jesus from the image of him carried in traditional language and thought forms. Jesus is depicted more as a model for starting the journey toward true knowledge. A European best-seller.

Beyond Science, by Denis Alexander (Holman, 222 pp., $4.95). A research biochemist offers a lucid, non-technical presentation of the nature of scientific thinking and the state of scientific research today, with a well-argued case for Christian theism.

Church and Power in Brazil, by Charles Antoine (Orbis, 275 pp., $4.95 pb). A well written history of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil, primarily 1963–69. Grapples with the significant question of the social message of the church in a nation and era of totalitarian practices and massive social inequities. The diversity of theological frameworks represented by different socially active groups in the church blurs any answers offered in this book.

A New Joy, by Colleen Townsend Evans (Revell, 124 pp., $3.95). The author, a former film actress who is the wife of the new minister of Washington, D. C.’s prominent National Presbyterian Church, writes with homey insight on applications of the Beatitudes to women.

Religion and Society in England: 1790–1850, by W. R. Ward (Schocken, 330 pp., $10). An interesting history of the period. Outlines a general pattern of dissenting religious movements, their subsequent establishment and elevation from the masses, followed by another subsequent cycle of undenominational dissent. Book should be valuable to the historically inclined. Style sometimes tends to confuse.

The Backside of Satan, by Morris Cerullo (Creation House, 224 pp., $4.95). Cerullo means well and has written a fairly good book in the anti-occult category. However, in so doing he has tended to add to the glamour and mystique of the occult world. Not recommended except to mature Christians, who probably do not need it.

God’s Joyful People: One in the Spirit, by Oswald Hoffmann (Concordia, 103 pp., $1.50 pb). Clear, concise discussion of the doctrine of the church, “the living organism of God’s living people, wherever they may be.” Well suited for the young or untrained Christian.

You Can Understand the Bible: By Its Unifying Themes, by Nelson B. Baker (Holman, 144 pp., $2.95 pb). An outline of the consistent themes that run through what often seems to be the diverse material in the Bible. Emphasizes God’s people, their inheritance, and the means of man’s restoration to God and to his inheritance. With questions for each chapter and an easy reading level, the book is well suited for instruction of untrained Christians.

Having explicated Tolkien’s theory of the function of fantasy, Kocher sets out on a provocative Tolkienish quest. Especially arresting is his chapter on “The Free People” (elves, dwarves, ents, and men) in the trilogy, and of “Aragorn,” the shadowy judicial king. Kocher’s depiction of the inner life of Middle-earth discloses much of contemporary interest that even the careful reader might miss in the story. Graphically we see the materialism, grinding mechanism, and lust after “no-death” that rots out Gondor and its people: a “frantic search for more life took varying forms”—elixirs, horoscopes, tombs instead of palaces, and a decrease in childbirth. Is this not the beginning—in the Third Age—of the depressive state we find our own primary world in today?

Kocher’s most original contribution to Tolkien studies is a chapter on Tolkien’s longer narrative poems, light verse, and shorter fiction: “Leaf by Niggle” and “Smith of Wootton Major,” in which Kocher finds autobiographical “glimpses” of Tolkien’s vision of youth and old age, remind us of MacDonald’s “The Golden Key,” Phantastes and Lilith, and of Novalis’s famous dictum: “Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will.” In such a dream-world MacDonald and Tolkien share much. How much perhaps only they themselves can finally tell.

Gimmicks Not Needed

Where Was the Church When the Youth Exploded?, by D. Stuart Briscoe (Zondervan, 1972, 128 pp., $.95 pb), is reviewed by Roy C. Price, pastor, Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, Wadsworth, Ohio.

To have a significant ministry with today’s youth doesn’t require a lot of new program gimmicks. It demands that we get back to the hard-rock basics of discipleship.

Briscoe speaks from experience on both sides of the Atlantic and as an evangelist and pastor. He asks the frightened adult, “Why fight what you don’t understand? You may even find yourself fighting something valid, hindering something progressive, and blocking a development that time will prove to be the right one.”

The author tells of his first personal confrontation with youth at “The Cat’s Whisker,” a coffeehouse in England. A dynamic speaker, he was in demand across the country. But each night hundreds of young people aimlessly passed time at this coffeehouse across the street from his home. Through the needling of his conscience he gathered courage to talk with them.

This clean-cut ex-marine with a banking career was flatly told by one youth that “ ‘if you really believed what you say you believe, you would have been down here before tonight to tell us’.… So I went home a very quiet and troubled young man; troubled because of the inconsistency of my profession.… Since that time I have been less apt to criticize the young people of today and more anxious to understand them.”

Understand them he seems to as he talks about “Grass, Speed and Peer Fear”; “Infection, Detection and Conception”; “The Beatles, the Stones and the Rev. John Newton”; “The Long, the Short and the Hairy.” He discusses the causes of rebellion, Woodstock, and the occult and suggests how all these reveal youth’s search for spiritual reality.

When he gets to the churches, Briscoe finds a reactionary attitude desiring to preserve the old ways, lacking in compassion, incapable of communicating with the young. Young people are indifferent toward the churches because of their own ignorance, their impatience in wanting instant change, and the churches’ seeming irrelevance to real life. Basic to the churches’ failure is the inability to produce youth who have disciplined lives.

As a Britisher come to America, Briscoe detects “signs of boredom among many of the American church’s young people that frighten me.” The two problems facing the churches are the unreached kids outside and the bored kids inside. “The unreached kids are unreached because the bored kids are bored.… Set the ‘bored’ kids to reach the ‘unreached’.… Not only will the ‘unreached’ be reached, but the ‘bored’ kids will have no time to be bored.”

Once kids are actively witnessing to their peers, they will be motivated to undergo training to help them become more effective. This will require the youth worker to spend much of his time with the “nucleus” who are willing to be disciplined and be aggressive, rather than waste time entertaining the large numbers, which is not the church’s objective in the first place.

Briscoe’s first chapter contrasts in short lines the worlds of youth and the institutional church. The last chapter portrays the union of adult and youth in him who is above, through, and in all.

In The Journals

The Evangelical Committee for Urban Ministers—ECUMB (383 Shawmut Ave., Boston, Mass. 20118) publishes Inside, a fifty-page journal appearing every other month. The first issue of 1973 included an article by Leighton Ford on “Crisis and Change” and articles on competition. The second issue was devoted to Israel and tried to convey something of Arab viewpoints. A subscription to Inside brings with it a similar journal in size, frequency, and concern called The Other Side. The advisory board of the latter includes Senator Mark Hatfield, evangelist Myron Augsburger, and theologian Vernon Grounds. The first issue this year had several articles on Paul’s social ethics, and the second issue focused on congregations. A year’s subscription to both journals (twelve issues) costs $6.

The Dust of Death: A Critique of the Establishment and the Counter Culture—and a Proposal For a Third Way, by Os Guinness (Inter-Varsity, 1973, 419 pp., $4.95 pb), is reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown, associate editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

At first glance Os Guinness seems to have provided the detailed data, facts, and footnotes necessary to undergird the radical and compelling analysis of modern culture initiated by Francis A. Schaeffer. Schaeffer’s first two books, Escape From Reason and The God Who Is There, are fascinating in their penetrating insight into the true meaning and deep sickness of modern Western, post-Reformation culture and life, but they do not present the reader with much hard evidence. As a result one may intuitively feel that Schaeffer is dead right in his diagnosis, and yet wonder whether this can be argued convincingly without firmer data and more detailed analysis than Schaeffer gives. Since Guinness’s book names names and provides footnotes in profusion, it seems intended to be the substantiating complement to Schaeffer’s brilliant insights.

In the first eight chapters of The Dust of Death, Schaeffer’s younger colleague charts the history and diagnoses the current state of the modern mentality, on occasion offering biblical Christian counter-proposals; in chapters nine and ten, he gives an intellectual apologetic for Christianity as a true and self-consistent teaching and then attempts to show the radical consequences of this conviction for life in today’s world. His style is generally felicitous and his choice of phrases arresting, only occasionally marred by poor editing or proofreading.

It is in the first eight chapters, in which he reviews Western intellectual history from Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) to the present, with an occasional glance back behind Kant, that Guinness is most impressive. The list of philosophers, novelists, and artists cited is virtually overwhelming, and indicates an amazing breadth of knowledge, particularly of the present and recent past. The most diverse figures, from analytical philosophers to organizers of “happenings,” throng his pages.

Unfortunately, the references are often so fragmentary—frequently little more than name-dropping—that if one is not rather familiar with the person cited, one cannot be sure one has gotten Guinness’s point, much less be confident that it is well taken. Writers of all persuasions are cited as equally authoritative, with no explanation of their presuppositions, no critical evaluation of their position, and no indication of whether the fragmentary quotations are truly representative of the author’s basic thought. Few readers can fail to be impressed with the encyclopedic sweep of Guinness’s work, but still fewer will possess the necessary familiarity with enough twentieth-century figures to understand him fully.

The Dust of Death incurs the same criticism as a number of other major efforts by intellectual evangelicals: it displays great familiarity with secular and apostate literature, but rather conceals its author’s debt to outstanding thinkers in the Reformation tradition. Guinness is clearly in the tradition of Dooyeweerd, Van Til, Schaeffer, and Rookmaaker, but only Dooyeweerd and Schaeffer are mentioned, and that quite briefly; the footnotes are almost exclusively to authorities with whom Guinness disagrees. Addressing himself to the counter-cultures and their devotees, Guinness does not try to integrate his own encyclopedic survey into the analysis and critique of unrecognized religious presuppositions urged, for example, by Dooyeweerd and Van Til; such an integration would complete the diagnosis he gives.

Chapter nine is a useful restatement of the distinctively propositional and authoritative character of biblical revelation as the wellspring of Christian belief; ten calls for a truly Christian radicalism or radical Christianity, one that will repudiate both the smugness of the Christianized status quo and the apostate utopianism of the political and counter-cultural revolutionaries. Readers inclined to conservatism in politics will feel that Guinness gets off some cheap shots at the favorite targets of the left intellectuals, notably the Viet Nam war and Richard Nixon.

As is so often the case with evangelicals (this reviewer included) who owe a debt to Schaeffer’s analysis of the contemporary mentality, Guinness is better at diagnosing than at suggesting a cure. He does indeed call for “constructive Christian radicalism,” but instead of a comprehensive program, he offers a mixture of pious generalizations and trivial illustrations: a solid foundation of detailed principles and concrete applications has yet to be laid.

Placed alongside the earlier works of Schaeffer and his circle, Guinness’s book, with its contemporaneity, its wealth of detail, and its broad scope, is a significant contribution, a broad and frequently penetrating analysis of the spirit of the age in the light of biblical teachings. We hope that in a subsequent work Guinness will more fully substantiate his massive critique and go into greater and more practical detail about applications for today.

Christians, living in an alien world but citizens of another, are called upon so to live that they may commend the truth they profess to those who do not know the Lord. That we are not our own but are “bought with a price” makes it imperative that we faithfully represent and reflect the One who has redeemed us.

Confronted with the awesome implications of our position we can well say with the Apostle Paul: “For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?”

Some Christians have tried to escape the contacts of the world and in so doing have failed in their duty to God and their fellow man.

One of the most electrifying things that could happen would be for Christians to live seven days a week as Christians should live—as shining lights in pagan darkness, savorful salt in a putrifying society.

But such a life cannot be lived by an act of the will. Resources are required that no man has within himself. He needs supernatural help, which is available to every Christian willing to pay the price.

The wellsprings of life have their source in the Holy Spirit. They flow as living water to bless others, but only as the channel remains clear and as the earthly vessel is renewed day by day by close communion with the Living Christ.

Aware that the body must have nourishment and exercise, we are often oblivious to the fact that the spiritual life of the Christian must also be nourished and exercised. Accepting Christ’s death and resurrection as our only hope for eternity, we often forget that such faith is the door to life here and now and not just insurance for the next.

The average Christian is spiritually starved and ignorant, and as a result is a poor witness to the saving and keeping power of Christ. But those who drink deep at the wellsprings of life carry with them the sweet savor of Christ. Consciously living in his presence, they show forth in their lives the fruits of the Spirit.

Where is this help, and how do we obtain it? Many earnest souls long for such a renewing experience but have never seriously sought the answer.

The wellsprings of life are found in prayer and Bible study. These take time, and our lives are pressed by legitimate demands that inevitably encroach until good and necessary things crowd out the best and most necessary.

A specified time should be set aside each day for prayer and Bible study, and nothing should be permitted to interfere or interrupt. The best time of the day is the early morning, and the place should be one of quiet and solitude.

Prayer is a privilege and blessing with many facets—praise, worship, thanksgiving, supplication for others and for ourselves. Nothing adds more to the exercise of prayer than a prayer list of people, problems, and objectives. As time goes on this list grows, while at the same time we see God’s loving concern through answers for specific items on the list.

Like Job of old, we too can pray for our children and bring God’s blessings to them. Following the example of our Lord, we can reach out across the world and pray for men everywhere.

We approach the study of God’s Word with prayer, asking that the Holy Spirit will make what we read plain to our minds and apply it to our hearts. Then Bible study ceases to be a chore and becomes a delight. For the first time we begin to sense the wonder of this revelation of God as it speaks to our needs, shows us our sins, comforts and strengthens us, and unfolds before us the panorama of God’s dealings with man.

Let me suggest that for a long time one read only the Bible. There are many good books about the Bible, but none of them is a substitute for the Book itself.

Basic to study is a reading through many times of the Bible as a whole. Only then can one get the composite picture so necessary and so rewarding. One can follow a particular theme or doctrine through the entire Bible and in so doing find joy and strength.

A very fruitful way to study the Scriptures is to take a number of different translations and read the same portion in each translation. Old verses will take on a new meaning. Obscure phrases will suddenly come into focus.

How much time should one spend at the wellsprings of life? Here we are dealing with a privilege of vital importance, not with clock-watching. For some, an hour will be right; for others the time will be shorter or longer. The important thing is that Christians set aside a specific time of day when they sit at the Lord’s feet, talk with him, and let his Word speak to their hearts.

Several objections may come to mind: “I just can’t spare the time.” “I’d have to give up some much-needed sleep.” “This could be very boring.”

Anyone who is too busy to take time to drink deep at the wellsprings of life is too busy and should adjust his or her schedule.

Such a program may indeed make one get up earlier each morning, but experience proves that time spent with the Lord brings physical as well as spiritual renewing.

As for being bored: just give it a try. You will find it to be the most rewarding experience of each day.

Eyes To See

I was standing in the office of a fellow worker when a guest was brought in to be introduced to me. I turned to shake his hand. He walked by me, gave a non-committal smile, and put out his hand to my compatriot. To avoid embarrassment we all acted as if the introductions were intended to go that way.

Undoubtedly the good gentleman took one look at me and decided I must be a delivery man waiting for someone to sign my ticket. His confusion is understandable since I was tieless, overdue for a haircut, and generally scruffy in appearance. (That is to say, I was my usual sartorial disaster.)

The experience brought to mind one of the Father Brown mystery stories by G. K. Chesterton. The body of a murder victim has disappeared. Father Brown asks the policeman guarding the site who has entered and left the house. The policeman assures him that no one has come or gone. Father Brown directs his attention to the walkway and the very visible footprints in the snow. At that the officer informs him that only the postman has been there.

The point of the episode is that some people are invisible. Bums, scruffy looking delivery men, waitresses, and “service” people fall into this category.

The truth of this became very evident to me earlier in my checkered career. During my brief days driving taxis I discovered that cab drivers are among the invisible people. People will say in front of a cab driver things they would entrust only to the persons they’re talking to.

As a final proof of my point, stop and think about how many times you’ve wanted to get the attention of your waitress only to realize that you don’t have the foggiest idea what she even looks like.

Some Christians seem to accept this as a necessary part of modern urban life. But I can’t believe that anyone who came into contact with Jesus was invisible to him. If anyone did remain anonymous to him I’m sure the choice was that person’s, not his.

You can’t turn every human contact into an intimate relationship. You can take at least one good look at everyone Jesus brings into touch with you and remind yourself that this is a person for whom he died.

As the brother of our Lord reminds us, “Don’t ever attempt, my brothers, to combine snobbery with faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ!”

EUTYCHUS V

GRAPES OF WRATH

Just a note to thank you for your article in the March 2 issue on the wrath of God (A Layman and His Faith). In these days of great emphasis on God’s love and forgiveness with a concurrent very little emphasis on judgment, repentance, and the wrath of God, we wholeheartedly thank you for this article.

NATE KRUPP

Lay Evangelism Inc.

Marion, Ind.

A TIME FOR TRUTH

Cheryl Forbes should be applauded for her evaluation of Time to Run (The Refiner’s Fire, Mar. 16). And George Wilson should not react too stringently to Ms. Forbes’s negatives. World Wide Pictures does the best job of full-length religious filmmaking that has ever been done, and they should be proud of their efforts. Still, Ms. Forbes is right in her criticism. Religious filmmaking has a long way to go.

I must disagree heartily, though, with Ms. Forbes’s concern that salvation truth cannot be conveyed through film. Editors of Christian books and magazines have the same problem with quality that Christian filmmakers have. This state of affairs is phenomenal, since the Creator can pour his genius through the Christian creator in a way that should make Christian art the best there is, in every medium. But, alas, Christian writers and artists let their hearts dominate their heads and we settle for the sweet and simple rather than hold out for the real.

Salvation truth can be and should be communicated through every medium there is, because every medium has dynamics peculiar to itself that can communicate facets of the gospel that no other art can communicate. But we will continue to wallow in mediocrity until all of us—writers, editors, producers, and artists of every stripe—get tough-minded about our inadequacies.

WILLIAM H. STEPHENS

Inspirational Books

Editor

Nashville, Tenn.

FAULTY FOOTNOTE

Your coverage of the continuing conflict at Concordia Seminary has, for the most part, been objective. We laud you for it.

However, the March 2 issue again did a grave injustice to Dr. Scharlemann. In his letter to the editor Dr. Scharlemann says he knows of no resolution “which came before the convention calling for my removal from the faculty.” In an editorial footnote to this statement you assert, “The removal resolution is number 319 of the 1962 LCMS Proceedings.”

Rather than call for his removal, as the footnote implies and as some of us at that time sought, it requested Synod’s members to refrain from attacks upon Dr. Scharlemann. Most of your readers will not have access to the Proceedings referred to in your footnote, which at best tells a half truth, the most dangerous of all deceptions.

WALTER D. OTTEN

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Brookfield, Ill.

UNEQUAL INCONSISTENCY

In the lead editorial of March 16, “First at the Cradle, Last at the Cross,” a plea was made for the Church to broaden its vision and allow women of every sort of temperament to fulfill their destinies as human beings in the fellowship of Christ. The subsequent editorial, “Sex Rights and Wrongs” (Apr. 13), directed against the Equal Rights Amendment but with no real analysis of the issues involved, therefore was surprising. Would not a consistent editorial policy on the role of women in contemporary society have indicated that the proposed ERA should have been considered with the same question in mind, namely, does the ERA ensure that women will have equality before the law as human beings?

PATRICIA WARD

State College, Pa.

INEFFABLE LOVE

Thank you for Ralph E. Powell’s “Stumbling Over Syncretism” in the April 13 issue. Without wavering on the critical truths of Christianity, he reminds us of our need to be lovingly open to the revelations in other traditions.

How much easier it is for me to love my intellectual concept than to love my neighbor! How easy to register distress over doctrinal purity; how difficult to remind my ego that love is ineffable. When the redemptive plan begins to sound formulized, I have only to remind myself of Pharisaical pretensions to understanding.

WILLIAM H. NAUMANN

Los Angeles, Calif.

WAR VS. PROGRESS

It is strange that Gary Hardaway’s article in your May 11 issue makes the mistake of importing the plot of Bunyan’s other great allegory, The Holy War, into The Pilgrim’s Progress. Such an error is a symptom of the ignorance of many evangelicals today of the most evangelical and greatest Christian classic in world literature.

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN

Arlington, Va.

TRIBUTE TO TOURNIER

Just a note to indicate my appreciation for the article on Paul Tournier in your May 11 issue (“Paul Tournier at Seventy-Five”). Certainly this fine Christian gentleman, who has enriched so many of us, deserves the tribute that author Gary R. Collins and your editors pay him. May the fruit of the Spirit that Tournier so graciously exemplifies in his person abound in us all so that each of us may grow in His image.

MYRON R. CHARTIER

American Baptist

Seminary of the West

Covina, Calif.

REACHING THE CORE

I want to express my gladness to you after having read the article “An Atheist’s View of Christian Growth” by William A. Holt in the May 11 issue. Holt seems to have reached to the core of the Christian life in his observations of church people who influenced him. Perhaps he has seen Christians as only a “new” Christian can. I regret that as an older Christian, I have bogged down several times in church problems and lost my gladness about the church. Thanks to Holt’s relating his beautiful experiences and to learning of his wife’s faithfulness and hope within the church, I feel a new faithfulness for the church stirring in myself.

(Mrs.) VIRGINIA WELLBORN

Lewisville, Tex.

Many thanks for William A. Holt’s magnificent article. [His] article gives tremendous encouragement to the pastor as well as to those of us in the pew who are trying to make an impact for the cause of Christ.

AUSTIN W. FARLEY

Richmond, Va.

DECLINING STANDARDS

I was sorry to see another indication of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s declining editorial standards in the review of John Warwick Montgomery’s Quest for Noah’s Ark by Carl Armerding (Books in Review, April 27). Isn’t there someone on the staff who checks for uncritical and prejudicial statements such as Armerding’s description of the book as a “collection of bits and pieces”?

As one who helped to assemble this unique sourcebook and contributed to the enormous research which lies behind it, I found Armerding’s put-down rather discouraging. If ever an attempt is made to prove or disprove that a certain “great wooden object” upon Ararat “was an ark or that it dates to whatever period the flood may represent,” I should have thought that just such a book as The Quest for Noah’s Ark would have to be written.

JAMES R. MOORE

Manchester, England

The Christian Reader

Read any good books lately? This time-honored conversation-starter leads to a discussion of the latest novel on the coffeetable—August 1914 or Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It can even lead to an aesthetic or philosophic debate over values. And for critics concerned with religion, it may lead to an analysis of, say, the seagull’s faith.

But behind this simple question is an implied premise—that we know how to identify a good book. For the usual reader or critic, this is a matter of aesthetic judgment. In a well-written book, certain accumulated standards in such areas as language, characterization, point of view, and probability, are presupposed. (In actuality, even in an age of “rules criticism” such as the eighteenth century there has been precious little agreement on such standards in particular cases, so we can expect even less in our libertarian era.)

For the Christian reader or critic, “good” involves more than an aesthetic judgment. It is an ethical and religious term, implying standards of another sort. For most of us, standards for goodness are even less clearly perceived than those for beauty. This perhaps accounts for the increasing array of criticism in which Christians analyze literature without evaluating it. Although we eagerly identify Christ figures or discuss religious imagery, we hesitate to posit a standard for good (moral or beautiful) literature.

On the other hand, we are often quite clear about what is bad: it is the book that is poorly conceived and clumsily written, thematically debasing, shallow, and false. Most books written in any age are not art. They may be propaganda, uplifting or downgrading tracts; they may serve a moral or spiritual function; but they are not art. Few works of Christian literature have enough beauty or intellectual content to be judged in the same category with the real touchstones of Christian literature: The Divine Comedy, Pilgrim’s Progress, Paradise Lost, Ash Wednesday. These pieces all have a grandeur in scope, a precision in expression, a reality in detail, a psychological truth, and an enduring appeal. The writers love words and form. They are craftsmen as well as impressive thinkers, who know how to transform individual experience into objects of beauty that communicate to man regardless of differences in country or period. Thus, we must first establish that a work is art; then we can explore the next question—is it Christian?

Is there a formula for Christian literature? One might be tempted to generalize about characteristics that must be present, such as: God must be a part of the story as an active force; man must be presented in a balanced, serious, and responsible way; actions must be seen to have significance and consequences; there can be no dishonest endings to reward the innocent and punish the guilty; the style must call attention to the idea rather than to the artist; the plot must reflect a universe with order and meaning. But such rules begin to sound suspiciously constricting. They ominously echo those precise regulations of the medieval church that perverted so much of art for so many years—the significance of colors, the proper subject matter, and the appropriate expression, composition, and presentation were all carefully dictated by the clergy. Even in the Renaissance we are repelled by orthodoxy’s infringement on the artist: putting loincloths on Michelangelo’s glorious nudes and white-washing the rainbow colors of the cathedrals. And the eighteenth century with its precise criticism seems equally unenlightened.

While the Protestant may be somewhat less likely than the medieval or modern Catholic to restrict the artist in a programmed manner (except perhaps in his response to pornography), he is likely to have a deep-seated suspicion of beauty and a proclivity toward iconoclasm. Like the Old Testament Jew, he is distrustful of the graven image. Our capacity to create—to be makers—is but a dim reflection of that ultimate Creator’s genius; yet it tempts man to feel pride and to worship. The image of God looks at the products of his own creativity and worships both the golden calf he forms and the hands that formed it. Thus, we see that the golden calf is neither better nor worse than the cherubim of the temple; both are lifeless matter formed by man and surprisingly capable of eliciting a response in man. Yet one was created for the glorification of man and the other for the greater glory of God.

The difference lies not only in the motivating force behind the artist (which is always difficult to discern) but also in the response of the viewer. Do we marvel at the beauty of the work, at the genius of the artist, or at the magnificence of the God who gave man such capabilities? The Hebrew, living under the law, revered that beauty which pointed toward God—the temple, the paean of faith, the poetry of vision. But the Christian, inheritor of pagan as well as Hebrew traditions, has found his path more complex. Paul tells us we are obliged to walk with the Spirit as free men. This liberty has proven a blessing and a burden to the artist.

Although there was little temptation to use pagan narrative forms in the early centuries of the Church—the narratives of the apostles (except for John’s) were simple catalogues of events with minimal stylistic interference—the early Christians did assimilate pagan architecture and art. In addition, Paul knew all the techniques of epistle writing, and John knew how to unite history with imagery for maximum effect.

After the theatres were condemned and closed, pagan drama moved over into the Church; and the medieval Christian writers drew heavily on such poets as Virgil for their technical inspiration. Gradually, as Christians grew willing to agree that fiction is not untruth, they incorporated this form into their culture as well. Thus, though the early Christian would have frowned on the frivolous and decadent forms of pagan prose fiction, drama, and poetry, later Christians gradually learned to use these art forms as tools for their faith. The medieval mystery plays, the poetry of Dante, the narrative of Bunyan’s Pilgrim all owe clear debts to pagan ancestors.

That early reluctance to embrace pagan beauty has reversed itself in the twentieth century. The Christian increasingly looks at the art world as territory to be colonized. Scholars are busily discovering the religious implications in Vonnegut’s latest novel, or the ritual structure of Albee’s plays. It reminds one of the days when Christians strove to find redeeming elements in Virgil so they could be justified in reading and copying him.

The growing zeal for religious content has resulted in (or perhaps resulted from) a growing tendency among artists to play with religious themes and ideas. It is natural that art would return to such central concerns of man. Art and religion both center on man’s deepest needs: for truth and beauty and meaning. Serious artists in the contemporary world frequently explore the nature of man, of innocence, of guilt, of freedom, of love, of death, and of God. The critic-scholars often see their obligation to help us understand our artists, and perhaps even to evaluate them.

This brings us back to our original problem: when the Christian reader or critic explores a novel, poem, or play, how does he judge? Does he analyze the ideas, hold them up against standards of orthodoxy (his, or the artist’s, or some church’s), and then evaluate the work as good or bad according to its “correctness”? Does he have in mind a model of the good play, novel, or poem? Does he believe there is such a thing as “Christian” literature?

Most critics refuse to deal with this final question. Certainly a novel cannot be Christian any more than a golden calf can be pagan. It is the artist and the viewer who must bear the brunt of such judgment, not the work itself. Some works are more likely to provide orthodox responses than others. For example, Warren’s All the King’s Men provides rich materials for contemplating the Fall and the nature of man; the novel carries the reader along a path of thought that most Christians would approve. But this novel is more often read as a statement about the nature of American politics. The pagan reader can enjoy the social commentary and the romantic adventure, skipping hastily over the theological sections. Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory makes a very powerful statement about God and his priests in a most effective form. But again many readers enjoy the novel for its degrading portrayal of the whiskey priest who fathered an illegitimate child, missing the central point altogether.

We do not posit an ideal novel, poem, or play, because we cannot. We can cite touchstones of Christian expression (Milton’s or Dante’s) that grew out of those ages and those men and those audiences that once in a great while come together to produce greatness, but more than that we cannot do. Like Aristotle, who could tell us only what his favorite tragedy looked like, not what all good tragedy must be, most of us can point out novels or plays we have liked or disliked but cannot say what novels or plays must be. We can be analytic and descriptive, but not proscriptive and prescriptive.

Art is, after all, an exploration often beyond the limits of rational thought. It is frequently wiser than the artist; under the inspiration of the Muses or the Holy Spirit, he may have recorded more than he knew. Man cannot limit art without destroying it. Even in an individual artist this is obvious. War and Peace, growing out of the troubled, confused mind of Tolstoy, is aesthetically superior to the clear, doctrinaire products of his conversion to Christianity. The Communist world has found that its neat rules destroy art and breed rebellion. Ireland has found its artists leave when it seeks to legislate their art. We who have freedom in Christ are obliged to remember that this responsible freedom must extend to the writer and reader as well.

Not all writers respond responsibly to their freedom. Milton commented on the license that so often replaces liberty. The plethora of pornography today is evidence that man is all too eager to sell his soul and his pen for a price. The chaotic content and form of so much modern literature shows man’s willingness to reflect his meaningless world rather than to strive for meaning and order. The delight in depravity and sniggering at morality should not surprise those of us accustomed to viewing man as fallen. We live, after all, east of Eden, where the world, man, and his art are all fallen and in need of redemption.

Even Christian writers lapse from time to time, substituting license for their liberty. In their day, all our heroes of Christian art have had their critics who pointed with horror to the feet of clay. The Church was shocked at Dante’s divine poetry; the orthodox were appalled by Milton’s view of creation and temptation, not to mention his defense of divorce; and many moderns doubt Eliot’s sincerity and artistry. We have no examples of perfect Christian artists, but then we have only one example of the perfect Christian. We should know better than to expect perfection. We should know better than to expect we shall ever see an artist who can satisfy Christians for his orthodoxy and critics for his excellence.

I am therefore inclined to accept Milton’s view that we must learn to piece together bits of perfection. Truth, he said, is like the body of Osiris, fragmented and scattered. Our job is to collect, to judge, and to select those pieces that truly belong to God. Thus we must learn to make use of those scattered insights that the artist captures and communicates.

Regardless of Solzhenitzyn’s religious stance, we can gain from his understanding of the nature of evil. He need not call man “fallen” to show that he is. Nor need he call those occasional flashes of beauty in human nature the “image of God.” Those moments of heroism, of generosity, of personal integrity, and of compassion in the cancer ward or prison camp portray man transcending his hellish surroundings. They make mockery of Pavlovian psychology and Marxian materialism.

Faulkner, in The Sound and the Fury, as he portrays the simple faith of Dilsey, who so willingly bears another’s burdens, also reflects something of the true experience of the Christian. The ageless black heroine takes the idiot offspring of the white “aristocrats” to her black church, where she staunchly faces the furious congregation. Her love for Benjy has nothing to do with race, class, sex, or mentality. But this does not mean Faulkner’s whole book is built on the Christian world-view. I would reject his central vision that life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. On the contrary, I am convinced that we are part of a great plan and that each human life signifies a great deal.

But this is what I mean by our need to take bits and pieces out of our reading to enrich our life and our faith. God can speak to us through secular literature in a manner parallel to his speaking in sacred literature. A phrase, an idea, or a situation will suddenly catch our attention and magically illumine our lives. A really good novel or poem or play—by either a Christian or a non-Christian writer—generally includes a host of such moments.

We might wish for a day like Dante’s when the creative imagination was aflame with Christian doctrine; but even in Dante’s day, Boccaccio and Chaucer were inspired by other materials. We are indeed lucky that the twentieth century has given us such Christian literary giants as Eliot and Auden, whom we should appreciate without growing uncritical in our love. God obviously intends us to find random flowers among the briars, testing us by our choices here as elsewhere in life. Literature allows us to experience people and situations out of our ken, to enlarge our ideas as well as our experience. It is as full of temptations as the life it mirrors; it is as full of vitality and peril as Adam and the Garden he inhabited. And we are as free as Adam was to choose which fruits we select to eat. A free man now, as then, is judged by his strength in the face of temptation.

Trusting the majesty and power of God, we need fear no words or ideas. We can devote the whole man to living the Christian life, using the mind to understand what is written, the eye and the heart to appreciate it emotionally and aesthetically. We should also bring to the analysis and appreciation of culture our wonder, responding to art as a mystery and a miracle, testimony to God’s creative power. The Christian’s response to art is parallel to his response to nature, joy in the created world, and worship of the Creator reflected in it.

Some words are dangerous cargo, to be handled with care. “Authority” is a good example. It is so easily read as authoritarianism or, more simply, bossiness, the aptitude some people have for throwing their weight around and ordering other people in a rough and unfeeling manner.

How can a minister whose very name means servant lay claim to authority? Obviously he cannot set out to boss his congregation and still be loyal to his calling as a servant of God; let him recall the apostolic warning, “not tyrannizing over those who are allotted to your care” (1 Pet. 5:3, NEB).

However, there is such a thing as the preacher’s authority. Paul uses the exact word in Second Corinthians 13:10. In the traditional Episcopal service for ordaining ministers, the charge is given to the candidate: “Take thou authority to preach the word of God.…” So we need to ask, What sort of authority belongs to the preaching office? Can it be ours today?

In one revealing snatch of autobiography, Paul opens a window on his inner life as a preacher of the Gospel. If we have questions to ask about authority, it is to this text, Ephesians 3:7 and 8, that we should address them:

The gospel of which I was made a minister, by God’s gift [grace], bestowed unmerited on me in the working of his power. To me, who am less than the least of all God’s people, he has granted of his grace the privilege of proclaiming to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ [NEB].

First, the preacher’s authority is possible only as a conferment of grace. Twice in this short passage Paul puts the spotlight on his favorite theological term. “Grace” is the indispensable word of his vocabulary, and here he uses it in an emphatic way. He draws attention to the debt he owes to God’s grace, which first claimed him and then commissioned him. “According to the gift of the grace of God given unto me” (KJV)—commentators suggest that Paul had in mind one specific occasion when he received God’s gift, and this must mean the day of his conversion. There on the roadside before the city gates of Damascus, his life was changed.

The Scriptures do not tell us exactly what that transforming experience meant to Paul, but he made at least two discoveries. One was that Christ was alive. That novelty burst upon the life of the persecuting Pharisee as a blinding flash of light; years later he was still talking about the spiritual illumination that came on the Damascus road (2 Cor. 4:4–6). The living Lord appeared to him, and convinced him in the most undeniable way—at the level of personal experience—that He was truly alive, and therefore Paul’s contemporary. Again, some years after this event, Paul could still recall the vividness and decisiveness of the encounter with the living Jesus (1 Cor. 9:1).

We should not fail to grasp the significance of this revelation of Jesus’ aliveness. It meant the cross had new meaning as a piece of history that God had engineered; and when Jesus had died a sinner’s death on a tree, God owned and vindicated him as his Son by showing that he died not for his own sins but bearing the sins of the world. The cursed one was after all the blessed one, the Messiah, since God had cared for him beyond death and brought him through to life. That was new to Saul; that truth converted him, and turned him into Paul. It was doctrine as well as experience at work.

Am I not an apostle? asks Paul (1 Cor. 9:1). Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? The two questions go together, with a common answer, because God’s grace, which claimed and converted him, also sent him on a mission. “The grace of God [was] given me” was how he phrased it. This was his secondary discovery. It was the grace of apostleship (Rom. 1:5) that changed his life, redirected it into a channel of service, and led him to devote the rest of his days to the task that Christ had committed to him.

It is exactly here, in the recognition of all he owes to the grace of God, that the preacher’s ministry takes on its character. It is all of God, and it is all of grace. At the end of a lifetime of service, when he looks back his admission will be: Not I but the grace of God.

Second, the preacher’s authority submits to the control of his self-estimate. No human enterprise is so self-revealing as the ministry of preaching. Paul was aware of the great dangers of his calling, and at one point he explicitly denied that he had consciously put himself in the wrong place: “What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). But at a deeper level he had discovered the antidote to pride, which is the preacher’s crippling drawback: it was a perpetual reminder of who he was and how dependent he felt on the support and help of God. This passage is eloquent in its witness to Paul’s humility. In fact, it is so painfully self-conscious that some commentators describe it as “theatrical.” But it is not that. Paul is being patently honest as he submits to self-exposure in the light of his intense desire to have a ministry beyond reproach.

His true self-estimate shines out in his language. “Less than the least of all saints” is how he describes what he sees in the mirror. Imagine the most insignificant and untalented member of Christ’s body, he remarks; well, I am below that person. It is not that he disowns his gifts or has a false self-depreciation. Rather, he wants to see himself in a place where there is no room left for proud independence or vain self-assertiveness. It is the lowly place set by him who came not to be served but to serve, who took a towel to wash the disciples’ feet, who chose the form of a slave in his incarnate life, and volunteered to become poor as the price he paid in his life on earth. “I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29) was Jesus’s own self-witness. Paul would willingly take his place alongside his Lord.

The lesson for us today is evident. Nothing more defeats the minister’s set purpose of being an example than an overbearing, haughty, and domineering spirit. Richard Baxter has a timely word: “There are no virtues wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men’s prejudice, than humility, and meekness, and self-denial.… Speak not stoutly or disrespectfully to any one; but be courteous to the meanest, as to your equal in Christ” (The Reformed Pastor). More pointedly, D. L. Moody cautions us: “Be humble, or you’ll stumble.” The great pattern of Jesus, who confessed, “I am among you as he who serves,” should always be our inspiration and guide.

Third, the preacher’s authority is expressed and exercised in fulfillment of a God-appointed task. Happy is the man who has found work that brings satisfaction and reward, and who finds increasing joy in it. For Paul, proclaiming the good news was the joy of his life. It was a duty laid upon him, but more than that, it was an enterprise he undertook gladly, as a bird moves its wings to fly or a fish propels itself through water. Preaching was Paul’s native element, and he found his reward in the very fulfillment of what he believed God required of him (1 Cor. 9:15–18).

Many in our day are inclined to view preaching as a dispensable alternative to other more glamorous aspects of the Church’s work in the world, or, at worst, as even a waste of time. “The day of the sermon is over,” they say. (It is probably true that the day of some sermons is over—and should have been long ago!) When doubts like this settle upon us, perhaps Paul’s teaching will win us back to what he regards as the indispensable function of the minister: to proclaim the good news as a herald, since it is God’s unvarying good pleasure by the foolishness (so men count it) of preaching to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21). “How are they to hear without a preacher?” he asks (Rom. 10:14), beginning with the agreed proposition that no one ever comes to know God unless God takes the initiative and reveals himself. And that revelation means that God sends his messengers to tell the news. In a letter Rousseau asks, “Is it simple, is it natural, that God should have gone and found Moses in order to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?” Well, it is a roundabout way that scandalizes natural man; but it is God’s way in all times.

So the preacher is summoned to proclaim, and this means his distinctive place is in the pulpit. There is a sacramental quality in preaching since it has to do with the great, fundamental sacrament, the Word. At the Table of the Lord we hear, “This is my body”; at the pulpit, “This is my word.” To be charged with a sacred, saving word is a high calling and a noble responsibility. Let no preacher despise it by neglect or indifference or a slipshod performance.

Fourth, the preacher’s authority lays claim to the greatness of the message entrusted to him. In a word that flashes like a many-faceted jewel, Paul describes the riches of Christ enshrined in the Gospel as “unfathomable.” The word means “beyond human exploration”; it carries an invitation to wealth that we can never exhaust and can never fully appreciate. “It suggests a treasure house of grace,” wrote F. C. Beare, “vast beyond all conceiving, so that no matter how far we penetrate there are rooms and corridors opening out in endless vistas, far beyond our capacity of apprehension or of vision” (Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10, p. 669). Yet it is wealth related to a purpose. Our attempts to display human grandeur in art and architecture, in diamond and precious metal, are often shot through with motives of proud display.

The Gospel of Christ is rich in its relation to men’s needs today. Three auxiliary verses, drawn from Paul’s writings, show how the preacher is called to perform a threefold role, (a) “The riches of divine goodness and kindness” (Rom. 2:4) states the character of God, and invites the preacher to be an apologist for God. In a day when people are disturbed by the implications of modern science, assailed by the rationalization of modern psychology, and appalled by the threats of a modern theology that announced the death of God, it is the preacher’s task to make God real, in his attributes, his works, his ways and excellent worth, so that men will come to know him as revealed in Christ his Son. This is the preacher’s noble calling: to bring God to men, and make them aware of him.

Then, (b) Ephesians 2:7 speaks of the “riches of his grace.” The preacher is called to the ministry of the evangelist, and the good news he proclaims centers in grace. God’s amazing condescension and love caused him to reach down in Christ to rescue and restore. “The smile of God” is how one commentator lights up the term “grace.” It is the great privilege of the preacher to show men and women before him in the pew and alongside him in the street and home the face of God, his desire to mend and remake broken lives and to set people on their feet again as forgiven and reconciled sinners. The song title “Amazing Grace” sings out a truth that will never fade. As long as men and women have needs, there will be available the word of grace to restore and to bring hope.

(c) “Riches of God’s glory” (Eph. 1:6, 18) is a phrase with a signpost to the future. Man is incurably curious in his desire to know what is going to happen. The average Englishman, said G. K. Chesterton, is fond of children and afraid to die. The riches of the Gospel provide also for this dimension, in the assurance of God’s care for his people in life and death. The preacher is also the comforter, extending a message of consolation and good hope to those about to enter the valley of the shadow and to those bereaved and bewildered over life’s tragedies.

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7) brings us back to Paul’s own view of himself and his ministry. And that about sums it up. Here is a frail, finite, fallible man, yet he is aware of a vocation in life that is without rival. In himself he has no power to discharge his calling or do what he knows to be “his own thing.” Yet he has in his hand priceless treasure. Who is adequate for this? Paul answers his own query, “Our sufficiency is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers” (2 Cor. 3:6). And his answer is good enough for us today.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

An anthropology professor responds to “The Late-Date Genesis Man” by Robert Brow (September 15, 1972)

The question of man’s origin, which is closely related to the age of man on this planet, is not only pertinent but of fundamental importance to the kind of impact Christianity is making upon a non-Christian world. For instance, some years ago many Christian young people in the area of Latin America where I was living were confused on this subject, having been told by their pastors that belief in any kind of evolution was incompatible with Scripture and therefore incompatible with being a Christian. One survey showed that as many as three-fourths of the young people were lost to the evangelical community after they had come under the concentrated influence of the secular university’s teaching of a materialistic interpretation to man and his origin.

In response, a group of Christian university students encouraged me to offer an open course related to the origin of man from a theistic viewpoint—in a local Marxist-oriented university. Interestingly enough, this series of some twenty lectures was well received by both students and faculty. The lectures took both the Bible and science seriously. As a result of the interest generated in this topic, the university published the entire lecture series, which actually presented a non-evolutionary alternative view of man’s origin.

It seems that the best approach to this subject is to assume a humble and respectful attitude toward the findings of science and the facts of Scripture. In other words, our attitude is to be that of First Peter 3:15—“Be always ready with your defense whenever you are called to account for the hope that is in you, but make that defense with modesty and respect” (NEB). And we should be really sure of the facts of both science and Scripture, realizing that God is the author of the natural laws discovered by science just as he is of his revelation in the biblical record. Therefore there can be no real discrepancy between the two. I have found over the years that scientists are, for the most part, addressing themselves to a different set of questions than theologians. Scientific researchers are more interested in discovering how it all came about rather than in the deeper and more fundamental question of why man—to which the Bible clearly speaks.

Scientists are not automatically biased against facts that do not necessarily support their theories. While doing graduate work in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania a few years ago, I could not help being impressed by the intellectual honesty of my professors and their genuine humility about what science could not tell us about man’s origin as well as what it could tell us. When the facts did not support the assumed theory, they often readily admitted it. The strongest arguments I ever heard against evolution occurred while I was doing graduate work at Penn, because my professor, though an evolutionist, honestly presented both sides of the question.

With this background, let’s now look at some of the facts of science as they relate to the question of the age of man upon earth. As a student of prehistory who lived in the Andean area of South America for many years, I have had opportunity to do archaeological field work on a number of early-man sites, which date man earlier than 10,000 years ago (Kornfield, 1972); to my knowledge there are approximately 300 lithic workshops-camp sites in the Andes that antedate Abraham by several thousand years. Consistent series of carbon-14 datings of organic materials found in association with artifacts and/or morphologically modern skeletal remains indicate that man is old even in the New World. The famous Folsom projectile point from Colorado, clearly dated in the 9,000–10,000-year range, was so skillfully made that present-day scientists have spent years—and with little real success—attempting to replicate this magnificently engineered spear point (Crabtree, 1966). It appears that the Folsom point represents the mind of a human being every bit as ingenious and as capable as we are today. A good number of prehistoric early-man sites have been discovered in the New World that are in the 10,000–12,000-year range (Jennings and Norbeck, 1964; Willey, 1966; Lynch, 1967; Rowe, 1967; Ravines, 1970). More recently a Harvard scientist’s carefully controlled excavations near Ayacucho in the Peruvian highlands give strong evidence that man was probably living in the Andean area of South America 20,000 years ago (MacNeish, 1971). All skeletal remains found in conjunction with early-man sites in the New World are of fully modern man.

Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens), whose morphological variations are found among modern man today (Brace, 1964), is generally considered to have existed between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, with consistent radiometric determinations on a number of finds in the 40,000-to-45,000-year range—such as Shanidar man in Iraq and several of the Mount Carmel finds from Palestine (Braidwood, 1964; Brace, 1964, 1967; Howell, 1968). While the general skeletal and facial structure and dentition of Neanderthal appear to be more rugged than those of most modern men today, Brace (1964) says that “no one of these differences is outside the range of variation of modern man” and that “there is reason to believe that they were at least as intelligent as modern man, if not more so” (1967). Birdsell (1972) observes that there is “little reason to doubt that these early Europeans were intellectually as bright as present-day ones.” Binford (1969) has also observed, “Once considered to be a species separate from ourselves, Neanderthal man is generally accepted today as a historical subspecies of fully modern man. A great deal of archaeological evidence collected in recent years strongly suggests that the behavioral capacities of Neanderthal man were not markedly different from our own.” On the basis of his completely erect posture, a cranial capacity every bit as great as (and sometimes greater than) that of modern man, and the fact that his skeletal remains have been found in direct association with cultural artifacts and ceremonial burials, present-day anthropologists now consider Neanderthal man as Homo sapiens.

Nevertheless, whatever differences of opinion may still be held by a few scientists as to Neanderthal man’s being an integral part of our own species, there is decided unanimity as to the completely modern nature of Cro-Magnon man, who made his appearance approximately 35,000 years ago in Europe (Brace, 1967; Braidwood, 1964; Birdsell, 1972; Howell, 1968). From about 25,000 to 10,000 years ago there are abundant skeletal remains—including complete skeletons—of Cro-Magnon man, a superbly built specimen of modern man. Then in another part of the world, Australia, there are confirmed early-man sites with accurate carbon-14 samplings that go back at least 16,000 years (Mulvaney, 1966).

From these observations, I would project Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man as being modern man, as evidenced not only by morphological criteria but by the artifacts he left behind, which are of far-reaching significance: bone awls and needles, excellently manufactured pressure-flaked tools and burial goods found in association with planned burials of different types (Bordes, 1968; Braidwood, 1964; Birdsell, 1972; Howell, 1968). One of the most striking finds of early man is that of Shanidar in Iraq, who was buried upon a bed of hyacinths and hollyhocks and then covered with floral wreaths of similar flowers (Birdsell, 1972). Does not man do much the same thing in funerals today? Confirmed radio-carbon datings of Shanidar man consistently place him over 40,000 years old (Brace, 1967; Howell, 1968). Another evidence of modern man in the Paleolithic is seen in the magnificent Aurignacian cave murals of 30,000 years ago (Howell, 1968; Comas, 1962; LeroiGourhan, 1968). Considering the beautiful Solutrean laurel-leaf projectile points with delicately tooled pressure-flaked edges, the wide selection of other skillfully made implements in the Paleolithic period of Europe, together with the abstract nature of highly developed cave paintings, one cannot help being impressed with the quality of the being that was responsible for these cultural artifacts. These were certainly human qualities.

As to the possibility that Homo sapiens or modern man is older still, there seems to be some evidence in this direction: the sapiens nature of the Steinheim, Swanscombe, and Fontechevade finds (Brace, 1964, 1967; McKern, 1966; Birdsell, 1972), as well as the more recently discovered Vertesszollos human fossil remains (Scientific Research, 1967; Birdsell, 1972). It should be pointed out, however, that all these earlier dated finds not only are fragmentary but are based on relative methods of geological dating; therefore, unlike Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, their absolute chronology cannot be confirmed at this stage of investigation.

In view of how much has often been read into Scripture that is really not there, it is significant to know not only what Genesis tells us about man’s origin but also what it leaves unsaid. For example, what about an actual description of Adam’s physical features from the Genesis account of man’s creation? Could he have been a Neanderthal—in other words, a perfectly legitimate variation of modern man? What about his color? What does the Bible actually say? Was he black, yellow, brown, white, or none of these? Do we really know anything about his race?

Then what about the crucial question that is before us in this essay, the time in which he made his appearance on this planet? I must take exception to Robert Brow’s statements that “the Bible tells us that this kind of person was created suddenly in comparatively recent times, let us say roughly 3900 B.C.… Given Abraham’s dates as 1952–1777 B.C., the closely interlocking chronology of Genesis 11 would place the biblical flood at 2244 B.C., and the dates of Genesis 5 if we take them literally then place the origin of Genesis man as 3900 B.C.” (Brow, 1972). There is certainly a difference of opinion among biblical scholars as to Brow’s way for assessing the date for Adam. Samuel Schultz of Wheaton College points out, “Nowhere do the Scriptures indicate how much time elapsed in Genesis 1–11.… Regardless of what date man may approximate for the beginning of the human race it is still within the scope of the scriptural account.… By using the genealogies of Gen. 5 and 11 to calculate time Bishop Ussher (1654) dated the creation of man at 4004 B.C. This date is untenable since genealogies did not represent a complete chronology” (Schultz, 1970). Francis Schaeffer reinforces this: “Prior to the time of Abraham, there is no possible way to date the history of what we find in Scripture.… When the Bible itself reaches back and picks up events and genealogies in the time before Abraham, it never uses these early genealogies as a chronology. It never adds up these numbers for dating” (Schaeffer, 1972). Old Testament scholars also recognize that the numbers given in these genealogies vary in the Massoretic, Samaritan, and LXX texts so that we cannot be sure just what the original manuscripts stated in this regard. If one day is really as “a thousand years” and “a thousand years as one day” with the Lord (2 Pet. 3:8), then why couldn’t Adam have been a Neanderthal—as the Mount Carmel caves of modern skeletal remains may indicate—and lived 50,000 years ago? It seems significant that the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to give more detailed answers to these questions in the Genesis account of creation. If the reader should choose to ignore Neanderthal man as a legitimate human being, created in the image of God, what about Cro-Magnon man, who lived at least 30,000 years ago and whose every indication is 100 per cent modern? Then of course there are the many early-man sites of morphologically modern man in the New World that clearly antedate 10,000 B.C. In the light of these facts, is the 3900 B.C. date projected in the “Late-Date Genesis Man” article really tenable?

A word about a so-called pre-Adamic “race” is also in order as this concept is mentioned by several evangelical theologians, including Brow. There is, however, no real basis for this in Scripture, as Brow himself points out: “It is wise to remind ourselves that the Bible tells us nothing whatever about the first animals that stood upright, or that may have looked like men. The Bible begins with a very particular species of person. Let us call him Genesis Man. This is the race that began with Adam.” The concept of a pre-Adamic creature looking like man but not being man appears to be a way of avoiding the implications of all the fossil and cultural evidence for the existence of man early in time. I find it most difficult to believe that God would make a being so very much like us physically and mentally, with a definite cultural tradition, along with a capacity to bury the dead in a carefully planned ritual manner, that yet was not created in His image. This type of culture-bearing being is exemplified in both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man, and this would, on the basis of the evidence at our disposal, qualify him as being part of the Adamic race. As Dr. Schultz recently told me, he sees no problem in postulating the creation of Genesis man 50,000 years ago (personal interview, 1973). In view of the significant amount of modern skeletal remains found in clear association with definite cultural artifacts early in time, it is increasingly difficult to understand how present-day evangelicals can still hold to an Ussher type of chronology for the creation of man.

It appears that the major problem of the time of man’s origin lies more in the area of interpretation than in a reconciliation of facts for or against a specific theory. The problem becomes more acute when scientists attempt to push the evidence too far by stating, for example, the concept of evolution as “fact,” or, on the other hand, when theologians attempt to push the Scriptures too far into science and thus beyond that which the Holy Spirit intended. A case in point is Luther’s remark that Copernicus, who later became the father of modern science, erred in his “stupid notion” that the earth revolves around the sun since the “Scriptures (Josh 10:12) prove that the sun goes around the earth” (MacKay, 1965)!

As far as science is concerned, noted physical anthropologist Loren Eiseley warns us that “the gap between man and ape is not as the early Darwinians saw it—a slight step between a gorilla and a Papuan.… Instead, it stretches broad and deep as time itself.… The key to the secret doorway by which he [man] came into the world is still unknown. The fortunate thing in terms of modern anthropology is that we know the disparity between man and ape is great, not small” (Eiseley, 1955). What distinguishes man from the rest of the primate world and makes him unique is his brain size (more than three times greater than that of the gorilla), his tool-making ability (one of the great hallmarks of man), and his complex language (there is no such thing as a “primitive” language anywhere on earth). Only man has culture, which for a number of anthropologists constitutes a difference in kind rather than degree from the animal world. It would seem that God made Adam separate from the primate world with all his physical, mental, moral, and spiritual characteristics present at the same time.

One wonders, nevertheless, about the mind-set of Moses when he gave us that beautiful description of man at the top of God’s creative order. In fact, would it be so far out to say that possibly the Holy Spirit was not really addressing himself to twentieth-century scientific theory at all but rather to God’s great purpose for man on the earth?

I conclude by saying that man is unique in the animal world and that his uniqueness is best reflected in the fact that he alone was made in the image of God. As a student of prehistory and physical anthropology I see that same kind of uniqueness in Neanderthal man, Cro-Magnon man, and the many examples of early man in the New World—whose burial offerings and cave murals seem to indicate an intelligent belief in the supernatural, whose cranial capacities and skeletal morphology are clearly within the scope of present-day man and whose skills were highly developed. All this, in my opinion, places Genesis man early and not late in time. Is it then really necessary to have a late-date Genesis man to substantiate one’s faith?

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

Games of chance seem to pervade every society and intrigue all men. The idea taking a chance and getting something for nothing has universal appeal. If gambling is an “instinct,” it must arise from the drive for self-fulfillment. Human potential can never be realized without risk. A person who chooses to grow chooses also the risk of losing. Love itself, then, becomes a gamble: a person who loves creates not only the potential for his own fulfillment but also the risk that he may be destroyed. And the greater the love, the greater the gamble. There is a sense in which Christians are called to be the greatest gamblers of all. Jesus actually commended a gambler whose talents paid off ten to one.

In gambling, the willingness to take a risk is twisted by the desire to get something for nothing. Gambling is, then, a sin of perverted stewardship. It is parasitic, producing no personal growth, achieving no social good. Even the strongest advocates of gambling agree that gambling is a non-productive human activity. It must be justified either by its entertainment value or by the use of its revenues for worthy purposes.

Public opinion about gambling moves in waves. At the present time, there are powerful pressures to make the United States a gambling society with games ranging from church bingo to a nation-wide lottery. The immediate reaction of evangelical Christians is alarm and revulsion. But an emotional reaction will probably accomplish little. There is a need for a clear, fact-founded position. As chairman of the Governor’s Ad Hoc Committee on Gambling for the State of Washington, I had to think through a position on gambling in order to defend my minority statement in the committee’s report.

A starting point is to recognize that a scriptural position on gambling must be derived by inference, not prescription. Arguments based on the stewardship of resources are strong but not conclusive. If affluent Christians evoked the principle of not spending their money except for bread, their conspicuous consumption would make much more sermon material than games of chance in which they do not participate. Perhaps Jesus would have more to say about the stewardship of an affluent church than about the Roman soldiers’ shooting craps for his clothes at the Cross. Ironically, he might point out how the Holy Spirit worked through a game of chance when Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as a disciple.

During the mercantile period in the Middle Ages, insurance was invented for merchants who sent their goods to sea against the odds that the ships would be attacked by pirates. Church fathers opposed insurance because God controlled the destiny of ships as well as men. Not only did insurance show a lack of faith—it was gambling on the will of God. But today Christians do not consider insurance an “actuarial numbers racket”; it is used as an example of commendable stewardship planning.

Recognizing that the definition of gambling has changed, Christians must currently be concerned about three types: social, professional, and governmental. “Social gambling” emphasizes the entertainment value of games of chance. By legal definition, this means that the participants enter the game on “equal” terms. There is neither a professional operator nor a “house cut” against which the participants have to compete. For example, four friends sit down for an evening of cards in the home of one of the players. Even though the stakes may conceivably rise to thousands of dollars, it is “social gambling” because the players remain on equal terms. In most instances, this form of gambling is recognized as an individual’s privilege.

“Social gambling” has been extended to organized games, particularly bingo and raffles, as a modest and easily controlled expression of human desire. Sympathy and public pressure, however, identify bingo with charitable and non-profit institutions, primarily the Roman Catholic Church, which uses the proceeds for religious or charitable purposes. Because of this sympathy and pressure, it can be expected that gambling will be reintroduced to the American public through the door of the church. A reporter asked me, “Will bingo be the trunk upon which a tree of gambling will be built?” Regretfully I had to answer, “Yes.”

Gambling in charitable and non-profit institutions is indefensible for more than the reason that it sets the precedent for other forms of gambling. I have heard the advocates of church bingo oppose state lotteries on the grounds that the government should not use gambling as a substitute for responsible tax reform. This argument boomerangs on them. It is less defensible for the church to use gambling as a substitute for responsible stewardship than for the state to use it as a substitute for responsible taxation. If gambling is a non-productive human activity, no charitable end will justify the parasitic means.

“Professional gambling” is a step up from “social gambling.” The difference is the introduction of a gambling parlor, a professional operator, and what is called a “house cut” of the proceeds. This is the point at which controls break down and organized crime enters. This kind of gambling is big business and worth the risk of gambling speculators. Their ability to provide the capital for gambling houses, the expertise for professional operators, and credit to the players cannot be matched. That is just the beginning of the problem. The intrusion of syndicated interests into gambling leads to the bribing of public officials. The record of enforcement of gambling makes a sordid history. The stakes become so great that enforcement officials can be given handsome pay-offs as normal expenses for the gambling operation. Although public opinion still tends to be negative toward Nevada-type slot machines, they are easier to control than professional dealers at a card table. Then, the potential for crime and corruption must be joined by the temptation for operators to “cheat” on individual games. Of all the control problems, this is the most difficult. As an assistant attorney general told our committee, “the possibility of cheating in gambling is limited only by the human imagination.”

Corruption and cheating plague charitable bingo games as well as professional gambling activities. Charitable bingo is a multi-million-dollar business that requires stringent controls and constant surveillance to keep it honest. Bingo-sponsoring churches must face the question whether they are polluting the moral climate as well as subverting their principles of stewardship.

If “social” or “professional gambling” is inevitable, history dictates the controls that are absolutely necessary to reduce crime, corruption, and cheating. A powerful and independent gambling commission must be created. Uniform state regulations must be adopted that do not permit towns, cities, or counties to set their own rules or choose their own games. Enforcement must come from both state and local levels as a check-and-balance on corruption. Gambling premises, operators, and games must be rigidly screened and licensed to keep out organized crime. Books of the gambling operation must be audited at the point where the money first passes from the player to the operator if “skimming” of the profits is to be controlled. Penalties on violators must be heavy and automatic. Finally, controls must be set on each type of gambling to minimize cheating by the operators. When the public chooses to gamble, it also chooses crime, corruption, and cheating. These elements can be reduced at best, not eliminated.

“Government gambling” must be considered by a different set of rules. State-wide lotteries are becoming popular indicators of the public’s desire to gamble and the state’s need for money. Arguments in favor of government lotteries usually include the opinion that they are a non-criminal, non-corruptible, non-cheating form of entertainment that will produce funds for worthy purposes. In New York State, for instance, the lottery was promoted as a means for increasing aid to education.

It is true that state-wide lotteries are comparatively free from the abuses of “social” and “professional gambling.” Other concerns, however, make lotteries a questionable form of “government gambling.” The basic question is, Should the government be involved in gambling? Advocates will show that most governments are already involved in the promotion as well as the control of certain human vices, such as liquor or horse racing. Those who oppose state lotteries will immediately respond by asking whether the fact of involvement makes it right and whether that involvement should be extended. One thing is certain: when the state becomes a gambling operator with a lottery, some principles of government have to change.

First, the state must promote gambling as a business. Studies of state-wide lotteries show they can succeed only if the state approaches the lottery as a consumer product. In the first year of operation, lottery revenues are large because of its novelty. At the close of the second year, however, the proceeds are usually cut in half. To avoid some of the loss, the state must keep novelty in marketing the product and provide improved chances for pay-out. Frankly speaking, a government does not have the market mentality needed to make the lottery a success.

Second, the entertainment value of lotteries is secondary to the expected increases in revenues. Lotteries may be a convenient and socially acceptable form of gambling for the public, but the major reason for them is political: they are designed to provide additional revenues in a time of “tax rebellion.” Yet a study by the Fund for the City of New York concluded that lotteries were an unreliable source of income. A research analyst put it bluntly: “At its best, a state lottery is good for five or ten years.” Not only that, but the start-up costs and the continuing administrative machinery of such a short-term operation make the investment questionable. A well-run lottery will be based upon 45 per cent of the revenues for prizes, 40 per cent for the state, and 15 per cent for administration. It also requires annual betting of $8 to $10 for every person in the state. Even then, the amount of aid for state treasuries is almost negligible in comparison with the needs. In the State of Washington, for instance, a mathematically designed lottery would provide approximately $13 million for the state in the first year. This is less than 1 per cent of the annual budget. From either the short- or long-range view of revenues, a lottery is difficult to defend.

Third, lotteries are also advocated as a means of undercutting the illegal numbers racket. Admitting the failure of law enforcement, some states have decided to compete with organized crime for the multi-million-dollar gambling market. It is assumed that a legal game will run the law-breakers out of business. Nothing is further from the truth. To use New York State again as an example, the state lottery has actually been used by organized crime to enhance the numbers racket. To obtain the revenues promised for education in the state and still pay out a modest percentage on prizes, the state charges fifty cents for a lottery ticket. The numbers racket, however, only charges twenty-five cents per ticket, provides a more attractive payout, and gives credit to the customers. The fact is that private enterprise, even in gambling, is always more efficient than government bureaucracy.

Many states do not have threatening “numbers” operations. Therefore, the argument is that a lottery is intended to provide revenues rather than to undercut crime. Initially, this may be the case. Organized crime, however, is interested in extending the tentacles of its influence wherever profits make the venture worthwhile. As a successful competitor with state lotteries, a new lottery might actually attract several illegal numbers games. While the advocates of lotteries would call “foul” on this argument, the implications of a decision for a lottery cannot be ignored.

Fourth, a state-wide lottery requires the cultivation of a new gambling market. Researchers point out that lotteries are played by middle-class whites rather than poor blacks. This finding does not make the lottery a respectable game. The poor can play illegal numbers for one-half the price of the state’s ticket, if numbers games are available. If not, the lottery invites the poor to play, and it becomes a form of “regressive taxation” on the poor.

In either case, the lottery must be promoted by the creation of new gambling markets. No lottery can succeed on the number of people in the state who already gamble. Young and old, poor and rich, black and white must be counted upon to play the lottery if the operation succeeds. And so a greater question arises, Should the state create a gambling climate? The implications are far-reaching. Public morality, public safety, and respect for the law suddenly become issues that cannot be avoided. A “gambling attitude” does affect the quality of life in a state. It certainly would influence the response to people to the claims of Christ; even evangelism has a stake in the gambling issue. Lotteries are no more innocent than card rooms or slot machines.

What conclusions can be drawn to guide a Christian’s position on gambling? First, gambling is a vice that violates the principle of Christian stewardship. Although gambling is not specifically prohibited in Scripture, the non-productive use of resources, whether money or time, is poor stewardship. Christ said we would be called to account for the use of our resources, and there is little or no justification for letting chance rule our fortunes for selfish returns when Christ has called us to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel.

Second, if social gambling is inevitable, controls should be demanded to limit crime, corruption, and cheating. Because evangelicals regard gambling as a black-and-white issue, there is a tendency to pull out of the war once the first battle is lost. This is not the time to quit! At the risk of misunderstanding, Christians should call for the controls of an independent gambling commission, uniform state laws, dual enforcement of laws at state and local levels, rigid licensing and standards, and heavy, automatic penalties for abuse in even such innocent games as charitable bingo. The least we can do is make law enforcement workable.

Third, professional gambling should be vigorously opposed by practical as well as moral arguments. Crime, corruption, and cheating accompany professional gambling. Irrefutable evidence also shows the connection between professional gambling and prostitution, drugs, and violence. Once the stakes are high enough, no system of controls can cope with the efficiency and subtlety of organized crime, or with its daring.

Fourth, state-wide lotteries are a questionable means for controlling crime or producing state revenues. Under the pretense of satisfying the gambling instincts of respectable citizens, lotteries are political tools to win votes and increase revenues. When a senator announced that the gambling bill in our state would be passed at midnight on the day of the closing legislative session, an informed newsman told me, “He means that the vote on the gambling bill will be determined by a pay-off at midnight.” More is at stake than just a lottery for citizens who want to bet. Gambling is a corrupting yeast that contaminates the loaf from core to crust. Christians who give up when gambling is legalized will still have to accept responsibility for the quality of life in their city, county, or state. Even though gambling is wrong, the extent of gambling is still critical.

One lesson stands out from my experience as chairman of the Gambling Committee. As a Christian, I was overly cautious about being fair. Perhaps I was sensitive to a letter-to-the-editor that said the governor’s appointment of a minister to chair the Gambling Committee was like the Pope’s appointing the devil to guard the Holy Font. In one sense, my concern for fairness was wise, because I eventually earned the right to speak without being discounted as a minister. The only trouble was that no one else was fair. Flags of vested interests were flown at full mast from the beginning. At one time, the heat of debate produced the veiled threat that the committee’s work was useless anyway because money and votes would ultimately decide the gambling issue. At any rate, I lost my timidity about speaking from my convictions as a citizen and as a Christian. And most of the committee members seemed to be waiting for someone with the nerve to speak with moral conviction.

Whether Christian or not, the roots of our spiritual heritage have not been cut. Christians in the twentieth century can still help keep those roots alive.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”