Confidential

Should scholars and newsmen be required to reveal the identity of those who supply them with information?

Generally speaking, no. So-called shield laws, which now exist in some twenty states, tend to serve a good social purpose in a democracy. Few people doubt the desirability of shielding clergymen, lawyers, and physicians in this way. In the case of newsmen, it is perhaps even more important to the public interest that sources of information be protected, lest they dry up and important data go unreported. Often the reporter is put on the spot for conveying information that, though it is embarrassing to a few, deserves to be public knowledge. Occasionally, there is risk of reprisal—even a threat to life or limb—against reporter or source if the source is revealed. These persons need the protection of the law.

Protection of scholars, upon whom the public is not as directly dependent for important information, is somewhat more difficult to justify. But there are sensitive issues in which reprisal against scholars is conceivable, and therefore extending the legal shield to them seems reasonable.

On the other hand, the public’s right to know, often cited as the reason for shield laws, can be inhibited as well as advanced by protection of sources. The identity of a source and his reasons for disclosure may be an integral part of the story. Like everyone else, suppliers of information have vested interests. Those who reveal secrets out of patriotism or moral principle warrant respect. But some whistle-blowers have bad motives, as do some campaign contributors. By law we now require full disclosure of the names of political donors. It seems reasonable that newsmen, protected by shield laws, should feel some moral obligation to reveal who and why. Knowing the source of information may sometimes be more important than having the information itself, as when Nazi propagandists paid French newspapers to carry “news stories” sympathetic to Hitler.

We support shield laws, but they can be self-defeating or counter-productive. They serve their purpose well only with responsible news media that conscientiously regulate themselves.

Controls And Responsibility

Violent crimes occur far more frequently in the United States than in any comparable nation. In an effort to stem the tide of violence, America is resorting more and more to a complex system of controls intended to prevent crimes from taking place. In the public eye at the moment are complicated and costly security measures at the nation’s airports and new projects for handgun control. While controls of certain kinds may be necessary and desirable, anyone who subscribes to a biblical view of man must be wary of the view that we can prevent crime by controlling opportunity.

One man with an excellent record in limiting at least a local crime wave is District of Columbia police chief Jerry V. Wilson: the incidence of reported violent crimes in Washington declined by 38.9 per cent in the first nine months of 1972. Testifying before a congressional subcommittee, Chief Wilson appealed not for new laws but for “stricter enforcement of existing laws.” According to Wilson, in the present judicial climate a person picked up for carrying a gun in the nation’s capital can be back at liberty before the arresting officer can finish writing up his report.

Controls apply to the whole population, but unless there is strict enforcement by judges and juries, their effect is limited to the already law-abiding. Strict enforcement means holding violators of the law accountable and subjecting them to punishment. But this is precisely what is not being done, even with the existing, allegedly lax laws. For example, if Governor Wallace’s assailant had been prosecuted for his early 1972 violation of Wisconsin gun laws instead of having the felony charge reduced by a judge to “disorderly conduct,” he would have been in a Wisconsin jail instead of trailing Nixon and Wallace. Some controls are necessary, but unless criminals can be held to responsibility, controls restrain only the meek.

In many areas, controls, if extensive enough to be effective, quickly inconvenience and encumber the whole population; in a democracy, this means they will be impossible to enforce. Certainly the trend at the moment is to substitute controls over everyone for sanctions against the law-breaker. Civil authorities must rethink their attitude toward justice and public order, and again place emphasis on personal responsibility as opposed to social engineering. And the citizenry should demand this much more emphatically. Without responsibility, freedom leads to chaos, and one alternative to chaos is control—lots of it. Another is responsibility.

Bishops Back Tradition

In a document published January 11, Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops presents three themes as basic for all religious education: (1) the importance of prayer; (2) participation in the liturgy; and (3) familiarity with the Holy Bible. The document ambiguously says that human reason can know God, but that unbelievers need help to find him, help that can be given by the compelling witness of a faithful life.

In general the bishops reiterate familiar Catholic teachings, including the customary tendency to put the Bible in the back seat while formally stressing its indispensability. New birth comes through the sacrament of baptism, and the Mass is a sacrifice (but also a meal); yet some allusion is made to personal conversion, “accepting the spirit of Christ.” The Pope is the Vicar of Christ, but still there is a unity of all men under God, and the Jewish people are “elder brothers in faith.” Other ambiguities abound.

It is hardly surprising when a bishops’ conference backs tradition. We think it good that the Roman church in America did not simply bow to modernity, but it appears to us that the bishops have made so many concessions that they will find it difficult if not impossible to defend the positions they are trying to hold.

Shame Over Sinai

The Arab atrocities at the Munich Olympics were called to mind again by the action of the Israeli air force in shooting down a lost commercial airliner, caught in heavy clouds over Sinai and straying because of instrument difficulties. Munich was perpetrated by an illegal terrorist band, and most of the Arab governments did not endorse its actions. (Admittedly, they should have more frankly condemned what was done.) But the attack on the plane, with the resulting deaths of more than one hundred civilian passengers, was launched by order of the Israeli military chief of staff.

To compound the tragedy, the Israeli government, instead of frankly admitting a horrible wrong, initially defended its action, stressing that it was routine procedure. Subsequently it did accept partial responsibility, but Defense Minister Moshe Dayan still stressed that “we didn’t do anything to put us on the guilty side.” Although Israel offered to make payments to the victims’ families, it deliberately avoided calling the payment “compensation” lest admission of guilt be implied.

Why are most nations, like most individuals, so concerned to avoid admitting guilt and accepting blame?

The Jokes Of Lent

Christians in the liturgical churches are now observing Lent—the season of the Christian year that more than any other seems to inspire joking. People laughingly announce they’re going to give up teetotaling, lust, church-going, profanity, caviar, or pickled mushrooms for Lent. The joking probably reflects our twentieth-century discomfort with the idea of self-denial.

In the beginning Lent served as a time of prayer and fasting for candidates who would be confirmed or baptized at Easter. It can still serve a useful purpose for either liturgical or non-liturgical Christians. Why not make this a time to remind yourself of your baptism or confirmation, or whatever time you first publicly acknowledged Jesus as Lord?

And some form of self-denial would certainly be in order for pampered and stuffed Americans. It might help to remind us that those things we covet so hungrily and collect so assiduously really mean nothing next to the reality of Christ.

Wanted: $42 Million

“Seven Theological Schools”—Yale, Harvard, Union (New York), Chicago, Vanderbilt, Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley), and Notre Dame—are cooperating in a campaign to raise $42 million. The purpose is “to make theological education a more influential force in the moral structure of the nation.” A news release says: “Historically these schools have provided a significant part of the religious leadership of the nation.” Now the nation faces a “crisis in values,” and the deans of the Seven Schools have been meeting “to formulate plans and programs for meeting that crisis.” Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School declares that the goals include “preparation of a new generation of religious leaders who can transmit whatever in their religious tradition can pass the test of critical scrutiny.”

We heartily support theological seminary education. Moreover, almost all seminaries are greatly in need of financial assistance from the churches and from individual Christians, and a joint fund-raising campaign for similar enterprises makes sense. However, the announcement by Seven Theological Schools prompts some questions.

Billy Graham on Key 73

The reports about a growing misunderstanding in Christian-Jewish relationships over Key 73 has become a source of concern to me. In order to help ease some of these tensions, I want to explain my own position. While I have not been directly involved in the developing organization of Key 73, I have from the beginning publicly supported its concept.

First, as an evangelist, I am interested in establishing contacts with all men concerning personal faith in Jesus Christ. Implicit in any belief is the right of sharing it with others. The message that God is Love prompts any recipient of that love to declare it to others.

Secondly, just as Judaism frowns on proselyting that is coercive, or that seems to commit men against their will, so do I. Gimmicks, coercion, and intimidation have had no place in my evangelistic efforts, certainly not in historic biblical evangelism. The American genius is that without denying any one expression of their convictions, all are nevertheless partners in our society. The Gospel’s method is persuasive invitation, not coercion.

Where any group has used overbearing witness to seek conversions, the Bible calls it “zeal without knowledge.” I understand that it is the purpose of Key 73 to call all men to Christ without singling out any specific religious or ethnic group.

Thirdly, along with most evangelical Christians, I believe God has always had a special relationship with the Jewish people, as St. Paul suggests in the book of Romans. In my evangelistic efforts I have never felt called to single out the Jews as Jews nor to single out any other particular groups, cultural, ethnic, or religious.

Lastly, it would be my hope that Key 73, and any other spiritual outreach program, could initiate nationwide conversations, which would raise the spiritual level of our people, and promote mutual understanding.

What were these schools doing when the “crisis in values” was developing? Early in the twentieth century America had a set of values that it seems to have lost. Could it be that these schools that have indeed “provided a significant part of the religious leadership of the nation” helped to bring about the crisis they bemoan?

Prominent among the religious leaders the Seven have provided in recent years are Thomas Altizer, the “death of God” spokesman, a product of Chicago Divinity School; Harvey Cox, who received his theological education at Yale and Harvard; Colin Williams, dean of Yale Divinity School, who has said he considers Buddhism to be as valid as Christianity; Robert McAfee Brown, a Union graduate; the late James Pike, also from Union. Is this the kind of religious leadership the nation wants and needs? (To be sure, many former students at the Seven Schools, including two on our editorial staff, offer a different kind of leadership.)

Should not the public ask the Seven, whose efforts Marty calls “educationally ‘elitist,’ ” to specify what system of values they intend to promote? If, as they say, “many people remain lost in the confusions,” how will these institutions straighten them out?

As for the claim that the new leadership will “transmit whatever in their religious traditions can pass the tests of critical scrutiny”: whose critical scrutiny? What specific criteria will the scrutinizers have in mind? Answers to questions like these are most important, for they will tell us what kind of teaching institutions the Seven intend to be. Not that anyone is really in the dark about the general tone—past performance makes it seem certain that historic Christian orthodoxy will find little support at these schools.

The Seven Schools owe it to the foundations and individuals from whom they hope to get $42 million to state explicitly what their underlying presuppositions are. By their own admission, they had the chance to provide proper spiritual leadership for the country with their numerous influential graduates over the past few decades, and they blew it. What reason is there to think they are on the right track now?

The Bias In Words

Paul states flatly that “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” This portion of Scripture (2 Cor. 4:18) is quoted so often that we may be growing immune to its importance for our everyday affairs.

Consider, for example, how, in virtual repudiation of this principle, some words having to do with corporeality have come to be associated with primary value. We talk of “things that matter” and “things having real substance,” and the idea is that these are the most significant. When we refer to that which is immaterial or insubstantial, we mean a lack of reality or relevance.

These meanings are of recent origin; you will not find such usage in the King James Version. What we have is a good illustration of what happens when a philosophy takes over a culture. Materialism and empiricism have so dominated the minds of English-speaking people in modern times that now without even being aware of the implications we talk of the ultimate in terms of the physical. What matters is matter.

Christians must seek to be conscious of such intrusions and work to resist them, for acquiescence will deter the impact of the Gospel. We would all do well to watch our words more carefully, and try to avoid terms with unbiblical connotations.

For some years there has been a great deal of scholarly interest in the relation between religion and language. This interest has led to some unfortunate tangents, but at the very least it has had the beneficial effect of prodding us to think through a bit more about the nuances in our talk. It would be well if some scholarly study were devoted to the way in which anti-Christian prejudices have influenced the development of English word usage.

The assault on the dignity of man sparked by behavioral science today promises to be even more powerful than that provoked a century ago by the Darwinian controversy over evolution. The earlier argument was that since man’s ancestry was animal, he had no need to consider God his Maker. Today’s assumption is that since science can change human nature, God is dispensable as man’s Redeemer.

Another ramification of the debate, one given currency in Communist lands, also implies the irrelevance of Christianity: since Communism alone breeds a new man with a passionate commitment to socio-political revolution, the Christian churches offer mankind nothing to outweigh their obsolescence. In city after city, Mao’s China has therefore eliminated “parasitic” churches.

This dispute over the nature of man may not hold the highest priority on an evangelical agenda, but in the 1970s it surely belongs near the top. Consider the theological predicament of contemporary ecumenism. Since the World Council’s attempt to arrive at a common doctrine of God has collapsed into chaotic frustration, many ecumenists have turned instead to the doctrine of man in hopes it would lead to some intellectual unity. Yet because many churchmen obscure the truth of revelation, their definition of man no less than of God is highly confused.

Technocratic scientism sponsors the view that external reality can be wholly explained in terms of mathematically predictable continuities. The net effect of this theory is to eliminate any role for personal intelligence, will, and activity from the ultimately real world, and from nature and history, and from mankind objectively considered. Not only does the mechanistic explanation of the external world leave no scope for God’s personality, providence, and purpose; man himself is on these premises to be explained wholly in terms of natural processes and events. God may be subjectively significant for some individuals, but his personal agency assertedly has no important role in the external cosmos or history.

Behavioral scientists explain all man’s behavior in terms of inherited or environmental factors. Through genetic changes scientism hopes to eliminate the undesirable features of human nature and to clone or reproduce only the ideal ones.

Since science thus expects to be able to create and change human nature, and since God is presumed to count for nothing in cosmic and historical events, the only remaining role for deity is mythological. Creative human autonomy charts the future of history and of the cosmos, and the destiny of man as well.

The Communist vision of the new man, which in effect calls for a repudiation of the imago Dei and the substitution of the Marxist manifesto, presupposes dialectical materialism, or a special version of the theory that all reality can be reduced to natural processes and events. In “The Soul of China,” an article in the July, 1972, issue of Asian Challenge (journal of the Discipleship Training Centre in Singapore), Y. P. J. So notes that the revolutionary man idealized by Mao is the worker-intellectual with “a socialist consciousness and culture” whose ideological soundness is attested by socio-political engagement. Much the same point is scored by C. R. Hensman, who in his China: Yellow Peril? Red Hope? reports the claim by Maoists that they alone succeed in basically changing men by releasing their energies and enlarging their possibilities to transform “the not-yet-truly-human situation” to meet the requirements of the Cultural Revolution.

Miss So properly raises questions about the propriety of this concept of the “new man” because of the discrimination it breeds in educational policy and in human relations generally, the cruel deeds it approves for the sake of the Party, and its accommodations to supervision by the secret police. Moreover, she questions how realistic the concept is, in view of the recent “failure” of Lin Piao, who had been the hero of the Cultural Revolution.

With scientism and Communism each postulating the new man, it is all the more imperative that Christians declare what the Bible teaches, not only about the new birth but about the ideal man as well. Christians who hand over Genesis 1 and John 1 to the naturalists will soon learn that Genesis 3 and John 3 then have no place to stand. The First Adam is not irrelevant to the Second Adam.

The futuristic theologies that consider the resurrection of Jesus as prefiguring the type of humanity God approves, and that surrender the creation account to the realm of legend and mythology, show little awareness of how this same principle of concession led Bultmann to transform even the resurrection in a more comprehensive extension of scientific naturalism. To correlate the believer’s future conformity to the unique image of Jesus of Nazareth with a universal evolutionary scheme provokes all kinds of questions about the frontier significance of the Man of Galilee.

On the other hand, if the Logos of God is truly the divine agent in creation, redemption, and judgment, then the enfleshed Jesus as God’s obedient Son aptly proclaims what God ideally intended in the creation of man, and the biblical figure of Christ, not an evolutionary projection, reveals the image to which Christ’s brethren will be conformed in the age to come.

It is little wonder that Communism is constrained to rid itself of Jesus and the supernatural. How can it market its own concept of the new man without first eclipsing the biblical prototype? And how gain carte blanche to redefine the content of social justice, or separate it from God’s demand for personal holiness and from man’s need of the forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ, except by repudiating the particularity of revelational truth?

As for Western scientism, how else could it enhance man’s creative autonomy to shape the future and to redefine the ideal image of man, than by forfeiting Adam to the beasts and Jesus Christ to the realm of mythical demi-gods? The Nazi scientists would doubtless have cloned their new breed in the image of a very different Führer. May God preserve us from such “progress” in anthropology!

The contemporary generation is increasingly caught in a pincers movement represented by the technocratic scientism or naturalistic secularism of the West and the special version of naturalism promulgated by Sino-Soviet Communism. The one potent alternative is revelational religion. Little wonder therefore that Marxist lands repress and retard Christianity. The greater wonder of our time is that the so-called free world voluntarily neglects it.

Many of the problems of the individual Christian, and of the Church, are brought about by failure to understand our position in the world.

Soon to be separated from his disciples our Lord prayed for them. In that prayer are some significant statements, often overlooked.

In John 17:9 we read, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou has given me; for they are thine.”

In verse 14 we read, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

Again, in verse 16 we read, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

Are we not foolish when we try to blur a distinction our Lord affirms? Christ is unique and distinctive. And the distinctive status of the Christian makes him, too, in a spiritual sense, apart from the world. As a new creature in Christ he differs from the unregenerate world in perspective, life, and destination.

Then too, the Church as a spiritual organism is unique and distinctive. Composed of redeemed men and women, it is entrusted with the message of salvation to those whom the Bible calls lost.

A God-revealed realism demands that these distinctions be not only recognized but maintained at all costs, for it was to this end that our Lord came. “Should not perish but have everlasting life” depicts both the redeeming love of God in Christ and man’s lost condition without him.

The new birth means nothing if it does not mean a supernatural change, newness of life in Christ. This very difference is a witness in itself. Living in the world, a Christian is a citizen of heaven, and as such he is to exert a heavenly influence on his earthly environment. Our Lord said that salt is to be tasted and light seen. God forbid that we should lose our savor, or hide the light of the Spirit’s presence.

Some would confuse the place of the Christian and the mission of the Church in the world. We are here to witness, not to conquer; to give consistent and continuing evidence of the transforming power of Christ.

Nowhere in the Bible are we led to believe that all will accept Christ’s universal offer of salvation. The distinction between the two roads, the two gates, the regenerate and the unregenerate, heaven and hell, is never blurred. The “great gulf” is fixed, but to all men everywhere Christ says, “Come.” The reality of “outer darkness” and the “joy of our Lord” are determined by man.

Nor can we bypass the individual element in our witness. One church leader expressed the hope that the church should “adopt the principle of aiming at the conversion of whole societies, in contradiction to the traditional Protestant view of aiming only at individuals.” How this is to be accomplished without conversion of the individual is not explained. Christ came to seek and save lost individuals, who make up lost society.

We may not like the concept that some are God’s children (through faith in his Son) while others are children of the devil (through disobedience and unbelief), but this is the plain teaching of the Scriptures. Shall we deny the clear affirmations of the Bible because they do not fit our own ideas?

It is imperative that individual Christians and the Church itself maintain a clear and unimpaired testimony. The evidence of God’s operative grace should be there for all to see. To continue hampered by the impediments of the world means personal and corporate defeat on the one hand and a lost witness on the other.

When we are inclined to bemoan the powerlessness of the Church in the world, we would do well to examine the cause, not compound it. Power comes not from worldliness in any form but from the Spirit of the living God.

The distinction between the redeemed and the lost is as real as that between life and death, between light and darkness. Maintain this distinction and the Christian witness stands as a lighthouse for all to see. Fit Christianity into the world’s pattern of conformity and instead of life there is the pallor of death.

Confronted by proposed compromises with idolatory, Paul wrote the Corinthian Christians in no uncertain terms: “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils” (1 Cor. 10:21).

The reality of our surroundings is highlighted by the Apostle John: “We know that we are God’s family, while the whole godless world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19, NEB).

How then can we witness effectively in a corrupt and dying world? In a spirit of self-righteousness or condemnation of others? God forbid! We are to witness to man’s lost condition with love in our hearts and praise on our lips. Wise as serpents and harmless as doves, we grieve over the death-dues of sin while we magnify the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Nowhere is the winsomeness of Christian love needed more than right here. There should be a brokenheartedness in our approach, an urgency in our appeal, backed by the unassailable evidence of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our own personal lives.

Our warfare is not of the flesh but of the Spirit. He alone gives the victory, for we oppose forces against which no man can stand alone. For the Church and for the individual Christian the whole armor of God is a necessity. We are engaged in combat with the “unseen power that controls this dark world, spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil” (Eph. 6:12, Phillips).

Fight in God’s way and with his weapons and the victory is sure. Compromise with evil, take up the weapons of this world, and the battle is lost.

Revolting Men

Too long we men have been silent about the sexist nature of the Bible. Without question an anti-masculine stance characterizes the Scriptures in general.

It begins right at the beginning. Apparently Miriam and Zipporah got to Moses and muddled his mind. In Genesis 4:26 he comments about the third generation of the race that “at that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Moses apparently assumes that women either (a) did not need to call upon the name of the Lord or (b) were already doing so. The passage is an obvious, unforgivable slight to men.

And who are the perverted in the city of Sodom? The men, of course (Gen. 19:4). Presumably the women had kept their virtue in the midst of all this masculine depravity.

Moses’ crowning insult to men is recorded in the first chapter of Numbers. When it was necessary to gird for war to take the promised land, notice who was numbered to go. Right again—the men! Women were too valuable to expend in war.

This theme of masculine inferiority is also seen in Ecclesiastes. Solomon, continually reminded of the inferiority of males by his thousand wives, crumbled under pressure and wrote: “For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same.” The logical conclusion from his silence about women is that the daughters of women are destined for some better fate.

Even the Psalmist fell into this trap. He asks: “O Lord, what is man that thou dost regard him, or the son of man that thou dost think of him?” Obviously David felt it was self-evident what woman is that God should regard her.

And when the writer of Proverbs wants to describe wisdom to his son, does he picture a bearded sage with snowy locks? Surprise—wisdom is a she (Prov. 1:20)!

When we turn to the New Testament we find it’s no better. In the gospel accounts, virtually all the real villains are men. All the women are either faithful followers of Jesus or at worst weak creatures victimized by men.

Paul, often pictured by feminists as the original male chauvinist pig, is in actuality a detractor of men. He boldly asserts that in Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22). If you will check the data closely in Genesis 3, you will find that it was mother Eve who took the first forbidden nibble. Paul blithely sails over this evidence and fixes the blame on poor old Adam. Gentlemen, we’ve been had.

So there you have the whole unhappy business. It just goes to show that a little prooftexting and some phony exegesis will prove anything.

EUTYCHUS V

THE BURMESE QUALITY

I am writing to commend you for including the news article “The Church in Burma: Survival and Growth” (Jan. 19).… I would add that the Baptist churches alone have experienced a net growth of more than 25,000 baptized believers since missionaries were ousted in 1966. Permit me to suggest two minor corrections. Judson worked almost entirely among the Burmese, although the Karen “people movement” did begin during his lifetime. The Shans, who are Buddhists like the Burmese, have given little response to the Gospel. The Chins and Kachins, however, have responded strongly, and now constitute the second and third largest groups within the church. Last April, for instance, 12,000 Kachins attended the triennial meeting of the Kachin Baptist Convention, held about fifty miles from the Burma-China border. (The government assisted through making available needed supplies such as rice.)

Since both the “Red Flag” and “White Flag” Communist parties in Burma have been fighting the government of U Ne Win, it should be made clear that his totalitarian program, whatever else may be said about it, is not doctrinaire Communism. Christians, for instance, are continuing to experience freedom to worship, carry on Bible schools and seminaries, and propagate their faith.

Perhaps some observers “feared the worst” for Burma when the missionaries were ousted back in 1966. Few missionaries, however, were that worried, knowing the quality of Burma’s Christians, and sharing to some extent in the confidence of Judson, who when the outlook seemed very discouraging believed the future was “as bright as the promises of God.”

HERMAN G. TEGENFELDT

Associate Professor of Missions

Bethel Theological Seminary

St. Paul, Minn.

INTELLECTUAL ACUITY

Many thanks for the article “Onward, Christian Soldiers?” (Feb. 2), one which in my opinion has been long overdue. It is gratifying to see that there still are those Christian scholars who are not afraid to speak out in support of the military, an opinion which, it seems, is increasingly heard less and less for fear of being “unpopular” or “not with it.” But an opinion which accords more with the facts of reality than the more oft heard one labeling the military and anyone involved with the military as killers. Dr. Tischler’s article has touched upon issues that have hounded the Church since its very existence (even more so since the Constantinian era). Historically the Church has usually faced the problems squarely and with intellectual acuity, whereas now much of the Church has boarded the popular bandwagon of scholastic bankruptcy and popularism.

LT. LIONEL GREVE

Chaplain, USNR

Bristol, Conn.

I have just finished “Onward, Christian Soldiers?” and had to write and thank you for this excellent article. CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been a favorite publication of mine for some time. I always look forward to each publication. However, I appreciated this article more than any previous article of similar nature. In a time when such an outlook is not popular, I rejoice that the printed page can be used to point out our shortcomings. Now that many servicemen will be returning home, the Church has a Christian obligation to treat them with Christian love as human beings and Americans that have sacrificed much for this nation, not as uncivilized creatures from another world.

Church of God

E. C. HURLEY

Crestline, Ohio

I agree that wars have given us freedom and prosperity in America, and that to renounce violence and war might well involve giving up a measure of this freedom and prosperity. But we were quite willing to destroy a people (the Indians) to gain this country to begin with. Why should we cling to this tainted freedom and prosperity? Personally, it makes me quite uncomfortable, because God has passed judgment on such nations and societies in the past. He has given them over to their enemies—despite the strength of their armies.

Rolla, Mo.

ROSALEE WARREN

While I recognize Dr. Tischler’s right to write as she did and to feel as she does, I want to be on record as personally rejecting her tired logic and her shallow condemnation of the voices of opposition to the tragic war just ended and the dangers of militarism. Her article is so full of self-inflicted contradictions it would take another whole article to answer her completely; but at one point her defense of military men per se, on the grounds that “the military man does not have the freedom to decide when and where he will fight.… He has not caused the war nor decided to engage in it; his job is to carry out orders,” is the very reason why the military has become so suspect among some thoughtful people today. Dr. Tischler cannot convince me on the one hand that the military leaders are thoughtful, understanding, openminded, and compassionate men, and then ask me to excuse their actions in an immoral—yes immoral—war on the basis that they have no freedom and must simply carry out orders. That, for heaven’s sake, is what so much of the controversy is all about!

RICHARD C. WOODSOME

North Anderson Church of God

Anderson, Ind.

WOMEN IN THE FORE

You may not appreciate how good it was to read “Big Sister Is Watching” in your news section (Jan. 19).… As a long-time broadcaster (twenty-six years) and a relatively new Christian (I met Christ five years ago), this very problem has been troubling me now for some time. However, when any of us concerns ourselves about such matters by ourselves, nothing is what usually happens. In an attempt to see what is wrong with TV, and to what degree, I have even logged stations for their full broadcast days. The results are staggering as far as the number of commercials and the nature and treatment of subject matter is concerned. But you failed to give the address of Leadership Federation.…

It has been my observation that, all too often, when something needs doing and it just doesn’t get done, if the ladies take over, things begin to happen. There is no reason to believe that such will not be the case in this instance. God bless you, gals! And, maybe, if we promise to stay in our places and not “take over,” perhaps you’ll even allow some of us men to get in line and join in the effort to clean up television so that it is fit for every member of every family to watch. Who knows? Who knows? It might even be possible that (aside from an hour or so on very early Sunday mornings), we may be able to see some shows (in prime time?) that have some genuine value on those TV sets of ours.

Brandon, Vt.

DICK NOEL

• The address is: 4808 Cleveland Park Station, Washington, D. C. 20008.—ED.

OPEN VERSE

Regarding Marti McCartney’s verse letter on verse libre (Feb. 16), I’d like to make three points. First, bad poetry is bad poetry, whether or not rhymed and metered. Second, contra Robert Frost, tennis with the net down is a more difficult, if not an entirely different, game. Third, whether or not Robert Graves is a “great bard,” he is fanatically anti-Christian, to the point of denying that a poet can be a Christian. When Graves calls free verse heresy, he means a heresy from the goddess cult which, in The White Goddess, he elaborates as the only source of true poetry. As a Christian who writes open (not “free”) verse, I’m very glad to be considered heretical by the cranky likes of Mr. Graves.

Rolla, Mo.

EUGENE WARREN

May I say how much I have enjoyed the poetry recently printed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “Power Failure” by Francis Maguire (Dec. 8) is one example of the artistically integrated, thoughtful verse offered.

West Chicago, Ill.

LUCI SHAW

If, as stated, CHRISTIANITY TODAY aspires to be “A Fortnightly Magazine of Evangelical Conviction,” and if clarity and rightness of theological thinking may be assumed to be the necessary stance of the material included therein, how can anyone explain the appearance of the free verse (or whatever) “poem” “Thinking to Pray” by Eugene Warren?

What kind of attempt at the spectacular could be more offensive than this description of a confused mind still appraising—himself—and attempting to sound spectacular! So spectacular, in fact, that he sent the result to you—and it was published!… Sirs, the Lord of all the earth is not impressed and not edified by a jumble of affected jargon written in an attempt to be spectacular, and CHRISTIANITY TODAY should not be the tool for the dissemination of such unworthy and confused thinking.

Lincolnwood, Ill.

G. L. STRANDBERG

A DEBUNKING MATTER

I wish to correct an error which appeared in my essay “The Pastoral Ministry: Preparation” (Feb. 16). At one point I apparently complain about certain Christians who “debunk intellectualism.” It was my intention to say, “debunk intellectuality.” Intellectualism, the view that knowledge is exclusively intellectual, should be debunked; intellectuality, an essential quality of the image of God, should not.

DAVID WELLS

Associate Professor of Church History

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Ill.

My compliments to Dr. Wells for his excellent essay on seminary preparation. As a guideline, his presentation is invaluable, and his guiding educational philosophy—teach the intellectual courses more intelligently and the practical courses more pragmatically—is simple, yet insightful. One suggestion which might be considered in the area of personal growth is rather than giving faculty more opportunity to guide the students in their spiritual lives, as Dr. Wells suggests, give that opportunity to the student. Perhaps one of the best untapped clinical situations the student is confronted with is the ministry to his fellow students. A structured period of time allowing for student dialogue on a personal level would fit nicely into Wells’s suggested program.

Dallas, Tex.

ROBERT WALL

Being a senior in Bible college and looking forward to seminary training, I found the essay by David F. Wells very pertinent to my present situation. Much of his article can be applied to Bible-college training. His suggestion that practical instruction be shifted, as to location, from the institution to the local church is correct. His comments concerning widespread anti-intellectualism were most interesting.

Columbia, S. C.

CLINTON MORRISON

A QUESTION OF LIBERTY

In response to your February 16 editorial “Abortion and the Court,” I would like to point out that there are many Christians—evangelicals like myself among them—who feel that abortion is a question of Christian liberty. I resent your constant equation of your personal position on the issue with “the moral teachings of Christianity through the ages.”

I have thoroughly studied the biblical, theological, medical, sociological, and legal aspects of the issue, and I find it much more difficult to come to a hard and fast rule in the matter than you seem to. You say you find it difficult to understand the contention that conception is a “process” and to see how this relates to the broader issues of when personhood begins. I suggest you read the pertinent chapters of Walter Spitzer’s and Carlyle Saylor’s Birth Control and the Christian, particularly the chapter by Dr. Kenneth Kantzer, dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. There he makes a clear, and to me convincing, case on biblical and theological grounds for the development of personhood beginning at conception, yes, but only attaining completion at birth. One accepting Kantzer’s argument would have no difficulty in seeing the Supreme Court’s decision as compatible with Christian principles.

Also, you seem to dismiss the Court’s argument from the right of privacy without any additional “empirical or logical justification.” Is not this right of privacy also one of the bulwarks protecting every Christian’s right of conscience? While it is true that any decision concerning conception should be shared by both parents, the practice of the double standard has often left women to bear this decision alone. And what makes you think that men would be less likely to favor abortion than women? (Incidentally, you also seem to feel that the majority of Americans share your condemnation of abortion. However, several nationwide polls have shown that the majority of Americans do favor making abortion a matter of decision between the parents and their physician.)

Getting hysterical over the decision and suggesting that it will lead to infanticide and euthanasia does not help the situation. However, recognizing at last that the United States is not a “Christian country” and that Christians will have to begin to think through their own moral values rather than blindly accepting the ethics of common law is a very healthy step forward. Christians can no longer shrug off the issue of abortion by saying “it’s illegal.” Now they will have to give some serious study and thought to the issue. Rather than merely pointing to “Christian tradition” (I notice you can’t claim biblical authority on this one), why not explore all sides of the issue?

Mundelein, Ill.

NANCY HARDESTY

May I express hearty thanks for what was to me the only interpretation from an evangelical Christian point of view concerning the abortion issue and the Supreme Court ruling that I have read. As a missionary in Japan (1950–70) I felt keenly many times the impact of your statement: “The American state no longer supports in any meaningful sense the laws of God.…” The American missionary’s task in recent years has been difficult enough, what with the racial disturbances, the Viet Nam war, the rulings on pornography and so on, and this ruling will not make his task any easier, or his witness for Christ any more convincing.

Washington, D. C.

WORTH C. GRANT

It seems to me that you have always been able to see into the background of issues facing this nation and have kept them in perspective until this article. Here the emotion of the issue seems to have clouded your vision. The basic mistake is to confuse legality and morality. The Court’s decision does not compel abortion, though it admittedly makes legal what you point out is immoral. The same thing happened in the case of alcohol. It is not a question of whether these abortions shall be made legal.

We in America have lived under the illusion that this is a Christian nation, and that our laws will always reflect the highest morality. If for no other reason, the Court’s decision should awaken Christians to the fact that legality for the American and morality for the Christian are two different things. The same thought may be expressed relating to prayers in the public schools. It is not the business of the public institution to teach spirituality to our children, but rather that of the church and the parent.… If we Christians would get over the idea of political power and influence and concentrate our efforts of persuasion toward setting forth the higher morality of the Christian, much of our labor would no longer be wasted as it is now.

The last sentence of your article is the most significant of all, and really sets forth the issues clearly. I question whether the American state has ever supported the laws of God, but in any case, first-century Christians must indeed be amused, (if they are concerned with earthly things) at your concern over lack of support from the “state.” As I understand it, the world, including our own country, is and has been from the beginning at enmity with Christ and those who are determined to follow him.

I do enjoy your magazine, but feel you missed the basic issue here. Separation of church and state goes beyond financial support.

Fort Worth, Tex.

GEORGE L. NORRIS

TV ABORTION

I read with interest the editorial in your February 16 issue “Aborting ‘Maude’.”

As an outgrowth of this particular series on “Maude” and the general handling of morality in media, the Texas Congress of Parent Teacher Association petitioned all of the networks, the President of the United States, right down the line to the state government to hold hearings to see if there has not been a violation of the moral code that all networks in good standing subscribe to.… It is going to take much more than just “switching channels” to stop this programming, however.

MRS. M. L. MCFADDEN

San Angelo, Tex.

NO OUTGROWTH

Your December 22 issue referred to IFCO as “the outgrowth of James Forman’s financial assault on the churches.” This is a grossly unfair and incorrect statement. IFCO was incorporated and began to operate in 1966—three years before Forman’s “assault.” We are not an outgrowth of anything related to Forman. We are a creation of church agencies to provide money, technical assistance, and training to community organizations.

LUCIUS WALKER, JR.

Executive Director

IFCO

New York, N. Y.

Film Evangelism: A Time To Change

Wealthy Warren Cole, society mother Fran, teen-age son Jeff, and Miss Pollyanna Christian, Michelle, Jeff’s girlfriend, are the main characters in Time to Run, a new film produced by World Wide Pictures. Thematically there has been little change since the filming of The Restless Ones: characters, plot, and outcome are quite similar. But there are some differences in the execution of this film. The changes are intended to bridge the evangelical culture gap and help the film appeal to the general movie-going public.

In World Wide’s newest film, the young Christians attend not churches but rock concerts on Sunday afternoons. Jeff’s parents don’t become Christians, though Jeff, played by Randall Carver, does. The traditional visit to a Billy Graham crusade with parents and son going forward is missing. Instead, Jeff picks up two Jesus people going to a Graham meeting. As he sits in the crusade parking lot eating an orange and listening to the evangelist over the loudspeaker, his parents watch the same sermon on television. The camera switches from Jeff and his orange to Graham and his message. At the invitation Jeff drives off and his parents turn off their set. This realistic touch does not entirely compensate for the contrived effect of introducing the crusade scenes in the first place. There ought to be a way to present the biblical message without the telltale “And now a word from our sponsor …”

Writer Allan Sloane built the plot and title around Francis Thompson’s poem, “The Hound of Heaven.” As the movie opens, Michelle, a college student played by Barbara Sigel, is reading the poem to unbeliever Jeff:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Although Jeff seems satisfied with his life and just laughs about Thompson’s hound, trouble begins with a television interview.

Actor Ed Nelson (Dr. Rossi of “Peyton Place” fame) plays Jeff’s father, winner of a local industrial-achievement award. As Warren gives his acceptance speech, Jeff tells reporters why he dislikes the “military-industrial complex” his father is a part of. That evening when Warren asks Jeff about what he said, a fight ensues. But Director Jim Collier doesn’t provide enough tension and dramatic buildup to account for the son’s sudden walkout. Jeff packs his things, throws his credit card at his father, and drives off in his General Motors van (bought for him by his father).

Jeff reacts in a similar way to Michelle’s Christian piety. Alone with her, he says, “We could really make it here together.” She gives him an injured, little-girl look and walks away from him without really dealing with the situation. Somehow Michelle’s treatment of Jeff makes one wonder whether she does indeed love him as she says. Jeff storms out, leaving Michelle wide-eyed and confused. Collier makes Michelle look like a more-than-modern coed (though her ultra-mini skirts are now somewhat out of fashion), not quite in character with her actions.

The dialogue misses the mark in trying to be “with it.” Jeff hides out in an unoccupied mansion (his big misdeed, which gets him charged with a misdemeanor and a $50 fine) and Michelle goes to see him. Michelle’s remark, “You look pretty strung out,” seems strange, since Jeff’s appearance hasn’t changed. He melodramatically replies, “I’ve been trying to put it all together.” The best and most dramatic line follows: “If you mention that Jesus stuff, I’ll throw up.” Jeff serves that line with true disgust.

It takes four policemen and a TV-style chase to capture Jeff at the mansion, which seems a little forced for one whose only crimes besides trespassing were three speeding tickets.

The rebel finally leaves and travels across the country, still, unbelievably, clean-shaven and neatly dressed (see photo). Eventually he returns to Michelle, stops running from the hound of heaven, and testifies at another Sunday-afternoon concert (the kids are singing “Kumbaya”). His parents arrive on the scene and the three are reunited. Here the action stops and Billy Graham invites those who have felt “the hound of heaven … tugging at your heart” to come to the front of the theater and commit their lives to Christ.

Time to Run will reach some kids (about twenty teen-agers made commitments for Christ at the matinee this reviewer attended). But it is doubtful that this technique of evangelism will work with moviegoers off the street (some viewers were heard to comment cynically about the ending). The film seems aimed at an evangelical audience. A spokesman for World Wide Pictures said inquiries are running as high as 10 per cent of the viewing audiences. For example, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, 68,500 attended showings and more than 7,000 inquiry cards were turned in.

Warren Cole remarks to Jeff, “You could never be any more than an annoyance.” He was this to his parents, his girlfriend, and himself. This reviewer wishes he had been less of an annoyance and had instead shown a sense of deep-seated, deeply realized sinfulness.

Making a believable Christian film is a difficult task; a project conceived with Francis Schaeffer’s blessing at L’Abri was stillborn. Although World Wide Pictures has the technical potential and the resources, a vital element of believability is still missing. A more sensitive portrayal of characters would help, but there is a deeper problem that will be difficult if not insuperable. The celluloid medium is the vehicle of illusion par excellence: can it believably convey spiritual truth?

CHERYL FORBES

In today’s culture, formal philosophy is infrequently taught and less often understood. Values for living are often put forward and discussed not so much in academic treatises as in the creative arts, including drama, music, literature, and the visual arts, all of which have been dealing in religious dimensions more overtly of late. Failure to recognize the “messages” in such cultural expressions does not mean that one is immune to their influence.

Evangelicals are showing an increasingly lively interest in the arts, and a more critical eye and ear. We welcome this, and respond with a new feature, “The Refiner’s Fire,” under the direction of Editorial Associate Cheryl Forbes. For its premiere we offer two items. First, an engaging introductory article on critical discernment by Bonnie M. Greene, who teaches English at Bellevue Christian High School in Bellevue, Washington, is a free-lance writer, and has B.A. degrees from Seattle Pacific College and the University of Washington. Next comes a sprightly review of the film “Time to Run” by Miss Forbes, graduate of and graduate student in English literature at the University of Maryland, a member of our editorial staff for two years, a singer and music lover, and the only person we know who reads Milton for pleasure. “The Refiner’s Fire” will appear every other issue. Perhaps it will be the area of the magazine that calls forth the most reader dissent, for criticism is always a subjective realm.

Discerning Artistic Spirits

Of all the paintings and prints in my living room, only one is by an artist whose name brings instant recognition. And it is that print which often prompts a guest to ask if I am an amateur artist. I explain that it is a print and attempt to change the subject, for I know he’ll blush and laugh nervously when he hears that the painting reproduced is by Van Gogh. In his embarrassment, he’ll probably mutter something about how long it has been since he took art appreciation in junior high. His discomfiture is too great to allow the kind of chuckle the situation deserves, nor do I really feel free to drive out the old myth about the “world of art”—an exotic place that we may all visit on our vacations, but that is open during the off-season only to the rich and to the artists themselves.

Whether they know it or not, even people who claim to prefer the “objective verities” of the sciences participate in the world of art every day. For art is a means of stylizing a basic heart commitment, whether it comes from the brush of an artist who makes his living by giving shape on canvas to his understanding of life, or whether it is reflected in the hard-cash purchase of a seascape to fill the blank space over the fireplace. A person who visits an art gallery only when he’s on a tour to Paris or Rome is nonetheless likely to decorate his home with prints of the safe masterpieces, or perhaps with the large garish scenes found in the drugstore. He pays taxes to support art collections in municipal museums, to fill libraries with fiction, poetry, and drama, and to staff state schools that train many of the nation’s future artists. If he watches the nightly news on TV, he glimpses glittering events at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he may bristle when a presidential council suggests federal funding for the arts. He watches movie adaptations of Hardy and Conrad novels to relax before going to sleep, and he may even go to a play or two—Fiddler on the Roof, if not The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. And so the average person does participate in the aesthetic life of his community, as an involuntary patron if not an actual consumer.

The major art movements can affect a person more subtly than he could imagine. One of the best examples of art’s broad influence is in the use of asymmetrical magazine layouts, which were introduced in Vogue back in 1920 by an art director who loved the work of Pieter Mondriaan. Within thirty years Mondriaan’s ideas about art had changed the face of nearly all the better-known magazines in the country. The average person read the magazines without knowing that serious art was pushing its way into his life.

If art didn’t have much influence on the rest of life, it might be all right for a Christian to choose to ignore art except when it intruded into his life unavoidably. But art is powerful, and it is persuasive. Furthermore, art is important because it forms a part of the way we put our lives together. In the paintings, the dances, the sculptures, and the music with which we surround ourselves are found the spirits—whether of apostasy or of faithfulness—that shape our heart’s understanding of life.

“Highbrow” art aside (ordinarily a fruitless distinction for the Christian), the spirits of the age shout loudly from the art produced for mass consumption. For instance, one branch of American mass art is a sort of dehumanized paean to technology. The furniture is made of cold chrome and vinyl, and the vibrant, geometric shapes of the paintings and sculptures reflect the power and might of the machine. And the women’s magazines translate the methods of modern technology into simple terms so that a reader can create decorative art from tin cans and doweling while the children are at school.

Another branch of mass art rejects the power of technology in a back-to-nature stylization of the old romantic concern for individual freedom. The hand-crafted look turns up in ethnic art, in macramé wall-hangings, in découpage on dressers, in batik screens, in jasmine-scented sand candles, and in many other forms. It makes little difference how odd the piece is, as long as it obviously was made by hand rather than by machine.

Art for the mass market also breathes the romantic spirit in the escapist pieces that fill department stores, Bible bookstores, and discount houses all across the country: seascapes that never saw an oil slick or a dead gull, pictures of children with over-sized eyes, portraits of families who never heard an angry word or the whining of a tired child, and ceramic moldings of panthers, peacocks, and every conceivable kind of exotic plant. This never-never-land kind of art fits perfectly into the plushly romantic decor of many American homes. Even the “highbrow” art that reaches the masses of people comes in condensed versions of the classics and in such television romances as Jane Eyre, which stripped the novel’s heroine of her classic feminist trappings, substituting a beautiful actress for the thin and ugly Jane.

Whether one chooses to decorate his surroundings with reproductions from the supermarket or original prints from the Museum of Modern Art, the art he chooses grows out of a perception of life that is rarely articulated and that might dismay him if it were.

Art is powerful and persuasive not only because it is a part of a person’s life style but also because many artists have something important to say about their heart’s perception of life. An artist’s perception of the meaning of life engages the whole man—the senses, the emotions, the intellect—and calls for a commitment of some sort from his audience, whether a minimal response of sympathy for a character or a major response of devotion to an ideal. For instance, Shakespeare’s dramatizations of events taken from Holinshed’s Chronicles gave uneducated Elizabethans an afternoon of entertainment and beauty and also, without straying into propaganda or didacticism, aroused their sensibilities to basic human issues: questions of morality, justice, the source of government’s authority, the limitations of power. The same questions were implicit in the histories of Holinshed, but Shakespeare’s dramatic art, which was not essentially intellectual, drew a fuller response from the viewer than did the historian’s prose. Even art that is only mediocre as art can prompt a reaction to important issues. The reader of Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man chokes with anger and frustration at the injustice and exploitation the hero encountered as a child and in college. Although he probably does not close the book with an articulated plan for combating injustice and racism, he knows he can never again gaze indifferently at racist institutions and customs.

Because art is powerful, because it is important, and because it is unavoidable, the Christian should learn to discern the spirits that move it. Part of his personal commitment to Jesus Christ is a responsibility to grow in his understanding of how Christ’s redemption claims his entire life, even his participation in the arts. The Christian who does not test the spirits of the art he encounters makes himself vulnerable to subtle influences he might heartily disapprove were he aware of them. Furthermore, the Christian is called to speak the prophetic Word of the Lord for aesthetic life to those around him, whether they be his own children or skilled playwrights, painters, poets, and musicians.

Admittedly, discerning the spirit of an art work is no easy task. The critical tools taught in high school and college develop skilled readers, but only the eye of faith can see beyond the intricacies of the technical performance to perceive the artistic response to the Law-Word of God. What the artist sees and puts down in words, colors, or sounds grows directly out of his heart’s perception of life. If he sees the healing redemption of Christ coming to men in need of real salvation from real sin and guilt, his basic outlook (though not necessarily his style or his subject matter) will be totally different from that of the person who thinks of the world as an intriguing, if perverse, place to be manipulated and developed for man’s pleasure. There are as many different attitudes toward the world and man’s place in it as there are artists, of course, but only the eye of faith will recognize the apostasy or the faithfulness that motivates the artist’s heart direction. For instance, Picasso’s broken figures and distorted human faces suggest an irreparable brokenness of life, but Janice Russell, a Christian painter from Chicago, gives her people a look of serenity in the midst of the brokenness. Russell shows Picasso’s influence in her style, but her own vision of healing transforms that style to reflect the Truth.

Exercising the eye of faith takes considerable practice. Courses in art criticism seldom speed up the process, for the job is much more than a critical exercise. The Christian faces a battle of spirits involving the whole person. To enable him to get to the heart of a work without being sidetracked by less important considerations, Calvin Seerveld, in A Christian Critique of Art and Literature, offers three questions that lead to a basic understanding of the artist’s heart attitude toward Jesus Christ. He asks himself: (1) What does the work say about man? (2) What does it say about the universe? and (3) What does it say about sin?

Many modern writers portray man as a helpless victim or an aimless wanderer for whom satisfying life is impossible. Heinrich Böll’s novel The Clown relates the downfall of a mime who begins to disintegrate when his common-law wife leaves him because friends convince her that the church must sanction her marriage. The novel’s final scene pictures a dissipated mime playing the part of a jongleur on the steps of a Bonn railway station among people who remain nameless and indifferent to his anguish. With similar hopelessness, Robinson Jeffers’s poem “To the Stone-Cutters” expresses what many serious writers feel:

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated

Challengers of oblivion

Eat cynical earnings.…

For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun

Die blind and blacken to the heart

The hopelessness depicted in many European plays and films like La Dolce Vita suggests that while man’s life is terrifyingly empty, he is incapable of salvation because he doesn’t have the ears to hear, and the prophet is dumb as well.

Other writers do not express despair as much as they picture men who are sickly parodies of the whole, healthy men intended to reflect God’s image. John Updike’s couples are inclined to little more than illicit sexual relations. B. F. Skinner’s scientists in Walden Two are so scientifically programmed that they hardly seem to breathe. In the film The Twenty-fifth Hour Roumanian peasants are reduced to cringing shells of human beings by their political conquerors, who are themselves reduced to unfeeling beasts. Sartre’s prisoners in No Exit testify that human beings are fiendish hypocrites, driven by total selfishness.

At the other extreme are the optimists who paint a hyper-rosy world. Although the happily-ever-after novels and the cheerful movies enjoy wide audiences, they seldom reach the plain of serious art and therefore do little to counter the black resignation of much of the modern art world.

But what about artists who say something positive and true about man? Although incisive revelations of the human heart occur quite frequently in serious art, few artists elicit a biblical response from the viewer. One who does is Georges Rouault. One of the most moving paintings in modern art is his portrait of two sagging prostitutes, which with grey-blue hues suggests that the artist sees sin and what it does to human beings, but also knows that above all they are human beings and need compassion. Flannery O’Connor continually asserts that the cripples, the fat, and the ugly are human beings who must be treated as such, and not as cases for developing social responsibility, or experiments in applied psychology, or just plain trash. F. J. Powers’s short stories portray priests in the pettiness of daily life, but they are men who live in true faithfulness to God because they are whole men, not waxen figurines who whisper ineffectual prayers to occupy their time.

The characters in a book are usually clearly drawn, but the author’s understanding of the kind of world they live in may be only suggested by such elements as the role of “fate,” the successfulness of the hero’s struggle, and the kind of salvation deemed possible. For instance, Hemingway leaves Frederick Henry without a country, without Catherine, and without hope; as A Farewell to Arms closes, he is at the end of a road in a closed world where men suffer under cosmic frustration. In Waiting for Godot Lucky and Pozzo wait interminably and pointlessly in a wasteland world in which salvation is continually promised but never realized. Camus’s narrator in The Fall describes an inferno-like world of growing evil in which the judge/penitent confesses his way into a superior position and thence into the spot vacated by the God of his ancestors. Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage plods along in a world to which she knows salvation will never come; her only response is to keep plodding and to continually whittle human needs down to the sliver that men can expect to fulfill. And in The Great Gatsby the only supernatural force is the feeble remnant found in the celebrated eyes of Dr. Eckleburg, which stare across an ash heap at the tragedies of human life.

Among more popular artists the most common views of the world are probably epitomized by two films of the sixties, The Graduate and Easy Rider. In the first view, the “good guy/little guy” breaks through the evils of the system and creates a new world for himself through courage, luck, reason, or whatever happens to fit the artist’s tastes. Works of this sort might include Jane Eyre, Zadig, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and Seize the Day. On the other hand, Easy Rider is an example of the kind of work in which the “good guy/little guy” takes the brunt of the senseless outbursts of an implacable system. Other works like it might include The Stranger, All My Sons, and The Pawnbroker, works in which the protagonists struggle but find the obstacles too great for them to overcome.

Few modern artists have a biblical sense of the world and man’s place as the crown of the creation, yet subject to the law of God. One who does is Jerry Koukal, a Seattle artist, who frequently expresses the idea that some things endure in this life despite the chaotic changes most people encounter from one year to the next. His style is almost anachronistically representational, with old but working pumps, weatherbeaten barns and rural houses, and beached dinghies filling his landscapes. Flannery O’Connor’s gothic tales express the horrible violence that breaks forth when the spirits of good and evil clash in a world suffering under the weight of spiritual battles. In one of her best-known stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” a foolish old woman is murdered when she presses her feeble faith on a convict who holds her at gunpoint. The woman’s death is horrible and shocking, but O’Connor recognizes that the world marred by sin is not a place where good always prevails and evil men fall before the tin swords of the puniest Christians.

When the Christian confronts the portrayal of sin and evil in art, he has to keep his wits about him, for many authors use very complex narrative devices that disguise their personal attitudes. For instance, Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and Defoe’s Moll Flanders tell their own stories, but they are not to be trusted implicitly because at times they may be ignorant, naïve, overly emotional, or simply deceived. In a similar manner, Antonioni used the out-of-focus shot in The Red Desert to suggest the viewpoint of a woman who didn’t understand everything she saw.

Many artists are more straightforward in their narrative technique, and therefore their attitudes toward the sin they depict are more easily discerned. In The Morning Watch James Agee describes a churlish teen-ager who blasphemes while he genuflects at a pre-dawn Lenten watch; Agee’s sympathies are so clearly with his sensitive companion who struggles to worship sincerely that there is no doubt what the author thinks of the young hypocrite.

Sometimes the Christian faces the problem of determining what the artist considers to be sin. Some look on evil as a result of poor conditioning, while others see it as simply an asocial phenomenon. Probably the most widespread attitude toward sin is the reduction of real sin and genuine guilt to transgressions of society’s rules and mere guilt feelings. The pattern begins in children’s books (which seldom pretend to be art, of course): no one plays with the neighborhood bully until he stops picking on the little children on the block. In books for adults, a democratic consensus on what is sinful is so widespread a standard that it often goes undetected until a particular evil is traced back through several generations of writers. For instance, though abortion has always been a popular form of birth control throughout much of the world, few serious authors treated it sympathetically until quite recently. John Barth’s The End of the Road has a modern stamp because he creates sympathy for the lovers who are forced into incredible trickery to find an abortionist because the mores of their small-college town are so “old-fashioned.” Clearly, enough people now approve of abortion to allow Barth such an open attack on the anti-abortion faction.

It is extremely important that the Christian apply a biblical standard for judging sin, rather than one that sees sexual sins as the only ones worth worrying about. For instance, Robinson Crusoe and Horatio Alger are guilty of greed and exploitation, which are just as immoral as Tom Jones’s sexual problems. The Christian’s task in such a case is to be careful that he is not subtly induced to join the author in approving evil that many would not call evil because they live by the wrong spirit.

In an age that prides itself on its honesty and frankness, it’s not surprising that many serious writers recognize what sin does to man. Even apart from social-protest literature, the broken relics of sinful living fill the pages of many modern novels. Shirley Jackson’s parable “The Lottery” describes the terrible selfishness that results from clinging religiously to irrational tradition. In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams clearly pictures the paralysis and slow death that a sick mother inflicts on her children. Some of the best-known paintings of the century express the tragedy of sin’s effects on human life: Chirico’s “The Anguish of Departure,” Picasso’s “Guernica,” Shahn’s “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti.”

Nevertheless, the artist who perceives the horrors of sin seldom offers more than sympathy or an appeal to the nation’s social conscience. Few artists know the hope of true healing through Christ’s redemption, and those who do run the danger of turning their aesthetic efforts into polemic, dogma, or theology. There are some, however, who reveal a rare Christian understanding that sin reaches deep and complicates life so much that simple solutions and perfectly happy endings are not possible.

The Christian’s analysis of art will be an arduous and lonely task, for there are few teachers to encourage and even fewer critics to guide. If grappling with the spirits of aesthetic life leaves us tired and discouraged because the armies of the Lord are so few in number, we need not worry; fatigue is not deadly. The real cause for alarm will come if we allow ourselves to shrink from this gargantuan task because our faith is too small, too simplistic, to meet the despair and perplexity expressed in the works of the artists among us.

BONNIE M. GREENE

An anonymous homiletical manuscript of the thirteenth century, produced at Bruges, offers a seven-point comparison between the preacher and a rooster: (1) The rooster beats his sides before crowing; the preacher must mortify himself before preaching. (2) The rooster stretches his neck to crow; the preacher must lift his attention to heavenly things. (3) The rooster crows at certain particular hours; the preacher likewise. (4) The rooster shares his grain with the hens; the preacher must be willing to communicate his truths to others. (5) The rooster attacks his rivals; the preacher must attack all heresies. (6) The rooster shuts his eyes before the sun; the preacher must close his eyes to the blandishments of success. (7) The rooster mounts his wooden roost at nightfall, coming down only at daybreak; amidst temptation, the preacher must fly to the Cross of Christ as his resting place.

The preacher-rooster comparison can be extended further (and not just to the painfully cocky mannerisms of some pulpiteers). As the rooster crowed three times to announce Peter’s denial of his Lord, so contemporary preaching often manifests—wittingly or unwittingly—a denial of the inscripturated Word of God and the Christ on whom it centers. Fulton Sheen, the retired Roman Catholic bishop of Rochester, observed in a recent address before the first National Congress on the Word of God: “People are not listening to us because we are often preaching sociological drivel instead of Christ crucified. We have a cross-less Christ and a Christ-less cross.”

How do we avoid such a tragic situation? Not by the naïve and arrogant assumption that because we are of evangelical or conservative persuasion we are immune to homiletical ills. Preaching is so high a calling and so difficult that all of us must pray Luther’s great sacristy prayer: “Use me as thy instrument in thy service. Only do not thou forsake me, for if I am left to myself, I will certainly bring it all to destruction.” The ease with which the preaching office can be brought to destruction—the ease with which the foolishness of preaching can be replaced by the preaching of foolishness—impels us to consider the criteria for genuine sermonizing in today’s world. These are: the essentiality of the Word, the irreducibility of Law and Gospel, and the centrality of Christ.

1. The essentiality of the Word. In the simplest terms: no Word, no preacher. What distinguishes a preacher from an orator or lecturer is not the organization of his discourse or his style of presentation; historians of rhetoric have definitively shown that preachers use the preparatory techniques and methods of delivery common to all formal public speaking. The distinguishing mark of the preacher lies in the content of his remarks: unlike all other public speakers, he claims to convey a divine truth, not human opinion—a given that has absolute, apodictic force, not a tentative presentation of his own opinions or those of other finite and fallible creatures. All other speakers say, “Thus hypothesizes man”; the preacher cries: “Thus saith the Lord.”

When contemporary preachers disregard their true calling as messengers who have the unsearchable riches of Christ to proclaim, they quickly bore their listeners with their own limited and definitely searchable ideas—and the listeners cease to listen. No Word, no preaching. And from this formula follow three corollaries.

First, all genuine preaching is expository preaching. This does not mean that a sermon cannot focus on the central theme of a passage rather than on every verse individually, or that proper sermonic themes cannot bring together insights from many texts of Scripture. What this means is that every true sermon presents biblical content, and thus demands the exposition of God’s written Word. Chrysostom quite properly noted that the value of expository preaching lies in the fact that here “God speaks much and man little.”

The great theologian Reu put the matter well:

That which edifies is, in the last instance, not the mental ability of the preacher, but the divine Word alone. Wealth of ideas, psychological skill, beauty of language, charm of delivery, have their value in the awakening of interest, and should be sought after by the preacher, but they cannot produce nor strengthen justifying faith. This is done solely by the edifying power of the Word of God [Homiletics, 1922, p. 127].

God’s promise attaches to the proclamation of his Word, and to no other proclamation. Only when the preacher functions as messenger can he be sure of his relevance.

Corollary two: Every preacher must be an exegete, and the more he exegetes, the more genuinely he preaches. If the Word of God is the true source of the preacher’s insights, he must expound it; but to expound it he must understand it, and since it comes to him in written language, he must analyze it linguistically. Here there is no substitute for a knowledge of the original languages of Scripture. To rely on translations and commentaries is to be forever at the mercy of secondary authorities. Luther was convinced that the lack of knowledge of the biblical languages was the major reason why the medieval church fell away from the Gospel: preachers and theologians came to rely on the opinions of men (commentaries on commentaries on commentaries) instead of hearing God himself speak through holy men of old whom he inspired. In his great educational mandate, To the Mayors and Aidermen of All the Cities of Germany in Behalf of Christian Schools (1524), Luther wrote:

We will not preserve the Gospel without the languages.… In comparison with the glosses of the fathers, the languages are as sunlight to darkness.… Preaching is sluggish and weak, and the people finally become weary and fall away. But a knowledge of the languages renders it lively and strong, and faith finds itself constantly renewed through rich and varied instruction.

The third corollary of the essential function of the Word to the preaching office is rejection of contemporary theology’s so-called hermeneutical circle. In his exegesis, the preacher must not make the appalling mistake of thinking, as do followers of the Bultmannian and post-Bultmannian “new hermeneutic,” that the text and one’s own experience enter into a relation of mutuality, and that this “Word-event,” not an objective divine message in the text, is the proper substance of preaching. To bind text and exegete into a circle is not only to pull all theology and preaching into the orbit of anthropocentric sinfulness but also to remove in principle the very possibility of a “more sure word of prophecy” than the vagaries of men. Preaching ceases, for God stutters, and mankind is left with no clear remedy for the human predicament. Grady Davis, one of the best contemporary theoreticians of the sermon, leaves no room for the hermeneutical circle when he insists that the preacher must “adjust his thinking to Scripture’s real idea, not adjust Scripture’s words to fit his thinking” (Design For Preaching). This is the very essence of the Word’s essentiality.

2. The irreducibility of Law and Gospel. Even when sermons are expository and exegetical, the Divine Word may not be conveyed. How is this possible? It occurs when the overall purpose and thrust of the Bible are missed. This problem is endemic in evangelical circles and warrants close attention.

One of the few theologically praiseworthy remarks made by the late Harry Emerson Fosdick was his comment that some preachers think the congregation arrives on Sunday morning panting to hear the history of the Amalekites. Fosdick didn’t believe that what Scripture says about the Amalekites was God-inspired, of course, but his criticism of “Amalekite sermons” is still valid. Although the Bible speaks inerrantly on this subject as on all others it touches, the grand purpose of Scripture is to present salvation as centering on God’s Son. Any preaching that loses the Tree of Life among the other trees in the biblical forest is merely an exercise. A sermon—however carefully done—that describes all the animals mentioned in the Book of Isaiah is a lesson in homiletical pedantry.

How do we avoid this pitfall? First, by properly distinguishing Law and Gospel. Throughout Scripture, God informs us of his standards (the Law) and offers us his free and unmerited grace (the Gospel). The purpose of the Law is principally to drive us to Christ (Gal. 3:24) by showing us how far we fall short of his revealed will for us. The Gospel picks up the sinner made contrite by the Law and offers him peace with God through the merits of Jesus Christ.

Tragically, however, evangelical sermons often neglect either Law or Gospel or both in their emphasis on enlarging the congregation’s theological knowledge (eschatology, demonology, dispensations, and so on) that the hearers are not brought to conviction or to the Cross. Also, Law and Gospel are often confused, in that, as C. F. W. Walther commented, “Christ is represented as a new Moses, or Lawgiver,” or “the Law is preached to those who are already in terror on account of their sins, or the Gospel to those who live securely in their sins” (The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel). By preaching Law (not infrequently an extra-biblical law at that) to those ready for the Gospel, we turn the free offer of salvation into legalistic works-righteousness. By neglecting to preach Law to the unrepentant, and substituting sticky-sweet gospel songs and joy-bell testimonies, we set before the non-Christian what Bonhoeffer well characterized as “cheap grace.”

Perhaps the saddest misunderstanding of the proper relation between Law and Gospel comes when the preacher does not allow the Gospel to predominate. To express it differently, sermons must focus on the Christ, for “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). This brings us to our final criterion for genuine sermonizing:

3. The centrality of Christ. A widely held conviction among the Reformers was that “the whole Scripture presents Christ everywhere.” We have lost that perspective in some quarters, even when the formal authority of the Bible is still upheld. But the Jehovah’s Witnesses ought to remind us that a high view of scriptural authority without an adequate understanding of or emphasis on the Scripture’s central teachings is of little real value.

If we agree that the preacher must by the very nature of his calling be an exegete, let us also use our exegetical skills to do what the risen Christ did on the road to Emmaus: beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expound in all the Scriptures the things concerning Christ himself (Luke 24:27).

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.”

Perhaps the most crucial question in the abortion debate is when (or even whether) the fetus is to be considered a human being. The answers given range all the way from the moment of conception to the moment of birth. Evidence for a particular position is usually taken from science—such factors as genetic uniqueness, the development of the cardiovascular system, or the presence of brain waves.

Evangelical Christians, however, are interested in a second source of information on this subject, the Bible. The problem is that the biblical teaching directly relevant to the abortion debate is quite scanty. There are a few passages, such as Psalms 139:13–15, Job 3:11, Jeremiah 1:5, and Luke 1:39–44, that are often cited as evidence that God considers the unborn child fully human. This line of evidence has led many Christians to conclude that abortion is the killing of a human being and is therefore wrong, except when resorted to as the lesser of two evils.

Another passage of Scripture to which an appeal is being made more and more in the current debate is Exodus 21:22–25, which reads as follows in the American Standard Version:

And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow; he shall be surely fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

A number of evangelicals are among those who think this passage indicates that the Bible makes a distinction between fully human life and the life of the fetus. These verses are taken to mean that a fetus is not considered to be a soul or a fully human person, and that it is therefore of less inherent value than an already born person.

Among those evangelicals who have taken this position is Bruce Waltke. In an influential article published first in CHRISTIANITY TODAY and later in the volume Birth Control and the Christian, Dr. Waltke says,

A second factor suggesting that abortion was permissible is that God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22–24, the destruction of a fetus is not a capital offense. The divine law reads: “When men struggle together and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage but no other harm happens, he shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact from him.… But if harm does ensue, then you shall impose soul for soul.…” Clearly then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul. The money compensation seems to have been imposed not to protect the fetus but rather to compensate the father for his loss [“The Old Testament and Birth Control,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, NOV. 8, 1968].

Another who agrees with this interpretation is Nancy Hardesty, who in Eternity quotes Exodus 21:22–25 and then says,

It can be inferred here that the fetus was not considered a human life or “life for life” would have been demanded as it was for the mother’s life or at least a “fetus for a fetus” as was done under Assyrian law [“When Does Life Begin?,” Eternity, Feb., 1971].

In the same issue Lloyd Kalland remarks,

According to Ex. 21:22, it is not a capital offense to destroy a fetus. Interpreters who claim that the fetus should be treated as a person, in my opinion, have been unsuccessful in their attempt to square this assumption with the interpretation most faithful to the text.… “While the fetus is a precious organism, it is not yet a complete person [“Fetal Life”].

If this interpretation is correct, the implications for the abortion dilemma are significant indeed. Some might feel justified in appealing to this passage to excuse indiscriminate abortion. But even if this extreme were not reached, still this interpretation could have a profound influence upon how the principle of the lesser of two evils is applied to the problem.

In the past most Christians have agreed that if the presence of the fetus is a threat to the life of the mother, then the principle of the lesser of two evils would justify aborting it. In other words, while the killing of either the fetus or the mother would be considered wrong since each is a living human being, the killing of the fetus has been considered a less serious wrong than letting the mother die because of its presence. But now, if it can be established from Exodus 21:22–25 that the unborn fetus is qualitatively inferior to fully human life, then the Bible-believing Christian must give serious consideration to the contention that there are several circumstances that may be greater evils than abortion, such as mental disorder in the mother, the probability that the child will be born malformed, or the trauma of a pregnancy resulting from rape.

The majority of commentaries and translations are favorable to the interpretation discussed above. In numerous allusions to this text, the Talmud uniformly sees it as referring to a miscarriage, equivalent to a property loss on the part of the father. The following reference is typical: “If one hurt a woman so that her embryo departed from her, compensation for Depreciation and for Pain should be given to the woman, compensation for the value of the embryo to the husband.” As John Peter Lange sees it, verse 22 refers to a case in which an abortion takes place but no other injury results (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures). S. R. Driver sees it as a miscarriage that results in no permanent injury to the mother but is considered as a property loss (The Book of Exodus). Among the more recent commentaries, this statement by Leo G. Cox in the Beacon Bible Commentary is typical:

Often when men strive, a wife tries to intervene and gets hurt. If the woman was pregnant, and lost her child, the man who hurt her must pay a fine to her husband as required by the judges. Since the death of the child was accidental, the death penalty was not imposed. However, if further harm resulted (23), such as the death of the woman, the death penalty was applicable, unless the slayer could prove his act was unintentional (cf. 13–14) [Beacon Hill, 1969, I, 253].

Similar comments may be found in, for instance, the Interpreter’s Bible and in the Broadman, Wesleyan, Wycliffe, and New Bible commentaries. All agree that verse 22 refers to a miscarriage but no other harm, and that verse 23 discusses what shall be done in case there is further harm, i.e., to the mother.

Most modern translations likewise present verse 22 as a reference to a miscarriage. The Revised Standard Version reads, “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him.…” The Berkeley Version says, “If in a quarrel between men a pregnant woman is hit, so that she miscarries, but is not otherwise injured, the offender shall be fined by the woman’s husband with consent of the judges.” (In this version verse 23 begins thus: “But if there is further harm.…”) Similar translations appear in the New American Bible, the Jerusalem Bible, the Amplified Bible, the Douay-Rheims, the Moffatt translation, and the Goodspeed translation.

In all these commentaries and translations, as well as in the statements by Waltke and others above, two things are either stated or implied: (1) that verse 22 refers to a miscarriage, the death of the unborn child; and (2) that this supposed death of the fetus is the injury for which the guilty party is only fined, while any injury to the mother is considered to be further harm serious enough to invoke the lex talionis (eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and so on). Only upon the basis of such an understanding as this could one conclude, as Waltke does in the article previously mentioned, that in the Old Testament “abortion was permissible” because “God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed.”

Despite the widespread acceptance of this view of Exodus 21:22–25, this interpretation does not seem to me to be supported by the text iself. This is true particularly of the two points specified in the preceding paragraph. A careful examination of these verses can yield conclusions quite different from these: (1) that verse 22 refers to the premature birth of an otherwise healthy child, and (2) that an injury to the child no less than to the mother called for the application of the lex talionis.

FOR LIGHT

Lord of the quasar and the quark

And all infinity:

I still must crawl my way to thee,

As a child, in the dark.

Mercy is joined with majesty,

We have the Saviour’s word;

Even a candle gleam, I pray,

In this, my lostness, Lord!

Or blazon forth that saving Light

(Beyond astronomy);

Have pity now, this awesome night,

Light of the world, on me!

HENRY HUBERT HUTTO

There is absolutely no linguistic justification for translating verse 22 to refer to a miscarriage. The clause rendered in both the King James and the American Standard Version “so that her fruit depart” literally reads, “and her children come out” (as the marginal reading in the New American Standard Version indicates). The noun is yeled, which is a common word for child or offspring. (The only peculiarity is that it is plural.) The verb is yatza’, which has the common meaning of “to go out, to go forth, to come forth.” It is often used to refer to the ordinary birth of children, either as coming forth from the loins of the father (e.g., Gen. 15:4; 46:26; 1 Kings 8:19; Isa. 39:7), or as coming forth from the womb of the mother (Gen. 25:25, 26; 38:28, 29; Job 1:21; 3:11; Eccles. 5:15; Jer. 1:5; 20:18). In the latter instances the reference is to an ordinary birth of a normal child; in no case is the word used to indicate a miscarriage. (In one passage, Numbers 12:12, the word refers to the birth of a stillborn child. But this is a stillbirth, not a miscarriage; also, the concept of stillbirth is communicated not through the verb yatza’ but through the specific description of the child itself.)

Another reason for thinking that Exodus 21:22 refers to a premature birth and not to a miscarriage is that there is a Hebrew word, shachol, that specifically refers to the event of miscarriage. (In some cases it means “to be bereaved.”) This word is used in Exodus 23:26 and Hosea 9:14, where it refers to miscarriage among human beings. In Genesis 31:38 and Job 21:10 it refers to animals, and in Second Kings 2:19, 21 and Malachi 3:11 it refers to land and plants that do not produce mature fruit.

Thus there seems to be no warrant for interpreting Exodus 21:22 to mean “the destruction of a fetus” (Waltke). The expression used is indicative of nothing more than the birth of a child. The irregularity of the situation is the fact that the birth is prematurely and maliciously induced.

The second point I wish to defend is, as stated above, that any injury to the child no less than to the mother would demand the application of the lex talionis. This is, of course, contrary to the popular understanding, in which verse 22 refers to a case in which the fetus is killed but no other harm ensues, the death of the fetus being considered a minor injury that deserves to be penalized only by a fine. According to this view, then, verse 23 would be talking about some further harm of a much more serious nature, i.e., an injury to the mother herself. Only if the mother received injury would “an eye for an eye” be required, or “a life for a life.”

But it must be insisted that the text itself makes no distinction between any harm done to the child and any harm done to the mother. This is simply not the point of contrast in the passage. What is being contrasted is a situation in which harm comes to neither mother nor child, and a situation in which either one or the other is harmed. In the former situation, the premature birth of the infant is not considered to be harm at all. The text specifically says that if the woman is struck so that her children come out, “and there not be harm,” then the adversary shall be fined. The fine presumably is imposed because of the danger to which mother and child are exposed and the parents’ distress in connection with the unnaturally premature birth.

The illusion that the birth of the child is in itself harm or injury (even to the point of death) is created by the addition of the word other or further, either in verse 22 or in verse 23. As Waltke has translated verse 22, the woman “suffers a miscarriage but no other harm happens.” The New American Bible says that she “suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury.” (Moffatt, Good-speed, the Amplified Bible, and the New American Standard Version are similar to the NAB, although the NASV properly italicizes the word further.) The addition of other or further implies that some harm has already been done, namely, the alleged miscarriage; this is then judged to be relatively insignificant in that it draws only a fine. But the original text contains no such word as other or further. It clearly and simply says that this first contingency is a case in which no harm occurs. Even though the child is born prematurely, it is unharmed. The text will permit no other understanding.

Only in verse 23 is the possibility of harm introduced, and it reads literally, “and if harm occurs.” The text does not say that this is further harm, nor that it applies only to the mother. It makes absolutely no distinction between the mother and the child.

Clearly, then, the interpretation of this passage that is most faithful to the text is that which distinguishes between a premature birth that harms neither the mother nor the child and a premature birth in which one or the other is injured or even dies. In the latter case the life of the fetus is valued just as highly as the life of the mother, and the lex talionis principle applies to both. There is absolutely no warrant for concluding, as Waltke does in the article previously mentioned, that in this passage “in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.” Thus “the weight of scholarly opinion,” to which Waltke appeals (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “Eutychus and His Kin,” Jan. 3, 1969), is outweighed by the text itself.

This conclusion about Exodus 21:22–25 will by no means settle the abortion issue. One might grant the validity of this interpretation and still in good Christian conscience be in favor of more liberal abortion practices. One might argue, for instance, that this section of the law is not intended to say anything about a non-viable fetus, and that it is therefore irrelevant to the main part of the argument. Yet at the very least, if this view of Exodus 21:22–25 is correct, then one can no longer find here a biblical justification for liberalizing abortion laws. And if it cannot be found here, then it can be found nowhere in Scripture, for there does not seem to be any other passage to which any serious appeal has been or can be made for this purpose.

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.”

To use a little scholastic terminology, the Protestant Reformation was based on, and evangelical religion is defined by, a formal and a material principle. The formal principle was sola scriptura. In the philosophy of religion the basic problem has always been and still is the source of authority. Are controversies of religion settled by an appeal to the pope, councils, and church fathers? Luther emphatically answered no. Is then the content of Christianity determined by mystic experience and individual conscience? Again Luther answered no. He located the source of religious authority in the Bible alone. Other claimants to authority may be and often have been in error; the Bible alone is inerrant. This is the formal principle of the Reformation.

Technically, the material principle is the total contents of Scripture: creation, the history of Israel, prophecies, the resurrection of the just and unjust, and all the rest. But because of the situation in the sixteenth century, particularly exemplified in the papal device of earning salvation by the purchase of indulgences, along with flagellation and other good works, the doctrine of justification by faith alone was popularly regarded as the content or material of the Gospel.

These two principles, taken together, define evangelical religion. Anyone who rejects either the inerrancy of Scripture or faith as the sole means of justification is no heir of the Protestant Reformation and has no historical or logical claim to the name evangelical.

The visible church has deteriorated seriously since Protestantism’s first hundred and fifty years, until today some theologians try to defend erroneous authority. This deterioration has contributed to the development of a society that reeks with filth and bleeds with crime, and the decline even dims the Christian understanding of those who deplore it. This is the post-Christian era when God is said to be dead. Faced with these conditions, perhaps we can benefit from reviewing one or two of the main emphases in the doctrine of justification by faith.

To prevent misunderstanding (to which short articles naturally conduce), we should first dispose of a preliminary matter; though it ought not to need mention, our present climate of opinion, as well as the situation in Paul’s day, demands it. Quite simply, Christianity opposes sin. There is no substitute for a moral and righteous life. We question the very sincerity of a man who claims to be a Christian while he continues to practice gross sins. The command is, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” The doctrine of sanctification is writ large in both Testaments.

Furthermore, although there is no space here to argue it, justification inevitably issues in sanctification. True grace and true faith never fail in this life to produce good works. Nothing in this article is to be thought to contradict the necessity of preparing for a future life on a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Salvation has several elements, including regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification. But they are different elements. What is true of one may not be true of another. When a short article restricts itself to one of these, nobody should assume that it denies the others. In fact, since a short article cannot cover even one such topic, nobody should assume that it denies what brevity omits. There is no contradiction between justification and righteousness. The idea of righteousness is essential to the doctrine of justification, but it does not function there as it does in sanctification.

To speak more plainly: justification by faith cannot be understood in isolation, all by itself. It depends on the concept of a just and righteous God; it is in fact an integral factor in a comprehensive system of doctrine. But systems require volumes.

The very first point about justification to be considered is the meaning of the term. The demand for precise definition may stifle loose conversation, but it is essential to sound conclusions.

Fortunately it is not hard to discover the most important element in the definition of justification. Several passages of Scripture are so worded that it is hard to misunderstand them. Luke 7:29, 10:29, and 16:15 are quite clear. The first of these says that “the publicans justified God.” The second says, “He, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus.…” The third is, “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts.…”

In each of these three verses it is clear that justification is not the initiation of moral improvement. A certain New Testament professor tells his students that justification is a process of becoming more moral or righteous. But can anything be clearer than the impossibility of a publican’s improving God’s character? Would he even be stupid enough to try? The second verse speaks of a young man who wanted to justify himself. He was not attempting to grow in righteousness: he aimed to show that he was already right. The third deals with covetous hyprocrites who made false claims to honesty. In none of these cases does justification signify moral improvement.

The positive significance of the term can be seen well enough behind the negation; but Matthew 12:37 makes it inescapable: “By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” To this Romans 8:33 and 34 adds, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” Since these two passages contrast justification with condemnation, the meaning of the one must be the opposite of the other. Now, condemnation does not justify a process of moral deterioration. If you and I condemn a person, we do not make him bad or change his character in any way. To condemn is to make a judicial pronouncement that the person, or act, is already evil. To justify is to pronounce a man already just. The judge, whether he condemns or acquits, does not alter the person’s character in the least. That is why there is nothing ridiculous in a publican’s justifying God. The publicans pronounced God just.

This forensic or legal definition of justification has met with objection in nearly every age. Some persons regard it as legalistic and strangely assume that anything legal must be bad. Such a view of law, however, does not fit in with Jesus’s order, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” The term legalism in theology used to designate a theory of justification by works. Liberals have now redefined it so as to exclude rules, laws, and obedience from moral living. Amorphous love replaces definite commands. This enables the liberals to transfer the odium of legalism in its historic sense to the evangelical view that is not subject to such a criticism.

The forensic view, the view that justification is God’s judicial declaration that such and such a man is righteous, innocent, not guilty, is also criticized as immoral. God, they say, would be telling a lie if he called a man innocent who was factually and subjectively guilty. To assume that the merit of one person can be transferred to another is ethical chicanery, it is said; vicarious ethical action is an impossibility.

This objection to the evangelical view is very plausible. Its incipient form occurred in the Pharisaic reaction against Paul. It is embedded in every system that bases salvation, even partially, on human merit. But it depends on some prior assumptions about ethical theory. One must therefore ask, Where do the objectors get their system of ethics? By what argument did they establish the impossibility, immorality, or chicanery of vicarious righteousness? One thing is clear: their formulation was not derived from Scripture. Romans 5:12–21 emphatically asserts two cases, one of vicarious sin, one of vicarious righteousness. No honest exegete can remove the principle of substitution and representation from the biblical text.

Hence this ethical objection is the result of repudiating the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation. If one accepts the Scripture as the sole ultimate authority, he cannot use the liberal argument. Conversely, if one denies the evangelical view, he must either appeal to the pope or depend on psychological analysis of his religious experience. Dependence on analysis makes a man his own pope. He makes himself the ultimate authority on religion. But other people do not want him as pope; they prefer themselves. And their religious experiences are so varied and contradictory, so similar to irreligious experience, that several analyses produce incompatible conclusions. Furthermore, all analyses are invalid, for it is a logical impossibility to deduce normative principles from empirical description.

The contemporary reliance on the analysis of experience highlights by contrast an essentially related element in the doctrine of justification. Personal counseling, Alcoholics Anonymous, psychiatry, frequently talk about feelings of guilt. The emotionally disturbed person, so it is said, can be cured by being relieved of these guilt feelings. But however much these practitioners attend to guilt feelings, they are singularly blind to guilt.

Evangelical theology takes guilt very seriously. Sin is an offense against God and merits a penalty: a penalty, not merely rehabilitation, for after we have done all that is required of us we are still unprofitable servants. Relieving feelings of guilt does not dispense with the need for paying the penalty. While subjective peace of mind, at which the practitioners aim, may under other conditions be desirable, it is better to be tormented with guilt feelings if actually acquitted of guilt, than to be actually guilty and enjoy peace of mind. It is better to be an alcoholic, plead for mercy, and be saved by Christ, than to reform and congratulate yourself on your superior strength of will.

Before present apostasy had boldly based acceptance with God on one’s own efforts and moral achievements, and in the case of universalism had assigned all men the same final felicity, thereby denying God’s righteousness and a day of wrath, and in the case of humanism had denied immortality and God altogether, there came a theory of infused grace or evangelical obedience. Here the need of grace was acknowledged, but to avoid the imputed righteousness of Christ and justification by faith alone, this view held that God accepts man on the basis of an obedience that is less than perfect. Admittedly, all men sin; but God supplies grace to some, probably to all, so that some make fair use of this grace and obey God more or less consistently. God then acquits them, declares them innocent, and accepts them into the family of God on the basis of their well-intentioned efforts.

One such theologian wrote, “When we say we are justified by faith, we do not exclude those works that faith requires and at the same time produces.” Another said, “God demands the obedience of faith, i.e. not a rigid obedience, equally of all as the law requires; but so much as faith, i.e. a firm persuasion of the divine promises, can effect in any one.” That is to say, God lowers his standard of perfect righteousness and is satisfied merely with a little less sin.

Of course, this view finds no support in Scripture. It faces three objections.

First, the prophets and the apostles totally exclude reliance on works. Our righteousnesses are likely filthy rags; and if Abraham was in some respects better than other men, he had no ground of boasting before God. By grace, by unmerited favor, have we been saved through faith; and even this faith is not a human product—it is the gift of God.

Second, in addition to the lack of direct textual support, in fact in addition to direct repudiation, the theory of infused grace and evangelical obedience is inconsistent with related scriptural doctrines. One point is the matter of past sins. The Bible talks about repentance. The Old Testament provides rituals for purification. It says, “Cleanse me from my sin.… Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” God did not say, “If you don’t do it again, David, I won’t hold it against you this time.” In view of Psalm 51, how is it possible for imperfect obedience henceforth to cleanse us from the guilt we incurred prior to our reception of grace, or after, as in David’s case? Will this theory suggest that all men from their mother’s womb (if they managed to escape murderous abortionists) have grace and try sincerely?

Now, third, for reasons already implied, the theory of evangelical obedience works havoc with the death of Christ. If good works cancel out past sins, what necessity is there for an atonement? The Apostle John records that Jesus was introduced as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. No Jew of that day could fail to understand. For centuries the Jews had been sacrificing lambs to atone for their sins. Moral improvement was not enough. There had to be the shedding of blood. Only so could the penalty be paid. The theology of infused grace and evangelical obedience fails because it has no logical place for a penalty or a crucifixion.

This is enough, and more than enough, for anyone who chooses to accept the Bible. Those who reject the basic principle of evangelical religion, sola scriptura, can confidently analyze their religious experience and be assured that they will never find evidence for the existence of a God who is both just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.

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.”