An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching, by J. Daniel Baumann (Baker, 1972, 302 pp., $6.95), and Preaching and Preachers, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Zondervan, 1971, 325 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Richard Allen Bodey, chairman, Department of Practical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi.

A veteran preacher of international fame and a professor of homiletics provide a striking, profitable, and sometimes amusing contrast in their approaches to preaching. Dr. Lloyd-Jones, recently retired from his long pastorate at London’s celebrated Westminster Chapel, and Professor Baumann of Bethel Seminary are both committed evangelicals. Unlike the swarms of contemporary critics eager to perform last rites for the pulpit, both believe that preaching is, as Lloyd-Jones puts it, “the highest and greatest and the most glorious calling.” Both are dissatisfied with the quality of preaching today and seek its renewal. Both plead for preaching that combines emotion with intellectual appeal.

Baumann offers a neat overview of homiletics. Most of the way he whistles tunes often heard before. Alert to the times, however, he also ventures into the newer fields of communications and behavioral change. He sees preaching as no more or less important than the other elements of worship and favors a reduction in its frequency. He is open to such innovative techniques as dialogical sermons, drama, and mixed media.

Baumann’s book carries a heavy cargo of footnotes and quotations. In spots it is unnecessarily pedantic. It contains a few careless errors. Readers may find some material confusing, since the author at times introduces unfamiliar theories without adequate explanation. But on the whole the work is well done and would be suitable as a seminary text.

Displaying an impatient scorn for homiletical theories and niceties, Lloyd-Jones discusses many of the problems and questions that perennially plague the preacher. The chapters were originally lectures delivered at Westminster Seminary and their conversational flavor has been preserved. Apt illustrations, often drawn from the author’s experience, reinforce his counsels. A traditionalist who has no use for current fashions like dialogical sermons, Lloyd-Jones no less stoutly denounces the literary style of preaching that came into vogue a century ago. To him the sermon is supreme and should always be expository; forty-five minutes is barely enough time for its delivery. He objects to radio and television services, condemns liturgical embellishments as “unspiritual,” and would abolish choirs.

Very few preachers will fail to be annoyed by some of this preacher’s hang-ups and quirks. Those who have been imprisoned in homiletical straight jackets should find him liberating. All will certainly find his uncommon candor refreshing and engaging. How many preachers would admit, publicly and in print to boot, “I can say quite honestly that I would not cross the road to hear myself preaching”? We may not care to go all the way with this preacher, but we all can learn from him.

The Great Commandment

The Love Command in the New Testament, by Victor Paul Furnish (Abingdon, 1972, 240 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by David Wead, assistant professor of New Testament, Emmanuel School of Religion, Milligan College, Tennessee.

This work by Furnish follows his very exciting work Theology and Ethics in Paul. While it does not attain his previous heights, it is nonetheless a very good book, a solid contribution to ethics.

Furnish begins by examining “Jesus’ Commandments to Love”—to love God and one’s neighbors, and to love one’s enemies. Furnish does not limit himself to any one Greek for love or attempt to draw distinctions between the various words, and this enriches his work throughout.

The second chapter, on the settings in the Synoptic Gospels, is probably the weakest. The varying settings do influence the meaning of the Evangelists, but the attempt to decide what is the authentic teaching of Jesus is always tinged by subjectivism.

The next chapters take us systematically through the rest of the New Testament, examining the teaching of love. Furnish describes love in Paul as an eschatological force, “the power of the new age present and active in the working of the Spirit.” In John there is a continuum in which God’s love is received and then carried into the world as the believer is commanded to love.

The most important chapter of the book is the final chapter of conclusions. Furnish sets forth four considerations that draw together what he has said and make concrete application to the ethical life of the Christian today. In making love a command, Furnish says, Jesus showed it is not natural to humanity. Love is the command that stands above all ethical decisions. Divine love is the measure and meaning of love’s claim. God’s love is necessary to reveal to man how he ought to love.

Furnish emphasizes that only “the theological bases upon which the earliest church’s ethical teaching was founded and the way it went about interpreting and applying its gospel in daily life” are transferable to modern life. In this sense there can be no “love ethic” but only an ethical system that subjects all to the sovereignty and mercy of God.

I heartily commend this book to the Christian reader, not as a final answer to the ethical problem, but as a solid step toward understanding New Testament ethics.

Guide To Academia

Christ and the Modern Mind, edited by Robert W. Smith (Inter-Varsity, 1972, 312 pp., $3.50 pb), is reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, assistant professor of New Testament studies, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

The purpose of this book is to give guidance to the beginning college student who is a Christian. It introduces him to the major academic disciplines, gives him the basic information he needs to make an intelligent choice of a major, and seeks to introduce him to various Christian principles that will help him relate his studies to the Christian faith.

There are twenty-six chapters, grouped according to the traditional divisions of “the liberal arts”: the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. The authors are all college and university teachers—the majority in secular institutions—and all are thoroughly committed Christians.

As one would expect in a book with twenty-six authors, the chapters are uneven in quality. I felt some of the essays on the arts were especially weak (possibly because in this area evangelicals are Johnny-come-latelies), while nearly all those dealing with the social and physical sciences were particularly good. Occasionally I had the distinct impression that a contributor was a little uncertain about his call to scholarship as a Christian, and this leads at times to a rather defensive attitude toward the university.

A major deficiency is in bibliography. The articles would be more helpful to the beginner if each were accompanied by an annotated list of basic works, especially those seeking to relate the Christian faith to the particular subject. Occasionally a work is mentioned in a footnote, but the references are at best random.

Nevertheless, Christ and the Modern Mind serves a good purpose and should be put into the hands of Christian students. Pastors, youth directors, and all who work with young people would do well to arm themselves with a plentiful supply and give copies to the more thoughtful students to whom they minister. Widespread distribution of this handbook could only lead to a more fruitful witness to Christ on campus.

Biblical Basis Of Science

Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, by R. Hooykaas (Eerdmans, 1972, 162 pp., $2.65 pb), is reviewed by George Blount, professor of physics, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

Our culture has come to accept the myth that scientific activity and Christian philosophy are antagonistic. Sensational books—such as Bertrand Russell’s Religion and Science—that damn the church and extol science were fashionable reading only a few years ago, and we were left an unfortunate heritage. For although it is now more popular to condemn both science and Christianity, the two are still generally considered incompatible.

In this scholarly and well-documented historical analysis, Dr. Hooykaas rejects the thesis of incompatibility and shows that modern science owes its emergence in good measure to Christianity. It was Christianity that rescued Western thought from a scientifically impossible Greek metaphysics. That it did not do so more swiftly can be traced to its own infection with Greek philosophy. This is not to say that the Greeks made no positive contribution to modern science: they provided the necessary logical tools, and Judaeo-Christian philosophy provided a framework in which the tools could be effective.

Hooykaas begins by contrasting the Greek and biblical views of God and nature. Nature was deified in the Greek mind, and the explanation for physical change was thought to be metaphysical. Beneath the observable universe there was thought to be a truer reality that was accessible to reason rather than experimentation. Moreover, manual work, which might be needed in experimentation, was considered demeaning. The world was to be experienced by man, but it was not to be controlled for man. The biblical view, by contrast, sees one supreme God who by his own will created all of nature and now sustains it. The nature he created is real, and there is no substratum of reality except God himself. The world actually is as it is found to be. Man has the honor of working in the world to bring about directed changes for the good of man and the glory of God.

Hooykaas continues by sketching the development of Western man’s view of nature down to the thought of contemporary physicists. He then turns to another aspect of the history of science, the significance of reason and experimentation, and traces its development. The same method is repeated for art and also for technology. He concludes with a discussion of science and the Reformation. This repetitive format is effective in convincing the reader of an almost symbiotic relation between science and biblical faith, but it is cumbersome if one tries to use the book for reference. The value of the book for reference use is also diminished by the lack of an index.

Many readers will be surprised at the views Luther and Calvin developed toward science and toward Scripture. Their mature views were that the world was to be accepted as it was found to be, regardless of past notions, and that the Scriptures were to be taken as without error in terms of their intended purpose.

An important lesson to be learned, especially if the reader is influential in higher education, concerns the tragedy of borrowing pagan Greek philosophy. Hooykaas points out that the tendency to incorporate Greek thought into a Christian philosophy is still with us and that its results are not good. Theology is purged and science is released for further advance whenever it is recognized that God is supreme, nature is contingent, experience is real, manual work is good, and responsible dominion over nature is to be exercised.

Hooykaas is professor of the history of science in the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and he approaches his subject in a scholarly manner. His style is clear, but his brevity may make the book difficult reading for many. It should be read, however; the story needs to be heard. This story is continued, with a bit of confirming overlap, in John Dillenberger’s Protestant Thought and Natural Science, which is also recommended reading.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

The New Englishman’s Greek Concordance, introduction by Ralph Winter (William Carey Library, 1,053 pp., $9.95). The New Testament student who does not know Greek now can have at his disposal, so far as we know for the first time, a tool that gives him a convenient list of all the occurrences (together with the contexts) of any Greek word, regardless of how many different English words are used to translate it. What makes this volume “new” is the addition of the numbers used in Strong’s English concordance to each entry, so that the user can move from his Bible to Strong’s to this work in simple steps. (Both Strong’s and Young’s concordances have means of finding each occurrence of a Greek word, but they are complicated and time-consuming.)

Revolution in Rome, by David Wells (Inter-Varsity, 149 pp., $4.95). A good way to be introduced to the current turmoil in Catholicism; written by a well qualified Trinity seminary professor.

St. Francis of Assisi, Writings and Early Biographies, edited by Marion Habig (Franciscan Herald, $18.95), Brother Francis: An Anthology of Writings By and About St. Francis of Assisi, edited by Lawrence Cunningham (Harper & Row, 201 pp., $5.95), and Francis of Assisi, by John Holland Smith (Scribner, 210 pp., $8.95). Longer and shorter anthologies plus a major new biography demonstrates the continuing fascination with a thirteenth-century “Jesus freak.”

Deliver Us From Evil, by Don Basham (Chosen Books [Washington Depot, Conn. 06794], 223 pp., $4.95), and Escape from Witchcraft, by Roberta Blankenship (Zondervan, 114 pp., $.95 pb). A former pastor tells how he came to be engaged in a widespread exorcism ministry, and a former witch tells how she was delivered.

Don’t Blame the Game, by Bill Glass and Bill Pinson (Word, 168 pp., $4.95). A retired star football end and a seminary ethics professor team up to refute both some recent criticism of sports and some athletes who have advocated and practiced immorality off the field. Good especially for fans, young and old.

Affirmation of Our Faith, by Clifton J. Allen (Broadman, 128 pp., $1.50). A prominent Southern Baptist briefly reflects on prayer and the central doctrines of the evangelical faith.

Meet the Prophets!, by Eugene Skelton (Broadman, 160 pp., $4.95). A vibrant introduction to Samuel, Elijah, Amos, Ezekiel, Jonah, and seven other men of God before Christ.

Federal Income Tax Handbook for Clergy, by Kenneth Hungerford (Associated Publishers, 160 pp., $3 pb), and Clergy’s Federal Income Tax Guide, by Ernst and Ernst (Abingdon, 64 pp., $2.95 pb). Hungerford gives guidance for the entire tax form, including matters that affect ministers and non-ministers alike (such as medical expenses). Ernst and Ernst focus solely, hence in somewhat greater detail, on the items distinctive to ministers, namely, the parsonage allowance and the social security tax as if one were self-employed. Ernst and Ernst serves as a useful supplement to Hungerford for those with unusual problems in those areas. (Or it can supplement one of the tax guides prepared for the general public.)

Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist, by Albert Rabil, Jr. (Trinity University [715 Stadium Dr., San Antonio, Tex. 78284], 190 pp., $6). An important addition to the large body of literature on the great sixteenth-century scholar. Looks especially at his approach to Romans and compares it with that of the early Luther.

The Prayer Life, edited by Christian Duquoc and Claude Geffré (Herder and Herder, 126 pp., $5.95 and $2.95 pb). A dozen essays by Catholics on such subjects as Pentecostalism in their ranks, the Jesus movement, prerequisites for prayer, and prayer and psychoanalysis. (Volume 79 of the “Concilium” series.)

The Jesus Revolution, by Michael McFadden (Harper & Row, 212 pp., $1.25 pb). A dispassionate, thorough, sympathetic treatment. A good one-volume study to supplement the many other more segmented discussions.

Power and Innocence, by Rollo May (Norton, 283 pp., $7.95). This attempt at a major philosophical statement by a psychotherapist highly regarded in religious circles suffers from the too frequent intrusion of highly selective case studies into what is intended as a systematic construction. Despite this, and despite May’s indifference to the possibility of objective religious truth, the book offers a wealth of stimulating insights on the conflict between power and principle when religion and politics intersect.

Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150–1350, by Brian Tierney (Brill [Leiden, Netherlands], 298 pp., n.p.). Prepared before the outburst caused by Küng’s rejection of infallibility, this book is neither an apologetic nor a critique. It is a carefully documented study of diverse viewpoints and must be considered in serious discussion of the contemporary controversy.

Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey (Zondervan, 255 pp., $4.95 and $2.25 pb). Reports of encounters with occultism, summary of what the Bible says about the fallen angels, a presentation of the Gospel along with follow-up guidelines, and a too brief survey of modern intellectual history. The style avoids sensational extremes, but should attract those who are curious about occult phenomena and need to know what God’s Word says about them.

The Sermon on the Mount, by James Montgomery Boice (Zondervan, 328 pp., $5.95). A series of expositions on this well-known passage (Matthew 5:3–7:29) that sets forth a biblical, Christ-centered ethical basis for Christian living. Inspiring, non-technical reading, excellent for Bible-study groups.

V. Raymond Edman: In the Presence of the King, by Earle E. Cairns (Moody, 255 pp., $4.95). The warm, inspiring biography of the missionary who became fourth president of Wheaton College.

Astrology and the Bible, edited by William Petersen (Victor [Wheaton, Ill. 60187], 32 pp., $.39 pb). Two editors of Eternity, a Gordon-Conwell Seminary professor, and a Britisher join to give a brief, biblically based warning about a resurging false religion.

Religion and Public School Curriculum, edited by Richard Smith (Religious Education Association [545 W. 111 St., New York, N.Y. 10025], 110 pp., $3.50 pb). Addresses at a conference at the end of 1971 together with additional papers. Both general principles and specific examples are discussed.

Targum and Testament, by Martin McNamara (Eerdmans, 227 pp., $3.45 pb). A Targum, roughly, is to the ancient Hebrew Bible what the Living Bible is to the KJV. It is a paraphrase of the formal Hebrew Scriptures into the common Aramaic spoken by the people. This interesting book explains Targums—their history, purpose, and use to us now. Relates some of the clarifications of various biblical subjects found in these ancient texts.

Siegfried’s Curse: The German Journey From Nietzsche to Hesse, by Wayne Andrews (Atheneum, 370 pp., $10.95). A fascinatingly written story of the spiritual pilgrimage of a select group of German intellectuals, from Nietzsche to Hermann Hesse, whose influence on the “spirit of our age” is as massive as it is baleful. Does not deal with German theology, unfortunately.

Turning the World Upside Down, by W. T. Stunt and others (Upperton Press [2 Upperton Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex, England], 663 pp., £3 [about $7.50]). Soon after their beginnings in the British Isles in the 1820s, the “Open” branch of the so-called Plymouth Brethren emerged as one of the most missionary-minded of all Christian groups. Brethren congregations are found in almost every country of the world. Though relatively small in the United States, they are often among the larger non-Pentecostal evangelical bodies elsewhere. Bible school, seminary, and missions libraries need to add this detailed, country-by-country survey to their holdings.

New Man … New World, by Leighton Ford (Word, 119 pp., $3.95). Fourteen sermons preached on the “Hour of Decision” broadcast (on which Ford alternates as speaker with Billy Graham).

Early Christian Creeds, by J. N. D. Kelly (McKay, 446 pp., $17.50). This third edition is a major revision of a well established standard work. Essential for theological libraries.

Paul’s First Letter to Corinth, by John Ruef (Penguin, 198 pp., $2.45 pb). In the style of the long-in-print “Pelican Gospel Commentaries,” volumes on the rest of the New Testament are now being issued in a Pelican series. This is the second one to appear. Aimed at the non-specialist who wants to be aware of main currents of critical scholarship.

The Catholic Priest in the United States: Psychological Investigations, by Eugene Kennedy and Victor Heckler, and Sociological Investigations, by the National Opinion Research Center (United States Catholic Conference, 271 and 458 pp., $7.95 and $8.95). Detailed statistical studies, valuable primarily to the specialist with an interest in the changing nature of the Roman priesthood; the Psychological Investigations are easier to digest. An earlier companion volume of five essays of Historical Investigations, edited by John Ellis, was published by St. John’s University (488 pp., $6.95).

The Faith of the People of God, by John Macquarrie (Scribner, 191 pp., $6.95). A British interpreter of Bultmann, Heidegger, et al. formulates a basic theology around the theme “The People of God.” Tends towards traditional Christianity of a vaguely Catholic flavor. Macquarrie avoids, however, the deeper question of the objective content and meaning of fundamental Christian doctrines and documents, and he blurs distinctions between biblical and non-biblical theologies.

In The Journals

Universitas, sponsored by the Christian College Consortium (Gordon, Messiah, Taylor, Wheaton, and six others), has made its appearance as a monthly tabloid for Christians interested in higher education. “Thought” articles, news, and responses make up each issue. ($2/year; 1400 Touhy Avenue, Des Plaines, Ill. 60018).

Sighting Christ

Marion Ireland in the preface to Textile Art in the Church (Abingdon, 1971) raises a question long ignored by many evangelicals:

Art in the church—who needs it? One might as well ask: words—who needs them? A congregation that is truly striving to give full expression to the majesty and love of God, the creator of the universe, will exclude visual media no more than verbal ones. True, a vestment is still a vestment whether it employs symbolism or not, and the Sistine ceiling would keep out the rain without the benefit of Michelangelo’s magnificent frescoes. We could worship in a barn, but the same question arises as when one claims to be able to worship God on the golf course as well as in church. The question is, “Do you?”

Perhaps in reacting to Roman liturgical iconography we have moved too far in the other direction. It is time to reconsider the role of art in worship, and Miss Ireland’s richly illustrated volume is a good place to begin. She surveys the history and contemporary use of art in worship. Interest in fabric art, as she points out, is rising. Young people using inexpensive materials such as felt or canvas and professional artists working with costly fabrics produce a tapestried proclamation of the Gospel. Altar and pulpit cloths are designed to reflect our gratitude to God. Even carpeting can add a joyful dimension to worship when woven, for example, with traditional symbols.

Visual art can powerfully convey the Christian message; it is a tool for evangelism as well as worship. A tapestry Miss Ireland designed, for instance, depicts the empty tomb, symbol of Christ’s final victory over death. She attempts to show what happened there: “I have shown only an entrance, radiant with light bursting forth from it.… On a hill in the distance the three crosses stand, now empty. Incarnation and redemption are the themes symbolized here.”

Rustic or formal banners, wall hangings, and tapestries are appropriate for both coffeehouse and church—or anywhere Christians meet to pray and study. Let’s not overlook this simple, effective means for communicating Christ to a weary-eyed world, searching to see his truth.

Demille Lives On

McCall’s magazine calls it “a beautiful retelling of the Nativity.” Publisher’s Weekly applauds it as one of the hottest new titles. Since its release a couple of months ago, the book has sold more than 100,000 copies. Author Marjorie Holmes, an Episcopalian, says Two From Galilee is “a love story of Mary and Joseph, the greatest love story of all time—told for the first time as a love story.” And Miss Holmes does tell it as a love story, but of the Hollywood strain—sentimental, trite, melodramatic. Hollywood thinks so, too; a film company is bargaining with Revell, the publisher, for the movie rights.

Revell asserts that Miss Holmes has told the story “without departing from a scriptural base.” The difficulty is that she adds so much to that base. The fundamental problem with “historical novels” is found in Two From Galilee: the author has taken a fact of history and fabricated around it attitudes, emotions, and dialogue, but the reader cannot shake the feeling that the story is “made up.” We know that Mary and Joseph lived and that they were betrothed when Mary conceived and bore Jesus. But the dialogue, subplots, and characterization are mere speculation. And the author’s technique of weaving Scripture verses into the dialogue seems to enhance the book as fiction rather than authenticate it as truth.

There is another problem with the novel. Marjorie Holmes has attempted to dramatize an event that needs no such help. Christ’s birth is too awesome an event, too deep a mystery, too joyful a happening, to be fitted into a twentieth-century, love-story mold. To such greatness Miss Holmes has overreacted. Rather than power, she achieves a clichéd, formula type of writing. At what should be the climax and the glory of the story—the actual birthing of Christ—the language is the weakest. Imagination is tied to stone as we read,

The pain was the only reality. The pain had become her master and the god she served.… Pain was her lover, her husband, her master, her god, smiling, insistent, forcing outcries from her with whip and kiss and brutal embrace and mailed fist and chain … the bloody grip of God.

In trying to create a “grand passion” between Mary and Joseph, the author shifts the focus from Christ to fallen man. And this is the ultimate problem with the novel. Contrary to her intention to bring a more human, “real” quality to the story, the shift makes Jesus’ birth seem less perfectly human.

A Necessary Jolt

Most people agree that expenses cannot exceed income indefinitely, but few have transferred this principle from the financial to the ecological realm. We cannot forever go on using more oxygen, for example, than is produced. Yet there is little doubt that consumption is outpacing production.

The public needs to be jarred from its complacency on this matter, and the administrator of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency last month took the biggest step yet in this direction. Under the authority of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and court prodding William D. Ruckelshaus officially proposed a system of gasoline rationing designed to curtail the use of automobiles in the Los Angeles area by up to 80 per cent. The effects of such restrictions would, of course, be phenomenal, and experts doubt their feasibility. But the fact remains that some kind of drastic action must be undertaken. In the Los Angeles area, whose air-pollution problem is probably the worst in North America, the projection is that unless pollution sources are checked, by 1977 a total of 691 tons of hydrocarbons will be released into the air daily. Even now, the national standard of .08 part per million of oxidants (a higher level tends to aggravate asthma) is being exceeded some 200 days a year in that part of southern California.

The longer we put off a day of ecological reckoning, the more we wrong ourselves and our offspring.

Guides For Evangelism

In this Key 73 year of special emphasis on evangelism, we do well to recall some of Paul’s evangelistic practice and advice. En route to Jerusalem Paul met with the elders of the metropolis of Ephesus, reminding them how he had proclaimed the Gospel when he had lived there, and hence, by implication, suggesting how they were to continue the task. There are at least five points to note.

First, the evangelist is to be humble (“serving the Lord with all humility,” Acts 20:19). He must clearly distinguish between himself, a sinner saved by grace, and his glorious message. And he must continually guard against the pride that so easily possesses a man when he gains a following.

Second, he who evangelizes must have compassion upon those who hear his message. Paul communicated the word of God “with tears” (vv. 19 and 31).

Third, the evangelist is to be comprehensive in three ways: the message (“I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable,” v. 20; cf. v. 27); the methods (“teaching you in public and from house to house,” v. 20); and the audience (“testifying both to Jews and to Greeks,” v. 21).

Fourth, the evangelist must expect (though of course not seek) persecution (“trials which befell me,” v. 19) and not be surprised at defections induced both from outside (“fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock,” v. 29) and from within the believing community (“from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them,” v. 30).

Finally, the evangelist must realize that his assignment, done in the power of God, is not impossible. Fulfilling his responsibility does not require the conversion and perseverance of every inhabitant of an area. Paul could solemnly tell the representatives from Ephesus, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you” (v. 26). The evangelist cannot force people to believe; he can only share the good news that has transformed his own life.

More Fog Over St. Louis

In an attempt to overcome the suspicion engendered by charges that they are unfaithful to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran confessions, members of the faculty of Concordia Seminary at St. Louis have published a two-part affirmation entitled Faithful to Our Calling, Faithful to Our Lord. Part I, “Affirmations” and “Discussions,” contains a joint statement signed by a large majority of faculty members and explicitly repudiated by one. Part II contains personal confessions, again of almost all the faculty members. One dissident, Professor Robert Preus, explicitly rejected Part I and requested in II that brother Jacob A. O. Preus’s “ ‘Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles’ be considered as his personal confession,” while another, who also did not sign the joint statement, refused to contribute a personal confession on the grounds that Missouri’s district presidents, who requested it, were exceeding their authority and transgressing that of Synod president Preus.

Concordia’s teachers—unlike those in some seminaries—do overwhelmingly affirm essential Christian doctrines such as the deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of Christ, eternal life, and—in general terms—the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. Beyond this, in these written confessions some appear to affirm the most disputed doctrines, such as the historicity of Adam and the Fall; others engage in elusive discussion of the topics such as duality between Law and Gospel. Virtually all of those who contributed personal confessions, including those that were least unambiguous and most orthodox, nevertheless subscribed to the “joint statement,” which is much more ambiguous and less orthodox. Do they think that the threat to the autonomy of the faculty posed by the Synod president’s investigation is more serious than the charges of doctrinal deviation leveled at the faculty?

The joint statement can only be described as an attempt to obfuscate the issues: it affirms a number of central doctrines that are not in dispute (e.g., the Creation of the world by God, the historicity of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ), while it veils in ambiguity the signers’ convictions on doctrines that are. Thus, following the unexceptionable “Affirmations,” Discussion One (Creation) speaks of three different “pictures” or descriptions of Creation in the Bible and sidesteps the question of how they are true, as well as any real or potential conflict with naturalistic evolution. Discussion Two, while not denying the possibility that Adam and Eve were historical persons and that the Fall was a real space-time event, clearly inclines to the opinion that they were not. The discussion of miracles (Three) is evasive, calling for a “perspective of wonder” and stating that to follow Christ means “far more than accepting miracles as such.”

The section on Christ (Five) affirms the historicity of the resurrection and the empty tomb (though it does not specify a bodily resurrection) but downgrades the importance of history: “Our faith rests in the promise of a faithful God, not in the accuracy of ancient historians.… What counts is God’s Promise that Jesus Christ died and rose for us and for our salvation” (p. 26). But who tells us the promise, if not certain ancient historians called evangelists? This is question-begging indeed.

It should be noted that the inspiration and authority of the Bible—which is after all what the whole controversy is about—is presented under the heading “The Holy Spirit and the Community of God” (Eight). Inerrancy in terms of “twentieth century standards of factually” is expressly repudiated, but at the same time the signers affirm that “God does not err” in disclosing “the whole truth about what God was doing in Jesus Christ.”

“So-called ‘historical-critical’ methodology” (Nine) is described as being neutral in and of itself. Its presuppositions, however, may be “reverent” or “destructive.” Such an approach, particularly in view of the present controversy, would seem misleading if not false. It is of course possible to conceive of a methodology that would be neutral, but in fact the “historical-critical” method as frequently applied at Concordia and repudiated by President Preus almost always embodies destructive presuppositions: e.g., that naturalistic explanations must take precedence over supernatural ones, and that all miraculous elements, if not necessarily to be repudiated, are to be isolated and set aside as beyond the province of “historical-critical science.” As Olaf Valen-Stenstad points out in The Word That Cannot Die, the method as almost universally applied closely resembles anatomical dissection: it presupposes that the object of investigation is a corpse and, if he is not, will quickly turn him into one.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Synod president Preus’s interpretation of his right and/or duty to investigate, and whether one accepts or rejects the majority statement of the Concordia faculty as an adequate presentation of the essentials of the Christian position, it is hard to dispute one thing: in the context of the Concordia crisis, the “Affirmation in Two Parts” answers a number of questions that have not been asked and leaves unanswered most of those that have.

The Prophet Of Punxsutawney

On the morning of February 2 each year a contingent of reporters and other curious types descend on the lowly diggings of the famous groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Later in the day the wire services faithfully relay pictures and text to papers around the country, telling us whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow so that we can know whether or not to expect six more weeks of winter.

This old custom, curious in our science-adoring culture, testifies to man’s continuing desire to know something of the future. It is accompanied this year by widespread Christian fascination with prophetic themes. The preacher of Ecclesiastes states the problem well: “There is a time and a method for every enterprise, although man is greatly troubled by ignorance of the future; who can tell him what it will bring?” (Eccles. 8:6, 7).

Rather than answer the question, Jesus rejected it when he said: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself. Each day has troubles enough of its own” (Matt 6:34). Far more important than whether or not we’ll have six more weeks of winter is whether or not Jesus is the Lord of our winters and summers, our good weather and bad.

Today little is said in the churches about repentance. Few indeed are the sermons that stress its necessity. Many church members have never been confronted with the fact of personal sin and the steps whereby it is forgiven.

Central to our failure to stress the necessity of repentance is our failure to sense the total holiness of God and the offense of sin to him. We are inclined to regard the Cross as a token of sentimental love rather than God’s only way of effecting man’s redemption. And because we have downgraded the fact and the effect of sin, the need of repentance has faded into the limbo of a supposedly antiquated theology.

Supplanting the biblical concept of redemption in the minds of many are many bizarre theories that bypass the need for true repentance.

Some would have us believe that there are no such persons as “lost sinners”; that all men are saved, they just do not know it. According to this view, evangelism consists of telling people they are already redeemed by the love of God, rather than telling them they stand under the judgment of God as sinners and must repent and turn from their sins through faith in Christ.

Why repent if there is no hell, no eternal separation from God? Why repent if sin is no more than a combination of unfortunate circumstances that may be adjusted by education, a new environment or other human endeavor?

Why become involved in “an emotional binge” of self-accusation? Why repent if our offenses are primarily against our fellowmen and not against a holy God?

Does not the crux of the matter rest in our misunderstanding of man’s sinfulness and the holiness of God?

Job thought himself a good man and spent long hours defending his integrity. Then he found himself confronted by a revelation of God that put things in their proper perspective. Repentant he cried out: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6).

David, guilty of adultery and murder, was confronted with the denunciation “Thou art the man.” Then, realizing the enormity of his sins, he prayed in an agony of repentance: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest” (Ps. 51:4).

Repentance today is ignored because there is so little conviction of sin, so little understanding of its nature and its effect. God, speaking through his prophet Ezekiel, said: “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezek. 18:30).

How many of us have faced up to our own sinfulness? How many have asked the Holy Spirit to enable us to see sin as God sees it? When this takes place repentance follows, for we see ourselves for what we are and not what we would like to think we are.

The people of Israel, the recipients of God’s love, mercy, and revelation, turned from God to their own sinful ways, and personal and national judgment stood at the door. In Joel we read: “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil” (Joel 2:12, 13).

Repentance, stressed in the Old Testament, comes into even clearer focus in the New. John the Baptist came preaching: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). Later our Lord came preaching, and saying: “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). His disciples also “went out, and preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12).

The vital role of repentance was stressed in our Lord’s observation about those Galileans whose blood Pilate had in derision mingled with their sacrifices: “Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2, 3).

As the apostles witnessed to the Ressurrection of Christ they warned men everywhere to repent.

Paul tells us that the goodness of God should lead us to repentance, and distinguishes between worldly sorrow and godly repentance (2 Cor. 7:10).

The risen Lord says to the church in Ephesus: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent …; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (Rev. 2:5).

God is not mocked: his holiness, love, and judgment continue today. To us he says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:19).

What are we doing about repentance in our own lives? Do we think we can hide our sins from the One of whom it is said, “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13)?

Repentance is a very personal matter. No one can repent for another, for all stand individually under the condemnation of sin. One may rationalize it, but it remains; deny it, but it continues; ignore it, but it is there.

Repentance involves the recognition of a condition, the admission of guilt, the confession of sin.

Repentance and confession have within them an element of spiritual catharsis; but of infinitely greater importance, they place us in the way of divine cleansing and forgiveness.

Why is a matter of such grave concern so lightly treated today? Why are we so concerned about collective social sins while we ignore the personal sins from which the collective proceed?

Somewhere along the line we find ourselves standing guilty in silence before the sovereign God of all history. Of us the Apostle Paul asks, “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).

Our pulpits again need the voice of truth, calling sin by its name and calling for repentance, confession, and faith in God’s Son—his provision for sinning and lost mankind.

For Men Only

All right, you guys, don’t say you didn’t have fair warning. St. Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Get ready to remember the women in your life.

One of the quaint Valentine’s Day customs I recall from my childhood—shortly before the French and Indian Wars—is that of “stamping” Valentines.

Under the cover of darkness one would drop a card on the porch, stamp his foot, and then vault over the rail to watch from the bushes as the young lady came forth to open the card and begin to puzzle out the name of the giver.

You didn’t just sign the card. You hid your name in a code, like using the numerical equivalent of your first and last initials—something that made it a little more exciting but was simple enough to assure your discovery.

The cost of my affection was rather small in those days. About half a cent for small cards printed on one side only, as I recall.

Not only has inflation gotten to the price of cards; affluence has increased the expectation. A card is no longer enough.

Historians can chatter all they wish about the Roman lovers’ festival of Lupercalia as the origin of Valentine’s Day; it’s perfectly obvious that the celebration was invented by a greeting-card manufacturer and is perpetuated by an international cabal of florist and candy manufacturers. You know that and I know it, but, gentlemen, the women of the world don’t care. They expect cards, flowers, and candy.

We might try pointing out that the the emphasis on romantic love is a relatively modern notion and that marriages in the past were based on something more lasting, like the conception of women as chattel. We could mention the general absence of romantic love in the Scriptures. “Can you envision,” we could ask, “the Apostle Paul interrupting his dictation to put his personal flourish on a Valentine?” We could try but we’d better not.

And on the other hand, it isn’t hard to conceive of Boaz, in that great love story of the Old Testament, sending both flowers and candy to Ruth. So, gentlemen, I give you a Valentine’s Day toast: May our womenfolk be like Ruth, who so decisively chose the God of Israel, and may we be as gallant as Boaz.

EUTYCHUS V

GOOD FRIENDS

I just want to tell you I appreciate beyond words the deep inspiration and enlightenment I’ve received through the years from CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Hardly an issue comes that I don’t gain a new insight or perspective. One tends to take this for granted when it is so consistent. Yet I often think what truly good friends I’ve found in the pages of your magazine, and I do thank God for all of you. MRS. ROBERT MUSTAIN Los Angeles, Calif.

ACCUMULATED FACTS

J. Edwin Orr (“The Agony of Ulster,” Nov. 10) correctly diagnoses the need for revival. However, in the Ulster context this is too often conceived of in pietistic terms. In other words, personal religion is separated from the larger questions of social justice.… The article says the Irish are preoccupied with history; yes, and that is why we are not easily swayed by arguments purely pragmatic. Further, to argue that Ireland is economically backward, a questionable assumption, is to forget that partition separated the industrial North from the agricultural South. Naturally, without British aid our development in the South has been slower.…

When the Westminster government divided the country in 1922, they made provision for North and South to discuss the future unification of the country by establishing a Council of Ireland.… [But] Ireland North and South turned their backs on each other.… The original troubles [1968] began not so much to bring about a united Ireland but to gain civil rights for the Catholic minority.… In the article the term “IRA” is used indiscriminately.… In 1964 the IRA had adopted a Marxist platform and had given up its idea of unity by means of physical violence, and it now has the name “Official IRA”.… Later, in 1970, the “Provisional IRA” was born. They gained the most support, as they defended the Catholic areas. [The Provisional IRA] believes in the use of force to obtain a united Ireland. They are Catholic nationalists and are totally opposed to Marxism.…

I have lived in Ulster now for two years, and I can identify with the province’s sufferings. I can only see an extenuation of this violence unless the accumulated facts of history are faced and resolved.

Ulster

MICHAEL GARDE

WITHIN BOUNDS

J. Gordon Melton’s review of a variety of books on occult or psychic phenomena in the December 8 issue raises the question of what would constitute proper objectivity in such studies. Three possible varieties of “objectivity” are readily distinguishable among the works reviewed and in the review itself. The first variety is the naïve, reportorial objectivity of Knight’s Weird World of the Occult, which led him to disregard the scriptural prohibitions against spiritism in order to do firsthand research at a séance. The obvious result of this approach is a book that participates in the occult so heavily as to become a potential instrument for the spread of occult influence. The second possible variety is the academic objectivity adopted by the reviewer himself and attributed by him to such writers as Neff. While vastly more sophisticated than Knight’s attitude in its historical dimension, this attitude shares the skepticism for the scriptural prohibitions upon experience of the “secret things” beyond the realm of biblical revelation. Finally, there is the objectivity of the surgeon seeking to excise every vestige of malignancy, exemplified in Kurt Koch’s Christian Counselling. Koch’s Christian ministry of deliverance, in contrast to the other approaches, has led him to a rigorous observance of biblical norms such as those of Deuteronomy 18. And while Koch does grant the possibility of a narrow range of naturally occurring psychic ability in man, he urges Christians to strictly avoid cultivating such abilities because of the very real danger of tapping into the demonic-psychic or “mediumistic.” Confession of the exercise of psychic powers as sin and a complete renunciation of them in the name of Jesus Christ is his characteristic recommendation.

Knowledge of the hidden things is gained at a profound personal cost even in the context of a ministry of deliverance. More Christians should be willing to pay that price for the sake of the oppressed, but only within the bounds set by biblical norms. True objectivity, after all, becomes a possibility in a given area of study only on the basis of a prior submission to the norms of the Word of God for that area.

Melton does do a real service by bringing up for discussion Koch’s view that the healing powers of Oral Roberts are “mediumistic” in character. The existence of such an oppression in the life of this evangelist would help to explain why his ministry often tends to glorify Oral Roberts rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Redding, Calif.

DAVID HADDON

“The Other Spiritual Revival,” the topic of your review of books on the psychical, is just that—the manifestations and effects of other spirits, those not of God. Your reviewer’s softness on witchcraft is extremely questionable in view of biblical injunctions against the practice. It is totally incorrect to in any way equate the Pentecostal-charismatic experience with psychic-occult phenomena, and ludicrous to lump the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International together with the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship. There are indeed two spiritual worlds. Satan’s counterfeits are coming to the forefront today in opposition to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Sedalia, Mo.

DOUG KNEIBERT

HOLY CYNICISM

This is just a note in appreciation of the “What If …” cartoons. There is a place for holy cynicism, and Lawing has the right idea as well as the insight. Praise God for his sense of humor.

Wheaton, Ill.

JOHN D. BENNETT

Don’t even think of eliminating “What If.…” In fact, I want to encourage you to publish a book of the cartoons. You may send me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for this wonderful idea. You might even consider making some of the better cartoons into posters and offering them to your readers. I thank God for a sense of humor—for I assume he gave it to me.

Hillsboro, Kan.

MARIE K. WIENS

FOR YOURSELF

After reading Jon R. Kennedy’s review of The Cross and the Flag in your December 22 issue, I could not help but wonder what his qualifications were to review such a book, especially in light of some of his rather peculiar remarks about politics and Christianity in the United States and elsewhere. Those who have read the volume and/or know the authors will find it difficult to believe that Kennedy speaks as an authority on the subject.

Among several, there are at least two points worth special consideration. First, the language of The Cross and the Flag is much more conciliatory in tone than is Kennedy’s review.… Second, the implication that the book assumes some kind of doctrinaire non-Christian liberal stance rather than attempting to relate directly to evangelical Christians today is patently false, as the introduction carefully points out.

My advice: read the book for yourself and then measure it against Kennedy’s review.

Emporia, Kans.

DALLAS M. ROARK

A SWING BETWEEN

Thank God that my relationship to the Father does not depend on history, which Dr. Scaer in “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” (Dec. 22) has purported. Quick to condemn a list of “existentially oriented exegetical scholars” for faith only without history, the author himself swings to an almost humanistic Jesus.

One can become so involved in the “actuals” of the history of Jesus that one forgets God’s purpose of the incarnation of his Son, that he would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Christians and non-Christians can have a factual knowledge of the birth of this Jesus in Bethlehem. King Herod and his advisors knew of the time and place of Jesus’ birth as proclaimed by the ancient prophets. But what good is knowledge unless there is faith granted by the Holy Spirit to believe that Jesus was born to be the Saviour of the world?

Gabriel Hebert in the title of a little book, The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History, may well tell us about the old cliché—not either/or but both/and.

PETER MEALWITZ

Grace Lutheran Church

Elynia, Ohio

INTO THE TRAP

Too bad that an otherwise fine essay had to be tainted by the author’s falling headlong into a pedagogical trap: that of treating a four-year-old as if he were a forty-year-old—in miniature (A Layman and His Faith, “The Golden Years,” Dec. 22).

Thus the author conveniently lumps all children from ages one to five into the same general category of “little children.” Are we to teach the two-year-old the same Bible story that we teach the five-year-old? Does not the two-year-old’s more limited perception of the world preclude some stories and concepts that the five-year-old could easily handle?…

Children, like other growing things, need to be nurtured most carefully if they are to become healthy, adult specimens. They must learn to crawl before they attempt to walk. To treat them like miniature adults, capable of overlooking violence and appreciating advanced theological concepts, is to tarnish the golden years unnecessarily. Teach a two-year-old that Jesus loves him; teach him to pray … of course! To wait until he is six is to wait too long. But feed little lambs with the milk they can digest, not with the stout grass of later years!

ROBERT ROZEMA

Education Editor

Bible Way Curriculum

Board of Publications of the Christian Reformed Church

Grand Rapids, Mich.

One hymn you don’t hear much in church these days is that old favorite “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” The tune is certainly not what offends the sensitive contemporary Christian ear; rather it is the notion that a Christian can be a soldier, even metaphorically. The Church, like American society, is at a crossroads in its response to war. After centuries of responding affirmatively to the Old Testament concept (elaborated by Augustine) of the justifiable war, the Church is now more often flirting with the perennially enticing ethic of pacifism. Although often-unexamined consequences of this shift of Christian sentiment away from war and from military power are well worth our careful consideration, I am particularly interested in our willingness to skip over these primary concerns to a rejection of the agents of that power—our military men.

Vermont Royster noted in his “Thinking Things Over” column in the Wall Street Journal that at a recent three-day symposium on “the role of the military in a democracy” “there was a long list of speakers, but no one from any of the military services.” He was disturbed by this remarkable omission, largely because it was not intentional. No one had thought of asking any member of the armed forces. “There was an unconscious assumption that the military mind wasn’t worth listening to, at least on this subject.” The press and the liberal intelligentsia of America show less and less respect for the intellect and activity of men in the armed forces.

In the past, America—including its churchmen and intelligentsia—had considerable regard for military leaders, as is evidenced by elected leaders from military backgrounds. Patriotism and the notion of national defense were considered virtuous, and respect was paid those who led well and fought well. The G.I. Bill, the bonus points for G.I.s taking exams for government employment, and many other gestures made by Congress reflected a concern for the soldier and a gratitude for his sacrifices. The Viet Nam veteran is more likely to find his military service a source of embarrassment, and the career officer is more comfortable in civilian clothes. The hostility is bound to affect the willingness of the ordinary citizen to serve in the army and the potential leader to dedicate his life to military matters. No normal person wants to volunteer to serve as national scapegoat.

At two week-long seminars I attended at the Army War College, I was amazed at the openness of the military officers to the views of civilians and the care with which they analyze civilian responses to their actions. They are enormously sensitive to their stereotyping as Strangeloves. Most of the men I talked with are educated (often with a master’s degree or a doctorate); they are well read in contemporary ideas and modern history; they know what has happened to public opinion and when it happened. But they are helpless to know what they can do to refute the unspoken charge that they are monsters. Their own children often echo the hostility of the press and academia. And they are becoming lonely, defensive, alienated men. Had they now the same opportunities of scholarships to West Point or to other reputable colleges, a number would choose civilian institutions.

THINKING TO PRAY

Thinking to pray, I kneel

in the dark room

& raise my face to the

unseen ceiling

my bones joint

into speech

my veins fork

into silence

no light graces

my tongue’s wet wick

one by one my fingers flare

& gutter

as I clasp the space

between my palms

Thinking to pray, I crouch

by the unmade bed

& break my knuckles

across my tongue

the air in my mouth

is solid

with nothing

each tooth bursts

into a final word

& when I rise

I rise from

my skull

& find each split bone

a flowering branch

EUGENE WARREN

While they so often listen well to the civilian voices that control their actions and determine their strategies (the real leaders in military matters are, after all, civilian politicians), they are allowed little voice to refute their critics. And most are accustomed to this discipline of silence, breaking it only if they are ready to retire or resign.

The press, academia, and the Church, on the other hand, have taken no such vow. It is their job to speak out. But it is also their job to understand the military views at least as well as the military understand the civilian views. I have been appalled at the ease with which many educated men on our campuses have steadily withdrawn respect from the military, showing not only hostility to ROTC but a blind rejection of all things military. I have known a colleague to refuse to believe an officer even in his comments on geography—simply because he thinks all officers are liars. These men (the colonels and the generals) came into the service at a time of high patriotism. They are victims of a war they did not choose and a world they cannot alter.

The university community should show a little sympathy and “liberalize” on this issue—for the sake of the university itself and its role as forum of ideas. When we push ROTC off the campus, we lose any chance to mold future officers. The fear that the military will damage the university community does no credit to our security in liberal education. If students have the capacity to choose truth, then they should have the right to choose among as many alternatives as possible. Our colleges are not temples of virtue; they are (or should be) forums for debate. Students should be subjected to a vast array of conflicting ideas and encouraged to pursue truth freely—not to parrot our tired theories. And among those ideas is the very real one of the justifiable war. It is sheer foolishness to pretend that military might is an unmitigated evil that has never served man.

This withdrawal of respect and support has clearly been a phenomenon of the Viet Nam years, and one we can also trace in our churches. The churches are fairly consistently proving themselves to be thermometers rather than thermostats in society, pricked to a tender conscience only at the prodding of the college community and the press. Church after church has flatly condemned our actions in Southeast Asia with little apparent understanding of the ramifications of its condemnations. Many who insist this is an “immoral war” feel it must perforce be fought by immoral or ignorant men. The officers in the higher ranks of the military—those commanding in this incredible war—cannot claim ignorance. But neither are they willing to accept blame for a war ordered by civilians and opposed by military strategists.

To pull away from military men because of an antagonism to Viet Nam—to a war, not to all wars—is to hate the tool of a civilian establishment rather than to focus on the greater evil. The military man does not have the freedom to decide when and where he will fight. His only freedom is to decide whether to become a member of the military. Once he has decided that, he may not become a conscientious objector with the same freedom as the civilian. He has not caused the war nor decided to engage in it; his job is to carry out orders. He is no more guilty—and no more innocent, for the most part—than the rest of us. He does have decisions to make that can mean life or death to others and to himself, but the overlying choice on the war is not his. War is a symptom of sin in all men, not just in the soldiers and in the politicians. Living as we do east of Eden, we have come to expect the sin of Cain. Cleansing this sin is not so simple as driving him off, for Cain lives in all of us. Our real need is the abundant grace of God, not a ritual stoning of the outcast.

Furthermore, to shun the soldier is to imitate the university in abandoning the opportunity to influence the moral choices of our military. There are life-and-death decisions that must be made—as atrocities in Viet Nam have graphically proved—and we want decent men making these decisions. When we deny them our communion, we willingly hand this great power over to the secularists and the pragmatists.

Barbara Tuchman, who has thought long and hard about war, said recently, “Military men are people. There are good ones and bad ones, some thoughtful and intelligent, some men of courage and integrity, some slick operators and sharp practicers, some scholars and fighters, some braggarts and synthetic heroes.” Such a description could easily characterize members of any profession—and any church. Certainly the Christian, above all men, should recognize the individual differences among men. Christ loved as individuals those he called. He knew each of them as he knows each of us. It is hardly Christ-like to resort to blanket condemnations—or to any judgment of other men.

Perhaps one of the temptations to which Christians are succumbing in this rejection of military men and military might is the delusion that by denouncing sin and sinners one rids oneself of them. Even if we could stay clear of sin in such a simple way, Christians should not consider withdrawing from this tournament of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Milton insisted, thinking of Adam’s life east of Eden, that to be human we must confront good and evil. To be true wayfaring Christians, we must not be content with cloistered virtue but must confront and overcome evil. The pose of purity implicit in our shunning of the “evildoers” and our condemnation of the evil allows the churchman the unearned luxury of avoiding confrontation with his own sin. It is after all much easier to confess the sins of one’s erring brothers. And it does place the churchmen in the awkward position of paralleling the Pharisees with their impervious holiness. Christ found them hard to convert.

Indeed, the situation is more complex than this simplistic sinning-military-innocent-civilian formula suggests. Who among us has not benefited from the battles our military have fought throughout our history? Critics now note the evils brought home by the Viet Nam war, but they ignore the benefits we have greedily reaped from wars in our comfortable, secure citadel of righteous indignation. How much of our freedom and our comfort are we now ready to relinquish? How much of our pose is hypocrisy?

In addition, our easy platitudes encourage overgeneralization and shallow reasoning out of keeping with Christ’s own life and teachings. The church-school curriculum in my church, for example, asks the apparently rhetorical question, “Can a Christian be a soldier?” This kind of foolishness ignores the larger question of the Christian response to violence, even in self-defense, to the demands of Caesar, and his concept of the workings of God in history. Even minds as rich as Augustine’s have found such problems difficult to cope with, but many moderns think them too easy to demand consideration. We also confuse the war itself with the soldier who serves in it—for whatever private motives. Is the implication of the question about the Christian soldier that no Christian can engage in any war, or only that no Christian can engage in this war? Why then do we have the chaplains? Is the only honest Christian response to war to become a conscientious objector? We are also assuming that the role of the soldier is to kill. Thomas Carlyle insisted that his vocation was rather to die. Others have thought he was called to protect or defend us. All these are knotty problems, puzzling to the ancients, more puzzling still to us. It is the Christian’s obligation to think deeply into problems and to look first at the beam in his own eye before he considers the mote in his brother’s.

We do our church a disservice to condemn a whole body of citizens, creating in them a sense of isolation and of helplessness and of shame while flattering ourselves in our fake innocence. If we are to continue to have a military (and I suspect we are not willing to do without it yet), we as Christians should seek to create a rapport with the members of that group for our own sakes as well as theirs. It is certainly in our own best interest to work for responsible, moral, Christ-like leaders. There is a real danger in driving out of the armed services those who are reluctant to fight—and those who want to be a respected part of the community; we don’t want to be left with an army of muscle-flexing killers, a subsidized Mafia for our defense. If we insist on treating the members of the armed services as outcasts and scapegoats, we shall create monsters. We would pray first that God would deliver us from violence—our own and that of others. But if we must fight wars in our fallen world, God grant that we have Christian leaders!

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.”

Many Christians dismiss the women’s liberation movement as a kooky modern fad. Opinions are formed from news reports about disgruntled women who march in front of all-male taverns, decry marriage and the family, and rail against “man, the oppressor.” This image of women’s lib is unfortunate; it misses the whole point of the movement and encourages the widespread suspicion that Christianity and feminism are incompatible.

The women’s rights movement is nothing new. It is a resurgence of the drive for equal rights that was sparked in the last century by women who were active in the abolitionist cause. Often rebuffed and ridiculed in their efforts to secure freedom for slaves, women were jolted into a realization that blacks were not the only ones whose individual rights and human dignity were being ignored, and the American feminist movement arose.

The original women’s rights movement was fervently religious. For the most part, nineteenth-and early twentieth-century feminists professed Christianity and took the Bible seriously. When critics hurled theological arguments against them, they sought to answer with well-reasoned rebuttals. Christian feminists of the 1970s may find it helpful to see how they waged the battle.

Anne Hutchinson had already asked during colonial days “that the same rights of individual judgment upon religious questions should be accorded to woman which the Reformation had already secured to man.” In this same spirit, the nineteenth-century feminists diligently studied the Bible for themselves rather than unquestioningly accept traditional interpretations. “It is a pity that those who would recommend the Bible as the revealed will of the all-wise and benevolent Creator should uniformly quote it on the side of tyranny and oppression,” complained a speaker at the 1854 Philadelphia Woman’s Rights Convention. She and her colleagues were not blaming Christianity as a whole for holding back woman’s progress but rather certain forms of Christianity that they felt misinterpreted and misused Scripture.

One of the men attending that convention said that many more people would favor equality for women were it not for “the Bible problem.” He claimed that the masses of the American people accepted the Bible as God’s revelation of his will and were convinced that Scripture decreed the inequality of the sexes; therefore, what more could be said?

The feminists had wrestled with this challenge for a long time, and they knew the matter must be settled in their own minds as well as in public debate. For decades, Bible texts had been used to prevent women from getting an education, speaking in public, voting, obtaining legal rights, and so on. Yet at the same time women were told that Christianity had raised them to a level never before known. Seeing the apparent contradiction, feminists concluded that indeed Christianity had done much for them, but it was surely not the same Christianity that was being preached by many misogynistic clergymen.

Would God be so unfair as to create women with yearnings for full development as human beings and then insist that such development be blocked? An early Bryn Mawr College president once told an alumnae gathering that as a child she had grudgingly accepted church-propagated ideas of female inferiority and prayed often about it. She told God that if it were true that girls could not attend college she couldn’t bear to live in such an unjust world and begged him to kill her.

But how could one deal with the biblical passages that seemed to teach woman’s subordination? The early feminists did not shy away from this or dismiss the difficulties as irrelevant (as is sometimes done in the new feminism of today). They faced the subject head-on, and their arguments may be classified under the following headings:

1. What Creation teaches. The feminists liked to refer to the first chapter of Genesis, pointing out that God created both male and female human beings in his image and gave them joint dominion over the earth. Alluding to Psalm 8, Quaker abolitionist Angelina Grimke wrote that woman (like man, created in God’s image) was “crowned with glory and honor; created only a little lower than the angels—not, as is almost universally assumed, a little lower than man.” Woman at creation was given the same honor, privileges, and responsibilities as man.

Critics who opposed equality for women bypassed Genesis 1 and preferred to stress Genesis 2. This chapter clearly taught, they insisted, that woman was created for man and that man was superior to woman. Wasn’t Eve given to Adam to be his helpmate? Wasn’t it obvious that God intended the woman to honor and serve the man rather than to have her own independent existence?

No, said Christian feminists. They could not believe that woman had been created as an afterthought, solely for man’s benefit. One way they refuted this, interpretation was to argue that the words translated “an help meet for him” could just as well be rendered “a helper like unto himself.” The expression did not signify weakness, subservience, and inferiority. (After all, God himself is spoken of in Scripture as our helper.) Rather, the second chapter of Genesis showed that God intended companionship between men and women as equal moral and intelligent beings, alike in their dignity and worth before God.

2. The writings of St. Paul. Virtually no public debate on women’s rights took place without somebody’s insistence that Paul’s epistles proved equality for women was unscriptural. Often quoted were First Corinthians 11:1–16; 14:34–36; Ephesians 5:22–33; First Timothy 2:8–15; and Titus 2:3–5.

In answering, feminists raised new questions about traditional interpretations. Was there really anything uniquely Christian about a wife’s subjection to her husband? “It has been done by law and public opinion,” completely apart from the Christian faith, pointed out Lucretia Mott. And how could First Timothy 2:11–15 with its use of a rabbinical-type argument for prohibiting woman’s teaching and leadership insist that woman was subordinate simply because she was the last created? Catharine Waugh McCulloch argued that both Scripture and science indicated an ascending scale in which the higher forms of life were created last. On the basis of such reasoning, she pointed out, one could turn the argument around and insist that the men obey the women! She might also have asked whether Adam should be considered inferior to the animals since he was made after them.)

The argument that woman was by nature deficient and subordinate to man because of being last created and first to fall into sin had been discussed much earlier by Judith Murray (under the pen name Constantia). In an eighteenth-century publication entitled “On the Equality of the Sexes,” she tried to show that woman’s being “first in the transgression” could be viewed as a point in her favor. Why? Because it required a personal appearance of Satan himself, disguised in celestial-like beauty, to persuade her to sin! In contrast, Adam had sinned after seeing his wife’s loss of innocence and her failure to attain the sought-after wisdom. Yet he defied what he knew to be God’s command, given directly to him, and was “influenced by no other motive than a bare pusillanimous attachment to a woman!” Wouldn’t this make Adam seem the greater sinner? asked Constantia.

The early feminists viewed the so-called curse on woman in Genesis 3:16 (often cited along with the Pauline texts) as a prophecy rather than a divine decree. In this verse God was simply describing what the future would hold for women as a result of sin’s entrance into the world. Catharine McCulloch said that to insist the passage meant women were under a command to obey men and suffer throughout the ages would be as absurd as insisting that what was said to Adam required all men ever after to perspire when they worked and to eat only herbs!

Paul’s teachings in First Corinthians 11 were sometimes twisted to imply that woman is to be dependent on man instead of on the Lord. This the early feminists strongly rejected. They insisted that the Scriptures uniformly teach dependence upon God and not on any “arm of flesh.”

On the other hand, Galatians 3:28 was a favorite text of the feminists. These words from Angelina Grimke in 1837 have a decidedly modern ring: “I recognize no rights but human rights—I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female.”

3. The cultural-historical approach. In treating New Testament texts that posed difficulty, women Bible scholars carefully sought out the historical circumstances that lay behind them. They were aware that the early Christian Church could not toss aside Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and Middle Eastern customers without bringing on itself disgrace. And they realized that much of Paul’s advice on the conduct of women—for example, the covering of the head in worship—was designed to avoid giving such offense. Likewise, the state of confusion that characterized the Corinthian church seemed to be the key to explaining Paul’s instructions that women keep silent in church gatherings and ask questions at home. To insist that this practice must be followed throughout all time seemed unreasonable. Seekers after women’s rights felt that many isolated texts weren’t applicable to the modern world and were never intended as universal, binding divine commands.

Women who studied Greek also pointed out instances where Bible translators showed a bias toward the male sex. One example was that the word translated “servant” to describe Phoebe (Rom. 16:1, KJV), a word used by Paul nearly two dozen times, is everywhere else translated “minister” or “deacon” (when used for men).

4. The women of the Bible. Examples of women who loved and served God in both Old and New Testament times were often cited. The early feminists liked to point out that women like Miriam, Deborah, the prophetess Huldah, Anna, the woman of Samaria, Priscilla, Phoebe, the daughters of Phillip, and others like them did not remain docilely behind the scenes serving in silence. Rather women had public ministries and duties in church and state, having been guided by God to undertake such responsibilities. Surely the letter to Titus, exhorting women to be “keepers at home,” could not have been intended to limit all women in all places for all time.

5. Christ’s attitude toward women. Christian feminists noted that Jesus treated men and women followers equally during his earthly ministry, and they suggested keeping this in mind in approaching the question of women’s roles and rights. True, Christ didn’t give specific instructions on such things as women’s suffrage; but (wrote Catharine McCulloch in the first decade of this century) “Christianity will solve these newer problems if we study the spirit of Christ’s words and then apply the treatment most in accord with His life and teachings.”

6. The shared humanity of men and women. Feminists found it hard to believe that a loving God had created separate specific spheres in which persons were to be confined throughout life (i.e., the domestic circle for women, the world-at-large for men). Wasn’t there a deep desire for spiritual freedom and mental development in all human beings? Why should that desire be nurtured in men and smothered in women? “Men and women were CREATED EQUAL,” wrote Sarah Moore Grimke in the 1830s as she replied to a circulating pastoral letter that condemned her public lecturing against slavery. “They are both moral and accountable beings, and whatever is right for man to do, is right for woman to do.”

Her sister Angelina Grimke expressed similar sentiments: “This regulation of duty by the mere circumstance of sex … has led to [a] multifarious train of evils.” She gave as examples such ideas as that “manliness” meant sternness and the characteristics of a warrior, whereas women were expected to exhibit softness, weakness, docility, and a desire to dress up “as a doll” and serve men as mere drudges.

The question of “spheres” (today we speak of “roles”) was widely discussed. Lucy Stone summarized the feelings of many when she said in one of her speeches:

Wendell Phillips says, “The best and greatest thing one is capable of doing, that is his sphere.” I have confidence in the Father to believe that when He gives us the capacity to do anything He does not make a blunder. Leave women, then, to find their sphere. And do not tell us before we are born even, that our province is to cook dinners, darn stockings, and sew on buttons.… I know not what you believe of God, but I believe He gave yearnings and longings to be filled, and that He did not mean all our time should be devoted to feeding and clothing the body.

Long before this, Constantia’s pamphlets expressed similar thoughts. While men insisted that women would be happier and more pleasing to God if they confined themselves to household matters, she had tried to show that education for women could be spiritually beneficial. Astronomy, philosophy, natural science, and geography could increase a woman’s adoration for God and his works. Therefore, why should female education be considered contrary to his will?

7. The general spirit of Christianity. Christian feminists pointed out that such characteristics as love, peace, meekness, and kindness are never categorized in Scripture as “feminine virtues”; all Christians are expected to display the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23). They saw the error in men’s belief that ambition, reason, debate, and even physical force made up the male code, whereas women were expected “to win everything by peace and love,” with gentleness and benevolence. This distorted view prompted Angelina Grimke to ask if women shouldn’t then be considered the superior sex—since moral power is certainly on a much higher level than physical force!

Hypocrisy was another matter that couldn’t be reconciled with the spirit of Christianity. Yet religious leaders were telling women that although God required submission and obedience to husbands, wives could nevertheless find all sorts of clever schemes by which they could get their own way. “Rule by obedience, and by submission sway,” was common advice—encouraging wives to pretend submission while guilefully undermining male authority to carry out their own ends. The feminists exposed this for the ugly dishonesty it was.

Lastly, the early feminists knew that Christianity is a public matter, not something to be hidden away. They knew Jesus Christ wanted his good news to spread and that he had clearly spoken against burying talents and hiding one’s light under a bushel. Persuaded that Christ intended this for women as well as men, they resented being told that “the influence of a woman is to be private and unobtrusive.” They wanted their lights to shine brightly for their Lord and were determined that this light would not be smothered by a “bushel” marked Woman’s Place. For this desire they were cruelly ridiculed and reviled. Yet they kept on working, writing, and waiting, knowing that someday their point would be made.

That point hasn’t come yet, but perhaps it is much closer than ever before. For this reason, it is profitable to explore the message the early Christian feminists have left for us. The vision of men and women as co-sharers of God’s grace and co-workers in Christ’s kingdom is a timely message for the 1970s.

Sola Scriptura has been the Church’s standard of orthodoxy ever since the Reformation. Today Rome wishes to be thought of as operating under this norm as well, and even the most radical wings of contemporary theology claim it. Obviously its meaning must be wide when everyone lays claim to it.

To be sure, there is a difference between being everybody’s theological pet and being an actual working principle. Luther and his co-Reformers took very seriously the matter of Scripture’s ruling in the Church and in its theology. To Luther there was a great difference “between what God’s Word says and what men say.” For him the principle always was that the Word of God, Holy Scripture, was the only standard for measuring all teachers and all teaching.

Modern theologians have subjected the sola Scriptura principle to its severest attack. Now “the problem” is one “of the tension between the historically conditioned shell of the Christian message and its essential kernel independent of the changes of history,” observes Regin Prenter (The Word and the Spirit, Augsburg, 1965, p. 56). What other result could be expected than that “the Gospel was stretched on the torture rack of contemporary thought until it obligingly said what the thinkers of that age already were saying?” (ibid.).

Prenter has his finger on modern theology’s sore spot regarding the sola Scriptura principle. At the same time he chooses to keep himself untainted by orthodoxy and its reliance on the inspired biblical text by accepting higher criticism’s view of the Bible as “the historically conditioned shell of the Christian message.” He insists that “it was no loss to Lutheran theology that the inspiration theory disappeared.” In fact, he goes on to warn that “its reappearance will only mean a return to orthodoxy away from Luther’s living witness about the Spirit” (p. 166).

It is no secret that many others find the views of “orthodoxy” on Scripture’s inspiration similarly repugnant. What the Nicene Creed confesses when it says of the Holy Spirit, “Who spake by the prophets,” has been stringently modified or completely excised by most contemporary theologians. Even among generally conservative theologians, like Prenter, terms like “orthodoxy” and “inspiration” have a loaded, pejorative connotation. Theodore G. Tappert, editor and translator of the up-to-date version of the Lutheran Book of Concord, peers down upon orthodoxy as “ossified and polemical,” concerned more for the preservation of pure doctrine and rigid distinctions, for fashioning neat, tidy systems of theological thinking, for what might be termed the assertive, scholastic, intellectual, and traditional viewpoint, than for lively, vigorous Christian living and witnessing (The Lutheran Heritage, Muhlenberg, 1957, vol. 2, p. 36 ff.). Tappert would agree when Prenter lumps orthodoxy and biblicism together in one bundle, accusing orthodoxy of “a certain dogmatism and a self-assurance,” of looking for and demanding “a fixed point” when it emphasizes the significance and the power of the Bible in the hands of each devout reader (op. cit., p. 10). Apparently the Apostle Paul’s commending of the Berean Christians for their avid reading and searching in Scripture for “fixed points” as it were, and many other examples from Christ’s and his apostles’ teaching, never cross their minds.

In any case, it is very clear how deep, sharp, and bitter the feelings run on the subject of orthodoxy and all its claimed evils. A veritable chorus of critical voices sings forth the “damnamus.” Pannenberg contends it would be best “to abandon the conception that dogmatic statements must have the character of timelessly binding and unchanging truth” and to admit rather that such truths are only “relatively binding” (Jesus, God and Man, Westminster, 1968, p. 14). Pannenberg is talking about “confessional statements,” which involve the person of Christ, and he is arguing that these may have become “strange and impossible for contemporary Christians” (p. 11). His suggestion that doctrine, “the lasting truth in this tradition,” specifically Christological doctrine, “emerges as a process in the history of traditions” is woefully inadequate and unscriptural. His own rationale is actually self-condemning when he urges that then theology will always be open “to the inclusion of ever new points of view … [and] new interpretations” (p. 12). The great and cherished ecumenical creeds of Christendom, pressed forth as standards of orthodoxy against heretical teaching, appear shunted to the side when Pannenberg avers that “for such a project no common dogmatic presuppositions are required” (p. 14).

I am quite aware of the ambiguity inherent in the term “orthodoxy”; certainly it means different things to different people. Nevertheless, the basic concern remains: Are there, or are there not, outside and inside limits by which the Christian faith is set and determined? To what extent do the Scriptures remain the controlling factor? In the tension between modern theology and orthodoxy four practices characterize modern theology: (1) criticizing orthodoxy’s rigidity of formulation; (2) rejecting the doctrine of verbal inspiration; (3) stereotyping a man like Luther as a “doctrinal purist”; (4) caricaturing orthodoxy as loveless, lifeless Christianity.

1. With the creedal (ecumenical) standards of the past also in the picture, modern theologians criticize orthodoxy for remaining rigid and unyielding in its formulations of doctrine. Heinrich Bornkamm brands this formulation a canonization of its own tradition and warns that a church that clings to formulations of doctrine with confessional firmness “puts on an armor that grows heavier and heavier.” “It almost always happens,” he adds, “that the exposition itself must be re-expounded” and that then “the old formulations must give way” (The Heart of Reformation Faith, Harper & Row, 1965, p. 43). Tappert psychologizes that it must have been impatience with what he calls Luther’s “loose and sometimes inconsistent use of the Bible” that “drove the theologians inexorably in the direction of a fixed and final authority” (op. cit., p. 43). Prenter likewise has only adverse criticism for anyone who regards the Bible as, in his words, “a collection of inerrant truths about God.”

The Church really ought to rid itself once and for all of skittish feeling about being dogmatic over the truths about God that Holy Scripture embraces within its inerrant text. As Harry Blamires has well pointed out, “there is no escape from creed and dogma except by way of rebellion against God” (A Defence of Dogmatism, SPCK, 1965, p. 130). Each man has his creed, and the Christian ought indeed to be much concerned that his is clearly and accurately formulated. Secular creeds are forever seeking to subvert the Christian’s certainty of faith, often with labels like “traditionalist,” “irrelevant,” “obscurantist,” and “sub-rational,” all of which are very familiar by this time.

By rights, orthodoxy, instead of fielding the questions, ought to be putting them. Is God untrustworthy? Is the Church founded upon everlasting question marks? Is our faith nothing but a nebulous fog? Is the Bible reliable? The idea that Christians take shelter behind some kind of veil of incomprehensibility ought to be recognized for what it is, an invention of the Devil. For Christians to act as though they do not have the answers to men’s greatest problems of life, when in fact their Lord has given them, is really to abdicate from their calling.

The Lutheran orthodox theologians of the seventeenth century, for example, were outstanding exceptions to such irresoluteness; whatever faults they may have had, they proved themselves courageous contenders for the faith. Firsthand reading of their works will convince the careful scholar that the usual attacks on these stalwarts stem from superficial, prejudiced, and second-hand sources. Writing them off as mere “rationalists,” or “intellectualists,” or “dogmatic pedants,” is arbitrary and poorly motivated judgment.

Emphasis on pure doctrine and the fight against false teaching have properly characterized the Church from apostolic times. Even cursory reading of the New Testament (e.g., Acts 2:42; 18:26; 1 Cor. 14:8, 9, 19) shows how great this concern was among the early Christians. It was always so. Augustine called it “zeal about God’s house” to be concerned about pure teaching.

Luther’s zeal for purity of teaching is common knowledge and the cause célèbre of the Reformation. His double-pronged struggle against Rome, on the one hand, and against the “fantastic spirits,” on the other, turned on the issue of purity of doctrine and faithfulness to the pure Word of God as contained in Scripture’s text. The thetical portions of Luther’s famous treatises spell this out clearly. But perhaps even more telling in this regard are his many sermons and the beautiful Postils he wrote for the spiritual nurture of the “poor clergy” (so ill prepared to deliver good, evangelical sermons) and for the laity, particularly the heads of households, who were to be spiritual examples and mentors in their homes, teaching correctly about God and all the articles of faith. No one who reads Luther in these sources can doubt his zeal for God’s house and purity of doctrine.

Those who today have an honest passion for orthodox teaching, therefore, stand in line with a noble company, all the way back to the apostles themselves. History has repeatedly shown that, if doctrine is not the glue that holds the Church together, then whatever does is a substitute that leaves the Church vulnerable to the assault of secular theology. It is an unhealthy condition when confessional churches approach the point of barely tolerating serious doctrinal discussion and formulation. Never has the Church stood more in need of the sharp disinfectant of proper dogmatic firmness than at the present. The call, of course, is not for authoritarian dogmatism, but for well articulated and firmly held scriptural, confessional formulation. This is all the more imperative because the Church of today is so sorely troubled with the spirit of theological ennui, amorphous relativism, vapid process-philosophizing. To put it in plain English, the Church of today needs people who will stomach nothing less than the gospel truth given by God in his Word.

2. Orthodoxy has also been charged with formulating the “theory” of inspiration of Holy Scriptures. Instead of admitting the historical conditionedness of the Bible it introduced the teaching on inspiration (so goes the argument) in order to insure its authority as the voice and Word of God. The seventeenth-century orthodox theologians, according to Tappert, make “constant appeal to biblical authority supported by a mechanical theory of inspiration,” and as a result were able to achieve “a remarkable homogeneity in the interpretation of Christianity” (op. cit., p. 49). The net effect, however, of reinforcing Scripture’s authority in such “logical, rational, speculative terms,” in Tappert’s judgment, was “to obscure and conflict with historical and experiential reality” (p. 45).

Pinomaa, the Finnish Reformation scholar, voices similar criticism of orthodoxy’s emphasis on divine inspiration, especially as regards the Spirit’s use of the Word. “Orthodoxy resolved the problem,” he states, “by confining the Spirit to the outward Word. Verbal inspiration fixed the Spirit in the Word, whether it was in use or not” (Faith Victorious, Fortress, 1963, p. 103). Luther, he claims, did not have a doctrine of inspiration in this sense, that is, objectively and ontologically. Regin Prenter is also sharply critical of orthodoxy for what he calls the “objective view” that came to “monumental expression in the verbal inspiration doctrine,” but that “since the advent of historical criticism is no longer tenable” (op. cit., p. 23). His severest judgment, however, like Pinomaa’s, is the claim that support of “an inerrant Bible” makes proclamation of the Gospel and saving “confrontation impossible” (p. 31). Instead of “genuine preaching” that conveys objective certainty to a believer, through the faithful exposition of God’s infallible Word, Prenter opts for and virtually canonizes what he calls “objective uncertainty, doubt, and anguish” as the ingredients of “discipleship.”

Taking the last point first, we can say emphatically that Luther would have severely scored a doubting attitude toward Holy Scripture as the Word of God, an attitude that blessed, as it were, doubting and uncertainty. Such mysticism, though piously motivated, would only divert the Church from joyous confidence in God’s revealed truths. Luther bluntly blasted Erasmus for notions like these in his rightly famous Bondage of the Will. In a ringing sermon at Veste Coburg on April 16, 1530, Luther fired the hearts of the notables gathered there, prior to the famous Augsburg Diet, to be confident in faith concerning Holy Scripture and its articles of belief, rather than cringing and quavering with uncertainty for God’s Word and what they could accomplish with it on their side (Luther’s Works, 51, p. 204 f.).

One of the greatest misconceptions of our times is the notion that verbal inspiration was the invention of the seventeenth-century orthodox theologians. It was a doctrine held in highest reverence by the early Church, taught by apostolic authority. The seventeenth-century theologians earned the name “orthodox” because they believed that this was so; that Holy Scripture was the proper and only base for doctrine; that it was scriptural to contend for the true faith against all false teachings; and that Scripture was its own best interpreter, a principle Luther supported against all opponents of the Reformation.

The charge that these men held to a mechanical theory of inspiration is wholly without support and rises from superficial knowledge of their writings, or worse still, deliberate falsification. The fact is that they were much deeper, more balanced, more consistent, more loyal to Scripture itself than any of the modern reductionists who rip Scripture apart. Moreover, it has never been shown that faith in Scripture’s own doctrine of inspiration is somehow inhibiting or Spirit-defeating, too dogmatic.

The modern notion, offered as the Church’s most viable option for our times, that theology is to be open-ended, forever reaching ahead to the truth in the future, is very compelling but false. “The intellectual stretching forward towards a future in which at last man will be fully grown up and the Church can really come to be,” notes Blamires, is “idolatry of the future” and “life-denying,” whereas “orthodoxy is life-affirming” (op. cit., p. 44). For too long now theology has been looking past what God has already given, the balm of Gilead, refusing to accord his Word the maximum of respect and regard. “Doctrine is not ours but God’s,” Luther reminds us. We ought to cherish it exactly in that way, as His first of all. Was it not this precisely, this receiving it from God’s hand, that prompted the noble train of martyrs and “saints who from their labors rest” to risk all, even life itself, for its preservation among them (as well as promulgation among others), for their children, and theirs after them?

3. Orthodoxy has also been accused of creating a stereotype of Luther as a doctrinal purist, an image supposedly out of character with his real person and work. It was orthodoxy’s commitment to traditionalism, Tappert charges, that led to this caricature of Luther “as an orthodox professor of dogmatics” (op. cit., p. 47). In similar vein the orthodox theologians are accused of overvaluing the church fathers of the first five centuries, in a manner purportedly unlike Luther and more like Melanchthon.

Actually regard for and citation of the early church fathers was as much in accord with Luther’s as Melanchthon’s strategy. The Protestant party at Augsburg, in 1530, was as much influenced by the absent Luther—at Veste Coburg because he was under imperial ban!—as by the present Melanchthon, and special pains were taken to demonstrate the continuity between the Reformation position and that of the early Church.

But the chief complaint made against the seventeenth-century theologians is that they poured Luther into the mold of their own rigid views on Scripture, whereas the Reformer was ostensibly much freer with the Word. “Impatient with the Reformer’s apparently loose and sometimes inconsistent use of the Bible,” they rebounded “inexorably in the direction of a fixed and final authority,” Tappert argues (op. cit., p. 43). Here was the whole issue, lumped in one bundle: “For Luther, it was the gospel to which the Scriptures witness that was normative; for the orthodoxists the Scriptures themselves became normative, and in order to establish scriptural authority a mechanical theory of inspiration was developed” (ibid.). Tappert then lists Matthias Flacius, John Gerhard, Abraham Calov, and John Quenstedt as the responsible figures—a caricature, and one that would have surprised none more than the accused themselves!

However, Tappert is by no means alone in his view that for Luther the Word of God was never simply identifiable with Holy Scripture. Werner Elert, too, lifts a scolding finger at the orthodox theologians and states that their view “of Scripture completely in conformity in all details is out of the question,” and therefore out of step with the Reformer (The Structure of Lutheranism, Concordia, 1962, p. 181). A similar tack is taken by Edmund Schlink, who like Elert is otherwise staunchly on the side of conservative Lutheran theology. To the question of why Scripture is authoritative, Schlink answers: “Because God saves through the Word proclaimed by it” (Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, Fortress, 1961, p. 10).

Consistent Lutheran theology, beginning with Luther himself and so on down through the orthodox teachers to our times, has accented the fact that the Scriptures have their unique authority first of all because they are the Word of God by divine inspiration. Their chief content, of course, is the saving Gospel. This is their very heart, and for this reason God gave his Scriptures, as every believer knows and attests.

The position of the orthodox theologians was thus in full accord with Luther on the doctrine of the Word. Their portrayal of Luther, rather than a caricature, was more in the nature of a portrait faithfully drawn, with important features skillfully highlighted. The notion that Luther was somehow “freer” in his handling of Holy Scripture does not stand up. The fact is, as Althaus shows, that Luther was held by the text. Althaus is critical of Luther on this score but is frank to admit: “Here is the point at which the clarity of Luther’s own Reformation insight reached its limit. For it was at this point that Luther himself, in spite of everything, prepared the way for seventeenth-century orthodoxy” (The Theology of Martin Luther, Fortress, 1966, p. 52). “Luther makes no distinction between the gospel itself, which calls us to faith and effects that faith by convincing our heart and spirit,” Althaus notes with good perception, “and the doctrinal form which theological reflection has developed out of this faith in the gospel” (ibid., p. 53). For Luther, such formulations were not a different sort of breed from Scripture’s own given articles of faith. That kind of distinction, says Althaus, “Luther never made,” for it is a fact that “he called men to believe in the theologically formulated dogma of the church in the same sense in which he called them to believe in the ‘word of God,’ the gospel” (ibid.).

In this way, then, the orthodox theologians did indeed have Luther as their spiritus rector, or spiritual leader. They respected Luther’s concern for purity of doctrine, and they understood well Scripture’s role in safeguarding doctrinal purity. It was never a stilted concern for purity’s sake alone. Some who followed them may, indeed, have turned pure doctrine to such wooden use. But like Luther the orthodox theologians strove for doctrinal purity for the sake of true unity of faith in the Church. It was on this grounds, as Elert shows, that Luther labeled “jugglers” (Gaukelspieler) those “who, for the sake of external unity, speak equivocally with reference to crucial points” (op. cit., p. 280). Where pastors wink at doctrinal differences on the Sacrament, for example, Luther plainly deplores this duplicity and finds it hard to believe “that a preacher or pastor could be so obdurate and wicked as to keep silence in this matter and let both groups go along in this way, each in its own opinion” (quoted by Althaus, op. cit., p. 280). So it is likely, according to Elert, that Luther would have been still more adamant in the controversies that almost tore the Church apart after his death.

The spirit and mood of our day drums away at the idea that purity of doctrine is really not necessary, that it contributes nothing to unity but is disruptive, and, as a matter of fact, that it is pharisaically motivated. Such sentiment could never have found room in the Reformers’ hearts! While they well understood that faith was grounded on Christ, and not on a body of doctrine, they also always contended that there was a circle here, not a wall sharply dividing the one from the other. Thus the spirit of the Lutheran Confessors of 1530 (Augsburg Confession), of 1577 (Formula of Concord), of the days of orthodoxy in the seventeenth century, and of every simple believer in Christ sounds forth in these ringing, crystal clear words of Luther:

The great difference between doctrine and life is obvious, even as the difference between heaven and earth. Life may be unclean, sinful and inconsistent; but doctrine must be pure, holy, sound, unchanging.… Not a tittle or letter may be omitted, however much life may fail to meet the requirements of doctrine. This is so because doctrine is God’s Word, and God’s truth, alone, whereas life is partly our own doing.… God will have patience with men’s moral failings and imperfections and forgive them. But he cannot, will not, and shall not tolerate a man’s altering or abolishing doctrine itself. For doctrine involves His exalted, divine Majesty itself [Weimar edition of Luther’s works, vol. 30, III, p. 343 f.; cf. Luther’s Works, 41, 214 ff.].

4. Perhaps the unkindest cut of all against those tagged orthodox is the charge of so emphasizing pure doctrine that loveless, lifeless Christianity inevitably results. It is somehow assumed that correct teaching about God and the articles of faith excludes genuine sanctification of life; the fact that history records quite the opposite is quietly ignored. It would be foolish, of course, to deny that there were periods when churches and individuals kept rigorous doctrinal norms but otherwise went through their religious paces without genuine concern for human need. But it would be naïve to associate this phenomenon—hardly a phenomenon when one remembers that injustice among men will really end only when history itself comes to a close!—solely with orthodoxy.

The old priest in Georges Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest has a pertinent observation on the activity of the overly finicky nun:

The mistake she made wasn’t to fight dirt, sure enough, but to try to do away with it altogether. As if that were possible! A parish is bound to be dirty. A whole Christian society’s a lot dirtier. You wait for Judgment Day and see what the angels’ll be sweeping out of even the most saintly monasteries.

Even Reformation zeal would not have caused Luther to single out the monasteries only. Realistically he observed of all human nature, even in the regenerate, that life will always be filled with the “unclean, sinful, and inconsistent.” Christians strive after perfection, but they themselves know how often failure marks their path. However, a fair appraisal of life among Christians devoted to the pure teaching of God’s Word will regularly reveal, in spite of all, an unusual measure of acts of mercy and healing love.

In the early days of Lutheran history in America, C. F. W. Walther and his followers, who settled largely in the midwest (then called “west”) to found the conservative Missouri Synod, were castigated mercilessly (usually by fellow Lutherans) for their insistence on pure teaching and their so-called loveless existence. Dr. Walther’s simple rejoinder was: “Come and see.” His was no boast about perfection of life, only a reminder that purity of doctrine did not exclude sanctified life and works of love but rather undergirded them.

Tappert appears to be chiefly critical of what he calls the tendency in orthodoxy “to support and sanction the status quo,” to inculcate blind obedience in the people, set up certain taboos, blur the buoyant, cheerful, resilient spirit and way of life that characterized Luther, and thwart the true prophetic role of the Church in the world. Except for certain private acts of charity and rather perfunctory practices, “orthodoxism was religiously and morally sterile,” Tappert claims with broad sweep (op. cit., p. 50). He has to admit, however, that John Gerhard, one of the giants of orthodoxy, devoted almost a fourth of his famous Loci Theologici, a nine-volume dogmatics, to the practical and ethical concerns revolving around family, church, state, and individual sanctification of life. Without exception the great orthodox teachers of the seventeenth century, such as Calov, Hunnius, Hutter, Quenstedt, and Hollaz, following Gerhard’s example, intertwined their writing of dogmatics with the whole of Christian life. Only later, when the Enlightenment made its influence felt, was ethics moved out of theology in the German universities, as a separate discipline in philosophy. It is perhaps worth noting, for the present situation, that some Lutheran theological schools in America have held on tenaciously to the old arrangement, with due emphasis on the nexus indivulsus, the inseparable link, between justification of the sinner by faith in Christ and the sanctification of life that flows forth from his new relation with the Saviour.

Orthodoxy, then, emphasized both purity of teaching and active Christian living. But in the relation of the two, care was taken to distinguish between justifying faith and the fruits of faith. Yet faith never exists in isolation; its fruits are present in good works that flow out of each believer’s faithful filling of his station in life, his vocation. The starting point is always the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins. This was a concept Luther emphasized anew for the Church, that not the so-called splendid works that the Church had come to prescribe as especially spiritual and meritorious, but the routine performance of one’s duties as a child of God, acting out of love for God and for one’s fellow man—these were truly good works in God’s eyes.

One of Luther’s early (1520) and somewhat neglected treatises bore the specific title On Good Works, and was written to counter the charge that his doctrine on justification by faith alone in any way implied or fostered libertine ways or careless living. The facts were quite the opposite, as he was able to show, for Christian faith, he said, was always active in love.

Much of the criticism of orthodoxy has been less than kind, let alone accurate. Emil Brunner, for example, states very sharply that “in orthodoxy, if only your support of doctrine is clear and univocal, you are a Christian, however you may have disposed of the matter of love” (Divine-Human Encounter). Edmund Smits responds with equal bluntness to this charge: “Brunner does not refer to any text to support his statement, and in all probability has no text to support it” (The Symposium of Seventeenth Century Lutheranism, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, 1962, p. 23).

There was nothing sentimental or soapy about either Luther’s or the seventeenth-century theologians’ loyalty to God’s truth and their brief in behalf of virile Christian living. But they could rightly be aroused, as Blamires is in our day, that “so much misuse has lately been made of the sentence ‘God is Love’ ” (op. cit., p. 55). “If in the name of tolerance and charity,” notes Blamires with Luther-like punch, “we treat too tenderly utterances which show grave deficiencies of understanding, we risk doing a grave disservice to the Christian cause” and we endanger “those souls likely to be misled by the confusion and ignorance” of these peddlers of theological untruth (ibid., p. 33). Luther and the seventeenth-century orthodox theologians struggled, too, with the terrible reality that “heresy establishes an apparent strength in our midst which is totally disproportionate to its real power” (ibid., p. 36). There still is need in our day for the cleansing water of doctrinally sound teaching, faithfully drawn from the only pure fountain, God’s Word, Holy Scripture.

We may freely grant that the Church in the past, also in the age of orthodoxy, did not always succeed in sensitizing the consciences of its members to the needs of men. Things are probably no different in our day. But as the Church seeks to correct such “passivism,” it must take care that it does not spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort on penultimate problems while the ultimate mandate of preaching the Gospel and the whole counsel of God languishes—to the eternal hurt of immortal souls.

The point is that no one has ever shown that what the New Testament takes for granted as always being closely joined, purity of doctrine and active Christian living, do not go together and belong together.

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.”

Let me tell you why I think our lead article in this issue, the one by E. F. Klug, is signally important for every reader. A titanic theological struggle is going on today in several denominations, but the real issues of this struggle are seldom known and understood by the clergy, let alone the people in the pews. We think our readers want to know what underlies this controversy, the outcome of which will affect the Church for a long time.

Dr. Klug writes from a Lutheran perspective, and the Missouri Synod theological battle has been the most publicized, thanks primarily to the forthright stand of the Synod president (see also the editorial on page 26). Similar problems, however, face the larger Southern Baptist Convention as well as the Roman Catholic Church. In both, the “official” theological image is one thing while what is generally being taught to prospective ministers is quite another. Influential church leaders either are unable to cope with the rising tide of liberal thought or refuse to do so, in the name of “peace and harmony.”

We publish Dr. Klug’s essay with the hope that it will promote discussion, bring an end to name-calling and motive-attribution, and generate a trend toward genuine theological integrity, without which no Christian denomination can long survive as such.