Does Archaeology Prove the Bible?

The Stones and the Scriptures, by Edwin M. Yamauchi (Holman, 1972, 207 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by William Sanford LaSor, professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Nearly all we know of the ancient past has come to us through the various types of archaeological material, and biblical scholars have used archaeology both to “prove” the Bible and to “disprove” many statements in it. Yamauchi, testifying that he is “committed to the historic Christian faith,” describes the purpose of this book as seeking “to summarize, albeit in selective fashion, the archaeological evidence and its bearings upon the Scriptures … [and] to face the complexities of problem areas and to offer some suggestions as to the perspective in which some of these difficulties may be viewed.”

The material is presented in four chapters: (1) “Mari, Nuzi, and

Alalakh: The Illumination of the Old Testament”; (2) “Ramsay vs. the Tübingen School: The Confirmation of the New Testament”; (3) “Qumran and the Essenes: The Dead Sea Scrolls”; and (4) “Fragments and Circles: The Nature of the Evidence.”

Yamauchi has attempted to cover a great amount of ground in very little space. What he has done, he has done well.

But the question must be asked, For whom has he written this book? Certainly not for scholars, for anyone seriously working in the Old or New Testament is already fully aware of all the facts here set forth. Then the book must be intended for the layman, the busy pastor, the Sunday-school teacher, the person interested in knowing more about the Bible and its background. But for these persons, the book can do little more than whet the appetite—or lead to dogmatic statements based on very little knowledge. One could wish that Yamauchi had doubled, or even tripled, the length of the work. Then he could have discussed more fully the “complexities” of the problem areas he has introduced.

In some respects, the best part of the book is chapter four. While this is an expansion of replies to the “argument from silence,” it is well handled, and makes the point crystal clear that lack of confirmatory archaeological evidence is not to be taken as evidence against a biblical statement.

Yamauchi states: “Thanks to Qumran we know that the OT goes back to a Proto-Masoretic edition antedating the Christian era, and we are assured that this recension was copied with remarkable accuracy.” This statement is correct for many portions of the Old Testament; for other parts, however, it would seem that the consonantal text used by the Masoretes was a resultant text, possibly emerging from the Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90), based on two or possibly three earlier and somewhat differing recensions. This evidence from Qumran, incidentally, is confirmed not only by ancient versions but also by New Testament quotations of the Old Testament.

Biblical Authority

The Ground of Certainty, by Donald Bloesch (Eerdmans, 1971, 203 pp., $3.25 pb), The Authority of the Bible, by Donald Miller (Eerdmans, 1972, 131 pp., $2.25 pb), How Dependable Is the Bible?, by Raymond Surburg (Holman, 1972, 190 pp., $5.95), The Doctrine of the Word of God, by Thomas Thomas (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972, 114 pp., $2.50 pb), and The Bible: God’s Word, by Tenis Van Kooten (Baker, 1972, 227 pp., $2.95 pb), are reviewed by Martin Scharlemann, graduate professor of exegetical theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

The whole concept of authority is not only questioned in our day; it is specifically rejected by the citizens of Woodstock nation and their kin. To read five works that deal seriously with the subject as it applies to Scripture is refreshing.

Although Miller’s book is the only one with the word “authority” in the title, each of the five in some way touches on this crucial issue, mostly as it is related to the doctrine of inspiration. None, however, refers to what is surely the most comprehensive study of biblical authority: the final results of a project undertaken by Faith and Order and reported in the Ecumenical Review, October, 1971.

The early Church had a word for it: autopistia (the quality of self-authentication). That may have been a more satisfactory term. For the only way in which the notion of “authority” can be oriented properly is to go by way of the power ascribed to our Lord for his word and work.

“Authority” is not easily understood as it applies to Scripture; it needs specification. With what kind of authority does the biblical account confront the reader and the hearer? Is it that of a code book? Does it derive from obvious factual precision? Do the Scriptures elicit the kind of response, that, let us say, a great work of art does? Or is it a quality that invites trust as an act of the will? These are questions to which each of these authors might have given more space.

Miller addresses himself primarily to biblical authority itself, seen as the vehicle of God’s self revelation. He takes up the discussion by seeking to refute two false assumptions: that there is no such source outside the stream of history itself, and that there is no such source outside human experience.

The chapter distinguishing between biblical authority and human experience is surely Miller’s finest contribution, especially in a day of charismatic movements. His central thrust can perhaps be put best in his own words: “Are we willing to allow God to redeem us in His Son? If so, then the Bible would speak to our redeemed souls with authority.”

Bloesch wrote to offer an evangelical theology of revelation. The heart of his work is a chapter on “The Meaning of Truth,” whose theme is that “truth in the New Testament sense essentially means personal encounter and participation.”

That being the case, there is a biblical view of existence and of reality. Hence two dangers must be avoided: subordinating the biblical vision to some philosophical construct, and emptying the vision that the Scriptures offer by neglecting its metaphysical import. One of the bonuses the reader receives is Bloesch’s keen dissection of the kind of philosophical empiricism that underlies the attempt made by such scholars as John Warwick Montgomery to base the truth of Scripture on objective factuality.

Surburg’s volume is more a defense of traditional views in biblical introduction (isagogics). Some space is devoted to an evaluation of the concept of revelation. Surburg ascribes to revelation the word “progressive.” I doubt very much that this is a helpful adjective to use; it suggests that parts of God’s previous self-revelation were deficient and needed to be corrected. “Cumulative” might have served him better. Every revelation God gave of himself was “true” and therefore authoritative. Later manifestations built on previous ones to expand them or make them more explicit.

No serious believer can quarrel with Surburg’s statement that “the issue of the truthfulness, dependability and trustworthiness of the Bible is interlocked with that of its divine inspiration.” But the question is. What is the nature of this “interlocking”?

The same question arises in response to Van Kooten’s assertion, “It must be understood that divine authority and the inspiration of the Bible are inseparably bound together.” The inner connection between authority and inspiration is not spelled out. No space is devoted to the question, Is the meaning given to historical happenings by prophets, apostles, and evangelists part of revelation, or it is an aspect of inspiration?

For example, when Saint Paul makes the point in First Corinthians 15:3 that “Christ died for our sins,” he is offering an interpretation of the Crucifixion that escaped Pontius Pilate. Did he say this in consequence of revelation or under inspiration? The affirmation is authoritative in either instance, but the relation of authority to inspiration is different in the two cases.

Van Kooten wrote his work as a study text for Bible classes, and so there are questions for discussion at the end of each chapter. These are very helpful.

Thomas includes a short chapter on the “Authority of the Bible.” Its burden is that Christians read the Bible with different assumptions from those of the scoffer and gnostic. The chapter suffers from the implication that somehow man can move himself to take a position that might make the Scriptures more acceptable. Prayer itself is introduced into this context as something of a means of grace.

All five of these works suffer from the failure to note that there are two elements in Scripture: Law and Gospel. Each has its own kind of authority, which must be carefully distinguished from the other. Hence these books offer little help in solving what is surely very puzzling: that one can accept the Scriptures as fully inspired and as totally authoritative and yet come out, as do so many conservative or traditionalist Christians, as a person living under the authority of the Law and not of the Gospel.

None of these five reckons with one of Luther’s great insights, that no one will understand the Scriptures unless he first knows its “res” (the heart of its message). This turns biblical authority into a circular operation. First we read Scripture to see what its message is, and then we go back to find out what the specifics mean. Within that circle, “authority” is a matter of eliciting trust from man in God for what he has done as these actions are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The authority of Scripture confronts man at the point of his rebellion to redirect his will.

The early Church had something when it called this quality autopistia.

In the first chapter of Romans, the great Apostle Paul sounds the prologue to his “gospel” in which he spells out the theological argument of justification by faith. He says: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.…” But salvation through faith, by grace alone, is a muted concept in non-evangelical traditions in America. It is increasingly clouded in the doctrine and life of the Episcopal Church, as existential, Catholic theology more and more permeates the thinking of its teachers and clergy.

The week of October 29 through November 4 finds the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in annual session at New Orleans. And beginning November 3, the Fellowship of Witness—the American branch of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion—holds its national meeting at Pittsburgh. The agenda and content of these two meetings reveals the chasm between the liberal, existential catholicism that prevails in American Anglicanism and the biblical, evangelical commitment of those in the reformed Anglican tradition—a tradition that flourishes in the British commonwealth but has almost vanished in the United States.

That God does not chiefly manifest himself in the majesty of liturgical worship, nor make his presence known in sacramental rites alone, but does in fact communicate verbally and rationally to us in the revealed word of Scripture, is a muted doctrine in the life of the Episcopal Church. Especially is this so as the church continues to turn toward a multi-source authority base, and combines a catholic ecclesiology with an existentialist theology.

During the past decade many Episcopalians have come to know Christ in the New Testament sense through the outreach of a host of evangelical ministries outside their church. And for many of these persons, the Scriptures have become the polestar of knowledge of Christ, of the promises of God, and of personal discipleship. But the evangelical experience of personal conversion and a concomitant high view of Scripture, while at home in the evangelical wing of the Church of England—in the British Isles, in Australasia, and on the mission field—finds rough sledding within the life of the Episcopal Church.

This is true because the Church has increasingly accommodated additional factors as sources of revelation and of authority for life and doctrine. It has done this despite the insistence of the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles that the Bible is the primary and only necessary authority base for theology. It is true that after Cranmer and the English reformers passed from the scene, the Anglican church came to accommodate a threefold authority base that includes not only Scripture but also reason and tradition. But even so, many thinkers in the church viewed the role of reason and tradition as ministerial and interpretative, rather than magisterial.

In current Anglican thinking, theologian John MacQuarrie’s “six formative factors” for Christian theology have further broadened and diluted the reformed principle of sola scriptura. MacQuarrie’s factors, which have been widely accepted in Episcopal seminaries and among the clergy, are: experience, revelation, Scripture, tradition, culture, and reason. No priorities for any given situation are stated, and the result is a “dealer’s choice” theology in which anything goes, even though that theology is garbed in the vestments of catholic churchmanship and wrapped in Catholic views of priesthood and sacrament.

Recently, twenty-six prominent priests in the Episcopal Church, in anticipation of the New Orleans meeting, published an open letter in which they reminded the bishops that “the calling of the church is to invite mankind toward its true center, Jesus Christ.” But the letter is profoundly weak because it makes no reference to Holy Scripture as the epistemological source of knowledge of Christ. Instead, the clerics premise their plea on a return to “the collective Christian memory” and the “witness of the past,” phrases that, though undefined, undoubtedly encompass something along the lines of MacQuarrie’s six formative factors.

In Pittsburgh, Anglicans from the British commonwealth head the list of speakers. Headliners are John R. W. Stott, rector of All Souls Church in London, and Philip E. Hughes, formerly editor of an evangelical theological quarterly in the British Isles (The Churchman) and now a professor at Westminster Seminary. That the Episcopal Church has few widely known evangelical scholars and pastors and that the Fellowship of Witness must in the main draw on the evangelical resources of the mother church, points up the evangelical plight.

Two strands of evangelistic enterprise have been felt in the Episcopal Church during the past decade, but neither has been rooted in the reformed, evangelical tradition of Anglican theology.

First, the small-group and lay witnessing movement, with such leaders as Keith Miller and Claxton Monroe, has taken organizational shape within the Episcopal Church in the growing ministry of Faith Alive, a spin-off of the interdenominational Faith-at-Work movement. Secondly, the charismatic movement has made inroads into the life of the church. Dennis Bennett of Seattle is the best-known personality in this.

But the reformed, evangelical Anglican scholarship of John Stott, Leon Morris, Philip Hughes, Geoffrey Bromiley, Marcus Loane, and others in England and Australia has been more widely respected, and their current works more widely read, by evangelicals outside the Episcopal Church, than by the church’s teachers and clergy. The result has been the absorption into the prevailing catholic existentialism of those Episcopalians converted through the small-group, lay-witnessing, or charismatic ministries.

In 1967, evangelicals of the Church of England met in a national conclave at Keele University, and in 1971 the Australian counterparts met at Melbourne. In both of these meetings, the truths of the evangelical Christian faith were affirmed, and the application of these truths to contemporary problems in the world and in the church was discussed with scholarly depth and missionary zeal.

Many of us who consider ourselves evangelical Christians want to call a similar national evangelical Episcopal congress in the United States. The mother Church of England throughout the British commonwealth nations would do well to send some “evangelical missionaries”—some of Anglicanism’s best-known biblical scholars and pastors—to such an American congress.

If such a meeting is called, the revival of evangelical truth and zeal within the Episcopal Church could be at least an open possibility.

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.”

Introductory

As an introduction, Search For Peace in the Middle East (Fawcett, revised edition, 1971), prepared for the American Friends’ Service Committee, is a concise, impartial study comprising history, summaries of shades of opinion on both sides, and suggested steps toward peace. Further detail is given in J. C. Hurewitz’s The Struggle For Palestine (Norton, 1950; reprinted by Greenwood, 1968) and Fred J. Khouri’s The Arab-Israeli Dilemma (Syracuse University, 1968). Both have detailed bibliographies, including sources and documents; Khouri includes the texts of some of these. Israel and the Arabs (Pantheon, 1968) by Maxime Rodinson, a French Jew who has lived both in Israel and Arab countries, is strong on both ethnic and historical aspects, including Jewish and Arab nationalism.

To fulfill the Christian duty of understanding how the parties feel (in contrast to how we think they ought to feel), read Denis Baly’s Multitudes in the Valley: Church and Crisis in the Middle East (Friendship, 1958). The author’s fifteen years as an Anglican missionary in Jerusalem during the British mandate qualify him to give a well-balanced view. He conveys the feelings and faults of both Arabs and Jews with understanding and thinks “it would seem to be the lesson of the New Testament that it is a prime mistake to look for a political fulfillment of the Old Testament.” Elisabeth Elliot’s The Furnace of the Lord: Reflections on the Redemption of the Holy City (Doubleday, 1969) is an account of her visit to Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967. Her observations and conversations with both Jews and Arabs are reported with poignant insight. The well-known evangelical Old Testament scholar Charles Pfeiffer has recently issued a brief survey of current events in the light of historical relationships: The Arab Israeli Struggle (Baker, 1972).

History

Frank Epp, a Canadian Mennonite, addresses Whose Land is Palestine? The Middle East Problem in Historical Perspective (Eerdmans, 1970) to North American Christians. He traces the various regimes in Palestine in chronological order, ending with “The Claims of God”; the section “Christian Involvement” is particularly significant. The Jews in Their Land (Doubleday, 1966), conceived and edited by David Ben-Gurion, is a beautifully illustrated historical survey from Joshua’s conquest to the present. Philip Hitti’s The Arabs: A Short History(fifth edition, St. Martin’s, 1969) is a condensation of his History of the Arabs. The Jewish State (American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946) is the translation of Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896) and the basic document of Zionism. Ben-Gurion’s Israel: The Years of Challenge (Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1963) is a concise history of the formation of the modern nation. In Light on Israel (Knopf, 1968), Maurice Samuel writes as a Jew to Western Jews; Christians will feel he misunderstands them. For example, no distinction is made between the anti-Semitic church of the Middle Ages and that of the post-Nazi era. Sami Hadawi, a Christian Arab, covers all aspects of the problem in Loss of a Heritage (Naylor, 1963) and Bitter Harvest: Palestine 1914–67 (New World, 1967). The latter provides historical and religious background through the Six-Day War with a section on U. S. involvement. Good maps and quotations from sources and documents of both sides round out the picture. The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Northwestern University, 1971) is edited by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and contains an excellent bibliography arranged in convenient subject divisions. United Church of Canada editor A. C. Forrest’s controversial The Unholy Land (McClelland and Stewart, 1971) attempts to correct by first-hand observation misinformation in the West regarding the Arabs (see review in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 9, 1971).

Prophecy

Modern Israel’s role in fulfilling (or not fulfilling) prophecy is a major concern with evangelicals. CHRISTIANITY TODAY showed its interest as long ago as 1956 by printing on opposite pages “Israel’s Transgression in Palestine” by Oswald T. Allis and “Israel in Her Promised Land” by Wilbur M. Smith (December 24). In an article entitled “The Arab-Israeli War and the Christian” (Eternity, June 21, 1967) William S. LaSor explains why Israel may be fulfilling prophecy but advises against hasty conclusions. Unfortunately he generalizes that Christian as well as non-Christian Arabs think “every Jew [must] be driven into the sea”—a statement not borne out by this writer’s personal knowledge. Wilbur M. Smith in The Arab/Israeli Conflict and the Bible (Regal, 1967) surveys commentaries on prophecy and concludes that modern Israel is a reestablishment of the ancient state, though he outlines other opinions. Despite the title, such biblical aspects of the problem as mercy, justice, and New Testament theology are not treated. Palestine and the Bible (New World, 1962) edited by M. T. Mehdi is a collection of essays on various biblical aspects of the conflict. Prophecy in the Making (Creation House, 1971) edited by Carl F. H. Henry contains messages delivered at the Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy in 1971. It includes articles presenting opposing views on the fulfillment of the Temple prophecy of Ezekiel 40–48 and on the future of Israel. In Prophecy and the Seventies (Moody, 1971) edited by Charles L. Feinberg, part III—“Israel and the Prophetic Scriptures”—treats similar material. (This volume was published in connection with the Seventh Congress on Biblical Prophecy in 1970; it and Prophecy in the Making were reviewed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, May 26, 1972.)

Two essays elaborate on some reasons for caution in seeing Israel as a fulfillment of prophecy. Bradley Watkins, a missionary in Egypt for twenty-two years, in “Is the Modem State, Israel, a Fulfillment of Prophecy?” (reprinted in The Link, November–December, 1970) examines relevant prophecies and underlines the need to examine them in the light of the New Testament. “Is the Old Testament Zionist?” (reprinted in Middle East Newsletter, June–July, 1968) is a lecture delivered by William L. Holladay, mainly to Christian Arabs. He examines the question of the identity of modem with ancient Israel from the historical, political, and religious standpoints.

Arab-Israeli Relations

Several studies add to the treatment of these two related topics given in general surveys. Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts Through the Ages (Shocken, 1955) by S. D. Goitein is especially good on Middle Eastern Jews; it also emphasizes the current importance of emotional factors. Y. Harkabi’s Arab Attitudes to Israel (Israel Universities Press, 1971) presents policy statements and key speeches of Arab government leaders. Reflections on the Middle East Crisis (Mouton, 1970), edited by Herbert Mason, has essays advocating redress of wrongs to Arabs and the continuance of Israel. It includes reprints of “The Position of Jews in Arab Lands Following the Rise of Islam” by M. L. Swartz and other articles from The Muslim World, January 1970. Sabri Jiryis, a Christian lawyer who formerly was an Israeli citizen, has used Israeli government sources together with his own observations to document The Arabs in Israel, 1948–66 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969).

Three books urge a form of secular, bi-national state or league of states: Israel Without Zionists: A Plea for Peace in the Middle East (Macmillan, 1968) by Uri Avnery, a member of the Israeli parliament; A Palestine Entity? (Middle East Institute, 1970) by D. Peretz, E. M. Wilson, and E. M. Ward; and Charles Douglas-Home’s The Arabs and Israel (Dufour, 1968). The plan presented by al-Fateh, politically the most influential guerrilla group, to the World Conference on Palestine in 1970—“Toward a Democratic State in Palestine” (The Militant, October 9, 16, 1970)—deserves careful study. Behind the revolutionary terminology lies a degree of tolerance and understanding that refutes accusations of universal hatred by Arabs for Jews. One Jewish reaction is “A ‘Democratic’ Palestine (What the Terrorists Propose)” in Jewish Frontier, October, 1970.

Periodicals

Several periodicals can help one keep abreast of events and opinion. Christian News From Israel has been published since about 1950 by the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs in Jerusalem. It treats historical and contemporary aspects of all branches of Christianity in Palestine. CCI Notebook began in 1971, is published by Christians Concerned for Israel, and is edited by Franklin Littell, a strongly pro-Israeli Methodist. Middle East Newsletter was begun in 1967 by Americans for Justice in the Middle East, based in Beirut; its aim is to provide carefully researched and reported items of Arab news and opinion not usually found in the American press. The Link, published since 1968, has a similar aim and is the organ of Americans for Middle East Understanding. Book reviews and background information for tourists are distinctive features. Near East Report: Washington Letter on American Policy in the Near East (began 1957) seems closely connected with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. New Outlook: Middle East Monthly (began 1957) is published in Tel Aviv but reflects a variety of opinions. Free Palestine (began 1968) is published in London.

In Depth

DOCUMENTS:International Documents on Palestine (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1967–) replaces Palestine Before the United Nations and extends the scope; Israel and the Arab World (Barnes and Noble, 1970), edited by C. H. Dodd and M. E. Sales, includes journal and newspaper articles. Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement (Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1969) traces the movement from 1936 when Palestinians began resisting the British Mandate.

AREA HISTORIES: S. N. Fisher’s The Middle East (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969); for the biblical period, John Bright’s History of Israel (Westminster, revised 1972).

POLITICAL FACTORS:The King-Crane Commission: An American Inquiry Into the Middle East (Khayats, 1966) by H. N. Howard reports the 1919 investigation into Arab aspirations; J. H. Davis observed the situation as commissioner-general for the U. N. Relief and Works Administration and wrote The Evasive Peace: A Study of the Zionist-Arab Problem (Murray, 1969). Nisi Dominus (Harrap, 1946) by N. Barbour is an account of the British mandate; Between Two Seas (Murray, 1968) by Lord Kinross is a history of the Suez.

ANTI-ZIONIST JEWISH OPINION: M. Menuhin’s The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969); Rabbi E. Berger’s Judaism or Jewish Nationalism: The Alternative to Zionism (Bookman Associates, 1957); and many articles. Zionism Reconsidered: The Rejection of Jewish Normalcy (Macmillan, 1970) is a volume of essays edited by M. Seltzer.

GENERAL ESSAY COLLECTIONS:Palestine: A Search for Truth (Public Affairs Press, 1970) edited by A. R. Taylor and R. N. Tetlie; Student World (World Student Christian Federation) special issue, Volume 62, Number 1 (1969), gives various views; Middle East Forum (American University of Beirut), special double issue, Volume 45, Numbers 1 and 2 (1968), gives reprinted articles in chronological order. Several of the essays in Christians, Zionism and Palestine: … articles and statements on the religious and political aspects … (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1970) are also reprints.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:A Selected Bibliography on the Problems of the Middle East (Americans for Justice in the Middle East, 1970) and Israel: A Bibliography, compiled by Iva Cohen (Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1970).

Biblical commentators since at least the seventeenth century have been writing about the prophesied return of the Jews to Palestine. Authorities disagree on how many have remained or returned there since the first century, but it cannot be denied that since the First World Zionist Congress in 1897 the Return developed in conception and realization until the Six-Day War in 1967, when immigration began to decline. The persecutions of the Czarist and Nazi eras gave an impetus to the movement, and the state of Israel was founded when the British mandate ended in 1948.

Most Christians in the West have rejoiced in these events, seeing them as partial fulfillment of God’s plan for the end, but by and large they have had little more factual information than that summarized above. They knew almost nothing of the pre-Israeli inhabitants of Palestine, both Muslim and Christian. Most outsiders were ignorant of the oppressive policies of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine, the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab role in defeating Turkey in World War I, and the subsequent British and French mandates in the area.

In 1948 “Arabs” still called to mind nomadic Bedouins in picturesque costumes or poverty-stricken farmers who neglected their land. Fortunately the post-World War II increase in tourism in the Middle East and the flow of Arab students in the opposite direction have contributed to a more complete image. Increased interest in the Middle East area studies in American universities has also made its contribution.

North American Christians have known Western European Jews better. When they have had Jewish neighbors and schoolmates, they may have stereotyped them as “pushy,” not realizing that “Christendom” through the ages oppressed the Jews to the point where some degree of aggressiveness became necessary for survival. They have known less of East European Jews except that they seemed legalistic and clannish, and still less of those living in Arab lands (whence they have emigrated to Israel in substantial numbers).

The Palestine problem should not concern evangelicals solely because of their interest in prophecy. The guilt of “Christian” America in closing its doors to Jewish refugees at the time of the Nazi horror, the desire for peace and justice for all people, the presentation of the Gospel to Muslims (whether by local or foreign Christians), Communist/socialist involvement in the area, the question of Israel’s claim on the loyalty of American Jews and, for U. S. Christians, Washington’s role in the crisis—these are all reasons for concern. The passions and the involvement of nations far and near lead many analysts to consider this the most difficult problem of international conflict in the world.

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.”

When I arrived in Northern Ireland, on a weekend in June, the countryside was green and lovely, but in the capital city it was rough. Bomb blasts shattered the midnight quiet, snipers were busy, and death came to innocent people, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. The weekend before I left for California in July, nine people were killed and 130 injured in a series of carefully timed bombings that ripped things apart all Friday afternoon.

Is this a Roman Catholic-Protestant civil war, as most of the media would have us believe? Of those killed, more than four hundred were victims of bombing, sniping, cold-blooded murder, and rioting perpetrated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the supporters of this misnamed terrorist gang (it is not at all recognized by the legitimate Irish Republic). Until recently, only a score died from Protestant reprisal. To those who watched on television as a fireman shoveled up the dismembered body of an innocent young woman, the wonder of it is that the majority of citizens have not killed more of those they consider responsible for the savagery.

The first Sunday morning I attended a Portstewart church and heard an excellent address by a Methodist layman. The pastoral prayer caught my attention: without mention of the local agony, it began with petitions on behalf of victims of the floods in Pennsylvania. The sermon was on forgiveness. There seemed more sorrow than bitterness over the fact that, next to bank robberies, the primary source of IRA funds is misguided enthusiasts living in the States; their contributions are used to buy Communist-made arms for the slaughter.

What is it all about? In 1912, 100,000 of the million Protestant majority in Ulster signed a covenant to resist separation from the Scots, Welsh, and English, who with them made up the United Kingdom. A hundred years of separatist agitation had persuaded the South that Ireland should set up a national barrier against the rest of the British Isles. This the North, dependent on British coal and iron for its flourishing industries, and lacking in hatred for ancient enemies, strenuously opposed. In 1921 a majority in the South voted for separation and a majority in the North voted for union. This is the overriding issue in Ulster today, continued union with Great Britain or union with the Republic to the south.

The logic of the case for the uniting of Ireland is so very simple that the logic for the larger union with Great Britain is overlooked. The Irish and the Scots are the same race. Ireland was originally called Scotia, and its Scots conquered what is now Scotland. Both have received Nordic infusions. A million citizens of the Republic live in Britain, where millions more are of Irish ancestry. Ireland sells the bulk of its produce there. Britain still grants British rights to entering Republican Irish.

Fifty years have passed since separation. Between 1912 and 1961 the Roman Catholic population in the Republic dwindled 5 per cent to 2,673,473, and the Protestant population dwindled more than 55 per cent to 144,863. In the North, the Protestant majority increased by 13 per cent to 927,495; Roman Catholics increased by 16 per cent to 497,547. Two Southern Irish have been emigrating for every Northerner. A majority of the Republic’s population are in the non-productive ages, below twenty and above sixty-five. The average income in the North is 25 per cent above that in the Republic, which proportionately has the highest national debt in the world. Educational and welfare services are better in the North, and prices are lower. Despite Seattle-like layoffs, the North has been diversifying its economy. It is difficult to convince an Ulsterman that his choice in 1921 was unwise. In fact, in 1971 the Ulster government set out to celebrate provincial progress, and provoked its enemies to embark on a campaign of terror to persuade Ulster to unite with the Republic.

But what about the grievances of Ulster’s Roman Catholic minority? Grievances there have been, but played up out of all proportion to the real situation. They were denied one-man one-vote? An utter falsehood concerning every United Kingdom and province-wide election in fifty years, though only householders had voted in local government affairs. Denied adequate schooling? The Northern Irish government paid up to 95 per cent of the cost of operation of a Roman Catholic school system. Denied adequate housing? With new housing estates exclusively Roman Catholic and controlled by the IRA, this provokes bitter humor on the other side. Local boards in both communities sometimes discriminated in favor of their co-religionists, but it was not a major problem. If, as some say, discrimination is the real cause of the trouble, why are so few aware that almost every complaint has been rectified, with no effect whatsoever on the terror campaign? The second largest city, Londonderry, was, it is true, dominated politically by Protestants though it had a Catholic majority. But this situation has been changed. The IRA has simply exploited the grievances.

One curse in Ireland, North and South, is a preoccupation with history, often misinterpreted. It was Pope Adrian IV who urged the English King Henry II to annex Ireland and bring its Celtic Church into conformity with Rome. Had the Scriptures been translated into the Irish language at the Reformation, the political division of the British Isles might never have occurred. James I, of Bible fame, a Scot, decided to plant Scots and English and Huguenot settlers in Ulster, to help pacify the country and to introduce industrious citizens. In the next reign, many of these settlers were slaughtered by the Irish clans, but one more often hears of Cromwell’s revenge at Drogheda. William of Orange, who defeated James II at the Boyne, enjoyed the pope’s support, though his enemy was Catholic. The Westminster government ill treated the Presbyterian North as well as the Roman Catholic South and West, but of course it ill treated the Scots and Welsh and English as well. It caused the emigration of three out of every four Ulstermen, the famed Scotch-Irish, to America, where they formed the bulk of Washington’s army and contributed a dozen Presidents to the United States before John F. Kennedy. The battle cry of the United Irishmen in 1798 was “Remember Orr!”—for a collateral ancestor of mine who was hanged by the Westminster authorities. In the nineteenth century an enlightened parliamentary government began to redress the Irish grievances, until today none of the huge Irish population in Great Britain suffers discrimination or is without redress.

In 1865 some demobilized soldiers of the United States army who were of Irish birth or ancestry met in Cleveland, Ohio, and proclaimed an Irish Republic. They decided that an invasion of Ireland was impractical because of the British fleet, and so they decided to conquer Canada instead, then offer to trade Canada for Ireland, and once in possession of Ireland to double-cross the British and give Canada to the United States. They invaded Canada across the frontier at a time when there were few British troops in the country. The United States proclaimed its neutrality in this struggle between the “Irish Republic” and Canada. The Canadians failed to see the logic of their liberation and roundly defeated the invaders, who were then interned by the American authorities and finally shipped back to their homes in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities of Irish Catholic settlement.

The same nationalist organization continued to struggle for the independence of Ireland. Roman Catholic and Irish-American sentiment (but not Scotch-Irish) continued to play a large part in Irish affairs, providing the money for the uprisings that finally led to the setting up of the Irish Republic. DeValera raised the funds in Boston and assured the Irish-Americans, “Ireland will never forget the generosity of America”; but during World War II his government in fact forgot and refused to allow American troops to land in its territory. The troops were received with open arms in Northern Ireland instead. During World War II the IRA engaged in sabotage of the Allied effort in Great Britain.

The IRA has no official standing anywhere in Ireland. I was informed by a Cuban émigré that men of the IRA were trained for urban guerrilla-type warfare in Cuba. And the other week an IRA agent declared in an interview by a San Francisco radio station that the first aim of the IRA was to drive the British out of Northern Ireland and that its second aim was to drive out capitalism and establish a socialist workers’ republic. The latter is also the declared objective of Bernadette Devlin, who professes to advocate a socialist workers’ republic modeled after Cuba. The IRA intends to overthrow the government of the Republic of Ireland as well as of Northern Ireland and establish a kind of Cuba on the doorstep of the European Economic Community; hence it is opposed not only to cooperation with the United Kingdom but also to cooperation with the Common Market.

Some say Ireland is too small a territory to be under two separate governments, and this argument has certain merits, though it cannot be applied everywhere. If it were, Spain and Portugal or Haiti and the Dominican Republic should be under a single government. The deciding factor in these days of democracy is: do the people of Haiti wish to be absorbed by the Dominican Republic? Do the people of Ireland wish to be part of the larger United Kingdom? Do the people of Northern Ireland wish to be joined to the Republic of Ireland instead of part of the United Kingdom? Persuasion is acceptable, but not murderous terror.

There was a great hue and cry when Brian Faulkner, an able, moderate prime minister, interned several hundred suspected terrorists without trial. Here is a statement made by a deputy prime minister in January, 1971: “If we were forced to establish internment, we would have the support of 80 per cent of the people of this country.” He cited previous experience of his government in interning terrorists of the IRA in 1957, when juries were intimidated; the action resulted in peace for five years. This speaker was the deputy prime minister not of Northern Ireland but of the Republic! It makes the hue and cry seem hypocritical. Great pressure was soon brought to bear to release the internees, some of whom went back to sniping and bombing.

Members of the IRA are nominally Roman Catholic but not practicing Catholics. Many are atheists, and their support of Roman Catholic interests is entirely political. There are some practicing Roman Catholics in the civil-rights movement. Leaders such as Cardinal Conway are torn between their abhorrence of the IRA and their support of Irish reunion, and this applies to the Republic’s leaders also, such as Prime Minister Lynch.

At the other extreme is the figure of the Reverend Ian Paisley, whose confrontation with the civil-rights marchers helped precipitate crisis. Violence occurred when he and his own following marched through a Roman Catholic area—and he was then demonstrating against the Irish Presbyterians, as evangelical a body as any major denomination anywhere. The present moderator of the Irish Presbyterian Church is Dr. Victor Lynas, an ardent evangelical who served as director of the United Irish Churches Commission, which sponsored my own visit to Ireland a dozen years ago. The other denominational leadership is likewise moderate. The speaker of Northern Ireland’s parliament, Major Ivan Neill, who providentially escaped kidnapping and murder, is an ardent Baptist layman. Prime Minister Faulkner is a practicing Presbyterian layman. The great majority of Protestants are moderate, and quite a number of Roman Catholics have voted for continuance in the United Kingdom.

Ulster evangelicals are content with the attitude of the Nixon government in the present crisis: expressions of distress over the situation, willingness to mediate if so asked, and a benevolent neutrality otherwise. They are uneasy about the attitude of Senator McGovern and critical of that of Senator Kennedy. Arthur Blessitt, who carried a wooden cross through both Roman Catholic and Protestant militant areas, has become a popular speaker in the British Isles. Billy Graham was well received both North and South; one observer in the highest echelon of leadership told me that Graham seemed very well briefed and conducted himself with tactful courage. Ian Paisley preached strongly against the visitor.

Ulster Protestants have noted the reiterated promise of the British government that under no circumstances will they be handed over to the Republic against their expressed will. They feel that the Westminster leaders were deceived by the agitators over civil rights, an excuse for bloody and unjustified revolution. Fifty years ago they faced the same terror, and overcame it partly by putting able-bodied men supporting law and order into uniform—the B Specials, who were boycotted by the minority, just as for many years the Ulster parliament was boycotted. The British government was persuaded to pressure the Ulster authorities into disbanding this force, which could have checked the IRA. Its members, and thousands of military veterans, have quietly enrolled in para-military organizations, dedicated to home defense. Their restraint in the face of outrageous provocation has been extraordinary. They have taken overt action only to pressure the British authorities into liquidating barricaded sanctuaries of the IRA, considered intolerable. But after three years of terror, their impatience is mounting.

What of the future? Will Ulster unite with Republican Ireland? Not by coercion, that is certain. Will the Republic reconsider its relations with Great Britain, and accommodate its constitution to its Northern neighbors? Will the entry of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland into the Common Market have any effect on the situation? Who knows?

The wonderful 1859 revival was preceded by sectarian strife; but on July 12 that year the Orangemen paraded to churches and took up collections for the Bible Society. The terror of 1921 was overwhelmed by the revival of 1922–23 under W. P. Nicholson’s preaching. Who can say what a true revival would accomplish now, North and South?

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.”

Conversion of the Jews is probably the most controversial area of modern Christian evangelism. Non-evangelicals have replaced evangelism with formal dialogue. The Catholic Church in the United States has all but resigned any formal effort to convert Jews. Monsignor John M. Oesterreicher notes in his pamphlet “The Rediscovery of Judaism,” “There is in the Church today no drive, no organized effort to proselytize Jews, and none is contemplated for tomorrow.” He says that even the Sister of Sion order, originally founded to work toward converting Jews, has given up this goal entirely.

Christians who have been concerned for the salvation of their Jewish neighbors have long been discouraged with the results. In recent months, though, many Christians have seen an unusual surge of interest among Jews, particularly among the young people. UCLA campus rabbi Shlomo Cunin estimates that “young Jews are converting to Christianity at the rate of six or seven thousand a year” (from Time, June 12, 1972). These Yiddish Jesus freaks are donning skullcaps, attending synagogue services, and studying the Jewish Bible. Certain of their identity as Jews, they have adopted the slogan “Jews for Jesus.”

Jewish parents regard this phenomenon as a tragedy. Jewish community leaders have adopted official ignorance of the matter because, like the parents, they take it as a reproach. They ask, “What did we do wrong that our children should become Jesus freaks and go all over preaching Christianity?” They are sure that their children’s “defection” occurred because some important item in their religious training was neglected.

The conversion of these young Jews is, of course, a sovereign work of grace. However, certain social factors have contributed to their new interest in Jesus. Many have come to recognize that there is a certain amount of anti-Christian prejudice in what they have been taught. While it was not consciously part of any official curriculum, there was always the underlying presumption that no sincere, thinking Jew would consider the claims of Christ. If one did, his personal integrity, intelligence, even sanity were questioned.

Young Jews have been asked to accept the assertion that Judaism and Christianity are mutually exclusive, that one could never be both a true Jew and a Christian. Indeed, rabbinical law dictates that a Jew who believes in Jesus is an apostate. But no biblical substantiation was ever offered, and many young Jews are no longer satisfied with the confusing explanations their Jewish leaders offer about non-Jews with Jewish obligations. Last March, for instance, the Rabbinical Court of Justice of the Associated Synagogues of Massachusetts ruled to deny Hebrew Christians the privilege of being Jewish, yet insisted that they still have obligations as Jews.

The many Jewish young people who are turning to Christ today recognize that Christianity’s beliefs complete Judaism. These “Jews for Jesus” do not feel they have defected from their Judaism. On the contrary, they have tried to communicate to the Jewish community their new understanding of and appreciation for Judaism.

Another factor increasing Jewish interest in Jesus is rabbinical Judaism’s lack of solution to the difficult situations confronting people today. Rabbis have decried the problems of dope, of degraded sex, and of the dehumanization of society and have shown great concern for finding answers. But they have generally failed to recognize these problems as symptoms of a spiritual hunger and emptiness in man.

It is no longer sufficient to say, “These things aren’t nice” or “What would your grandparents think?” Panel discussions, psychiatry, and parental tears have failed to move the young people toward a moral Jewish life. However, a growing number of Jewish young people testify that Christ has helped them overcome drug dependence and unhealthful sex relations, and develop a genuine love for all people.

Another important factor is the role of the synagogue. One thing most Jewish young people appreciate about Judaism is its social concern: Jews have certainly contributed a great deal toward the civil-rights movement and compassionate causes of all kinds. However, the young people have not found spiritual satisfaction in these endeavors and still carry on their quest for personal meaning to life. To them Sabbath sermons sound more like sociology sanctified by liturgy than the “Thus saith the Lord” that the Jewish people knew from Mount Moriah, Mount Sinai, and Mount Carmel. The Judaism of the prophets was founded on supernatural revelation. It met the spiritual needs of the people. A Jew looked to God for guidance, comfort, strength, and fellowship, and received it. Today, however, the idea that God cares for man and acts to intercede on behalf of individuals is rare in Jewish teaching. For the most part, sermons in the temple deal with the role of a Jew in a Gentile society and seem to be more properly suited for college lecture material than religious instruction.

Most young people today, Jews included, are experience-oriented. They understand, not by learning precepts, but through individual experience. They hunger and thirst after a personal experience with God. Because this experience is not ordinarily to be found in Judaism, most young Jews terminate their own religious training after the bar mitzvah or bas mitzvah at the age of thirteen, and often abandon the synagogue. Many are turning to the Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, who fills their spiritual void and provides the love their hearts so desperately need.

In addition, the young people of today tend to reject the ethnic chauvinism of their parents’ generation. They question statements by Jewish leaders, such as “To be Jewish is beautiful and indivisible—it shares no allegiance with others” (“Why Are All These People Smiling?,” The Jewish Press, May 26, 1972, p. 13), noting the obvious lack of evidence for such claims today. As long as Jews believed that God wanted them to remain a separate people, separation was a holy imperative. However, the view of God’s role in Judaism has changed so much that most young Jews now see Jewish separateness as an elitism that is without theological basis; the alleged chosenness of the Jews has become an embarrassment to them.

For that reason many of the young people could not honestly call themselves Jews. It was common among the hippies to hear, “My parents are Jewish. I’m not. I’m just a person.” However, among the many young Jews who have found Jesus, there is a renewed appreciation of their ethnic background, a deepened love for their own traditions and their own people. They love the Jewish holidays because they now understand the religious precepts. Because of Jesus, their Jewish identity has been established more strongly than ever. They believe their Jewishness is based on God’s decree rather than on the consensus of the Jewish community.

These young Jews who have turned to Christ have received nothing but condemnation from their Jewish establishment brothers. Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of the Jewish Defense League, has called the Jesus movement a “desperate fad” and Jewish believers in Christ anything from “obscene” to “ignoramuses.” Along with others, he is trying to instill hatred and mistrust among Jews for their Hebrew Christian minority and thus is sealing off lines of communication so vitally needed. The Jewish community cannot accept the love and respect these Jewish young people offer out of their experience with Jesus Christ, because to do so would be to acknowledge Christ as a constructive force.

The Jewish young people who are turning to Christ in such large numbers today are intelligent, questioning people who came to the end of their spiritual search when they discovered their Messiah. These young people are not defectors from Judaism but, through Christ, are returning to the Jewish heritage. They are living as Jews and loving it.

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.”

When the Master commissioned the twelve disciples, sending them forth as “sheep in the midst of wolves,” he admonished them to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). The subtle wisdom of that old serpent the devil has all too often been taken for granted, even by believers. How many contemporary Christians can truthfully say with Paul, “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11)?

Meanwhile, the secular world has become increasingly interested in Satan. For example, a few months ago he peered from the cover of Time magazine (June 19). In the concluding paragraph of the Time cover story, the writer advises modern man to “give the Devil his due, whether as a symbolic reminder of evil or a real force to be conquered—but to separate him, once and for all, from ‘magic.’ ” However, Satan is neither “a symbolic reminder of evil” nor simply “a real force”; he is a created being whose reality is repeatedly attested in Scripture.

But there is a vast difference between acknowledging the reality of the devil, which true believers of the Bible have always done, and being aware of his devices, which probably only a few Spirit-filled believers in any age have been. Christians must indeed “give the devil his due,” heeding at the same time Paul’s warning not to “give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27). Failure to learn the truth about the father of falsehood is in itself “giving place” to the devil.

Despite all that has been written about the devil, there has not been, to my knowledge, a close examination of Satanic logic. (The nearest thing to it is Helmut Thielicke’s excellent booklet Between God and Satan, published in 1958.) Much has been said about Satanic seduction, but little or nothing specifically about Satanic deduction.

Although Satan has always had numerous spokesmen, including the sincere but impulsive Peter (Matt. 16:23), on only three occasions in Scripture does he speak directly: in his discourse with Eve he slanders God to man; in his discourse with the Almighty, regarding Job, he slanders man to God; and in his discourse with Christ he confronts the God-man. Examination of this third discourse reveals the essential nature of the Satanic pseudo-logic. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, it is “from the point of view of the temptation of Jesus Christ alone” that we can “understand the meaning of temptation for us” (Temptation).

Satan drops subtle innuendoes through questions in the first two encounters (“Hath God said?” “Doth Job fear God for naught?”), but in the third (Matt. 4; Luke 4) he adopts the subjunctive mood, using three conditional syllogisms. The first, an appeal to the lust of the flesh, is a temptation to miracle-mongering, to living by sight rather than by faith, to having “faith” in creation rather than in the Creator: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Satan’s approach to Jesus implies this syllogism:

Major premise: Divine Sonship enables and authorizes you to turn these stones to bread.

Minor premise: You are the Divine Son, aren’t you?

Conclusion: Therefore, you are able and authorized to turn these stones to bread.

Note how Satan argues on the basis of some fact: not only God’s existence but also Christ’s deity. Note further how he uses the mundane, the commonplace, as a basis for solicitation to evil: hunger, a legitimate bodily need.

Conditional syllogisms depend for their validity upon proper application of the second premise, which may be in one of two modes. The first mode is denying the consequent (modus tollens):

Major premise: If there were a God of love, there would be no such things as the Viet Nam war, cancer, natural calamities, insane asylums, suffering children.

Minor premise: But there are such things as the Viet Nam war, cancer, natural calamities, insane asylums, and suffering children.

Conclusion: Therefore, there is no God of love.

Second is affirming the antecedent (modus ponens):

Major premise: If there were a God of love, there would be no Viet Nam war, no cancer, no natural calamities; no insane asylums, no suffering children, suffering, etc.

Minor premise: There is a God of love.

Conclusion: Therefore, there is no Viet Nam war, no cancer, etc.

All three of these conclusions are valid; that is, each follows logically from the major and minor premises (A=B; C=A; therefore C=B). But they are not sound; that is, they are drawn from premises that are not necessarily true in every case. In each case, the minor premise is sound but the major premise is not.

Satan attempts to make God responsible for the results of sin, which he himself introduced into the world and for which man himself is responsible. Thus in the conditional syllogisms he attempts to ignore the will of man (by an act of his will man sinned and continues to sin), and in the first syllogism he attempts to ignore the will of God (the Son of God was certainly able to change stones to bread but it was the Father’s will that he—and all sons of God—walk by faith rather than sight).

Is it not remarkable that this same conditional syllogism appears again when Christ does battle with Satan on Calvary: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40)? Is it not even more remarkable that this fallacious deduction is perhaps the most popular form of reasoning used today on the university campus? Note, for example, this passage from a college student’s paper:

In college I have learned that several of my friends are partial or complete agnostics. One in particular feels very strongly that there cannot be a divine being recognized by man because there is too much suffering in the world. His favorite comment to disprove the existence of God is, “If God created us, why didn’t he create enough food to feed us?” This is a very hard question for a religious person to answer, and many cannot even make a good start at it.

Perhaps not, for the “sons of this age are in their generation wiser than the sons of light.” But this student writer is apparently not one of the “wiser” sons of this age. Using his friend as authority, he reasons with a conditional syllogism as follows:

Major premise: If a God created man, he would have created sufficient food to feed him.

Minor premise: There is insufficient food to feed man.

Conclusion: Therefore, no God created man.

The folly should be immediately obvious: the conclusion is unsound because both premises are unsound (for example, it has never been proven that man does not have the capability to produce and distribute enough food to feed the people of the world), nor does the conclusion prove what the writer says it does: that God does not exist. Such is the pseudo-logic of the worldly system.

Satan next appeals to the pride of life, a pious temptation to presumption, to testing God and falsely applying God’s promises: “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” The devil, as Shakespeare wrote, quotes Scripture to his end. What more subtle ploy could Satan use than to cite Scripture as support for his minor premise? He cites Psalm 91:11, 12, but applies it out of context, again failing to consider the will of God. This promise, like all of God’s promises, is conditional: only those “who dwell in the secret place of the most high [in God’s will, the place of fellowship] shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” Satan’s stratagem was to prescribe Christ’s actions; yielding to Satan involves stepping outside God’s will. In this solicitation the deduction is as follows:

Major premise: The divine promise of protection authorizes you to defy natural laws (if you are God’s Son).

Minor premise: God’s Word gives divine promise of protection (Ps. 91:11, 12).

Conclusion: Therefore, God’s Word authorizes you to defy natural laws.

Once again the conclusion is valid but unsound, because both premises are false without qualification. God’s Word does indeed assure protection, but only to those who meet the condition of the promise. Certainly Christ was able and authorized to supersede natural laws, as he did in performing miracles during his ministry; to do so capriciously or at the behest of Satan, however, would be a sinful violation of God’s will.

The third solicitation was perhaps the most subtly appealing of all. Ostensibly involving an appeal to the lust of the eyes, it is a temptation to do wrong (acquiesce to Satan) for the right reason (to reclaim the world for God). The basic syllogism is as follows:

Major premise: Reclaiming the world for God at all costs is right.

Minor premise: By momentarily acquiescing to me you can reclaim the world for God.

Conclusion: Therefore, momentarily acquiescing to me is right.

What could be more attractive than this major premise, the prospect of reclaiming the kingdoms of the world from the Evil One? Was this not the express purpose of Christ’s coming into the world? But the minor premise is as false now as it was then; to do wrong in order to do right is wrong. Christ could reclaim fallen mankind only through death on the cross, not by a short-cut.

“The devil keeps advertising,” says a character in William Blatty’s best-selling novel The Exorcist; “the devil does lots of commercials.” He does indeed, and he uses commercial logic, reducing God to a mere premise in a Satanic syllogism. Christ won the victory—as the believer can—by detecting Satan’s fallacious assumptions and implications and then responding not with man-made reasons but with the living Word appropriately applied. To each of Satan’s subjunctives Christ responded with forceful indicatives: “It is written,” each time showing that he recognized Satan’s deductions for what they were. While he does not stoop to the logic-chopping of Satan, he does soundly refute the fallacious assumptions in each temptation. For example:

Major premise: One who lives by faith does not trust in the merely physical.

Minor premise: The Son of God lives by faith.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Son of God does not trust in the merely physical.

Herein lies an instructive truth, perhaps the resolution to the apparent contradiction of Proverbs 26:4, 5:

Answer not a fool according to his folly [Don’t use foolish arguments as he does, The Living Bible], lest thou also be like unto him.

Answer a fool according to his folly [or, as his folly deserves, New American Standard Bible], lest he be wise in his own conceit.

While Christ did not stoop to the pseudo-logic of Satan, he did logically refute the Satanic assumptions. The believer, like Christ, must “size up him and the occasion and respond accordingly” (Prov. 26:5, Berkeley).

Just as there exist two kinds of wisdom, so there exist two kinds of logic, one a pseudo-logic of enticement, the other the authentic logic of divine pre-eminence. The former is part of the wisdom that is “earthly, sensual, demoniacal,” producing “confusion and every evil work” (Jas. 3:15, 16). The latter is part of the wisdom that is from above: “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (Jas. 3:17). Such wisdom, and the logic it includes, is the work of the Holy Spirit; earthly wisdom, and the pseudo-logic it includes, is the work of the unholy spirit of this age.

Is it any wonder that Christ admonishes all believers, as he did the twelve, to be “subtle” (Berkeley), “shrewd” (NAS), “wary” (Wycliffe) as “serpents” (the ancient prototype of Satan), yet “innocent” (NAS), “without falsity” (Luther) “as doves” (the prototype of the divine Paraclete)? Being guileless as doves, we do not answer Satan according to his folly; we do not stoop to his earthly pseudo-logic. Instead, being wary as serpents in sizing up the argument and its assumptions, we answer Satan with divine logic as his folly deserves, lest he gain an advantage over us.

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.”

Do you pray regularly each day? Can you honestly say that personal communion with God is a vital factor in your life? If so, you are probably an exception among today’s church members.

An informed Protestant commentator says that “many Christians today, including theologians, openly acknowledge that their prayer life is virtually nonexistent” (The Reform of the Church, by Donald G. Bloesch, p. 159). Roman Catholics have always fostered the practice of prayer; their houses of worship are often open to all for prayer and meditation. Yet a perceptive observer from that tradition has “the suspicion … that hardly enough praying goes on to justify discussing what people believe about it” (What a Modern Catholic Believes About Prayer, p. 25). The author of this statement, James Bowman, a former priest who admits that he himself “does not pray any more or prays very little” (p. 83). A recent study conducted by two sociologists at Laval University disclosed that only 38 per cent of Canada’s English-speaking Roman Catholic priests still recite their daily office (reported in the Western Catholic Reporter).

It shouldn’t really surprise us that many Christians find praying difficult these days. For some time the vertical relation between God and the believer has been greatly de-emphasized while the social mission of the Church and horizontal relations between people have been stressed. Christians are being exhorted to “get with it,” to “be where the action is.” As Will Oursler shows in Protestant Power and the Coming Revolution (Doubleday, 1971), many of the traditional concerns of the church are being neglected:

Religious conversion, serious concern with the study and importance of prayer, belief in the intervention of God in our personal lives, acceptance of at least part of the Bible as the actual inspired word of God—all of which were once serious matters in many, if not all, major Protestant religions—no longer appear to hold a major place in Protestant thinking. Other matters have higher priorities [p. 8].

Problems And Possibilities

Many current trends and conditions have tended to deepen the doubts and difficulties that have always plagued those who would pray. How can anyone believe that speaking to God can possibly do any good in a world governed by laws that scientific man can now understand, chart, and even master?

Personalism is another prayer-silencer in our time. Good “vibes” between people, sensitivity sessions, and non-verbal communication are popular concepts now.

Also, people speak of morality from a different frame of reference. Isn’t it wrong to ask God for help and favors? What about the poor and needy who didn’t believe in prayer or are unable to practice it? Is the Lord interested only in people who pray? Does he want us to be self-centered beggars?

Fortunately, some recent events and developments bode well for prayer. For instance, some astronauts have publicly identified with belief in God, the Bible, and prayer, and some Soviet scientists, intellectuals, and writers are leading a revival of belief in God and in the whole concept of a supramundane approach to life in a society that officially professes atheism.

Anyone who has experienced an exhausting encounter-group session knows it is possible to become overinvolved with others! Even Jesus had to depart into “a lonely place” on occasion (Luke 4:42). Some people who are committed to contemporary manifestations of humanism and personalism are turning again to meditation in an attempt to find and heal the real person.

It is significant, too, that superstition tends to reappear in secularized life. The recent revival of interest in witchcraft and in devil worship may actually force people to face the possibility of a living, personal God. Even astrology may suggest something about him who made the stars and who still determines their movements.

People are not so confused today by claims of many heavenly beings or persons. Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and prayers to other saints are decreasing even within those Christian churches where, officially, they are still fostered.

Perhaps we have so emphasized the problems of prayer, with the passing of the old order and its methods of praying, that we have failed to realize times, potentials, and incentives for prayer in our new way of life. We can pray if we believe.

The act of prayer is in itself not especially appealing and surely is not self-sustaining. One theologian observes that “in matters of prayer we are only too apt to deceive ourselves because, generally speaking, man does not enjoy praying” (Romano Guardini, Prayer in Practice, p. 10). Nor is the basic foundation and incentive for prayer to be found in one’s temperament or personality. A life characterized by prayer, while founded upon faith, still requires discipline, thoughtfulness, and a workable system.

The Place Of Prayer

Christian people have traditionally provided times in their daily schedules for Bible reading, meditation, and prayer. The “family altar” has been part of Christian life in our land. But Christians can also pray when they are in public at a sports event, or political rally, on the way to or from work. Prayers offered in such settings will probably be brief, but they will probably also be genuine expressions of conviction or need. Waiting in line or for an appointment is a common occurrence for many of us today. Why not read a pocket Testament with the Psalms and pray at such a time? High-rise apartments have been regarded as problems for the churches. But the loneliness that presses in upon an individual or couple in such a setting can be turned into a time of fruitful growth and communion with God. It is strange that we haven’t noticed the similarity between an efficiency apartment and the monk’s cell!

There may be no better place for prayer than on a jet plane. Time there is one’s own, and the occasion is conducive to communion with him “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas. 1:17). Conversation with others is more fruitful after we have pondered God’s Word and spoken with him.

Newspapers and newscasts, when they are evaluated in the light of Christian faith and truth, undoubtedly stimulate believers in their prayers. Thoughtful Christians cannot help praying when they scan the affairs of men and of nations with a discerning spirit. One who believes he should not “put … trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help” (Ps. 146:3) will surely intercede for the nation and for its leaders, present and future.

How To Pray

Suggestions may be helpful, but they are of only secondary importance. The twentieth-century Christian needs more than a new schedule for prayer! Indeed, exhortations may be pointless—a bit like telling a mortally wounded man he should speak clearly and regularly to his physician.

The living God alone gives faith to his people, and with it the desire and the power for prayer. Sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father can always pray, regardless of conditions in the world, in spite of what others do or don’t do. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and Mediator. The Holy Spirit creates and sustains trust and the assurance that we are heard. “Pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 20, 21).

There have always been temporal conditions, intellectual difficulties, and personal trials to challenge the people of God as they tried to pray. The Book of Job presents an anguished story of one who persisted despite terrible obstacles. “Behold, I cry out ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths” (19:7, 8). Our very weaknesses, which sometimes keep us from prayer, should spur us to seek strength; there would be no need of prayer as we know it if we were perfect. “Though I am sinful and unworthy, still I have the commandment of God, telling me to pray, and His promise that He will graciously hear me, not on account of my worthiness, but on account of the Lord Christ” (What Luther Says, II, 1,081).

Prayer books have long been in general use within many Christian traditions, but the greatest of all prayer books is the Holy Bible. It records the perfect prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. In the Bible David reveals the secret of true prayer: “O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise” (Ps. 51:15). The Psalms, which make up the largest single section of Sacred Scripture, are marvelously varied prayers and incentives to faith and devotion—brutally honest in confessing sin and in voicing questions and complaints, fully recognizing the evil in people and in the world, yet faith-strengthening in their powerful encouragement to devotion and obedience. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us” (Ps. 62:8). Prayers are to be found throughout the Old and New Testaments, along with prayer suggestions and examples, and mighty encouragement to come to him “who hearest prayer” (Ps. 65:2).

In the last decade changes have appeared in almost all forms of Christians’ public worship, changes accompanied by anguished cries from traditionalists that they “can’t pray any more” in church. Ministers and priests should surely heed these appeals when faith and devotion have truly been shaken. Yet we should continue to instruct and to lead when the complaints merely express growth pains as the people of God become accustomed to worship and words more honest and more expressive of true faith and prayer in our time. When prayer has been mechanical and thoughtless, a shaking up, though disturbing, can produce much good. Where does Scripture say that prayer should be placid?

There is reason to think that some contemporary forms for the celebration of Holy Communion, folk masses, and modem religious musicals have genuine Christian powers and appeal to many young people and others. Why not use them occasionally when they are doctrinally sound? Surely no one, young or old, could fail to be moved by—for example—the hauntingly beautiful expression of traditional Christian faith in the recent musical setting of the Nicene Creed by Herbert G. Draesel, Jr.

Power For Prayer

Many who devoutly believe in Christ do not fully grasp his power and assurance in their prayers. Christ’s Word is the only promise and guarantee that our words reach and please the Father. Our Lord and Saviour, working through the power of his Spirit, is the secret of continued faith and persistence in prayer at any time. The Saviour gives his own full assurance about prayer offered in his name, in accord with his will: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).

We can pray in assurance and confidence, and make petitions for ourselves and for others, when we trust in him who is our only Mediator. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20). Holy Scripture, God’s written Word, must evoke, fructify, and guide our prayer and keep it from withering or from wandering off in a foolish or evil direction.

The spirit or philosophy of man will never create or sustain true prayer. It is God’s Holy Spirit, poured out upon his people by Jesus Christ, according to his promise, who actually prays within the Christian: “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6). The power of the Spirit is the secret of the persistence of Christian faith and prayer in a world that is always trying to quench and silence them, or at least to hasten their demise. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.… The Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26, 27).

The ultimate working and power of prayer will always be a mystery because in it we are engaged with him whose ways and thoughts are different and higher than ours. Yet prayer will never cease from the earth, for God is always at work here. “He sends forth his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly” (Ps. 147:15). Prayer will continue in its purest and perfect form, without cries for forgiveness and relief, in heaven. The glorious and never-ending song and prayer of the saints in heaven is all worship and praise.

Prayer languishes now because of widespread doubt and unbelief. People are wrapped up in themselves, in others, or in the world about them. They are expecting more than they will ever receive from people or from a life lived apart from God. Prayer will flourish again in Christian lives, and in the Church, when faith is strong and when the Word of God supplies its unique life, light, and wisdom—when, like the disciples, we plead, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

BROADWAY

there is a way

that seems right to a man

in the crowded street

his words echo in

talking a good race

to walk where he would

for the getting of culture,

and in running to Rome

he does as one should

drinking no more water—

champagne

for the stomach’s sake,

and to numb one’s thirst

while still awake

so as not to stand out

as though one saw

the Invisible

a pity

he dare not shake his shoes off

outside the city

the maze of things

shall grow old with him

and dissolve in his hand

that his memories keep:

things that he feared

then accepted

now seeks

at the price of his youth

and a few words of truth

mumbled upon the day

of his week’s lipservice

D. R. UNRUH

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.”

I write this just before departing for Athens, with stops in Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Babylon, and Istanbul. I always find that upon my return to the States I have a greater appreciation of home, even the smoggy air of Washington. I have already voted, of course, and I won’t be altogether sorry to miss the last few weeks of campaigning. Political campaigns seem to bring out the worst in people, including myself. How easy it is to suppose that the candidates I support have virtues foreign to their opponents.

This issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY ranges widely over the Christian spectrum. Betty Elliot has a good word on Thanksgiving, and James Manz has one on prayer. Martin Rosen tells why he thinks young Jews are returning to Christ (Rosen himself is a “fulfilled Jew”). Then J. Edwin Orr speaks about the unhappy situation in Northern Ireland. No one should overlook the fact that Marxists and Maoists are fishing in these troubled waters.

D. G. Kehl describes Satan’s deceptive, fallacious logic. And, to fill out our cornucopia of good things, Faith Winger gives a bibliography for Palestine/Israel, and John Wagner tells about evangelicals in the Episcopal Church.