One of the most sensitive problems that churches face these days is convergence, and how far to go with it.

Critical moments in history arise when we must ask whether old controversies have to be carried on in their established forms or can be viewed with new understanding. Some people suspect that even to consider redefining old controversies betrays a tendency to compromise, a hint of relativism, or an ecumenism in which the spirit of love stifles the demands of truth. Such people have a fear of the lowest-common-denominator sort of ecumenism that seeks communion at the minimal level of agreement.

But it would be unjust to brand all the efforts to reconsider old controversies with the label of relativism. It seems clear to me at least that some of the ancient conflicts were shaped and formed out of intense polemics, polemics in which distorted images of the opponents were formed and left intact, to be attacked over and over again without serious consideration of whether the image was altogether accurate. To reconsider the controversy is a way of asking whether the old images were indeed true to life.

The Roman Catholic image of Luther is a case in point. For centuries Luther has been seen in the image cast for him by the Council of Trent. Trent saw Luther only as the man who taught an external justification in which the healing power of grace had no part. The believer was, after all, both just and sinner, simul peccator et justus, a person for whom sanctification was basically insignificant. This image of Luther was cast firm and hard, and lasted until our day. Anyone who knows Luther well knows that the image was distorted. And anyone who does not know Luther this well need only read his writings on the law of God and the demand for obedience, as well as his polemics against the antinomians. But the image of the Luther who cared little or nothing for the Christian’s renewal of life was very hard to correct.

Now, happily, a change is in the making. Joseph Lortz, a respected Catholic church historian, has aroused interest in the genuine religious intentions of the Reformer. But Lortz is just a beginning. More and more Catholic scholars are digging into the actual writings of Luther. Hans Küng, in his now famous book on Justification of 1957, cast serious doubt on the traditional Catholic interpretation of Luther by discovering many convergences between Catholic and Lutheran doctrine. I have a letter written to me by Karl Barth in 1957, right after Küng’s book appeared. Barth wrote: “Have you seen Küng’s new book? It will amaze you.”

Since that time, many other Catholic studies on Luther have appeared that have been equally amazing. A prime example is Otto Hermann Persch, a Dominican from Walbersberg in Germany, who wrote a large book (1,000 pages) about justification as understood by Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. Persch radically refutes the caricatures that Catholics have drawn of Luther. He admits it was a profound discovery for him to get into the real Luther by reading all his works. At the time of Trent and during the post-Trent period there was no thought of looking at the whole Luther; the image of Luther formed at Trent was enough for most people to make their judgments on him. Now Luther himself is allowed to speak. The result has been that Persch’s work has been highly praised by Protestant Luther scholars for its integrity and empathy.

Persch has discovered a profound convergence between Thomas and Luther. Deep differences existed too, of course. Persch calls Luther an existential theologian and Thomas a sapiential theologian. But these two do not oppose each other: they are complementary.

Persch is specially concerned to show that their views on merit are not unalterably opposed. In the past, it was this subject that was fatal to any mutual understanding. On one side we had the notion of merit as a claim on God, and thus an arrogant pretention. But, says Persch, the intention was only this: to see the justified man as personally involved, as given—by God’s grace—a role to play within the work of grace, and to do justice to the biblical connection between the work of the Spirit and the promise of reward.

After his book was out, Persch wrote an article in which he spoke more clearly about the inadequacy of the traditional Catholic doctrine of merit. Here he pointed to the clear teaching of Paul on the absolute gratuity of grace. It is generally understood that Thomas himself stressed the priority of grace, but that post-Thomas Franciscans tended to accent free will and its work of preparation for grace. Conflicts broke out at the Council of Trent between these two theological streams, conflicts that were never very clearly resolved.

How to understand what went on at Trent has, to this day, remained a difficult problem, as is witnessed by the Trent studies of men like W. Joest, H. A. Obermann, and H. Ruckert. Moreover, it is clear that what has influenced the actual faith and life of Catholics has been not the subtle declarations of Trent but the preaching and catechizing about grace after Trent.

Today, more and more Catholics are saying that justification cannot mean a combination of what God does and what man does. They are heard insisting that theology must reflect what the self-aware person confesses in his prayers, that he is wholly dependent on grace. Bavinck once wrote that people who are Pelagians in their theology often become Augustinians the moment they are on their knees before God—that is, when face to face with God they realize their total dependence on his sovereign grace. Many Catholics are saying the same thing these days. And herein they seek convergence. For they sense that, when they recognize this, they have gone beyond Trent without rejecting the deepest intention of Trent.

The new Catholic respect for Luther is important. It goes hand in hand with the new Catholic concern for Paul’s teaching on justification. Trent, of course, quoted Paul’s word in Romans 11:6, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” But it never clearly rested with this word. Now, Paul has time and again been an explosive ingredient in the life of the Church. And whenever we see the explosive discharging itself, we have reason to rejoice, and to follow the results very carefully.

We must not do this as though we were standing on a pedestal of perfection, of course, as though we had always honored the sovereignty of God’s grace purely. We have to watch what happens in Roman Catholicism in a spirit of humility. For, in any case, this is the only spirit in which we can possibly glory in the grace of God—to say nothing of its being the only spirit in which true ecumenism can exist.

G. C. BERKOUWER

It is often said that at the Reformation Luther replaced the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Roman Catholicism with an academic hierarchy of university professors. Since the mid-1800s this has been causing an increasing problem for evangelically inclined parishes and students in Europe. As private or independent institutions of higher learning are almost unknown on the Continent (except in Holland and Norway), virtually all the clergy in the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Scandinavia get their education at state-run schools. Those private schools that have existed either were not at university level or drew their small student bodies from a minority confessional tradition rather than from the widely distributed, often state-related Lutheran and Reformed churches that dominate European Protestantism.

With the progressive secularization of European society, the theological education furnished by the state has become progressively more liberal and less concerned with historic Christian doctrines and values. Conservative congregations often find it impossible to get an evangelical pastor, and many believing students have lost their evangelical faith while studying theology. (Financial and other factors limit the number of ministerial students able to study at evangelical schools abroad.)

In the five years between 1965 and 1970, however, the situation began changing radically for French-speaking, German-speaking, and Swedish-speaking students (each language is spoken in more than one country). New evangelical institutions of university level were founded in Vaux-sur-Seine (France), Basel (Switzerland, German-speaking), and Uppsala (Sweden).

A major hurdle for each was the necessity of convincing the responsible government ministries of education that independent, evangelically committed theological faculties would meet a real need and could be run in an academically responsible way. In some cases the university theological establishments tried to hinder the founding of “rival” schools, and in at least one instance the very hostility of the university faculty helped convince the ministry of education that some competition was needed.

The three new schools differ from one another in organization and instructional method, but all are independent of government and church control and committed to the plenary inspiration and full authority of Holy Scripture.

The first of the new schools to be founded was the Faculté Libre de Théologie Evangélique (French Evangelical Seminary), which opened in the fall of 1965 with John Winston of the Brussels Bible Institute as dean. The school acquired a large estate at Vauxsur-Seine, not far from Paris. The first year only five students were enrolled. This year’s enrollment is forty-two: eighteen from France itself, nine from French-speaking Africa, the rest from other countries. The school is becoming increasingly important, not only for France’s Protestants, who number only about 1 per cent of the population, but especially for French-speaking Africans. The students come from a variety of different denominational backgrounds.

In Uppsala, Sweden, the Biblicum Foundation (Stiftelsen Biblicum) was established in 1968 as an institute for biblical research. In 1970 Dr. Seth Erlandsson was appointed senior lecturer (docenten), and in 1971 property was acquired within easy walking distance of the Uppsala University library. The foundation offers courses for credit that theology students at the University of Uppsala may take under an arrangement with the university. The Biblicum is the least traditional of the three new institutions, in that it does not offer a complete program nor give its own degrees, but it does provide facilities for conservative evangelical scholars to study and compare notes as they try to keep their footing in the overwhelmingly liberal climate of academic theology. Dr. G. A. Danell is the director of Biblicum.

The newest and also the largest of the new institutions is the Freie Evangelisch-theologische Akademie (Free Academy of Evangelical Theology) in Basel, Switzerland. It opened its doors to twenty-four students in October, 1970, and enrollment exceeds fifty this year. Although many Christians from diverse backgrounds cooperated in establishing the academy, the driving vision was that of Dr. Samuel Külling of Bern, an Old Testament scholar (as are Erlandsson and Danell).

Regierungsrat A. Schneider, director of the Department of Education of the Canton of Basel, said at the inauguration of the academy, “The University of Basel and above all the Basel theological faculty do not appreciate the establishment of the Academy. Well, with the straightforwardness which suits a judge now and again, I must state: The competition from the Academy will do this Basel theological faculty good.”

Dr. Külling had planned for such a school for twenty-five years, but only recently wrung approval from the government. The academy includes students from traditionally German-speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), and also a large number of Dutch, as well as students from France and Indonesia. The influx of Dutch-speaking students is taken by Külling as an indication of the doctrinal slippage of the Free University (Amsterdam), which began as a biblically orthodox institution but gradually seems to have accommodated itself somewhat to the general climate of academic theology.

The establishment of independent schools and institutes does not come naturally to Europeans, who are used to having the state do it all. The fact that within five years three new faculties could spring up, locate competent staff, find at least a minimum of financial support, and above all attract a growing number of students, leads many to believe that there is a deeply felt need in Europe for theological education that is unequivocally committed to the authority of the Holy Scripture.

Covering The Catacombs

At the same time last fall that the National Council of Churches withdrew its sponsorship of Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, a periodical that publishes documentary information—much of it from first-hand sources—on the treatment of religious believers behind the Iron Curtain, a new magazine devoted to the “Silent Church” was being founded in France.

Catacombes, edited by Sergiu Grossu, began publication in October with the active support and participation of a number of internationally known scholars representing Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox faiths. Well-known French evangelical leaders such as Pierre Courthial, editor of the respected La Revue Réformée, and Professor J. G. H. Hoffmann of the Free Faculty of Protestant Theology, Paris, were joined by members of the Institut and the Academie Française, elite intellectual societies.

Gabriel Marcel, the dean of French Catholic intellectuals, wrote in the first issue: “I must express my personal congratulations and good wishes to all those … who have contributed to the publication of a monthly magazine dealing essentially with the Silent Church. The news reaching us from Soviet Russia about the inhuman treatment accorded in that country not only to believers but to non-conformist writers, gives this publication a quality of urgency.”

Anglican cleric Michael Bourdeaux, perhaps the best-known authority on the church in Russia, is among the contributors to Catacombes.

In contrast to the purely documentary Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, Catacombes is more spiritual in tone; its position is conservative or orthodox on the doctrine of God, the divinity of Christ, and biblical authority. For those who read French, it offers detailed accounts of the situation of Christians in Communist countries, especially in the U.S.S.R. and Red China, as well as material criticizing philosophical and religious aspects of Marxism and Maoism.

HAROLD O. J. BROWN

Jesus Joy

“Carnegie Hall will never be the same again after tonight!”

With those words Paul Moore, pastor of the sponsoring church—Maranatha, Church of the Nazarene, in Milford, New Jersey—captured the excitement and enthusiasm of the first Jesus rock concert in that auditorium. The hall held 3,000 ecstatic Jesus people, celebrating “Jesus Joy.” Across the street, Calvary Baptist Church was packed with a 500-person over-flow audience that heard an instant replay of each performance. The groups and their instruments were kept hopping back and forth between Carnegie and Calvary.

The evening’s unusually calm atmosphere ended when Rock Garden, a very professional, exciting group of performers, began to vibrate the message of Jesus’ love. “You were brought with a price,” they sang. Members of the audience responded “Amen! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!” as they danced in and sprinted down the aisles, clapping their hands and hugging one another. One member of the audience, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was sitting in a second-tier box, jumped up with raised arms, shouted hallelujah, and fell on his knees in adoration of Jesus. Rock Garden’s message was focused on the three p’s of Christianity—pardon, peace, and purpose through Jesus.

Mark Sullivan, who regularly attends Maranatha, came to the concert with about thirty-five other young people. A former Catholic, he says that before he started going to Maranatha all he knew about God was that he was the “big greaser in the sky.”

Another member of that group, Robin Borchers, was one of the few non-Christians at the concert. She styled herself an “atheist-socialist, although some people just call me a radical degenerate freak.” She also goes to Maranatha, but Christianity, she insisted, isn’t for her. “Jesus is great if you need something; I don’t. He’s a crutch, religion’s a crutch, and so are drugs.” But, she admitted, the Jesus kids treat her “like a person, not like a creep.”

The predominantly white audience (you could almost count on two hands the number of black kids there) exploded when the concluding performers, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples—pure soul in the best black tradition—took over the hall for one and a half hours. While the Disciples sang and strutted on stage for Jesus, many kids were wrapped up in performances of their own. Some read Bibles aloud, others shouted praises or sang. Another Jesus freak alternately trembled, laughed, cried, and spoke in tongues.

The “Jesus Joy” extravaganza ended with an invitation. About fifty people in both halls responded; the majority of these, a counselor said, were Catholic. One of the festival’s planners, however, felt the concert was unsuccessful—“too many Christians in the audience,” he said.

Even so, Maranatha plans to hold another festival on September 4, again at Carnegie Hall. Maybe the next one will last all night; this one almost did.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Musical Firsts

Washington, D. C., is emerging as a strong contender for musical first place, which in this country usually goes to New York.

During Holy Week, the nation’s capital heard two premieres. On Palm Sunday Olivier Messiaen, long recognized as one of the foremost church organists and composers of this century, gave his first United States recital at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was also the world premiere of the Catholic composer’s latest work, Meditationson the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Later in the week Antal Dorati conducted the National Symphony and the Westminster Symphonic Choir in the U. S. premiere of Messiaen’s most ambitious work, The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday it was performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Baptists Hoist Battle Flags

Chaplain Andrew F. Jensen was acquitted in a Navy court-martial of a charge of misconduct by adultery (see March 31 issue, page 33), but the American Baptist Convention (ABC) has apparently not yet begun to fight.

ABC executive Paul O. Madsen said the ABC will not provide new chaplains for the Navy until restitution is granted to Jensen.

The ABC, which helped in Jensen’s defense, wants the Navy and the Pentagon to reimburse Jensen for his defense costs of about $15,000, to consider payment of damages, and to promote him as previously scheduled. The denomination also wants assurances that in the future it will be consulted in matters regarding moral and spiritual qualifications of chaplains. Furthermore, said Madsen, the ABC thinks Jensen’s civil and judicial liberties were violated, and it wants a congressional review both of legal procedures in the armed forces and of the laws governing endorsement of chaplains “in order to guarantee full ecclesiastical prerogatives.” High level meetings on the issues are scheduled to be held in Washington next month, at which time the Navy may make a formal response.

ABC chaplaincy director Charles F. Wills said that early investigation by the ABC of the charges against Jensen “led us to believe he is innocent.” He asserted that his office would not have intervened if the charges were of a strictly military nature.

Garner Ted: In Satan’S Bonds?

The mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of Garner Ted Armstrong as chief spokesman and number two man in his father’s Worldwide Church of God (see April 14 issue, page 39) has deepened. An informant disclosed that a confidential letter (with instructions to destroy after reading) from Worldwide Church founder Herbert W. Armstrong to his 250 congregations spoke of Garner Ted as being “in the bonds of Satan.”

The elder Armstrong denied saying any such thing, but Fred K. Brogaard—a Seattle pastor of the cult—readily acknowledged to Seattle Post-Intelligencer religion editor Earl Hansen that the letter did speak in those terms.

According to the informant, the letter stated that Garner Ted in October wrote to his father confessing he had sinned and was in Satan’s bonds. The father was quoted as saying he and his son prayed together on their knees that the angels Michael and Gabriel might release Garner Ted from Satan’s bonds.

The nature of Garner Ted’s “sin”—whether doctrinal, personal, or a falling out over policy—was not revealed. For months, however, followers of the cult say they have been hearing rumors that Garner Ted opposed the lavish spending of his father and other leaders—money for costly suits and jet trips and not enough for “the widows.”

Religion In Transit

The 155-year-old American Sunday-School Union says that if finances do not improve by May 1 it will be forced to reduce headquarters and field staffs, and to retire others early.

A snake-handling cult, defying city ordinances, surfaced in Greenville, South Carolina. Followers also reportedly sipped a drink containing strychnine. As rationale, they cited Mark 16:17–19.

A federal court in Philadelphia awarded a Pennsylvania missionary couple serving in the African bush $87,500 damages in the 1966 death of their 5-year-old daughter in Kenya. She was killed when a frame collapsed, sending the van in which she was riding into a ravine. Ford Motor Company was also ordered to pay $15,750 to missionary Edward Weaver (the girl’s father), a Kenya tribal chief, and an African Baptist minister for injuries they received.

Three physicians and a mortician—all Seventh-day Adventists—who have been marketing a ten-dollar stop-smoking-by-smoking filter kit filed a $5.85 million libel suit in Sacramento, California, against SDA leaders for publishing a “warning” against the alleged “money-making scheme.”

Accreditation was awarded to the Conservative Baptist Seminary of Denver by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. This follows accreditation in 1970 by the American Association of Theological Schools. More than 200 students are enrolled.

First Baptist Church of Houston baptized 1,669 persons last year, said to be a record among Southern Baptists. Pastor John Bisagno said 950 baptisms resulted from the 4,000 decisions during a three-month crusade. Continuing revival upped this year’s budget goal to $656,000, an increase of nearly $400,000 over last year’s, he said.

Associated Church Press editor Alfred P. Klausler prophesies that many religious journals will drop by the way-side “unless the miraculous happens” regarding proposed postal increases of 351.3 per cent for non-profit second-class rates. In addition to per-pound increases, each magazine copy will be surcharged 1.5 cents.

The fully equipped $3.3-million-dollar Ellendale campus of the University of North Dakota was given to Trinity Bible Institute, an Assemblies of God school, in an act signed by Governor William L. Guy.

The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) says it will actively oppose government and private policies that support white colonialism in southern Africa.

The Omaha Gospel Tabernacle’s pioneering radio program begins its fiftieth year this month.

Several leading experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls have voiced serious doubts about a claim in the Vatican’s Biblica magazine that a fragment is from the Gospel of Mark and dates from about 50 A.D.

A Mormon chapel and educational facility will be established on the lower floors of a 32-story apartment house to be built on Lincoln Square in New York.

New York City churchmen glumly complain of the encroaching secular city as members flee farther out into the suburbs, as disinterest among the remainder mounts, and as churches are torn down. The Council of Churches budget, half what it was five years ago, is $156,000 in the red. Fifty persons at the annual meeting elected suburban lawyer George M. Duff, Jr., president.

The First Singles Church, founded in January by Princeton Seminary graduate Richard Chen and seventeen others in Orange County, California, has a congregation of divorced, widowed, and not-yet-marrieds numbering in the hundreds. Chen (who is divorced and has four children to care for) and his flock meet in rented quarters for worship and Bible study.

The Gate, an evangelistic coffeehouse in the Georgetown district of the nation’s capital, received a $10,000 grant from Seventh-day Adventists to set up a medical clinic next door.

Canadian rabbi Abraham Feinberg, 72, Reformed Jewish anti-war activist, is now “rabbi in residence” at the swinging Glide Memorial Methodist church in San Francisco; he is minister to the elderly.

Deaths

OLIVER BEGUIN, 58, Swiss layman, general secretary of the fifty-member United Bible Societies and a former secretary of the World Council of Churches; in London.

LAYONA GLENN, 106, believed to be the oldest missionary in the United Methodist Church; in Atlanta, from complications after a fall.

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, 63, veteran New York congressman and pastor for forty years of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church; in Miami, from complications following surgery.

WILLIAM YOUNG, 83, Lutheran educator prominent in the founding of the American Lutheran Church; in Columbus, Ohio, after a brief illness.

Hope Of The World

Barred by critics from receiving last year’s Family of Man Award from the New York Council of Churches, comedian Bob Hope scored a comeback of sorts at this year’s Religion in American Life (RIAL) banquet, attended by 700. RIAL prepares public-service advertisements on the meaning of faith.

The entertainer got a silver pitcher for his appearance. He likened religion to a “warm protective blanket” that gives security at all times.

Referring to the Family of Man incident, he denied he was pro-war, as critics charged. “I went to the wrong war—Viet Nam instead of Canada. Instead of a plaque, they gave me three nails,” he jested.

Hope said that when he saw the banquet theme with the line “God is hope,” he was stirred. “I almost felt like bending down and kissing my own ring,” he quipped.

Personalia

General minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) A. Dale Fiers will retire next year.

Richard Fernandez, United Church of Christ minister who is national director of the anti-war Clergy and Laymen Concerned group, brought home more than 1,000 letters from American prisoners in North and South Viet Nam after meeting with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives in Paris.

Industrialist J. Irwin Miller, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who has served as National Council of Churches president and executive committeeman of the World Council of Churches, writes in the April issue of Reader’s Digest that the Church must be active, controversial, and even disruptive to be effective in the world. The article is intended to rebut earlier articles critical of the WCC.

Troy Perry, 31, pastor of a Los Angeles church for homosexuals, announced he will be “married” in June to a 23-year-old Chicano male by a United Church of Christ clergyman. Perry says that he has performed 105 gay marriages and that only fifteen have broken up (he refuses to remarry partners who break up). He has two young sons by an earlier heterosexual marriage.

Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Seminary’s new president is Prescott H. Williams, Jr., former professor and dean of the school.

World Scene

Taiwan expelled British Presbyterian missionary Harry Daniel Beery, principal of Taiwan Theological College, for allegedly being “unfriendly to this country.” He has sided with native Taiwanese in past conflicts with the government, and recently signed a statement calling for reforms and new elections.

A family living near Jullender, India, revived an ancient Hindu practice and hacked to death a 3-year-old boy to satisfy the spirit of a dead relative, police say.

Noted French Catholic theologian René Laurentin claims that the use of violence to overthrow oppressive political regimes and repressive economic structures is in complete accord with Catholic moral teaching.

To house its first permanent embassy in Canada, the People’s Republic of China has purchased a 200-room former convent and girls’ home in Ottawa, Canada, from the Catholic Sisters of the Good Shepherd for $1.6 million.

Central Baptist Church of Quito, Ecuador’s first Baptist church (founded 1952), sponsored a national festival of Ecuadorian evangelical hymns, attended by 600. Thirty hymns were entered; Baptist musicians won the top three awards.

Christians in Rumania and Lithuania have appealed to the United Nations. They complain that authorities have confiscated Bibles and other Christian literature, banned religious meetings, discriminated socially and economically against believers, and arrested and jailed priests and ministers without trial for engaging in religious activities.

Soon after granting the Evangelical Free Church of Greece permission to start a new assembly in Trikala, Thessaly, the government—under pressure from Orthodox leaders—reversed itself and closed the church (official reason: proselytizing of Orthodox faithful), banning even meetings in homes.

Spiritual interest is mounting in southeast Asia. A Christian radio station in Thailand received an unprecedented 5,000 requests for literature in five months. Bible correspondence courses processed by one mission at an average of thirty-nine a month two years ago now average 674. Bible societies sold more than two million Bibles and Scripture portions last year—four times the number eight years ago.

The Easter worship service of the Avenue du Main Baptist Church, an evangelical church in Paris, was carried by live television throughout French-speaking Europe, the first such coverage for French Baptists.

The Synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands rejected a proposal to support the World Council of Churches’ Program to Combat Racism (in southern Africa). More than 100 theological students at Amsterdam’s Free University protested the decision, saying they were “profoundly ashamed and shaken.”

Missionary John R. Davis of the Phayao Bible Training Center in Thailand writes that revival is sweeping through northern Thai churches, sparking intense outreach and new interest in Bible study. Following a recent Bible conference in Phayao, the 600 participants staged a witness march in the streets and held a Jesus rally downtown.

With the nationalization of Turkish higher education, the church-founded Robert College is now Bosporus University, and the Greek Orthodox Theological Seminary in Istanbul no longer exists. The seminary closed rather than submit to state takeover.

To the obvious astonishment of convention leaders, a compromise statement of faith passed a first reading without discussion at the annual meeting of the Christian Holiness Association this month.

To permit broader membership, CHA is trying to pare down its statement of faith to essentials. The statement, part of a new constitution that is being adopted, had stimulated much debate last year. At issue has been the extent to which a fuller statement of faith like that of the National Association of Evangelicals should determine membership.

The final compromise was drafted by President Dennis Kinlaw of Asbury College. It affirms general adherence to “evangelical doctrine” but has dropped the words “inerrant in the originals” with regard to Scripture, Spelled out in detail is the crucial doctrine that “personal salvation includes both the new birth and entire sanctification,” the latter being defined as “a crisis experience subsequent to conversion which results in a heart cleansed from sin and filled with the Holy Spirit.” A final vote on the statement will be taken next year.

The four-day meeting in Indianapolis found the associated denominations (a dozen groups including the Church of the Nazarene, the Salvation Army, the Wesleyan and Free Methodist Churches, and more loosely “in fellowship” the Church of God [Anderson, Indiana] and agencies [two mission societies, three or four seminaries, about forty colleges, and numerous camp meetings and local holiness associations]) still struggling with issues of unity and cooperation. Final form is just beginning to emerge. As one speaker commented, “The genius of our movement has been our willingness to build our own wagon while riding in it.”

CHA was founded primarily by Methodists in 1867 as the National Campmeeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness. This heritage was still evident in hearty amens, lusty singing, and conservative dress punctuated by Salvation Army uniforms—all in the elegant ballroom of the Indianapolis Hilton.

In two four-year terms (the first in the mid-fifties), retiring president Myron Boyd, a Free Methodist bishop, has led the transformation of the association from an annual “pep rally” (his word) into an interdenominational agency modeled somewhat after the NAE. For a while leaders pushed for organic union or federation, but they have now settled on closely co-ordinated “cooperative ministries” (especially publishing, education, evangelism, missions, and perhaps social action) effected through a series of semi-autonomous “commissions.”

Somewhat ironically, these new structures are gradually freezing out “holiness” United Methodists who are unable to participate on the denominational level. Only a handful were present, and those were for the most part on the program or the board of administration in an obvious effort to preserve historic ties.

Despite official disclaimers, some still look for the emergence of a single holiness denomination of a million and a half members. For the present, merger is left to denominational initiative. The last four years have seen the formation of the Wesleyan Church (in a 1968 merger of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Pilgrim Holiness Church, and the Reformed Baptists of Canada) and the Missionary Church (in a 1969 merger of the Missionary Church Association and the United Missionary Church). The Wesleyans and Free Methodists are again (for at least the third time) engaged in talks, but corridor scuttlebutt indicates that union may flounder on control of educational institutions (FM schools are relatively free from denominational control) and doctrine (Wesleyans are more influenced by fundamentalism).

The theme of the convention (and of most addresses) was “In the Power of the Spirit,” but the emphasis fell on evangelism—in papers, priorities, and projects. This was in part a tooling up for participation in Key 73 nationwide efforts, but the spirit of the convention was verbalized by 34-year-old Nazarene evangelist Charles Milhuff in the concluding evening rally: “I believe that evangelism is the all-inclusive answer to everything.”

Low in priority was social action. In over a dozen major addresses, only black Wesleyan pastor Ira Taylor of Toronto referred even obliquely to social issues. In 1970 CHA leadership nearly dropped the idea of a social-action commission (planning to subsume its functions under church extension and evangelism!). Initial steps were finally taken this year toward organizing a commission. The small 10,000 member Brethren in Christ Church (a “Wesleyanized” peace church) prodded the larger bodies with a proposal and funding for a study conference on war, violence, and revolution in the Wesleyan perspective.

A final session passed resolutions on human rights (a clause against “busing” was eliminated at the last moment), women’s place in society (anti-women’s lib in tone), abortion, ecology, and moral integrity and purity. The convention’s timidity and conservatism were in startling contrast to the nineteenth century, when early Methodist and holiness groups used civil disobedience, economic boycotts, and demonstrations to help bring about such social changes as abolitionism, women’s rights, and improved labor conditions. George McGovern’s unexpected victory in the Wisconsin primary on the opening day of the convention escaped public mention, though the senator was reared in a Wesleyan parsonage and taught the junior boys in the Sunday school of a church he served as janitor.

Attention was directed instead to the demonic forces of the invisible world in two major sessions devoted to satanism and the occult. Star of the convention was Greenville College student Steve Schneider, recently converted on the threshold of satanist vows. Local TV and radio stations broadcast his testimony. Wesley Duewel, director of the associated Oriental Missionary Society, sketched the steps for casting out demons and attributed to satanic influence Communism, anarchy, the pressure of the ecumenical movement, formalism in worship, and attacks on the inerrancy of Scripture.

Young people responded to the use of half a dozen conservatively “with it” singing groups and free lodging provided for “listening teams” from associated colleges and seminaries. Late-night dialogue sessions were poorly attended by both students and speakers. Questions centered on the meaning of “entire sanctification” and revealed a generation gap at the point of distinctives. Two seminary students commented to this reporter that they felt like “outsiders.” Others found the convention better than they had expected, but defensive and stiff.

Brethren in Christ bishop Henry Ginder was elected to a two-year term as CHA president. Former Wesleyan Church president Roy S. Nicholson was named 1972 Holiness Exponent of the Year. Next year’s convention will take place end to end with that of the National Association of Evangelicals in the same Portland, Oregon, hotel.

Springtime In The Church

A few days ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, a young man handed a package of marijuana to one of Billy Graham’s associates. “Tell Mr. Graham I won’t be needing this anymore.”

The incident occurred during Graham’s five-day crusade in Charlotte, which was one among a perhaps unprecedented number of evangelistic efforts already this year. They ranged from the “Outreach” at the University of Virginia with evangelists Tom Skinner and Leighton Ford, to the “Festival of Truth” at Harvard-Radcliffe with Myron Augsburger, to the “Resurrection Coalition” in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A special feature distributed this month by Religious News Service refers to the “spectacular growth of evangelism.” “A revival of evangelical fervor in Christianity is sweeping the world,” the report says. “It has widely been described as ‘a new springtime’ in the Church.”

A rally and parade in Mexico City drew 40,000 evangelicals last month. They gathered to commemorate Benito Juarez, who died 100 years ago. He championed religious freedom and made Protestantism possible in Mexico.

In Charlotte, Graham spoke to overflow crowds each night. He said that while God will judge India and China according to the light given them, Americans and others who have heard and rejected the Gospel will be held even more responsible.

On Easter morning, Graham addressed 7,000 persons jammed into Miami’s Marine Stadium for a sunrise service. The crowds came despite the fact that it had rained hard during the night and day before, and a stiff, chilly, north wind was blowing. The skies began to clear as Graham preached.

NEWS

Will COCU (the Consultation on Church Union) ever become COCU (the Church of Christ Uniting)?

The prognosis may be quite discernible by June 1, the deadline for the nine denominations belonging to COCU to register their official responses to the first draft of a plan of union. The plan seeks to unite the twenty-four million members of the denominations into one church.

Early returns indicate that the consultation is in deep trouble. The executive committee of the two-million-member United Church of Christ (UCC), the first to respond to the plan, raised eight “major questions.” The committee said there is strong feeling among the rank and file against “hierarchical and pyramidal structures.” UCC members insisted that more emphasis be placed on the local church, and that the right of local congregations to hold property be seriously discussed. Overall, the response of the UCC—one of the most enthusiastic backers of COCU in the past—was cool.

COCU’s associate director William C. Larkin, a Christian Methodist Episcopal minister, said black denominations will “want to see some clear evidence of representation and compensatory treatment before they sign over their property.”

Episcopal bishop Ned Cole of Syracuse complained that the plan devoted too much space to structure and not enough to doctrine, and he said he disliked the heavy emphasis on racial concerns.

Many of the petitions presented by local churches to this month’s United Methodist convention call for Methodist withdrawal from COCU.

COCU got its start twelve years ago in San Francisco when Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake called for formation of such a plan, but even he has shown disinterest in recent years.

Indeed, Methodist theologian Albert C. Outler, a COCU participant from the beginning, sees a “severe slump” in ecumenical interest among Protestants. He blames leaders of the member denominations for COCU’s plight. “They are obsessed with organization, structure, power, and control,” he alleges. He expects a flood of negative reactions to the COCU plan from local congregations and members.

COCU general secretary Paul A. Crow described the ecumenical mood as one of “pessimism and paralysis.” Christians are “on the verge of ghoulishness, a neurotic delight in finding no hope for any ideas, proposals, institutions, or persons,” he declared bitterly at a recent Texas meeting.

COCU isn’t the only unhappy ecumenical scene. Cracks are appearing in the National Council of Churches fellowship. There is deep division between leaders on the Arab-Israeli situation, and abortion has become a bone of contention also. Although many NCC member denominations have taken stands on abortion, the council itself has not—primarily to keep peace with the anti-abortion Orthodox wing of the family. But a statement is due out of committee in June. Insiders say that the committee is split but that the majority pro-abortion element will have its way, setting up a struggle of sorts among NCC delegates—with the spectacle of Roman Catholics, recently courted by another NCC committee, observing from the sidelines.

There is also evidence of growing friction between Christian activists and Jews (see following stories).

Thus ecumenism seems to be grinding to a standstill. Comments COCU’s Crow: “I’m ready to move in any direction the Church is willing to commit itself. The real danger is not that we make a bad decision but that we make no decision.”

Cops And Bibles

Police chief Donald Wolford of Spencer, Iowa, believes that “when anyone has a complete reversal of character from one week to the next there is something wrong with him.” The man he has in mind is officer Kenneth Trevithick, 25, a formerly foul-mouthed boozer who got converted while vacationing in California.

Trevithick came back to work with a Bible and plenty of Jesus-talk for speechless fellow officers. No profanity. No booze.

Wolford suspended him for alleged “disobedience of orders” and “failure to properly perform duties.” But the Civil Service Commission reinstated him, scolding the city for improperly obtaining reports of his mental condition.

The commission then ordered a new brief suspension, saying the policeman should have obeyed an order not to read the Bible while on duty.

Trevithick concedes he may have been a little too zealous on the job.

The Rabbis Aren’T Smiling

So many Jews are wearing “that smile” nowadays!

Full page ads proclaiming that message appeared in ten of the nation’s largest daily newspapers (including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times). But the rabbis aren’t among those smiling. The ads show a group of beaming Jewish Christians who have become happy and even “more Jewish” by acknowledging “the Great Jew [Jesus] as the Messiah.” Readers are invited to send for the testimonies of the happy people.

The first week brought 4,000 replies to the New York headquarters of the American Board of Missions to the Jews (ABMJ), sponsor of the ads, and inquiries have been pouring in steadily, according to the ABMJ. The mission says it spent $70,000 on the evangelistic ad campaign. A number of churches plan to sponsor ads in other newspapers, and ABMJ staffers may be kept busy opening their mail.

“We get nice letters from grassroots Jews,” says a veteran ABMJ worker, adding she has never before seen Jewish people “so open to the Gospel.” But, says she, letters from Jewish officials—including rabbis—are not so nice.

That may be the understatement of the year. In fact, rabbis are lashing out angrily against Jewish evangelism—and against members of their own flocks who embrace Jesus.

Last month the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Youth Council invited ABMJ staffer Martin “Moishe” Rosen to address a convention seminar on why Jews are turning to Jesus. Nearly all the 160 conferees crowded into Rosen’s seminar, forcing cancellation of other workshops. After several hours had passed, leaders ordered Rosen and a handful of “Jews for Jesus” members (see December 17, 1971, issue, page 33) off the premises so that the conference could continue.

A short time later the Northern California Board of Rabbis huddled to discuss the impact of the Christian movement. The rabbis emerged with a statement deploring invitations by Jewish groups to Christian spokesmen. They also leveled an attack at the “Jews for Jesus”: “We do not deny them the right to their aberration, but we can insist that there be no misunderstanding about the nature of this group as having no relationship whatsoever to Jewish religious sentiment.”

Their statement went on to say there are “few intolerances inherent in our Jewish tradition. Only one version of it has remained constant. It is toward those who have turned away from our religious heritage in favor of another religion.”

Reportedly, the rabbis came up with a plan to counter “Jews for Jesus”: avoid giving publicity to the movement, increase emphasis on a personal God in their own teachings, increase biblical content in curricula materials. (Young people are noticeably absent from most synagogue services. Meanwhile, a sizable number of young Jews are surfacing in the Jesus movement.)

Rosen responded with a salvo of his own: large ads in San Francisco newspapers heralding, “What the rabbis don’t want the Jewish community to hear.” Readers were invited to send for Rosen’s report on why young Jews are turning to Christ.

In an interview Rosen said, “The rabbis want to keep the lid on because in their defense against Christ they have been promoting the myth that Christianity is responsible for contemporary anti-Semitism. This has produced resentment and hostility among Jews toward Christians, and the rabbis don’t want the extent of that resentment and hostility to become known.”

This month a Massachusetts Rabbinical Court of Justice ruled that a person born to Jewish parents who joins the “Hebrew-Christians” movement abdicates “his right as a member of the Jewish faith,” but that such a person “may not at any time be exempt from responsibilities which membership in the Jewish faith imposes upon him by divine revelation clearly defined in the written and oral law.”

The court also held that a Hebrew Christian may not marry a member of the Jewish congregation and may not have the right of burial in a Jewish cemetery. “By trying to snatch Jewish souls, these evangelical groups are only fanning the fires of hatred and revulsion,” says Southern California rabbi Shimon Paskow. “Enough people have died in the name of Christian love and it is high time to stop this nonsense.”

Rabbis aren’t alone in their criticism of Jewish evangelism. Temple University religion professor Franklin Littell, president of Christians Concerned for Israel, says the ABMJ’s smiling-people ad shows “a shocking degree of insensitivity.” In light of “the Holocaust,” he asserts, “Christianity has no right to verbal missions to the Jews. It had better spend its time and money proving its credibility through actions of goodwill toward Jewish people and Israel.”

During Passover season the ABMJ succeeded in getting its controversial Passover telecast on forty stations in Canada and seventeen in the United States. (Last year a number of stations banned it.) A Miami station offered free time for a confrontation between the ABMJ and Jewish leaders, but the Jews failed to show up and the ABMJ got the entire time to present its case.

One thing is clear: Soviet Jewry isn’t the only topic attracting interest in the Jewish community these days.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Anti-Semitism … Or Mere Criticism

A two-page Palm Sunday sermon in which Dean Francis Sayre, Jr., of the Washington National Cathedral mentioned the plight of Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem brought charges of anti-Semitism from Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. The Washington Post accused Sayre of coming “painfully close to a very old, very familiar line of the worst bigotry.” Executive secretary for Catholic-Jewish relations Edward H. Flannery and Monsignor George G. Higgins submitted a joint protest letter to the editor of the Post. Rabbi Judah A. Cahn, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith executive, also expressed harsh disapproval of Sayre.

Defending Dean Sayre at a press conference organized by John Richardson of the American Near East Relief Association, editor A. C. Forrest of the United Church Observer, official periodical of the United Church of Canada, said, “I congratulate Dean Sayre [for having] the courage, knowledge, and insight to speak prophetically about one of the most disturbing situations in the world today.” Forrest is well known for his pro-Arab position.

The controversy, said press panelist Jesuit Joseph L. Ryan, has brought about a “great ecumenical defeat.” It also raises the question, he added, of the definition of anti-Semitism. It cannot mean mere criticism of the Israeli government, he said.

Sayre’s sermon accused the Israelis of oppressing the Arab population. Citing a recent Christianity and Crisis article on Israeli policies by anti-Zionist Jew Israel Shahak, Sayre asserted: “Arabs are deported; Arabs are imprisoned without charge; Arabs are deprived of the patrimony of their lands.”

Counter-accusations of distortion and inaccuracy like those from a Jerusalem citizen identified as A. Gronman, Presbyterian executive Graydon E. McClellan, and visiting Israeli professor Harold Fisch brought no direct response from the dean. An aide, however, said Sayre refused to repudiate any of his sermon.

Richardson labeled the press conference “an attempt to find the facts” in the Arab-Israeli dispute over Jerusalem. Both Ryan and Forrest, who have traveled widely in the Middle East, cited statistics indicating Israeli oppression. Forrest accused Israel of violating the fourth Geneva Convention and quoted a Middle East source who said there is a “calculated attempt to eliminate any identifiable Palestinian group.” He also cited United Nations reports on the Jerusalem issue, charging that Sayre’s accusations “are kind of old stuff to anyone who’s done his homework or traveled in the Middle East.”

One member of the audience, Norton Merzvinsky, an anti-Zionist Jew who sponsored Shahak on a recent visit to this country, offered members of the press articles from leading Israeli papers (Maariv, Haaretz, and Yediot Aharonot) that substantiated Shahak’s specific indictments. Merzvinsky added that the Jerusalem Post, the English paper in Israel, includes only sporadic coverage of Arab persecution by the Jews.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Nixon And Church Schools

Opponents of tax aid for parochial schools took heart this month from President Nixon’s speech before the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in Philadelphia. He vowed to “find ways” to help non-public schools but added, “I will not make promises which cannot be kept, nor raise hopes which will later be disappointed.… I feel the only responsible way to proceed is to take the extra time required to guarantee that the legislative recommendations which we finally submit will be equitable, workable, and constitutional.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State interpreted Nixon’s remarks as a backing away from parochaid. The group said the speech retreated from what he told a Knights of Columbus meeting last August and noted also: “Apparently Mr. Nixon had listened to advisors urging caution on any parochaid commitment at this time.”

The use of a vaccine to prevent smallpox was one of the great achievements in the long history of preventive medicine. With the passing of the years, more and more vaccines and antigens have become available, not, as a rule, to cure, but to enable the human body to develop antibodies or other resistant factors against a host of diseases.

But the use of “religion” to vaccinate individuals against Christianity is one of the tragedies of the modern age.

As far as the Christian faith is concerned, there can be no substitute for Christ—crucified, buried, and risen again. Anything that comes between men and this basic truth can be regarded as an enemy of Christianity.

Today the vaccines and antitoxins that immunize men against a true Christian experience are legion. Homeopathic doses of “religion” are a deadly enemy to a vital experience of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Redeemer. The confusing of generalities for the specific of Christ can render young people—indeed all of us—immune to a vital experience with him.

The Apostle Paul spoke of a time when men would have a form of godliness while denying the power thereof, or, as Phillips translates it: “They will have a facade of ‘religion,’ but their conduct will deny its validity” (2 Tim. 3:5).

Are we ourselves in the number described here? Are we permitting our children to be vaccinated against a true Christian faith? A study of much of the material offered young people in their youth programs suggests that this is happening.

The variations of human means of immunizing against God’s love and mercy are many. They often have so much in common that their individual characteristics are lost in their central capacity to keep man from capitulating to the Son of God.

There is always the danger of becoming inoculated with humanism, so that we view the world in terms of physical and material needs only, forgetting that man does not live by bread alone.

One can also be vaccinated through ritual, so that worship is lost in form and the spiritual rejected for the sensuous.

A most effective vaccine against Christianity is the substitution of “doing” for “done”—a striving to do what Christ has already achieved for us, a concern with works rather than with grace.

There is also the vaccine of “morality” which leads to substituting man’s righteousness for the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This causes the one vaccinated to be proud of his own “filthy rags” of good deeds and oblivious to the fact that he desperately needs the robe of Christ’s righteousness, imputed only by faith.

Mere “busyness” is a common type of vaccine—the preoccupation with keeping busy in order to escape the need to be still before God.

Another type is the substitution of programs for a personal walk with the Lord. It is also expressed in an attempt to do God’s work with the arm of flesh.

Then there is the substitution of human wisdom for divine revelation. This results in a greater interest in the opinions of men than in what God has said, and causes one to give priority to the views of the “wise men” of our day rather than to truths expressed by the holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Spirit.

In this same category are people who value books about the Bible above the Holy Scriptures themselves.

These and many other vaccines—and new ones are appearing all the time—have the one ultimate effect of coming between man and his God, between man and a vital, personal relationship with the living Christ.

I am deeply concerned about the effect of all this on our young people. We find so many of them eager but confused and unsatisfied. They are well informed about science and space and woefully ignorant about the Creator of it all.

That this vaccination against a vital experience occurs only too often in the Church itself is the supreme tragedy. I have before me an official publication of a major denomination for the college-age group. From beginning to end, it is existentialistic—in its art, poetry, dialogue, and whole impact. In one fragment of dramatic presentation, a biblical scene is depicted by characters whose language is profane and degraded. I examine this erudite magazine with the feeling, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”

The concept of relativity is continually used to inoculate the minds of men against God’s absolutes. The statement “There are no absolutes” is obviously absurd, being an absolute in itself. But consistency is not the shining virtue of those who believe that the divine attributes, as well as the way to God, may be discarded in favor of new “concepts.” Such conditioned minds are rarely receptive to the Gospel.

Infants have a natural immunity against most diseases for a few months, and this is good. But man’s natural tendency to immunize himself against the things of God is deplorable. True, he is “incurably religious,” but only too often this trait is centered in himself and his own imagination, and the creature of that imagination is his god.

To overcome both natural and acquired immunities requires a confrontation with self in the light of a confrontation with Jesus Christ. When we see ourselves as we are and the Son of God as he is, our own need becomes apparent. When we sense something of what God has done to supply that need, we are in a position to make the greatest transition possible to us—the transition from death to life, from darkness to light, and from time to eternity.

That unregenerate man should resent and resist God’s proffered love is understandable in light of the fact that there is needed a work of the Holy Spirit to change the situation.

On the other hand, that man should be inoculated with the virus of religiosity which, in the name of religion, causes him to become more resistant to Christ and his claims is a major tragedy.

This condition is not hopeless, thanks to the love and mercy of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. But Christians and the Church need to be alert to any emphases that threaten to bypass the Cross and all that is implied in that event, which is the center of all history.

Ours must be cisterns of living water, not broken reservoirs. We must have Christ presented in terms of divine intervention at the point where man is himself helpless. We must have truth illuminated by the Holy Spirit, not dimmed by the rationalizations of man.

PERIODICAL PRIMER

To keep up with the diverse and complex religious scene today it’s necessary to know what information is molding the thinking of various religious groups. As I sit in my high ivory tower with an overview of the country, I feel duty-bound to share with you a list of publications having great theological influence.

Undoubtedly Playboy heads the list. Read it to see what Protestant ministers and half the Roman Catholic priests are thinking. In here you will meet such outstanding theological lights as Harvey Cox and Al Capp and at least one Mormon playmate. Notice I said “read.”

When he finishes Playboy, the typical Protestant minister will be found reading Changing Times—trying desperately and usually fruitlessly to find ways of making his meager income cover his magnifluent outgo.

If you want to know what the young theological student of today is thinking, tune in to Mad magazine. You’ll better understand the current lack of theological subtlety after your experience here. The editors never use a needle if a meat cleaver will do as well. The theological position can loosely be described as neo-Rabelaisian.

The National Catholic Reporter will initiate you into the thinking of liberal Catholics. You will learn more than you want to know about the sins of Catholic officialdom.

Our Sunday Visitor, also Catholic, will tell you why everything you just read in the NCR is a lie. To save time, don’t read either of them.

On the coffee table of every evangelical Christian making more than $15,000 a year you will find William F. Buckley’s National Review. Don’t bother with the articles. Just sample Buckley’s waspish answers to the letters. That’ll tell you all you need to know.

America’s most over-rated paper, The New York Times, will give you the Upper Manhattan Zionist view of things. (And besides, how can they expect to run a successful paper without a comic page?)

The young liberated churchwoman is represented by Cosmopolitan. Tolerance is the key word here. Let a thousand flowers bloom: adultery, homosexuality, Burt Reynolds, etc.

Last of all on this list is the venerable Christian Century. It’s a must if you want to know what unmarried librarians of indeterminate religious convictions are thinking—this week.

If you haven’t the time or money to read all these, the solution is simple. Just keeping reading CHRISTIANITY TODAY. It’s paper and ink to you but it’s bread to me.

STANDING PAT

Replies to my article on church and state in your February 4 issue make me say something I did not say. I do not call for the tearing down of the wall of separation between church and state, but do not like where late court decisions have put that wall. I do stand pat on my contention that it is impossible to block out all religion officially without actually negating religion in a positive way in school, public life, or wherever. All that opponents of Christianity have ever asked is that it be hushed up and never mentioned. Neutrality in religion is negation, due to the psychic nature of man. I should like to see the Supreme Court affirm again as it did in the Mormon cases and in the McIntosh case, “We are a Christian nation.”

Atlanta, Ga.

INVITATIONAL RESPONSE

As my copy of CHRISTIANITY TODAY dated December 17 last failed to reach me in the usual way, I have only recently seen the invitation of Dr. J. D. Douglas to identify an Ulster Unionist member of Parliament who won election against the wishes of the Orange Order (Current Religious Thought, “ ‘Wish You Could See …’ ”).

One such is Mr. R. D. McConnell, elected in 1969 for the Bangor Division to the Stormont Parliament. For good measure, the name of Major R. L. Hall-Thompson, elected for the Clifton Division, Belfast, at the same election, could also be mentioned.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

IN APPRECIATION

Paul Rees’s recent article “Of Colts and Men” (March 17) was very inspiring. Thank you for your continuing policy of delivering to the evangelical minister the best in quality of inspirational articles. I have always appreciated your editorial policy and your desire to communicate the truth in its entirety.

First Christian Church

Bremen, Ga.

NOT ONLY CATHOLICS

Your news story “Multiplying Millions” (Feb. 18) is misleading. Protestant mission work began in Kuwait in 1903 when Dr. Samuel Zwemer of the Reformed Church in America opened a Bible shop in the local bazaar. Since that time an active medical and evangelistic program has served the people of this century.

In 1931 the first Christian church was built in Kuwait. The National Evangelical Church is presently composed of three linguistic congregations: Arabic, Malayalam (Indian), and English. Our combined membership exceeds one thousand. There are two residing ministers that care for the spiritual needs of these people. There are also six other churches in Kuwait bringing the total non-Catholic membership to over twenty thousand people with ten resident ministers.

National Evangelical Church

Kuwait

POETIC STRENGTH

John Leax’s poem “After the Stroke” (March 17) was to me a very moving experience, especially since a dear friend of ours is now living through this very thing. Mr. Leax has put the experience into right focus for us, and I’m sure hundreds of readers will get strength and blessing from it. Please give him our thanks.

Portland, Oreg.

SOME PHILOSOPHICAL OBSERVATIONS

Harold O. J. Brown’s comments about evangelical writers who give little attention to people like Herman Dooyeweerd (“Theology, Ethics, and Apologetics,” March 17) miss the point of what at least one such writer is attempting to do.

1. Except for the final chapter, my Faith Seeks Understanding is not about “revelation and authority,” nor is it “an effort to show that Christian faith … is a reasonable alternative to other positions”; so there was little point then in discussing what others do along those lines. As the preface plainly states, the book explores the tangency of philosophical views of knowledge (scientific, historical, moral, and personal, as well as religious) to the concerns of the Christian working not in apologetics but in philosophy. Similar observations could doubtless be made about Gill’s book.

2. The epistemological problems with which students of philosophy are confronted are not those discussed by Dooyeweerd, Van Til, or Schaeffer, many of whose proposals, moreover, appear insufficiently worked out for philosophic (as distinct from apologetic) purposes. The fact is that evangelicals have yet to do the detailed philosophical work we desperately need.

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

PREGNANT RESPONSIBILITY

At last, a religious publication has spoken against abortion on demand for what it is—a convenience (“Abortion For Convenience,” March 17)!

A realistic study will show that in virtually all cases an unwanted pregnancy is merely a pregnancy that is not convenient at that time, usually because of alleged financial limitations. Yet close scrutiny will almost always reveal the money is not needed elsewhere—it is only planned elsewhere. Mental anguish results because people are unwilling to accept a new responsibility thrust upon them and are unwilling to change their plan of their lives.… To legalize abortion on demand will accomplish little except to reinforce the unwillingness to change and to accept new responsibilities.

Macon, Mo.

POLITICAL MIX-UP

Your March 17 editorial entitled “On Befriending Presidents” obscures the true source of apprehension regarding Billy Graham’s public association with President Nixon. The problem is not that this association links “the leading Bible preacher of our time with a particular political outlook.” The problem, rather, is that most evangelical literature, including CHRISTIANITY TODAY, is highly prone to attack clergy who voice politically liberal views while ignoring or implicitly condoning the presence of conservative views such as those frequently expressed by Billy Graham. We are often told that politics and preaching don’t mix, but what is really meant is that liberal politics are out of place. It hardly needs to be said that this double standard is offensive—and a source of alienation—to a younger generation of evangelicals who hold to a liberal political persuasion.

Cambridge, Mass.

MIXED PLEASURE

So pleased to read the article entitled “Bibles in the Barracks: God and the Military” (March 31). I was, however, sorry [that you] failed to mention the Air Force Spiritual Life Conferences, held yearly at numerous geographic locations. The programs are excellent and the speakers outstanding.

Major, USAFR

Abilene, Tex.

THE TUBE IN LATIN AMERICA

For a number of years I have enjoyed reading CHRISTIANITY TODAY—not only for its feature articles, but also for its excellent coverage of news of evangelical organizations and ministries.

I particularly appreciate your news article in the March 17 issue, “Evangelical TV—Decade of the Tube,” providing us with a comprehensive overview of how this effective instrument for the propagation of the Gospel is being used in the United States and overseas.

I am glad that you included our missionary, Luis Palau, because we feel he has perhaps the most widespread and effective television ministry in Latin America, and we plan to see this increased for the glory of God. We would therefore appreciate it if you would make a note of the fact that Mr. Palau is the director and evangelist of the Luis Palau Evangelistic Team, which is a division of Overseas Crusades.

Executive Director

Overseas Crusades, Inc.

Palo Alto, Calif.

SOME CLARIFICATIONS

Your editorial regarding the thirtieth anniversary of the National Association of Evangelicals is greatly appreciated (“The NAE at Thirty,” March 31). We too are concerned about some of the slow developments that you mention. There are two matters mentioned that need clarification.

With regard to NAE involvement in Key 73 I should say that we have a very specific policy that we will not duplicate in any way the functions of our member churches. Evangelism is the task of the Church. On the other hand, we have encouraged our members to participate, and much of the leadership in Key 73 is supplied by NAE members.

As for securing the cooperation of the Lutheran and Restoration churches, we do have close liaison with them, and we serve them through one or more of our commissions. They have policies of affiliation that make it difficult for them to join the NAE except one church at a time.

General Director

National Association of Evangelicals

Washington, D. C.

A CLOSED CASE?

John Lawing’s news report about the charges against Andrew Jensen (“Morals Charge Stirs Row,” March 31) is confusing at best and misleading in many ways. My first impression was that the man was guilty … but then I read a series of news items in [another newspaper] shedding a whole new light on it. It contained Mrs. Jensen’s testimony on her husband’s behalf and also Mr. Jensen’s answers to specific evidence contained in the charge. Your item hinted that it was a closed case, and the statement by Charles E. Willis is anything but compassionate.… You should have dug into the matter and stated clearly that these are only charges.

Pittsburgh, Pa.

• Commander Jensen has since been found not guilty.—ED.

Three Approaches To Paul

The Apostle: A Life of Paul, by John Pollock (Doubleday, 1969, 238 pp., $4.95), Paul, by Gunther Bornkamm (Harper & Row, 1971, 249 pp., $7.50), and My Brother Paul, by Richard Rubenstein (Harper & Row, 1972, 201 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Robert Guelich, associate professor of New Testament, Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

In a manner reminiscent of Irving Stone’s well-known work, biographer John Pollock has captured the agony and ecstasy of the Apostle Paul. As you read The Apostle you listen, dictate, laugh, weep, burn with anger, strain, flinch, doubt, and stand confidently with Paul in the vicissitudes of his life and ministry. In short, you are there. This contemporaneity is achieved not by “modernizing” Paul but by skillfully using a type of “instant replay.” By bringing to light the obscure, noting the often overlooked, and weaving the tangled and broken strands of tradition along with historical and geographical illustrations, the author transports his reader without loss of personal identity two thousand years into the past to be present with Paul.

This work, falling under the broader category of biography, is not what in New Testament studies is called a vita (“life”) of Paul; its title, The Apostle: A Life of Paul, could be misleading. The “quester” must be very cautious and detached, while the biographer can consider alternatives and make his own selection. The clearest example of this is Pollock’s use of Acts as the outline for Paul’s life, into which he then fits the Pauline corpus. In so doing he is able to gloss over some of the critical questions and is more at liberty than the “quester” to read between the lines and to recreate scenes that are only sketched in the documents. Read in light of the author’s biographical intent, The Apostle is an exciting portrayal of Paul that would delight layman and clergyman alike.

By contrast, Gunther Bornkamm, known for his Jesus of Nazareth, presents a succinct, popular vita of the Apostle in his Paul. The work is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on Paul’s “life and work.” In eleven brief chapters Bornkamm lucidly covers Paul’s life before and after his conversion, his initial missionary activity, his world-wide mission, the major church centers, and his visit to Jerusalem that led to his death. Bornkamm’s treatment of first-century Judaism, his insight into the reason for Paul’s mission, and his analysis of the church centers along with their respective epistles highlight this section. Pollock’s work follows a more traditional, conservative approach to Paul; Bornkamm, rejecting an uncritical combination of Acts and the Pauline corpus, often contrasts noticeably with Pollock.

The real reward of Bornkamm’s work is part two, Paul’s “gospel and theology.” In five compactly written chapters, he examines Paul and the Gospel of the primitive Church, lost-man and the world, the saving event, present salvation, and future and present (eschatology and ethics), concluding with a positive statement on Jesus and Paul. Without presenting a “systematic theology” of Paul, Bornkamm exegetically portrays Paul’s theology and, of most importance, demonstrates Paul’s roots in the Gospel of the primitive Church and especially in the ministry of Jesus, which he diversified and amplified but did not, as often suggested, distort. This translation makes available in very readable English a work of real significance for all interested in Paul.

Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, professor of religion at Florida State, presents a third approach to the Apostle in My Brother Paul. Rather than attempting to objectify Paul as a man of the past, Rubenstein bridges the past and the present by means of a psychoanalytical understanding of his subject. Beginning with a chapter on his perspective, Rubenstein finds Paul to be a fellow traveler in his struggling pilgrimage with Judaism. Both were haunted ultimately by a legalistic quest for immortality, i.e., final acceptance by God. Paul’s solution was his conversion to the “Risen Christ” through “identification.” expressed crudely and materialistically, says Rubenstein, as union with Christ (cf. A. Schweitzer); Rubenstein’s own solution has been to replace God’s acceptance with self-acceptance—thus dealing with immortality—through Freudian psychoanalysis. Paul’s conversion, and his teaching about baptism, the atonement, and the Lord’s Supper are seen as unconscious, religious symbols for his remarkable, intuitive insight into the problems of humanity. These problems and Paul’s symbolic resolution of them have become transparent, Rubenstein says, through the work of a twentieth-century Jewish mystic, Sigmund Freud.

This work might well serve as a landmark in Jewish-Christian dialogue for two reasons. Foremost is the attitude of the author; he sees Paul as a “brother” rather than the “arch-apostate” of the usual Jewish caricature. With insight often lacking in Christian theologians, Rubenstein depicts Paul as a follower rather than a perverter of Jesus and his ministry. Secondly, the author offers a very penetrating analysis of Paul’s teaching and life through the symbols of depth psychology. Those who have come to appreciate the contribution psychology has made to our understanding of man will find this analysis of Paul intriguing. Although Rubenstein is a careful scholar, very conversant with Pauline scholarship, the reader will find himself wondering whether what the author identifies as the goal of immortality and the angst under the Law faced by Paul the Pharisee are not ultimately those of Rubenstein himself. Furthermore, the evangelical reader may ask why Freud’s psychological symbolism makes transparent Paul’s religious symbolism rather than vice versa.

Countering Two Cultures

Youth and Dissent, by Kenneth Keniston (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971, 403 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by Robert D. Newell, political campaign coordinator, Portland, Oregon.

Kenneth Keniston is too objective to be an ideologue, too eclectic to be a propagandist. He is a man whose byword is balance.

Consequently, Keniston is neither a romantic apologist for today’s youthful counterculture nor a judgmentally defensive detractor of it. He is rather a keen analyst of this new and unpredicted social phenomenon—the counterculture, or, as the subtitle of his latest book terms it, “a new opposition.”

With his first two books, The Uncommitted: Alienated Youth in American Society and Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth, both written in the sixties, Kenneth Keniston earned a reputation as a careful observer of what he regards as the social phenomenon of the sixties, the emergence of a youthful opposition. This latest book, Youth and Dissent, is a collection of Keniston’s essays, preceded and concluded by previously unpublished essays that point to what Keniston says is the direction of his future work: a broad social-psychological theory of youth as a new developmental stage of human life.

Keniston’s analytical insight into the current youth scene is unequaled among today’s plethora of “theorists.” His calm and rational examination of the counterculture is helpful both to the student of the subject and to the casual or experiential observer who may fear radicals on campus, hippies in the streets, or a “generation gap” at home. He is helpful because he neither denies nor exaggerates the significance of the youth culture. Instead, he points to the reasons for its existence and shows its legitimacy as a response to modern society.

One would expect Keniston, as a psychologist, to write and think in limited and jargonistic terms. He does not. Over the past ten years he has carefully analyzed the youth movement in what he calls “psychohistorical” terms. That is, he tries to explain it not in wholly sociological or historical or psychological terms but in a combination of all these.

The first psychohistorical observation Keniston makes is that changing historical conditions have caused the emergence of a new developmental stage in the human life cycle. He calls that stage “youth” and defines it as a time of tension between self and society: “The adolescent is struggling to define who he is; the youth begins to sense who he is and thus to recognize the possibility of conflict and disparity between his emerging selfhood and his social order.”

The rest of the book is a discussion of the various responses to that tension. Only a minority of young people experience this stage of life called youth, but Keniston says the minority is growing. One of the identifying characteristics of a “youth” is his ability to make moral judgments according to conscience rather than in accordance with social pressure. When faced with the conflict between self and society, some young people adopt the standards of the society and strive to change themselves to fit it. But most often, “youth” find society wanting and seek to alter it to their vision of what it should be. From this latter group have come campus unrest, the phenomenon of hippies, the drug culture, and talk of revolution.

Keniston points out that today alienation is a condition chosen by many rather than a sentence meted out by society—that the direction of cultural change is toward alienation rather than toward enthusiasm and commitment. He also notes that our fantasies tend to be escapist rather than related to reality—the Horatio Alger myth seems to be dead. Furthermore, we have come to place greater value on technical competence, on performance, on production, than upon the words of the prophet, on whether the performance and production are morally right, on whether what we produce needs to exist and fits into the overall plan (if there is one).

Keniston is unabashedly on the side of the young insofar as they call our attention to these deficiencies and seek correction. But he is critical of the young for their excesses, for their overall apathy (only a very small minority are activists), and for their myopic view of society. He makes the interesting observation that much of the rhetoric of the right and the left is remarkably similar. He appreciates the accomplishments of the counterculture but summons it to develop greater vision and responsibility.

Because Youth and Dissent is a collection of essays on the same broad subject there is some repetition, which can be irritating, but which also serves to emphasize some key points. Probably the book could have been shorter and written in more lucid style. But it is so rich with insight that I would not want the job of condensation. Kenneth Keniston has given us a remarkable analytical overview of an enigmatic development in society that seemingly has more to offer than any other. We will do well to heed his warnings and carefully consider his vision for the future. He is a prophet in professor’s clothing.

Newly Published

Living Churches, by John Williams (Paternoster [3 Mt. Radford Cres., Exeter, EX2 4JW, England], 144 pp., $2 pb). At a time when many Christians are questioning the traditional institutional and clergy-centered forms of the Church, it is good to have these reflections based on Scripture and on experience within the Brethren movement, which has been a lay movement for almost 150 years. Leadership and ministry in such a context are helpfully discussed.

Who in the World?, edited by Clifford Christians, Earl Schipper, and Wesley Smedes (Eerdmans, 163 pp., $1.95 pb). A simple presentation but based on serious reflection in the light of the Scriptures. Considers the Christian message, and the congregation’s role in communicating it and exemplifying its results in fellowship, worship, and service. Though produced by members of the Christian Reformed denomination, its usefulness is far wider. See also March 31 issue, page 23.

Living Doctrines of the New Testament, by H. D. McDonald (Zondervan, 319 pp., $3.95 pb). A leading British evangelical examines the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, the other letters, and Revelation to see how each part of the New Testament presents its key teachings. Highly recommended.

Church Union: A Layman’s Guide, by Robert Lightner (Regular Baptist Press [1800 Oakton Blvd., Des Plaines, Ill. 60018], 163 pp., $2.75 pb). For those who know very little about the ecumenical movement, an exposé of its unbiblical elements. However, the author is not particularly sympathetic to the mainstream of evangelical cooperative endeavors either.

Christianity and the Occult, by J. Stafford Wright (Moody, 160 pp., $.75 pb). A balanced, informed, biblically sound warning about a reviving alternative to the true faith. Properly distinguishes psychic from occult phenomenon.

Pray: A Study of Distinctive Christian Praying, by Charles Whiston (Eerdmans, 154 pp., $2.95 pb), Help Is Only a Prayer Away, by Etta Lynch (Revell, 158 pp., $3.95), and Encounter With God, by Leonard L. Holloway (Revell, 126 pp., $3.95). Perhaps none of us will ever be satisfied with how we pray, but these books give practical help toward being less unsatisfied.

Eye of the Storm: The Great Debate in Mission, edited by Donald McGavran (Word, 299 pp., $6.95), Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, by Paul Rees (Word, 130 pp., $.95 pb), Strachan of Costa Rica: Missionary Insights and Strategies, by Dayton Roberts (Eerdmans, 187 pp., $2.95 pb), and The Unresponsive: Resistant or Neglected?, by David Liao (Moody, 160 pp., $2.95 pb). Outstanding books on missions. McGavran collects thirty essays from a wide range of viewpoints, including many that are rather critical of the “Church Growth” position associated with him. The book ably illustrates the irreconcilable split within Christianity over evangelism. Some of Rees’s challenging editorials in World Vision Magazine are now available in an inexpensive edition; we hope this encourages their wide distribution. The late Kenneth Strachan was founder of Evangelism-in-Depth and one of the prime missiologists of our time. Roberts’s study is part biography and part presentation of and reflection upon Strachan’s key insights. Liao illustrates many of the principles of the first three books by studying in depth one group unresponsive to the Gospel, the Hakka Chinese, who form 13 per cent of Taiwan’s population.

After Eve: The New Feminism, by Alan Graebner (Augsburg, 96 pp., $2.50 pb). A fairly complete survey of the reasons behind and the different aspects of women’s liberation.

Herod Antipas, by Harold Hoehner (Cambridge, 437 pp., $22). A Dallas Seminary professor has his definitive Ph.D. dissertation issued in the prestigious Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series.

A Future For the Historical Jesus, by Leander E. Keck (Abingdon, 271 pp., $6.50). Studies the psychological and homiletical implications of the various “quests” of the historical Jesus. Displays masterly knowledge of German radicals and conservatives but ignores non-German conservatives and neglects the Resurrection.

Mission: Middle America, by James Armstrong (Abingdon, 127 pp., $3.50). A concerned Methodist bishop faces the moral, spiritual, social, racial, and political crises of our day with earnestness and compassion. Many “case histories,” but little Scripture and less scriptural theology. Long on currently popular clichés.

Learning to Love, by Lewis P. Bird and Christopher T. Reilly (Word, 177 pp., $4.95). A thorough, helpful resource guide for various approaches to church sex education.

Bible Characters and Doctrines, by Scripture Union (Eerdmans, 128 pp. each, $1.50 each). Sixteen volumes are to appear over the next four years, each designed for three months of daily Bible study, with alternating biographical and doctrinal emphases. The first two volumes cover Adam to Moses (by E. M. Blaiklock), the doctrine of revelation (by Philip Crowe), and creation and providence (by Arthur Cundall). Highly recommended as an aid to daily Bible study.

Shriven Selves, by Wesley A. Kort (Fortress, 149 pp., $4.50 pb). By focusing on modern writers of confessional fiction, as defined by Northrop Frye, Kort helps clarify modern man’s religious confusion.

Women in Church and Society, by Georgia Harkness (Abingdon, 240 pp., $4.75). America’s outstanding woman theologian gives us a somewhat wry narrative of the role of women in church history and offers optimistic evaluations of current trends, inspired more by a vaguely Christian humanism than by biblical doctrine.

Creation, Evolution, and God’s Word, edited by Paul Zimmerman (Concordia, 176 pp., $2.50 pb). Five messages by five Missouri Lutheran scientists offering evidence against the general theory of evolution.

The Draft and the Rest of Your Life, by Richard L. Killmer and Charles P. Lutz (Augsburg, 104 pp., $1.95 pb). A useful manual presenting in a realistic way the choices open to the draft-eligible. Generally fair, with a slight sprinkling of anti-Establishment rhetoric (“involuntary servitude,” “repression”); does not consider the religious pros and cons of service, conscientious objection, and draft evasion.

The Incomparable Christ (Moody, 256 pp., $4.95) and The Pursuit of the Holy (Zondervan, 180 pp., $1.25 pb), both by Oswald Sanders. The retired general director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship offers enlarged editions of two of his well-received inspirational works. The first reflects on the person and work of Christ; the second does the same for the Christian.

Tyndale Bulletin No. 22, edited by A. R. Millard (Tyndale [39 Bedford Sq., London WC1B 3EY, England], 126 pp., £1.25 pb). The 1971 edition of this important annual by evangelical scholars has seven major articles, including studies of Second Corinthians 5:1–10, the Rock-Stone imagery in First Peter, Ugaritic poetry, the covenant concept, and the central sanctuary in Deuteronomy.

Paul: Messenger and Exile, by John J. Gunther (Judson, 190 pp., $6.95), and The Writings of St. Paul, edited by Wayne A. Meeks (Norton, 454 pp., $12.95, $4.95 pb). Gunther, a Harvard Ph.D., offers an important study on various aspects of the chronology of Paul’s life and letters, including his visit to Spain, which should interest all evangelical scholars. Meeks accompanies Paul’s letters in the RSV with a wide range of interpretations of Paul and his influence from antiquity to the present.

A Procession of Friends, by Daisy Newman (Doubleday, 460 pp., $10). An entertaining, mostly uncritical stroll back and forth through the corridors of Quaker history in America. Underemphasizes the role of evangelical Quakers in this century.

The Image Maker, edited by Ron Henderson (John Knox, 96 pp., $3.95 pb). For those who want to learn about the leaders in the newest art medium, film, this is the book to read. Part one is interviews, part two, essays.

The Universe: Plan or Accident?, by Robert E. D. Clark (Zondervan, 240 pp., $2.95 pb). Reflections on the religious implications of science by a British evangelical who is a chemistry professor. Last revised a decade ago, now made inexpensively available.

Billy Graham Talks With David Frost, by David Frost (Holman, 94 pp., $2.95). Complete transcripts with pictures added of the two television interviews Frost had with Graham.

The Christian Church and the Old Testament, by A. A. van Ruler (Eerdmans, 104 pp., $2.45). Gives help in handling the perennial temptation to the Church to neglect or distort the Old Testament. By a recently deceased Dutch theology professor.

The Puritan Experience: Studies in Spiritual Autobiography, by Owen Watkins (Schocken, 270 pp., $12), The Great Awakening, by Jonathan Edwards, edited by C. C. Goen (Yale, 595 pp., $18.50), and Witchcraft, edited by Barbara Rosen (Taplinger, 407 pp., $9.95). The contemporary revival of both biblical and occult spirituality was parallelled among English-speaking peoples of Post-Reformation times. These three scholarly books take us back to the documents reflecting these earlier true and false spiritualities. Watkins includes Bunyan and the Quakers, focusing upon individual experiences as revealed in diaries, and other sources. Goen gathers some writings of America’s foremost theologian, who combined evangelistic passion with his calling. Edwards’s reflections on the good and the bad in mass movements are as relevant now as ever. Rosen lets us see the words of both practitioners and persecutors. There were many victims of injustice when unbiblical standards were allowed to guide the Christian response.

Abortion: The Personal Dilemma, by R. F. R. Gardner (Eerdmans, 288 pp., $5.95). The American edition of an important English book reviewed by J. D. Douglas in CHRISTIANITY TODAY March 17 (p. 47).

Haircuts and Holiness, by Louis Cassels (Abingdon, 128 pp., $1.75 pb). The religion editor of the United Press gives thirty-four starters on topics for group discussions pointing in a generally orthodox direction.

Preaching on the Parables, by David Granskou (Fortress, 127 pp., $3.50 pb), and The Parables Then and Now, by Archibald Hunter (Westminster, 128 pp., $2.25 pb). Helps for applying the parables to life today, but Granskou will turn off those who do not accept the currently dominant critical views of Scripture.

Human Life: Some Moral Issues, by John F. Dedek (Sheed and Ward, 180 pp., $5.95). A short, gripping study of ethical aspects of abortion, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and war. Fine presentation of traditional Catholic teaching on these topics.

The Faith Once Delivered, by William Culbertson (Moody, 192 pp., $4.95). The sermons that from 1953 to 1971 keynoted the annual week of inspirational preaching at Moody Bible Institute.

Prophet of the Myrtle Grove, by Frederick A. Tatford, and Twentieth Century Prophet by John McNicol (Prophetic Witnes Movement [2 Upperton Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex, England], 172 pp. each, £1.25 each). Tatford, a retired British civil servant, is one of his country’s better-known speakers and writers on prophecy understood within the dispensational framework. The first book is a commentary on Zechariah, launching a proposed series on the prophets. The second is a biographical sketch of Tatford together with excerpts from his writings.

Time Invades the Cathedral, by Walter H. Capps (Fortress, 152 pp., $3.75 pb). A not altogether illuminating study of three “hope theologians”—the atheist Bloch, the Protestant Moltmann, the Catholic Metz—by a fourth. Lacking in biblical orientation.

Jeanette Li, translated by Rose A. Huston (Puritan Publications, 361 pp., $2.50, pb). Fascinating autobiography of an incredible woman. The flavor and atmosphere of Chinese culture, retained even in translation, makes the book a joy to read.

Enigmes de la Deuxieme Epitre de Paul aux Corinthiens, by J.-F. Collange (Cambridge, 352 pp., $18.50). A doctoral thesis at Strasbourg, “Enigmas of Second Corinthians” is a carefully written, closely reasoned exegetical study of chapters 2:14–7:4. Collange is very open and fair to the conservative view of the authenticity and essential unity of the epistle, though his conclusions reveal he does not accept them. He deduces the existence of a Judaeo-Christian proselytizing movement that made grandiose claims about apostolic authority and thinks Paul was defending his own ministry against it in Second Corinthians.

The Prophet Isaiah, by Victor Buksbazen (Spearhead Press [475 White Horse Pike, Collingswood, N. J. 08107], 321 pp., $6.95). Although he believes in the unity of Isaiah, this Polish convert from Judaism to Protestantism here offers a translation and commentary of only the first thirty-nine chapters of the prophecy.

Prophet Without Portfolio, by Virgil Todd (Christopher [53 Billings Road, N. Quincy, Mass. 02171], 161 pp., $4.95). A study of the themes of Isaiah 40–55, stressing the eschatological dimension. Todd teaches Old Testament at Memphis Seminary (Cumberland Presbyterian).

Philosophical Travelogue

Faith Seeks Understanding, by Arthur F. Holmes (Eerdmans, 1971, 175 pp., $2.95 pb), is reviewed by Paul W. Gooch, assistant professor of philosophy, Scarborough College, University of Toronto.

Anyone seeking the definitive Christian philosophical system won’t find it in this book. Indeed, if such a seeker reads this book, he might just be convinced that he is seeking the impossible.

In taking up this theme at least as old as Augustine, Holmes (chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Wheaton College) does not intend to build a complete metaphysical system: such enterprises, he argues in chapter two, are doomed to failure. But he does not therefore reject metaphysics. Thought and language cannot avoid the “a priori” brought to experience (the point of chapter one), and since metaphysics cannot be escaped, it is best seen as perspectival and confessional. The task of the philosopher (the Christian included) is to develop his confession into a coherent vision, always keeping his work exploratory and open-ended. Crucial to this enterprise is epistemology, the study of how we can know, for unless we take this seriously, our metaphysical beliefs may not be well founded. From here Holmes goes on to explore four epistemological areas, asking about understanding in history, in ethics, in personal relationships, and in religion.

Holmes calls his work a guidebook, and in many respects this is the right term. A guidebook is no substitute for “being there,” but it contains maps and hints for those undertaking the trip. So Holmes acknowledges that his is not an original piece of analysis, and that the work presupposes “some acquaintance with the views discussed.” Christian philosophers therefore will not find their work done for them here; instead, Holmes offers a helpful map of alternate routes—some dead-ends, some more promising. Only occasionally does one feel that the reader is assumed to need elementary instruction and even motivation—e.g. in the first part of the chapter on moral knowledge.

It is certainly the work of someone who has traveled extensively: there is evidence of thoughtful reflection not only on the entire history of philosophy but also on contemporary issues in analytical philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism. If one misses a discussion of Wittgenstein in the section on interpersonal knowledge, he can content himself with well digested insights from a dozen philosophers and theologians, from Socrates to Buber.

The audience for Faith Seeks Understanding should not, however, be limited to philosophers. The book may be treated as a travelogue as well as a guidebook. Those who do not travel philosophically will benefit from Holmes’s comments on a host of theological positions. He clearly discusses the philosophical assumptions underlying nineteenth-century liberalism, existential theology, situation ethics, and various views of revelation. The book is well organized and has the twin virtues of conciseness and clarity.

Not Enough Pluses

The Thessalonian Epistles: A Call to Readiness, by D. Edmond Hiebert (Moody, 1971, 383 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by David W. Wead, assistant professor of New Testament, Emmanuel School of Religion, Milligan College, Johnson City, Tennessee.

This commentary on the Thessalonian epistles is by the professor of Greek and New Testament at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary. Hiebert sees Paul writing two letters, mainly eschatological, calling the Christians in Thessalonica to be ready when the Lord returns. The first letter has two major sections: one personal, dealing with Paul’s relationship with the Thessalonian church, and the other practical, showing how doctrine (especially of the second coming) must be applied to life. The shorter second letter reaches its climax at the eschatological section in chapter two.

The method of the commentary centers in two areas: a survey of English commentaries and the meaning of individual words. Only the more important footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page, the others are relegated to the back of the book. This made the book easier to use. (I would rather have them appear under the chapter in Thessalonians than under the chapter of the commentary, however.)

An expansion of the author’s method would have enriched the commentary. Hiebert might have indicated more awareness of the Old Testament background. For example, in the passage dealing with the armor of the Lord, the allusion to Isaiah is important. And further exploration into the first-century setting—for instance, into the concept of sons of darkness and light as it relates to John, to Qumran, and to dualism in general—seemed needed.

The handling of the Day of the Lord seemed to illustrate both of these deficiencies. One would expect a thorough investigation of the background and evolution of this term in the Old Testament rather than summary statements of other commentators’ positions. Indeed, there seems to be an abrupt evolution in Hiebert’s own view: After reading the comments on First Thessalonians 5:1, 2, where the Parousia and the Day of the Lord are treated together, the reader is quite unprepared to find them separated in discussion of the Second Epistle.

The author assumes the premillennial position with the pre-tribulation rapture. While he tries to be charitable to those who hold the post- and mid-tribulation varieties, he seemed to overlook the fact that those who are not premillennial at all are also found in our evangelical American world.

Future historians will find it significant that in the mid-sixties student and theological radicals raised their voices above the din of American culture almost simultaneously. Jack Kerouac, the forlorn protests of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pat Boone, and the youth “’twixt twelve and twenty” so faithfully portrayed in the film Generation Without a Cause vanished from the campus scene in the wake of the Berkeley disorders of 1964 and subsequent developments. In their place stood intelligent, articulate, committed, and militant radicals who threatened to bring the System to a standstill. So also in theology, the neo-orthodoxy endemic in American seminaries was shaken to the very ground of all its being when five theological mavericks rushed to fame in the years 1965 and following by announcing the “death of God.” In their radical orbit now move many influential theologs and their sophisticated post-Christian students.

With historical perspective blurred by our proximity to these developments, we can only speculate on their relation to each other. Yet one thing seems certain: whereas theologians may claim to have disengaged themselves from the biblical God and revealed religion, students nowadays—and the broad counterculture they represent—are radically attached to commitments they regard as virtually revealed. “In the end it is religion that constitutes the strength of this generation,” asserts sociologist Paul Goodman, “and not … their morality, political will, and common sense.”

This fact carries with it great implications for the Christian Church. Committed students of the seventies will be more easily radicalized for Jesus than their “beat” predecessors of a decade ago because the idea of commitment need no longer be argued in addition to the faith. Moreover, in an atmosphere of universal commitment—where the pressure exists for each to do his own “thing”—biblical Christianity, like other religious options, can be presented boldly as a legitimate, credible, and necessary ideology for the foment of the moment.

But with these exciting implications goes an important caveat: in general, a culture that is universally religious, and that offers religious liberty, is also irremediably pluralistic. That is to say, radical, biblical Christianity cannot avoid stiff competition from other attractive countercultural ideologies. Thus it behooves one who will present and defend the faith intelligently to understand the countercultural milieu, both by first-person involvement in it and through the perspective that literature provides. To this end the following bibliography is offered, not necessarily to approve all its books advocate, but to help those who want to minister to a sizable segment of today’s young people.

Introduction

Protest and gnostic. While these two types have only occasionally appeared together in history, in the counter-culture they subsist side by side. The best way into the new protest movement is that Sears Roebuck Catalogsized volume, The Movement Toward a New America (Pilgrim Press/Knopf, 1970), assembled by Mitchell Goodman. It is a moving collage of photos, cartoons, original prose, and photo-reproduced text from the leading New Left, Panther, Movement, and mainline periodicals, covering the highlights and trauma from the 1956 bus boycott to the Kent State massacre. This book has great persuasive potential.

Theodore Roszak’s Making of a Counter Culture (Doubleday Anchor Books, 1969) is probably the best introduction to the new gnosticism. It is sympathetic and well grounded in experience and literature. “We grasp the underlying unity of the counter cultural variety,” summarizes Roszak, “if we see the beat-hip bohemianism as an effort to work out the personality structure and total life style that follows from New Left social criticism.…” In so doing, the counterculture attempts to “demythologize” the scientific world picture of Western democracy and to “remythologize” our world by its striking social and religious atavisms. Roszak shows eloquently how this is being done.

The Greening of America (Random House, 1970) by Charles A. Reich uses the term “Consciousness III” to designate the same phenomenon. Unfortunately the book itself falls into that category to a certain extent, being long on rhetoric and short on analysis. It is nonetheless a valuable piece of insight. Two other books pertaining to countercultural gnosticism belong in the knapsack of every Jesus person: William Braden’s The Private Sea: LSD and the Search for God (Bantam Books, 1968) and A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscoveryof the Supernatural (Doubleday Anchor Books, 1970) by Peter Berger.

History

It would be good to begin reading with the seminal book on the history of revolution. The Natural History of Revolution (University of Chicago Press Phoenix Books, 1970 [1927]) by Lyford P. Edwards is just that. Edwards, a church historian, presents a general theory of revolution by showing the similarities among the English, American, French, and Russian revolutions. Staughton Lynd’s Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (Pantheon, 1968) narrows the field, suggesting that the new protest movement has its roots implanted in the radical soil cultivated by the American Revolution. Finally, to bring us up to date, Calvin B. T. Lee has written The Campus Scene: 1900–1970 (David McKay, 1970).

Beginning in the sixties, pre-Berkeley student protest of the freedom-ride, sit-in, civil-rights variety was at a peak in the organization discussed by Howard Zinn in SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Beacon, 1965). The free-speech era that began at Berkeley in 1964 is covered in Berkeley, The New Student Revolt (Grove, 1965) by Hal Draper, in the volume edited by Seymour M. Lipset and S. S. Wolin, The Berkeley Student Revolt (Doubleday, 1965), and in Revolution at Berkeley (Dell, 1965) edited by Michael Miller and Susan Gilmore. The situation at Columbia in 1968 is recorded in Up Against the Ivy Wall: A History of the Columbia Crisis (Atheneum, 1968) by Jerry Avon et al. and in the Cox Commission Report, Crisis at Columbia (Vintage, 1968); the debacle that occurred in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention in the same year is reviewed inter alia in the Skolnick Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, The Politics of Protest (Ballantine Books, 1969). The Walker Report, Rights in Conflict (Bantam Books, 1968), covers the incident at great length. A spate of quickie books followed the most significant development of the convention disorders, the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. The best are The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities (Harper & Row, 1970) by J. Anthony Lukas, The Conspiracy Trial (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970) edited by Judy Clavir and John Spitzer, The Great Conspiracy Trial (Random House, 1970) by Jason Epstein, and defendant Tom Hayden’s account, Trial (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970).

This brings us to the New Left, subject of an enormous amount of literature. Paul Jacobs and Saul Landau provide a handbook on historical backgrounds and on the many student groups in The New Radicals: A Report With Documents (Vintage, 1966). Jack Newfield’s A Prophetic Minority (new edition, Signet, 1970), though written in 1966 and slightly dated, is the classic study of the New Left, its history and rationale. Other significant contributions are those of Phillip A. Luce, The New Left (David McKay, 1966), and Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America (Vintage, 1967) and The Agony of the American Left (Vintage, 1969).

Rehearsal

“Lord, make my heart a place where angels sing.”—John Keble

This morning Abdiel came in first; while he

Began to strum a small guitar, he perched

On half a dozen bales of ragged hopes

And grimaced: “Surely these could be cleared out.”

When Michael came, strange solemn trumpet notes

Sprang from the floor with every step he took,

And Gabriel, close behind, hummed shining tunes

That caught and matched each silvery trumpet tone

While he looped back the drapes and pulled the chairs

To semi-circles. “Drab,” he murmured. “Gray

And even dingy.”

“Open, though,” said Michael.

“Available. Still listed in the ads

Up there. And fair acoustics. Abdiel,

Give us A. Now, Gabriel, ready? Unison—”

They sang.

ELV A McALLASTER

Ideology

The shortest route to understanding the counterculture is listening to its members. The new protesters speak in an essential volume, The New Student Left: An Anthology (revised edition, Beacon, 1967), edited by Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale. Containment and Change (Macmillan, 1967) by Carl Oglesby and Richard Shaull gives an excellent and representative analysis of America’s role in the world from the New Left standpoint. The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary (Random House, 1968) has achieved wide circulation and has been made into a movie. Its author is nineteen-year-old James Simon Kunen, a student at Columbia during the holocaust there. Roger Rapoport and Laurence J. Kirshbaum have produced Is the Library Burning? (Vintage, 1969), a book especially valuable for the insight it gives into the sins that call down the New Left’s wrath. Three Harvard graduate students, Tom Christoffel, David Finkelhor, and Dan Gilbarg, have collected the materials that evolved out of Social Relations 148–149 in 1968–69, the course credited with a major role in radicalizing their university. Up Against the American Myth (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970) is a most impressive and provoking volume. Recently, another group of East Coast students, galvanized into action by the Kent State incident, produced a 300-page manual of radical activism—perhaps the most complete expression available of the counterculture’s revolutionary spirit. The Organizer’s Manual (Bantam Books, 1971), published anonymously by “The O. M. Collective,” gives in immense detail the cumulative experience of the activist veterans and tells you how to “do it yourself.” Speaking of “doing it,” the minority, violent-sensationalistic sect on the New Left, the “Yippies,” have expressed themselves through their leader Abbie Hoffman in his book Revolution for the Hell of It (Dial, 1969) and in Jerry Rubin’s Do It! (Simon and Schuster, 1970). Recognize, however, that Hoffman and Rubin make such excellent straw men that their publicity is far greater than they deserve and wholly out of proportion to the number who actually follow their ideology.

Finally, for “where it’s at” at the moment, and where it was at any given point in the last decade or so, consult the periodicals of the “Movement”: New University Thought, New Left Review, and Studies on the Left (all early sixties); The New University Conference Newsletter, Liberation, Our Generation, New Politics, The Activist, and that essential, mass-level organ of radical thought, Ramparts. The underground papers are too many for mention here; to cite one would be to do injustice to a dozen other great ones. Robert J. Glessing has provided the open-sesame to the countercultural treasury they contain in his slim volume, The Underground Press in America (Indiana University, 1970). He is especially good at tracing swings in editorial concern from cultural and political subject matter to personal introspection, poetry, and astrology to war protest and confrontation politics.

With the Kent and Jackson State massacres the new protest movement suffered its first martyrs. But who are some of the leading reformers from whom it draws ideology and insight? Some will suggest Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, or Mao Tse-tung (and the writings of these four are well worth reading). Others will reflect on the influence of Marx, Lenin, or Trotsky (again, valuable reading). However, the influence of theoreticians such as G. William Domhoff (Who Rules America?, The Higher Circles), C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite), William A. Williams (The Tragedy of American Diplomacy), David Horowitz (The Free World Colossus, Empire and Revolution), and Dave Dellinger (Revolutionary Nonviolence) and of other intellectuals such as Paul Goodman, Howard Zinn, and Staughton Lynd has been far greater. Perhaps the best introduction to the expanse of thought they represent is the volume Radical Sociology (Canfield, 1971) edited by Horowitz. Herbert Marcuse has provided much of the ideological backbone for the international body of radical protest. He has been tagged a Freudian, Hegelian Marxist, but he is orthodox in none of these philosophies. His most important books are One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Beacon, 1964), and Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Beacon, 1960). Two of the best ways into his complex thought are his essay “Repressive Tolerance” in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Beacon, 1965) edited by Robert Wolff et al., and the interview with him by Guenther Busch, “On Revolution,” in Student Power (Penguin Books, 1969) edited by Alexander Cockburn and Robin Blackburn.

It is difficult to speak of ideology in connection with the gnostic side of the counterculture. The many who might be considered its gurus must include Allen Ginsberg (for his ubiquitous poetry), Alan Watts (for his several books on Zen Buddhism), and possibly Timothy Leary. A good deal of pop music in the last decade—especially that of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones—has helped set an alienated, gnostic tone as well. Disciplining oneself to listen to the local Top 40 station for twenty minutes a day would in fact pay off in a considerably increased understanding of the counterculture. Or you might simply obtain Dennis C. Benson’s interpretation of the music scene, The Now Generation (John Knox, 1969).

Interpretation

Needless to say, psychologists have had a veritable field day interpreting the counterculture. Kenneth Kenniston broke considerable ground by working for a summer with a cadre of New Leftists. He recorded his findings in Young Radicals, a remarkable book that dispels a good many fictions about countercultural youth. In 1969 he brought it up to date in his article “Notes on Young Radicals” (Change, Nov.–Dec., 1969, pp. 25–33), which distinguishes within the Movement between two personality types associated with the idealistic-nihilistic distinction. His caution carries great authority: “Psychological explanations alone are not adequate to understand today’s student radicals. Student radicalism has developed within a social, cultural and, above all, a political context.… We must study the evolution and rationale of the student movement itself.”

A founder of Students for a Democratic Society and a distinguished researcher on student activism at the University of Chicago, Richard Flacks, contributes “The Liberated Generation: An Exploration of the Roots of Student Protest” (Journal of Social Issues, 1967, pp. 52–75), a sympathetic analysis. Another article, this one synoptic, comes from S. L. Halleck, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. “Hypotheses of Student Unrest” (Phi Delta Kappan, 1968, pp. 2–9) summarizes and comments on practically every explanation that has been given for the phenomenon. Robert Kavanaugh’s insight, “The Grim Generation” (Psychology Today, Oct., 1968, pp. 50–55), faithfully represents the burden of student testimonies the author has encountered at the end of seventeen years’ experience in the university.

Three general religious interpretations are noteworthy. Daniel P. Moynihan wrote two of them, “Nirvana Now” and “Politics as the Art of the Impossible.” They appeared in the August, 1967, and Autumn, 1969, issues of The American Scholar. A third, “The New Reformation” by Paul Goodman (New York Times Magazine, Sept. 14, 1969), draws a specific analogy with good insight and sympathy. Theology has its say in New Theology No. 8 (Macmillan, 1971) edited by Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman, a collection devoted to “the cultural revolution.” From the standpoint of biblical Christianity, one of the best volumes available is Arthur Gish’s New Left and Christian Radicalism (Eerdmans, 1970), a sympathetic, constructive perspective from one intimately involved in the counterculture. Like it but more theological is The Christian Revolutionary (Eerdmans, 1971) by Dale W. Brown. They Dare to Hope: Student Protest and Christian Reponse (Eerdmans, 1969) by Fred Pearson is somewhat less helpful. The first forty-one pages of Francis Schaeffer’s Church at the End of the Twentieth Century (Inter-Varsity, 1970) also represent a move in the right direction but are characteristically brimful of generalization. We need still more of the wit, wisdom, and surgical skill of a William Stringfellow, a greater measure of the Berrigans’ informed passion, and a larger dose of Jacques Ellul’s masterly analysis if we are rightly to interpret and minister to the growing counterculture of our time.

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.” Or, to put it another way, the scriptures of secular religion are found in the popular press. In reading them we not only learn to reach the culture they portray; we also find that “cultural and spiritual growth are related. The enlarged capacity created by an appetite for a wider spectrum of cultural interest will increase our intake ability for spiritual truth too” (Clark Pinnock, Set Forth Your Case, 1967, p. 21).

James R. Moore is a graduate assistant at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and co-editor of “Trinity Studies.” He has a B.S. from the University of Illinois.

If you asked the man on the street to evaluate student militancy on campuses today, he would be likely to reply, “Oh, that’s gone. We haven’t had any student uprisings for a long time.” Then he would probably add, “And I’m glad that problem is over.”

Yes, student extremism, much of it attributable to New Leftist-type persons and organizations, especially the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), has changed considerably. Since the 1969–70 academic year, campus violence has appreciably declined. Very seldom does the press report an incident reminiscent of the militancy of a scant twenty-four months ago. The era of campus revolution seems to have ended.

But we must not allow first impressions to be all controlling. There is indeed a quieting of campus militancy. Universities are no longer suffering mass demonstrations, bombings, building seizures. But this does not mean that youthful extremism, hatred of democratic institutions, and the belief that violence is the best way to bring about societal change have suddenly disappeared. Many New Leftists still spell America with a “k”—Amerika—meaning that they still see this country as a totalitarian fascist enemy that must be destroyed.

The militancy has not evaporated; rather, it has changed in form, tactics, and direction. Beginning in 1970, New Left extremism started leaving the campuses and streets and dropping underground, there to continue its assault on the system by means of guerrilla warfare.

Today, the violent New Left, spearheaded by the Weatherman (extremist wing of the former SDS), is operating largely underground, where adherents are using aliases, disguises, and false identities (obtained from false birth certificates, car registrations, passports, Social Security cards), moving clandestinely from one location to another, maintaining hide-outs and “safe-houses.” In this underground, which stretches from coast to coast, local and federal criminal fugitives are given sanctuary and underground “railways” provide escape routes. Bomb factories have been set up in which homemade bombs are put together (often according to instructions in widely circulated how-to-do-it manuals on explosives), stored, and on occasion deployed in guerrilla attacks against selected Establishment targets, such as military installations, government buildings, banks, and police stations. Except for these occasional acts of terrorism, the underground structure is largely invisible to the ordinary citizen.

Then there are a large number of aboveground sympathizers, many of them respected in their communities, who provide services to the underground. These sympathizers may be lawyers, doctors, parents, students, teachers; they provide, among other things, funds, medical and legal aid, and overall guidance. They serve as mail drops, provide hide-outs, furnish equipment (such as cars), and secure aboveground documents (such as birth certificates and car registrations) for use underground. By refusing to cooperate with the FBI and local authorities, these sympathizers give valuable protection to the underground.

What this adds up to is a sizable core in the nation today of the New Left-type extremists and their supporters, determined to use violence if necessary to destroy our basic institutions.

What motivates these extremist young people, many of whom come from affluent homes and are well educated? What has brought about their hatred of this nation? their desire to destroy its institutions? their belief that violence is justified? their alienation from democratic values? Why have many of them categorically rejected their families and the institutions—school, home, church—of their early years? Many of them have shut themselves off completely from contact with their parents, relatives, and former friends, and live almost completely in the radical youth culture.

These are difficult questions to answer. Yet if we look closely, we will find, at least in general outline, an inner motivating principle, what might be called a “morality of revolutionary radicalism,” a code of “ethics” that not only sanctions and justifies violent actions against society but also may on occasion, by creating personal feelings of “guilt,” encourage or trigger unlawful acts.

Not long ago, for example, a New Left extremist explained why he was involved in the bombing of a campus ROTC building. “I hate this nation,” he said. “I hate this government. I consider the ROTC building a symbol of the system. Therefore, I felt deep down inside me a moral obligation to destroy what I hated. Otherwise, I would have felt guilty.”

If we are to understand this dangerous—and contagious—phenomenon of New Left extremism and its appeal to certain segments of today’s young people, we must know more about the strange “morality” that provides a false spiritual underpinning and motivation for violence. What are some aspects of the New Leftist “morality of revolutionary radicalism”?

1. First of all, there is a deeply held belief that this nation is a modern-day “Babylon” (a word used in New Left literature), characterized by slavery, fear, exploitation, and repression. In the eyes of these extremists, there is no freedom of any kind in this country. Its institutions—economic, political, social, religious—are permeated with evil. Democratic government and Judeo-Christian values are here mere delusions.

2. The way to meet this evil (“Babylon”) is not simply reform or change but total destruction of existing institutions and values. “In death-directed Amerika,” reads a message written by a group of radical bombers, “there is only one way to a life of love and freedom: to attack and destroy the forces of death and exploitation and to build a just society—revolution.”

Central to New Leftist ethics is a firm belief in violent destruction as the way to meet societal problems. “We have to start tearing down this country,” said a Weatherman leader. “We have to have a revolution in this country that’s going to overthrow—like bombs, like guns, like firebombs, by anything and everything.”

3. Although the New Left extremist occasionally speaks of “hope,” “freedom,” a “better world,” these words refer to a time so distant, so far away, so generalized, that they have no immediate meaning or relevance. It almost seems as if the extremist is not interested in the future, or in what kind of society should replace the one he seeks to destroy, for the New Left has produced no blue print for a society of the future.

4. In their destructive zeal, these extremists seem either not to realize or not to care that through the violence they advocate, people might be injured, the rights of others violated, injustice committed. Their fanatic devotion to their cause overrides reason, compassion, and common sense. A leaflet circulated at an SDS meeting put it this way: “Until the student is willing to destroy TOTALLY and JOYFULLY those repressive structures—to attack and destroy the bourgeois social order—his student movement will always be just that—never truly revolutionary.… The buildings are yours for the burning, for until they are destroyed, along with civilization and its DEATH, YOU will not live.”

5. For the extremist, the rationale or justification for violence is that it is defensive, selective, and demanded in the name of justice. A “moral obligation” drove a New Leftist to participate in a campus bombing without any sense of guilt. This young man—typical of many in the movement—felt what he calls a “moral” compunction to obliterate through violence what he regarded as evil. How did he justify his position? To his mind, this violence was defensive (“Wasn’t the government as an evil and demonic institution already perpetrating violence?”), selective (“I could have done all kinds of other damage, but I selected this ROTC building as a symbol of the evil society I hated”), and demanded in the name of justice (“Just to hate the government is simply not enough; I must take some action to carry out my ideas in the interests of revolutionary justice, for otherwise, I would be a traitor to the cause”).

By this reasoning, violence comes to be seen as constructive, creative, the agent of freedom and justice. The extremist finds sanction for acts of violence (that he is serving a good and noble cause—a sanction that conveniently allows him to forget about possible consequences). He also finds encouragement—almost a “moral” imperative—to carry out a violent revolutionary act if he feels hesitant or reluctant. In other words, here is an inverse morality that justifies crime!

6. The New Left morality is highly elitist, discriminatory, and one-dimensional. “Justice” becomes what the New Leftist says it is. It is not universal, common to all, to be dispensed under uniform rules and regulations. Rather, the New Left selectively and arbitrarily creates its own martyrs or “victims” of injustice (usually selected from the ideological spectrum of the New Left, the Black Panther party, or similar groups), yet at the same time seems indifferent to the injustice suffered by other members of society. The extremist’s “causes” are carefully chosen. His sympathies (and hates) are programmed; they can be turned off and on at will. We must never be hasty in criticizing a person’s concern for justice; but when this “concern” is selectively applied only to certain groups or individuals chosen on ideological grounds, and never to the causes of people with different convictions, the professed concern becomes suspect.

7. The New Left morality is expressed in bitter, polemical terms that choke off reason, respect for the other person, and rational dialogue. All too often these young people feel they are the sole custodians of virtue, knowledge, and truth. They pour out a continuous stream of vituperation—often laced with obscenity—against the “enemy.” What chance is there for honest debate, the identification of error, and a meeting of minds?

8. The New Left morality seeks and depends on a scapegoat. This scapegoat is “Amerika,” “the imperialistic United States,” “bourgeois values.” All the weaknesses of society, imaginary or real (and we must admit that our nation does have weaknesses; but they are weaknesses we are trying through democratic processes to overcome), are attributed to this scapegoat, with no attempt to apportion blame or understand historical or other reasons. In this way, the extremists relieve themselves of the responsibility of working out possible alternatives and honestly seeking solutions to the problems they rail against. The simplistic technique of creating a scapegoat blocks them from considering what is good about our society and propagates a pessimistic, defeatist attitude toward life.

9. The morality of the New Left espouses a freedom from personal responsibility that in essence means anarchy. Here lies one of the most potent dangers in this “morality of revolutionary radicalism.” “We are outlaws, we are free!” proclaimed Bernardine Dohrn, a key Weatherman’s leader, in a communiqué from the underground. In this “ethical code,” individual freedom means everyone does just what he wants, making his own judgments (regardless of the rights of others) the exclusive standard for his actions. If he feels an ROTC building or police station should be bombed, he bombs it! He rejects any concept of law unless he makes or interprets the law. In his eyes, his violence is not a crime—though a violent act by a person he doesn’t like is a “crime” without question!

10. In the morality of the New Left, the inherent dignity of man, who is God’s creation, is mocked and despised. These revolutionaries do not trust man to exercise his abilities—his judgment, his understanding of the past, his vision of the future. They look upon him as a piece of matter to be manipulated.

Persons caught up today in New Left extremism—either in the underground or among its aboveground supporters—reflect, in varying degrees, this cruel philosophy we have called the “morality of revolutionary radicalism.” Here arises the impetus for the actions of this small terrorist minority.

What of the future? Bernardine Dohrn, speaking for the hard-core Weatherman, asserts: “We will never go back.” Some of these extremists have been in the underground now for over two years. They have abandoned their families, friends, and former way of life. They have opted for alternative values and standards. Must they be written off as irretrievably lost to our society?

We cannot know, of course. However, we should be optimistic, hoping that many of these young people sooner or later will reconsider and return to assume constructive roles within society.

What can we, as citizens and Christians, do to meet this challenge?

First, we need to know the facts on the dangers involved. To dismiss the extremist as a “romantic,” “a kid gone wrong who’ll soon straighten out,” is to miss the dimensions of the problem.

Many of these New Leftists come from affluent homes and have been favored with the best in our educational system. We need to ask what has gone wrong. Why have they scornfully rejected their democratic heritage? Why do they seek to destroy the society that gave them birth? What is the responsibility of the home? Why this failure of communication? What message is here for all of us? These young people frequently point to what we must agree are failures in our society, such as poverty, discrimination and other forms of injustice, malnutrition, inadequate housing. Their tragedy is that their idealism has soured into a program of vigilante violence. All of us should work to eliminate these ills and create a better society.

Let’s never stop having faith in our young people. We can be proud of the vast majority of them. We must invest time, resources, and above all personal attention in them. They are our most precious asset.

Most important, we must appreciate what Christ can do to change lives—what he has already done in changing the lives of some SDSers, Black Panthers, Weathermen, anarchists, and other extremists. Both clergymen and lay people have been doing tremendous work in bringing the Word of God to these misguided and spiritually hungry young men and women. I have read the testimonies of some whose lives have been turned completely around, who have put aside bombs and taken up Bibles.

Undoubtedly, the current decline of militancy on campuses is due in part to the efforts of dedicated Christians working among the extremists. The excitement of knowing Christ has given many former militants a new adventure of the spirit. They have been transformed from extremist revolutionaries to Christian revolutionaries.

What is a key role of the Church in meeting revolutionary violence? Personal evangelism, carried out with understanding, compassion, and love. Lives changed for Christ lead to a changed society and a changed world.

J. Edgar Hoover has been director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1924. He received the LL.B. and LL.M. degrees from The George Washington University.