MORE PLANE TALK

I now know there are ten readers of this column. That many good folk took the time to write and accuse me of dereliction of Christian responsibility because I let a drunk go out into the rain when he refused directions to gate twenty (“Plane Talk,” March 3 issue, page 32).

Therefore in the name of fairness I’ve revised the column, bringing into the account one of my esteemed readers:

The other night I was sitting in an airport lounge awaiting the arrival of my traveling companion. It had been raining for hours, and the rain was still coming down in sheets against the plate-glass window of the lounge.

I was just settling into my own thoughts when a red-faced drunk in rumpled clothes staggered in and asked a question of one of the baggage-handlers. Apparently not liking the answer, he shook his head and made his unsteady way toward me.

He stopped immediately in front of my seat, weaving back and forth on his feet. I prepared myself for a plea for financial assistance, but instead he asked, “Can you tell me where gate twenty is?”

I noticed he was clutching an airline ticket. Trying to be helpful I said, “Go through the door over there into the main terminal and you’ll see signs pointing to the different gates.”

“It don’t work that way,” he said with a frown, turning away abruptly with a swaying stagger toward the young woman sitting next to me.

“Where is gate twenty?” he demanded in a louder and more belligerent tone. Startled out of her magazine reading, the girl nevertheless immediately assessed the situation.

“Here, my dear brother,” she said, jumping to her feet, “I’ll show you the way to gate twenty.”

“Huh?”

“Let me take you by the arm.”

“Shay, whaz your game, sister? Leggo my arm.”

“Here, let me put this gospel tract in your pocket while we walk.”

“Hey, whadda ya doin’? Get outta my pocket. You tryin’ to roll me for my money?”

“I’m just showing Christian compassion by leading you to gate twenty.”

“How do I know you’re leading me to gate twenty. I an’t goin’ nowhere with you. Leggo my sleeve, lady. Help! Shomone get this crazy lady away from me.”

“My dear friend, I’m just trying to help you. It’s for your own good.”

“I din’t ask for your help sho just sit down.”

“How can I sit still when I see á brother in need?”

“Well, I don’t need you so go ’way.”

“But, sir, I insist that you not miss your plane.”

“It’s my conshushushunal right to miss my plane if I want. Listen, lady, you got me so shook up I’m goin’ back to the bar to steady my nerves with another drink.”

Now, is everybody happy?

FROM TEARS TO LAUGHTER

My former pastor, David Yoost, introduced me to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and I thank him for it. I have been challenged, entertained, educated, informed, and evangelized by your great articles and monthly features.

And the poetry—who selects the poetry? Seldom does it fail to speak to me in the most personal way. John Leax’s “After the Stroke” (March 17) is very moving. How wonderful it is that the Lord blesses some of his own with the gift of expression and then encourages them to share it.

From tears to laughter, reading “Sloven Power.” This also spoke to me; I am Sister Sloven! Thank you for a marvelous magazine.

(MRS.) GERALDINE SIEGFRIED

Akron, Ohio

WHICH VERSION?

Your mention of Which Bible? in “The Bible as a Whole” (Feb. 18), is rather puzzling, to say the least. I do not mind for a moment being put in a “Special Category” providing the “category” is accurate and not given to discrepancies and egregious misstatements. I searched the whole review several times to find a presentation of facts to prove the thesis of Which Bible? was wrong. I couldn’t find one. I did find that “the overwhelming majority of evangelical Bible scholars … would agree in regarding Which Bible? as basically wrong-headed in its approach and typical of a misguided apologetic that causes evangelicalism to be identified in many people’s minds with an unenlightened obscurantism”.… This “overwhelming majority of evangelical Bible scholars” in our day, I take it, accept the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God in the original manuscripts. If they do, then they must believe that this Sovereign God has providentially preserved his Book all through the ages. This being the case, there is one question left—which version is nearest to the original autographs?

Which Bible? sets forth in nearly 300 pages clear, concise proof that the King James Version is that version. If there are those who can produce more proof, better proof that there is another version nearer to the originals, we welcomeit; but we are convinced they cannot produce it.

Wealthy Street Baptist Church

Grand Rapids, Mich.

• In the article, interested readers were referred for more information to J. Harold Greenlee’s Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Eerdmans, 160 pp., $3.50).—ED.

I must protest the false and unfair charges brought against Jay Green’s King James II Version of the Bible. It is false to say that this version is based on “an approach to textual matters that assumes for Erasmus a degree of accuracy impossible under the circumstances.” Why didn’t the authors of the article examine it with enough care to note the use of italics concerning textual questions (Johannine comma, etc.)? But it is a shame that for so many years evangelicals have uncritically accepted liberal theories of New Testament textual criticism through the influence of conservatives such as B. B. Warfield. Now that so many strictly Byzantine-type readings have been found in the early (non-Byzantine) papyrus manuscripts, evangelicals ought to be able to see that something is wrong and that they should not be following a Greek text that is bound to change considerably with every printing when the basis for it may be entirely wrong.

Whatever its faults, it is also unfair to say that “it is difficult to find any particular in which this version is an improvement over what it is designed to replace.” What Jay Green has tried to do is give in present-day vocabulary a version of the Word of God without resorting to paraphrase (even “faithful” paraphrase, which depends upon the correct exegesis of the text) or accepting doubtful textual “improvements.” No other version attempts to do this, and that is an important achievement.

Grand Rapids, Mich.

A USEFUL SORT

I just wanted to thank Dr. Tinder for his essay, “Books 1971: The History of Christianity” (Feb. 18), which I thoroughly enjoyed. It seems to me an exceedingly succinct and useful sort of survey.

Professor, Theology and Philosophy

Yale Divinity School

New Haven, Conn.

ALIVE AND WELL

In “English Church Merger” (News, Feb. 18), you state that 1,668 Congregational churches in England and Wales voted to merge with Presbyterians and form the United Reformed Church, while 465 voted against the merger. You did not tell the complete story. According to the British Weekly of January 21, 1972, there are some 700 Congregational churches remaining outside the proposed union.

On January 15, there was a meeting of leaders of the Congregational Association for the Continuance and Extension of Congregationalism. Plans were made to invite all non-uniting Congregational churches to a national rally in London the middle of May, to finalize the formation of a new organization which will probably be called the Congregational Federation.… So you see, Congregationalism is alive and well and living in Britain, as well as the United States and elsewhere.

Chairman, World Christian

Relations Commission

National Association of Congregational Christian Churches

Milwaukee, Wisc.

PRAISE FOR PREACHER BOB

After reading the news items on Better Entertainment Productions and the Ballad of Billie Blue in your March 3 issue, I would like to comment on this film and its executive director, Dr. Robert Plekker.

Dr. Plekker is a man committed to spreading the good news to as many as he can contact by whatever means he has available. He has been severely criticized by some churches for his latest use of the movie theaters to witness for Christ, but I know that the angels in heaven are rejoicing because of the souls given to the Lord by the use of this film.

Preacher Bob, as he is called in the film, shows Billie the way of salvation, and Billie becomes a Christian. This is not only an incident in a movie for Dr. Bob; he shows the same concern for all he meets in his everyday life. I feel it is a great privilege to know him as well as I do. If we were all as dedicated to spreading the word of God as this man, this world would be a much better place.

Jenison, Mich.

BUDGET CONCERN

I wholeheartedly agree with Editor-Publisher Harold Lindsell’s statement in his Editor’s Note for March 3 that the administration and Congress are being fiscally irresponsible in pushing the limit of the national debt to $400 billion. I also agree with Mr. Lindsell’s statement, “Nations cannot afford to adopt programs, however good, for which they cannot pay.” That is why I hope all evangelical Christians will support a $40 billion reduction in defense and war spending to bring our budget into balance.

Washington, D.C.

A LITTLE BARB

It was interesting recently to see the good coverage that was given to our Youth for Christ International convention in New York (“Youth for Christ: It’s a Young World,” Feb. 18). I could tell who Plowman had been talking to by the contents of the article.

The only thing that disturbed me about the article was the final line that several veteran men had resigned in the dispute over autonomy versus centralization. My challenge would be to name one. The Eastern Area vice-president resigned as of September 1 and is giving serious consideration to coming into our Wheaton office to direct our overseas ministry. His associate resigned, but not over that. Those are the only resignations I know of, and I’m on the inside. I just hope a little barb appearing in a responsible publication doesn’t shake the confidence of the public in our organization.

Vice-President, Northern States Area Youth for Christ International

West Des Moines, Iowa

Thanks for doing an excellent job reporting on the activities of Youth for Christ. It was comprehensive, fair, kind, and accurate. All of us are deeply grateful. Unquestionably it will do us a lot of good.… I have just come back from an extended time on the road. It was interesting to sense the influence of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Numbers of folks referred to the article and expressed appreciation for the way you handled it. So, I’m encouraged.

President

Youth for Christ International

Wheaton, Ill.

CONTINUING APPEAL

Michael Bourdeaux is reported to be opposed to Bible smuggling because some Bibles have been confiscated (“The War on Church Establishment,” March 3). This is somewhat like being opposed to the general practice of surgery because a patient dies.

Our Bible courier teams reported that in 1971 less than 1 per cent of the Bibles sent were confiscated. Complete confirmation of their safe delivery is received. Letters from Russia continue to appeal for Scriptures.

President

Underground Evangelism

Los Angeles, Calif.

If we are to work out an effective missionary strategy for mainland China, we need to understand the Chinese Communist mind from the biblical point of view. And to do this, we must first consider the biblical teaching about the mind.

According to the Bible, man was created in the image of God. If we use the categories of ancient thought and describe the mind in terms of intellect, will, and emotion, we see God’s image reflected in it as knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). Man was to have dominion over the world, under God, as a prophet, king, and priest. Since the fall, the image has been corrupted. Man’s mind still functions as intellect, will, and emotion, but no longer exhibits true knowledge, righteousness, or holiness.

God’s cultural mandate to Adam in the Garden of Eden is “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). This twofold mandate represents both a progressive and a conservative principle in the human mind and reflects the twofold work of God in the creation and preservation of the world.

God reveals himself in the Bible as a triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within the Godhead there are two relationships: the Father eternally begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. These two relationships are reflected in the world in God’s creative work and his providential direction of history. In the history of salvation we see both the work of Christ and that of the Spirit: justification and sanctification. Understanding these two relationships and principles will help us understand the Chinese mind, the Communist mind, and the Chinese Communist mind.

The Chinese Mind

The Bible teaches that the mind of fallen man is inadequate to know God truly through general revelation alone, and requires God’s special revelation in his Word; even this special revelation cannot be correctly understood apart from redemption in Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, although they are sinners, men retain many of God’s creation gifts, and through the action of common grace in nature and in history they are able to accomplish much. Thus the Chinese mind, in the light of God’s general revelation, was able to develop two of the highest forms of humanistic culture in Confucianism and Taoism.

Not knowing the true God, the Chinese mind conceives ultimate reality as the Absolute, Tai Chi, which can be known only through its two operating principles, Yin and Yang, the negative and the positive. The operation of these two basic principles in nature and in history is also called the Way, Tao, which maintains its harmony through all kinds of change and conflict. Thus the Chinese mind yearns for an ideal harmony and unity between man and nature, between mind and matter, between knowledge and action.

Looking for harmony and unity in the midst of changes, the Chinese mind along ago developed the idea of China the Beautiful and China as the Middle Kingdom, the center of the world. In its political manifestation, the one who truly knows the Way, the Tao, has the Mandate of Heaven and becomes the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, to rule over the Middle Kingdom and the Empire. Those who help the Emperor to rule are the spiritual sons of the Emperor, chuntzu or gentlemen. However, if an Emperor misrules his people and loses the Mandate of Heaven, another person may receive a new Mandate, rise up, and become the new Emperor, beginning another dynasty in the series of dynastic cycles.

This series was finally broken with the overthrow of the last dynasty in 1911. Before that, China had suffered a series of defeats by the Western powers and Japan, beginning with the Opium War in 1839. Since then the Chinese mind has had not only a superiority but also an inferiority complex. Without this basic understanding of the Chinese mind, one can hardly understand the Chinese Communist mind.

The Communist Mind

The Communist mind in the West is part of the development of the modern world as it has cut itself away from Christianity. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) made God into a limiting concept and a postulate instead of a personal being and the Creator of the world. Following Kant in the rejection of the Creator-creature distinction was G. F. W. Hegel (1770–1831), who replaced the personal God of Scripture with the Absolute Spirit. The world is not created, but is the self-fulfillment of this Spirit in history through a dialectical process. Karl Marx (1818–83) turned the dialectic of Hegel upside down and developed his so-called scientific and historical dialectical materialism, in which it is matter, not Spirit, that fulfills itself: material forces create all supposedly spiritual realities such as philosophy and religion.

Marx understands the basic nature of reality as purely material, manifesting itself through the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Through an evolutionary process, life evolved from matter and human beings evolved from animals. The determining factors in society and history are the material forces of economic production. Marx holds that at the beginning of human history there was a primitive classless society. Somehow men became selfish and turned property, originally held in common, into private property. As a result, human society has become divided into two or more classes that struggle to control property and government. The material basis of the society determines its superstructure. Class struggle is then the moving force of history which has gone through serfdom, feudalism, and capitalism and will usher in Communism as a higher form of classless society.

Marx predicted that the overthrow of capitalism and the Communist revolution would take place in the more advanced industrial nations. However, this did not happen, and Lenin reinterpreted Marxism, applying it to the world situation during World War I to bring about the Russian Revolution. Leninism has thus become a vital part of the Communist mind alongside Marxism. In fact, Marxism-Leninism is the foundation for the Chinese Communist mind, which applies Marxism-Leninism to the Chinese situation.

The Chinese Communist Mind And Mao’S Thought

1. The Russian Revolution and the formative years of the Chinese Communist mind (1917–24). Marxism-Leninism is a modern missionary movement in that it aims at world revolution and is a perversion of the Christian Gospel. Right after the Russian Revolution, Lenin organized the Third Communist International and sent representatives to China to help organize the Chinese Communist party. At the time of the Russian Revolution there was a new cultural movement going on in China under the influence of Hu Shih, a disciple of John Dewey. The two watchwords of this movement were science and democracy. However, soon the agents of the Third International won over Chen Tu-hsui of Peking University, who for some time was a close friend of Hu Shih in the new cultural movement. They also won over Li Ta-chao, a professor as well as the librarian at Peking University. Li gave Mao Tse-tung a job at the library in the fall of 1918. Chen and Li were the co-founders of the Chinese Communist party in 1921, and Mao was one of the founding members. In the formative years of the Chinese Communist mind, Li was more a nationalist and Chen an internationalist. Mao learned from them both and gradually developed his own understanding of Marxism and Leninism.

2. The United Front and Nationalist-Communist co-operation (1924–27). The Nationalist party was founded and reorganized several times under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Sun had overthrown the Manchu dynasty in 1911 but had yielded the presidency to the warlord Yuan Shih-kai, who later became emperor in Peking and died in 1916. This period of warlordism forced Sun to establish a rival republican government in Canton. Sun wanted to unify the nation in 1924, and he reorganized the Nationalist party to allow the Communists to join as individuals, creating in effect a Nationalist-Communist united front. But Lenin died early in 1924 and Sun died in the spring of 1925. The subsequent struggle for power in Russia and China changed the nature of this early United Front and affected the Chinese Communist mind. Li was killed by a warlord in Peking and Chen was purged by the party. Gradually Mao established a “Red Base” and developed his ideas of guerrilla warfare and revolution.

3. The revolutionary civil war and the Long March (1927–35). A year before the civil war broke out between Nationalists and Communists, Mao noticed that there was “right” and “left” opportunism within the Chinese Communist mind, and that the peasants were not being given due weight in the Chinese Revolution. In an article entitled “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society” Mao asked: “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of first importance to the revolution.… To distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective attitudes towards the revolution.” From his analysis of these classes, Mao formulated the doctrine of the United Front to win friends and defeat enemies. The Communist party, the Red Army, and the United Front with non-Communist friends constitute the dynamics of revolution. However, Mao’s Red Army suffered a series of defeats and escaped final disaster only by fleeing Nationalist encirclement and trekking several thousand miles on the “Long March” in 1935. The Long March taught Mao and others the meaning of suffering. This further shaped the Chinese Communist mind, impressing it with the conviction that suffering and revolutionary experience are the marks of a true community.

4. The Second United Front and Mao’s early thought (1936–45). After the Long March, Mao settled in Yenan and began to work out the second United Front against the imminent invasion by Japan. The Sian Incident late in 1936 and the Japanese invasion in 1937 gave the second United Front a golden opportunity to attract the intellectuals, the youth, and many others. It also gave Mao time to formulate his thought in two most important articles, “On Practice” (July, 1937) and “On Contradiction” (August, 1937). These have become the foundation of his thought. Following Lenin, Mao insisted that practice is higher than theoretical knowledge and sought a unity of theory and practice in a practical theory. Mao also hinted at the distinction between antagonistic contradiction and non-antagonistic contradiction that developed fully in his later thought (1957). Mao employed the Marxist method to study Chinese history and wanted to “sum up our history from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen and take over this valuable legacy” (The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, 1938). Gradually Mao came to aspire to the role of a new Chinese Confucius in the modern world.

5. The final revolutionary civil war and the People’s Republic of China (1945–49). Toward the end of World War II, Mao held the Seventh Party Congress. Liu Shao-chi, then Mao’s right-hand man, wrote the preamble of the party rules, stating: “The Chinese Communist party takes the theories of Marxism-Leninism and the unified thought of the practice of the Chinese Revolution, the thought of Mao Tse-tung, as the guideline for all of its actions.” This was the first time that the expression “thought of Mao” was used officially; it has since become a special term. With the victory over the Nationalist party and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Mao made his first trip to Russia and learned some hard lessons from Stalin. However, Mao and China were still too weak to break away from the “lean to one side” policy of close dependence on the Soviet Union. In fact, China was very soon trapped into the Korean War.

6. The Korean War and the First Five-Year Plan (1950–57). The Korean War greatly affected the infant People’s Republic and the Chinese Communist mind. China was at war with the United States and the United Nations. The problem of Taiwan, of U. S. recognition of China, and of Chinese admission to the United Nations remained insoluble for twenty years. On the other hand, Mao had to attempt a first Five-Year Plan based on the Russian model with emphasis on heavy industry and reliance on Russian aid. After Stalin’s death in 1953 and Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization in 1956, Mao gradually rethought his relationship to Russia. In his second trip to Russia for the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution (1957), he declared that the East Wind would prevail against the West Wind, signaling the eventual break between China and Russia.

7. “Contradictions among the people” and the Great Leap Forward (1958–60). Being disappointed with the Russian model and having found many contradictions—i.e., antagonisms and conflicts—among the Chinese people even after a few years of Communist rule, Mao gave a long address in February, 1957, “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.” Once more, Mao distinguished friends and enemies and pointed out that there were many non-antagonistic contradictions within the nation that could and should be resolved by peaceful means. Mao also wanted to outstrip Russia in accomplishing Communism. His methods included the establishment of communes of all kinds and the simultaneous rather than successive development of basic industries in the “Great Leap Forward” technology. Accusing the Russians of revisionism and of being on the road to a restoration of capitalism, Mao advocated permanent revolution. But the Great Leap Forward ended in partial failure, and Mao was forced to give up the chairmanship of the state to Liu Shao-chi in 1959.

8. Retreat and revisionism under Liu Shao-chi (1961–65). With the Sino-Russian split and the gradual schism within the Chinese Communist leadership, the Chinese Communist mind was divided between the revisionism of Liu and the radical thought of Mao. This split affected China’s development in the second decade of the People’s Republic and gave rise to much speculation about the future of China. In the meantime, Mao mapped out another strategy to recapture and reform the Chinese Communist mind.

9. Mao’s later thought and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–). The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the natural and logical outcome of the idea of continuous, permanent revolution applied to the party and the people. It has both an ideological aspect and a power-struggle aspect. It used the Red Guards to overthrow Liu Shao-chi and others and make them participate in the revolutionary experience with sufferings and long marches and constant immersion in the Red Book of Mao’s Thought. It tries to transform the human nature with thought reform, discussion, criticism, and self-criticism. It is a thoroughly consistent form of humanism, teaching salvation by work. It also promotes the cult of Mao, making him the savior of China and eventually of the world.

10. The Chinese Communist mind after Mao’s death. Mao has been a sick, old man during the last few years. Is the Chinese Communist mind also sick? What will it be after his death? The world is intensely interested in these questions.

A Christian Evaluation

From the Christian viewpoint, man’s basic problem is that of his relation to God. As a non-Christian, Mao sees man’s basic problem in terms of his theory of contradiction. Actually the problem of contradiction is the problem of sin, of man’s disobedience to the will of God. Once man had disobeyed God, all kinds of contradiction resulted between God and man and among men. God’s solution to sin was to send to the world his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of his people. Jesus as a man of sorrows learned “obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). The suffering of Christ and his death and resurrection have solved the problem of sin and death for those who put their trust in him. Man is saved by grace alone, both in his justification and in his sanctification, i.e., in the new birth and in spiritual growth.

Mao’s distinction between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions is a non-Christian way of trying to solve the problem of sin with human means. Mao wants to defeat China’s enemies and overcome the antagonistic contradictions by military revolution and wars of liberation and to resolve non-antagonistic contradictions among the people and their friends by thought reform in the continuous, permanent revolution. Mao realizes the seriousness of the non-antagonistic contradictions, which must be resolved through thought reform, criticism, and rational means. This means that to become a true and good Communist one has to overcome contradictions in a continuous process of “sanctification” so that one’s nature may finally be transformed according to the image and thought of Mao. Mao also believes that suffering is the key to the problem of human nature, and he would have all the people and friends participate in revolutionary experience and suffering. If the Chinese people are willing to suffer long enough, he believes, they will become qualified to lead the people of the world into the promised land of world communism.

Seen from the Christian point of view, the Chinese Communist mind and Mao’s thought constitute the most dangerous variety of humanism ever conceived. It is a very consistent system of the Anti-Christ, and it can be overcome only by Christ himself, through the grace of God.

Toward A Missionary Strategy

Western missionaries had the opportunity to preach the Gospel of Christ to the Chinese people long before there was any Chinese Communist mind or any thought of Mao. However, the Christian message did not penetrate China sufficiently to challenge the Chinese mind and its humanism. After China had suffered several defeats, it began to look for an ideology to help it recover from humiliation. There was an emptiness in the Chinese mind for more than a century. Satan used the Communist mind from the West to fill this empty and humiliated Chinese mind and to transform it into the Chinese Communist mind by means of Mao’s thought. It is the greatest disaster in the history of China, and, by its consequences, perhaps of the world.

Since Mao has ruled China for more than twenty years and has shaped the thought of 800 million people—a quarter of the total population of the world—into the Chinese Communist mind, the Christian Church must face this greatest of challenges squarely and seriously. To condemn Mao’s thought and the Chinese Communist mind without adequately understanding them is to shrink from Christian responsibility. To hope to reenter mainland China without sufficient preparation and training is wishful thinking. To hate the Chinese Communists simply because they are Communists is beneath the dignity of Jesus Christ and his Gospel. To love our enemies and pray for them and to be ready to encounter the Chinese Communist mind with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, even in suffering, should be our constant desire.

Non-Chinese Christians and Chinese Christians outside China should unite in a Christian united front to map out a sound and consistent missionary strategy for reopening China to the preaching of the Gospel. God permitted the door to be shut in China, and one day he will reopen it. God’s promise is that “he that hath the Key of David … openeth, and no man shutteth; shutteth, and no man openeth” (Rev. 3:7). Our task as God’s servants is to be faithful and obedient—obedient to his calling, discerning the time, and faithful unto death.

Paul Szto is pastor of Queens Christian Reformed Church in Jamaica, New York. He was born in China and attended Chekiang University. He has the Th.M. (Westminster Seminary) and the S.T.M. (Union Seminary).

’Twas the night before Thanksgiving

And all through the plane

Not a stewardess was smiling

Or serving champagne.

The reason: A man who had bought a ticket at the Portland, Oregon, International Airport under the name of Dan Cooper had boarded this Northwest Airlines plane, flashed a real or simulated bomb to a stewardess, and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes in exchange for the lives of those aboard.

In Seattle the skyjacker’s demands were met, and he allowed the passengers and two stewardesses to leave the plane. He then ordered the pilot to fly to Mexico—slowly, and at low altitude. Somewhere between Seattle and Reno he opened the rear door and parachuted out with the $200,000.

For several days law-enforcement agencies combed the foothills of Clark County, Washington, looking for signs of the elusive parachutist, but no trace of him was found.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this skyjacking escapade was the reaction of the American people. Instead of regarding “Dan Cooper” as an outlaw who had endangered the lives of scores of people in an effort to enrich himself, many people seemed to look at him as a kind of national hero—a modern version of Robin Hood who robbed the rich and kept it all for himself. According to an Associated Press dispatch on November 29, 1971, “most of those responding to questions hoped the daring hijacker would escape.”

A sociology professor at the University of Washington commented that the hijacker won public admiration because he pulled off “an awesome feat in the battle of man against the machine—one individual overcoming, for the time being anyway, technology, the corporation, the establishment, the system.”

A Seattle cab driver said: “The way I see it, anybody smart enough to take $200,000 just like that ought to make a clean getaway.”

A sailor stationed in Seattle said: “Technically, of course, he should be caught. But in a way, I’m glad he got away. I can’t help thinking: If I were going to do something like that, I wish I could do it as well as he did.”

A woman who lives in Woodland, Washington, where the FBI concentrated its manhunt, remarked: “He didn’t hurt anybody. And if he took the trouble to plan this thing out so thoroughly, well, good luck to him. Most people around here kind of hope he makes it.”

Riding the coattail of all the publicity, a Portland company marketed T-shirts glamorizing the piracy. One of the shirts pictured a suitcase of money parachuting from an airplane, with the caption “D. B. Cooper, Where Are You?” Another carried the slogan “Skyjacking, the Only Way to Fly,” and showed road signs pointing to Woodland with chase helicopters in the background.

All of this is indicative of a strange new mentality that is emerging in our nation. We are living in an age of permissiveness gone to seed—an age when Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, are idolized rather than condemned, an age when every man supposedly has a right to do his own thing, lawful or not.

In a sharply worded speech to a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day gathering last November, then Attorney General John Mitchell warned that we have spawned a “whole new type of criminal.” He offered as examples: (1) “criminals who believe they can commit crimes and avoid punishment through legal loopholes,” (2) “draft-dodgers in Canada who renounce their citizenship but believe they can return to the United States as though nothing had happened,” (3) “rioters who believe they can do violence and escape arrest,” (4) “revolutionaries who think they can commit murder and other crimes and stay out of jail by crying ‘political prisoner!’ ”

A few weeks later Howard Post echoed Mitchell’s charges in his syndicated comic strip “The Dropouts.” The first frame shows the little dropout standing outside the barred window of a jail talking to a tough-looking character inside. “What are you in for, Virgil?” asked the dropout.

“I am detained as a political prisoner,” came the reply, “merely because the chief and I do not share the same beliefs.”

“What do you believe in?” asked the dropout.

“Theft,” said the prisoner with a smile.

We are living in a world cut loose from its moorings and drifting in circles, a world in which evil men are called good and the “good guys” are called “pigs.” The Prophet Isaiah addressed himself to a generation much like our own. Speaking for God he warned: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

It is entirely possible for well-meaning Christians to be caught in the riptide of popular thinking. Not even evangelists and church leaders are immune to the subtle influences of permissive psychology. We may, if we are not careful, find ourselves sympathizing with some forms of evil and even looking upon them with half-hearted admiration. No matter how cleverly or dramatically a crime is committed, it is still a crime, and the Scriptures continue to admonish us to “abhor that which is evil.”

Richard N. Ady is minister of Central Church of Christ, Portland, Oregon, and teaches Bible at Columbia Christian College. He has the M.S. from Abilene Christian College.

This essay is written in the context of the current Consultation on Church Union and out of concern for what that project presumes.

The pursuit of Christian unity has been for many years a major passion of my life. I have striven by every possible means to promote the visible expression of Christian oneness, and of dynamic corporate action on the part of all people who profess commitment to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. This endeavor has crossed ecclesiastical boundaries, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. It has confronted Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals, and Christian enterprises that are independent of any churchly control.

The most delicate question in one’s relationship with other Christians has always been, what is the Church? I have been saying since the thirties: Let the Church be the Church. But what is the Church? When is the Church truly the Church? I have written much on this subject, including a book published in the early sixties entitled Ecumenics: The Science of the Church Universal. In that volume I discussed the dramatic “Blake-Pike proposal” that gave birth to the Consultation on Church Union. During the past decade, revolutionary things have happened both in the Church and in the world that give still greater poignancy to my early critique of this particular approach to Christian unity.

There is a unity, let it be emphasized, that is native to the Church—that belongs to its essence. The Christian Church is the world community of all those for whom Jesus Christ is Lord. In loyalty to Christ this community is spiritually one across all boundaries of tradition, race, nation, culture, and organizational structure. Being such, the Church is called upon by its Lord to give visible expression to its essential oneness in him. All who rightly bear the name Christian, wherever they be around the globe, should visibly manifest, individually and corporately, love for one another and concern for the common faith, and should engage in activities related to the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ and to the pursuit of the Kingdom of God. In accord, however, with spiritual reality, Christian oneness need not and should not be identified with a single institutional structure; rather, oneness is a matter of collective commitment to Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and the Kingdom, and to the simultaneous manifestation of the rich human friendship that Christian commitment can and should engender.

From the perspective of these observations let me offer some reflections on the Consultation on Church Union.

I

I begin with the unwarranted assumptions upon which the COCU Plan of Union is founded.

1. It is assumed that ecclesiastical diversity is in itself a tragic evil, that it violates the concept and reality of Christian unity, and that it creates an erroneous impression of the true nature of the Church.

2. It is assumed that the essential and indispensable expression of Christian unity is organizational oneness, and that the Church’s mission can be fulfilled locally, nationally, and globally only by the formation of a single ecclesiastical structure. But historic fact is ignored: a church structure can be monolithically one while being spiritually sterile.

3. It is assumed that baptism, confirmation, and consequent church membership give people the automatic right to be designated Christian, without serious exploration of the reality and necessity of individual conversion, and of a conscious personal relationship to Jesus Christ as a living presence, whatever designation this relationship be given. These two substantive realities, commitment to Christ as Saviour and obedience to Christ as Lord, must be taken seriously in individual Christian living if the Church’s witness in the world is to be authentic and dynamic. For this reason intensive thought must be given to the dual dimension of the term reconciliation. In church circles there is a need to recall that God’s reconciliation to man in Christ does not automatically involve man’s reconciliation to God. A host of church people who bear the name Christian are not personally reconciled to God through faith in Christ. The New Testament concept of God-man reconciliation calls for a fresh study in depth.

4. It is assumed that conciliar unity and close cooperation in mission on the part of Christians across all boundaries—ethnic, ecclesiastical, geographical—fails to give adequate expression to the nature of the Church as the worldwide community of Christ.

Ii

Let us also look at COCU in the perspective of the contemporary situation and revolutionary change.

1. This Plan of Union fails to take cognizance of certain basic realities today, both secular and religious, that give a necessary perspective for a creative approach to church unity in our time. The Plan is excessively descriptive of the traditional ecclesiastical image, while being embarrassingly insensitive to the emergence of a new unpopular image of the Church, and to the current revolutionary situation in the world.

2. The revolutionary change in mood and activity now under way in church and society—very especially the youth movements—together with the radical problems that this change has created for Christian thought and life and for all church organizations, must be given serious consideration in any scheme of church union. There is little evidence in the Plan of Union, however, that this revolutionary situation is being given the status it merits.

3. It is important to bear in mind that the Christian groups now growing most rapidly in numbers and most dynamically contributing to the advancement of the Christian faith function outside the traditional church structures. Leaders of some of those groups, while continuing to be loyal members of their own denominations, devote their time and energy to the promotion of missionary enterprises not officially related to the churches to which they belong.

4. Serious thought must be given to the phenomenal change now taking place in the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world. The affirmation is being made in important circles in this great communion, “We Catholics must make Christians.” The basic issue is being raised, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” The time has come for this question to be seriously asked in Protestant churches. Can a person be a Protestant without being a Christian? How far does religious nominalism cloud and stymie consideration of the real issues in the churches of historical Protestantism?

5. The Plan ignores the revolutionary growth and challenge of the new charismatic movement, not only in the fast-growing Pentecostal churches but also within the membership, ministerial and lay, of the older Protestant denominations, and in the past few years among the clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church.

Iii

It is my judgment that what is most needed in Christendom today is not ecclesiastical union but evangelical renaissance.

What I mean by this is a rediscovery by the Church universal of the Christian Gospel in its four dimensions: as historical event, spiritual rebirth, evangelistic imperative, and social concern. This rediscovery would involve a dynamic confrontation of the human situation in all its facets—a confrontation which, in the light of the Crucified and Risen Christ as a historical and contemporary reality, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, would be a creative contribution to both the Church and the Kingdom.

Let me repeat what I have already suggested. The supreme need in the Church of our time is new men and women, persons committed to Jesus Christ and to the timeless values of the Church’s faith, who at the same time are dedicated to cooperating with fellow Christians in showing the present-day significance of those values. Whenever and wherever ecclesiastical union can make a dynamic and creative contribution to the Kingdom of God, let it be zealously pursued. This, however, is my conviction: Organizational oneness, whether in church, society, or state, is not the answer to the basic problems of the human community today.

What then is the answer? The answer is a fresh discovery of the abiding reality and relevance of Jesus Christ and the emergence of a worldwide fellowship born of the Holy Spirit.

John A. Mackay was president of Princeton Seminary for twenty-three years. He previously was a missionary in Peru, and he is an authority on Hispanic thought. He has been president of the World Presbyterian Alliance and moderator of the United Presbyterian General Assembly.

Down a side street off the Avenue of the Nations, a drama is being enacted that could drastically affect church life in many developing countries. The marquee carries the title, “Unity: The Price of Union.” The stage scenery locates the action in the Republic of Zaire (formerly Congo; pronounced Zah-ear’) from 1969 to the present. The leading actors, 1,600 black churchmen and 1,100 foreign missionaries, are supported by a Zairian cast estimated at five million, the largest Protestant community in the French-speaking world. Although ignored by many Christians, the drama has attracted a fascinated audience: supporters of more than forty missions of all varieties and sizes in Zaire; world leaders of the ecumenical and evangelical movements; influential churchmen of the Third World.

The onlooker will have difficulty following the complicated, fast-moving plot unless he knows some background. This goes back to 1902, when representatives of seven Protestant missions in (then) Congo first met to discuss common problems. These inter-mission conferences led to formation of the Congo Protestant Council (CPC) in 1928. At that time the fast-multiplying missions needed to coordinate their work and present a common front to active Roman Catholic opposition and to an often unsympathetic colonial regime.

Considering the divergence of national and denominational backgrounds, the CPC worked remarkably well. Only half jesting, some said this harmony resulted from the council’s being composed of conservative liberals and liberal conservatives. The CPC did in fact have a worldwide reputation for being theologically conservative. This was demonstrated in 1958, when the International Missionary Council considered merging with the World Council of Churches. Although it was a founding member of the IMC, the Congo Protestant Council voted against the merger and refused to join the WCC when the fusion did take place.

The CPC, though only a consultative body, encouraged some remarkable interdenominational projects still functioning today. One is a medical center financed and staffed by ten CPC members. Another is a teacher-training school run by eight denominations. A church publishing house is supported by twenty-two council churches and organizations.

Then in 1969 some national church leaders used these decades of doctrinal and practical unity as a platform for turning the council into an organically united church, the Church of Christ in Zaire (CCZ). There the drama begins.

Act One: Church Of Christ In Zaire

Scene One: Case For Union

Front stage and center, the leading spokesman for organic union was the Reverend Jean Bokeleale. Even before becoming CPC general secretary in 1968, Mr. Bokeleale, then forty-eight years old, was a well-known African leader in ecumenical circles. While chief executive of the 100,000-member Disciples of Christ Church in Zaire, he had been elected to both the Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches.

During the 1969 CPC General Assembly, the first during his tenure as general secretary, Bokeleale forcefully presented the case for union. “We are a young nation,” he reasoned. “It is now that the Church must bring Christian influence to the country still in the formative stage. But we cannot do this while plagued by shameful divisions and quarrels among ourselves. We must be united if we are to be heard.”

The general secretary argued the case for unity from another angle: the political climate. A CPC news release summarized a lecture on this subject:

Pastor Bokeleale recalled the attitude of the new regime concerning tribalism and the philosophy of unity: one leader, one army, one police, one party, one union, one youth movement. From this came the conclusion of the lecturer, “There is only one Church, and our government recognizes only one.”

Bokeleale echoed accurately the sentiments of numerous political and religious leaders concerning organic church unity. In the opening session of that 1969 General Assembly, the personal representative of President Mobutu Sese Seko made a request to the delegates. “Could you during this forty-eighth session,” asked Minister of State Joseph N’Singa, “give place in your program to consider the unity of all Congolese in the spiritual realm, a unity indispensable in order to assure their immediate happiness and their prosperity?”

Approaching the case for organic union from another side, Bokeleale cited foreign missions as the source of Protestant divisions and quarrels. In a later press conference he stated, “The institutional Protestant mission in Zaire is the base and source of all these difficulties.” He was convinced that if Africans could get together without missionaries present, they would soon resolve all their differences.

In a theme to be developed and used repeatedly, the general secretary said missionaries before 1960 had worked for the unity of the church. Already in the mid-1950s they had begun using the title “Church of Christ in Congo.” Said Bokeleale, “The old-time missionaries obeyed the Word of God and did not want to impose the sin of divisions under which Western Christians suffered so much.”

Only after 1960, the year of national independence, according to Bokeleale, did some missionaries exploit the ignorance and naïveté of Africans. They encouraged the believers to think of themselves as Baptists or Presbyterians or Methodists—anything but members of the one Church of Christ in Congo. He concluded that the reason was clear: by dividing the Christians, this kind of missionary could continue the domination he had been able to exercise under the former colonial regime.

The general secretary went on to say that this policy of divide to dominate had political as well as religious consequences. To illustrate this, he spoke of a sight he remembered from the days of the Simba Rebellion. It was the headless corpse of a mother floating down the river with a baby still clutched in her arms. Then, addressing himself to the missionaries present at the General Assembly, Bokeleale said, “This is the result of the divisions and disunity you brought to our country.”

Before the 1969 CPC sessions adjourned, a large majority of delegates authorized the drafting of a constitution leading to organic union. Bokeleale had successfully mobilized the impatience of numerous African church leaders toward the denominational differences Western missions had brought to their country. He had expressed the disdain of many Christian countrymen toward the needless overlapping and multiplicity of missions in their land. Perhaps some of the delegates pondered on the similarity between the forty-four political parties in the nation before General Mobutu Sese Seko seized power and the forty-plus missions operating at the time of this General Assembly.

One observer wrote in the official journal, number 223, now called Zaire Church News:

The CPC Assembly was characterized by a restless energy that pressed hard against traditional guide lines, an energy which augurs for considerable change within Congo’s Protestant community in the decade ahead.

The biggest change was to take place in one year, not a decade.

Scene Two: “Miracle Of God”

The 1970 CPC annual meetings were held under the banner “All Things New.” The 119 delegates and observers from thirty churches and missions seemed determined to follow that slogan by focusing their attention immediately on the matter of organic union. Debate on the proposed constitution, drafted by Bokeleale and the CPC National Executive Committee, continued right up until the final afternoon of meetings. Then only one question remained: what to do with the constitution.

Several delegates urged that the matter be referred to the churches for study before voting took place a year later. This, they pointed out, was normal procedure since the CPC was a consultative body that could only pass along proposals for a vote by member associations.

The general secretary responded that this was not so. The CPC churches were present at the assembly through their delegates; the delegates’ votes were the votes of their churches. He did, however, advise the delegates to take the constitution back to their constituencies for a year’s study, and then vote the following year.

But when the question was finally called for at 3:00 A.M. of the following day, March 8, it was not a move to refer but a straight yes-or-no vote on the constitution itself. The delegates voted into official existence the Church of Christ in Zaire, the largest nation-wide organic union of churches in Africa and probably the most ecclesiastically inclusive “church” in the world. The vote was 32 for, 14 against, and 2 abstentions—just barely the two-thirds majority.

On the local level, the new church differed little from the former CPC. The constitution indicated clearly that the member groups would continue to operate under their own statutes, bylaws, and organization. In matters of internal administration such as electing officers, paying pastors, and operating institutions, the denominations would carry on as before.

The more significant changes took place on the national level. In changing from council to church, the national organization evolved from a service agency, existing to serve the churches, to an ecclesiastical organ whose parts were subordinate to an overall direction. The annual General Assembly, a consultative forum that prepared proposals for the churches to decide on, now became the Synod, an executive body whose decisions were binding on the member groups. The consolidation of power affected also the general secretary: instead of being merely a link between the churches and the government or international agencies, he became head of a united church, and invested with legal powers.

One other change—and later the most controversial—was incorporated into the constitution approved by the 1970 General Assembly. Member groups of the newly formed church were no longer to be called churches or denominations. They now became communautés, or sections, of the CCZ. The Presbyterians, for example, were now to be identified as the Presbyterian Section or “Community” of the Church of Christ in Zaire.

The General Assembly passed two other important resolutions. One concerned the dissolution of foreign missions as independent institutions in Zaire:

We solemnly declare that as of today all the mission associations cease to exist as autonomous institutions, either through merger with the national Christian community to which they gave birth, or else through the transfer of their legal charter to the aforenamed group.

The director of the CCZ secretariat commented later that this put an end to the missions that for ninety-two years had caused problems in Zaire by their divisions.

The second resolution concerned the CCZ’s relation to major theological groupings in the Protestant world:

—Agreeing that we want to guarantee the unity of the Church of Christ in Zaire, and

—Agreeing that the diverse religious movements overseas constitute a danger for the unity of our young church,

We solemnly declare that the Church of Christ in Zaire will adopt a policy of neutrality toward these foreign religious movements, namely the World Evangelical Fellowship and the World Council of Churches.

Mixed reaction from around the world greeted the formation of the Church of Christ in Zaire. Ecumenical leaders in Europe and North America generally expressed satisfaction; one called the event “a miracle of God in our times.” The Nigerian Council of Churches encouraged its members to follow the CCZ example. The World Council of Churches’ Executive Committee, meeting in Addis Ababa after the General Assembly, cited Bokeleale for his outstanding contribution toward church unity.

In 1971 the Christian Theological Seminary (Disciples of Christ) in America awarded him the Doctor of Divinity degree. The citation read in part, “He is actively concerned to develop African leadership … toward self-reliance and a more vigorous role in the worldwide ecumenical dialogue and fellowship.”

Some missionaries on the scene were unsure what effect the new union would have on the church, but they were willing to give it a try. An editorial in the official journal, number 227, read:

Some of us may have doubts and reservations, and we will need to warn and counsel concerning potential dangers, but the decisions should be made by the Africans. Then let us pray for the leaders … trusting the Holy Spirit to guide, inspire, correct, and make His will known to them.

Other missionaries and Zairian church leaders were openly suspicious of the direction the new church would take. They pointed out that although Mr. Bokeleale, now president of the CCZ, affirmed his non-alignment with the ecumenical movement, he continued to hold key positions in the World Council of Churches. “What difference does it make,” pointed out one missionary, “if the church stays out of the WCC only to become a carbon copy of ecumenical planning and action through the leadership of the church president?” Questions such as this prompted the CCZ press attaché to write an article in the nation’s largest newspaper condemning missionaries for acting like “enemy number one of the Church of Christ in Zaire.”

Bokeleale did not try to dispel such doubts by taking a neutral stand on some key issues dividing the ecumenical and evangelical movements. He openly ridiculed opposition to organic union. Addressing the National Press Club in Kinshasa, he said:

If the Church of Christ is divided, it is the West and the East who have cut it up because we read in the Gospel that those who crucified Christ did not cut up his body. The West especially has chopped up the body of Christ in such small pieces you need a microscope to see them.

In the same press conference, Bokeleale supported theological inclusiveness concerning essentially different church bodies:

In Zaire we have three recognized churches: Protestant, Catholic and Kimbanguist [an independent African church]. Even the existence of three branches of the same religion in Zaire, with opposing tendencies, is a sin, because Jesus Christ said clearly, “on this rock I will build my church.”

In further contradiction of the stated neutrality of the CCZ, some members of the permanent staff spoke openly of their desire to see the church in the WCC. Writing in a Belgian Protestant weekly after the 1970 General Assembly, the CCZ press attaché noted, “The CCZ is not a member of the World Council of Churches (at least not for the moment), and this to the great satisfaction of the fundamentalists” (italics added).

Act Two: Council Of Protestant Churches In Zaire

Scene One: Stirrings Of Dissent

Formation of the new united church caused several CPC member groups to withdraw from the organization. The first was the Norwegian Pentecostal Mission and its associated church in Zaire. This came as no surprise. Mission officials from Norway had attended the 1970 annual meetings and had warned that if the constitution were approved, they would pull out of the CPC. The delegates exchanged glances as they heard a Norwegian mission leader warn what an African church would do if things didn’t go right.

In August, six months after the CCZ was formed, mission leaders of several evangelical missions working in Zaire met in Chicago. After studying the new church organization, they prepared a statement, saying in part:

The theological and organizational issues growing out of the formation of the Church of Christ in Zaire are of the most serious nature.… It is hoped that very soon Zairian church leaders and missionaries of evangelical persuasion will be able to meet together with those of like precious faith to develop a positive evangelical program including the sponsoring of an evangelical office in Kinshasa.

News of this meeting reached Bokeleale. He immediately branded the Chicago meeting as the same kind of colonialism formerly practiced by Belgians when they sat in Brussels and decided on ways to dominate the Congo colony. A local newspaper headlined the story, “The Church of Christ in Zaire, Prey of the Chicago Imperialists!”

While these stirrings of dissent came from foreign missions, more serious opposition developed from church leaders within the nation. The strongest voice heard was that of Bishop John Wesley Shungu, head of the 80,000-member United Methodist Church of Zaire. In a letter written on May 15, Bishop Shungu informed the CCZ president that certain modifications had to be made in the new church constitution before the Methodists could join. He was especially opposed to the idea that the General Assembly, a consultative body, could make decisions binding on the churches. He wrote:

I am happy that the new constitution has been accepted by the General Assembly in view of being studied by the churches. But it is a great surprise to me that several members of your departments have begun to implement this new constitution before it has been approved by the churches. If you want to receive the cooperation of the churches in Zaire, you must listen to them and begin with them on the local level rather than from the top.

Bishop Shungu then outlined changes necessary in ten key clauses of the new constitution before the United Methodist Church would work with the CCZ. The changes in effect would have returned the newly created church to the function of the former council of churches. But Bokeleale refused to consider the changes. He insisted that the new church was God’s doing, not his. The Methodist Church then refused to join the CCZ. Scene Two: Alternative to Union

At the same time, an unexpected figure appeared in the drama: the Ministry of Justice. When Bishop Shungu requested of this government department an interpretation of religious liberty, he received an encouraging reply. Officials in the department offered to help the bishop and other dissatisfied church leaders set up a church organization more to their liking. The director of the justice minister’s cabinet told the Methodist leader, “We are here to help you form the kind of church government you want—provided it does not conflict with government regulations.”

Representatives of eight former CPC member churches and independent groups met in Kinshasa in January, 1971, to consult with one another. They returned a month later authorized by their churches to organize a council of churches.

When the CCZ president learned of their arrival, he first threatened to have them arrested as disturbers of the peace, but instead sent a delegation to Bishop Shungu asking him not to meet and form a new group. Bokeleale went to the inter-mission guest house where some delegates were staying and told the manager to refuse them lodging. Then, learning that the group was planning to meet in the adjoining interdenominational publishing house (in which Methodists are the largest shareholders), he sent word that the group should not meet there. When the director demurred, Bokeleale warned he could not be responsible for damage to the building by young people rioting against the trouble-making dissidents.

Bokeleale also met with Kinshasa-based missionaries to discuss the new development. One missionary asked why he saw such great danger in the formation of a new group that would probably stay small and ineffective. Bokeleale replied that such a question could be asked only by a Westerner, one who was used to shameful divisions at home and had imported those divisions into Zaire. “We have no right to permit you foreigners to come into our country and cut up the body of Christ into morsels. We cannot permit the Church to be divided.”

On February 16, 1971, eight church denominations formally organized as the Council of Protestant Churches in Zaire (CPCZ). Bishop Shungu explained that the new council was nothing more or less than a revival of the CPC, a consultative body to serve its member associations. The emphasis was to be on simplicity of structure and smallness of staff, he said. Wherever possible the new council would work with the CCZ to avoid duplication of effort.

Bishop Shungu explained the council’s attitude in a letter to the Minister of Interior:

Our new council works in harmony with the Protestant Office of Education as well as the Protestant Medical Office and Protestant Relief Agency and other organizations.… Since these are supported by all the Protestant churches of Zaire, and not only the CCZ, there is nothing to hinder us from working with them.

This desire for cooperation was not entirely reciprocated by the first annual synod of the CCZ later in that month of February. One recommendation of the medical report read: “That the Department treat all Protestant medical organizations without distinction as to membership in CCZ or not.” During the considerable debate following, one delegate said the clause should be dropped lest other groups be tempted to leave the united church. Bokeleale added, “We are here to serve man, and the purpose of the medical department is to serve all. But if you withdraw from the CCZ, you must pay the consequences of your action and go on to create your own system of services.” The recommendation was lost, but some measure of cooperation did develop between the two ecclesiastical groups.

Even while the new counsel was forming, CCZ members were beginning to have second thoughts about the kind of church they had formed. The constitution stated that the autonomy of individual groups would be respected. But little by little, local church leaders began to wonder.

The matter that raised most serious doubts was the change in status of member groups from full-fledged churches to smaller sections of the united church. The General Assembly of 1970 had approved the constitution, including this change. Some CCZ member groups even changed the wording of their stationery to read communauté instead of église. But no group made a similar modification in its incorporation articles; the CCZ members continued to consider themselves autonomous churches as they once were under the CPC arrangement.

Then came a letter from the Ministry of Justice to the CCZ president and member groups:

Considering your new structure whereby all the former Protestant churches becoming members of the Church of Christ in Zaire must now call themselves communities [sections], I have the honor … to ask you to invite the legal representatives of these communities to introduce as soon as possible their declaration to my Department concerning the change of appellation of their former associations.

Not one CCZ member group agreed to relinquish its legal identity as an autonomous church and become a subordinate section or “community” of the united church. The denominational leaders suspected the change in status as the first step toward losing local autonomy, incorporation, and even properties to the national organization. The president of the Lower Zaire church founded by a Swedish mission reasoned:

Simply changing a few words in our statutes may not seem very serious. But as I look ahead, I wonder what the end will be. If we agree to become just parts of the CCZ, the government could logically say that since the CCZ president is also legal representative of the church, our groups do not need their own legal representatives. We will then no longer be able to speak to the government for ourselves. The government’s next step could be a letter telling us to give up our legal status since we are covered by the CCZ’s incorporation papers. Once we have lost our legal status we cannot own properties or even a bank account. We will have lost everything.

This line of reasoning may not be far wrong. The director of religious affairs in the Ministry of Justice recently asked a visiting delegation of pastors from the Ubangi area, “Why did you form this united church? Now you no longer have your autonomy.” The president of the Mennonite Brethren denomination informed the Ministry of Justice of his group’s refusal to relinquish its identity as a church. He was told, “Either you stay in CCZ and become one section of it, or you remain a church and leave CCZ. You cannot be a church within a church.” The Mennonite Brethren withdrew.

There the curtain falls on Act Two. More will certainly follow in the drama still being enacted in Zaire. Act Three may belong to the government. On December 31, President Mobutu Sese Seko signed a law that, among other things, recognized the CCZ as the only Protestant church in Zaire. The Ministry of Justice has been preparing to explain the implications of the law, for the resulting situation was not immediately clear. On the performance observed thus far, however, a critical reviewer can make some evaluation.

A Critic’S Review

The drama being enacted comes under the category of modern tragedy. In the late sixties, church leaders and believers in Zaire seemed on the verge of an expression of unity wonderful and new in the Protestant world. Behind them were decades of working across denominational lines in spiritual harmony admired around the world. The common bonds of belief were essentially biblical and conservative. More recent in memory were horrible but triumphant and maturing years of suffering during the Simba Rebellion. President Mobutu Sese Seko’s remarkable efforts toward national unity and identity now stirred them to do “their own thing” within the church.

Some well-meaning church leaders and missionaries interpreted this deep sentiment as a mandate for organic church union. Through skillful legislative action they apparently achieved this union quickly and completely. But other equally Christian, equally sincere churchmen and missionaries objected to both the principle of organic union and the procedure of using a consultative assembly to impose decisions on member churches.

Then the scene turned ugly. Christian brother clashed with brother; charges of dictator drew counter-charges against agitators; angry attacks appeared in nationwide newspapers and letters to the government; the supporting cast of millions was pushed to one side or the other. And somewhere in the swirl of action, the decades of practical unity risked being trampled into the floor of the stage.

What would have happened back in 1969 if hard-pushing proponents of church union had heeded the editorial warning in the official CCZ journal, number 223: “It would be a tragic paradox if, in attempting to bring about organic union … the unity we already enjoy to a very large degree would be destroyed.”

The church story in Zaire is also a tragedy because what started as a question of church government became a more serious issue of religious freedom within the Protestant community. It was politically expedient to blame all opposition to organic union on mercenary white missionaries paid to keep Zairian believers divided and docile. But this did not solve the problem that other Protestant citizens of the nation had as much right to their preference of church organization as the united church leaders.

During the 1969 General Assembly, a delegate warned that a one-church system in the Protestant community might eventually threaten religious liberty. Another delegate responded, “Yes, we know. But at this critical time in our country, we must be willing to give up some freedoms.” Some Zairian Christians did not share this willing attitude. They chose rather to exercise their right to form an ecclesiastical structure more to their liking. For this they have come under attack by those determined that there be only one church.

The Zairian church drama is not without irony. Foreign missions are accused as the source of disunity and conflict in the nation’s Protestant church life. But division and dissension now exist on a nationwide scale. This was something the missionaries in their alleged penchant to divide did not accomplish. It was African leadership that created the split in the name of unity.

But it would be erroneous to conclude that Zairian Protestants are neatly divided into liberal and evangelical camps, or into any other convenient generalization. The great majority of Christians in both the united church and the council of churches are true followers of Jesus Christ in the biblical sense. The same is true of their leaders.

It would be equally wrong to conclude that progress achieved through decades of practical unity has been lost. Church leaders dispute the question of organic union. But born-again believers at the grassroots level of the church practice the wholesome, generous spiritual oneness they have always shown. They are doing intuitively what Francis A. Schaeffer said others learned only through bitter experience: “If division comes, Christians must not polarize.”

We hope and pray that the leading figures in the Zairian church drama will sort out their differences in a similar display of their essential oneness in Christ.

Robert L. Niklaus has been a missionary in Zaire with the Christian and Missionary Alliance since 1958. He is responsible for publications of an interdenominational publishing house in Kinshasa and has edited the CCZ’s journal. He has the B.S. (Nyack Missionary College) and the M.A. (Syracuse University School of Journalism).

Across the years John Mackay, president emeritus of Princeton Seminary, has been a strong advocate of Christian unity. In an essay in this issue, however, he poses some hard questions for the proponents of COCU. We note with interest that the United Church of Christ is questioning the whole concept of COCU, asking whether perhaps it should be scrapped entirely.

Robert Niklaus’s article on the drama of Zaire’s (Congo) Super-Church points up the perils to religious liberty that arise when determined churchmen seek to establish an ecclesiastical hegemony to which numerous other Christians are opposed. The deeply-implicated World Council of Churches may, in the long run, lose more than it could gain. The Zaire situation recalls the truth that a “man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Paul Szto’s timely discussion of the Chinese Communist Mind merits wide reading; the Christian who wants to bring the Gospel to China must learn about the Chinese mentality and traditional factors that influence Chinese thinking. One of the requirements for effective evangelism of Red China is to see the Chinese as they see themselves, and to devise a pre-evangelism strategy that will help to open this closed door.