The acute controversy in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is here confronted with admirable candor by the president of the communion. The text is taken from the report of the president to the forty-ninth convention of the Synod, held this past summer in Milwaukee.

God’s Word says: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:12, 13).

As Paul points out, the message of the cross must be preached in all its purity, for the church’s message is not the message of man or the wisdom of man, but the wisdom and the oracles of God. Therefore we can never become indifferent to the doctrine which is taught in our schools and proclaimed from our pulpits. We cannot act as if truth and falsehood are the same, or as if truth is only relative and can never be stated correctly and categorically. We simply must be and remain concerned about pure doctrine.

It is no secret that in our time we have certain doctrinal problems within our church. A person would have to be blind to deny it. On the one hand it can be pointed out that doctrinal controversy is the sign of a living and concerned church. It can also be said that no church is ever totally free of doctrinal controversy. Yet as Paul says, “Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). As church leaders, we are all stewards of this Word and must constantly strive for faithfulness to it.

As we consider this matter which has received so much attention in the overtures brought before our convention, we need to make certain basics quite clear. In the first place, we must maintain with Luther in the Smalcald Articles that “the Word of God alone should establish articles of faith and no one else, not even an angel” (S.A. II 2, 15). No church or synod creates or establishes doctrine. Only the Word does this. Dr. C. F. W. Walther in his presidential address to the Synod in 1848 made this point clear beyond debate. The Word alone establishes our faith.

In the second place, we must address ourselves to the relationship between Article II of the Constitution and the status of doctrinal statements and resolutions adopted by the Synod. The problem really boils down to our understanding of the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution states in simple language what “Synod and every member of Synod accepts without reservation”: namely, “The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament as the written Word of God and the only rule and norm of faith and of practice” and “all the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God.”

But some seem inclined to believe that the Synod must hold the Lutheran Confessions to be in effect an exhaustive, and in fact comprehensive, list of the Articles of Faith. Some specifically suggest that the Augsburg Confession prescribes a quantitative total of articles of faith which Lutherans must accept. According to this view, Lutherans are not bound by anything that Scripture teaches unless it is at least implicitly taught in the Augsburg Confessions or the Book of Concord. However, it is very clear from the writings of Dr. Walther that the actual intent of Article II is that the Synod holds Scripture to be the only rule and norm of faith and practice, and therefore the Synod accepts only what Scripture teaches, but also everything and anything that Scripture teaches. Moreover, the Synod holds that the Lutheran Confessions are a faithful and correct presentation of the teachings of Scripture on those articles of faith which the circumstances of the time made it necessary to treat. Therefore the Synod endorses everything the Confessions say on these points as a correct exposition of Scripture, without in the least implying that in the Confessions there is a deliberate silence on certain doctrinal matters in order to leave such areas open for latitude and diversity and that consequently Synod may never adopt a firm position on any matter which is not already settled in the sixteenth-century confessional writings.

Such an understanding of our confessional commitment is radically different from the intention of Article II of our Constitution. It is ironic that some of those who accuse the Synod of “traditionalism” are in a sense promoting it by elevating the Confessions above the Scripture. For it is “traditionalism” of the worst kind to ask merely whether a teaching is contained in the confessional writings rather than whether it is taught by the Scriptures. Such a practice is contrary to our confessional position itself that only the Word of God can establish articles of faith. Moreover, it is an improper use of Article II of the Synod’s Constitution, because it allows paragraph two of Article II (which deals with our confessional commitment) to nullify paragraph one (which expresses our commitment to the Scriptures). In other words, this argument permits the Confessions to muzzle the Scriptures.

Actually, this problem is not a new one. One hundred years ago, many Lutherans contended that all matters not settled by the Lutheran Confessions must be considered open questions. Dr. C. F. W. Walther, the president of the Missouri Synod, vigorously opposed this notion. In 1868 he wrote a lengthy scholarly article entitled “The False Arguments for the Modern Theory of Open Questions” in which he emphasized that nothing taught in Scripture on any matter can be considered an open question whether it is treated in the Confessions or not.…

Dr. Walther’s words of wisdom can guide us today in our own understanding of the role of synodically adopted doctrinal statements and resolutions. On the one hand, he reminds us that we do not establish doctrine but merely confess the faith taught by the Scriptures. On the other hand, we learn from Dr. Walther that we cannot be bound only by that which is explicitly stated in the Confessions. The Confessions provide invaluable service as they focus on the central aspects of our faith, namely, sin and grace, Law and Gospel, and the person and work of Jesus Christ. They give us a correct and proper interpretation of Holy Scripture on all doctrinal matters which they treat. But our confessional commitment does not mean that only in the Confessions do we have what is truly doctrine—and that therefore all other matters taught in Scripture are open questions or matters which might not become divisive of fellowship.

In the third place, we must continue to emphasize the fact that the Word of God rules in our church; that the church can confess its faith on the basis of the Word of God; that the church of today, as in the days when the great creeds and the Lutheran Confessions were formulated, can interpret the Scriptures and expect its members to hold to a particular interpretation of the Scriptures. The creeds and confessions are interpretations of Scripture which we believe to be correct, as for example in their statements regarding Christology, the Trinity, the Lord’s Supper, and justification.

Today in the church there is confusion and controversy concerning many doctrinal matters, including the doctrine of Holy Scripture itself. If we are to be faithful to our confessions, our church needs to confess its faith on these matters with clarity, and with the conviction that what we are saying is based on the Word of God. Furthermore, we have a right to expect our professors, pastors, teachers, and congregations to teach according to our understanding of the Word of God. Such a concept grows right out of the Confessions themselves, and, far from making us a sect, it is a way of demonstrating that we are truly a confessional and confessing church. Any other kind of “confession” by a church which subscribes to the Lutheran Confessions could only be arbitrary, subjective, and ultimately self-defeating as well as untrue to the Lutheran Confessions themselves.

It needs to be understood that the contemporary church must also confess its faith in order to be completely faithful to the Confessions’ own understanding of the nature of confessional subscription.

Furthermore, Lutherans subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions because they agree with the Scriptures. The Lutheran Confessions see themselves not only as confessions of faith but as expositions of Scripture. The claim, therefore, that it is un-Lutheran to insist on unity in the interpretation of any Scripture passage is not only contrary to the Confessions themselves, but would in practice amount to a vitiation of the very essence of confessional Lutheranism, namely, that doctrine—pure, immutable, clear doctrine—can be drawn from the Scriptures and formulated in confessional statements and unanimously subscribed to by Christians. In the Lutheran church, all doctrine, of necessity, involves exegetical conclusions, for any teaching not based on Scripture cannot even be considered a “doctrine.” An evangelical church, if it is to be faithful to Christ and his Word, must be able to express the teachings of God’s Word to its own day, and to do so in the spirit of the Augsburg Confession when it says, “Our churches teach with great agreement” (cum magno consensu). This conviction, which serves as a powerful antidote to doctrinal latitudinarianism, has characterized our Synod since its founding in 1847. It is this kind of thinking that underlies Article II of our synodical Constitution.

In the fourth place, we can see then that Article II, far from prohibiting us from adopting doctrinal statements as a Synod and asking our people to adhere to them, actually compels us to adopt such statements as the course of events and the needs of the church develop. We must assert more than that doctrinal statements adopted by the convention merely “reflect how successfully a delegate convention applied the doctrine of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions to issues and problems of the day.” This really says very little.

Moreover, this assertion appears to reflect an inaccurate understanding of the nature of a synodical convention. Our synod, as an organization composed of pastors, teachers, and congregations, can legislate only through representation. Since the size of our Synod makes it impossible for every member to participate in a convention, or even for every congregation to be represented by at least one of its members, the synodical Constitution provides for delegates elected by groups of congregations. When these representatives meet in a regularly called convention, they, in effect, are the legislative body of the church, and the resolutions adopted by these representatives, even though they constitute only a small group in proportion to the total membership of our church, must nevertheless be considered as the expression of the church body and must be regarded as valid and binding unless they are in conflict with the Word of God.

Nor is it adequate to assert that honoring and upholding our doctrinal statements and resolutions involves no more than studying them to see how well they apply the Gospel to contemporary problems. A person who does not agree with the Synod’s doctrinal resolutions or statements does not and cannot honor and uphold them, and he can hardly conceal this fact by claiming that he is merely testing the Synod’s ability to apply doctrine. In her doctrinal resolutions, the Synod is confessing her faith; and one either approves and accepts her confession or he does not. There is really no middle ground.

In the fifth place, to regard our synodically adopted doctrinal resolutions and statements as having binding force does not add to our doctrinal standards, the Scriptures and the Confessions. Our doctrinal statements merely agree with those standards by drawing out their implications, explaining them when there is misunderstanding or controversy, and interpreting them for a modern situation. If synodically adopted doctrinal statements do in fact set forth the teachings of Scripture, then they are most certainly “included in the Synod’s confessional commitment,” for the Synod is confessionally committed to everything taught in Holy Scripture as the only rule and norm of faith and practice. To honor and uphold the doctrinal declarations of the Synod is an act of love and fidelity which is both biblical and evangelical.

We are all agreed that our Lutheran symbols are the permanent pattern for doctrine in our Lutheran churches, and according to the symbols themselves they are to remain so until the return of Christ. But such claims in our Lutheran Confessions do not prevent the church which subscribes to the Lutheran Confessions from formulating new doctrinal statements which are binding precisely because they conform to the Scriptures and the Lutheran pattern for doctrine. Rather, such claims in our Confessions imply that such statements, responding to the challenges of a future time, will be forthcoming. The Confessions do not “close their own canon.” They merely demand that all new doctrinal statements, whether they be elevated to the status of a new symbol (which has not happened since 1580) or whether they merely serve in a temporary or local situation (for example, Walther’s Thirteen Theses on Predestination or the Wittenberg Concord), conform to the Lutheran doctrinal standards, which in effect means that such statements, whatever their status or function, be Scriptural. It is as simple as that. In no way does such action place the synodical convention or majority rule above the Word of God.

To be sure, synodically adopted doctrinal statements and resolutions do not have the same status among us as the Scriptures and Confessions; this, too, needs to be clearly understood. Our pastors, teachers, and professors do not formally subscribe to such resolutions when they are ordained or installed, nor do our congregations ordinarily acknowledge such statements in their constitutions. Moreover, we readily admit that synodical conventions, like church councils, can and do err. We make no claims in advance for the absolute infallibility of our doctrinal statements, and have given evidence of this fact by establishing procedures for dissent. (I am referring to the action of previous conventions in asking dissenters to discuss their differences with their colleagues and share them with our Commission on Theology and Church Relations.) Those who disagree with a doctrinal statement adopted by the Synod have every right to follow such established procedures in an effort to convince the Synod it has erred. But it needs to be emphasized that the burden of proof is with the dissenter and that no member of the Synod has the freedom to disregard or contradict such statements in his public teaching until it is proven that they fall short of or go beyond that which Scripture teaches. We are a synod of brethren linked by our common confession of faith. To disregard the voice of the Synod is a loveless and divisive act and may well reflect a lack of fidelity to our confessional commitment.

The basic question we need to answer once again at this convention is simple and unbiased: Does an evangelical and confessional church body such as ours have the right and duty to adopt doctrinal statements which are in complete conformity with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions—and then expect her pastors, teachers, and professors, out of faithfulness to Scripture and the Confessions, to believe, teach, and confess according to such statements? In the past, the answer has been a resounding “yes.”

Why is this matter of so great importance, and why has it been given so much attention at this point? There are two reasons. In the first place, there is a theological reason, namely, that our church must remain faithful to the Word of God. The church lives by and out of and with the Word. We have no other purpose than to proclaim the great message of reconciliation. This is not a man-made message. It is a Scripture-based message, a message that we have pledged ourselves always to proclaim. The one task of the church is to preach Christ, and we do not know Christ apart from the Scriptures. When the Scriptures are obscured, Christ will be obscured. We have, therefore, a very great theological reason for insisting on sound doctrine.

There is also a second reason. That is an ethical and moral one. The members of our church have been brought up to believe that our pastors are truly faithful to the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions. They read synodically adopted doctrinal resolutions and expect their pastors, teachers, and professors to teach in harmony with them. Our people expect that our future pastors and teachers will be taught according to the doctrinal position of our church in our seminaries and colleges. They expect their pastors and teachers to preach and teach according to the official position of our church. They expect their servants in administrative offices or staff positions to produce materials and carry out their duties in harmony with the Synod’s official position. Our people have a right to expect this of their pastors, teachers, professors, and officials. In the overwhelming majority of cases, such expectations are not disappointed, for God has blessed our Synod with many faithful servants. But it is clearly unethical and unloving for our pastors and teachers to violate the legitimate expectations of our people.

It is imperative that our church settle this question of the status of doctrinal resolutions and that we proceed from such statements of what we believe and confess to a massive ongoing proclamation of this wonderful message to the world. The world will not stand still while we wrangle or halt uncertainly. Let us express our own willingness to stand by the position of our Synod and urge all members of the Synod to do the same. Let not the progress of this great church be held up forever and ever by the doubts, the uncertainty, and the lack of confidence which now exist among us over this question: “Where do we stand doctrinally?”

Earlier in my report, I referred to Dr. Walther’s treatise on open questions. It is very evident that Dr. Walther, the eminent founder of our Synod and perhaps her greatest theologian, did not believe that there was room in the church for open questions on matters which are clearly taught in the Word of God. Today, in dealing with the matter of synodically adopted doctrinal concerns, the Synod must determine whether it still shares Dr. Walther’s position. We must decide how much freedom in biblical interpretation and how much doctrinal diversity our church can permit and still remain under the Word of God.

Permit me to cite several examples of the variations of doctrinal opinion which are current in our church at the present time. You will note that these matters deal with very basic questions. If our church is ready to declare such matters open questions, we will have to interpret our Constitutional commitment to the Scriptures and Confessions in such a broad sense that as long as a man claims to subscribe to them in some form or another no further questions can be asked of him. However, if we determine to understand our Constitution in the way in which it was understood by Dr. Walther and the founders of the Synod, we cannot permit matters such as the following to be treated as mere open questions.

1. Some in our church who claim to accept the doctrinal content of the Lutheran Confessions operate with a very restrictive understanding of what constitutes “doctrine.” For example, they apparently regard the Genesis account of the creation of Adam and Eve and of the fall not as a “doctrinal” item but rather as an exegetical question or a theological construct, where there can legitimately be a variety of interpretations without affecting what they consider to be “doctrine.”

2. Some hold that our confessional subscription is limited to the doctrinal points at issue, and that it does not embrace doctrinal positions expressed in the Confessions somewhat incidentally. For example, in the confessional statement regarding original sin, some say that the Confessions’ reference to the historicity of Adam and Eve does not bind us, since the confessions merely intended to talk about the fallen state of man.

3. Regarding the inspiration of Scripture, some in our Synod hold that there is no precise and uniform confessional position. Some believe that the inspiration of the Scriptures is not qualitatively different from the activity of the Holy Spirit in the tradition of the church and in our preaching and witness today. Others hold that the Confessions clearly teach that the Scriptures are unique and different from all other literature in that they are verbally inspired by God so that in all their words they are the Word of God. In this view, both the authors and the words of Scripture are inspired, for men of God wrote the words that the Holy Spirit wanted them to write.

4. There is also a difference of opinion on the nature of biblical authority. Those who broaden the concept of inspiration to include all Christians do not base the authority of the Scriptures on their inspiration, but on the fact that they are primary historical documents written by important officials of Israel and the early church. Some persons in our Synod also state that the Scriptures have their authority only by virtue of the faith they produce through their presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this view, the Scriptures have only what theologians call material, functional, or soteriological authority, rather than formal authority; in other words, the authority of Scripture lies in what they do rather than in what they are. Traditionally we have held that the divine authority of the Scriptures comes from the fact that God inspired them and that they are his written Word. According to this view, everything in the Scriptures is authoritative and true simply because God said it; the Bible does not first become authoritative through what it does.

5. We have a well-known difference among us on the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. Some hold that the Scriptures are inerrant only in their function, that is, that they faithfully accomplish their purpose of creating faith in man.

6. We also have problems with regard to the relationship between the material and formal principles of theology. The “formal principle” is that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the source and norm of all doctrine; the “material principle” is that Christ and his gracious justification of the sinner is the heart and center of the entire Scriptures. In keeping with our Lutheran Confessions, we have traditionally held to a very careful distinction between these principles. Thus we have held that Scripture is the source and norm of all doctrine, while the Gospel is the chief doctrine and a basic presupposition for the interpretation of Scripture. But today there is a frequent confusion of these principles, with the result that the Gospel, rather than the Bible, is employed as the norm of our theology. This is sometimes called Gospel reductionism.

Those who confuse these principles sometimes reject the factual claims of a given text on the grounds that it does not involve the Gospel. They assert that interpretations of a Scripture passage need not be rejected if they do not harm the Gospel. For example, it is said by some that although the Bible specifically commands women to keep silence in the church, yet since this does not impinge on the Gospel, the matter of ordination of women to the pastoral ministry is a matter of indifference and may be practiced or not according to human convenience. By the same method of interpretation, the fall of Adam and Eve, the universal flood, and other historical teachings of Scripture are not accepted by some as factual because they are considered to be non-essential to the doctrinal lesson of sin and grace. In spite of its obvious confusion, this form of “Gospel reductionism” is often claimed as a truly Lutheran way of interpreting the Scriptures.

7. With regard to miracles, some members of our church, while acknowledging that Christ could have performed all miracles that are attributed to him in the Gospels, claim that it is permissible for exegetical reasons to reinterpret biblical miracle-stories so as to eliminate their reality by regarding them as parables or another type of literary device. According to this view, it is permissible, for example, to deny that Christ walked on water or changed water into wine. Such stories, it is held, were intended to teach something quite different from the performance of a miracle. For similar reasons, some are evidently having difficulty in affirming that there really are angels or a personal devil.

The question that has to be answered by this convention is whether we are willing to allow such matters (and many more) to be regarded as open questions on which we may take any position we wish. If the Synod feels we should be this permissive and wishes to understand Article II of the Constitution in this loose sense, then let us realize that we have departed from the positions maintained by Dr. Walther and other fathers of our church. If we do not want this kind of latitude because we feel that it threatens the faith we confess and the message of reconciliation with which we have been entrusted, let us state clearly to all concerned that deviations from the official position of our church must be dealt with and cannot be permitted.

In keeping with the concern for doctrinal purity which the Synod has always demonstrated, your president embarked on a course of action which created a great deal of discussion in the Synod. It was a course from which he did not feel that he could deviate with good conscience. I have reference to the creation of a Fact-Finding Committee to ascertain the doctrinal position of the members of the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. As many of you know, criticisms and questions have been voiced for several years about the theological position of members of this faculty. I am not here referring to the accusations made in certain extra-synodical journals, but rather to the fact that entire District pastoral conferences and District conventions, as well as other responsible groups and individuals, had expressed great concern about the theological stance of various members of the faculty.

Although such criticisms have been expressed for several years, a series of events which involved members of the faculties themselves occurred in the last months of 1969 and early in 1970 which made it imperative for me to determine what the doctrinal situation at our seminary really was.

Among these events were the following:

1. At a joint meeting of both seminary [Concordia St. Louis, Concordia Springfield] faculties together with the Council of Presidents in late 1969, it became obvious that there were serious disagreements in the way in which members of the faculties understand the authority of the Sacred Scriptures and its implication for biblical interpretation. In addition, a member of the St. Louis faculty stated that the presuppositions with which certain members of the faculty were approaching the Scriptures were not Lutheran.

2. In January of 1970 several members of the faculty in St. Louis were involved in the issuing of “A Call to Openness and Trust,” a document which the Commission on Theology and Church Relations later evaluated as being contrary to the confessional position of the Synod.

3. In February, 1970, the faculties of both seminaries met jointly and discussed an essay by a member of the St. Louis faculty. In this meeting a sharp theological division was evident. The Systematics Departments of both seminaries adopted a resolution stating that the essay undermined the authority of the Scriptures and confused Law and Gospel.

4. In April I received a letter from a senior member of the St. Louis faculty which pointed out theological problems of such a magnitude as to require the resources of the synodical president’s office to effect a solution.

Therefore I did not undertake the investigation on the assumption that anyone was guilty of false doctrine, but rather to find out what the situation actually was. If the President of the Synod could be prevented from asking questions of our professors, who could ever ask them?

… The report of the Fact-Finding Committee has been completed and given to the Board of Control of the Seminary, and to President Tietjen. I plan to consult in the near future with the Board of Control concerning this report.

The Fact-Finding Committee has submitted to me its report of its findings. The report is very complete. It includes a full transcript of the interviews held with forty-five professors. It includes an individual summary for each of these interviews. Beyond this it contains pertinent information based on a survey of theological literature and class syllabi produced by the faculty, observations based on class visits, a study of student periodicals, and to a limited extent a report on interviews with students. In the interest of providing an overview of its findings, the committee has prepared a general summary which gives a picture of the seminary without identifying individuals. This summary in turn was condensed to a tabular presentation showing varying positions held on doctrinal topics.

It is my sincere prayer that the work of the Fact-Finding Committee has been of benefit both to the seminary and to the church. My only desire in this matter had been that the church have full confidence in the doctrinal commitment of the seminary faculty and of the future pastors it prepares.

He sits awkwardly, thumbing through the hymnbook, occasionally sweeping an empty gaze about the congregation. He seems tense and embarrassed. No doubt he knows people are looking at him, dressed in those clothes and all.

His seat is right across from me. We’re supposed to be singing Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer but most of us are scrutinizing the visitor now. Old Mrs. Stafford has choked off her bawling monotone long enough to scowl at him as though he were the devil himself, but soon she dismisses him with an It’s-a-disgrace-to-the-house-of-the-Lord look and turns again to blare into her poor hymnal. The guy came in just as the hymn started, and I saw Carl Oberg’s mouth twitch as he asked the guy You’d like a seat in the back wouldn’t you and the visitor’s shoulder-long hair swayed back and forth No toward the middle, please. So Carl twitched him down to his seat and twitched apologetically to the young couple in the pew and they scooted over when the guy sat down next to them. The New One smiled at their little daughter and she said Google and they jerked her into mommy’s lap and scooted over a couple of inches more.

Slowly, deliberately, he surveys us as we stare at him. His eyes are empty and heavy and as they swing over to meet mine I bury my face in the hymnbook and start to raise mine Ebenezer again. Finally he looks back at the open hymnbook, but he does not sing.

Now turn to number twenty-four number twenty-four the minister says. There is a flush of pink in the minister’s ears and he glances hastily from Carl Oberg to the organist to the New One and then down to his hymnal again. Number twenty-four, he says, and the organ cues the audience:

The Son of God goes forth to war,

A kingly crown to gain;

His blood red banner streams afar:

Who follows in his train?

Old Byron Hampstead leans over and shouts into my ear as we start to sing. It’s one of them hoopers that smokes LDS, he says. Hippies, I say. And now they’re even in our churches, he says. I frown at Old Byron to show my disagreement and Byron works his teeth at me and frowns back. I think it’s a good thing, I tell him, meaning it. Byron can’t think of anything more to say to me if I feel that way about it. He checks out the New One once more and, shaking his head, resigns himself to the hymn.

The New One’s eyebrows have puckered into a question mark while he’s read the words. Probably wonders about the train, I think—like what does a train have to do with the Son of God going to war … well, fella, it isn’t talking about a real train, you know. It’s like following behind the Son of God as he goes to war … yeah, it does seem kind of ironic for the Prince of Peace to go to war—but it’s not really saying that, either—you see, it’s more like a figurative war, against evil … well, it’s an old song.

Now he notices Mrs. Stafford’s discordant voice lurking above the others and he watches her. She has this one memorized from years back—the hymnal is closed upon her thumb and, with eyes closed and both her chins stretched heavenward, she lashes the ceiling with song. For the first time I can see a change on the New One’s face as a hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. But with his hand he hides the smile. His hand is trembling.

Joe McCartney is sitting with Karen one row in front of me, to the left. He raises his eyebrows at me to say it’s great that he’s here but will he understand, and I raise mine back that I just wish he could. The guy was looking for something, I will tell Joe Tuesday night, and his search brought him here.

I wish the guy could have been at the rock concert last week. Seelah, the name of the group was, and I can still hardly believe how they got the love of Christ across through some of the hardest rock I’ve ever heard. They had been professional, they said—a couple of them had once backed up Janis Joplin—when their search for meaning in life led them to a prayer meeting where they all gave their lives to Jesus. Jesus is the only way to secure purpose in life, they said. And I remember listening to their heavy sound, and observing the humble peace on their faces and the hush that fell over the audience as they played Falling Leaf:

I’m just a falling leaf in the wind, Lord

Please, before I hit the ground—

Give me a life, ‘cause I’m dying, Lord

I don’t know why I’ve been around …

About two hundred young people responded when Seelah challenged us to commit ourselves to Jesus. By that time Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Stephenson had stomped out declaring that if that was Christianity they wouldn’t hear of it, but no one noticed because the lights were out and the music was playing. I just wish the New One could have been there … maybe he would have understood those guys.

Would you please stand now for the pastoral prayer, the minister is saying. He prays for the war and for the riots and for the president and for the congressman and for the missionaries in their foreign fields. But I do not close my eyes, for I cannot help watching the New One across the aisle. His eyes were closed for a moment and his mouth quivered a bit, but now he is looking at the Bible in the pew rack. He reached out to pick it up, but he shakes uncontrollably and pulls his hand back as if someone slapped it.

Old Byron Hampstead has his nose in my ear again. He probably has that TD and everything, he says. VD, I whisper back, and Old Byron hollers What? right in the middle of the minister’s prayer and when everybody’s finished looking at me turn red I pull out one of the envelopes and write, You have no right to say that. How about love thy neighbor? Byron reads it and works his teeth double-time, then lapses back into prayer.

We’re afraid of you, fella, sitting here in our church. You’re different … do you want attention or are you really seeking something in life? I’ve spoken with some of your people, I heard your frustration … but we’ve got the same hangups. Why do you wear your hair so long … I know that’s not what counts, but can’t you see they won’t accept you if you look that way? I remember the miserable search, man. I needed Christ and all I got was thee and thou and I just couldn’t see it … I know you don’t dig this stuff—the language and all. You see, we’ve grown up with it … but it’s like Seelah said at the concert: Jesus is the rock, man …

The minister has begun his sermon on stewardship. The New One studies the minister awhile and then closes his eyes. He seems to be groping for the root of what’s being said. This church has been sustained by your Christian stewardship, the minister says, but it will be faced with yea-so-many-more trials in the future. We need to each take account of ourselves, and give as the Lord would have us to do …

He cranes around in his seat and colored light from the window paints his face in a psychedel of red and green and blue. His eyes transmit a frenzied I-don’t-be-long-here as he checks to see how far it will be to walk out. Lord, speak to him … in spite of us, speak to him in some way … if he’s really searching for the answer to life, let him find you now. We’re afraid of him, Lord, but I want to love the guy …

It’s almost time to go home. Mrs. Stafford has exhausted her usual three amens to the minister’s sermon, meanwhile glaring at the New One. Several young couples have stolen glances occasionally and lifted their eyebrows at each other, and twice Old Byron leaned over to expound upon the New One again, but I wouldn’t listen to him. And he is still over there—relaxed a little more now, slumped down with his big hands resting on his thighs. Just a falling leaf, Lord … show him your love … don’t give up, fella—God can talk to you in your own way … give him a life, Lord …

We’re singing Take My Life and Let It Be and he’s squinting at the title. No, it’s really not a contradiction, friend—it’s not really asking God to let your life be … you gotta read on into the next phrase to get the meaning. Consecrated? Well, something like devoted, I guess …

It’s over now, and he’s caught in the center-aisle traffic of hand shaking and back slapping and How-ya-doing-George and he’s looking down at the floor, alone with fifty people around him. I guess I should go talk to him, be friendly and all, but I don’t know what I’d say. He probably doesn’t want to talk to us anyway … help him, Lord … The people make a circuit around him as he stands there with his hands hanging but gradually he is inching his way toward the back. He spins around one last time before leaving and sweeps those eyes over the empty pews, and it’s kind of like a ritual. And then his eyes meet mine, and this time I do not look away …

It’s Tuesday. His eyes stare at me again, beneath the black headline.

D. John Benson is a senior at Greenville College, Greenville, Illinois. He has been editor of the college newspaper and has contributed to several church magazines.

A notable feature of the religious scene today is the outcropping of a passionate desire to intensify spiritual devotion. This desire seems strongest among young people, especially those known as the “Jesus people.” In part, the attempt to recover the Spirit stems from a reaction against a cold orthodoxy guilt of arid intellectualizing about the faith. The danger thus arises of divorcing the life of the spirit and the life of the mind, of cutting off devotion from learning.

To guard against this, we might well take a look at one of the finest exemplars of wholeness and balance in the spiritual life, the seventeenth-century English poet and divine George Herbert. Here is the devotional poet par excellence. Here is a man who gave up wealth, status, and fame to answer the call of God. Herbert came from one of England’s leading families. He became the public orator of Cambridge University and was apparently slated to become the nation’s secretary of state, but he gave all this up to become the rector of a tiny country parish in Bemerton. Such was the compelling power of his devotion that when Herbert crossed the lane from his home to pray in the church at regularly scheduled hours, the men working in the fields would stop their work and kneel in prayer, joining their parson in spirit. He became known throughout England as the Holy Mr. Herbert.

Herbert’s enduring devotional poetry is intentionally simple, so simple that some of his readers have concluded that he was a naïve rural parson. He was not, of course. Yet he did assiduously avoid the learned, allusive poetic style that his contemporaries Milton and Donne cultivated. And for good reason. Like the greatest and most learned of the apostles, St. Paul, he did not want to risk having any prideful parading of his learning interfere with his all-consuming passion for intimacy with God. But also like Paul, Herbert leaves footprints of his learning in his writing.

Herbert wrote two poems entitled “Jordan” in which he explained his purpose in his poetry. This passage is from the second:

When first my lines of heav’nly joyes made mention,

Such was their lustre, they did so excell,

That I sought out quaint words, and trim invention;

My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,

Curling with metaphors a plain intention.

Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.

Thousands of notions in my brain did runne,

Off’ring their service, if I were not sped:

I often blotted what I had begunne;

This was not quick enough, and that was dead.

Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne,

Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head.

As flames do work and winde, when they ascend,

So did I weave my self into the sense.

But while I bustled, I might heare a friend

Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!

There is in love a sweetnesse readie penn’d

Copie out onely that, and save expense.

So there is is. He could embellish his poetry; he knows the techniques and devices. But he’ll abstain, he says. Yet while saying so, he employs a clever variety of images, beginning with the ambiguous allusion of the title (the baptism of Jesus? the crossing into the promised land by the children of Israel? the washing of Naaman, as counseled by Elisha? Jordan as Herbert’s Helicon?). This proponent of simple verse was also a technical virtuoso who, in the 169 poems in his collection The Temple, used 140 different stanza forms.

Herbert speaks explicitly about learning in a few of his poems. One of them is “The Pearl—Matthew 13:45,” which begins this way:

I know of the wayes of Learning; both the head

And pipes that feed the presse, and make it runne;

What reason hath from nature borrowed,

Or of it self, like a good huswife, spunne

In laws and policie; what the starres conspire,

What willing nature speaks, what forc’d by fire;

Both th’ old discoveries, and the new-found seas,

The stock and surplus, cause and historie:

And these stand open, or I have the keyes:

Yet I love thee.

The second and third stanzas recount the temptations of “the wayes of Honour” and “the wayes of Pleasure.” The fourth and final stanza summarizes and concludes:

I know all these, and have them in my hand:

Therefore not sealed, but with open eyes

I flie to thee, and fully understand

Both the main sale, and the commodities;

And at what rate and price I have thy love;

With all the circumstances that may move:

Yet through these labyrinths, not by groveling wit,

But thy silk twist let down from heav’n to me,

Did both conduct and teach me, how by it

To climbe to thee.

Once again there is a recognizable parallel between Herbert and Paul. In the first chapter of First Corinthians, Paul notes the limitations of human wisdom. Man’s unaided reason cannot, he says, comprehend the ways of God. Only faith exercised toward divine revelation will suffice for that. Both Herbert and Paul, then, warn clearly against a solely intellectual approach to Christianity, “that no flesh should glory in his presence.”

Another poem that sounds a warning against excessive reliance on human knowledge is “Divinitie”:

As men, for fear the starres should sleep and nod,

And trip at night, have spheres suppli’d;

As if a starre were duller then a clod,

Which knows his way without a guide:

Just so the other heav’n they serve,

Divinities transcendent skie:

Which with the edge of wit they cut and carve.

Reason triumphs, and faith lies by.

Could not that Wisdome, which first broacht the wine,

Have thicken’d it with definitions?

And jagg’d his seamlesse coat, had that been fine,

With curious questions and divisions?

But all the doctrine, which he taught and gave,

Was cleare as heav’n, from whence it came.

At least those beams of truth, which onely save,

Surpasse in brightnesse any flame.

Love God, and love your neighbour. Watch and pray.

Do as ye would be done unto.

O dark instructions; ev’n as dark as day!

Who can these Gordian knots undo?

But he doth bid us take his bloud for wine.

Bid what he please; yet I am sure,

To take and taste what he doth there designe,

Is all that saves, and not obscure.

Then bum thy Epicycles, foolish man;

Break all thy spheres, and save thy head.

Faith needs no staffe of flesh, but stoutly can

To heav’n alone both go, and leade.

Herbert lived at the time of the beginnings of modern science. Astronomy especially seemed to some (and later to more and more) to pose a threat to faith. Herbert’s problem was not that of Donne, that the “new philosophy calls all in doubt.” Rather, it was that this new learning, while not erroneous, was causing men to shift from a reliance on God to an unfounded confidence in themselves. Once again, Herbert warns against the extreme to which intellectually oriented believers might be susceptible.

And yet Herbert was learned, and his poetry covertly shows it. Perhaps the best place to observe this learning at work is in his imagery. Whatever Herbert’s themes, he uses as images whatever aspects of reality he knows well. Herbert belonged to a group who have since become known as metaphysical poets and one of the characteristics of this school is the use of intellectual imagery. That is, the appeal which the imagery makes to the reader is not to his senses (as in, for example, “O, my luve is like a red, red rose”) but to his intellect. These poets specialized in drawing comparisons between items apparently unrelated. What, for example, do Christ’s pierced side and a mail bag have in common? Nothing, it seems. Yet one of Herbert’s most effective poems, “The Bag,” is based on this comparison. After picturing Christ as a traveler come to earth, he has Christ begin to return to heaven:

But as he was returning, there came one

That ran upon him with a spear.

He, who came hither all alone,

Bringing nor man, nor arms, nor fear,

Receiv’d the blow upon his side,

And straight he turn’d, and to his brethren cry’d,

If ye have any thing to send or write,

I have no bag, but here is room:

Unto my Fathers hands and sight,

Beleeve me, it shall safely come.

That I shall minde, what you impart,

Look, you may put it very neare my heart.

Or if hereafter any of my friends

Will use me in this kinde, the doore

Shall still be open; what he sends

I will present, and somewhat more,

Not to his hurt. Sighs will convey

Any thing to me. Harke, Despair away.

This image does not allow the reader’s mind to remain dormant; his intellectual powers must be brought into play if he is to enter into the moving devotional theme of the poem. A sentimental gush of emotion will not do. The poem demands the response of a whole man, both head and heart.

Almost all Herbert’s images require this kind of response, sometimes specifically because they grow out of the poet’s polished education. In fact, his learning is on display in the very poems that speak of the dangers of “the wayes of Learning.”

The last four lines of “The Pearl” (quoted above) borrow an image from classical mythology. The silk twist was the device by which Theseus could avoid losing his way as he entered the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur. Another of Herbert’s relatively rare images from classical learning is found in “Divinitie” (also quoted above); the reference in line 20 to undoing Gordian knots highlights the difficulty humans have in comprehending (to the extent of acting upon) the simple commands in the Bible. A third classical image, this one in “Praise,” is based on the lachrymal vases in which women stored their tears:

I have not lost one single tear:

But when mine eyes

Did weep to heav’n, they found a bottle there

(As we have boxes for the poore)

Readie to take them in; yet of a size

That would contain much more.

But after thou hadst slipt a drop

From thy right eye,

(Which there did hang like streamers neare the top

Of some fair church, to show the sore

And bloudie battell which thou once didst trie)

The glasse was full and more.

Not only is the classical reference to a little-known detail, but there is also an echo of an obscure Bible verse, Psalm 56:8: “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?”

Herbert’s learned images are not restricted to the learning of the past. He was also aware of the new currents in learning, as “Divinitie” shows. The first two stanzas and the first two lines of the last stanza of this poem depict the work of the astronomers as they chart the courses of the heavenly bodies. It would be somewhat ironic if Herbert were using a relatively learned image to say that learning itself was to be shunned. But, of course, it is the abuse of learning that he warns against.

Herbert was an accomplished musician and often drew images from music. One of these is found in the third stanza of “The Pearl”:

I know the wayes of Pleasure, the sweet strains,

The lullings and the relishes of it:

The propositions of hot bloud and brains;

What mirth and musick mean.

Though the lines seem simple, they are not. Edward Naylor, in his book The Poets and Music (London, 1928), explains that the “strain” was “eight bars (or, perhaps, twelve or sixteen) of a pavan, maybe.” The “relish” was a technical term for “an ornament in playing the lute or viol.” The “propositions” were “a form of proposta, subject, riposta, answer, of a fugue or movement of fugal character” (pp. 75, 76).

DISCIPLESHIP

Odd shaped pebbles roll

and tumble round the Rock which

smooths them into five smooth

stones

one of which will

kill a giant.

EUGENE H. PETERSON

Legal imagery is another category upon which Herbert draws, occasionally revealing technical knowledge of the subject. In “Decay” he speaks of God’s dwelling in the heart of the believer:

But now thou dost thy self immure and close

In some one comer of a feeble heart:

Where yet both Sinne and Satan, thy old foes,

Do pinch and straiten thee, and use much art

To gain thy thirds and little part.

F. E. Hutchinson, who edited the standard modern edition of Herbert’s works (Oxford, 1941), explains: “Thirds (usually in the plural) was a legal term, specially used of the third part of a deceased husband’s real property, to which the widow was entitled. Sin and Satan seek to oust God from the third part of the heart, which is all that is left to him when they are in possession, so that he must still retreat (1. 18)” (p. 512).

These few examples of images give a hint of Herbert’s wide-ranging erudition, which he always used as a means to a higher end, that of praising God. He felt no need to deny his mind in order to exercise his spirit. Mind and spirit are not mutually exclusive but harmoniously compatible.

Some readers have concluded that Herbert was a serene soul who had overcome the problems that plague us mere mortals. No, indeed. Herbert was one of us. He seems to have achieved a state of peaceful equanimity more often than most believers do, and such poems as “The Call” and “The Odour—2 Cor. 2:15” reflect this mood. But more often his poetry expresses his wrestling with God. He wrote five poems entitled “Affliction.” Other titles were “Sighs and Grones,” “Dulnesse,” and “Deniall.” “Artillerie” employes military imagery throughout to discuss Herbert’s often uneasy, tense relationship with God. Perhaps his best-known poem of spiritual struggle is “The Collar”:

I struck the board, and cry’d, No more.

I will abroad.

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the rode,

Loose as the winde, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me bloud, and not restore

What I have lost with cordiall fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the yeare onely lost to me?

Have I no bayes to crown it?

No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?

All wasted?

Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,

Thy rope of sands,

Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away; take heed:

I will abroad.

Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his need,

Deserves his load.

But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde

At every word,

Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child!

And I reply’d, My Lord.

Here is the pastor who has become weary in welldoing. The clerical collar has become a confining yoke. He desires self-fulfillment, not self-sacrifice. But the ending—what other poet was capable of it? Herbert had learned the hard lesson that the greatest self-fulfillment cannot come apart from self-sacrifice. This lesson was learned, the triumph gained, only after a bitter fight. First struggle, then submission.

And what else could we have expected from an intelligent, learned poet like Herbert? He cannot settle for a mindless devotion. The tension within him makes for a tough-fibered, storm-weathering devotion. It is the quality of his intellect—and here is the point—that refines his devotion and makes his poetry, not a superficial emoting, but a powerful force for the promotion of truly spiritual living.

Edward E. Ericson, Jr., is chairman of the department of English and Modern Languages at Westmont College. He received the B.A. degree from Hope College and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Arkansas.

The chief task of the Christian church is to make Jesus Christ known, loved, and obeyed in all the world. When it is put in that way Christians nod their heads in agreement. But that task begins with making him known and loved, which is evangelism, and when we say, “What the church needs is more evangelism,” people begin to back away.

They react in somewhat the same way as the Koreans did to my father in the early days of mission work in Korea. He was a pioneer in North Korea in the days when great sections of the country had never seen a white man before. He had also taken one of the first bicycles into that land, and, dressed in black with his white face, he was a strange sight indeed in a country of white clothes and darker faces. One day, out itinerating, he came to the top of a pass and began to coast down toward a little village that lay at the foot. Some Korean children were playing a game something like hopscotch at the edge of the village, but when they looked up to behold a strange creature in black clothes and white face, coat-tails flapping in the breeze, swooping silently down on them on an infernal machine at an incredible rate of speed, they scattered to the far corners of the village, shouting at the top of their voices, “Look out, look out! Here comes the devil riding on a pair of spectacles!”

There are American Christians who react in much the same way to the coming of the evangelist. Why?

Some are afraid of the evangelist because they say he is too emotional. They are still thinking of evangelism in terms of a Peter Cartwright camp meeting on the great American frontier. They remember the tales of the chroniclers, how the long-haired young dandies would come to the meetings to jeer and to scoff only to be seized by the power of Cartwright’s preaching, until in an emotional spasm their back would bend almost to the breaking point. Then, the tension suddenly released, they would snap upright, their long hair cracking audibly like whips. The whole congregation would then be seized by the mass emotions of the revival, leaping, jumping, jerking. It all seems bizarre to us, and not a little frightening.

Others remember tales, which are always popular, of evangelists who turned out to be rascals and money-grabbers. Still others think of evangelism as a critical and divisive movement, mushrooming in a warm, dark, unhealthy growth outside the normal, clean atmosphere of the organized church, where preachers preach and laymen only listen. We have had a few evangelists in the Orient who held great meetings and preached with effectiveness, but at the end of their crusades closed by warning their converts against any and all existing churches, and then departed never to return to those parts again. All they did was to leave behind leaderless little groups of suspicious converts, divorced from the strengthening fellowship that only the church can give, too easily drifting back into the darkness from which they came.

These are the major criticisms of evangelism. They are mixtures of truth and error. But the most alarming thing about this kind of reaction against evangelism is that it has virtually paralyzed great sections of the church of Jesus Christ in our time. The critics have made Christians afraid of evangelism.

But if the chief task of the church begins with making Jesus known so that he can be loved and obeyed—if it begins with evangelism—how dare Christians be afraid of it? It’s like an army afraid to fight. If any army no longer believes in fighting it has no business being an army any more. If the church no longer believes in evangelism, it has no business being a church, for evangelism is the business of the church. “Evangelize,” said the Lord, “and make disciples.” Those were his marching orders.

As a matter of fact, if it is true that we no longer believe in evangelism, we may not have a church much longer. How long can United Presbyterians go on losing over 20,000 members a year?

Moreover, there is a recently emergent religion that does believe in evangelism—if you can call propaganda for a false faith evangelism. It not only believes in evangelism—it practices it. This new faith is Communism, and the Communists are out-evangelizing us.

I am quite aware that the church faces other dangers and problems which are quite as urgent, and I do not believe that America’s most pressing internal problem is Communism; it is racial injustice. But in my part of the world the more pressing problem is Communist totalitarianism, so let me speak of it, not in the spirit of an anti-Communist crusade, but as a reminder that others are doing more than most Christians in evangelism.

I watched the Red tide sweep across China. We Protestants had been trying to win that country for Christ for one hundred and fifty years. The Communists took it in thirty years. What makes them so successful? Their armies? That is no small part of the answer, of course. But as I lived behind the bamboo curtain and watched them for more than two years, I became convinced that the real secret lies deeper. I am inclined to believe that the main reason the Communists are so successful is simply this: that they believe in and practice evangelism with greater intensity for their false faith than most Christians do for the true faith.

We saw this when they first rolled over us. After the soldiers moved in, the Communist evangelists came out of hiding and put on the greatest evangelistic campaign I have ever seen in my life, and I have heard Billy Graham! They staged meetings that lasted from early morning to after midnight, great mass meetings drenched with emotion. They put on plays and concerts and operas and movies, presented by the drama corps that is attached to every Communist army division. It was an avalanche of evangelism that swept students and villagers off their feet. One of my own students, son of a Christian pastor, was soon coming to me to try to convert me to Communism. “Dr. Moffett,” he said, “you stay with us fifty years and you will see. We will have a paradise on earth right here in China.”

Evangelism, you see, is more than mass meetings, and the Communists know it. It is also personal witness. Six months after the Communist wave washed over us, a little freshman at the Christian college near Peking where we were teaching came in great distress to one of her Christian advisers. Her father and mother were earnest Christians in South China, which had not yet been taken by the Communists, and she was worried about them and about herself. “I wonder,” she said, “if my family knows how hard it is for me to remain a Christian.” She went on to say that her three roommates were all members of the Communist youth corps, which had taken as one of its objectives the conversion of every young Christian on that campus to Communism. Twenty-four hours a day those roommates would work on her, ridiculing, arguing, frightening, pleading. When they were tired, others would step in to relieve them and keep up the terrifying pressure, urging her to throw away old superstitions and get into step with the New China. All the adviser could do was comfort her, counsel her, and pray with her. From time to time afterwards she saw the girl, but the freshman didn’t talk to her much any more. Then one day on the library wall which carried the slogans and announcements of the student body, this notice appeared, signed by the little freshman: “I wish to announce to my fellow students that I am no longer a Christian. I have discovered my mistake, and how I have been deceived.…” Communist evangelism had gained another convert, and two grief-stricken parents in South China soon knew how really hard it was for their girl to keep the Christian faith.

This is the kind of evangelism that has made Communism the greatest evangelistic movement since the rise of Islam. It is a steady, relentless propagation of the faith. I have seen the Communist armies at work and also the Communist evangelists. And I am more afraid of the evangelists. I have seen their zeal, a zeal most Christians have abandoned to fringe groups, such as “holy rollers”—and to Communists.

A woman in Bogota, Colombia, once told a missionary there that she had won nearly two hundred and fifty of her fellow students to Karl Marx in one year after her conversion to Communism. Make no mistake. Communism is an evangelistic faith. It keeps its cutting edge sharp and hard, and every Communist is an evangelist.

And what about Christians? How do you and I compare, for example, with that young Communist in Colombia? How many people did you ever win to Jesus Christ in one year? The answer to the future of the world in our generation may well lie in that bitter comparison, for it is the evangelist, and not the soldier, who will ultimately win the world.

But if as Christians we look tired, discouraged, and ready to give up on a world we are losing to others, then we are no longer worthy to bear the name Christian. Remember the words of the Lord to his disciples, who were also at times too easily discouraged: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And remember again how he said, “Ye shall receive power … and ye shall be my witnesses … unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Perhaps I have spent too much time speaking of the Communists and their evangelistic zeal. We must be aware of that, but our example is not the Communist but the Christ! So, while we must be aware of the power of Communist propaganda, we must remember that our power is not in propaganda. It is in Christ. We must be aware of the Communist menace to the freedoms of the world, but that is not the only menace, and I am not calling Christians to evangelism as to a holy war against the Communists. The Christian’s call to evangelism is a higher and a holier call than that. It comes from Jesus Christ, who looks out on fields white unto the harvest and asks us to be his evangelists. The need is great, and the laborers are few, and the enemy waxes bold, but how can the Christian be discouraged when God himself says that power is available, and that the victory shall surely be to Jesus Christ?

Stop looking at the enemy for a moment, and look at Him, and look at the need all about you. Some people say that this is a Christian country. We put “In God We Trust” on our dimes. We open the Senate with prayer. We don’t let people swear on the radio and TV—at least we try to keep them from it. Our president is a Christian, and our secretary of state is a Presbyterian, and our politicians always speak well of the Bible. Doesn’t that make us a Christian country?

Listen. There are people in our mountains who have never heard of Jesus Christ, and people in our churches who act as if they had never heard of him. Many American cities are more pagan than the one in which I live in Korea. In the United States we say all men are brothers, but we don’t practice it. There are seventeen million young people, we are told, in this country who have never once darkened the door of a church. And if all this is true, then right here in America, the chief task of the church, as everywhere else, is still evangelism!

Sometimes it may be by great mass meetings. There are so many millions to be reached. It would encourage me to see in America a revival of mass evangelism. I would not be frightened by it. Too emotional? A religion which doesn’t reach the emotions never really becomes vital at all.

But again, let me remind you that evangelism is more than mass meetings. The hardest and most important evangelism of all is not that which you let others, specially gifted of the Holy Spirit, do for you, but that which you, by the same grace of God, do yourself.

I had lunch with a Jew one day. I was in New York, and the restaurant was crowded, and he came up and asked if he could share the table with me, which I was glad to let him do. He was a friendly and curious soul and began to ask me questions. His name was Sam Birnbaum. He was in the metal equipment business. “What line are you in?” he asked. “I’m a Presbyterian minister,” I said, and he thought that over for a while.

Then he said, “I don’t usually talk about this, but seeing as you are in the religious line, why do Christians hate the Jews?” And that kept me silent for a moment. How relentlessly our failures in race come back home to roost. But then I said, “They don’t. Real Christians do not hate the Jews. Jews are really nearer to Christians in faith than anyone else.” And that started us off on the Jewish problem. He told me all about his synagogue, his rabbi. We got quite friendly. Then he asked me some more about my work, and I said I was going to be a missionary.

“You mean,” he said, “that you are going to go out and try to convert people?” I nodded, and he looked at me unbelievingly. “Why?” he asked. “You wouldn’t want to convert me, would you?”

What should I have said? He was a fine fellow. We were getting along famously. I had taken a good step forward in bringing the Jew and the Christian closer together, as they should be. Shouldn’t I have continued along the same line and answered, “No, of course I wouldn’t want to convert you. You are a fine fellow as you are”? That was what he expected me to say. But I didn’t. I said, “Yes, I’d like to convert you.” And he was as surprised a man as I have seen in some time.

But in a case like that, doesn’t the Christian have to say “Yes”? Our Christian conviction is that men are not all right as they are. They need Christ, and without Christ, no matter how nice or how good or how wise they are, they are not all right. Only because Christians have believed that strongly enough to do something about it, only because faith led to evangelism, only because the first Christians were evangelists, are we today Christians. The Greeks were wise, but Paul knew that they needed evangelizing. The barbarians were fine, spirited civilians, but Boniface and Gregory and Augustine knew they needed Christ. So does Sam Birnbaum. So does every man who has not opened his heart to the Lord Christ.

Sam knew all about Jesus. He told me himself what a fine man Jesus was—a Jew, too. Sam also liked Cardinal Spellman. But if that is all there is to it, if Jesus is just another fine man for fine people like Sam Birnbaum to approve of, then we can all go home and forget it. But if Jesus Christ is our risen Lord and Saviour, the Master and Captain of our souls, the Son of God; and if God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life—if Jesus is Lord, and if men are lost, and our faith is true, then Christians have a job to do. And sometimes that job is right in our own home town, at a restaurant table. It can be harder right there than in Tibet.

If you think you can’t do it, if you say you are not ready, if you answer only with an excuse—then don’t sit there and complain while the Communists take the world away from you!

Samuel Hugh Moffett is dean of the Graduate School and professor of historical theology at the Presbyterian Seminary in Seoul. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and Princeton Seminary and has the Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Jacob A. O. Preus, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, delivered a strongly worded, comprehensive, candid report to the delegates of the forty-ninth biennial convention of that denomination (see page 16), which is divided over doctrinal as well as ecclesiastical matters. We are publishing part of Preus’s address in this issue and urge every subscriber to read it carefully.

While Preus’s remarks are directed primarily to his own church, the doctrinal controversies he considers are similar to those that plague every large denomination today. Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists—all have engaged in some form of doctrinal struggle. The question of the authority, inspiration, and interpretation of Scripture is the core of the controversy; this question ultimately determines one’s whole theology. In recent years strongly evangelical groups have surfaced in leading, theologically liberal denominations. At the same time some traditionally evangelical denominations are reversing their strong stand of orthodoxy. All of this suggests that many stormy days lie ahead.