Missing—One Knife

This first appeared in the October 10, 1960, issue and is reprinted by request.

The operating room was gleaming with the multiplied perfections of modern equipment. Not only was everything spotless, but the cool, conditioned air was constantly subjected to purifying light rays that reduced even normal bacteria to a minimum.

Two surgeons, along with residents under training, were standing motionless in their pale green sterilized gowns and caps, their faces partially covered by germ-inhibited masks.

Both the chief surgeon and his first assistant were men whose years of arduous training and experience had earned for them certification in their surgical specialty. They were members of a number of learned societies. The elder of the two had only recently been honored by his associates by being made chief of staff of the hospital, and just prior to that he had been the president of a society of distinguished surgeons.

The patient, draped with sterile sheets and towels, was breathing deeply as the anesthetic began to take effect.

Then the anesthetist looked up and nodded his head. The patient was ready.

On the Mayo stands and the tables adjacent to the operating table there was a shining array of instruments, each designed for a specific purpose—clamps, clips, retractors, spreaders, scissors, sutures of various kinds, everything needed to facilitate the operation.

The surgeon finished draping the patient, already thoroughly prepared by scrubbing and the application of antiseptic solutions. Then, looking around, he took up one instrument and laid it down, and then took up another, and laid it down.

No incision was made! He did not use the knife. Fingering the various instruments, the surgeon went from one to the other, looking at one, making futile passes with another.

It was a strange pantomime. Under perfect surroundings, with a patient who desperately needed surgery, the entire procedure consisted of meaningless motions. Naturally, some in the room were disturbed, others were confused, and some were exasperated.

After an hour, the patient was rolled from the operating to the recovery room. There he was cared for until fully recovered from the anesthetic, and then he was taken to his room, where relatives waited anxiously to see him. Friends sent in flowers and messages, evidences of their love and concern.

Before long it was obvious that the patient was no better. The same old symptoms recurred. There was still pain and weakness. Why was the patient no better?

Hospital authorities were asked to investigate. The surgical staff met and discussed the case and also a number of similar ones that had occurred in the same hospital. Every step in the patients’ history was gone over again and again in an honest attempt to uncover the cause of repeated failures to cure these patients.

One night during a general staff meeting, the mystery was again under discussion. The interns and residents were encouraged to share in the discussion. One young man, not considered as bright or promising as some of the others, ventured to speak up:

“Mr. Chief of Staff,” he said, “I have scrubbed in on a number of these unsuccessful operations, and there is one thing I have repeatedly noticed: the surgeon does not use the knife. There is no incision, no bleeding, no going down to the source of the illness, nothing is removed; when the patient leaves the operating room, he is in exactly the same condition as when he went in.”

“But,” the chief surgeon said, “the knife is old; it is full of imperfections; I do not trust the quality of its steel. In fact I feel that it is more an ornament than an instrument—something suitable to keep on the table, but not necessary or effective in the complicated surgical conditions confronting us today.”

The intern was subdued, but as we left the room we thought we heard him mutter under his breath: “Those poor patients! They are still sick; they leave the hospital just like they came in. Surely something is wrong. Why don’t they use the knife?”

The Sunday morning service was about to begin. The sanctuary was filled with quiet, well-dressed, well-fed people. They were comfortable, thanks to air conditioned and cushioned pews.

In the whole city there was not a finer pipe organ, and the man at the console was a master in his profession. The choir was well paid and highly tramed. The atmosphere throughout the sanctuary was one of quietness, reverence, and expectancy.

The minister and his associate took their places, and the order of service proceeded with the quiet dignity and efficiency of a thoroughly prepared program. At precisely the scheduled moment the minister stood up to preach. In his robes he looked the epitome of scholarship and grace, and when he spoke it was obvious that he was a man of eloquence and conviction.

Prior to the beginning of the sermon, a passage of Scripture had been read; but the main appeal was to philosophical reasoning and a confrontation of today’s problems along the line of one’s personal responsibility and duty to engage in social engineering. Many authorities were quoted; there were frequent references to great leaders of our day; quotations from fine literature revealed the preacher’s wide reading, and many in the congregation were impressed.

At the conclusion of the service there was some subdued chatting among members of the congregation; the ministers greeted them as they went their several ways—some for a time of rest, others to spend the remainder of the day in amusements or recreation.

With most of them there was an unappeased sense of spiritual hunger. One could see that the stone of human opinion was hard to digest. Like a serpent, sophisticated denial of divine revelation gnawed at the place where men desired peace and assurance.

Many realized that there was something wrong. Church officers discussed the problem. In the denomination, intensive efforts were set on foot for evangelism, missions and stewardship.

One day a member of the congregation remarked to a friend: “I wish we heard more about what God has to say. Sunday after Sunday, I hear what men have said or are saying. Occasionally the Bible is quoted, and then there is light, conviction, and a sense of God’s nearness.”

“Yes,” said the other, “the one thing that will change the situation completely is using the Bible in all of its wonder and power. After all, it is the Sword of the Spirit, the only weapon for an attack on the stronghold of Satan.”

Word got around, and the Sword was unsheathed. Sinners were saved, Christians were revived—and the church once more became God’s house.

L. NELSON BELL

Book Briefs: August 21, 1970

Affirms Biblical Authority

Interpreting God’s Word Today, edited by Simon Kistemaker (Baker, 1970, 313 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Norman Shepherd, associate professor of systematic theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Seven teachers and pastors have joined efforts to supply studies on the general theme of interpreting God’s Word today. The result is not a study of exegetical principles in the narrow sense, nor a probing of the problem of the new hermeneutic, but a survey and assessment of attitudes past and present toward the Old Testament, the New Testament, the doctrine of Scripture, ecclesiastical confessions, and the defense of the faith.

G. Van Groningen, of Reformed Theological College, Geelong, Australia, explores the formation and interpretation of Genesis, while M. Woudstra of Calvin Seminary concentrates on the relation of event and interpretation in the Old Testament illustrated with special reference to the Book of Joshua. Woudstra shows that orthodox biblical scholarship does not relinquish concern for the interpretation of sacred history in its zeal to maintain the trustworthiness of the biblical reports, but insists that the events are themselves revelatory, not inherently ambiguous, and that the Bible itself authoritatively interprets revelation history. He rightly points out that the cause of truth is not advanced when the “historical worth” of a biblical fact is demonstrated by a modern historical method that is inherently opposed to the Bible.

Contributions from the field of New Testament are by the editor, S. Kistemaker of Dordt College, on the formation and interpretation of the Gospels, and by J. De Young of Reformed Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi, on the event and interpretation of the Resurrection. The indivisibility of the fact and meaning of Christ’s resurrection is well brought out by De Young’s rejection of a “probable” resurrection for the sake of the certainty of First Corinthians 15.

Marinus J. Arntzen, pastor of a Reformed church near The Hague, Holland, surveys the rapid deterioration of confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the Bible and the accompanying reinterpretation of “organic inspiration” occurring within traditionally conservative circles in his country. His treatment is valuable as a concrete example of how within a single generation criticism chipping away at the details of Scripture does not stop short of assault upon such basic doctrines as the Resurrection and the Trinity. He has also signalized the arrogance of the new movement, as though no conservative theologian had ever seriously grappled with the problems raised by scriptural infallibility.

After pointing up the parallel erosion of biblical and confessional authority by the use of hermeneutical principles foreign to both Bible and confession, Canadian pastor L. Praamsma offers helpful suggestions for the proper understanding and use of confessional standards. In the closing chapter M. H. Smith of Reformed Seminary emphasizes, by reference to the history of apologetics, the need for a defense of the faith that grows out of the genius of the Word itself, along the lines suggested by C. Van Til.

A considerable number of minor errors of various sorts mar the production as a whole, but its winning appeal is the unifying conviction of the contributors that God’s Word cannot be rightly interpreted unless it is honored as God’s Word at every point.

An Example Of Limited Freedom

Church in a Marxist Society: A Czechoslovak View, by Jan Milic Lochman (Harper & Row, 1970, 198 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Blahoslav Hruby, associate editor, “Religion in Communist Dominated Areas,” New York City.

The eight months of the “Czechoslovak Spring” with Alexander Dubcek’s program “to give a human face to socialism” represent the most radical departure from the Soviet type of Communism. Though the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia ended this most promising change in the history of Communism, the reform movement is still having a tremendous impact on the people in Communist countries and on the Communist movement throughout the world. The Czechoslovak program of humanization, liberalization, and democratization deserves attentive study if we want to understand the growing religious, intellectual, and political dissent as well as the present trend toward dogmatic rigidity and an oppressive police system in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries.

Unfortunately, Church in a Marxist Society adds very little, if anything, new to our understanding of the religious and political situation in Czechoslovakia. Jan Milic Lochman was formerly a member of the Comenius Faculty of Theology in Prague (and in 1968–69 a visiting professor at the Union Seminary in New York) and is now professor of systematic theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He wrote this book with an apparent intention not to displease the Soviet-imposed government of Husák. This is understandable: churchmen from Communist countries are not free to express any criticism of the Soviet Union and of their own countries at home or abroad. If they did not follow this unwritten law, they would not receive permission to travel to foreign countries.

The reader must understand, then, that Lochman was not free to “tell it like it is.” This is evident throughout his book. His interpretation of Czechoslovak history and, in particular, of the Communist era since 1948 lacks depth, sharp judgment, and objective evaluation. Also, it omits important facts about Communist manipulation, infiltration, and persecution of churches from 1948 to 1968; these were revealed to a considerable extent even in Communist publications when the Dubcek government abolished censorship.

Lochman has no good word for that great statesman, champion of freedom, and founder of Czechoslovakia, Thomas G. Masaryk, and his disciple Edward Benes. He does not explain that Czechoslovakia in 1948 did not need any “revolution” and that the Communist putsch in that year was engineered with the help of Soviet leaders, who feared the existence of a free and democratic Czechoslovakia in Central Europe. Twenty years later, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia because its leaders feared that the new freedom of the Czechoslovak Spring was contagious. Lochman speaks cautiously about an “intervention” instead of an “invasion,” and does not mention the well-known protest made by his teacher, J. L. Hromádka, against the invasion.

Lochman stresses the difference in “totalitarian tendencies” of Fascism and Communism:

Sometimes this term has been used simply as a tool of Cold War propaganda to support the argument that Communism and Fascism are only two branches of the same totalitarian tree. We emphatically reject this argument. There is a basic difference between Communism with its constructive and humanistic possibilities, and destructive and nihilistic Fascism [p. 66].

The people of Czechoslovakia seem to see the problem somewhat differently. In recent months the letters “FOZ” appeared on the walls: Fasismus opet zde (“Fascism here again”).

Lochman writes enthusiastically about the Christian-Marxist dialogue in Prague. But he does not specify that this dialogue was limited to a small and select group of people and virtually inaccessible to the public. Neither does he make it clear that the Marxists, who participated, did not represent the Communist party leadership. The Communist leaders in Czechoslovakia were suspicious of the dialogue and considered it, together with other religious themes, as an “export article,” good for Communist propaganda in Western countries. (“Americans are crazy about the dialogue,” commented a Prague Stalinist.)

Lochman’s optimism about the Christian-Marxist dialogue and ideological convergence is further contradicted by recent developments in Czechoslovakia: Hromádka’s death in December, 1969, precipitated by Soviet intrigues against him in the Christian Peace Conference; dismissal of Milan Machovec, the leading Marxist in the dialogue, from the philosophical faculty of Charles University in Prague; expulsion of all leading “liberals” from governmental positions, Parliament, and the Communist party; ouster from the Politbureau and the French Communist party of Roger Garaudy, one of the leading Communist proponents of the Christian-Marxist dialogue. Thus, the dialogue and the Christian Peace Conference are at a standstill, and there is little hope that the current return to ideological dogmatism in the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, and other Warsaw Pact countries (with the possible exception of Rumania) will permit Communists to resume these activities.

It would have been better for Dr. Lochman not to write this book, because as a citizen of the Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia he was not free to present the whole picture. Since he completed his manuscript in July, 1969, the developments in Czechoslovakia have taken a sharp turn toward Stalinism and its inherent components: censorship, secret police, and manipulation, infiltration, and harassment of churches. New examples of the violation of religious freedom and other human rights refute almost every day Lochman’s optimistic evaluations and predictions about churches in a Marxist society in Czechoslovakia.

The book is, therefore, a timely reminder of the extent to which Christians in Communist states are limited in their freedom of expression. It is also an urgent reminder that denominational as well as ecumenical relations with churches in Communist countries must include the “established” churches (recognized by Communist governments) as well as dissenting Christians. At the same time, Lochman’s report is a sad footnote to the recent history of the people of Hus, Comenius, and Masaryk, who for centuries struggled for religious and national freedom and once again wanted to live free. They were brutally invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union while the free world looked on uttering empty words of protest and remaining ready to do business as usual with this aggressor.

A Commentary To Nourish Faith

The Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Luke-John, by Malcolm O. Tolbert and William E. Hull, general editor Clifton J. Allen (Broadman, 1970, 376 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Boyd Hunt, professor of theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

As denomination presses go, that of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination is hardly one of the better known. It just could be, however, that with the publication of Broadman’s twelve-volume commentary, this situation will begin to change for the better.

This is a work whose purpose is to clarify the meaning of the biblical text. Problems are faced, but theological fads and unnecessary technical information are avoided. There are few footnotes, though frequent references are made to other works. The introductions skillfully cut through minutiae to constructive interpretative concerns. Illustrations, general poetic, literary, or historical citations, sermonic examples of practical application, and the like are omitted. Again and again the commentators take the fact word by word, not in any wooden mechanical manner, but in a style that keeps the discussion moving vigorously.

Malcolm O. Tolbert (professor of New Testament at New Orleans Baptist Seminary) draws attention to Luke’s purpose: to present faithfully the events in which the gospel proclamation is rooted; to speak to the relation between Christianity and Judaism in view of the wide gulf that had developed between them; to prove that Christianity was no threat to the empire; and to correct wrong views of the parousia. On the latter point Luke’s particular contribution is his recognition of the role of the Church in salvation history.

Indications of the manner in which Tolbert finds a middle way between the meaning of the text originally and its meaning today reflect the quality of his comments. On the reference to an angel in 1:11, he observes that modern man is not to preoccupy himself with the nature of angelic visitations but to ask the more ultimate question, Is there a God and is he able to involve himself in historical events? On the indication in 15:20 that the father saw the returning prodigal at a distance, he suggests that the father saw him, where the neighbors would have seen rags, dirt, and bare feet. On the reference in 24:3 to the empty tomb following the resurrection of Jesus, he says that belief in the resurrection was based on the appearance of the Lord but that because of Gnostic speculations it was important for the early Church to to show that it was the actual body of Jesus of Nazareth that was raised.

William E. Hull (dean of the school of theology and professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Seminary) is convinced that John is at once the easiest and the hardest book in the Bible to understand. He sees the Fourth Gospel in the context of a Christianity in Asia Minor near the end of the first century in which relations with the Jewish synagogue had become intolerably strained and in which the Romans sought to coerce submission through persecution. Something of the disciplined incisiveness of his writing is reflected in the fact that in a brief discussion of the Jewish setting of John he distinguishes between the Old Testament, rabbinic Judaism, apocalyptic Judaism, sectarian Judaism, schismatic Judaism, and Hellenistic Judaism. He divides John primarily between “The Book of the Signs” (2:1–12:50) and “The Book of the Passion” (13:1–20:31).

In his treatment of the carefully organized section 2:1–4:54, Hull dwells on John’s singular concentration on faith. He notes that John always describes faith by the verb form, not by the noun form: this means that believing is viewed primarily as an active response rather than an unchanging attitude. In his comments on the appearance of the risen Lord to Thomas (20:24–29), he distinguishes between the risen Lord’s request to Mary Magdalene that she not touch him (20:17) and his exactly contrary invitation to Thomas. He sees here the necessity that the early Church avoid both the extreme of historicism, that the risen Lord is merely physical, and the Gnostic extreme, that the risen Lord is merely spiritual.

These commentators are honest and fair, and are generally moderate in their interpretations. In fact, the commentary as a whole seeks to be nonauthoritarian, in that it recognizes the varying views among evangelicals on the nature of the Bible and its interpretation.

Here is a commentary that, without glossing over problems, seriously seeks to study the Bible—a commentary to nourish faith.

Book Briefs

Karl Barth, by T. H. L. Parker (Eerdmans, 1970, 125 pp., $4.50). A biography concerned more with his intellectual than with his physical life.

A History of Preaching, Volume II: From the Close of the Reformation to the End of the Nineteenth Century, by Edwin C. Dargan (Baker, 1970, 591 pp., paperback, $4.95). Reprint of the second volume of the standard work in this field.

All One Body We, by John Kromminga (Eerdmans, 1970, 227 pp., paperback, $3.95). The president of Calvin Theological Seminary offers an analysis of the WCC’s struggle for ecumenicity.

Heirs of the Pharisees, by Jakob J. Petuchowski (Basic Books, 1970, 199 pp., $6.95). Contends that the strength of the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition is responsible for the survival of the Jewish people.

The Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll: A Literary Analysis, by Joseph R. Rosenbloom (Eerdmans, 1970, 88 pp., $4.50). A comparison of the Isaiah scroll with the Masoretic text of the Book of Isaiah.

New Theology No. 7, edited by Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman (Macmillan, 1970, 219 pp., paperback, $1.95). Essays discussing the theological aspects of transcendence.

The Gospel According to John, XIII–XXI, edited by Ramond E. Brown, S. S. (Doubleday, 1970, 1208 pp., $8). Volume 29A of the Anchor Bible.

The Holy Spirit, by Arthur W. Pink (Baker, 1970, 193 pp., $4.95). A study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

An Exposition of the Gospel of Mark, by Herschel H. Hobbs (Baker, 1970, 261 pp., $6.95). A commentary filled with sermon suggestions.

Government Economic Policy and Individual Welfare, by Harold A. Gram (Concordia, 1970, 103 pp., $1.50). This and The Age of Technology are two more volumes in the “Christian Encounters” series.

The Man Who Moved a Mountain, by Richard C. Davids (Fortress, 1970, 253 pp., $5.95). The story of Bob Childress, an itinerant Presbyterian minister of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Somewhat Less Than God: The Biblical View of Man, by Leonard Verduin (Eerdmans, 1970, 168 pp., paperback, $2.95). A discussion of the doctrine of man.

Jeremy Taylor and the Great Rebellion: A Study of His Mind and Temper in Controversy, by Frank Livingstone Huntley (University of Michigan, 1970, 131 pp., $7.50). A literary look at the Anglican divine, defender of the Royalist cause during Cromwell’s rule.

Eutychus and His Kin: August 21, 1970

Hooray For Lost Causes!

Though I am not hooked on obituaries, as the manner of some is, my heart has been warmed by the delightful sentence: “He espoused lost causes with unfailing regularity.” It might have been that incredible man who, during the past thirty years, has had 9,000 letters published in newspapers and magazines. He wields a fearsome pen against entrenched iniquities like gossiping women, mini-skirts, hitch-hikers, long hair, and husbands who are “weekend slaves” in the home.

A similar espouser is Bernadette Devlin, who, impatient youth confronting the Mother of Parliaments, said: “It has been as much as I can do to put up with the games they play in the House of Commons.” Another incorrigible was the layman who publicly proposed that his church’s financial support of the WCC and local subsidiaries be ended because “these bodies make mischievous statements which only do harm to the work of statesmen throughout the world.” A shocked silence was his portion.

A friend of mine has a thing about church bulletin boards. When business takes him to a strange city, a Saturday-evening inspection ensures he will never be found next morning in a church where the board outside displays even a misplaced apostrophe. “You can learn a lot from that,” he affirms. “Like the lights of Broadway, some bulletin boards would look marvelous if only one couldn’t read.” And the more evangelical churches, he contends, have the more illiterate boards. For years he pointedly ignored a building that advertised a “mens’ meeting.” When at last there was a repainting and the spelling was rectified, he rushed up to congratulate a bewildered deacon on more effective witness.

A writer quoted in this journal last April loathes church committees and legislative bodies, likening participants to the sailors in Paul’s shipwrecks who trusted to achieve their salvation on boards. This rebel attitude might find encouragement in an Australian news item, rightly interpreted. In the agricultural diocese of Willochra they were having difficulty in choosing a new bishop. Things dragged on and on. Clerical top brass was locked in combat. Finally a special synod meeting that was getting nowhere lost a sizable segment of members. Explains the news report: “Many lay representatives could stay no longer in view of the urgency of the wheat harvest.” To me, that suggests not only a confounding of the establishment and a blow struck for lost causes everywhere, but a clear parable for our times.

EUTYCHUS IV

Wow Witnessing

For a long while now I’ve been perturbed about the soul-winning syndrome that seems to afflict so many of us evangelicals, which, in some cases, is none too short of John Tetzel’s flippant soul sales-pitch, the object of Martin Luther’s vehemence:

When a coin into the coffer rings,

A soul from purgatory springs!

Professor Barrett (July 17) has been brave to expose some of the false motives underlying our soul-winning ventures, and has dared to protest the glamorizing of the Church’s great commission. I am wholeheartedly in agreement with him. A girl in our church just returned from a youth institute where they conducted a “W.O.W.!” (Workshop on Witnessing).

GARTH HYDE

Church of the Nazarene Delta, Colo.

I was surprised that Barrett never once touched the Acts 1–2 base, nor even so much as alluded to the Holy Spirit as the source of power or perfecter of motives for witnessing. My understanding is that only he can give me the kind of broken heart, filled with a divine love, that Barrett sees as the sine qua non of successful witnessing.

JACK D. RICHARDSON

Associate to the General Secretary

The Pennsylvania State Sunday School Association

Harrisburg, Pa.

It is going to take more than compassion. Those with compassion are not garnering them in either. The Church must go to her knees for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that the lost will be convicted of sin against Christ.

JOHN CROSS

Free Methodist Church

Tonasket, Wash.

The article … is outstanding. When we get away from competitive motivations and seek the “Christ way” of compassion, then we will have his blessing and fruitfulness can be expected.

WILLARD WILLIAMS

Colonial Woods Missionary Church

Port Huron, Mich.

‘Protest’ Protest

I have for several years been very much impressed by the articles written by D. Elton Trueblood. I offer this critique of “The Protest Mentality” (July 17) out of love.

Protest demonstrations, the responses of an educated but largely soundproofed segment of our society, are perhaps so suddenly popular because new electronic media provide no opportunity for feedback. Demonstrations are not intended to be rational discourse; like music, poetry, graphic arts, fiction, and much religious communication, they only express internal psychological states. Communication needs not be in the language of science or philosophy to be legitimate.…

Property-directed violence erupts when what was said before was ignored, in most cases. People get hurt when police or Guardsmen, armed and armored, confront a peaceful group such as the one in St. Petersburg on April 15. It was obvious that the police intended to make the scene violent; one speaker was grabbed and beaten without explanation of the charge or his rights, and suddenly over a hundred police with helmets and clubs surrounded a few hundred scared and helpless kids, ganged up on arbitrarily selected individuals, clubbed them, and booked them for resisting arrest. I saw it.

PHILIP D. TOWNES

St. Paul, Minn.

The article contains a few “tragic flaws” of its own.… The charge of moralism is a straw man. The same charge could be leveled at anyone who believes in justice and condemns evil, whatever he conceives it to be.…

Do we need reminding that it was a protest mentality that led Luther to nail his Ninety-five Theses? And that it was the protest mentality that finally martyred Bonhoeffer? Or that it was the protest mentality that finally started the judicial machinery rolling to rid this country of discrimination? Without it I fear the black man would still be riding in the back of the bus.

An article deploring the protest mentality seems at least a paradox coming from a “Protestant” magazine.

STEVE BISSET

Deerfield, Ill.

Elton Trueblood is like a man being attacked simultaneously by a gnat and a lion. He ignores the lion and flails away in indignation at the gnat. He is mightily concerned about $100,000 worth of broken windows but seems not at all concerned about the direct support he gives to billions of dollars’ worth of killing in Southeast Asia.

WALTER SHWETZ

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

On Target

Triggering this letter is my special appreciation for your editorial “The Paradox of Contemporary Christendom” (July 17) and for the assurance that evangelical faith has not expired in the old-line denominations. Such a movement as COCU could bring it to light, and with considerable damage to denominational structures.

ELMER L. BROOKS

Cimarron, Kan.

Faith And Security

Papal infallibility is clearly, as you stated (editorial, July 17) a stumbling block to Christian unity and even to unity within Rome itself. I was surprised therefore to see you try so unsuccessfully to escape the logic of your own critique. “To desire infallible pronouncements by some human person or organization, is to reveal a basic discontent with the certitude that God himself, in the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, implants in the hearts and minds of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and the Scriptures as the inspired and infallible testimony to him.” How you can logically tack on the underlined clause to the foregoing is truly amazing! The Scriptures are always to be included among pronouncements by human persons and the subsequent canonization as action by a human organization. The man of faith must avoid all forms of idolatry, Roman popes and “paper popes.” There is no difference in the basic human discontent which manifests itself in the search for external security in a human pope and that which manifests itself in a search for external security in the form of infallible human tests. Faith in God must never be anything other than faith in God. If one chooses to believe in God, he must know that he has nothing external at his own disposal in which to build his faith. He who abandons every form of external security will find true security.

THOMAS WRIGHT

Associate Pastor

Brooklyn United Methodist Church

Minneapolis, Minn.

That Irish ‘Revolution’

The news reports about “near revolution” in Northern Ireland to which you refer in the Editor’s Note (July 17) are grossly exaggerated and present a warped picture of events.

The reports covered two matters: (1) Violent protests against the refusal of the appeal of Bernadette Devlin by the highest court in Northern Ireland against six months’ imprisonment for a petrol (gasoline) bomb offense; in these protests all of the six people killed (with one exception) were Protestants. (2) Searches by troops in the Catholic Falls Road area of Belfast for arms, yielding over one hundred rifles and revolvers, provoked rioting in which a similar number were killed (including two men suspected of sniping at the troops).

The peaceful state of Northern Ireland over the Twelfth July parades is the most effective reply to the highly sensational accounts circulated by the press. These parades have been traditionally quiet in the past. The exception was last year in Londonderry, when a returning parade was stoned in the city center, giving rise to the disorders.

S. W. MURRAY

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Split-Level Christians

James Daane’s report on the Christian Reformed Church Synod (News, July 17) deserves supplemental comment regarding a decision Synod made on a racially related issue.

During the lengthy discussion, delegates made it clear that liberty, justice, and sacrifice stand higher on the ladder of Christian values than does the preservation of self and property. By a resounding vote of 120-to-20, Synod proclaimed that there is something terribly inconsistent with the racial policy of its church leaders in Illinois. This policy professes to be interested in saving black men’s souls while it sides with white racists who are determined to prevent children of black converts from attending Christian schools in Cicero.

In effect the Synod said to its ministers and elders in Classis Chicago North: Get rid of your dualistic theory of religion whereby you separate “things spiritual” from “things natural.” This message has profound significance for all Christians. Evangelistic outreach to the disadvantaged must be coupled with genuine Christian concern to promote justice and liberty.

MARTIN LAMAIRE

Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church

Berwyn, Ill.

Insensitive Suburbs

Thank you for including the timely article “Christian Sensitivity” by Myron R. Chartier (July 3). Modern suburbia, in its unmerited selectiveness, false independence, and unwarranted criticism, has become insensitive to the needs of the poverty-stricken world and is attempting to withdraw from responsibility much as the early disciples to say, “This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat” (Matt. 14:15b, 16).

ROBERT W. NEIMAN

Minister and Chaplain

“Operation Nightwatch”

Seattle, Wash.

Insight: Inside—Or Out?

The July 3 issue is a good one.…

Especially perceptive was Bruce Lockerbie’s “The Theater of Deceit.” Ever since Stony Brook days, where he was a dorm master and scarcely older than the oldest senior, I have been nourished by his insight.

JOSEPH MCDONALD

West Chester, Pa.

He expressed no sense of outrage at having been assaulted by vicious, degrading propaganda, possibly because of a sense of guilt at being present in such a place. It is hard to conceive of a spiritual and committed Christian seeking entertainment at a production like this. Mr. Lockerbie’s dissertation could be summarized by: “If you go searching through garbage cans for something good, don’t be surprised if you find trash.”

WILLIAM R. GREENE

Felton, Calif.

If the film causes the Christian to see an insight into the depravity of man or to see a contrast between the restrictions of sin and the freedom of Christianity, what is the harm? A film which causes the Christian to think about the motivations and needs of the non-Christian man is certainly better than an evening of television. It must also be noted that a discussion with non-Christian friends concerning the claims of Christianity can be sparked by a discussion of secular films. The film has become a significant part of the lives and thinking of many collegians. Mr. Lockerbie’s discussion of Easy Rider reveals that some films do present the possibility for seeking Christian beliefs. It would seem that the non-Christian needs someone to interpret the film in light of the beliefs of Christianity.…

Unfortunately, Mr. Lockerbie made no mention of the possibilities of using drama for the cause of Christianity. I feel that religious drama is too often ignored by church leaders because they feel the stage is inherently evil. I hope your magazine will offer an occasional article on religious drama.

ROGER SMITTER

Tiffin, Ohio

Read The Word

Dr. Burton L. Goddard’s article, “The Crucial Issue in Bible Translation” (July 3), is good but not good enough. Of course it is important that the Bible be translated with the words to give the most exact meaning in the language of today. The most important thing is that no matter what the translation that it be read, for the Bible is the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit can and does use it no matter what the translation, however faulty.

HENRY W. LAMPE

Springfield, Mo.

Freedom For All

I want to thank you for the editorials on “Academic Freedom in Evangelical Perspective” and “The Responsibilities of Denominational Publishers” (July 3). I think you have brought to your readers’ attention a problem that we often overlook in our cry for academic freedom, and freedom in general. The rights of both the Christian academic institutions and the denominational publishers should be protected and guaranteed. I may not agree with their positions, but they do have the right to exist and to speak up on issues as they feel led of God to do. Especially when we see in this country so much freedom for the liberals and the leftists to speak up as they please, we certainly should allow the groups that are really trying to do some good for the people and this country to speak as they feel their conscience leads them.

STEPHEN LIANG

Chinese For Christ, Inc.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Students As Teachers

Your editorial on Frank Laubach’s fight against illiteracy (July 3) was well done, but the “Each one teach one” he made famous was used by missionaries regularly, perhaps as far back as two hundred years ago.

The most remarkable application was made in London starting in 1798, when Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, opened a school for the underprivileged, at a time when only the rich sent their sons to school. Eventually he was teaching 1,000 boys, and their progress was far beyond that of any other system. Using the Bible, he taught English (and math) fundamentals to a few of the most promising older boys, and they in turn taught others, as well as doing the mechanical jobs involved in a school. Eventually Lancaster went broke, but his method was copied widely.…

This very powerful system could be used by the churches to teach about Jesus Christ, and would probably be well used if the churches, faced with secular immorality in the public schools, turned to a complete new program of parochial schools, at very low unit cost. I don’t know how they’d get around the politicians and the educational empire’s demands for certified teachers, but if results were the criterion, that would be no problem.

THOMAS S. BOOZ

Plantation, Fla.

If Wesley Rode Again

My reaction to “Jane Fonda in Church” (News, July 3) is that your writer’s insensitivity to the Rev. Mr. Williams’s concern for persons is exceeded only by his abysmal lack of knowledge about John Wesley.

The pulpits of the Church of England certainly were not closed to Wesley because he went along with the establishment; they were closed to him because he was determined to bring the Gospel to persons even if it meant breaking old patterns.

And, rather than the “happenings in Glide Methodist these days [setting] John Wesley aghast,” they more likely would suggest to him that he ought to trade his horse in on a “hog” and ride from Big Sur to Palm Springs ministering to the outcasts of our society.

MARVIN A. JOHNSON

Point Loma United Methodist Church

San Diego, Calif.

Whose Bible?

In “Southern Baptists on the Spot” (News, July 3) you made an erroneous statement in the second-to-last sentence, a mistake which unfortunately is made much too often.

Members of Gideons International Camps, in eighty-six countries around the world, place Bibles and Testaments … where people may come in contact with God’s Word, but there is no such thing as a Gideon Bible. These copies of God’s Word are Gideon-placed—made possible by, and, for the most part, paid for by the prayer and financial support of Christians in the United States and Canada.

HENRY M. KLEEMAN, JR.

Gideons International

Huntsville, Ala.

‘A Child Shall Lead …’

I anticipate the arrival of CHRISTIANITY TODAY with childlike eagerness; the articles are so superbly written that even a country boy with little education can receive a blessing from them.… “Eutychus and His Kin” receives close reading by this subscriber. By some of your mail, it is apparent that many sections of the faith have fallen away. One would think the prodigal son was ministering to some churches.

D. M. HUIE

Gadsden, Ala.

As a missionary, I find your magazine most helpful in keeping abreast of developments in the world of theology. I find the articles stimulating, as a rule.… I must write a word of hearty thanks to L. Nelson Bell for his sane and scripturally based comments to be found in each issue. I always find something good in “A Layman and His Faith.”

PAUL S. WHITE

Strasbourg, France.

Summer Is Convention Time

Evangelical Free Church: Smiles In Green Lake

Seven hundred Evangelical Free Church of America delegates gathered in Green Lake, Wisconsin, and settled nearly all their business with unanimous votes, smiling their way through revision of church bylaws and a stronger, more expensive ministerial pension plan. The only discord was in the heat of what observers predicted would be the conference hot spot—discussion of the Trinity schools’ financial crisis.

The conference theme—stewardship—was a result of a drop in giving to denominational projects during the past year. This was in the face of an increase in per-capita giving; the Evangelical Free Church is already among the top five of U. S. church bodies. But the denomination’s nearly autonomous local congregations gave only 30.7 per cent of their overseas missions contributions to Free Church programs, and decreased their school giving for the second straight year. The result at Green Lake: many sermons on stewardship, pastoral training in money management, and a strong push for bequests.

Some smiles disappeared when Trinity College and Divinity School president Harry L. Evans complained of a “huge deficit” from decreased giving, and accused delegates of lack of appreciation for the schools. Most delegates accepted the chastisement and voted for a half-million-dollar loan program and reconsideration of a 1967 decision denying Trinity permission to accept government aid. With a little grumbling they raised the annual per-capita giving goal (an ideal only partially met) from ten to fifteen dollars.

But a final motion to authorize new building raised a sharp cry from the Reverend Paul Anderson of Connecticut, who accused Evans and the entire Free Church of fiscal “naïveté” and called for a complete investigation. Stunned delegates listened as Evans replied: “Our records are clean … and we are proud,” then rose in support of “Harry,” unanimously approving his request to authorize new construction.

In other actions the Evangelical Free Church: elected Dr. Arnold T. Olson to his seventh three-year term as president of the denomination and Dr. Mel Larson to his fifth term as editor of the Evangelical Beacon; requested President Nixon to “reconsider … the appointment of a personal representative to the Vatican,” which undermines “separation of Church and State”; approved a five-year program of spiritual advance (a “new spirit of ’76”), extending Evangelical Free missionary outreach; and voted to participate in the Key 73 nationwide evangelism effort.

ROBERT E. FRIEDRICH, JR.

Canadian Baptists: A Confident Assembly

Some 500 delegates to the triennial assembly of the Baptist Federation of Canada showed marked enthusiasm about incorporating young people into the outreach programs of their churches. Large numbers of young people attended the meeting, held July 2–5 at historic Marlborough Hotel in Winnipeg.

Twenty high-school and college-age youths arrived a week early, camped in a local church, and visited the most attractive as well as the seamiest sections of Winnipeg. They entered rescue missions, jails, and the Corn Exchange and faced the coolness of wealthy suburbanites and the anger of skid-row dwellers. A rowdy along the way pulled a switchblade knife on one group. Testimonies during the assembly revealed the spiritual impact these experiences made on the youth.

Ten young people were sent to Bolivia for a six-week tour of missionary duty. The federation paid most of the expenses, but the volunteers had to raise $300 each.

Delegates warmly welcomed a recommendation not only to use Christian young people in evangelistic efforts but also to involve them more in the decision-making of the churches, associations, conventions, and the federation itself. One youth rose to thank the assembly for the confidence it placed in modern youth. The generation gap closed at least temporarily with a thunder of applause.

Confidence was the general theme of the assembly, expressed in the phrase “A Sure Thing in the Market Place.” The federation was formed in 1947 by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, the Atlantic Baptist Convention, and the Baptist Union of Western Canada. This year the federation added a fourth group: the Union of French Baptist Churches of Canada. Assembly delegates unanimously agreed to set up a task force to study the possibility of a single national convention in place of the federation’s four conventions, which together represent a constituency of about 136,000.

The federation’s missions committee announced that $40,000 is being allocated for establishment of a multifunction Christian center in North Preston, Nova Scotia; it will serve the largest rural black community in the province.

The assembly elected Dr. Thomas B. McDormand president of the federation for a three-year term. McDormand, who has served as general secretary of the Atlantic convention and is a former president of Eastern Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia, succeeds Joseph J. Arthurs, a Manitoba farmer.

W. WEESE

Free Will Baptists: Fending Off The Jones-Ites

Bob Jones and Bob Jones III may say the leaders of the National Association of Free Will Baptists are heretics, but last month the denomination defended its officials against such attacks.

Delegates to the thirty-fourth annual convention of Free Will Baptists, meeting in Fresno, California, approved a resolution expressing “confidence in the doctrinal stand of our denomination and its leaders.…” Leaders singled out in the report were the heads of the church’s national departments and World Vision International president Dr. Stanley Mooneyham, a former moderator of the denomination. Attackers mentioned by name included Bobby Smith, Billy Baugham, and the two Joneses. Bob Jones and Bob Jones III are president and vice-president, respectively, of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina; the other men are graduate students there.

A spokesman said the students, with “approval and support” of the Joneses, charged the denomination and some of its leaders with liberalism and leaning toward “heretical doctrine of the so-called neo-evangelical mood.” The statement reaffirms the church’s “commitment to the fundamentals of the faith” and opposes “all philosophies which soften resistance to false doctrine, including neo-evangelicalism.”

A highlight of the four-day convention was a missionary service at which about sixty persons made decisions for Christ; several indicated a desire to be missionaries. About 3,000 from forty-five states and five overseas countries attended the conference. Dr. Robert Picirilli of Nashville was reelected moderator of the 250,000-member denomination.

Unity International: United They Stand

No black caucus petitioned for special funds. No churchmen pressured for liberalization of doctrines. No feminists urged greater women’s rights. And no youth lobbied in behalf of peace in Viet Nam.

What was this—the convening of a small, white, Southern, fundamentalist sect? No; it was the Unity International Convention—70, held in Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium, and attended by 7,000 representatives of the Unity movement from forty states and ten foreign countries.

Started seventy-nine years ago by a contemplative couple after they were disenchanted by denominational rivalries, Unity carries its major influence within existing churches. But it has also given rise to a number of centers or congregations. Unity generally affirms standard Christian concepts and considers the Bible the Word of God, but adds its own special disciplines and metaphysical dimensions.

James D. Freeman, the movement’s spiritual research director and writer-poet, explains that the name reflects the basic conviction that the Creator and creation are in unity. “It’s a kind of Christian mysticism, but with everyday, practical applications.”

Unlike other church groups, including the Unitarians (officially the Unitarian Universalist Association), with whom they are sometimes confused, members of Unity have had few complaints from their black brethren. Mrs. Rosemary Fillmore Rhea, granddaughter of the founders of the movement, pointed out that Negroes have always been welcomed: “Unity is a fact in all our relations … regardless of race, color, religion, politics, or possessions.” The convention co-host, Charles E. King, was black, many blacks were visible in all meetings, and another Negro, Nat Simmons, conducted a special session on black authors.

Ken Tiffany, comptroller for the Association of Unity Churches, noted that there are fifteen predominantly black churches in Chicago, Los Angeles, and some Tennessee cities, and twenty-five Negro ordained ministers. He added that at least 70 per cent of the 233 Unity churches and centers are racially integrated. Yet Unity has always appealed to white, upper-income groups.

Women’s rights have never been neglected in the movement. The founders, Myrtle Fillmore and her husband, Charles, fostered the organization after claiming they had been healed of tuberculosis and crippling arthritis. Several major addresses during the 1970 convention were by women. Included was a speech by Mrs. Johnnie Coleman, the outgoing president of the entire Association of Unity Churches. The president-elect is a man—the Reverend Phillip M. Pierson of Sacramento, California.

Originally nearly all Unity ministers were women, but they now make up about only 40 per cent of Unity clergy. The association lists 400 ordained ministers and an additional 300 licensed teachers and counselors.

Unity work is centered in four main areas: the Association of Unity Churches (which reports 100,000 members and is especially strong in Florida and southern California); “The Word,” a short daily broadcast on 500 Mutual network stations; Silent Unity, a telephone counseling ministry answering more than 10,000 distress calls each week; and Unity School of Christianity, located on an estate in Lee’s Summit, a suburb of Kansas City. The Unity School trains teachers and ministers and publishes more than four million pieces of literature each year.

JAMES S. TINNEY

Baptist General Conference Calls For Media Boycott

A boycott of mass-media presentations that are “antagonistic toward a Christian view” was called for by 875 voting delegates of the Baptist General Conference, meeting recently in San Diego.

Stating that “the philosophies being advocated by these mass media are increasingly secular,” the resolution called on the 105,000 members “to state their alarm and to reflect disenchantment” through non-patronage. It also noted what it called the aggressiveness of the media in its attempts to shape culture.

The Baptist General Conference continues to show healthy growth; twenty-four new churches were added this year for a total of 693. The highest income ever received was recorded in 1969–70 at $2,219,000. A budget of $2,320,000 was set for 1970–71, of which 45 per cent will go to foreign missions.

A possible merger of the BGC (of largely Scandinavian heritage) with the 74,000-member North American Baptist General Conference (of German ethnic origin) was discussed, but immediate action beyond “cooperation … in an increasing number of mutually agreeable areas with the purpose of testing the feasibility of the merger” was delayed.

More than 700 young people in witness teams and music groups scattered through San Diego coffee shops, service centers, and beaches, recording 200 spiritual decisions.

Dr. Carl Lundquist, president of Bethel College and Seminary, in his traditional report urged others to recognize the “eschatological dimension to youth’s thinking.… The world does not have much time.” He said their concern for “action now” is a “legitimate voice of dissent in our land and on our campuses that we must hear.”

Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association

Calls for increasing efforts toward reconciliation between black and white Christians and opposition to violence were among resolutions of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association at its annual convention in Cleveland, Ohio, last month.

Organized in 1962 with a strong evangelistic orientation and foreign missions emphasis, the group unites Baptist churches whose predominant ministry is within black communities of eight cities in the Midwest and South.

Getting Friends Together

A four-way merger to form a new nationwide denomination of conservative Friends has been proposed. Members would be the Oregon, Kansas, Ohio, and Rocky Mountain yearly meetings of Friends. Together they have 213 affiliated churches and about 22,000 members.

The yearly meetings have been loosely federated in the Evangelical Friends Alliance since 1958. The merger was proposed at a meeting of spokesmen from eighteen states and three foreign countries, held in Wichita, Kansas; a committee was named to draw up merger plans.

WATFORD REED

Orthodox And Reformed Presbyterians Delay Union

Merger plans hit summer doldrums for the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). This year’s church meetings failed to approve any preliminary plan of union as expected one year ago.

In fact, the possible merger plan was never submitted by the joint negotiating committee, largely because of hesitancy on the OPC side.

The OPC General Assembly in mid-July in Portland, Oregon, authorized the two-year negotiations to continue but took no stronger action toward union. Citing this inaction as restricting their side, the RPCES turned from church growth through merger to growth through evangelism at its meeting two weeks later in Seattle, Washington.

However, the Reformed group was ready to approve a preliminary plan for union, according to Joel Belz, editor of the RPCES magazine Mandate.

The two problem areas of negotiation are “Christian liberty” and Reformed doctrine. The first involves application of the Christian ethic to the Christian life. While the churches’ standards are almost identical, the RPCES is considered stricter in matters like drinking and smoking. The OPC is also wary of the RPCES’s commitment to the Reformed doctrine, fearing that it leans to Arminian and dispensational theologies.

While a recent limited survey indicates 77 per cent of RPCES ministers expect union within the next ten years, and 65 per cent favor union, neither side appears to be in a hurry.

Said an Orthodox Presbyterian spokesman: “We want to take things slowly and end up with one bigger denomination, not three smaller ones.”

The newly elected Reformed moderator, the Reverend Richard W. Gray of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, strongly supports union.

A Puppy For Peru

A Labrador Retriever puppy and a red plush photo album aided earthquake victims in Peru last month. They were among items auctioned in Peru, New York, by the Community and Roman Catholic churches for a total of $2,400 in relief funds for the stricken country.

Meanwhile, the small town’s Latin American namesake continued digging out from under crumbled adobe buildings and mud slides. Among those killed in the fifty feet of mud that buried Yungay (see July 31 issue, page 33) were the wife and four children of Juan Villenca, pastor of the local Church of God (Cleveland).

His was one of forty-six Protestant churches that the Peruvian Council of Churches reported destroyed or heavily damaged. Assemblies of God, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Nazarene, and Pilgrim Holiness churches were also quake casualties. A Salvation Army officer estimated losses at $500,000.

Relief for those and other losses continued to come from religious sources, including German, Norwegian, Danish, and Canadian Protestant churches. Lutheran World Relief set aside $250,000. Meanwhile, a hundred Iranian communities were also in need after an earthquake, and relief agencies hurried to hurricane victims in Texas, Cuba, and Florida.

“All of this [relief work] may seem far from preaching the Gospel,” a Lutheran missionary wrote home to Bloomington, Minnesota, “but in works of mercy Christ is preached.” The Reverend Robert Engwall told of an unchurched Peace Corps worker at the Lutheran medical post who “offered to swap two impossible-to-buy bottles of Coke for a New Testament.” He added: “We are sure others, too, have been touched.”

Nigerian Relief Continues

June was to be the cut-off month for relief food distribution in Nigeria’s wartorn areas, but the time was extended as the protein deficiency disease kwashiorkor continued to take its toll. Protestant and Roman Catholic relief teams will continue food distribution through state channels until September, when crops should be ready for harvest.

As undernourished peasants anxiously tend their crops, malnutrition cases are actually increasing in some pockets. In Onitsha the patient load increased nearly 100 per cent. However, the director of the Save the Children Fund in Nigeria, James Bell, said the government is getting food to most places despite bad transportation problems.

Armed robbery is a big concern, as former soldiers roam the countryside seeking food. The government is taking stem measures. In one community 7,000 villagers watched a ten-man firing squad execute a man who stole a pig and stabbed the owner and her daughter to death.

General Yakubu Gowon, the head of state, told reporters he would soon announce the date for return to civilian rule. He denied that ex-Biafran leaders were being detained, pointing out that Dr. Francis Ibiam, former Eastern Nigeria premier and Biafran spokesman during the war, has been permitted to visit his family in Europe. Ibiam, a vice-president of the World Council of Churches and president of the Nigerian Bible Society, says he intends to resume his work as a Presbyterian minister.

W. HAROLD FULLER

Religion As An Elective

A special Protestant-Catholic commission on education is urging the Ontario public-school system to provide elective courses in religion.

Canada has never held a theory of education based on the church-state separation principle, which has prevailed in the United States. Until a few years ago nearly all children in Ontario received either Catholic or Protestant instruction by clergymen who came to school during class hours. But increasing complaints by parents have curtailed this program. Some school boards with strong Jewish and humanistic influences have dropped religious education altogether (see June 5, 1970, issue, page 47).

Two years ago a government committee recommended a program to enable teachers to discuss religious matters as they occur in English, history, and other social-science classes. But the plan hasn’t been carried out.

The latest proposal comes in a brief to the Ontario Minister of Education from the Ecumenical Study Commission on Religious Education.¹

“Believing that education is essentially concerned with the things that make us human,” the brief declares, “we cannot conceive of eliminating religion from the educational process.”

Under the suggested plan, school boards would decide whether they wanted elective courses in religion. The courses would give full academic credit and would be taught by “certified specialists in religious studies on the regular full-time staff of the school.”

Some church spokesmen promptly registered opposition. One said that “school-board type of religion … is just a watering-down of Christianity until it becomes a pale pink eyewash.”

The brief identifies “the three basic religions of contemporary Canada” as “Christianity, Judaism, and secular humanism.” To counter the objection that religion teachers either would lack personal conviction or would evangelize their students, the brief argues: “We would regard it as both natural and desirable that those equipped to teach religious studies would in all likelihood be committed to one particular religious conviction; a teacher of English or art who has no favourite patron or system is as rare as he is colourless, and there is no reason to demand or expect that a teacher of religion should be any more—or any less—objective than the teacher of any other of the humanities.”

The drafters of the brief went on to say that they hoped “the type of training that he had received in university would have cured him of any propensity to ‘proselytize,’ and school boards would have every right to demand this.”

ROBERT BROW

Ordination: A New Adornment?

Women are an ecumenical problem.

Within the past decade a number of interfaith negotiations have been imperiled by the question of the ordination of women. And the recent decision by the Luthern Church in America to grant ordination to women drew immediate fire from the head of the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (see July 17 issue, page 33). Further, a prominent Roman Catholic theologian present at the LCA convention to speak on Lutheran-Catholic dialogue wished aloud that the ordination decision had been delayed until greater progress has been achieved in unity talks between the two faiths.

Last month, however, an official national dialogue commission of the Catholic Church and the Reformed-Presbyterian churches concluded that “ordination of women must come to be a part of the church’s life.”

“There is a growing consensus … that there is no insurmountable biblical or dogmatic obstacle to the ordination of women,” the theological section of the consultation concluded in a statement published in the summer issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. The report was based on a three-day spring meeting in Morristown, New Jersey, the first of a series on the role of women.

The Catholic Church doesn’t admit women to either the priesthood or the diaconate, but most member churches in the Reformed-Presbyterian group ordain them to the full ministry. Even so, added the report, all the churches have relegated women to “a secondary and often demeaning ministry.… We have found the evidences of discrimination based upon sex to be so substantial that we are obliged, being led, as we believe, by the Holy Spirit, to confess our guilt as members of our respective churches and as members of our social order.”

Religion In Transit

The Evangelical Church of North America, organized in Portland, Oregon, two years ago, reports a 6 per cent growth in Oregon and Washington to 6,109 members and fifty-six member congregations in the past year. Overall the denomination has about 10,000 members in ten states.

Sola Scriptura, a new theological journal released last month to “emulate and stimulate the spirit of the Lutheran Confessors,” says it is an “international voice of authentic Lutheranism.”

Establishment of a federation of conservative Lutheran bodies was proposed by Lutherans Alert-National at its annual convention in Moorhead, Minnesota, last month.

Members of the bishops’ committee on farm labor helped negotiate the recent contract between Cesar Chavez and California table-grape growers. The Catholic background of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee is underscored by a picture of the Virgin Mary and a statue of Christ on the cross that adorn the walls of the union headquarters in Delano.

A.D. 1970 didn’t last through its namesake year. The successor to the 105-year-old Catholic weekly, Ave Maria, folded last month after eighteen issues. Declining circulation and revenue were cited for suspending publication.

Urban Ministries, the first predominantly black-owned publishing company to produce interdenominational Sunday-school literature and focus on black urban-church needs, has been formed in Chicago.

A New York state law which set aside $28 million in public funds to recompense private and church-related schools has been challenged in a New York federal court. The Public Education and Religious Liberty Committee and thirteen individual plaintiffs contend the law is unconstitutional.

The Reverend Travis Case of Tabernacle Baptist Academy in West Memphis, Arkansas, said the church-owned school, to be opened next month, will be segregated, despite an Internal Revenue Service order removing tax-exempt status from segregated private schools.

The Division of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has been established in the National Institute of Mental Health. The starting budget will be $3,175,000.

A $20,000 grant to Christ Church (Presbyterian) of Burlington, Vermont, to support its model program in juvenile delinquency prevention and control was the only church-sponsored project to win a federal grant this year under the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968.

Personalia

John M. Berentschot, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Mateo, California, was elected president of the Conservative Baptist Association of America … George M. Orvick, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin, has been named president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod … Dr. Marshall Leggett, pastor of Broadway Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, was elected president of the North American Christian Convention.

Federico Alessandrini, lay deputy director of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican City daily, has succeeded Fausto Villainc as head of the Vatican press office. Villainc will become auxiliary bishop of Siena.

Grandchildren watched and friends choked with emotion as the 91-year-old bridegroom and the 82-year-old bride plighted their troth. Lyle E. Talbott (his fifth wedding) and Ann Shannon (her third) were married in a Portland, Oregon, church where they met through a social program for the elderly sponsored by Lincoln Street Methodist and nine other city congregations.

Negro evangelist William E. Pannell has been elected to the Fuller Seminary board of trustees.

The Reverend B. J. Stiles, former editor of controversy-crusted motive magazine, has been named chairman of the board of Christianity and Crisis, a fortnightly journal published in New York.

Deaths

MARK FAKKEMA, 80, first executive director of the National Association of Christian Schools; in Chicago.

J. ROSWELL FLOWER, 82, pioneer figure in the Assemblies of God and last survivor of officials elected at the denomination’s organizational meeting in 1914; in Springfield, Missouri.

VINCENT C. HOGREN, 62, vice-president and director of Christian Life Publishing, onetime radio announcer for Billy Graham and “Songs in the Night,” former president of Scripture Press; in Frankfurt, Germany, while vacationing, of a heart attack.

DANIEL T. NILES, 62, ecumenical leader, a World Council of Churches president, Ceylonese Methodist churchman; in Vellore, India.

THEODORE O. WEDEL, 78, former canon of Washington Cathedral and warden emeritus of its College of Preachers, husband of Cynthia, who is president of the National Council of Churches; in Alexandria, Virginia.

World Scene

While membership in Lutheran churches in the United States and Canada showed an increase during the past year, a slight drop (33,138) was recorded on a worldwide basis; the heaviest losses were among the churches of East Germany. The Lutheran Church in Indonesia showed the biggest gain.

The Confessional Lutheran Church of Finland has broken pulpit and altar fellowship ties with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod because the latter has accepted “new, loose ecumenical principles into its doctrine.”

After prolonged pressure from the Nationalist Chinese government, the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan voted to withdraw last month from the World Council of Churches until it “stops calling for the entry of Communist China into the United Nations.”

Pope Paul’s scheduled visits include the Philippines and Australia this November, and Yugoslavia in September, 1971. The latter would be the first visit by any Roman Catholic pontiff to a Communist country.

A British peer, Lord Grantchester, plans this year to get the Church of England’s status changed to a “private” denomination, not one sponsored by the government—nor headed by Queen Elizabeth.

The Reverend Robert Yeomans of Shrewsbury, England, was trying to get some enthusiasm from a choir rehearsal of the hymn “I Cannot Help but Wonder Where I’m Bound.” A grating in the floor gave way and Yeomans sank through the hole up to his chest.

The next Pan-Orthodox Conference will be held after two years, according to Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras—not sooner as Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos and other American bishops had requested (see July 31 issue, page 30). Furthermore, consideration of the changing situation in America probably won’t be on the agenda.

Missionary Aviation Fellowship is building a prototype of an inexpensive, easily operated hovercraft for use by missionaries. One area where the service is needed is Africa’s Lake Chad.

Rally Round the Cross

The cross was old—nailed together from junk-heap scraps two years ago by a young minister and his Hell’s Angel friend. And rugged—from the seven-month, 3,500-mile journey from Los Angeles to Washington, D. C.

But on a sunny Saturday morning in July, the ten-foot, 105-pound¹ cross was carried proudly at the head of a block-long band of demonstrators parading around the Washington Monument toward the Capitol. Later the cross was placed on a shaded corner near the monument, marking the headquarters of a forty-day nation-wide campaign for spiritual renewal.

The moment of glory was noisy and happy: traffic stopped and passers-by stared as the cross advanced on the shoulders of the Reverend Arthur Blessitt and former black militant Jesse Wise. The crowd followed, filling one lane of Independence Avenue and chanting, “Solution: spiritual revolution.” Monitors with megaphones led other cheers: “Gimme a J—gimme an E—gimme an S.… What does it spell?”

“Jesus!”

“What does Washington need?”

“Jesus!”

“What does our President need?”

“Jesus!”

Waving signs with “Bridge over troubled waters: Jesus” and “Do you really care, Christian?” the crowd of some 800 was predominantly young with dress ranging from hippie to straight. But there were some elderly men in suits and mothers with strollers, and a good showing of middle-aged, middle-income America. For most of these it was their first demonstration. “Six months ago if you’d told me I’d ever walk in something of this nature, I’d have told you I’d have to be crazy,” admitted Dr. Kenneth Balthrop, a minister from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was national coordinator of the “Walk for Christ.” “But it’s worth putting your whole life on the line,” he added. A 76-year-old Washington man explained: “I’m for it—anything that gets the kids turned on for Jesus.”

After the march, the cross was leaned against a platform near the Washington Monument while the marchers spent twenty-four hours in prayer and fasting for national renewal. Sitting on the grass in groups of ten to twenty, some with guitars, they sang, prayed, read Bibles, and witnessed to the curious who stopped by.

Groups of hippies were attracted by 29-year-old Blessitt’s striped bell-bottoms, maroon leather vest, and gold Tom Jones shirt. “Are y’all saved?” he would ask them, pushing his long hair back from his sunburned face and grinning so disarmingly they couldn’t be offended. From there it was a simple, hard-line but hip presentation of the Gospel—and hundreds of conversions within two days.

Fanning out among the crowds in the monument area, the young people who followed him took the same aggressive and honest approach. “We ain’t rapping religion, man, we’re rapping a way of life,” one young hippie earnestly told another.

They were sitting around a candle stuck in the grass, with a large, full orange moon rising and the sharp white shaft of the monument etched against the dark sky. “When you have sex on mescaline, man, there can’t be anything better than that,” the unbeliever scoffed. “Look, I took it too,” answered a young man with gold-rimmed glasses and soft brown chin-length hair. “But this is like shooting up every morning—it’s like real truth inside your being.…” And so it went in clustered groups throughout the night.

The twenty-four hours ended Sunday, July 19, with a rally and challenge by Blessitt for all to go out in a forty-day evangelistic effort to “blitz the nation for Jesus Christ.” Heading the outreach to the capital were two young Southern Baptist ministers, Leo Humphrey, who runs a coffeehouse ministry in New Orleans, and Sam Tippit, who is starting a coffeehouse in Chicago.

Those gathered were from all parts of the country, including many led to Christ along the way by Blessitt and others such as the “Louisiana Seven” (including Tippit), who walked and witnessed, pushing a wheelbarrow of Testaments from Monroe, Louisiana.

Blessitt and his wife planned to fast and pray the entire forty days, sitting near the cross and a phone booth on a corner between the monument and the White House. They promised to answer the phone (Code 202-393-8893) around the clock, taking prayer requests. In addition, Blessitt called out sermons, and his group casually talked with those walking along the busy street. His approach with businessmen: a few minutes of conversation and then the polite but friendly question, “Are you a Christian, sir?”

“You don’t reach people unless you’re in the world that they’re in,” Blessitt explains, urging a revival on streets and sidewalks. “I grew up in bars and night clubs—in that world the message of Jesus Christ never came.” His mission has been to take the Gospel to these places ever since his conversion at the age of 7 and his first preaching at 15.

Ordained at 19 in a Southern Baptist church in Mississippi, he attended Mississippi College in Clinton and Golden Gate Baptist Seminary in San Francisco without graduating from either. “I haven’t had time,” he explains. Instead, he started churches in tough towns such as Anaconda, Montana, and Elko, Nevada. Now he operates a coffeehouse, “His Place,” on Sunset Strip in Hollywood, between a topless joint and a liquor store. After the fast, he plans to return there, ministering to the 400 to 1,000 young people who pass through each night.

Why the campout on the Washington street corner? Blessitt points out that Jesus and his disciples went into the wilderness to pray and fast. “And brother, let me tell you, there’s not a bigger wilderness in America than Washington, D. C.,” he says. To him it’s a “jungle of hate, violence, and chaos.”

The wilderness the evangelist and his team walked through was real, too. Along most of the way people were friendly, but some (especially in the South) were hostile, refusing to let the team buy gas or groceries. Some drivers yelled and cursed; others tried to run over them, laughing as the cross-bearers fell in the roadside ditch.

“This gasoline says that cross will never make it to Washington,” some young men threatened in Birdseye, Indiana. Hoping to burn the cross, they expected an angry confrontation with the travelers. “They were dumbfounded when we started sharing Christ,” Blessitt remembers. “They bought us a Coke, and a few minutes later the guy with the gas can gave his heart to Christ.”

About 4,000 conversions were made during the walk on the highway, with evangelistic rallies and church meetings bringing the total to 8,000 or more, according to Blessitt.

In their exuberance, he and his group tend to see more of the lost being saved than evidence warrants. They reported that a radio announcer had called the publicized number, talked with an evangelist for twenty minutes on his night show, and given his life to Christ. However, Larry Glick of WBZ, Boston, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY he had allowed the evangelist to repeat the prayer of redemption over the radio, but had not prayed along and had no intention of becoming a Christian.

The five cross-bearers walked twenty-five to thirty miles a day, requiring up to twelve hours walking/witnessing time. In addition to Blessitt and Wise, they included James McPheeters, who accepted Christ while on alcohol and drugs at “His Place” two years ago and has since joined the Blessitt staff, and Daniel (O. J.) Peterson, once an alcoholic, later a condemner of “His Place,” and now a staff member for a year and a half. Ramsey Gilchrist, a student at Southeastern Louisiana College in Hammond, joined the group in Oklahoma. McPheeters, a Viet Nam veteran, says the walk was harder than anything in the Marine Corps but adds, “We’d rather burn out than rust out.”

Blessitt just may burn out. He says he has had five strokes. Doctors advised him not to make the trip, but he threw caution—and his medicine—to the winds (see July 17 issue, page 31). Although he felt fine on the trip, he became dizzy and nauseated with exhaustion two hours before he was to speak at the climaxing rally at the Washington Monument.

As he stood to begin his talk, he called to his side his wife, Sherry, and Wise, Peterson, and McPheeters. Leaning on them, he gradually gained strength. Tears streamed down his cheeks—and the cheeks of others—as, with hair disheveled, he prayed in a broken, catching voice: “God, we’d rather die for you than live for anything else. Help the people in the nation to see that.… Oh God, we must have America come back to you or we die.… We can’t live with our churches so cold, our preachers so dead, and our buildings so fine.”

ANNE EGGEBROTEN

Riches Untold?

The appearance isn’t poverty, despite Pope Paul’s recent efforts toward such an image for the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, some observers see the Vatican wealth as $12.8 billion or more.

That’s a “fantastic exaggeration,” retorted the Vatican daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in an unusual denial on July 21: “In reality the productive capital of the Holy See, comprising deposits and investments alike, lodged in Italy and outside Italy, is far from reaching the hundredth part of such a sum.” This puts the figure below $128 million.

Until release of the 1,800-word, fairly detailed statement, the Vatican had remained largely silent on the issue—despite wide publicity of charges, especially since the publishing of The Vatican Empire by Nino Lo Bello in New York two years ago. The denial was seen as a response to speculative articles in Der Spiegel of Germany, the weekly Il Mondo of Florence, and translations of Lo Bello’s book into French, German, and Italian.

Controversy now centers on interpretation of the Vatican’s statement, generally held to be accurate but carefully exclusive; for example, wealth of the religious orders is not included. Semantics is also a problem: just how is “productive” capital defined?

The article specifically refutes charges that the Vatican controls interests in various Italian companies and seven Italian banks.

Those arguments are “misleading,” explains C. Stanley Lowell, co-author of Praise the Lord for Tax Exemption. The authority on church finance says that de facto control can easily be exercised by the Vatican.

“Why don’t they come out of the shadows … and just say exactly what they do have the way other churches do?” asks Lowell, echoing the demands of an increasing number of observers.

Meanwhile, the mysterious wealth remains a secret of the Vatican vaults.

Strange Company

The Reverend T. Sherron Jackson, head of the entangled Baptist Foundation of America, Incorporated, is optimistic about the future of his tax-exempt, nonprofit organization, but he is about the only person who is.

The 48-year-old president of the Los Angeles-based foundation was indicted last month on charges of grand theft, writing bad checks, and giving a kickback to a loan officer. In two years, more than thirty civil suits for $2 million have been filed against the foundation, which, since its inception in 1966, had an aura of respectability.

The Wall Street Journal blew the whistle on the organization—ostensibly founded to build hospitals for children, retirement centers for the aged, and other facilities—in its lead story on July 1. The Journal reported that the California Attorney General, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Post Office Department, and the Justice Department also were investigating.

Jackson, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arkansas, formally organized the North American Baptist Association (now known as the Baptist Missionary Association of America) in Little Rock in 1950. It has about 200,000 members in 1,550 congregations. The Baptist Foundation of America’s nine-man board of trustees includes five other ministers. Jackson’s brother-in-law, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in La Verne, California, is vice-president.

The umbrageous dealings of the foundation are incredibly complex and devious. The ill-fated fund-raising venture appears to have been victimized as well as victimizing several well-meaning businessmen. Many of the transactions in question involve millions of dollars’ worth of promissory notes in exchange for assets and property—some of which apparently never existed at all, according to the Wall Street Journal’s intensive five-month study.

One unusual project was the reported purchase last year of the Global Baseball League for $3 million. The league never got off the ground, and its international teams complained of unpaid salaries and hotel bills.

A foundation director, the Reverend Ray Chappell of Santa Ana, told Los Angeles Times religion writer John Dart that Jackson is “a man of very high integrity” and that the charges won’t amount to anything “when all the information is in.”

World Lutherans: Unequal Standards

In a striking contrast to the sluggish pace of the first week’s meetings, the fifth assembly of the Lutheran World Federation drew to a close July 24 with a last-minute flurry of resolutions and amendments. The whirlwind finish of the eleven-day event was blamed by some on the LWF general secretary, Geneva-based André Appel of Alsace-Lorraine, who appeared to regard the developments with a kind of urbane impartiality, but whose hand seemed to have been guiding the tiller in a predetermined direction at certain crucial times.

Two hundred twenty-one delegates from forty-four countries, representing eighty-two¹ member churches, debated policies and programs affecting the life and work of 75 million Lutherans around the world, easily the largest Protestant denomination. The highest forum of Lutheranism was held at the French resort city of Evian-Les-Bains on the shore of Lake Geneva—and the location itself was one of the most controversial issues of the assembly.

Opening plenaries were in large part devoted to lengthy discussion and explanations for changing the assembly site from Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, to Evian in France. As a result of the change, the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil withdrew its six participants. In a formal statement that church charged that the assembly “became an instrument of political movement at the moment it isolated the question regarding the location from the theme, ‘Sent Into the World,’ and made the decision in accordance with political expediency.”

Mounting irritation surfaced when thirty youth participants stood and put on black armbands to protest part of the keynote address by American Lutheran Church president Fredrik A. Schiotz. He cited reports of torture in Brazil, but also noted that the government had succeeded in its economic policies. The latter reference piqued the youth delegates.

The assembly was originally scheduled for East Germany in 1969, but was changed after the East German government withdrew its consent. During May of this year, mounting opposition to the Pôrto Alegre site was largely based on the grounds that the Brazilian government is dictatorial and uses police-state methods. Dr. Appel said the final decision to change the site hinged on the decision of the Brazilian church to invite the country’s president to the assembly.

Outgoing LWF president Schiotz several times expressed chagrin that threats of non-participation by some European Lutheran bodies had forced the change to Evian. On the opening day, Miss Apaisaria Lyimo of Tanzania vehemently criticized the location change as an injury to the brethren in Brazil and as another example of Europeans and North Americans claiming to know what is best for people elsewhere in the world.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY correspondent Harold O. J. Brown reported that the Brazilian church’s sense of injustice was no doubt heightened by the resolutions and discussions of the closing days which singled out Brazil for condemnation and investigation “while other nations with bloodier records were passed over in tactful silence.” There was speculation that the Brazilian church will withdraw from the LWF to preserve its self-respect.

Unequal standards seemed to be applied in criticizing governments and movements in various parts of the world; delicate tact was shown by the LWF towards the situation of churches in Eastern Europe, and toward problems in Russia and the “people’s democracies.”

Archpriest Pavel Sokolovski, a member of the Foreign Office of the Moscow Patriarchate, was much in evidence at the assembly and at press conferences. His contributions coincided with the position taken by Pravda, most notably when he arose to denounce attempts to discuss the rise of anti-Semitism in the USSR as “cold war propaganda.” The assembly rejected his demand that the situation in Soviet Russia be passed over. The final resolution on human rights expressed “concern” about the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union, as well as regret and condemnation for racism in southern Africa and in the United States.

The Mideast issue and Israel’s right to live were cautiously skirted, perhaps out of deference to the interests of the Soviet Union there, and despite vigorous attempts by a few delegates to have them discussed in a plenary session.

Youth delegates were indignant that the assembly didn’t pass a resolution supporting the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong), and had to be satisfied with one supporting Roman Catholic archbishop Dom Helder Camara of Brazil for the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. The resolution described Camara as a “symbol for those who have devoted their lives to the struggle against oppression and inhuman conditions of life.” The World Encounter of Lutheran Youth had earlier asked the delegates to endorse Camara as “a symbol of resistance to imperialism.…” Camara has been sharply critical of the present Brazilian government.

Another link with Roman Catholicism was the endorsement of continuing dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics. Delegates said their tradition and Catholicism should “strive for clear, honest, and charitable language in all … conversations.” Another resolution “gratefully acknowledged” the assembly appearance of Jan Cardinal Willebrands, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity. The cardinal, the first high-ranking Catholic to address an LWF gathering, praised Martin Luther and said that six years of Lutheran-Catholic theological discussions had helped the two churches toward overcoming their 450-year separation. But the prelate cautioned that doctrinal differences regarding the ministry, papal authority, and the role of Mary in salvation still remain unresolved.

Echoing Willebrand’s call for Christian unity was a prominent American Lutheran theologian, Dr. Kent S. Knutson, president of Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. Knutson (who removed complimentary copies of a new, theologically conservative Lutheran bimonthly, Sola Scriptura, from the assembly’s free literature table and hid them under the counter) told the assembly delegates that the positive attitude of Vatican II toward the world is a “good antidote to the negativism which we ourselves sometimes display.”

A highlight of the assembly was the decision to change the name of the Commission on World Mission to the Commission on Church Cooperation.

A delegate from India eloquently pled for retaining the word “mission,” saying that the Great Commission to evangelize and make disciples keeps the Church in India from being submerged in Hindu syncretism. Others argued, however, that the word implied assent to the destruction of the indigenous cultures of two-thirds of the world’s people. Dr. Paul Chauncey Espie of the Lutheran Church in America urged deletion of “mission” with the familiar logic that every aspect of the Church’s task is mission.

A walkout by some delegates was averted the next day after a proposal by Dr. Gunnar Stalsett of Norway was adopted, apparently alleviating fears that mission work was being downgraded. The statement asked member churches to “faithfully work for the proclamation of the Gospel to all nations.” Correspondent Brown reported that opinion differed as to whether the resolution truly represented loyalty to the Great Commission or was simply a sop thrown to the evangelically inclined.

Another significant action of the assembly was the urging of member churches “to declare … pulpit and altar fellowship with all member churches.” Theologians interpreted the request, which would mean mutual recognition and exchange of sacraments and preachers, as a major step toward the goal of worldwide Lutheran unity.

The LWF’s new president, Finnish theologian Mikko Elinar Juva, 51, stated that being a Lutheran means first of all being a Christian. Speaking in the assembly’s final hour, Juva, a professor at the University of Helsinki, said the greatest problem in the worldwide economic gap is the relationship between the poor and the affluent. Juva won on the first ballot the only contested election for the LWF presidency in its twenty-four year history.

LWF General Secretary Appel concluded that tension at the assembly was so high that the Evian conference would be the last of its kind. He said three basic questions remained unanswered: the reason for a Christian witness in the world, the political role of the Church, and the character of fellowship within the LWF.

Recognizing that the assembly lacked consensus—except that the Church should act to change social structures—U. S. staff secretary Dr. Carl Thomas suggested the federation can now move in one of two directions: “We can either recognize the existence of a true pluralism in political philosophy, or we can move in the direction of polarization.”

Chapel Tradition Unbroken

Chapel or church attendance at the nation’s three military academies is “an integral and necessary part” of the military training for future officers, a U. S. District Court judge ruled in Washington, D. C., last month, thus ending—at least temporarily—an attempt by two cadets and nine midshipmen to break a 150-year pattern of mandatory chapel services at the schools.

As a part of the Pentagon’s training package for officers, “its purpose is purely secular, and … its primary effect is purely secular,” declared Judge Howard F. Corcoran. The plaintiffs contended that compulsory attendance at worship services violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, and also constitutes a religious test for office.

A. Ray Appelquist of the Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel Commission told the court during hearings last April that mandatory chapel had an “adverse effect” on recruiting chaplains.

Judge Corcoran noted that the plaintiffs had introduced “forceful testimony …” but failed to show the effect “is anything but slight, insubstantial, and non-extensive” on the military school students. The case is expected to be appealed.

Stamp Of Approval

The spire of St. Phillips’ Church will be part of the design of a stamp commemorating the 300th anniversary of the first permanent settlement in South Carolina. The new stamp will go on sale at Charleston ceremonies September 12.

The stamp marks the founding of Charles Town (Charleston) by 150 colonists who arrived in the New World in 1670. A tercentenary celebration is in progress at Charleston this year.

St. Phillips’, the oldest Episcopal parish south of Virginia and a landmark of downtown Charleston, was erected in 1837. Among famous persons buried in its churchyard are Edward Rutledge, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and John C. Calhoun, a senator and vice-president of the United States.

GLENN EVERETT

World Baptists: Touring Tokyo

“Why are we here? Because we have a mission and a ministry of reconciliation through Christ!” With these words, former Baptist World Alliance president Theodore F. Adams welcomed 8,556 Baptists from seventy-six countries to Tokyo’s huge sports palace, the Budokan, for their twelfth world congress.

Why had the delegates come? For the biggest Christian gathering ever held in Tokyo. For hand-shaking, back-slapping fellowship. For a week of addresses, discussions on the Church’s social role, workshops, top music, and evangelistic preaching.

By closing night (July 18), however, many delegates were still asking themselves just what—at least for this conference—that mission and ministry Adams referred to really involved. Despite a profusion of “name” speakers and the best musical talent from scores of world Baptist bodies, the prevailing mood as summed up in the conversation of one official on closing day was: “Almost everyone seems dissatisfied. Not one person has come to me and said, ‘What a great convention!’ ”

A major complaint was the overwhelming (and apparently often insensitive) American dominance of the congress. Nearly 6,000 of the delegates came from the United States. Nearly all speeches, songs, and announcements were in English; only major addresses were translated even into Japanese (1,300 Japanese delegates were present). A Haitian panelist commented: “While I am speaking about world peace, I have no peace in my heart, because I’m speaking in a language that’s not mine.”

Even the youth delegates, who spent much time in their group sessions demanding more representation in BWA decision-making, squabbled for nearly two hours one afternoon over American domination at the youth enclaves.

More significant to many was a seeming lack of seriousness about the conference as a whole. Most speakers stressed unity—“Reconciliation Through Christ” was the official theme, and debate was largely avoided. But in most cases it seemed to be a unity of indifference (or suppression) rather than of deep fellowship.

When Roger Hayden, an English pastor, sought to discuss the resolutions presented for congress action, he was quickly thwarted by deft BWA president William R. Tolbert, Jr., vice-president of Liberia. The resolutions passed without debate. When two panelists seemed to take opposite positions during a discussion of human existence, they quickly ended debate with the mutual remark, “But basically we agree, don’t we?” One delegate complained of the “bureaucratic tone” of speeches; a check of the program showed more than 100 church administrators on the agenda. Several blamed the “shallowness” on an agenda that packed eighty talks on nearly forty topics into only thirteen general sessions.

New World Baptist Head: Bringing Together 31 Million

V. Carney Hargroves sees the presidency of the Baptist World Alliance as a “kind of public-relations post” to bring together the world’s 31 million Baptists. As the new BWA president, the 70-year-old pastor, who has been at Second Baptist Church of Germantown (Philadelphia) since 1932, would like nothing more than to share that unity with Baptists in mainland China. “I think they’re still there,” he said in a post-election interview. “And I’d like most of all to go visit them during these next five years.”

Travel in Communist lands would be nothing new for the small, quiet-mannered American Baptist clergyman and former North American Baptist Fellowship president. He taught in Kiangsi province in the 1920s and was one of the first Americans to visit Russia after Stalin’s death—a trip that he likes to think helped open the way for extensive cultural contacts between East and West. He has traveled in every Iron Curtain land except Bulgaria and Albania.

Looking ahead, Hargroves sees himself as an activist, an “issues man.” One thing he would like to do is bring together the world’s confessional bodies, as well as non-Christian religious leaders to work systematically for world peace. Sensing current trends, he also wants to involve youth more actively in BWA leadership. And he wants to lead Baptists into broader ecumenical cooperation.

“I’m ecumenically minded,” he says. “I believe in cooperation. And I mean cooperation with Catholics, too. Above all, I pledge my efforts to achieve unity among Baptists. This is essential.”

Perhaps a member of the Tokyo host committee struck the root of the problem when he observed that “by far the delegates’ most predominant motive in coming to Tokyo was travel, not spiritual growth—a chance to see Expo 70 and the Far East.” Tokyo merchants recognized this. And one newspaper ad proclaimed a “Welcome to the Baptist and Urologist Conventioners.” Hundreds of delegates left Tokyo in mid-week to continue tours of Asia. Quipped evangelist Billy Graham on closing night: “I’ve never seen so many women delegates shopping as I’ve seen here … I think almost every one of you bought a camera.”

The congress did have lively, probing moments. Several evening sessions included strongly evangelistic addresses sandwiched between colorful pageants depicting Scripture passages and Baptist scenes around the world. Although a few speakers centered on either the social or spiritual role of the Church, most balanced the need to follow both of Christ’s commands—love God, and love man.

For example: Harold Stassen (a former American Baptist Convention president), even while calling for a revision of the United Nations charter to include all nations (including two Viet Nams, two Chinas, and two Germanies), said he prefers to be known as a “Minnesota farm boy who at the age of twelve accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and tried only to follow that acceptance.” ¹

The official congress message urged “men to repentance and faith and the way of the cross,” while official resolutions dealt with social problems ranging from peace and ecology to poverty and racial justice.

Angie Brooks-Randolph, United Nations General Assembly president and an active Baptist laywoman from Nigeria, defended the Church’s historic teaching on salvation, then called for the Church to speed up greatly its work in areas such as seeking peace and fighting poverty.

Another unexpected, lively moment came when the nominating committee chairman presented American Baptist minister V. Carney Hargroves as its choice for BWA president—with the remark that “so great has been the spirit of unity that never in sixty-five years has there been a nomination from the floor.” Immediately another committee member rose from the floor to nominate former Southern Baptist head Herschel H. Hobbs of Oklahoma City.

Most delegates thought the challenge was an expression either of Southern Baptist (by far the largest BWA component) pique over being bypassed in the presidential nomination, or internal maneuvering by conservative and liberal Southern Baptist factions. Hargroves won, 841 to 636 (see story adjoining).

A call for Baptist churches around the world to participate in a world evangelistic effort of reconciliation between 1973 and 1975 was presented by Rubens Lopes of São Paulo, president of the Brazilian Baptist Convention.

For the first time, a commission presented a report on Christian unity, discussing ways Baptists can relate more closely to those of other denominations. Unity among Christians is one of the burning issues of the times, declared George Beasley-Murray of Spurgeon’s College, London.

By far the liveliest session came on the final night, when some 12,000 persons, many non-Baptist, turned out to hear Billy Graham preach on “Youth on the March.” Several Japanese youths (who had initially fought the holding of a BWA congress in Tokyo) protested the evangelist’s silence on Viet Nam by passing out leaflets, chanting briefly, and clapping their hands.

Their efforts were largely ineffective, however, as Graham preached faith in Christ as youth’s only genuine answer. He decided “on the spot” to issue an invitation; several hundred persons came forward to make decisions for Christ.

The very aliveness of the final night contrasted sharply, in the minds of not a few delegates, with the business-as-usual tone of most other sessions. Early in the week, BWA General Secretary Robert S. Denny had said: “Eight thousand of us are in Tokyo, spending $12 million.… This is good. Let no one say, ‘We should have stayed home and given money to something else.’ We would not have given the money.”

By week’s end, however, it was a point to ponder.

JAMES L. HUFFMAN

25 Years Later: ‘No More Hiroshimas!’

Twenty-five years after he crawled from the rubble of his office at a Christian girls’ college in Hiroshima, Japan, Takuo Matsumoto, college president, Bible translator, and Methodist minister, visited the United States with five other survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings to observe the anniversary of the blasts—August 6 and 9. Speaking in Portland, Oregon, last month, his skin still discolored by radiation from history’s first atom bomb explosion, he said he bears no grudges against the United States.

Matsumoto, now 82, feels his life was saved through a series of miracles. He was knocked unconscious by the blast. After about an hour, he relates, he crawled out of the wreckage of his office “struggling like a ghost out of hell.” Minutes later the collapsed building burned to ashes. He said 352 students and eighteen teachers died, and his wife was killed also.

After dragging eight girls out of the wreckage of the chapel, he kept searching for more. Many were blown to bits; a few were blinded by the flash. He later came to the United States for treatment of radiation sickness.

Despite his age, Matsumoto is director of the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima. Reared and educated in Japan, he also studied at Ohio Wesleyan University, Drew Seminary, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago. He translated the New Testament from Greek into Japanese seventeen years ago; 40 million copies have been distributed in Japan. He is now helping with another translation into commonly spoken Japanese.

Matsumoto planned to see President Nixon August 6 and give him a message from the mayor of rebuilt Hiroshima along with a piece of polished black coral with a pearl in the middle crafted by A-bomb survivors.

“I got a Christian education in the United States. I owe so much to America,” he said in an interview. “It taught us Christian love, cooperation, patience, forgiveness. My father was converted to Christianity by an American missionary, and we learned from America what Christian love means.”

But declaring that war is “utterly childish,” Matsumoto added that it is hard for him to explain to non-Christian friends the apparent contradiction of the United States sending “tens of thousands of soldiers to destroy people.”

His mission in this country is “not to mull over tragedies but to look for ways to build a new world on peace and love.” He also said he hopes countries possessing nuclear weapons will dispose of them. “They have slaughtered enough innocent people,” he asserted. “Let us have no more Hiroshimas!”

WATFORD REED

Madalyn’s Manifesto

About forty men and women bent over green-checkered tablecloths drawing up a manifesto demanding historical recognition, acceptance as individuals, and an end to discrimination.

A task force of Negro or Mexican-American churchmen preparing demands for their denominational convention? Hardly. Rather, businessmen, merchants, housewives, educators, and farmers were attending the nation’s first state convention of atheists in Austin, Texas.

Described by mogul Madalyn Murray O’Hair as the “avant-garde of atheism,” the group adopted the “American Atheists’ Manifesto” in the only open session of the two-day meeting July 25–26. Newsmen were pledged not to identify participants.

Most sessions were devoted to problems atheists face, like being refused passports because they omit “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mrs. O’Hair said conventions eventually will be held in every state, and urged participants to identify themselves to their families, employers, and employees.

Although the meeting was much smaller than the 150 to 500 persons anticipated, Mrs. O’Hair assured the convention that they represented 4 million atheists in Texas, based on an estimate that 40 per cent of the American population does not attend church. The manifesto, declaring reason as the supreme authority, will serve as a religious philosophy to gain tax-exempt status for the farcical Poor Richard’s Universal Life Church.

MARQUITA MOSS

Heresy At Concordia? A Matter Of Interpretation

Although Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president Jacob A. O. Preus intimated way last February (see March 27 issue, page 33) that he would move against liberal professors in the denomination’s seminaries, the declared “investigation” only began to stir up a hornet’s nest in recent weeks.

Amid charges, countercharges, and denials, several things appeared relatively certain early this month: (1) The probe will be carried out this fall and will involve perhaps a dozen faculty members who teach biblical exegesis at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; (2) Concordia president John H. Tietjen denies that his staff teaches anything contrary to Missouri Synod doctrine.

Whether Tietjen actually “welcomes” the investigation, as he told reporters, is doubtful, however. More realistically, he is whistling boldly, asserting that “It is not Lutheran to expect uniformity in interpretation of Scripture passages or agreement on the nature and authority of biblical texts.…”

Preus, who carefully avoids the epithet “heresy trials” when referring to the probe (it could result in the expulsion of faculty considered heretical), sees his constitutional responsibility for the “doctrine and life” of the church as a mandate for the action. He doubtless would prefer not to be the hatchet man, but pressure from the theological right leaves him almost no room in which to maneuver.

Said Preus in an interview with CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “The use of the historical-critical method, so-called, in dealing with the Bible is the root of the problem and needs to be settled and clarified. … The very fact that [it often leads] to the rejection of plenary and verbal inspiration as though it were a scientific impossibility is sufficient reason for investigating its application in our seminaries.…”

Evangelism as Social Therapy

Do your own thing? It’s an often quoted phrase, but poor philosophy. Even hippies know that today’s world cannot afford that luxury.

Modern man tends to view more and more things with an eye to survival. He sees social problems slowly but steadily closing in. Any idea risks scrutiny for its potential to avert chaos.

So with evangelism. With the passing of the live-and-let-live-era, evangelistic efforts are increasingly being obliged to show how they alleviate the world’s ills. The Church rightfully defends evangelism as a mandate given by its Lord, but the world isn’t satisfied with that. Secular man wants a pragmatic rationale.

Christians need not back off at this point. A more than adequate case can be made for evangelism’s potential for social betterment. Evangelism has effects that can be seen and appreciated even by the unbeliever. We can take a cue from the words of Jesus, “Believe me … or else accept the evidence of the deeds themselves.”

How, then, do we show the world that the spread of Christianity is, as the politician would say, “in the public interest”? The primary answer lies in history. The positive social benefits of bygone revivals are well documented. The world’s best-motivated men have been Christians. One can legitimately point to Christianity as the greatest force for good the world has ever known. It is true that some horrible deeds have been committed in the name of Christianity, but no movement is fairly judged by its impostors. The best of Christianity eclipses the best of anything else.

Evangelism has a lot to show for itself on a more personal scale as well. Through Christian influence more lives have been rehabilitated, more homes restored, more charity extended, more disputes resolved, more friendships perpetuated, than by any other means. Christianity has been the greatest cultural inspiration the world has ever known. In short, Christians have a heritage second to none. History is on their side.

It is perhaps a result of this heritage that people question the social worth of Christendom today. We have a lot to live up to, and the world has been unconsciously conditioned to expect so much that it reacts abruptly when large-scale benevolence is not immediately apparent.

To be sure, when a man is converted things should begin to happen. That’s the way it has ideally been, and that’s the way it ought to be now. Evangelism that does not clearly enunciate Christ’s demands upon his followers is something less than biblical. The New Testament calls for individual repentance involving a radical turning around, the product of which is a completely different person whose love for humanity ought to become rapidly apparent.

The lack of interest in evangelism on the part of many church leaders might well be attributed not only to an ignorance of history but to a misunderstanding of evangelism in the best sense. They have erroneously regarded evangelism as irrelevant to the present human predicament. They have therefore gone on to other concerns that they thought were more closely tied in with things as they are. And in their preoccupation with the here and now they have presupposed that the Gospel puts its best foot forward when it identifies itself with corporate, often secular, schemes to make the nation and the world better to live in.

The folly of this neglect of evangelism is gradually being acknowledged, albeit indirectly, in the current revival of transcendence. Peter Berger seems to have begun it with Rumor of Angels in 1968, and New Theology No. 7 has it as its theme in 1970. Does this perhaps presage a fresh emphasis on evangelism during the seventies? It well might, for the idea of divine transcendence necessarily embraces the concept of the supernatural, and the supernatural eradication of sin is what evangelism is all about. A person’s commitment to Christ results in a divine, regenerative work that makes him a new being. Without this act of grace by God we do not have effective biblical evangelism.

Evangelism begins at home. It ought to start with one’s own children and other kin. It ought to be done among neighbors, school friends, and business associates as casually as it was by Jesus and his disciples. But a great deal can also be done at a group level, where coordination can be achieved and specialized apologetics used.

Christians in North America will soon have their greatest evangelistic opportunity ever on a collective scale. The Key 73 effort is a cooperative enterprise, with all the advantages of momentum gained from joint effort, yet one in which great latitude in method is provided for. Each denomination (more than three dozen already are active) will be carrying through its own program, augmented by coordinated promotion. Never before have so many evangelistically minded church leaders committed themselves to work together.

No evangelistic effort can promise to solve all society’s ills. The Christian message does not claim to be a cure-all, for in God’s plan the crooked will not be entirely straightened until Christ himself returns. The Bible shows not so much a way out as a way through. But the Christian Gospel can nonetheless be the most relevant factor on the contemporary scheme if it is examined fairly and preached fully. Christians need not be intimidated into thinking otherwise.

What we need to do is to demonstrate that Christianity works in the lives of those whom God has touched. Living epistles are as crucial today as they have ever been. True repentance and obedience will produce them.

This continent is overripe for evangelism, and Key 73 represents the opportunity for an abundant new harvest of souls. May an evangelical vanguard in every hamlet across North America begin work now. Evangelism is the one thing that can and ought to bring Christians together. Urge your denominational leaders to get in on the action. Let’s show the world!

The Gospel: Lutheranism’s Sine Qua Non

In many respects the fifth assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (see News, page 40) was like the World Council of Churches’ Uppsala assembly in 1968: There were the delegates of varying languages and hues, masses of papers and reports, press releases and conferences, and a general feeling that something exciting and important was about to happen. It never did.

There was a certain vigor to the denunications of capitalism, North American business, and police power in the United States. Such denunciations have become something of a badge of being “in” in liberal society and thus can hardly be compared with Martin Luther’s “Here I stand!” at Worms. But then Luther had a scriptural mandate for the changes he demanded, and the LWF’s fifth assembly, if it had such a mandate, did not present it.

An observer from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (not a member of the LWF) remarked at the close of the assembly: “Rome has its hierarchy and the Methodists have their discipline, but Lutheranism cannot live without the Scripture.”

Just so. The LWF assembly lacked power because it was conducted without Scripture, if for no other reason. There were many positive aspects to Evian-Les-Bains. Nevertheless, this Lutheran assembly, representing a constituency of nearly 54 million from eighty-two member churches, proudly bore the motto “Sent into the World.” The question remains: Can one be Lutheran without being evangelical? And, can one be evangelical without the Scripture?

Some things, in some circles, go without saying. But in a secular world, in a Lutheran assembly, it is not enough merely to avoid gainsaying the Gospel. The Good News can’t go without proclaiming.

Eve’s Second Apple

In the beginning, Eve bit into forbidden fruit and fell into subjection to Adam. Her descendants face a lesser temptation—equality with man instead of with God—but they are biting no less eagerly into their forbidden fruit. Although they finally won equal voting rights, women are still fighting for such things as equal pay for equal work. And the troops plan to muster next Wednesday for a strike in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the amendment that enfranchised females.

The potential consequences, if very many women go on strike, boggle the mind. We think, for example, what chaos would descend on this magazine if our women writers spend August 26 (a final deadline day!) composing picket signs that are transcribed by our secretaries, edited by our copy editor, proofed by our proofreader, financed (at least partially) by the distaff half of our advertising department, and circulated by subscription’s predominantly female staff.

And consider the effect on prayer meetings. If wives of clergymen who still conduct Wednesday evening services go on strike, those pastors will have to come to church after a day of house cleaning, grocery shopping, chauffering kids and refereeing their squabbles, cooking, and washing dishes. They won’t wonder why they nod during a sonorous prayer.

For a day, though, men could probably survive without ladies’ aid. But by the second day, havoc would surely begin to fall from modern Eve’s bite into the established order. Perhaps next Wednesday Christian women and men should strike out for the accord Paul advocated: “Be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind.… There must be no competition among you, no conceit.… In your mind you must be the same as Christ Jesus.”

Fidel The Failure

Before Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba he posed as an agrarian reformer hailed by many, including churchmen, as a healthy counteractor to the dictatorship of Batista. Castro overthrew the Batista regime, uncloaked his role of agrarian reformer and openly acknowledged that he was a Communist.

A few days ago Castro admitted in a long and plaintive speech that he had failed dismally, that Cuba’s economic situation is desperate, and that there is little hope for real improvement in the immediate future. Were it not for the Soviet Union’s imperialistic financial support that has propped up Castro’s shaky economic position, his government would collapse overnight.

It was pathetic to note that Castro blamed his failure not on the Communist system, but on the lack of cadres to carry it out. He ended by saying the revolution must go on. Where it can go from here is hard to say, and one must commiserate with the millions of suffering people who languish under the hand of this tyrant.

What Cuba desperately needs is Christianity and along with it political, economic and social freedom. A good healthy dose of some free enterprise would go a long way toward rescuing Cuba from its doldrums. Witness the remarkable economic improvement of West Germany, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia (before Soviet military might reversed the process) as they moved away from the chains of outdated, anachronistic, Communist thought toward the economic realities that have enabled Western democracies to offer their people a better life.

Fidel the failure apparently hasn’t learned much since he became Cuba’s dictator. What he needs to learn is that Christianity produces free men and free men do a far better job economically, politically, and socially than do slaves whose power to choose is curtailed and whose right to free speech has been abrogated.

From Holocaust To Hope

At 9:20 A.M. (Marianas time) a radio message was received at Tinian Island from the B-29 superfortress, Enola Gay. It said: “Mission successful.” At 3 P.M., the plane returned to Tinian and landed safely. As Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., alighted, General Carl Spaatz, commander of the Pacific Strategic Air Forces, pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on his jacket.

Hiroshima—the name blazoned to the world twenty-five years ago this month. The atomic age had begun.

Soon, Tibbets and his crew reported what was—up to that moment—the biggest man-made explosion in history. The men in the Enola Gay had seen the great red ball of fire rise and expand, as suddenly the whole city was ablaze with searing flame and boiling smoke. Then the monstrous pillar of atomic cloud spread into a giant white mushroom.

Three days later, August 9, a second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered August 14. Because of the confusion after the explosions, the exact number of dead and injured will never be known; official estimates said there were 80,000 deaths and as many injuries in Hiroshima, and 45,000 killed and 60,000 injured in Nagasaki. The ethics of dropping the bombs has been and will continue to be debated for years.

But mankind’s attention soon turned from holocaust to hope: the peacetime possibilities of atomic power. Today, atomic power plants abound (despite frequent local uneasiness about their presence), and radioactive isotopes have benefited medicine, science, engineering, industry, and agriculture. Atomic-powered submarines are a well-known example of how the atom has been harnessed for useful purposes. Even archaeology has been aided by the discovery that there is a slight amount of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in the atmosphere. This knowledge has enabled scientists to determine (although the accuracy of the method has been challenged recently) the age of many archaeological finds. And perhaps we still stand—even twenty-five years after Hiroshima—only on the threshold of the ultimate potential locked within the tiny atom.

That versatile writer, Isaac Asimov, has noted in his book, Inside the Atom:

Nothing in the history of mankind has opened our eyes to the possibilities of science as has the development of atomic power.… If only mankind can avoid destroying himself in atomic warfare, there seem to be almost no limits to what may lie ahead: inexhaustible energy, new worlds, ever-widening knowledge of the physical universe. If only we can learn to use wisely the knowledge we already have.…”

If only. Need we add that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10)? Or that man can never master the universe until he masters himself, and that that can be done only when he is enthralled by Jesus Christ?

An Arab-Israeli Detente?

We rejoice in the fact that the United Arab Republic and the State of Israel accepted in principle the peace plan for the Middle East and the ninety-day cease-fire that is part of it. This is only a small step in the right direction, but it may be the beginning of a negotiated settlement.

We know that the greater the tension and the more people involved the greater the difficulty to negotiate a viable solution. Essentially this difficulty is at the heart of the Arab-Israeli confrontation. Israel genuinely believes it is fighting for its very existence and wants security and recognition by the Arabs. The Arab world—a conglomeration of competing factions with no essential political unity, no common goals, and no particular love for one another—wants some token of “victory” after military defeat plus the return of the territories seized by the Israelis in their stunning military victory. The Soviet Union is caught in the tentacles of deep military involvement on behalf of Nasser and the possibility of war with the United States if things go wrong. The United States has commitments to Israel and the moral obligation to prevent another genociding of Jews. It is faced with the threat of Soviet imperialist adventurism based on national interests that collide with its own. But it doesn’t want war with the Soviets because nuclear weaponry guarantees that nobody will win—or even, perhaps, survive—such a conflict.

Deep wrongs have been perpetrated; neither the Arabs nor the Israelis have totally clean hands. Justice in an abstract sense is impossible, and any negotiated settlement will necessitate some gains and some losses by both sides. Because Israel is unlikely to give up its holdings in Palestine, the displaced Palestinian Arabs have little hope of repatriation, and the injustice they have suffered must be remedied by providing them with other lands and new hope for a viable and decent life.

It should be apparent that war is no solution for the political and human problems of the Middle East. Reason and diplomacy are the only hope, and if they fail the prospects are too dismal to contemplate. The first stage is the cease-fire that would benefit both Jews and Arabs. This can succeed and progress only if the Soviet Union and the United States work together to hold their respective clients in line. If either lacks the good faith the situation calls for or the determination to secure a modus vivendi, then the picture is dark indeed.

It is in the best interests of the United States and the Soviet Union to work for a negotiated settlement and then to guarantee that settlement as well as to stabilize the situation for the years ahead. The road will be difficult, the obstacles many, and the human element forbidding. Christians, most of whom can personally do little to shape the course of events, ought to pray earnestly that God will work to cool the boiling pot and bring order out of the present chaos.

Evangelical Without Adjectives

The conciliar movement in recent years has been using a label that has become part of the lingua franca. The term is “conservative evangelicals” and is applied primarily to evangelical groups and individuals outside the ecumenical movement. Both the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches have indicated their willingness to court and to have dialogue with “conservative evangelicals.”

The term is a misnomer, a label that is a libel, and one that should be discontinued at once. Our reasons for this disclaimer are obvious. The word “evangelical” is defined in Webster’s International as “pertaining to or designating that party or school among the Protestants which holds that the essence of the Gospel consists mainly in its doctrines of man’s sinful condition and need of salvation, the revelation of God’s grace in Christ, the necessity of spiritual renovation and participation in the experience of redemption through faith.” The adjective “conservative” before “evangelical” is superfluous and indeed redundant, provided that the word “evangelical” still is sound currency. The antonym of “conservative” is “liberal.” To say that a man is a “liberal evangelical” is a contradiction of terms, sheer nonsense. If he is an evangelical he cannot be a theological liberal; if he is a theological liberal he cannot be an evangelical. It is of course possible for a man to be an evangelical and at the same time to be a political or economic liberal. But as a theological badge, the term “conservative evangelical” is unnecessary, misleading, and deceptive. No evangelical needs any adjective before the word. It carries its own freight and stands on its own feet.

We are reminded of Kaiser Wilhelm to whom someone was introduced as a German-American. The king replied: “A German I know and an American I know, but a German-American I do not know.” An evangelical we know and a conservative we know, but a conservative evangelical we do not know.

The Spirit Of 1620

Love it or leave it, they decided, though they were scarcely offered that alternative. For their desire to leave the establishment they could not love, they received brickbats; for their efforts to leave the nation that refused them religious liberty, they were called traitors. But finally, to worship simply and purely, in contrast to the ritual of the established church, a group of English dissenters headed for Leyden, Holland, in 1608. There they worshiped freely on Sundays and scratched for a living in menial trades the rest of the week.

The hard life took its toll on their health and that of their children, and it failed to attract others who shared their views. Worse, some of their children, disillusioned by the futility of advancement, “were drawn away by evil examples” of unacceptable codes of conduct. So, 350 years ago this summer, they bade tearful farewells to what one of their leaders called “that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years.” William Bradford explained their decision—and left a challenge for Christians of all ages: “But they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits.”

Ulster: Who’s A Christian?

More than a dozen persons died in a two-week period last month during the “fraternal” strife engulfing six counties of Northern Ireland where the Protestant majority and the Roman Catholic minority endure peace-on-a-razor’s-edge.

Editor James O. Duncan of the Capital Baptist editoralized in the weekly publication of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention: “We believe that the time has come for the moral persuasive power of Catholics and Protestants around the world to be used to speak to the crisis in Northern Ireland.” Challenging Pope Paul and World Council of Churches chief Eugene Carson Blake to “leave the seclusion of Rome and Geneva,” Duncan called on them, if necessary, to “stand together in the middle of the street where Protestant and Catholic areas come together and seek to bring about some kind of reconciliation.”

“Since when,” Duncan asked, “do segments of the church have to kill and wound and exploit each other? What does Christianity mean to those who keep warring with one another?”

To Captain Charles Ritchie, a 28-year-old career soldier of the First Battalion, Royal Scots, it is a kind of riddle to keep him on good terms with both sides. Like most of the British Army soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland, Ritchie has been on Ulster patrol for four or five months. Before coming there, he told a New York Times reporter, “we never knew or cared whether a man in the unit was Protestant or Catholic. But here it’s the first thing people ask you.”

“I tell them that I’m a Christian,” he added with a smile. “They always love the puzzle. They don’t seem to know what that means.”

Obviously not.

Compassion In The Andes

“Desolation comparable to Hiroshima,” said one observer, describing what he saw in the shadow of the Andes after Peru’s earthquake almost three months ago. Though church relief agencies sped with appropriate cups of cold water—medicine, food, clothing, blankets, money for rebuilding—desolation lingers. To repair the devastation of the forty-second quake will no doubt require at least forty months (see News, page 46).

The spontaneous sympathy of Christians around the world and their willingness to shoulder the Peruvians’ burden is commendable. To carry that burden through the heat of the day, the cool of the night, and the rains of September will demand strong shoulders and inexhaustible compassion.

Quenching A Man-Sized Thirst

Changing times and tastes have taken the fizz out of that “old faithful,” the corner drugstore soda fountain. Marble counters, high stools, and mirrors framed by pyramids of glasses and tall jars of gooey flavoring are now an anachronism.

Soda water, points out the National Geographic Society, was first produced commercially in the United States in the 1830s when John Matthews of New York City sold the first soda-water generator. Chips of marble—many salvaged from the building of St. Patrick’s Cathedral—were added to sulphuric acid in a lead-lined box, generating carbonic acid gas that was then dissolved in water.

While the old-fashioned soda fountain is drying up, the soft-drink industry has swallowed up pinpoint carbonation. Fizzy-water devotees now buy carbonated beverages, ice cream, and a variety of tantalizing toppings at the supermarket. Then, with kitchen blenders, the imaginative whump up their own summer specialties.

All of which proves that man’s styles may change, and his tastes. But his thirst remains. So, too, the places and modes of man’s worship shift with the times. Yet his thirst for the water of life can be quenched from only one source: Jesus Christ. Whoever drinks fizzy water will thirst again, but he who drinks of the water Christ gives will never thirst. As Jesus said long ago to the woman at the local watering spot: “The water I give shall be an inner spring bubbling up for everlasting life” (John 4:14).

Strong Delusion

Ahab was king of Israel at the same time godly Jehoshaphat was king of Judah. Ahab had gathered about him a cluster of false prophets whose business it was to prophesy to him what he wanted to hear. He was not interested in listening to a true prophet, for he didn’t bow before God nor did he want to know the will of God. But God did not leave himself without a witness. Micaiah, a true prophet, was the only link that wicked Ahab had with God. Micaiah, however, told it like it was and generally managed to make Ahab unhappy.

Good Jehoshaphat made a bad alliance with Ahab (for which Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer, later rebuked him saying: “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? [1 Chron. 19:2]). When Ahab asked Jehoshaphat to join him in a military venture at Ramoth-gilead, Jehoshaphat agreed. Ahab’s prophets were consulted, and they promised him victory. But Jehoshaphat was not fully satisfied and asked if there was another prophet. Ahab mentioned Micaiah, whom, he said, “I hate … for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil” (2 Chron. 18:7). When called upon to prophesy, Micaiah did it again. He forecast Ahab’s death and also told Ahab that God had permitted a lying spirit to deceive Ahab and that this lying spirit would prevail.

All Micaiah got in return for his prophecy was a jail sentence. He was to be fed “with bread of affliction and water of affliction” (2 Chron. 18:26). Ahab, on the other hand, got all that Micaiah predicted. He lost his life. What stands out most in this account is not that Micaiah, the true prophet, suffered for his faithfulness, nor that Jehoshaphat was reproved for having an alliance with wicked Ahab. What really stands out is that Ahab, who knew that Micaiah was a true prophet, and who had been told that he would follow a lying prophet, chose to do what Micaiah said he would do. And he perished.

What is it that confirms wicked men in their wickedness and causes them to fly in the face of the obvious, to their own undoing? May it not be what God said would happen in the last days and what seems to be happening with some frequency in our generation?—“God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11, 12).

The Cake

Yesterday was my birthday, but I didn’t expect any cards or presents. I don’t have any relatives, and why should anyone else bother with me? The strange thing was that the girl who catches the same subway I do every morning asked me out for the day to her uncle’s cottage. Her uncle was afraid the snow might have damaged the roof, and she agreed to go out and check it for him. I had never had a girl ask me to go on a drive before, so it was a very special day though she didn’t even know my name.

It was cold but sunny. She picked me up at the subway stop, and I sat in the back seat of the car. In the front next to her was a white-bearded gentleman who turned out to be a professor, a relative from New Jersey. Sometimes she turned around and said something to me, but the professor did most of the talking. Most of the time he called her “my dear.” Once he called her “Mary,” though, and it was nice to know who she was.

The cottage looked like a Christmas card. When we went inside there was a cake on the table, and stuck in the icing were twenty-one brightly burning candles. As I got near it I saw to my horror that there was writing in red letters on the cake that said, “Happy Birthday, Jim.” Mary immediately said that some gang must have broken in. They would probably be back for the guy’s birthday party—perhaps it would be wiser to leave? I managed to hide my confusion and said nothing.

The professor said the first thing to do was to find out what the cake was made of. So he got a knife out of a drawer and cut a big slice. As he rubbed the crumbs in his fingers and examined them, he said, “Hmmm. A most interesting formation. Two different mixtures have been folded in. There is a blend of flour and sugar, and that fell into egg protein, cream of tartar, sodium chloride …” I could tell Mary was impressed with the old buffer’s knowledge, but that didn’t explain who baked the angel-food cake and put the candles and lettering all over the top.

“Ah, you want to know about the baking, my dear,” he continued. “This particular mixture has to be baked at a temperature of 375° for not less than thirty and not more than thirty-five minutes. The hard layer of butter surfacing went on after the main mixture had cooled. It would be interesting to know whether this most unusual circle of wax pillars preceded the red markings …” Mary was obviously getting impatient, so I ventured to say that what she wanted to know was who baked the cake, not what it was made of. That got the professor very excited. He peered at me through his glasses and said, “Young man, asking ‘who?’ is a very stupid question. Everything should be reduced to ‘how?’ It is only when you can explain exactly how everything happens and then repeat it experimentally …”

Mary was in no mood to be lectured by her aged relative so she broke in and said, “Please, please, professor, all we want to know is the answer to a simple question. Did a fairy godmother say ‘hey presto’ or did someone bake this cake, and if so who did it?” The professor refused to admit that it was as simple as that. He wanted to be sure the cake hadn’t got there by chance. We had passed a big flour mill on the way, and, he said, “a cloud of flour blown into some sugar is always a possibility. If the cottage door blew open, and this pan happened to be in the oven, and the mixture happened to land in the pan, and a rat got on the stove and moved the switch to 375°, the oven door could have slammed shut for thirty minutes, and then …” That was too much for Mary. She caught the professor by the scruff of the neck, shook him, and said, “You are a stupid old man.” He collapsed into a chair.

Having disposed of the learned gentleman she turned on me. “Do you think this cake could have appeared here by chance?” I shook my head and weakly mentioned about the candles burning and “happy birthday” written on it. Mary quickly counted the candles, including the two the professor had cut out, and concluded that the cake had been baked for a boy named Jim who was twenty-one today. Then, with a kind of woman’s intuition, I guess, she looked at me carefully and asked what my name was. I had to admit it was Jim. “And it’s your birthday today.” I nodded sheepishly. Then with ruthless logic she said triumphantly, “And you are twenty-one.” That explained everything. She came over and gave me a big kiss and said, “Come on, professor, let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”

The problem was that for me nothing had been explained at all. Mary was busy cutting pieces of cake and putting them on plates and making coffee. The professor had recovered his composure. He came over to the piece of cake he had cut, peeled off the icing, and, looking learnedly at the texture of the surface of the cake, informed us that it had been baked in a bakery oven by machine. Mary said, “Maybe the girl bought the cake in a shop, iced it herself, and then stuck candles all the way around.” The professor then explained that the candles had been stuck in when the icing was still soft, and he had also found out that the candles had been burning about sixteen minutes. That piece of research seemed to satisfy him, and he moved off with his cake and coffee to enjoy the view outside.

Mary then came and sat next to me, took my hand, looked into my eyes, and asked, “What’s she like? Is she blond or brunette, or maybe ginger? When did you see her last?” When I explained that there wasn’t a soul in the world who knew it was my birthday and that I didn’t have any girlfriends, or any friends for that matter, she looked sweetly interested and equally sweetly unbelieving. It almost seemed as if she thought a boy like me couldn’t possibly not have friends. Her only problem seemed to be that she wanted to know what the girl was like. That’s a woman’s curiosity! Happily she went of to fix more coffee, leaving me to think about the questions that puzzled me.

No one knew me well enough to know my real name was Jim. And even if someone did, there would be no way for that cake to be there with the candles burning at the cottage of an uncle of the girl who had caught the same subway I had every day since I got my job. I wondered whether Mary’s first guess could be right. Maybe a motorcycle gang planned to be here for the day, and one of them was named Jim, and his girl fixed this surprise. But then that was too much to swallow on my birthday. Somebody must be interested in me. Suddenly I was different, important, no longer the nonperson just out of jail, incognito, trying to remake myself a place in the world.

Then the doubts came back. I might be dreaming. Could it be a fairy godmother? I had always been superstitious, and my mother once told us we had a guardian angel. Mary noticed that my thoughts were far away and that my eyes had filled with tears, and she came over and gave me a big hug. I just wished that Mary could have been the girl who baked or iced or ordered or whatever it was that the girl did with the cake.

That’s what settled it. As soon as I wished, I knew. She must have found out before she ever asked me to the cottage. She already knew my name and my birthday and how old I was and my record, and she wasn’t going to let on. I didn’t have to admit I was Jim, and if I didn’t want to believe it was she I didn’t have to. The cake could have come “hey presto,” or it might have been for another Jim, and it might have been chance like the professor said—after all, anything is possible if you have enough flour and sugar and egg whites and ovens and winds and rats and everything else. It was a wonderful day, and Mary is a great girl in a different kind of way.

I wrote out this story, and when I had finished I headed it “Dear Preacher” and sent it to the fellow who had often come to see me during those three years. As I signed it “Jim,” I suddenly remembered that he was one who did know my real name. I still can’t figure out how the angel cake got its icing, and I know Mary can’t have lit the candles because she drove the car, and she still teases me about the other girlfriend, and she can’t have cared without the preacher, and the preacher might not have bothered it …

So I added at the bottom:

“P.S. Yesterday all that mattered was that Mary cared about me. Today I think you have won. I can still argue rings round you like the professor, and it mightn’t be me that God cared about, and there is always the possibility that chance did it all, so I don’t have to believe. I guess proof is only for those who want it. Is the professor one of your gang too? He was kind of different, like Mary, when he wasn’t giving us his explanations.”

Incarnational Evangelism

Biblical evangelism is personal. It means nothing less than the whole Church bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world. Evangelical Christians who know what evangelism is are often uncertain about how it is to be done.

Methods of evangelism commonly fall into two categories: evangelism is considered to be identification with the world without any proclamation of the Word, or it is seen as proclamation of the Word without any identification with the world. Both these methods are unbiblical. To practice the first is to be guilty of compromise, while to practice the second is to be guilty of pharisaism. The Christian who wants to be an effective witness must avoid both extremes.

In presenting the Gospel, we must be constantly aware that we are confronting non-Christians who are unique personalities. We must take into account each person’s particular situation of lostness, and let that determine the manner in which we speak to him. Jude distinguishes various situations of lostness in these words: “Convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (vv. 22, 23). The Apostle Paul indicates that there are appropriate ways of witnessing to different types of persons when he says, “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one” (Col. 4:5, 6). These passages suggest that we must gently probe to discover what particular questions each person is asking. Only then will we be in a position to answer, not the questions we think he should be asking, but those that are really troubling him. It is said that someone wrote on a subway station wall, “Christ is the answer,” and someone else came along afterward and wrote beneath it, “What is the question?” The evangelizing Christian must take people as he finds them and try to speak in terms of their experience.

The classic description of this personal method of evangelism is found in First Corinthians 9:20–23. The Apostle Paul’s position on evangelism was that he could accommodate his personality to the situation of men without compromising truth. It is important that we understand this, lest we think Paul was inconsistent in what he said about evangelism. Paul believed that though he had to try to get right beside men in their own condition, though he was to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh, yet the Gospel he presented could not be accommodated because it was not a matter of his preference. He was convinced that it was the Word of God and not the word of man that he was presenting, and that what God had said was not his to alter.

Paul gives us three examples of what he means by accommodation without compromise. First, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law” (v. 20). Paul explains that one type of person we will encounter acknowledges the existence of God and even accepts his Word as the valid authority on matters of salvation. A perfect example of this is the Jewish audience the Apostle confronted at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13). In order to find common ground (always necessary before a rational discussion can take place) upon which to present the Gospel, Paul took the Old Testament prophecies and pointed out how these were fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. He started with the Old Testament but then moved quickly to the objective evidence for the truth of the Gospel, just in case the Jews might say, “Well, Paul, that is your interpretation. Our rabbis do not read it as you do.” Paul leaves no doubt about his affirmation of truth when he says, “It isn’t a matter of interpretation, because God actually raised Jesus from the dead, and many of those I have talked to in Jerusalem are witnesses of this.” After appealing to evidence in history, he presses the logic of his claim by saying, “Let it be known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him every one that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (vv. 38, 39). Paul accommodated himself to them by going into their synagogue, but he did not compromise the truth of the Gospel.

In our day, we must be discerning about when to use Scripture as common ground in personal evangelism. Many non-Christians in Western culture have what we might call a “Christian memory”: they respect the Bible as God’s message of salvation because of Christian training they received as children. With these persons we can use the Bible in our witness for Christ. But a growing majority of non-Christians do not respect the Bible as God’s Word and will not permit the Christian to use it in his witness to them. So he has to use a different approach.

Paul had such an approach. “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law” (v. 21). Paul here explains that we will encounter some persons who are confessed agnostics, to whom we must also accommodate ourselves. He, it seems, was skilled in dealing not only with those who had a theistic base but also with those who did not. The example is his experience in Athens (recorded in Acts 17), when he was perturbed about what he saw and felt he must find common ground from which to speak with the Athenians. When the confrontation came, Paul set up his view of the world with God as Creator of all things, and with man created in God’s image and dependent upon him, as his ultimate point of reference. This was the common ground. But to support it, Paul quoted from two Stoic poets. He could not quote from the Old Testament because the Greeks did not recognize it as God’s Word; instead, he drew from their own culture in order to preach the Gospel to them. Because the Greeks did not accept the theism of the Old Testament, Paul had to cite evidence for theism from sources the Greeks did respect.

However, once he had done this, he immediately moved into the realm of the truth of the Gospel by saying, “Now, God commands you to repent. You have been worshiping the unknown god. But there is no reason to worship the unknown god, because he has become known in Jesus of Nazareth. God has given you assurance in that he raised Jesus from the dead.” It is important to observe that Paul’s appeal to empirical verification is the same with the Gentiles as with the Jew, though he began with different common ground. Why? Because the truth claims of the Gospel are open to all men. Jesus’ resurrection is evidence that the Gospel is true.

We might say that Paul had to do some pre-evangelism. He could not begin preaching the Gospel to the Greeks right away because he needed to find a context within which to do this. So, with much spiritual discernment, Paul drew from Greek culture to substantiate theism so that he could preach the Gospel.

Christians in our day need to learn this approach. Where the Word of God is not respected, another source must be used that is recognized as significant. Someone has said that the Christian should read the Bible he holds in one hand while reading the newspaper he holds in the other. The secular media of communication describes the lostness of man as the Bible does. The Christian must be alert to the felt needs of modern man—frustration, boredom, fear, loneliness, meaninglessness—and one of the best ways to do this is to be aware of the culture that influences man. Evangelical Christians have largely failed in this area of evangelism because of their cultural barrenness, a product of their so-called separation from the world.

Art, music and literature have been free from religious domination since the Renaissance and have consequently taken up secular themes. This means that they have become excellent sources for observing man’s lostness. Modern music, theater, the new cinema especially, deal with ultimate questions about life. Indeed, almost every area of man’s endeavor—economics, politics, education, and so on—is separated from the influence of the Church and has thus become a showcase of man’s lostness. Such an approach to evangelism to be used with confessed agnostics could be called “cultural apologetics.”

“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak” (v. 22). A third type of person we will encounter in presenting the Gospel is the one who wants to debate religious issues without trying to reach any conclusions. Paul was wise enough in his application of truth to know the difference between essentials and non-essentials. He also knew the difference between the right and the wrong time to press something. This is something all Christians need to learn.

An example of this approach in evangelism is found in Acts 21. When Paul returned to Jerusalem from his third missionary journey, he rehearsed to the elders of the church there how the Lord had used him to bring many Gentiles into the Kingdom of God. The elders glorified God when they heard this, but they were also troubled. A serious charge had been brought against Paul because of his ministry to the Gentiles. Many Jews who had become Christians in Jerusalem while Paul was away had heard that the Apostle was discounting the law of Moses, and they were upset because they felt such talk might hinder other Jews from becoming Christians. The elders suggested that the only way Paul could restore the integrity of his ministry in the eyes of the Jews was to observe the law publicly. He could do this by paying the expenses of four men who had taken vows in Judaism, even going so far as to sit with them in the Temple for seven days. Paul agreed to do this, so that he could continue to preach the Gospel to the Jews. The Apostle appears to have been a sensitive, versatile, and tactful Christian. The point, once again, is that his method was accommodation in culture and personality to the persons he wanted to reach without any compromise of theological imperatives.

This strategy cannot be summarized any better than by Paul’s own words: “I became all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (v. 22). He could have formulated this philosophy of evangelism only by observing a divine pattern of evangelism in action. Because Paul understood the purpose of the Incarnation, he understood God’s strategy of evangelism. As the Lord emptied himself and took the form of human flesh to carry on his work of reconciliation, so each Christian must be willing to empty himself and identify with sinners so that he can declare the message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16–21). As Christ penetrated humanity without being assimilated by it, so each Christian is to penetrate human society without being assimilated by it. This is incarnational evangelism.

The contemporary scene should always influence the direction and philosophy of evangelism. We must take seriously Ephesians 2, where it describes the non-Christian as “having no hope and without God in the world,” if we are to share a meaningful Gospel with him. We cannot do this effectively if we are complacently insulated from the culture around us. With gentleness the Christian must be able to remove from the non-Christian’s view what he has taken from the Christian position and emphatically say of what remains, “This is your position without Christ: either be honest enough to live with it or become a Christian.” We must, like Paul, be “all things to all men” if we are to share the Gospel with them.

In a way, our world is more ready for incarnational evangelism than was Paul’s, for his world had not known the overwhelming despair that ours knows. The non-Christian world is waiting to be evangelized—person by person. Biblical evangelism is personal evangelism.

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