Under reasonable prodding by black activists and radically oriented young whites, United Methodists took stock of their resources last month. Delegates to the General Conference in St. Louis adopted a resolution that read: “We endorse with utmost emphasis the need for a reordering of priorities in our church for support of the principle of self-determination for minority groups.”

But as of 6:32 P.M. April 24, when the highest legislative body of the United Methodist Church adjourned for lack of a quorum, it was still anyone’s guess whether any specifically ethnic causes would be underwritten with denominational money.

“We would simply suggest to you,” the Reverend James Lawson had told delegates, “that where the treasure of the United Methodist Church is, there will also be its loyalty and its heart.” In response to demands voiced by Lawson, chairman of Black Methodists for Church Renewal, several motions were adopted aimed at allocating millions of dollars for minority projects. All were carefully worded, however, to avoid specific promises. Every attempt to appropriate resources now in hand¹Invested reserves currently total about $100,000,000. A tract of unused land owned by the Methodist Corporation in Washington, D. C., was recently appraised at $1,5 million. was voted down. Most of the appropriations will depend upon forthcoming special appeals. In recent years these appeals have been notably unsuccessful among Methodists, and they now will be subject to the added strain of a pronounced slump in denominational giving.

During the five-day conference (held in aging Kiel Auditorium), the closest thing to a major new financial commitment for minority empowerment came in a motion from the legislative committee on Christian social concerns. The motion, adopted intact by the 900 delegates, instructed the United Methodist Council on World Service and Finance in cooperation with sister ecclesiastical agencies to try to supply at least $2 million in new money for the denomination’s Commission on Religion and Race.

The council, which is the United Methodists’ major financial clearing house, reported revised budgetary allotments for 1971 and 1972. A number of Methodist agencies will be called upon to absorb a 6 per cent cutback. The church’s gifts to the American Bible Society, to have been $179,500 for each of the next two years, will be reduced to an annual $79,500.

Exactly what the Commission on Religion and Race will do with the $2 million was deliberately obscured. One hotly debated resolution would have barred support of “any militant group whose purpose (stated or implied) is the overthrow of the United States government and the capitalistic system.” A motion to table the measure was voted down. Another deleting the words “and the capitalistic system” carried. In a third vote (by close margin in a show of hands), a substitute motion was adopted; it merely reaffirmed the trust of the delegates in United Methodist agencies’ dealings with militant groups. (About this point, it was announced that an IBM card-sorting machine that had been put into service to speed up vote counts had broken down.)

The $2 million measure had come in place of BMCR’s request that it be given at least $5.5 million of the council’s money to undergird the concept of self-determination (see May 8 issue, page 36). A BMCR appeal for $5 million from the Methodists’ two-year-old Fund for Reconciliation went unheeded, as did a plea for 30 per cent black representation at all levels of Methodist government. Requests for increased support of black Methodist colleges and minority students won no assurances. A motion to “guarantee” black Methodist colleges $4 million for each of the next two years was voted down by a narrow margin.

The St. Louis meeting had come to be referred to as “the conference nobody wanted.” Rumors of planned disruptions underscored the anxiety, but the loudest “demonstration” turned out to be the singing of “Amazing Grace” by youth delegates in the halls.

Ordinarily, United Methodists meet in their international legislative assembly only once every four years. The special session in St. Louis was called (at a cost of $600,000) to clear up issues resulting from the Methodists’ recent merger with the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Those problems were solved administratively, however, and attempts to cancel the conference were to no avail.

Hundreds of new matters came pouring in that were not related to the merger. Many items were simply ignored in the last-minute rush.

One sensitive issue that did get to the floor concerned abortion. After some debate a statement was adopted that urges church-related hospitals to “take the lead in eliminating those hospital administrative restrictions on voluntary sterilization and abortion which exceed the legal requirements in their respective political jurisdictions, and which frustrate the intent of the law where the law is designed to make the decision for sterilization and abortion largely or solely the responsibility of the person most concerned.”

Another measure urged “that states remove the regulation of abortion from the criminal code, placing it instead under regulations relating to other procedures of standard medical practice. Abortion would be available only upon request of the persons most directly concerned.”

In an unusual act of dissent, delegates from United Methodist churches in Europe read into the record a statement dissociating themselves from the position voted on abortion.

United Methodist participation in the Consultation on Church Union met a measure of predictable resistance. Reportedly because of a truck drivers’ strike, delegates did not have copies of COCU’s Plan of Union in hand. Nonetheless, at the urging of theologian Albert Outler they recommended it for study. But another noted Methodist scholar, Georgia Harkness, got the body to vote down a committee recommendation that the United Methodist COCU delegation be given specific negotiating power. Delegates were assured that their action “in no way intimates approval or disapproval of the plan of union.”

St. Louis women helped to sweeten the proceedings by baking 3,000 dozen cookies for the delegates and visitors. At any rate, business sessions were notably free of anger and bitterness. The conference did have its share of parliamentary tangles, partly because of a surprising lack of familiarity with Robert’s Rules of Order on the part of the bishops who acted as chairmen (none are ever allowed to vote).

Delegates turned down a proposal to assign a bishop to a full-time interjurisdictional secretariat, presumably out of fears that he might be regarded as a presiding bishop. The closest thing the Methodists have to an administrative head is the president of the Council of Bishops. That position is being filled in the coming year by Bishop John Wesley Lord of Washington, D. C. He will be succeeded by Bishop Paul Hardin, Jr., of Columbia, South Carolina.

DAVID KUCHARSKY

Supreme Court Upholds Church Tax Exemptions

The U. S. Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision in the Walz case this month and upheld by a 7–1 vote the constitutionality of church property tax exemptions.

A fourteen-page opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger ruled against the appeal of Frederick Walz, who pays $5.24 a year to the New York City Tax Commission for a small vacant lot on Staten Island. Walz (reportedly a Christian, but not a member of any church) complained that tax exemptions to churches raised his own tax bill and thus obliged him to support religious groups against his will. The American Civil Liberties Union supported him.

Burger said no absolute separation of church and state is really possible, adding: “Granting tax exemptions to churches necessarily operates to afford an indirect economic benefit and also gives rise to some, but yet a lesser, involvement than taxing them.” He said the purpose of the First Amendment’s reference to religion “was to state an objective, not to write a statute.”

Justice John M. Harlan and William J. Brennan wrote concurring opinions totaling twenty pages. Justice William O. Douglas wrote a twenty-nine-page dissent.

The young seminarian was ready to forget entering the ministry. “I had built-in defenses that would make it impossible for me to fit into the status quo situation in the church,” he says. “I was becoming frustrated, critical, and very discouraged about churches in general.”

Then he spent a summer at the Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, as part of its intern program.

“Now I realize that I had been totally ignorant of the nature and purpose of the Church. The internship program gave me the opportunity to see that it can really work and that it is possible to fulfill the radical purpose to which the Church has been called.” A vitally needed minister was saved for the cause of Jesus Christ, and the church benefited immensely in the process!

The summer internship program is not new. For years it has been common for a church to add a seminary student to its staff with the intention of teaching him some of the practical aspects of pastoring while he pinch-hits for vacationing church staff members.

The Peninsula Bible Church has added a dynamic dimension to the summer internship program. Its program is primarily aimed at ministering to the intern. Pastor Ray C. Stedman and his staff make every effort to train young men in the spiritual grace of becoming qualified ministers of the New Covenant. This excitingly unselfish program costs the church extra money and the staff increased work. Yet the church feels it has received more than it has given.

More than once a disillusioned seminary student has discovered a fresh focus through the internship program and has stepped into a new understanding of the vital place and work of the local church. One of last summer’s interns writes, “I personally was so discouraged about the pastorate from what I saw of it that before coming to P.B.C. I was seriously doubting whether I would ever go into the ministry. Since P.B.C. my whole outlook on the pastorate and local church has changed, and I look to the ministry as a uniquely challenging and rewarding life.”

Another states, “In the area of making the Christian life work, the internship program has done more for me than my first two years in seminary. As a result I am confident my last year in seminary will be much more meaningful.”

Another intern expresses his delight: “This summer I have learned to a greater degree to ‘walk in the Spirit’ and to live in ‘the Body.’ ”

In the past six years, more than a dozen interns who were ready to quit the ministry before they came to Peninsula Bible Church were awakened to new life and ministry. Spiritual revitalization has taken place in so many interns’ lives that staff members unanimously agree they have been more than repaid for their extra hours of work.

The approach of the internship program is to impart some of the basic principles of a pastoral ministry through seminars and real-life training. The interns are given opportunities to see God in action in a vital New Testament church.

Last summer’s Tuesday-morning seminar, which considered Galatians 3–6, was held from 7:30 to 9:30. One of the pastors led the study, and all the interns participated in open discussion. The Thursday-morning seminar considered such relevant subjects as “The Ministry of Jesus” (John 6), “The Ministry of the Saints” (Eph. 4), and “Spiritual Warfare” (Eph. 6). Commenting on these seminars, an intern says, “Here is where it all began—in the Bible. The morning seminars gave me a new appreciation for the Bible that had been sadly lacking in my life. Now I am able to read it with real confidence.”

Each intern is involved in a personal assignment such as college, high school, junior high school, Sunday school, or rural outreach. Their meetings are held out where the unreached people are—on the streets, in homes, in dorms, and so on. The intern’s wife is urged to enter into a personal ministry as well as to work alongside her husband and attend seminars.

The intern receives a well-rounded view of the ministry as he attends the church board meetings and observes and participates in visitation, the communion service, funerals, marriages, preaching, counseling, and other general pastoral work.

Bob Smith, the church’s associate pastor, admits there are problems and difficulties in carrying out the internship program. A pastor must weigh the problems against the blessings and decide whether he and his church are willing to pay the price.

The church members may tend to “let the intern do it” if staff and interns alike don’t guard against this attitude by involving the church membership.

Also, the program costs money, and at the wrong time of the year—during the summer slump. In the financial arrangements made by the Peninsula Bible Church, each married couple is paid $300 a month plus a $25 car allowance. The single intern receives $250. A small transportation allowance for the trip to Palo Alto is also given. While the church does what it can to help the intern find housing, he is responsible for the rent and utilities. Given the California cost of living, no intern gets rich on the amount allowed him; but on the other hand, with several interns the added financial load on the church is considerable. At P.B.C. the cost of the internship ministry is not included in the regular budget but is provided through privately raised funds. This makes it important that the intern recognize the sacrifice the church is making and be willing to match sacrifice with sacrifice.

Another problem is the workload thrust upon the staff. Summer is usually considered a time for relaxing of responsibilities, but the opening of the internship program brings increased responsibility to the staff. Finding time both to train interns and to administer a church is admittedly difficult.

What do the staff and congregation think about internship? One layman writes, “The internship program has put ‘pow’ into our summer outreach. Vitality and life are very contagious.” Another says, “Certainly it means extra work and money, but we haven’t gone in debt or had a ‘summer slump’ since we began the program.”

A staff member tallies up the benefits: “Youth and young adults have been reached who would never have been touched. The accelerated summer program involving our own high school and college young people has helped them mature spiritually. New ideas have been introduced into our youth departments, and young men have been salvaged from abandoning the ministry. It is now part of our church life and worth much more than it costs.”

These results suggest that this exciting program could and should be started in many more churches.—DICK HILLIS, general director, Overseas Crusades, Palo Alto, California.

The more we think of god in terms of his attributes and, as a result, magnify him in our own thinking and attitudes, the easier it is to confront life. But if we ignore the truth about God and glory in our own wisdom, we set the stage for the major heresy of every generation—worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25).

God has not left himself without a witness, nor has man any excuse for ignoring that witness. The Apostle Paul writes, “What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:19, 20).

We live in a time of mind-expanding discoveries, and every new discovery bears testimony, whether recognized or not, to the wisdom and power of the Creator. Were it not for the fixedness of natural laws, man could never have walked on the moon. It is because God has established in the universe these fixed principles that man could make use of them with knowledge and certainty. We stand amazed at man’s achievements, but we should bow and worship in the presence of the One who created all things and saw that they were good.

Pause to ponder three of God’s attributes and you will see that man must magnify him. The God with whom we have to do is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

Omnipotent—all powerful! The One who created the world and the universe is not limited in any way. Man, bound by time, space, and circumstances, often finds his knowledge, understanding, and movements under the control of factors beyond his power to change. But for God, none of these limitations exists. For him time does not exist and space has no ending. He is the determiner of circumstances, not their prisoner. This is the God in whom we trust, the One we can call “Father.”

Omnipresent—present everywhere! There is no place to which we can go in this life to escape his presence. After death, yes, for hell must certainly be separation from God. David expresses this thought perfectly. “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven [like the astronauts], thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol [like the aquanauts], thou art there! If I take the wings of morning [on board a 747 jet] and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is as bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee” (Ps. 139:7–12).

Omniscient—all-knowing! Although man’s knowledge is rapidly expanding, he knows only a tiny fraction of all truth. But God knows all about every person who has ever lived, or will live, on the earth—all his thoughts, motives, problems, all about his relationships with all other people whom he ever encountered. The human mind staggers before such knowledge—but what comfort there is in this truth for the Christian!

Man’s rejection of God’s revelation of himself leads to untold folly and to death itself. We see the power and wisdom of God in creation: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night delivers knowledge” (Ps. 19:1, 2). If we ignore the source of the power and wisdom so revealed for us to see every day of our lives, we are ignoring Life itself.

But we have more than the evidences of creation to turn our minds and hearts to God. In the person and work of his Son we have the revelation of his compassion, his power and redemptive purpose. Christ is not a different God but the physical revelation of the Father. “In him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9), so that the intangible and unseen God has actually come into this world in the person of Jesus Christ and we can read of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and coming again in the Scriptures, and through them come to believe in him for salvation.

However, the story does not end there. God has supplied the Teacher to make these things plain—his Holy Spirit—so man has no excuse other than his own unbending will. “Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4).

One of the marvels of God’s revelation is that it is so wonderfully logical and fits into one perfect whole. Once, for instance, we realize that the Christ who came into the world to redeem man from sin is the same Christ who created the world in the first place, those truths having to do with his virgin birth, sinless life, miraculous power, atoning death, resurrection from the dead, and coming again, make sense. And when we realize that he sent his Spirit into the world to activate and make effective the preaching of his Gospel, we have to admit that “he has done all things well,” that the one thing left is for us to believe.

And with faith comes a personal experience with the living Christ.

Nevertheless, we are confronted by another truth with its solemn implications. God created us the highest form of being, in his likeness. He has given us the right of choice, of making our own decisions, and he never violates that right. With all the evidence of his creative power and redemptive love, we are still free to choose or reject him, to believe or disbelieve.

For all those who believe, there is far more than salvation for eternity. There is the reality of God’s presence with them every day of their lives, and they can appropriate by faith those blessings that the One who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient is so anxious and willing to give, because he is also absolutely loving and kind.

I am convinced that once we accept the fact that he is all of these things, and more, and the fact that through faith we can live day by day in close personal contact with him, not only will our concept of God broaden out into the infinity of time, space, and circumstance, but he will also dwell in our hearts and bring with him peace, joy, hope, and love that will completely change the pattern of our lives.

The Apostle Paul had this experience and wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

Such a life was not for Paul alone but is for all who will see the evidence, hear God’s call, and believe!

L. NELSON BELL

Though I Have All Faiths …

Let me recommend a form of words for a perennially misunderstood breed: the radical theologian who overreaches himself in grabbing for the headlines. I quote: “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” The speaker: Jerry Lewis, while directing a recent film. The idea will be familiar to travelers in Japan, where an interpreter is required not merely for the language but for the meaning behind it.

It made me wonder how the WCC men fared in Beirut last March when they had a dialogue with Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. Even if the twin barriers of language and meaning were overcome, it couldn’t have been all smooth talk thereafter, for prior publicity involuntarily spilt the beans that the Christian contingent was not of the all-one-body-we category. This monstrous insinuendo (I owe the term to a Finnish friend) should and shall be explained.

According to the WCC’s advance statement, the Beirut meeting proposed to “consider common problems, and participants will question one another about the way in which believers can speak of their faith in the modern world, which is preoccupied with science, technology and secularization.” (Italics mine.) Moreover, said the WCC, “a number of Roman Catholics are taking part in the conference, among whom are Father Vincent Miano of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Believers.” (More of my italics.) The fundamental confusion begs all sorts of questions. One would like to know, for example, what the WCC means by “believers,” whom the Vatican designates “non-believers,” and what the Sons of the Prophet present thought of both versions.

The hope is expressed that the Beirut dialogue will help foster “mutual respect for each other’s beliefs.” Taken in conjunction with the WCC statement mentioned earlier, there’s a slick speciousness about these sentiments, if you swallow hard and don’t venture to define terms. A hazy picture emerges: all pals together in a broad religion of humanity to combat creeping materialism, supporting the faith of your choice in a faithless world.

In a 1947 book (The Christian Religion in a Non-Christian World) Dr. H. Kraemer warned against a false emphasis on “sharing of experience” stemming from the “haunting dread of all superiority feeling” and the desire to have real human contact on the footing of spiritual give and take.” If the exchanges in Beirut included a firm note about the uniqueness of Christianity, many will be happier about the $20,000 of Christian money put up to sponsor the dialogue.

EUTYCHUS IV

An Encouraging Wisp

Congratulations on your April 24 issue! I was particularly impressed with Virginia Mollenkott’s two-part series, and the news report by Richard Love on “Seminar ’70.” These form an encouraging wisp of hope for tomorrow’s evangelicals.

KEITH DRURY

Princeton, N. J.

Having attended a leading Bible college and also one of the finest evangelical seminaries, I am fully conscious of the desperate need for a certain element of teachers in Christian higher education to come to grips with the fact that the educational institution is for the student and not for them.…

My only regret is that Dr. Mollenkott did not place more stress on propositional truth and fixed biblical content. The danger in this lack is not that some will be led astray, but rather that too many evangelical teachers will be inclined to use this as a justification for dispensing with her thesis altogether, including those points which they so desperately need to consider.

MICHAEL P. ANDRUS

Dallas, Tex.

Lucky, lucky are the students who have her for a teacher. What a wonderful teacher she must be.

MRS. C. A. SHORE

Leavenworth, Kan.

Dr. Mollenkott writes that the belief is widespread that “evangelicals couldn’t care less about the tangible agonies of the twentieth century.” If this opinion is indeed held, then we evangelicals had better concern ourselves with more publicity on what we have accomplished and are still accomplishing. All people—not just “The Students of the Seventies”—should be informed.… Evangelicals’ works of mercy are … not to assuage “social and corporate guilt,” but in obedience to our Lord and for his glory.

MRS. H. ALLAN MITCHELL

Ridgewood, N. J.

Centering Southern Baptists

Thank you for the excellent article “Whither Southern Baptists?” (April 24). Truly the issue of the inerrancy of Scripture is—and will be—always at the center of all of man’s concerns.

JOHN M. BATTEAU

Philadelphia, Pa.

To say that the question is one of biblical infallibility is to poison the liberal well in a most unfair and inaccurate manner. It is much more accurate to state that the overt controversy concerns the question of a literal vs. a figurative or higher critical interpretation of Scripture. The infallibility of Scripture is not at stake; the infallibility of the literal view of Scripture is.

DONALD STEVENS

Richland, Wash.

Generations of Baptists in the South have built up some impressive denominational structures. Despite some failings, those structures have fairly well embodied the historic non-creedal view of Baptists that the freedom of every student and every teacher to interpret the Bible is not just a personal privilege, but is a denominational necessity—a necessity because without it we could not remain open to “fresh light breaking from the Word.”

But there are some (not our president) who want to rock us off our Baptist foundations; they want to see our denominational structures commandeered by a constrictive creedalism which has only the most distant and dubious relations to our hard-gained historical understanding of the Bible.

I hope you will take steps to show that your essay was not meant to mobilize these elements into a crusade against our institutions. I hope you will at least let it be noted that such undoubted evangelicals as James Orr rejected complete biblical infallibility precisely because they upheld the authority of the Bible, and that this is an issue over which the evangelical family (to say nothing of the Baptist family) can disagree in harmony.

ROBISON B. JAMES

Assoc. Prof. of Religion

University of Richmond

Richmond, Va.

Have you dealt with Southern Baptists as though we were a creedal denomination? You say “Criswell has the vote of the convention on his side.” You question the right of his opponents to remain in the convention. This is an overstatement of the authority of our statement of faith.…

You also overstate your case by assuming that W. A. Criswell’s interpretation of that statement can be equated with the thinking of the majority of messengers who approved the 1925 and 1963 versions.

I do appreciate your concern for Southern Baptist thinking on biblical authority which prompted the article.

JERRY M. SELF

Austin Heights Baptist Church

Nacogdoches, Tex.

Hate Vs. History

Thank you for the refreshingly and Christianly patriotic article, “Another Look at the American Dream,” by Robert J. Lamont (April 24).…

I am tired of hearing so much vicious criticism leveled at our nation and society that, to me, is fired in a continuous volley of destructive hate. And I am alarmed that so much of this malicious tearing-down is enacted in an attitude that says our country has accomplished little, if any, good. I refuse to believe that is the case. History and truth are on my side.

ROBERT LEE BUER

Immanuel Independent Church

Comstock Park, Mich.

Law: Going To Pot?

“Confronting the Drug Peril” (April 24) gives evidence of a certain hesitancy about the legalization of marijuana. You may be interested to know that most European medical opinion seems to be coming down rather heavily against such a policy. In a recent interview given to Le Figaro Littéraire, Dr. P. Olivenstein, director of a Paris hospital dealing with both narcotics and alcohol addiction, has come out strongly against legalization. In his opinion, one of the underlying reasons of the use of marijuana is the desire to violate “the law,” whether this be seen as statute-law, accepted morality, or parental authority. This is a desire which can no longer be fulfilled by engaging in sexual immorality since today apparently “anything goes.” His argument is that if marijuana is legalized, people will resort immediately to those things which are still illegal.

Professor Hugo Solms of Geneva points to drug use as a renunciation of reality which has much in common with certain New Left protest movements and also, I might add, with the rise in occultism.

HAROLD O. J. BROWN

Lausanne, Switzerland

Fighting For C. T.

I was saddened indeed upon reading the news report and the editorial about Dr. Carl McIntire (April 24).…

In spite of what you may say, he is fighting valiantly for your rights and mine, and I honor him for his courage and his firm stand for the faith.

God grant that he may have continued success so that you may have the privilege to continue publishing your generally valuable paper.

CLINTON FRITSCH

Highland Park, Ill.

You neglected to state one point: If the “March for Victory” did nothing else, it showed to the enemy that not all U. S. citizens are gullible or taken in by Communist propaganda.

Those marchers are not looking to Carl McIntire as a “king” but as a spokesman for freedom and victory which our government and churches and Christian magazines should be doing but are not.

EDWARD HAAPA

Pleasant Ridge, Mich.

Where God Works

I hope all of us will take seriously Tom Skinner’s address at the U. S. Congress on Evangelism.… I am sorry, however, that you did not run the full text (April 10), especially his painfully moving remarks about how the Black Revolution has grown out of 250 years of slavery and 100 years of personal and institutional racism against the black man. I remember especially his remarks about magazine and television advertisements emphasizing the beauty of the white man’s kind of hair, albeit subtly, and as a result Negro women have to spend untold amounts of money to have what the white community considers beauty.

Mr. Skinner’s statement, “Jesus Christ is not a middle-class, Anglo-Saxon white Republican,” has come back to me again and again.

And also I wish you would have seen fit to include in the text his statements to the evangelicals to investigate their mission boards that refuse to send out black missionaries. He also said in his address that evangelical Bible schools and seminaries across the nation have fewer than 100 black students, and he said that from reading evangelical magazines “one gets the impression that God is working only in white communities.”

WESLEY G. PIPPERT

Washington, D. C.

It is very interesting to me to see how Mr. Skinner selects passages of the New Testament and tries to create the kind of a man out of Jesus that he can use to attain his own revolutionary goals. It is too bad that the racial problems are not as simple and easy to solve as he would have us think they are. According to this article, all we need to do in solving the racial problems of the United States is to do everything any black leader would have us do, including the intermarriage of blacks and whites. I find nothing in the New Testament against people marrying within their own race; as a matter of fact the evidence is on the other side. Blacks and whites don’t have to marry to be New Testament brothers.

M. C. GALLOWAY

Murray, Ky.

Drinking For Funds

I was appalled by what was published in the news report “Ellington: ‘Praise God and Dance’ ” (April 10). Christians are stooping very low if they have to have a booze party to raise money for the cause of Christianity. I think we as Christians must realize the gravity [of] the alcohol problem. The type of Christianity which has to use a booze party to raise funds is worse than atheism.

PHILIP HAMM

Clearbrook, B. C.

Many Americans falsely assume that the Bill of Rights, in guaranteeing free speech and freedom of the press, opens the door for pornography. They do not see how or where a line can be drawn. They fear, moreover, that laws restricting pornography might one day be perverted to inhibit religious freedom. Thus people who have only disdain for pornography may think little can be done to stop it. And because they feel their hands are tied, producers and retailers of obscene materials are getting rich.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution declares that Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …” Admittedly, this could be taken to mean unlimited license, and some smut peddlers have tried to defend their trade in this way. They have also exploited legislative loopholes, inadequate enforcement, and permissive judicial decisions. These factors, plus a populace that is largely indifferent to or ignorant of what can be done, are what make possible a multi-billion-dollar-a-year pornographic “industry.”

Everyone concedes that some restriction of expression is necessary to an orderly society. Even the smut peddler. He would want the law to protect him from threats of bodily harm. He would want doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, and air controllers to be prohibited from subjecting him to fraud and deceit. He would not want a store to be allowed to label as salt a can that contained lye.

The framers of the Bill of Rights implicitly but clearly demonstrated that freedom of personal expression cannot be defined so broadly that another’s freedom is jeopardized. The Fourth Amendment, for example, in restricting property searches asserts that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation …” A judge cannot write out a warrant indiscriminately. When he does issue one, it is to be based on a conscientious attempt to attain objective truth. In the Constitution itself, therefore, the right of expression is obviously limited at the point at which it affects the rights of another.

The question is not whether a line can be drawn but whether it should be, and where. Interestingly, opponents of obscenity laws tend to base their arguments not on the First Amendment or even on the Constitution as a whole but on several much more tenuous points. They contend that there are no fixed concepts of obscenity or propriety, since interpretations may differ according to time and place. They say censorship laws are apt to punish that which has come out of a good motive while allowing what is truly base to escape. They also say that the supposedly bad effects of obscenity have not been proved and that if children need protection, their parents should have taken the responsibility for it.

Similar objections could be raised about other kinds of laws—including statutes that opponents of obscenity laws would insist upon. And none of the objections refutes the positive reasons for obscenity laws. Some of these reasons are set forth very persuasively in a book by Dr. Benjamin Spock, which will surprise many. “For decades I was an uncompromising civil libertarian and scorned the hypocrisy involved in the enforcement of obscenity laws,” he says. “But recent trends in movies, literature, and art toward what I think of as shock obscenity, and the courts’ acceptance of it have made me change my position … particularly in view of other brutalizing trends.” Dr. Spock goes on to say:

In our so-called emancipation from our Puritan past I think we’ve lost our bearings. Many enlightened parents still have inner convictions but are afraid that they don’t have a sure basis for teaching them to their children. Some of their children are quite bewildered, as child psychiatrists and school counselors report. Sophisticated justices are afraid of being considered illiberal [Decent and Indecent, McCall, 1970].

Some proponents of pornography have advanced figures that purport to show that lifting all restrictions in Denmark diminished the total volume. William Buckley refuted that claim by citing reports that competition drove down the price of pornography in Denmark, leaving it to appear as though the decreased dollar volume showed the public was tired of it. “The gross sales figures,” Buckley said, “suggest that the appetite is insatiable.”

Pornography is by definition that which appeals to prurient desires and is intended to incite to lust or depravity. In the landmark Roth case in 1957, the U. S. Supreme Court set “community standards” as the test of pornography. Many who are in the forefront of the battle against smut feel that this decision is adequate and that no more specific legislation is needed if the courts conscientiously apply the Roth ruling. Some say it is unfortunate that the defense against pornography has shifted somewhat to whether the material in question has any redeeming social value or significance. Under this concept, hard-core pornography could be legalized by the mere insertion of a meaningless token statement.

Two organizations that have led the fight against pornography are Morality in Media, founded by the Rev. Morton A. Hill, and Citizens for Decent Literature, which was started by Charles H. Keating, Jr. These men, both Roman Catholics, are currently serving on the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, a group set up by President Johnson two years ago. Father Hill has been sharply critical of the commission’s approach to the problem, and fears its report may encourage pornography rather than proposing ways to curtail it.

One legal weapon that may be helpful is found in a bill introduced into the Senate last year by the late Everett Dirksen. This bill (S.1077) would prohibit appellate courts from overruling a local jury’s determination of what is obscene. All other aspects of the litigation would still be subject to appeal.

A more effective weapon is an indignant citizenry. A recent Gallup poll showed that 76 per cent of the American people insist that tougher laws are needed to keep obscene publications off newsstands. We can assume that an even higher percentage see the distribution of such literature as detrimental to our society. Why is the will of the majority being frustrated? And why aren’t these people speaking up? Father Hill’s organization, in the interests of an awakening majority, is urging local pastors throughout the United States to devote at least one sermon to the problem in May.

We may be seeing a turning of the tide. Spock’s book is particularly heartening, for he points out that “nations and civilizations have actually disintegrated when their belief in themselves and their adherence to standards were lost.” The campaign of the Women’s Liberation Movement against sexual exploitation is also a shift in the right direction. One sign that has not yet appeared is the development of a new body of superior Christian literature with the arresting power of that written during the times of the early Church and later during the Reformation.

Cambodia And Israel

President Nixon is rapidly running out of options as events press in on him in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. His ability to maneuver lessens with each passing day.

From the outset it has been plain that the Viet Cong were using the Paris peace talks, not to bring about a ceasefire and a political settlement, but to gain time to regroup and move again against the United States. No one should have been surprised when they aimed this blow against Cambodia. First, it was calculated to test the United States to see if it would intervene. Second, they knew that non-intervention would imperil the military position of the United States and South Viet Nam, and that intervention would be opposed by the doves and anti-war senators, such as Mr. Fulbright of the Foreign Relations Committee. The Communists had a distinct advantage. Mr. Nixon was on the spot; either choice he made would bring him worry and woe.

If the military operation the President has started in Cambodia succeeds, he may have bought time, but that is all. If it fails, he must either acknowledge defeat or escalate. Either way the risk is great, and we can only hope that the returns will equal the risk. His April 30 decision was not a result of initiative on his part; it was a response to the enemy’s initiative. The Communists continue to call the tune. Short of precipitate withdrawal of U. S. forces and an open admission of defeat (which we have already incurred despite unceasing promises and claims of victory), Mr. Nixon’s options are determined for him, not by him.

It is futile to argue whether it was wise to get involved in Viet Nam. The only question left is whether we will fight to victory or get out under terms and conditions less and less to our liking. It is hollow pretense to suppose that even the program of Vietnamization is a victory. In any man’s language it is defeat—sugar-coated and somewhat reassuring to the national pride, but still defeat. And many Americans are quite willing to settle for defeat, especially those who claim that our intervention was immoral to begin with.

At the same time that we are trying to snatch a Viet Nam victory from the jaws of defeat, the Russians are working overtime to knock out Israel and diminish or destroy U. S. influence in the Middle East. It is odd that the New York Times on April 30 ran one editorial strongly opposing the U. S. stance in Cambodia and calling for disengagement and another strongly favoring indirect—and ultimately direct, if needed—intervention on behalf of Israel. One may well ask why we ought to help Israel and deny help to Cambodia and Viet Nam. Both situations are the direct result of Communist aggression, and more lives are at stake in Southeast Asia than in Israel. The answer, we suppose, is that it is in our interest to support Israel but not in our interest to support the Cambodians and the South Vietnamese.

There can be no doubt that the Soviets are deliberately playing with fire in the Middle East. They are committing themselves there in the same way that we committed ourselves in Southeast Asia. Moreover, there is no doubt that the Arab world, with the direct help of Soviet forces in the military struggle now being waged, will be far too strong for the Israelis to resist forever. It is all too obvious that Israel has no great nation to which it can look for help except the United States. If when the Soviets are fully engaged, as they probably will be, the United States refuses to supply the materials and if necessary the manpower of war, then Israel is doomed. Nasser has acidly called for the ultimate resolution of the problem by the extermination of Israel, and no one should be naïve enough to suppose that he is incapable of doing just that if and when the option is open to him.

As in Southeast Asia, Mr. Nixon’s options in the Middle East are being narrowed with every passing day. Shortly he must come to the end of a dead-end street. He will be called upon to make further hard decisions, not on his own initiative but in response to the initiative of others.

Why the United Nations has not been called upon to act in two of the most serious confrontations in twenty years is no mystery. The world’s two superpowers are involved, and a veto by one or the other in the Security Council would be a virtual certainty. But this should not preclude other nations from trying to force the U.N. to consider the latest developments.

Armageddon is not far down the road. The world is rapidly slipping toward a third world war, and the great powers seem helpless or lacking in determination to prevent it. We wish that Mr. Nixon had addressed himself to the role of a sovereign God in the affairs of men and had admitted his need for prayer on his and the nation’s behalf by the people of God.

Happy (?) Graduation

For most high-school and college seniors, the month of June has traditionally brought with it a mood of celebration, accomplishment, and anticipation. Graduation has marked the opening of new doors of opportunity, and the graduates have passed through those doors determined to conquer the world.

Graduation probably won’t be that way this year. The graduating seniors won’t be a group of wide-eyed innocents ready to subdue the world with their idealism. As they listen to commencement speakers tell them of the opportunities that await them, their minds may wander to scenes of burning buildings and billowing clouds of tear gas. As they are admonished to build a better world, some will see on their own campuses the work of those who tell them that their greatest contribution in life is to tear down. As they are told of the good life that lies ahead of them, they will think of last year’s graduates who have given their lives in a seemingly useless war. And in the few days that remain before the chords of “Pomp and Circumstance” ring out across the country, there may be further scenes of violence for the graduate to ponder on his special day.

For many, the usual joys of graduation will be replaced by a sense of fear and anger and frustration and despair. And the traditional mood of celebration will give way to a mood of grim determination that things must be different. Some will “cop-out”; some will tear down and destroy; some will hang on and somehow try to make the best of a bad scene.

But graduation need not be a time of frustration and despair for the Christian. Though he faces the same chaotic world, he can do so with a sense of confidence and anticipation. He can be confident because of the sense of purpose and direction he has found in Jesus Christ. strates the love of Christ in action, he can anticipate the joy of being an instrument of change. Through the power of the Gospel and the demonstration of Christian love And as he proclaims the Gospel in word and demon-and concern, he can attack the fundamental needs of individuals and of society.

The road ahead for the Christian graduate will not be easy. He may be rejected by those whom he seeks to reach. He may be misunderstood by those who claim to be with him. He may be frustrated and angered by the hypocrisy and apathy of some within the church. But as he focuses his attention upon the living Christ and his Word, and as he follows this Christ and his Word regardless of the cost or consequences, his life will have a vital impact upon a desperately needy world. We pray God’s blessing on those graduates who dare to venture out in this mission.

Methodists And Mammon

United Methodists still have a way to go toward carrying out their stated principle of racial equality. Nine all black annual conferences have not yet been assimilated into the white annual conferences in the same geographical areas. But the special session of the United Methodist General Conference in St. Louis (see News, page 31) gave no attention whatsoever to that situation. This neglect speaks far louder than the countless pronouncements in favor of racial equality that the Methodists have issued down through the years.

Conference delegates also showed a lamentable lack of concern for the twelve black Methodist colleges, all of which are feeling a financial pinch (in contrast to the predominantly white Methodist colleges, which enjoy all kinds of government subsidies). Test votes showed the delegates were utterly unwilling to make adequate financial sacrifices to provide the increase in denominational support needed by the black colleges. Yet they saw room to include in the annual budget $2 million for the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race with no determination of how that money is to be used.

Liberals in the United Methodist Church are wont to blame the conservatives for foot-dragging on appropriations for ethnically related causes. But it was the theologically liberal element that blocked increases in financial guarantees to the black colleges! The acknowledged floor leader of the Southern conservatives, Judge John Satterfield, had spoken publicly in favor of more money for black colleges. The liberals, fearful of jeopardizing present holdings that spell institutional security, killed the move.

A key reason for current Methodist impotence is the shallow gospel preached from many of their pulpits. This message fails to motivate people. Lacking the spirit of New Testament Christianity, many Methodists have no sense of sacrificial stewardship, and so the church must depend on invested reserves to keep afloat. Other Methodists are withholding funds to protest prevailing theological trends. One large, well-known non-Methodist organization numbers Methodists as the largest contributing bloc in its constituency.

This situation goes back to the schools themselves, white as well as black. Often the curricula of denominational colleges lack an authentically biblical base. The challenge for the church campus, greater even than that of the financial crunch, is to recover a spiritual dynamic with which churches and ministers can be energized. Only then can Methodism have a sound foundation from which to challenge people to accept and discharge their responsibilities in the social order.

Campus Conflict

With major eruptions in such “heartland” states as Kansas and Ohio, campus “unrest” has clearly ceased to be a coastal phenomenon. Across the country, from Santa Barbara to New Haven, students, faculties, and administrators have been locked in conflict among themselves and with the wider community. Often these battles have led to property destruction and bloodshed. We regret the losses and sympathize with the injured and bereaved. We also deplore violence, whatever its source, and the threat of and sympathy with it.

While recognizing the duty of the civil government to use appropriate force when necessary, the Apostle Paul speaks against its use by private citizens (Rom. 13:4; 12:9). The charismatic leaders of dissent within our society should have learned from the study of the past and of the present that they are much more likely to be suppressed by violent reaction from “up-tight” middle Americans than to progress toward their goals, so long as they themselves call for and practice violent destruction. By doing so they give a sort of legitimacy to the force used to repulse them. But persistently non-violent dissent, even (and perhaps especially) when the government overreacts to it, is likely to produce sympathy for the protesters. Selma, Alabama, should remind us of that. Today’s dissenters should also recall that through a message accompanied by non-violence even in the face of extreme violence against it, the early Church eventually won the day in the Roman Empire. (Unfortunately, the Church proved to be an unworthy guardian of the rights of others to dissent.)

While we are not to sympathize with violence itself, yet we should try to understand why some Americans have come to feel that violence, or the threat of it, is the only course of action left to them to take. Nevertheless, there is a great difference that is often obscured between sympathizing with grievances and condoning violent means for trying to redress them. It is one thing to protest, with explanations, what one believes to be unfairness in our society and to suggest and work for remedies. It is something else to make sweeping and unsubstantiated accusations against our admittedly imperfect society. For example, it was a great disservice to our entire judicial system for Yale president Kingman Brewster to express his doubts that black revolutionaries could get a fair trial anywhere. Revolutionary Communists have long been protected by our courts, to the displeasure of both Congress and common people.

We commend Attorney General Mitchell for his recent defense of the Supreme Court and its decisions and for his warning that we cannot with impunity continue to cast aspersions on our judiciary. Both the left and the right have long been guilty of reckless charges that if continued, will come back to haunt all Americans. We have recently been reminded afresh of the fragility of our physical environment, which we have long polluted recklessly. We likewise have no right to assume that our 180-year-old Constitution with the Bill of Rights is invulnerable. The rule by majority with rights for minorities that it sustains is very rare in human history and current global experience. It is not the normal course for sinful man to pursue.

The faculties and students who coerced their colleagues to cancel classes out of sympathy for a black minority or in protest to a presidential decision did not seem to care a great deal for the rights of those who might have wished to teach and to attend the canceled classes. We have gained nothing if when, for example, we demonstrate for a fair trial for members of one minority, we have to be unfair to members of another, however small, at the same time. There are ways to demonstrate concern for some without destroying the property, privileges, or persons of others. For many years, universities have been turning out an establishment elite that has ignored or oppressed the suffering poor. But they cannot atone for their past misdeeds by now condoning violence and suppressing the rights of others in the name of the poor. Let the academic communities of our nation, which ought to know better, lead the way in educating young men and women to participate responsibly in American life.

The Day The Dying Pause

It is hard, in May, to think about death. Everything heralds life, new and renewed: apple blossoms and wobbly colts, pussy willows and open-mouthed robins. To turn next week from burgeoning life to the house of death, to put living plants on memorials to decay, seems a cruel irony indeed.

Yet life and death are not so disparate. Life often comes out of death—the death of young men fighting for freedom, the death of a mother at her child’s birth—and death always succeeds life. For the Christian, who stops dying and truly begins to live only after death, perhaps it is fitting rather than ironic to set aside in May what one poet called

… the day the Dying pause

To honor those who live.

Man-Centered Theology

The Old Testament and Theology, by G. Ernest Wright (Harper & Row, 1969, 190 pp., $6), is reviewed by Gleason L. Archer, professor of Old Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

The distinguished archaeologist G. Ernest Wright, author of several outstanding studies in Old Testament theology and history, here sets forth his view of the Bible as revelation. It accords with the general perspective of Harvard Divinity School, of which he is a prominent representative.

Wright’s approach may be characterized as basically neo-orthodox, though hardly as self-assured as that of Karl Barth or Emil Brunner. He defines theology, not as “the rational content of faith,” but as “a human activity dealing with the basic issues of intrapersonal, transpersonal life,” “a searching for God as he has been and is relating himself to us in our specific time and place,” “an activity that demands and is continual conversation with one’s peers, past and present.” “Theological activity is reasoning, reflective, interpretative,” he says, “seeking those vital structures of meaning that hold life together, that release our freedom and power for creativity.”

It appears, then, that theology is pretty largely a human activity, a function of man as a reflective being capable of philosophic inquiry into metaphysical truth; it is hardly to be considered as a record of God himself taking the initiative in revealing himself and his saving truth for the redemption of mankind. Reinforcing this concept are the final sentences in the book:

As regards the truth of the canonical Scripture, it would appear that we must settle for a much humbler quest than for absolute certainty in epistemology. It would be a quest for those factors of organization of experience which provide most meaning and most creativity, while they humble one before mystery we cannot penetrate. They can never be concrete tests of validity, because God has not committed his truth to respond adequately to our tests.

Wright apparently views the Bible as nothing more than a culturally conditioned record of man’s search after God, containing recital of God’s activity on behalf of his people, accompanied by an explanation (doubtless of purely human origin) of the meaning of these events. As for the principle by which ancient Israel selected which of its religious writings should be considered canonical, Wright understands it to be the living faith or the predominating theology controlling the minds of the generation that did the choosing: “Selection of the canonical books can be understood in the light of the theology dominating a given people at a given time.”

Such an interpretation of biblical authority would reduce Scripture to the level of any other religious document belonging to any faith in any part of the world. Man is left with the awesome responsibility of passing judgment upon this purported self-disclosure of God and deciding for himself what portions of it are valid and trustworthy and what portions are to be rejected. He must remain his own ultimate court of appeal in deciding upon matters of metaphysical truth, for he has no trustworthy, objective revelation from God in the written Scripture (except, perchance, as the Holy Spirit may impress some truth—essentially unverifiable truth—upon his heart). It would even seem that some of the guiding concepts of the Pentateuch were partly borrowed from neighboring Near Eastern cultures. For example, the Deuteronomic title “the God of the Fathers” was probably taken over from a title given to El in the Amorite theology. This would explain why Jeroboam chose the El-bull symbol for cultic purposes, as more ancient than Jerusalem’s Yahwism.

Many interesting and helpful observations are included in this slender volume, some of them significant departures from the conventional liberal interpretation of Old Testament data. For example, Wright deduces from Mendenhall’s studies of the second-millennium Hittite suzerainty treaties that Israel thought of itself as governed directly by Yahweh as its divine Emperor, somewhat like the Hittite overlord in the treaties. He says we may conclude that Israelite monotheism derived, not from some abstract reduction of many gods to one, but from the overlord concept embodied in the suzerainty treaties. Moreover, since the relationship of “love” is often mentioned as that between suzerain and vassal in the Hittite documents, we may understand this emphasis in Deuteronomy as being of second-millennium origin, even though that book may have passed through North Israelite, Josianic, and post-Josianic reworking in the process of achieving its final written form. As for the prediction of supreme elevation of the Temple-mountain in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, this oracle might well have been earlier than either prophet, says Wright, since it may have been derived from the cosmic mountain of the abode of the gods in Ugaritic mythology.

Space will not permit a more detailed discussion of this interesting work, but suffice it to say that it contains some perceptive comparisons between Bultmann and Tillich (pp. 160–162), with John Calvin pressed into service as teaching the analogical, symbolical nature of biblical revelation. Granted his presuppositions, Professor Wright conducts a very intelligent and able discussion of these varying interpretations, and seems to lean away from the extreme demythologizing of the Bultmannian approach.

Pastor’S Role As ‘Shepherd’

The New Shape of Pastoral Theology, edited by William B. Oglesby, Jr. (Abingdon, 1969, 383 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Willard S. Harley, professor of psychology and director of counseling, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

This Festschrift in honor of Seward Hiltner, by his former students and colleagues, explores “various aspects and factors in pastoral theology which have been set in motion or enhanced by Hiltner’s own experiences and publications.” The names of many of the twenty-four contributors are familiar to those conversant with current pastoral psychology and the psychology of religion. The intent of the book is to facilitate discussion among theological students and pastors.

Hiltner, a pace-setter in pastoral theology, conceived of the pastor’s role as “shepherding,” a concept in which the caring, helping, healing, and sustaining aspects of the ministry are centered. He fused the legacy of Boisen’s clinical approach to theology with the philosophical approach of the Chicago School.

While parts of the book are wordy, abound in name-dropping, and give the impression that the writers were fulfilling an assignment, there are sections of fresh air that in themselves make the book of value to the student of pastoral theology.

The first ten of the twenty-four articles treat pastoral theology historically, geographically, and philosophically as it relates to current psychology, existentialism, the search for identity, and the urban crisis.

The next five consider the implications of pastoral theology for theological education. Included is the place of field experience, clinical training, and pastoral supervision, as well as the integration of practical and pastoral theology.

The last nine articles show the application of the shepherding concept in counseling, group sharing, campus ministry, intraprofessional relationships, and pastoral blessing.

Throughout the book there is a recognition of the “new shape” of pastoral theology, the changing role of the pastor in today’s world. He is seen as becoming more involved in social and civic matters. James N. Lapsley, providing a historical perspective, suggests three directions in which pastoral theology needs to grow: (1) less attention to “theology and psychology” and more to pastoral care, (2) increased attention to the communal (tribal) life of the church rather than the individualism of one-to-one relationships, (3) more philosophical sophistication, particularly in communicating its position in metaphysics.

Robert Bonthius sees the urbanization of the pastor’s role. The pastor’s ministry is to “sick cities,” to institutions as well as individuals; he is to attend to “a dying community (not to mention death dealing institutions like war).…” Quoting Niebuhr, Bonthius suggests that the God-church-world sequence become God-world-church. The pastor is encouraged to address himself to the issues of racism, human reaction in industrial relations, business and professional ethics—to have “one foot in secular agencies striving for change and one foot in ecclesiastical structures striving for change.” Again, “The churches must renounce all ‘come structures’ of church life … which try to persuade the world to become a part of the church;” “it is the world which must be allowed to provide the agenda for the churches.”

The book abounds in thought-provoking and creative concepts, some of them controversial. It is strong in its treatment of a wide scope of parish needs; it is weak in its failure to integrate the various suggested roles with the evangelistic functions of the pastor.

One wonders how the pastor who is not a superman will find the time and energy to fill the “new shape” while continuing many of the roles vital to the church not mentioned here.

The ‘Turned-On’ Generation

Purple-Violet-Squish, by David Wilkerson (Zondervan, 1969, 152 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Jack A. Chisolm, associate minister, First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

David Wilkerson has given us another exciting but disturbing report on the “turned-on” generation. The book is exciting because it is an honest appraisal of the hip teen-age subculture, disturbing because it shows that our young people have not seen in us over-thirties (“the wrinkles”) values that are lasting, and therefore are turning to bizarre avenues, mainly drugs, to try to find some meaning in life.

The literary style of the book is most helpful in giving one a feel for the teenage scene and will not appear superficial if the reader lets it speak to him. The brief sermon on Samson in the chapter “God Is Groovy, Man” is an imaginative attempt to speak to the teen-age mind.

Wilkerson has some hard words for the new breed of ministers who identify so much with the teen drug scene that it is difficult to know when drugs turn off and God turns on. He shouts “never” to those who want to adopt the dress styles and long hair and beards of the young in order to show love. I think that he shows a bit of cultural bias—i.e., the “fundamentalist mentality”—at this point. Commendably, however, he seems able to keep this mentality under control most of the time. Certainly his approach has been successful. I wish he would share more of the influence of the “charismatic dimension” upon those who have been helped, but maybe that is material for another book.

Wilkerson introduces his reader to the varieties of youthful rebellion, as seen in the Hippies, the Yippies, the Freebie Gypsies, the Jim Chromies, and others. This will be very helpful for those who want to understand the various trends and reactions in evidence today. And we are shown not only the problem of the teen-age drug scene but also the solution—a dynamic encounter with the Creator God through his Son, Jesus Christ. Only then can a person become whole and see life in true perspective.

This is a book that should be read by both the over-thirties and the underthirties. One could wish that a copy could be given to every teen-ager in America today.

Book Briefs

Tortured for His Faith, by Haralan Popov (Zondervan, 1970, 156 pp., paperback, $.75). A Bulgarian pastor who spent over thirteen years in Communist prisons tells his story.

The Work of Christ, by I. Howard Marshall (Zondervan, 1970, 128 pp., paperback, $1.95). A summary of the New Testament teaching dealing with the various aspects of the work of Christ.

Symposium on Creation II, by Donald W. Patten and others (Baker, 1970, 151 pp., paperback, $1.95). This second of a projected series of Symposiums on Creation strongly affirms the scriptural creation account.

The Four Gospels, by David Brown (Banner of Truth Trust, 1969, 486 pp., 35s). Originally a part of the well-known Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown commentary.

The Upper Room, by J. C. Ryle (Banner of Truth Trust, 1970, 467 pp., 25s). Reprint of a miscellaneous selection of papers, originally presented as sermons and lectures.

Joe Namath has just been questioned about his appearance. With an air of presumption, he ingratiatingly informs an unenlightened reporter that “the coolest man who ever lived wore long hair and a beard.”

A young student rebel justifies his iconoclastic defiance of all established authorities with the assertion that “I learned it from Jesus Christ.”

A self-indulgent hippie explains his flouting of traditional mores by citing as precedent for his behavior the life of “the world’s first hippie, Jesus Christ.”

Whenever anyone mentions Christ as the bellwether of civil disobedience, bandwagons of revolutionaries rise to snap him intellectual salutes. It seems that when Jesus plucked corn and healed a man on the Sabbath, he became the author of secular rebellion. Somewhere along the line, Christ the revolutionary has been disfigured and tailored to somebody’s illusions of individuality.

True, Christ was a revolutionary, but not in the traditional sense. His revolution did not invade the domains of civil institutions, political structures, or social customs. He never intentionally incited a riot, participated in a sit-in, or led a demonstration. Even when he was rebuking certain man-made traditions, he was the epitome of compassion, never defiance.

Jesus lived in an occupied country that was scourged by the presence of a military power ruling by coercion. Yet he obediently paid taxes to that power, healed a Roman officer’s servant, and enjoined his disciples to go the extra mile with Roman mail-carriers.

As a Jew, Christ was subject to the law of Moses, a law couched in the negative and prohibitive. Nonetheless he kept it to the letter, though ultimately he would be its abrogator.

In many areas Christ was the embodiment of model conformity. He was the perfect example of Paul’s admonition in Romans 13:7 to render “custom to whom custom, … honor to whom honor” is due.

If Christ favored the wearing of long hair, the reason was that this was the custom of the time. He did not wear long hair as a symbol of non-conformity. His individuality did not reside in external forms: it was not a growth on his chin, a medallion around his neck, or a picket sign waved above his head. Christ’s purpose was not to winnow away the chaff of custom. There was nothing conspicuous about his personage. It was his message that was revolutionary.

It is travesty, however well intentioned and sincere, to attempt to justify rebellion against social, political, and economic structures by using Christ as an example. His message is independent of such considerations.

The soil in which Christ planted his seeds of reform was the sanctity of the individual heart. The germinating essence of Christian individuality is organic; it is wrought, not of compulsion, but of inward persuasion. And it does not find its essence in the actions of masses of people who would abolish all unchristian institutions. After all, the Roman government was a consolidation of nefarious institutions that carried out the most heinous crimes. Yet Christ did not lead campaigns to abolish these institutions; rather, he introduced a new spirit to motivate the Christian in his relationships with them.

Paul, in his letter to Philemon concerning the slave Onesimus, does not attack the institution of slavery. Philemon is not ordered to set Onesimus free but—what is more difficult—is urged to love him. And it is love, not contempt, that is the gadfly of the Christ-centered revolution.

A Christ-centered revolution does not draw attention to itself with clamorous orgies of self-gratification. It is a quiet, inscrutable wonder that is analogous to the influence of a bit of yeast in a loaf of bread.

The apostles spread the Gospel to their known world without instigating marches or fomenting strife. They were building invisible kingdoms within the individual personality that were influenced neither by the governments of their time nor by reform movements against those governments.

Christian individuality is not concerned with destroying institutions. Destruction serves no remedial function. Rather, Christian individuality is concerned with reconstructing the inner spirit of the individual personalities behind those institutions. This is done with the milk of human kindness, not with the fiery brew of bitter scorn.

The glorious thing about the Christian revolution is that it can invade a prison cell, a POW camp in Siberia, or a native hut in Borneo. It is not bound by the strait jacket of a mere temporal existence but is a transcendent spirit that can elevate a man to inner happiness regardless of his environment.

Much modern theology seems to define freedom as man’s true humanity in political, sociological, or economic terms. But according to the New Testament, man’s true humanity is to know himself a child of God.

For the Christian to deal with freedom apart from God’s redemptive work in Jesus Christ, or to hope that he can minister to man’s real needs by efforts at social betterment alone, without the preaching of the Gospel, is not only theologically questionable but finally self-defeating. What multitudes there are who have all their civil rights, who know no restrictions on their freedom from political, economic, or social pressures, yet who do not know what freedom in the New Testament sense is—freedom from themselves as prisoners of sin and death! Merely to enlarge this group, or to exchange its members by a turnover of political or economic power, is hardly to fulfill the “ministry of reconciliation.”

The knowledge that man’s need is radically deeper than any external circumstance or condition may express is what enabled Karl Barth to preach to prisoners in the Basel prison: “Man can be imprisoned in other and far worse ways than you are here.” After mentioning such imprisonments as “a sorrow … which will never depart,” “wrath and hatred,” “a fatal inclination or habit,” “bodily illness,” “mutual mistrust and bitter enmity,” “anxiety” over “atomic bombs,” he suggested that bad as these imprisonments are, they “are doors which might sometime be opened, and which even now have their little cracks through which one may look out.” “But,” he went on, “we are all firmly and finally imprisoned behind a door from which we cannot even peer out: God has imprisoned us all in disobedience.… To be disobedient to God means … that in our hearts, our thoughts, our lives we reserve the right to have our own will and to go our own way” (“All,” Interpretation, January, 1960, pp. 66, 67). The self-centeredness of our existence in place of obedient acknowledgment of God and his will for us, then, is the source of our slavery. And freedom can be ours only when this problem is dealt with.

A survey of the use of the words for “freedom” in the New Testament would seem to bear this out. The writers seldom meant political liberty, except to suggest that it is not what is meant by Christian freedom. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the righteous remnant were “looking for the liberation of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38; this and other quotations are from the New English Bible). At the time of his death, his disciples “had been hoping that he was the man to liberate Israel” (Luke 24:21). But neither Jerusalem nor Israel was “liberated” from Rome; they were destroyed by her. The bondage from which Israel was to be released is variously referred to as “the commands of sin” (Rom. 6:22), “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), “wickedness” (Titus 2:14), “the empty folly of your traditional ways” (1 Pet. 1:18), “the domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13), “sin” (John 8:34; Rom. 6:17, 20 f.; Heb. 9:15). Sin is prideful human disobedience to the will of God which sets the human will at the center of reality. It is this from which men must be delivered.

And to what are men set free? Certainly not to do as they please. They are now “bound to the service of God” (Rom. 6:22); they are “slaves of Christ” whose joy it is to “serve the Lord” (Eph. 6:6, 7); they are “slaves in God’s service” (1 Pet. 2:16); they are “slaves … to the service of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17, 18); they are “servants to one another in love” (Gal. 5:13); they are set free to become members of “one body … in the one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13); they are free to become corporately “one person in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28), those among whom “Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11).

And how are they set free? They are set free by “the Son” (John 8:36); by “Christ” (Gal. 5:1); by “the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17); by “the life-giving law of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:2); by Christ, “who sacrificed himself for us” (Titus 2:14); by the “precious blood, … the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:19); by “God’s free grace alone, through his act of liberation in the person of Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23, 24); by “God’s act” in “Christ Jesus … in [whom] we are … set free” (1 Cor. 1:30); by “the shedding of his blood” (Eph. 1:7); by being “rescued … from the domain of darkness” by God’s Son, “in whom our release is secured and our sins forgiven” (Col. 1:13, 14); by Jesus’ “death” (Heb. 9:15).

Does not all this suggest that where the Church speaks of freedom it is called to herald the truth that men are bound by an enslavement they can never conquer; that however desirable freedom from the oppression of external circumstance is, such freedom can never take the place of that freedom from sin which is God’s act in Christ? Were our wrestling merely against “flesh and blood,” were Christ’s kingdom merely of “this world,” we might take the sword, or conversely use the powers of passive resistance, to break the shackles that bind men and to set them free. But our task moves in a deeper dimension. As Paul Minear has said, one of the tasks of the early Church “was to announce the opportunity of freedom to men who were still in bondage. But underneath this task lay a more far-reaching one—that of serving as Christ’s agents in bringing into subjection the principalities which keep men in bondage” (The Kingdom and the Power, p. 190).

To become free ourselves and to help other men become free from the “principalities and powers” that utilize human history for their destructive ends is the unique task of the Church. And no easy view of freedom will do. We shall have to do more profound thinking at this level before we can know what the “relevance” of the Church in this time of world history is, lest we abandon our unique task and end in disillusionment and self-defeat. “Relevance” has been defined by Paul Minear as “the quality of being pertinent to the case in hand.” Before we may know in any given situation what Christian “relevance” is, may we not have to struggle for a deeper Christian estimate of what “the case in hand” is?

There are at least three points at which the Church would seem to need caution in this area. The first is in relation to the contemporary cry for the Church’s involvement in the struggle for freedom in the social order. It hardly needs documenting that many of the Church’s own adherents are seeing “relevance” in the Church only to the extent that it becomes a direct instrument in the solution of the problems of poverty, race, war, ignorance, and prejudice. Few of us would argue that the Church should be aloof or unconcerned about these problems. But is the Church’s concern with these issues to be of no deeper quality than that of other “action” groups? And should these problems fail of solution, does the Church have no word of hope to direct to that situation of failure?

Speaking on the Mount of Olives, Jesus counseled that when the utter collapse of the structures of human existence comes, when nations are distressed and perplexed and men’s hearts are faint “with fear and with foreboding,” we are to “stand upright and hold your heads high, because your liberation is near” (Luke 21:25–28). One does not have to be able to understand fully what these strange words mean to see in them the declaration of a liberation that transcends many of the current hopes for human justice. The thought seems to be moving in the same vein as Paul’s words in Romans 8 about a freedom that nothing in this world or the next can take away. As a statement made by the Jubilee Assembly of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren put it, even after the terrible events of August 21, 1968, and thereafter, Christ’s “work of reconciliation … brings hope in the face of death and nothingness.”

On the other hand, should the hopes for human justice be wholly fulfilled, would the work of the Church be done? Suppose poverty, racism, war, ignorance, and prejudice were no more; would the word of the Gospel no longer be needed? On the last visit of Dr. Joseph Hromádka to this country, he said that at least some of the Communist thinkers in Czechoslovakia were saying, in effect: “We have had our revolution, we have eliminated class distinctions, we have overcome the drag of the evils of capitalism, but we have not yet arrived. What lack we yet?” And they had asked Professor Hromádka to lecture to them at the University of Prague on prayer! Maybe, after all, there are depths in human nature to which the Gospel speaks that lie deeper than those needs represented by the social, political, and economic revolutionary movements of our day.

And while advocates of “revolutionary theology” do battle with the forces of evil entrenched in the social order, can the Church abdicate its function of reminding them that all power tends toward corruption, and that unless we offer men inner freedom from thralldom to the powers of darkness through the liberating work of Jesus Christ, the exorcising of the demons they seek to cast out could open the way for more demons to enter, leaving the last state worse than the first? To take power from some so that others may have it, but to leave those others outside the sphere of Christ’s mastery of the demonic in all power, is a reshuffling that may exchange the personnel of ruler and ruled but will only perpetuate a corrupt situation in other hands. The issue is not who rules and who is ruled, but whether the ruler either rules or abdicates his rule selfishly or responsibly, and whether those ruled either accept authority or rebel against it selfishly or responsibly.

There is a moving and pathetic, but very profound, passage in the play The Man in the Glass Box, based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann. At the end of an eight-minute oration in praise of the Führer and his power to lay hold of men with his eloquence and promises, the man in the glass box shouts: “People of Israel, had he chosen you, you, too, would have followed!” This is no anti-Semitic indictment of Israel but a profound analysis of the dark depths in all human nature. After all, Hitler set out to right wrongs, to establish justice for those whom he believed to have been oppressed, to “put down the mighty from their thrones” in order to exalt “those of low degree.” But he illustrated that of which Paul Minear reminds us when he says:

[The “heavens” of the “architects of utopias” are] constructed out of forlorn desires, desires that the world has created and then frustrated. Crusaders … increase the disorder by trying to force their dreams upon their fellows.… Thus the world creates hopelessness that is greatest in the hearts of those who hope for the utopias that the world, by its negative logic, encourages.… When the world locates truly the enemies of its real peace, then it will find use for this archaic armor: ‘the shield of faith, … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Eph. 6:16 f.) [The Kingdom and the Power, pp. 242–4].

Secondly, in the current struggle for freedom in personal living represented in the so-called new morality and in situational ethics, may it not be that a deeper estimate of what “the case in hand” really is should be undertaken? Can we be so sure that our efforts to escape from “legalism,” from the use of “principles,” from the rather easy identification of cultural mores with Christian ethics, may not end for many, not in genuine Christian freedom, but in a new bondage to other forms of the demonic where Christ’s Lordship is unacknowledged? The realm of the demonic is that where God is no longer acknowledged as God, nor praised, and where man’s own wisdom is put in place of God’s will for man. Some of the extreme illustrations of the validity of the “new morality” are suspect in that they seem to adopt “self-understanding” or “self-realization” as the measure of the good. How this is to be equated with the “glory of God” is not clear. Furthermore, when one helps another to an alleged “self-realization” by a process that is self-gratifying, such as offering sexual intercourse as a “meaningful” experience or as an indication of full “acceptance” of another, one wonders whether such acts are those of men free to acknowledge God as God, or whether they are not mere manifestations of slavery to the “flesh.”

A conversation with some young ministers who had abandoned the institutional church—save to depend on its financing of their work!—revealed that one of their major quarrels with institutional Christianity was that it had become captive to the demons of suburban culture. After about two hours it became quite apparent that in fleeing from the demons of suburbia they had fallen into the arms of the demons of hippiedom. I do not want to judge them falsely, but they seemed to me to have been unconsciously as acculturated by the hippies as were the churches from which they sought escape acculturated by suburbia. I did not feel that St. Paul would have been any more at home with them than he would be in the average institutional church. He knew of the mistaking of “freedom” for “an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal. 5:13). And Peter knew of a “freedom” used as “a pretext for evil” (1 Pet. 2:16). And the writer of Second Peter knew of those who promised “freedom” but were “slaves of corruption,” whose “last state,” since they did this in the name of Christ, was “worse … than the first” (2 Pet. 2:19, 20).

The only true path to personal “freedom” is in “slavery” to Jesus Christ. In personal ethical decision the true “case in hand” is that both we and the situations we face are in thrall to the demonic. We can be liberated only by Him who has conquered the demonic and is now Lord. He is the touchstone of ethical decision. As my colleague Dietrich Ritschl has written, “while contextual ethics seeks the criteria for ethics in the situations,” the better approach is to seek the criteria “in Him. He opens the eyes of those who seek and the ears of those who listen to the understanding of the situation” (Memory and Hope, p. 200).

Finally, in the struggle for freedom in the institutional church, or from the institutional church, do we not need to distinguish between the freedom with which Christ sets us free, and the freedom which is often a mere form of self-assertion? Here again it would seem to be an over-simplification to identify the demonic with institutions per se, and freedom with emancipation from institutional involvement. Freedom in the secular world is often defined as having autonomous authority over one’s own actions, but no authority over others. A seventeen-year-old senior in high school proposed: “We don’t want to take over the government. We want to destroy it. I believe people should have power over their own lives, but not over other people’s lives” (The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, N. C., October 7, 1968, p. 9A). Such a view would mean the end of all institutional life, which would destroy all continuity with the past and produce chaos. Politically, of course, men cannot live permanently in chaos. History indicates that valuable though justice is (and how could there be any justice without institutions?), men can live without justice, but they cannot live without order. And unfortunately there is always a Hitler or a Wallace waiting in the wings to impose order on chaos!

But quite apart from politics, there are those whose conception of freedom in the church is escape from all forms of institutional life. One such proposal was made in Life magazine, where a proponent of this view says: “We share faith, not a faith, and we commune together to share the pain and the rejection you always receive from the establishment when you try to really do something.… We’ll look up one day and find there’s a whole worldwide church, with unquestioned open communion, which never sets foot in anything called a ‘church’ ” (Life, October 4, 1968, p. 84).

The weakness here is the superficiality of the view from the standpoint of the New Testament. The idea that demonic thralldom inheres only in the “establishment” but that enlightened and dedicated individuals who share practical dreams of eliminating many of the effects of sin from historic man are “free” because they have broken with the establishment, is hardly borne out by the New Testament. The churches at Rome and at Corinth both had institutional defects, and had members who sought to bend the institution to their own view of things at any cost, thinking that freedom lay either in molding the church to their views or in abandoning it. Paul saw clearly that their protest could be as demonic as the things they were protesting.

The question of the value of institutions and protests against them is to be solved at the deep level where Christ sets men free. The question is: Does the functioning of the institution represent corporate acknowledgment of God and his praise and his wisdom, or corporate human glorification, pride, and self-deceit? This same question must be raised in regard to protesters against the institution. Paul’s word to both was: “We … ought … not to please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1). This means that we “no more pass judgment on one another but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother” (Rom. 14:13), that we “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Rom. 14:19). True freedom from the demonic in the institutional life of the Church is to be found, not in screaming epithets at each other or in passing “judgment” or “despising” our brother (Rom. 14:10) (practices that are far too common in church assemblies and in church publications today), but in mutual acknowledgment that “each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12).

Nor does freedom lie in abandoning the institution with an air of superiority and condescension, rejoicing at the privilege of weakening it more; rather, freedom is found in seeing to it that in our corporate struggle to find the will of Christ, we “give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:27). If “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25), we shall not go far wrong in loving her ourselves. Even if the Church should go down, we would do well, as did Jeremiah, to invest in her future. Paul insisted that it was “through the church” that “the manifold wisdom of God” was to “be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). And this church was no “ideal” or “authentic” church dreamed up by someone dissatisfied with the church that was. It was the concrete, historical reality seen in the poor, weak, struggling, quarreling, sinning churches of Rome, Corinth, Colossae, Laodicea, Thessalonica, and so on. It is in the fellowship of the saints that we discover, in forgiveness and hope, who we are, what our past is, what our present task is, and what our future is.

I conclude with some words of a letter from one of the outstanding Shakespeare scholars in this country, Professor Roland Frye of the University of Pennsylvania:

I am … much concerned about the present state of the church, which seems so often to be unable to speak the authentic and classical Christian doctrines with force and conviction. There are many reasons to feel that the present temper of the world is quite open to the ancient Christian beliefs, and yet, so few theologians are able or willing to present these. The prophetic and social ministry are terribly important, and I am sure that you are aware of my convictions of that importance, yet I often fear that prophetic social comments are about all that the present generation of theologians and clergymen seem able to deliver. It is important, but it is not enough. The sociologists can do as much.

In our search for a theology of evangelism, let us continue to join forces with those who oppose injustice and racism and who seek to improve the lot of man on earth. But let us at the same time continue “to speak the authentic and classical Christian doctrines with force and conviction.” Only thus may we be genuinely and abidingly relevant.

PEBBLES

blind

from the blood sun

run red with expectation

i have come to watch

agony,

no ritualistic plastic

pressed high and heavily

crossed in the sky

where my eye is

and wind is

running cold

where he hangs,

the essence gone

a man

shattered

by the voice of the people,

a parable.

odd

how silently he answered

and pebbles that shook

in the wanton night

should cry out

and declare him

GOD,

i am on the edge

watching,

alone,

i touch his face

half smiling

for i have seen him

naked

but not as i

who have waited

to see.

D. R. UNRUH

The American answer to the abortion problem is seen by many to be: remove all legal restraints and leave the matter a personal one between a woman and her doctor. Several states have already revised their laws in this direction.

We in Britain were so mistaken about the results of our liberal abortion legislation that a timely warning may be in place. Just prior to the act a publication of the (Anglican) Mothers’ Union stated: “It is unlikely that there will be more than the marginal increase in the number of abortions.” A few months later T. L. T. Lewis, a senior gynecologist, was saying: “All in all, we did not expect a very great change in practice from that obtaining before the act. We thought there would be a slightly more liberal attitude to the problem, for that, after all, was the purpose of the new law. How wrong we were. I am afraid that we did not allow for the attitude of, firstly, the general public and secondly the general practitioner.”

The fact for which we British had not allowed was that of climate of opinion. Prior to 1968, among legitimately pregnant women, it was only the desperate who thought seriously of paying a furtive visit to the back-street abortionist, or, if rich and avant-garde, of going for a “West End Legal” abortion. The vast majority might hope, and even pray, for a spontaneous miscarriage, might even take a double dose of castor oil; beyond that they gave abortion no thought. Now all that has completely changed. It is no longer “How can I cope with this pregnancy?” but “Why should I cope with this pregnancy?” The decent woman who by her planning and toil has made a good home and has done the best for her family will eventually see the end of the tunnel in sight. At last she is beginning to re-establish her identity as a person in her own right, outside the confines of her home. Then, finding herself pregnant, she says, “Why should I go through with this—back to the diapers, back to the drudgery, back to the scratching and scraping of twenty years.” So she picks up her handbag and makes for her doctor’s consulting room.

With each abortion granted, the circle of women demanding abortion grows. Before the passage of the abortion act, I may have been asked to perform an abortion twice a year. By December, 1969, there was a referral every second working day. The Christian physician finds himself caught between two pressures. There is, on one hand, pressure from his church and from friends who cannot understand why he has anything to do with therapeutic abortions. (As part of my research into abortion as a Christian option, I sent twelve “fictional” case histories to groups of evangelical Christians: gynecologists, general practitioners, ministers, laymen, laywomen, and medical students. It is fascinating to note the decreasing permissiveness through these groups, although probably only the distinction between the views of the trained medicals and those of the youngest age group—the clinical medical students—is statistically significant.) On the other side there is the pressure from his patients and their relatives and his colleagues urging him to greater and greater involvement. It may be instructive for American Christians thinking about abortion to know of some of the problems that face the British Christian doctor in his everyday professional life.

London has been called “the abortion capital of the world” but is quite atypical of the rest of the country. From April, 1968, when the abortion act took force, to the end of that year, 8,601 private abortions were performed in the whole of England and Wales; of these 8,091 were performed in the North-West district of London. There it can be a very lucrative business: a Christian colleague of mine was invited to help at a private clinic in the area with the information that she could thereby expect to increase her present earnings by 400 per cent. There conditions are frequently poor, the patient’s stay is a matter of a few hours, and there is often no adequate pre-operative assessment or post-operative care.

Outside this tiny area, conditions are completely different. Of the remaining 12,300 abortions performed during the same months, 11,700 were performed in the National Health Service hospitals, which means that the patients were referred by their general practitioner to a consultant gynecologist, were admitted (usually for forty-eight hours or longer), were anesthetized by a trained anesthesiologist, with all the resources of the Blood Transfusion Service available, and all without any financial cost whatever to the patient herself. Even so, financial considerations are not absent. The patient whom one refuses not infrequently says, “Could I come and see you privately, Doctor?”—a remark guaranteed to enrage any conscientious physician. Many of my gynecologist colleagues in private practice refuse to take any fee when seeing a private patient about abortion. If in our situation the temptation to make very large sums of money quickly has to be resisted, it may well be that this is a factor the American physician, in his different circumstances, should consider beforehand.

All gynecologists find abortions repugnant, and in Britain one who, for whatever reason, fails to do his share of the dirty work tends to lose popularity with his colleagues. The junior doctors specializing in gynecology are in particular difficulty. They may be expected to provide unquestioningly the second signature required on the statutory form; they may find that their share of the operating list consists of a string of abortions of which they do not approve. So much is this so that some Christian men, now ready to reach consultant status, find that emigration may be the only option for them, as it could be that appointment boards may not be sympathetic to candidates not prepared to “pull their weight.” At a more junior level, numbers of Christian doctors are deciding that the abortion act has closed the door to a gynecological career for them.

In the day-to-day working of an outpatient clinic, the abortion case plays havoc. Whereas my outpatient appointments are made at ten-minute intervals, the abortion request case will take three to four times as long. It is not unknown for there to be four or more such cases at one outpatient session. Some consultants have decided to say “yes” because it is too time-consuming to say “no”. In this situation the Christian doctor must take refuge in the knowledge that he is seeking to do God’s will, that his hands are Christ’s hands and this day he is to “perform those good deeds which God had before ordained that he should walk in them.” Unfortunately, it is far from easy to know what is God’s will in the case of a woman sitting there in tears.

Most of us at the time of the passage of the act decided to hold firmly to abortion on medical indication only, but as the women come and go by the scores, it becomes clear that there is nowhere at which a predetermined line can be drawn. The woman with renal failure, early in pregnancy, must, obviously be aborted; then what about the cardiac case who could be nursed through her pregnancy, but would then go into failure on arriving home with the baby to care for? If she is accepted, then what about the woman with a history of hospitalization for mental disease who has recently improved but whose pregnancy is reactivating her problem. If she should be aborted, then what about the woman with a severe depression, now cured, whose social or economic conditions are going to deteriorate so because of this pregnancy that she will sink, once again, into a depression, leaving her family life in ruins and her children bereft of care?

Perhaps the extramarital pregnancy leaves us with little sympathy—until we remember our Lord with the woman taken in adultery. Of course, this does not mean that we are prepared to terminate the pregnancy of girls whose morals have gone to the wind, but it is here that climate again has its affect. Had her doctor sent this girl to another gynecologist, she would have been aborted. Is her reward for meeting the servant of Christ to be told that her career is ruined, that she must bring up her illegitimate child, without help, in some lonely slum, or that she must abandon her elderly parents, whose sole breadwinner she may be, in order to complete this pregnancy? This may well be what one has to say to the girl, but in a legal situation where abortion for a less deserving woman is very readily obtained, one needs strong grounds for one’s opinions. Debates on the timing of the entry of the soul into the fetus have kept philosphers happy since before the Christian era; they seem irrelevant to the gynecologist who sees a large number of spontaneous miscarriages. The sanctity of life is a useful concept, but its biblical basis proves singularly elusive. Psychiatric opinions on the aftermath of therapeutic abortion are so divergent as to prove useless. The gynecologist can only pray that the decision in this case would be that which the Lord would have taken had he been sitting in the same chair.

Something of our present tension can be seen in the papers given by evangelical gynecologists at recent Christian Medical Fellowship conferences. Dr. Elsie Sibthorpe said:

It is when we think of the future of the unwanted fetus, its potential for becoming a normal, healthy human being blighted almost before it has even assumed a human form in the uterus, that we begin to question whether our self-righteous adherence to the sanctity of fetal life is not misplaced. Sometimes we feel like withdrawing from controversy, just opting out as our Catholic colleagues are able to do, and refusing to see patients requesting abortion, but would this be right? Surely it is essential for Christians to face up to their problems, not to escape from them.

Another doctor, W. Y. Sinclair, said:

Most changes which might apparently undermine the morals of the Christian in particular, and the community in general, are at first generally frowned upon. Even in the past year I have seen many gynecologists change from an attitude of strict conservatism to one of partial or complete liberalism. I rather suspect that as time goes on even Christian doctors will find more and more indications for performing abortion with little adverse effect on their conscience. Often I ask myself the question: If this were my own teen-age daughter that was pregnant, what would I want for her benefit? I rather feel I would choose abortion if that was what she also wanted and especially if her career was at stake. If this is my attitude, who has no daughter, I wonder how the mothers of such would react. We should seriously consider this before condemning others. At present my attitude is strict, as I find the performing of abortion distasteful but more and more I feel these decisions much more difficult to make and a more liberal frame of mind prevailing [“In the Service of Medicine,” April, 1969].

In view of our British experience, it would be wise for Christians in America to give very careful thought to their stance in abortion reform. In an excellent booklet “The Problem of Abortion” published by the Board of Social Ministry of the Lutheran Church in America, Doctors Wertz and Witmer end up suggesting that the ideal should be compassionate abortion and suggest grounds very similar to those in our British abortion act. It is the drafting of such an act that is so difficult. As one practitioner in the notorious London sector stated: “This may not have been what Parliament intended but they put up the umbrella and we are sheltering under it.

Despite these difficulties, in my judgment some legislation is essential; faced by the anguished patient, one keeps thinking, “What am I hoping to achieve by making this unwilling woman go through with this pregnancy, which can have a deleterious effect on her whole future, when I could so very easily lift the whole burden from her?” On such occasions or when patient pressure becomes excessive, it is tremendously valuable to pull out a copy of the act and read it to the patient. I then add: “I have to make a detailed statement to London on each case. What could I say about you?” This often evokes the reply: “I don’t really fit in.” Without such a lifeline to grasp, one would find the pressures even greater than they currently are.

In seeking to keep our feet on the rock, we must search for hard facts. One such is the question of guilt. Psychiatric series tend to discount this if it is not so serious as to manifest itself as a symptom. This is not a sufficiently fine criterion. I have seen women who put on a bold face to the world while suffering deep remorse over a therapeutic abortion in the past. As part of my study of all aspects of abortion, I am eager to hear from any committed Christian woman who has had a therapeutic abortion, or any pastor who has counseled such a woman, in order to learn her true feelings. It is obviously important to know of those who are happy and thankful, as well as those who suffer pangs of conscience.

Malcolm Muggeridge, a British journalist whose best-known attributes are a ready wit and an acid tongue, has blown up a storm in the world of letters by rediscovering (if I may borrow his term) Jesus Christ. Perhaps as an evangelical from across the water I do not share all his views of Scripture, but there is something about the way he writes about our Lord that turns the stony heart of this reporter, not to butter, exactly, but let’s say to warm lava. Muggeridge is a sometime editor of Punch, a sometime chancellor of Edinburgh University, and a darling of BBC television. Now he is shaking the caps off the teeth of the media people, forcing them to take a fresh look at the claims of One who said he was the Light and Saviour of the world.

Muggeridge is an acknowledged master of the English tongue. His gift for analysis and expression has enabled him to bend and mold the thinking of thousands, if not millions, of people. Because he is such a persuasive writer, his new love for the Lord has encouraged believers and given hope to seekers. He is making the kind of impact, in short, that I believe God is expecting of every writing man and woman who places his talent on the sacred altar.

A number of years ago I got the feeling that while God wanted to encourage me, he did not seriously want me to try to imitate Billy Graham. About the same time, it appeared that somebody was taking the cover off my typewriter; that somebody was putting wings on the carriage knobs and saying in effect, “Lower your flaps and take off!” Now along comes Muggeridge to illustrate my conviction that there is no limit to the outreach, influence, or effectiveness of the Christian journalist who is prepared to train himself and to make himself available as a servant of God’s Word. We should never forget for a day that a journalist, Karl Marx, changed the face of the world while sitting at a chair in the British Museum—writing.

Today I believe God is calling his writers and editors to move up and move in. He is saying in effect, “This is your hour. The media are yours. Your copy will appear before kings and governors for my sake. For the present you are being given an unprecedented opportunity to sow the seed of the Gospel so it will multiply around the world.” I believe God is telling us to take the cover off. Instead of swatting mosquitoes by the name of Forman or O’Hair, instead of writing worry-editorials about postal rates, we should be letting our typewriter ribbons scorch the paper as we tell the world what has happened, what is happening now, and what will happen—according to God’s Word.

We should move into positions of spiritual, intellectual and cultural leadership in the world, and become chaplains to the reading public. No one else is in the field, except perhaps the horoscope writers. A new brand of humanism is in process of capturing much of the religious press. Among these publications, interest in the things of the Bible and of God is dwindling issue by issue, thereby keeping pace with their shrinking circulation.

In addition to shipping our young God-fearing missionaries up the Orinoco, we should be catapulting them into the mass media. They should be infiltrating the field of communications, taking over posts of leadership, moving up and moving in—not by craftiness but by craft, not by supernatural intervention so much as by the fact that they are the best in the business.

Remember that the TV commentators (to take one branch of the media) are actively helping America to make up its mind. These journalists have become the national interpreters of our day. Television has not yet developed its own experts, its own schools of communication, its own training programs. It is still leaning on individual journalists who can discern the signs of the times. They are being sought out and presented to millions of viewers. In the increasing chaos of our exploding society, think of the need for wisdom, for profundity, for depth of analysis. Think of the need for a Christian understanding of men and events, for a biblical point of view that nails sin for what it is and points to a solution that draws on all the resources of the universe.

Is all this too much to expect? Is there anywhere in the journalistic field an evangelical capable of such an assignment? I say there are a lot of people who are capable of being capable of such a role. There are a lot of mute Muggeridges around who could do a better job than our English friend is doing, if they had the opportunity—and the preparation.

Two types of men exemplify the goals we seek. The first is the Renaissance Man. In seeking to envision the person whom the media of the seventies most admire and seek to emulate, I keep coming back to the Renaissance Man. He is the man not of encyclopedic knowledge so much as encyclopedic interest. He is the connoisseur, even the dilettante. He is the William Buckley type who seems comfortably at home in any field of human inquiry, the George Plimpton type who is game for anything. He is the man of wide-ranging interest, of polish, of sophistication, of manners, of taste, of humor. He makes strong points in a gentle, telling manner. He is civilized; he does not “lose his cool.” He knows his history, his languages, his poets, his scientists, his sports. He is one of the beautiful people, cultured, cultivated, educated, charming.

A contrast is the Reformation Man. This man originated in the same period of history, but he is different. The Reformation Man is a man of God’s book. He is a man of unrelenting purpose and moral passion, a man with the gleam of eternity in his eye. He is a buttonholer for Christ. He is looking for revival in the Church. His aim is not to go forward so much as to go back—back to the first century, back to the time when God revealed himself in the spoken Word. The Reformation Man is not a man of pleasantries but a man of action. He is God’s prophet. He proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the glad tidings of great joy. He also pierces men’s consciences, warns men of hell and judgment, and bids them repent and be saved. To him the mass media are tools provided by God, to be used while there is time before the end, by the Holy Spirit, to draw men into the Kingdom.

Both these streams entered our civilization about the same time, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and as historians have pointed out, our modern society has witnessed almost the complete triumph of the Renaissance over the Reformation. My feeling is that Christian journalists of the seventies should seek to combine the Renaissance Man and the Reformation Man. We cannot do without the one or the other. The Renaissance Man today identifies with his hearers but has nothing to proclaim to them; the Reformation Man has the proclamation but so often cannot identify with the people he wants to reach.

As an illustration of this combination, consider the Apostle Paul. As Renaissance Man he quoted the Greek poets Epimenides and Menander; as Reformation Man he quoted Isaiah and Moses and David. Paul told the people of Philippi, “I am become all things to all men, so that by all means I might save some.” That is the Renaissance Man speaking. But to the people of Corinth he said, “I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” That is the Reformation Man speaking.

A less successful but instructive example of the combined Renaissance and Reformation Man was the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, a contemporary of Luther. Although a priest, this man was a genuine humanist and a friend of Erasmus. He became a Christian and a Reformer by reading the newly edited Greek New Testament. Zwingli was a good thinker and writer, a natural leader, and the most attractive of all the Reformation figures. Because of his command of Scripture he became the most important man in the canton of Zürich and was able to break the papal yoke.

But Zwingli hurt his witness at three significant points. (1) His Renaissance sex pattern got him into trouble. (2) His Reformation zeal caused him to go along with the persecution of the Anabaptists. (3) He fell into the trap of Christian activism, the same trap that is now ensnaring such theologians as Richard Shaull and Harvey Cox. I mean the activism that takes a man from his first love, puts him on a white horse, and convinces him that he is the saviour of the people. Zwingli moved from evangelistic activity to social activity to political activity to military activity, and ended his life on the battlefield.

Why do we need to be Renaissance Men? Because we have fallen into a cultural and spiritual morass in the Western world. One does not need to read Mailer or Nabokov or Jacqueline Susann to discover that. In journalism the gap that is yawning between the American news media and the “silent majority” is more than a disparity between leftist intellectualism and middle-class conservatism. We are just not being well informed. Many of the journalists, editors, newscasters, and commentators who serve us are cultural nincompoops. They seem to have very little sense of history. They don’t know their Toynbee; apparently they are ignorant of the classics. They never quote the Bible. They are evidently monolinguists; there is seldom a reference to any other culture. If they travel, it seems to be from one Hilton bar to another. When they are required to take an editorial stand, there appears to be no point of reference, so they mount their chargers and ride off in all directions.

I say the Christian journalist should be a Renaissance Man who knows more about culture and history and custom than the skeptical reporter alongside him. He should know more about this world even though he doesn’t belong to this world and is looking for a better world. He should know, for example, that what has made the American system of government work, and a hundred others fail, is the arrangement of checks and balances in the Constitution—a system based on the doctrine of original sin, as James Madison learned it at the feet of the Reverend John Witherspoon at the College of New Jersey.

He should also know the English language and the writers who have mastered it. Journalism courses are no substitute for a grasp of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Bunyan, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Robert Browning, Ernest Hemingway. It isn’t enough to know Augustine and Kierkegaard; we must also be familiar with Dostoevsky and Marx.

Now let us look at the Reformation Man, God’s man in today’s world. More than anything else, the communications industry needs Christian journalists who are committed to what Dr. John Mackay calls the “majesty of truth.” These men should be moving up and moving in, to direct not only religious publications but secular publications as well. Their concept of truth would be formed by him who said, “I am the truth.” Their function would be not only to sort out fact from opinion but to distinguish fact from rumor, fact from gossip, fact from character assassinaton. They would be committed to the proposition that truth exists, and that truth is in order to goodness. Popular Marxist doctrine today holds that eternal truth does not exist, that what is true at one point in the history of the party may not be true at another point. Accordingly, man’s inhumanity to man is not always “wrong.” Pilate’s philosophy belongs in that category. So does Machiavelli’s. So does Xuan Thuy’s, and that is the real dialogue problem at the bargaining table in Paris.

The Christian Church stands or falls on its belief that the Bible is truth. Scripture does not interest the Church because of certain antiquarian or archaeological or anthropological or cosmological or literary aspects that appeal to the modern researcher. It interests the Church for one reason only: because God said it was truth. God said that the Old and New Testaments composed his Word; and since he is the author of truth, that makes the Bible true.

But what does the Bible say that is true? It says that man is a sinner and that God can save him for eternity in Jesus Christ. Whether man’s sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the genes or the chromosomes or some other medium is not important. The point is that, according to the Bible, man sins. All men sin. The fact that man also does good deeds does not help him spiritually. An engine that is half good and half bad won’t run. A news report that is slanted can’t be trusted. The only way to fix the engine is to overhaul it, and the only way to correct the slanted newscast is to stand it alongside the truth.

The Reformation Man in journalism should be the most accurate and dependable person in the business. It was said of the great baseball pitcher Christy Mathew-son that if he was in a game and the umpires had a close decision to make, they would ask his opinion even though he was a competitor, because he had such a reputation for honesty. That should be the Reformation Man—eager to find the facts, determined to be fair, quick to acknowledge his mistakes, zealous of the truth.

The Reformation journalist should not take advantage of his responsible position to preach doctrine where he is not invited to preach, but that does not mean that he cannot defend the Bible, that he cannot express Christian convictions about the great issues of our day, that he cannot help mankind as well as inform, that he cannot in some basic way try to lift the burdens of the people by pointing to the source of relief. God help him if he doesn’t! I would expect the Reformation Man in every story he writes to assume that right is better than wrong, faith is better than doubt, courage is better than fear, joy is better than grief, and love is better than hate. I would expect him to circulate encouraging news wherever he finds it, and to avoid sensational and inflammatory treatment of news that is not in the public interest.

In our religious publications, I would say that as Reformation Men a prime urgent need is to go back to the Bible and start preaching salvation by grace. The “four spiritual laws” are excellent food for babes; but many of the people who read our publications need strong meat, and we keep on with the pablum. Many of the liberal religious publications in our country are in trouble because they have stopped being themselves. They are no longer interpreting life spiritually but have become like everybody else. When people pick up a religious paper, they expect it to say something about God. They expect it to approach the problems of life from a spiritual standpoint. They expect to find its writers standing on the bridge for God and truth and righteousness, even though the decks are awash and the ship is sinking. Many of these readers are unconsciously looking for help. When they find religious papers reflecting what they read everywhere else, they lay them down.

Salvation! The cross! The new birth! The empty tomb! Forgiveness of sin! The baptism of the Spirit! Justification by faith! Sanctifying power! The priesthood of believers! Freedom in Christ! These were the great Reformation themes; these should be our themes as writers for Christian publications. They are as valid on Mars as on Earth, and they will last forever.

When I say that we should combine in ourselves the Renaissance Man and the Reformation Man, I mean to make some exceptions. We hardly rate as “beautiful people,” and I’m not sure we ought to. The paragon of all Renaissance Men was Erasmus, and he was probably the most confused man of the sixteenth century. The Renaissance started out as the rebirth of Greek culture, and Greece is a tragic example of what happens to a civilization that has no clear spiritual moorings. We can do without the morals of the Renaissance.

In the same way we cannot swallow the Reformation whole. Michael Servetus died by the sanction of John Calvin because he took a theological position that Calvin considered unorthodox. Those who deny their fellow men the right to be human beings have no business speaking for the Christ who said that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.

My interest is wider than the religious scene because I covet the whole field of journalistic literature for Christ. Last year in Minneapolis we overwhelmingly elected an unknown police detective as our mayor. He was a man without experience, without backing, without party affiliation, but we chose him for one reason: to a sick town he seemed to make sense. The first thing he said after his election was that God was going to make the decisions in his office. The result is that we’re not so sick any more.

The people of the United States and Canada are just waiting for some Christian journalists who will make sense, who will move up and move in on the mass media. God has no desire to turn over the communications system to the prince of the power of the air, or to throw all our type into the hell box. He wants able writers and editors who will win their way into places of strategy and influence by the sheer ability of their journalism which they have placed at the disposal of the Holy Spirit. God did commit to us the saving message of the Gospel. We are not religious hacks trying to milk the public with a special brand of esoteric teaching. We are servants of truth, stewards of the mysteries of Grace, vessels of mud, commissioned to carry the divine treasure. We are told not to throw this treasure to the swine; we are told to offer it to men—through the media.

Something sinister is happening to our world. A movement is afoot to eliminate God from every aspect of our society. As Oswald Hoffmann says, it is no time to be fooling around. We had better come up with some answers that make sense. We may not pull the answers out of our pocket, but we know in whose pocket they may be found. Forty-two years ago, when I was a freshman journalist at the University of California, I was told, “Never use the word must in a news story.” Since then I have found the one exception to that rule: “You must be born again.” That is God’s answer, and the only answer that will save this quarreling planet.

Let us move up and move in, and tell it to as many as we can reach, as Renaissance Men and Reformation Men, in every way we know. Let us publish the glad tidings that God reigns, and that his Son Jesus Christ is the hope of the world. Let’s say it now, before the Lord reaches for that tray with the Second Coming type, and goes to press with our last edition.