If I may paraphrase Mark Twain—in a way he certainly would not approve—the rumors of God’s death have been grossly exaggerated.

As you all know, we have been inundated during the past few years with books … and articles, and speeches, and even, heaven help us, sermons … proclaiming the demise of biblical theism.

We have been told—so often and so emphatically that few dared question the bald assertion—that man, having “come of age,” finds it “impossible” any longer to believe in a transcendent God or an order of reality beyond nature.

Bishops, theologians, and other oracles have warned us that, if we want to obtain a hearing from “modern man,” we must abandon the very word “supernatural.”

If we want anyone to take the Bible seriously, we must “demythologize” it by “reinterpreting” or simply excising all of those embarrassing stories about miracles.

If we feel compelled to speak of the resurrection, we may do so provided we make clear that we’re not really making the preposterous claim that it was an actual, historical event.

That’s what we’ve been told by the radical theologians who’ve dominated the idea market—and the religious book lists—in recent years.

However, we have not been told … at least, no one has managed to make clear to me … why we must jettison about 90 per cent of the historic Christian faith. We have simply been told, in a more dogmatic tone than any Roman pope has dared to employ for some time, that this is the way it has to be if we want to communicate with “modern man.”

Now I cannot speak with the same assurance as the radical theologians do about the mind-set of “modern man.” To be perfectly honest, I must confess that in twenty-seven years as a newspaper reporter, I’ve never met the fellow. He seems to be as elusive in real life as that “common man” Henry Wallace used to talk about.

In my quest for the prototype “modern man” I have met and talked to a good many individual modern men. I’ve even listened to some of them. And my impression of their attitudes and desires is totally different from that of Bishop Robinson and Harvey Cox.

What I hear these modern men saying is that they’re sick and tired of being told what they can’t believe. They want to know what, if anything, they can believe.

They feel they’ve been cast long enough in the role of captive audience for theologians engaged in a reckless competition to see who can administer the rudest shock to the faithful.

Most of them aren’t particularly interested in the denatured Christianity which is being offered to them as a concession to their supposed modernity of mind. They figure that if the Church is just a human institution for social service, if the Bible is so unreliable that you can’t take any part of it very seriously, if the Christian faith is based on a gigantic lie about a man rising from the dead … then there’s no use trying to “modernize” all this mess. Just throw it all out and be done with it.

This growing disenchantment among the laity is, I believe, the main reason why we are witnessing a decline in church attendance and a relative decline in giving. Some religious leaders like to attribute these trends to lay disapproval of church social action. This explanation strikes me as rather self-righteous. It says, in effect, “we are suffering because we, like Christ, have stood up for the right.”

My own observation is otherwise. For every layman I know who has quit coming to church because he disapproves of social action, I know at least three who are hanging on and supporting the church only because it is a channel for community service.

The real lesson to be drawn from the current slump in religious interest seems to me quite clear. If you persist in handing out stones when people ask for bread, they’ll finally quit coming to the bakery.

The most hopeful fact I know today is that there are signs that we are approaching the end of the fad for reckless negation in theology.

The first heralds of a new day are to be found where important new intellectual currents nearly always make their first appearance—on the book lists.

Within the past year or so, authors of impressive scholarly standing have come forward to assure bewildered laymen—and, I might add, equally bewildered parish ministers—that “modern man” can believe in God … even in a personal, loving, purposeful God … without the slightest sacrifice of intellectual integrity.

Indeed, some have gone so far as to argue—quite cogently, it seems to me—that “modern man” really can’t make sense of all the phenomena of his own existence without the hypothesis of God.

Over in Europe, whence we belatedly imported demythologizing, a new generation of theologians has arisen who know not Bultmann. Actually, they know him quite well—they just don’t think he’s infallible. Men like Gunther Bornkamm and Wolfhart Pannenberg are saying quite boldly that, yes, we can know quite a bit about Jesus. And—would you believe it—they are even treating the resurrection as an actual, historical event.

And now comes that handsomely-credentialed liberal, Peter Berger, to rehabilitate the term “supernatural.” Miracles, obviously, have not ceased.

Dr. Berger—who is, you remember, a sociologist—offers in his new book A Rumor of Angels some badly needed perspective on this whole business of making dogmatic pronouncements about what “modern man” will or won’t, can or can’t, believe.

“It may be conceded,” he writes, “that there is in the modern world a certain type of consciousness that has difficulties with the supernatural. This statement remains, however, on the level of socio-historical diagnosis. The diagnosed condition is not thereupon elevated to the status of absolute criterion.… We may agree that contemporary consciousness is incapable of conceiving of either angels or demons. We are still left with the question of whether, possibly, both angels and demons go on existing despite this incapacity of our contemporaries to conceive of them.”

I am not greatly exercised, personally, about the existence of angels and demons. But I must confess that I am heartened to find myself in a changing theological climate which makes it possible to admit—even in a gathering of church leaders—that I say the Apostles’ Creed without crossing my fingers.

As publishers of religious books, it is your responsibility both to anticipate—and to help share—the future trends of religious thought. Some of you, I am happy to note, already are making a large and creative contribution to the recovery of the positive in theology. I hope all of you will push forward in this endeavor.

As Professor Paul Lehmann of Union Seminary observed recently, we are moving into “an encounter between an emerging age of doubt and an emerging age of faith.” It is an age of doubt because vast numbers of men and women—and particularly young people—are unwilling to believe anything simply on authority. It is not enough any more to pound people over the head with didactic pronouncements preceded by the words, “The Church teaches” or “The Bible says.”

But it also can be an age of faith, because millions upon millions of people are searching hungrily for a meaningful concept of God. Most of them already are powerfully attracted to the person of Jesus Christ. They don’t know quite what to make of the Bible, and they don’t think much of the Church. But their faces light up with interest when you talk to them about the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

There has never been a time, in my opinion, when the fields were whiter to the harvest. I believe that Chad Walsh accurately described the condition of a vast portion of humanity in our time in his book of poetry entitled The Psalm of Christ:

I have called to God and heard no answer,

I have seen the thick curtain drop, and sunlight die;

My voice has echoed back, a foolish voice,

The prayer restored intact to its silly source.

I have walked in darkness, he hung in it.

In all my mines of night, he was there first;

In whatever dead tunnel I am lost, he finds me.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

From his perfect darkness a voice says, I have not.¹From The Psalm of Christ by Chad Walsh. The Westminster Press. Copyright © 1963 by W. L. Jenkins. Used by permission.

the courage of Christ

It took courage for the son of the carpenter to leave his village and launch out upon his ministry without the help of family or friends. It took courage to accept baptism from John and thus run the risk of being thought of as a needy sinner. It took courage to face the rigors of the temptation alone in the wilderness. It took courage to oppose the traditions of men that obscured or even contradicted the word of God. It took courage to tell men that they were evil, and to expose their sins so relentlessly that they were left without a cloak for those sins. It took courage to refuse the demand of the people that he consent to be made their king. It took courage to set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem. It took courage to cleanse the temple. It took courage to accept the cup from the Father’s hand. It took courage to face the venom of his accusers and the brutality of his crucifiers. It was one long trail of courage from beginning to end—the courage of conviction and consecration. It has the church and all of Christian history as its abiding monument.—From A Short Life of Christ, by Everett F. Harrison, 263, 264. Copyright © 1969 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Early in 1962, a handful of Reformed Church in America and Southern Presbyterian representatives met in Washington, D.C., to discuss what was increasingly the vogue—church union. Seven years later, Presbyterians approved the merger by the narrowest of margins after an arduous and at times mildly bitter fight. But the victory was in vain. Reformed laymen in the Midwest, zealous of historic tenets and of liberty they have in their denomination, feared the long arm of a more centralized, Presbyterian structure. And in the more doctrinally liberal background, as they saw it, lurked the ominous Consultation on Church Union (COCU). By March 18 they had defeated the merger plan.

The church—which had its origins with Dutch settlers in New York in 1628—was unanimous in the East for merger. Twenty-two classes (local governing bodies) there backed it. But the proposal needed approval by thirty, or two-thirds of the forty-five classes spread over twenty-six states. Lake Erie Classis, embracing Detroit and Toledo area churches, added its vote in favor to give union forces twenty-one. But that is as far as the yeas could penetrate. The Western classes were just as solid against merger, and voted their sentiments as convincingly.

“I would give the laymen 75 per cent of the credit for the way the vote went,” said the Rev. Henry Bast of the 800-member Bethany Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. “It was the plan of union itself which caused them to object to it. They could see in it a movement in a high Presbyterian direction, with strong centralization of control, making it virtually impossible to express dissent.”

Bast was one of few in the denomination who would comment on the defeat. Buttoned lips at headquarters followed considerable consternation when the press quoted administrative assistant Barbara Mahannah as saying, “A lot of conservatives out in the Midwest apparently were afraid of being swallowed up.”

The truth of the matter is that she was right. Although there was no large umbrella organization in the West mobilized to fight the merger, individual groups emerged, and in areas such as South Holland, Illinois, and Kalamazoo, semi-official papers bent on preserving a “historic” Reformed stance were circulated. Congregations picked as delegates elders who represented the majority feeling, often voting a position counter to that of their pastor.

Bast said the move looked like one toward a “new Presbyterianism—away from historic positions [by eliminating the diaconate and a cohesion based on doctrine] to a unity calling for latitude in doctrine and conformity in program.”

With the vote so clearly divided, many leaders feel the question is resolved; but some still hope they can soften the ground for another try.

The excerpt from the volume A Place to Stand by D. Elton Trueblood appearing in this periodical under the title “Rational Christianity” (February 14 issue) conveyed to the reader the main thrust of the work. Dr. Trueblood has undertaken the impressive task of finding for today’s man, with all his perplexities, some point of stability that he can use as a base of operations. If the ancient Greek physicist felt the need for this, modern post-industrial and polycentric man should and does, deep down, sense the same need.

The volume contains a certain “philosophy of motif” in which it is suggested that there is a dialectic or periodicity in the Christian movement between belief and action. Trueblood sees a close parallel between the “cut flower” nature of our contemporary culture, on the one hand, and the dwindling role of faith in the dynamics of recent developments in church programming, on the other. He thinks the emphases within the Church during the past fifty years have been shaped by forms of action, issuing in three major developments: foreign missions, church union, and church renewal.

These represented bursts of speed, Trueblood feels, that have largely lost their ability to inspire great enthusiasm. In short, he believes they have run their course. He feels also that the Christian climate is now such that the next major drive will be in the direction of faith—of the belief that has been neglected and whose force, being spent, no longer undergirds major emphases. It is in these terms that our writer projects a kind of “scenario of the future.”

Trueblood is primarily concerned to sketch and defend a type of faith that will provide an Archimedean fulcrum for modern man. He recognizes the extent to which belief has been eroded, not primarily by the systematic and honest atheist, but by those professing allegiance to the Christian movement. The distinguished Friend is almost ruthlessly candid in his willingness to pinpoint problem areas and problem persons here.

His critiques are leveled particularly at those who do two things: first, profess allegiance to Jesus Christ while rejecting out of hand the central core of our Lord’s convictions concerning God; and second, in the name of either science or philosophy drain the conception of God from the element of his personality.

Professor Trueblood is only secondarily concerned for those who may have naive views of God that make him “too personal”; he finds his real quarrel with those who present a more “clear and present danger” by making God less than man. After all, the major biblical passages that are anthropomorphic in tone set, not a ceiling above which our conception of him may not rise, but a floor beneath which we ought not to formulate it.

The faith that must serve as an Archimedean point in any future vitalization of Christianity must, Trueblood suggests, begin with Jesus Christ. His apologetic at this point begins with the acceptance of the essential reliability of the Four Gospels. He refuses to permit the critics to drain the message of the Evangelists of its historical content. To the man whose faith has been undermined here, he says in effect: Begin to live with the four Gospels. For a year, make it your determined effort and quest to seek for him by “reading short consecutive passages, marking, questioning and if possible praying.” He warns the reader that “this is a dangerous experiment, for it may change your life.”

Underlying his challenge is the reasoned conviction that the Word of God possesses power to reveal One who in turn has an almost uncanny ability to seize the imagination and capture the heart. Further, to the seeking person who will permit Him thus to take him captive, the same Lord will unveil God in such a manner that he will be understood as nothing less than the Living God.

Our author feels that those who repudiate the existence of a personal God are accepting a position bristling with far more difficulties than are present in the one they reject. In this bracket he includes not only the “death of God” thinkers but also such men as Paul Tillich and Bishop John Robinson. He is even less impressed by those who feel that the dictum “God is love” affords an “out” for belief in God as a concrete being.

Faith, which has its beginning in acquaintance with Jesus Christ, is seen by Friend Trueblood as having implicit within itself not only clear-cut intimations concerning the existence of a personal God (yes, he is persuaded that it is proper to speak of His existence!) but a great deal more. He feels that our Lord’s attitudes toward the questions of prayer and “the life everlasting” are both definitive and convincing.

Discussing prayer, Trueblood shows that it is only a “stone of stumbling” or a form of soliloquy to the one who approaches it with a fallacious understanding of God’s will, or with a dogmatic “idea of a closed universe.” In prayer he sees the potent reality of bridging, in a provisional-yet-real way, the chasm between the human and the divine. This bridging is seen, not merely in terms of a therapeutic process, but as a means by which man can reach the conviction of the reality of the Living God.

This is not to say that the author has closed his eyes to the major objections leveled against the efficacy of prayer. Rather, he presses his apologetic at this point in terms of the dimension of personal relationship with God which prayer not only presupposes but also creates. To sum up Professor Trueblood’s position at this point, prayer is reality.

In considering the belief in life after death, our author again appeals to the two elements of the general thrust of our Lord’s teaching on the subject, and the reasonableness of belief upon the basis of the “balance of alternatives.” A reasonable conclusion is that without the life everlasting, problems are left dangling that are as serious for belief in a moral world as they are for faith in God. Moreover, the resurrection of our Lord seems to demand status as a fact in the light of the consequences that followed in the lives of his followers.

Enough has been said to indicate that Professor Trueblood finds strong grounds—rational grounds, if you will—for a type of faith that will bear the weight of the traffic he proposes to route over it. Admittedly, we do not and cannot have absolute proof in the areas noted above. But he finds that the converging lines of evidence constitute a strand of evidence strong enough to support a faith adequate (and credible) for today’s man. In the conviction of the trustworthiness of Jesus Christ, the thinking man can, with hard-headed thinking, find an Archimedean fulcrum.

HAROLD B. KUHN

This report is compiled from dispatches by William T. Bray of the Christian Information Service in Thailand, and the Rev. G. Edward Roffe, pioneer Alliance missionary in Laos for forty years.

When future historians record the end of the West’s great missionary movements, they will doubtless stress the developing countries’ nationalism and the casting off of colonial chains. Less noticed may be major international meetings like the Berlin and Singapore evangelism congresses, which help make missionary withdrawal possible.

Another key meeting was held recently in Bangkok, Thailand, the fifth in a series of Asian conferences of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The CMA’s Asian flock has tripled to 150,000 members since the first conference, in 1955.

That first conference heralded the start of the painful, long-overdue “indigenous policy” later adopted by the CMA. Indian pastor R. P. Chavan, who started the indigenous ball rolling, went home from that meeting and within a year had cut all financial ties between the Marathi churches and the mission in India. Without such independence today, church outreach would be in deep trouble, since non-Indians are under increasing pressure.

So the Alliance conferences have come to be synonymous with sweeping reforms and a loosening of foreign missionaries’ grip on the national churches.

Chavan was back in 1969, playing a key role in the most promising development at Bangkok: an interfield national mission board for Asia. The new agency will send out Asian missionaries, with Asian funds, selected by Asians, under Asian standards. Already CMA national churches have sent out some twenty-nine missionaries.

Cambodia—now virtually closed to Western missionaries—is likely to be the first target field of the new board.

Despite the Asian locale and emphasis, the Bangkok meeting was in truth a worldwide conference—the first time in the CMA’s eighty-two years that almost all members of its world family were represented at a single gathering. Of the CMA’s thirty-one fields, only Brazil, Israel, Syria, and isolated Cambodia were not represented. The non-Asian lands sent their field chairman and church president. Asian countries sent the field chairman and several church representatives apportioned by church membership.

Closed nations like Cambodia, mainland China, and North Viet Nam got considerable attention. Indonesia’s Rev. J. La’lang theorized that God has closed such doors to Westerners “to awaken the Asian churches to our responsibilities.” Yet even Asians, he acknowledged, can’t get into North Viet Nam.

So how to proceed? Pray for the closed nation. Set up a missions office in each national church to plot strategy. Collect as much information as possible on the country to be entered, including any data on an already existing evangelical church. Explore other means of spreading the Gospel, such as through the travel of Christian businessmen, teachers, or government officials.

Like its predecessors, the Bangkok meeting was not a legislative body. Nonetheless, an articulate position on world ecumenism emerged. The little-publicized midday sessions on the topic were generally played down by the CMA’s “gentleman general” L. L. King, New York-based foreign secretary. Yet both major papers were carefully prepared attacks on recent ecumenical developments.

Chavan, prominent in this area as well, delivered one of the papers, and a conference statement said his position “received the full support” of the eighty delegates. The gist of it was that evangelicals should have no relationship with the World Council of Churches.

Chavan readily admitted that much good had come from the movement. But he cited its doctrinal vagueness, emphasis on radical social involvement, and friendliness toward Roman Catholics. He warned nationals that world ecumenism seeks to infiltrate the Church and win over its people.

“The best answer we can give is to keep busy in the work which God has given us to do, filled with the love of Christ for a lost world, on our knees in prayer and intercession and our lives fully surrendered to Christ and at his disposal. When we are in this position we will not be tempted by their material aid, nor will we be blind to their false doctrines and methods.”

The Philippines’ V. R. Pada applauded new Catholic freedom to read the Bible and other post-Vatican II changes. But he warned that much “aggiornamento” is not really modernization, renovation, and adaptation but doctrinal reformulation. He opposed joint discussions, debates, prayer meetings, or other formal sessions with Catholics.

Along with such heady topics came the grueling business of reports on all sorts of matters, and much discussion of evangelism modeled after Latin America’s “Evangelism in Depth” and Africa’s “New Life for All.” Late into the night, knots of men lingered on the rich tropical lawns of the CMA’s new Bangkok guest house, sharing evangelistic strategies.

At one of the evening rallies in Bangkok’s fashionable AUA Auditorium, President Doan Van Mieng of the Evangelical Church of Viet Nam hit hard with a series of rabbit-punch statements about the determination of Christians there to cling to their faith amid adversity.

He recalled that from the end of World War II to the 1954 Geneva Accord there was widespread war, during which some preachers and many believers were killed, tortured, or imprisoned. Possessions were confiscated, and churches were destroyed. Yet the pressure brought believers closer together, and their zeal in giving money and evangelistic outreach was unprecedented.

After the nation was divided in 1954, most of the believers fled the North (about 1,000 members and eleven pastors stayed behind). During a period of relative peace in the South through 1960, the church established work in refugee relief, scholarships, radio, literature, student work, military chaplaincy, and medicine, as well as continuing evangelism and church growth.

Since 1961, the accelerating war has brought new difficulties, danger, and death; yet the work continues to grow. By last year the church had begun its “Evangelism Deep and Wide,” with the aim of bringing ten million persons to accept Christ. “Today in Viet Nam there is a wide open door,” he said.

Miscellany

United Presbyterian Moderator John Coventry Smith is co-chairman of a committee to discuss Catholic membership in the National Council of Churches (a step he predicted in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, News, February 3, 1967, issue). This was one major anticipated topic in the first full-dress visit of top NCC leaders to the Vatican March 26–28.… The NCC joined Catholics on two fronts last month: in presenting their joint film award to Rachel, Rachel and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; and in a California suit against the Selective Service Act, which does not recognize religious objections to particular wars.… And Richard Cardinal Cushing granted his imprimatur to the American Bible Society’s Today’s English Version of the the New Testament.

The Southern Baptist home-mission board raised interest on church loans from 6½ to 7½ per cent, and finds it now must pay 8¼ per cent on its own borrowings.

Since U. S. Catholic bishops removed the Friday abstinence obligation, fish prices have dropped nearly 20 per cent and produced economic peril for many small U. S. coastal towns, says the American Economic Review.

The underwriter’s handbook of Great American Insurance Companies cautions that clergymen as a group are bad car insurance risks.

A new Indiana law permits voluntary public-school religious observances on Christmas and Easter (with provisions for non-participants) and silent prayer and meditation at the opening of school days.

Six priests and a nun, along with the wife of one of the clerics, were held in a Washington, D. C., jail after ransacking local offices of the Dow Chemical Company (makers of napalm). Most had received reprimands from the Catholic Church for previous disturbances.

DEATHS

LEANDER H. PEREZ, SR., 76, political boss of Plaquemines Parish (county), Louisiana, and arch-segregationist who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1962 for opposing parochial-school integration; of a heart attack, on his plantation near New Orleans.

JOHN HOWARD MELISH, 94, removed as rector of Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn Heights, New York, by his vestry and bishop because of leftist activities of his son, who served as assistant rector, an action upheld by the state Supreme Court; in Brooklyn.

Personalia

Episcopal priest William Starr charges he was fired as an ecumenical Columbia University chaplain by an affiliate of United Ministries in Higher Education after pressures from college administrators and trustees over his backing of last year’s student protest.

Australian Methodist Colin Williams, 48, who heads the University of Chicago’s lagging doctor of ministry program, will be nominated this month as new dean of Yale Divinity School.… Dr. James T. Laney, 41, Vanderbilt Divinity School ethicist, was named dean of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology (Methodist).… With a swipe at his “ultra-conservative” constituency, Ralph A. Phelps resigned as president of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas.… Dr. Gordon R. Werkema, principal of a Christian Reformed high school, was named president of Trinity Christian College, Illinois.

Universal Life Church minister-maker Kirby Hensley (March 14 issue, page 34) held a mass ordain-in at Sonoma State College, California, but got only 200 takers—mostly hippie types—for the 2,000 ordination certificates he brought along.

Phyllis Edwards, first woman to be ordained an Episcopal deacon, performed her first marriage last month in California despite canonical questions.

Dr. M. L. Wilson, chairman of the National Committee of Black Churchmen, will succeed Dr. Norman Vincent Peale as president of New York City’s Council of Churches.

The second and third White House worship services were conducted by: the Rev. Richard Halverson of Fourth Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., and the Rev. Louis Evans Jr., of La Jolla (California) Presbyterian Church. Both clergymen are well-known evangelicals.

The Rev. C. Edward Brubaker, Presbyterian pastor in Englewood, New Jersey, was elected chairman of the armed services’ General Commission on Chaplains.

Ronald Webster, independence leader in the Caribbean island of Anguilla occupied last month by British troops, is not a Seventh-day Adventist minister, the denomination reports, and not even a layman in good standing at the moment.

The Rev. Thomas Lee Hayes, Episcopal Peace Fellowship director, was sent by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam as a minister to U. S. military deserters in Sweden.… United Church of Christ minister Emerson G. Hangen is new minister of the American Church in Paris.

Monsignor Giovanni Musante, 50, a Vatican staffer, received Pope Paul’s permission to leave the priesthood and marry.… Father Eugene Bianchi of Emory University, Georgia, former assistant editor of the Jesuit weekly America, plans to marry with or without Vatican approval.

Muhammed Ali (Cassius Clay) won a bout by default when the U. S. Supreme Court remanded his case, along with several others involving wiretapping, to lower courts. Black Muslim Clay resisted Army induction, claiming he is a minister who boxes part-time.

Uganda’s President Milton Obote expressed “delight” at Pope Paul’s plan to visit his country in July—first African trip by a reigning pontiff.

Every morning I open the newspaper with a feeling of dread. And the dread is usually confirmed by the news of worldwide disturbances ranging from the Sino-Russian confrontation to the British “invasion” of Anguilla in the Caribbean. I sometimes think I would like to join the men we expect to land on the moon in a few months’ time, so as to opt out of the conflicts that surround the planet Earth. But the sharp prick of reality tells me that men would shortly make the moon no better than the earth, for the sin problem is a cosmic one.

Our news editor, Richard N. Ostling, begins his new work as religion reporter for Time magazine after this issue. He is a graduate of Michigan, Phi Beta Kappa, holds an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern, and is completing an M.A. in Religion at George Washington University. Though we are sad to lose this splendid and capable coworker, we are grateful for the years he spent with us and happy over his new opportunity. In the next Editor’s Note I will call attention to Mr. Ostling’s replacement, who comes to us shortly.

In this issue we begin a two-part essay on biology and the Christian faith that first appeared in Interchange, published from 511 Kent Street, Sydney, Australia. This periodical may be of interest to our readers.

On St. Patrick’s Day in Atlanta, ecumenical engineers unveiled a tentative framework for linking 25 million American Christians. The twenty-four-page outline, printed appropriately if coincidentally on green paper, builds the big new denomination upon multi-congregational “parishes” that are racially and economically inclusive but not necessarily geographically defined.

It promises the biggest shakeup in American Protestant history. As the project coordinator put it, “there is no more exciting possibility for the renewal of the Church at this historical moment.”

The outline, though not formally adopted, was the major development of the eighth annual meeting of the nine-denomination Consultation on Church Union. Guidelines came from the Principles of Church Union approved by the consultation three years ago. The outline itself was the product of a year’s work by COCU’s eighteen-member Plan of Union Commission. It was subjected to an intensive review in Atlanta, and delegates heartily backed the “parish” focus. The outline is scheduled to emerge as the final, full-fledged charter next year.

“Something irreversible” has begun in the life of the consultation, said Dr. Paul A. Crow, Jr., new COCU general secretary. “The matter of going out of business is not an option.”

COCU’s ninety participating delegates (ten from each denomination) continue to resist full commitment to historic creeds, despite pressures from non-participating communions. As some see it, the aim of becoming a uniting church may be doomed at this point. Dr. C. Thomas Spitz, Jr., general secretary of the Lutheran Council in the U. S. A., declared recently that COCU avoidance of confessional commitment makes it “increasingly difficult” for Lutherans and other historic confessional communities to participate. Spitz, who headed the first Lutheran Council observer delegation to COCU last year, passed up the 1969 session altogether, citing the press of other duties. He sent cordial greetings, however, and noted that “while elements of the detailed process which you have followed toward church union are new to us and foreign to our pattern, there is much that we have to learn from you.”

A Roman Catholic observer, noted historian Father George H. Tavard, indicated at a COCU news conference that he agreed with Spitz. “The first way to have unity is to have doctrinal agreement,” he said. But there was no sign at Atlanta that COCU would reconsider its decision to regard the historic creeds in a less-than-binding sense. Indeed, the subject never came up at the plenary level.

The most troublesome issue in the Atlanta sessions was how to achieve racial inclusiveness and balance in the new church. There have been rumors that the three black denominations in COCU—AME, AME Zion, and CME—might pull out. Insiders say this is unlikely.

Nevertheless, black churchmen registered a number of complaints on issues ranging from seating to representation. Some said flatly they do not trust white churchmen. A black bishop said “there certainly is anxiety and concern over grass-roots acceptance of Negro Christians in a united church.” Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference delivered a brief, inflammatory address at an after-hours meeting called by radicals. He charged that “the Church deals with symptoms, not with causes,” and that a reversal must begin in seminaries.

COCU Chairman James K. Mathews, a Methodist bishop, responded sympathetically, stating that the predominantly white churches need blacks more than the blacks need the whites. COCU delegates hope to build a racially inclusive church but realize that no amount of careful structuring will guarantee it.

Some see real hope in the “parish” idea. The name may be changed, but the idea of making the primary local unit a cluster of churches rather than individual congregations seems destined to characterize the new denomination. Membership will be in the parish, and a parish council will determine the mission and program of the constituent congregations. The parish is described as being “composed of one or more of the congregations of the uniting churches,” and the context places obvious emphasis on the plural.

The parish idea is not new, but it is quite revolutionary for denominations in which local autonomy has been a controlling principle. At the present time such congregational groupings are largely limited to sparsely populated and depressed areas where lone congregations are unable to make the financial grade by themselves.

“The parish may use several of the church buildings or plants of the congregations composing the parish,” the outline says, “but a full ‘church program’ will not necessarily be carried out in each of these ‘places.’ The full program at the local level of the united church shall be the parish program, consisting of those traditional emphases (worship, Christian education, etc.) which are essential to the mission of the church and of new forms of mission to be discovered and developed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

The sharing of ministers, and especially of specialists (music, Christian education, youth), will undoubtedly be a feature of the parish plan. Most other questions, however, are yet to be answered: Who will select the ministers? How shall “sick situations” be identified and resolved? Who should hold title to property?

There are even more issues to be resolved at the higher levels. For one thing, although “mission” is referred to repeatedly in the new outline, it is never defined or described. The purpose of both the Church universal and the new denomination is left unclear.

“Our greatest single problem is to involve the grass roots,” Bishop Mathews told newsmen. To this end, if participating denominations contribute enough funds, the consultation hopes to hire soon a $15,000-a-year publicist. COCU spokesmen are well aware that after the consultation’s first decade perhaps fewer than one in ten of the prospective members know what the initials stand for. There is also believed to be some submerged distrust of the laity, as evidenced by the fact that of the ninety COCU representatives fewer than twenty are lay people in secular vocations.

Critics of COCU contend that the biggest pitfalls are yet to come. A constitution for the new church will not be drawn up until after the merger is consummated. Also to come after union is a “new affirmation of faith.” Either or both of these could conceivably embrace principles unacceptable to evangelicals who feel they can live under present COCU standards.

The man responsible now more than any other for steering the American ecumenical course through all the turbulence is General Secretary Crow, a 37-year-old former Disciples of Christ pastor and church history professor. Alabama-born Crow, soft-spoken father of three, took over the post last September. His small COCU secretariat has offices in Princeton, New Jersey.

This summer Crow will get the help of a second executive. The Rev. W. Clyde Williams of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta has been named associate general secretary. He is a former Christian Methodist Episcopal pastor who served as a student missionary to Cuba.

COCU showed maturity in taking criticism in stride. At a protest rally attended by Georgia Governor Lester Maddox and some 2,500 others, the Rev. Carl McIntire and a local colleague sang a polemic ditty branding COCU “a monstrous dream.” At a COCU banquet Bishop J. G. M. Willebrands, key Vatican ecumenist, warned that “a national church, as a limit of Christian concern, is as unthinkable as a national god. If the Roman Catholic danger is the universal at the expense of the local, yours is the danger of the local or national at the expense of the universal.” Eugene Carson Blake, from whose 1960 sermon COCU originated, said working out church union is not easy “and it ought not to be.”

In the end it was the hope of renewal that spurred the delegates on. The closing prayer by a black bishop came at high noon on the first day of spring. Outside the sun shone warmly. Inside there were doubts that winter was over.

Missouri Synod Adventures

The Council of Presidents of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod voted 25–13 last month to recommend that the denomination’s July convention in Denver formally declare fellowship with the American Lutheran Church. As tension mounts over this issue, the Missourians are also involved in other ecumenical adventures. Like:

• After an intensive four-year study, a church commission has prepared a favorable report on affiliation with the Lutheran World Federation—a second issue on the July agenda. The committee says the LWF doctrinal basis is “proper and sufficient,” and Missouri could withdraw if a member denomination changes its confessional basis or compromises it in an ecumenical merger.

Two major problems are cited: There is definite variation in the way member churches apply their official confessional commitments to their actual “teaching and practice.” Also, some extend “the limits of intercommunion” beyond normal Lutheran practice.

Calming other fears, the committee says the LWF doesn’t legislate for member bodies, exercise churchly functions, or interfere in members’ affairs. And the report says the LWF’s work over twenty-two years “has greatly stimulated the doctrinal and confessional awareness of world Lutheranism.”

• National and district presidents of Missouri Synod, the ALC, and the small Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, met in Minneapolis on issues relating to theology and fellowship. The group unanimously passed a statement that “we all yield willingly to the authority of Holy Scriptures.” The ALC’s Charles Anderson and Missouri’s Herbert J. A. Bouman presented “theses” on biblical inerrancy and inspiration that were unanimously agreed upon “in substance” and commended to the constituency for study.¹The Anderson-Bouman paper takes a generally conservative stand on the Bible as a “normative authority” and “the Word of God, given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” It states that “the Lutheran Confessions did not express interest in certain externals concerning the Scriptures, such as extent of the canon and certain attributes, e.g., inerrancy, considered in isolation, as is sometimes done today. The Confessions were interested in the content of Scripture, as Law and Gospel, and as designed to perform God’s two chief works, ‘to terrify and to justify and quicken the terrified’.”

• Missouri’s President Oliver R. Harms held his second “unofficial” meeting with the president of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), the biggest U. S. Lutheran body.

• In the continuing debate over the ALC issue, 300 Missouri laymen and 100 clergymen issued an “Affirmation” in favor of fellowship. President J. A. O. Preus of Concordia Seminary in Illinois, one of Missouri Synod’s two theological schools, said the ALC’s declaration of fellowship with the LCA last year makes it “a whole new ball game,” and Missouri can’t evaluate it by July.

New Episcopal Splinter

The new American Episcopal Church, which splintered from the Protestant Episcopal Church last May, has selected Cincinnati as its headquarters site.

The schism was caused by the usual conservative-liberal syndrome. AEC adherents believe the “management of the Protestant Episcopal Church has fallen into the hands of those who have permitted the faith and practice of Christianity to deteriorate in favor of forcing their own political and sociological concepts upon the Church.”

Bishop James H. George, Jr., executive of the young denomination, states it more succinctly: “The faith of the apostles has been watered down.”

George, formerly an Episcopal rector in Charleston, South Carolina, was consecrated a bishop in Cincinnati December 29. The service was conducted in a Masonic Temple chapel by the Most Reverend K. C. Pillai, primate of the AEC, who is also archbishop of the Indian Orthodox Church, thus in succession of the Old Catholic and Antiochean communions.

The AEC was organized at Mobile, Alabama, last May 18, largely the result of a lay movement.

JAMES L. ADAMS

Relative Discord

“A man is responsible for his friends, not for his choice of relatives,” said Southern Presbyterian activist Dr. J. Randolph Taylor of his first cousin, Dr. G. Aiken Taylor, editor of the conservative Presbyterian Journal. The remark had significance beyond the immediate family.

As Randy Taylor added, it points up the family nature of the squabble now encircling the Presbyterian Church, U.S., with the “restorers” on the right and the “reformers” on the left. Theological polarity is mounting. Among other things, Aiken Taylor’s controversial Journal is up for possible censure by the denomination at its General Assembly in Mobile this month for asserting that the church-school curriculum is heretical.

Randy Taylor is former chairman of the liberal Fellowship of Concern—officially dissolved but operating informally. He and Warren Wilson, lay field director of the conservative Concerned Presbyterians—a group that was also asked to disband last year but refused—squared off on Presbyterian polarity problems at the annual meeting of the Religious Newswriters Association in Atlanta.

Wilson charged that half of the Southern Presbyterians’ 4,000 congregations will bolt the denomination to form a new one if the church goes into the proposed Consultation on Church Union merger. “We’re having difficulty persuading churches not to pull out now,” he said. But Taylor thought the estimate was exaggerated and added that he sees “at least eight or ten” alignment groups within the church, not just liberals and conservatives.

Wilson accused Taylor’s group of secretly plotting to “take over the political machinery of the church” through a clandestine group known as the Fellowship of St. James, which he said came out into the open in November, 1963, as the Fellowship of Concern and “took over the boards and agencies of the church.”

Both Wilson and Taylor agreed on one thing: the FOC was “unashamedly political.” Taylor conceded: “We sought to put pressure on” in the form of “thunder on the left.… We need to be much more seriously involved in the life of the world.”

Wilson said that presbytery meetings are clergy-dominated (some churches haven’t been represented by elders for a year or so, he claimed) and that 70 per cent of Southern Presbyterians aren’t aware of COCU. His group stresses the authority of Scripture and “bringing people to Christ.” He denied any “racist tints” in Concerned Presbyterians.

Eight millionaire Presbyterians have backed his organization to a total of $90–100,000 annually, Wilson told the religion writers, “and we have no trouble getting it.”

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Stubborn Dutchmen

Earlier this year, four student pastors of the Dutch Roman Catholic Student Church collided with their bishops and came out on the better side by persuading the primate to permit engaged Father Jos Vrijburg to continue preaching after his marriage. It was agreed, however, that he would not celebrate Mass. This was in Amsterdam.

Last month, in Utrecht, Bernard Cardinal Alfrink blew the whistle on three other student pastors when the youthful congregation invited “heretical” Dutch Reformed, Reformed, Mennonite, Lutheran, Baptist, and Arminian student ministers to serve Mass during Lent. With two services behind them, in which they used a form quite compatible with the average Protestant service, the student pastors received their comeuppance.

In conscience, Cardinal Alfrink said, he could not allow their continuance. In conscience, they rejoined, they would continue.

Alfrink had the more convincing conscience. Under a church law forbidding the holding of services with heretics, the three Utrecht priests were suspended.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Religious News Service Washington correspondent William Willoughby spent two days asking black and white Memphis churchmen what has happened in the year since Martin Luther King was murdered. His report:

Folks in Memphis are proud. On March 11 the Commercial Appeal did an eight-column spread on the ninety-nine-year sentence Judge W. Preston Battle meted out to James Earl Ray for assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King. Above the headline on the world’s number-one story of the day appeared a view of Memphis’s growing skyline on one side and a picture of the judge on the other. In between, in three succinct paragraphs printed in bold face, was the refutation Battle made at the sentencing of a national magazine’s cutting barb that the mid-South’s leading metropolis is a “decadent river town.”

Battle is right; the city—twenty-fourth largest in the nation—is not decadent. But it is emotionally enervated—from its black population’s challenging of the Establishment, from the drawn-out events of the Ray trial, and from adverse publicity resulting from King’s murder (“Why did it happen here—why not somewhere else?”).

It’s a year since Ray’s shot into King’s face triggered the biggest wave of terror the nation has known. As he lay in wait at the rear of a seedy flophouse, his 30-caliber rifle trained on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel across the alley, Ray caught the nation’s seventh-fastest-growing city off its feet. Almost. Had it not been for the excellent leadership of such Negro clergymen as James Lawson of Centenary A.M.E. Church and Judge-pastor Ben Hooks of Greater Middle Baptist, Memphis—like Washington—would have burned.

Though Memphis didn’t burn, it smoldered. As Dr. John William Aldridge, formerly of Idlewild Presbyterian Church, put it, Memphis is a city whose foundation and basis is a civilization “gone with the wind”; yet many persons are still hoping “for a nostalgic return to the golden days of King Cotton and the river steamer.” After the murder of King, the chasm between the blacks (38 per cent of the population) and “the East Memphis crowd” almost split wide open. Although many pretend the city is one, the boulevards of the affluent lead more directly to City Hall than does black-lined Beale Street.

Had King’s murder occurred this year instead of last, the city would have been much more off guard. On April 4, 1968, fortunately, Negroes were rallied to a cause. Someone could speak to them when it was vital that someone speak. Their clergymen—who previously were questioning what the Church can legitimately do in social activities and admonishing their people “only to adjust to the pains of this world and have faith in God”—spurred on a cause.

Mayor Henry Loeb wouldn’t budge an inch on black sanitation workers’ pleas for better pay and conditions. And as never before, white Memphis encountered black power. As the crisis mounted, King was flown in. Good Friday turned into Black Easter.

In a frantic eleventh-hour effort, the hastily organized Downtown Ministers’ Association determined (only after half-hearted white dilly-dallying) to meet with the black ministers and head off trouble. Individually, white ministers can get to the Establishment, and with the threat of boycotts, it was important for them to do so. Some even marched with the blacks to City Hall, receiving sharp criticism as their reward.

A year later, there is no cause significant enough for the blacks to rally behind. Though not as resigned as before, they lack the cohesion the garbage strike fostered. Many white clergy, the frenzy over, have settled back to daily pastoral duties. The city lacks a binding force that can keep the Negroes united and the whites alive to the problems of modern urban life—the precise point, as Aldridge sees it, where the tragedy of Memphis lies:

“The white church of Memphis did not understand the times.… Rather than utilizing history, [it] became the victim of history. Being mired in a basically eighteenth-century Weltanschauung, with nineteenth-century institutional forms, Memphis was not able to deal with the problems of twentieth-century urbanization.”

Air-conditioning and the breakup of the Crump political machine helped Memphis rise from the agrarianism and concomitant Southern feudalism of the thirties and forties to become a city flexing its muscles as the regional headquarters for many national corporations. Though the new mayor-council form of government assures Negroes a voice (three councilmen out of thirteen), the white receiving set is better wired.

Such clergymen as Dean William A. Dimmick of St. Mary’s Cathedral (Episcopal) and the Rev. William Jones, also an Episcopalian, share Aldridge’s view that the trouble with Memphian Christians is a fierce individualism that doesn’t allow for much cooperation. This might be all right in an agrarian setting, they say, but it vitiates influence the Church must have in an urban situation. As Jones, executive director of the clergy-prodding Association for Christian Training and Service (ACTS), puts it, “Memphis is numb out of all this and is just recovering. There is a deep longing and yearning for leadership in this city.” But the individualistic outworking is king—“get the people saved,” as one forlorn Catholic priest put it, “and things will straighten out. But it is obvious Memphis is its own best argument against this position.”

The Commercial Appeal’s Barney DuBois quoted Hooks to illustrate the point: “The Rev. Mr. Hooks said he had pleaded often with white Memphis churches to get involved in the civil-rights struggle, but he said he always received the same answer. ‘They tell me, we don’t want to take social positions. We’re out to save people soul by soul. Once everybody’s saved, then we won’t have any problems. But now comes the liquor-by-the-drink proposal, and they (the white churches) came running to us, asking us to get involved in their struggle. They take a social stand on one issue, but not another. So I told them, why don’t you do it yourselves, soul by soul?’ ”

It can be rather costly to take a stand in Memphis. Take Southern Baptist pastor Brooks Ramsey. Last fall he offered to resign as pastor of the 1,700-member Second Baptist Church when he made his interracial convictions known. “I just felt that since the Gospel is for all men, I ought to be free to preach it to all men.” A lot of flak went up, but the majority wanted the popular minister to stay. Some 200 stampeded out, however, carrying their purses with them, spurred by the fact that Second Church was the only one in the city where a Negro spoke on Race Relations Sunday.

A few churches and Memphis Bible College carry on missions with Negroes in areas like Boxtown. But such operations are of the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” type. One program, Project Match, pairs Sunday-school classes with grades in particular schools and distributes clothes and other items. Some criticize this as paternalism. Methodists and Presbyterians have some things going, particularly in recreation. One black-white program is cleaning up mini-parks. But by and large, as Commercial Appeal Religion Editor Lloyd Holbeck describes it: “Most churches were not involved last summer, are not now, and do not plan to be next summer.”

A bright spot is the ongoing programs of the Paulist fathers at St. Patrick’s Church, in the shadow both of Beale Street and of the Lorraine Motel. Father William Greenspun and his collaborators work tirelessly with Negroes, who have scared most whites off to other parishes. He sees some hope coming out of the King experience: individually some key persons are getting “a type of conversion” that tells them they’d better mend their racial outlook.

“Links of trust” between some clergymen and individual laymen were forged on a very limited scale in the year following King’s death by such men as Jones and Dimmick. Even as Southern Christian Leadership emissaries gathered in Memphis, Selma, Montgomery, and a score of other cities to mark the second phase of the “Poor People’s Campaign,” a handful of Memphians met to form MIFA (Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association) in hope of at least creating a viable ecumenical, biracial vehicle for communication, possibly allaying urban crisis conditions and talking sense to the city fathers. This in a metro area where there are as many as 900 churches (“more churches than gas stations,” Memphians point out) and where there is not even a council of churches. Even Dimmick is not overly optimistic: “We keep reminding ourselves that David had only a few stones.”

Though the Jones-Dimmick brainchild provides that any participating church or member need not go along with the rest on any course of action MIFA takes (pressure from within individual churches could make this a valuable escape when the going gets rough), chances are Memphis will continue to be more obsessed with whether Ray was a part of a conspiracy than it is over the silent conspiracy of the Establishment. Memphis hasn’t changed much in a year’s time.

Graham In Melbourne: Stones At Christians?

The Billy Graham Australia crusade ended at Melbourne Cricket Ground March 23 in warm Sunday-afternoon sunshine as 85,000 persons gathered to hear the message of God’s forgiveness. The meeting was taped for U. S. color TV broadcasts late next month. Planes from all over the South Pacific flew in worshipers; hundreds came from Sydney and Adelaide by chartered trains and buses.

At a closing press conference, Graham announced he would set out immediately for Southeast Asia and a series of conferences in search of a peace formula. The evangelist said he would report to President Nixon on returning to America if the President wishes him to.

Graham said he was highly gratified at what God had done in Melbourne. He noted it was virtually a youth crusade from its inception. Young people made up more than three-fourths of the cumulative audience of 330,000. And up to 95 per cent of those going forward on youth nights were under 25. Other interesting statistics: 20,000 crusade volunteers visited 700,000 Victoria homes; there were 3,000 home prayer groups, 4,000 counselors, and a 1,500-voice choir. The meetings brought more than 12,000 inquirers.

An ecumenical, cooperative spirit was evidenced by the participation of 1,120 Victoria congregations and the top leadership of Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and other churches. Melbourne Archbishop Frank Woods, who pronounced the final benediction, said he “tremendously appreciated the directness of Dr. Graham. He preached without any thoughts of compromise.”

The crusade had an unusual outreach into factories which produce everything from cars to ice cream to paint, where messages were brought by Florida boat-builder Walter Maloon. There was also penetration of schools, universities, and offices. Attendance at daily services at Myer Bowl averaged 25,000, with Governor Rohan Delacombe of Victoria and General Wilson Haffenden among platform participants.

At the March 21 service, demonstrators from a left-wing club at Monash University tried to disrupt the meeting by charging into the counseling area as Graham began his appeal, shouting, and throwing leaflets condemning Graham’s “emotional, unintelligent messages.” Police arrested eight persons. The audience was scarcely aware of the disturbance, and nearly 1,000 young people tame forward.

Graham told the audience, “I am here not as a representative of any country but of the Kingdom of God, and proud to be such.” He said the time may soon return when stones will be thrown at Christians.

Melbourne was the culmination of twenty-two crusades directed by Dan Piatt over the past year, extending through New Zealand, Tasmania, Singapore, Malaysia, and several Australian cities, and involving associate evangelists Lane Adams, Grady Wilson, Ralph Bell, and John Wesley White.

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Amity For Cyprus?

Cyprus, legendary birthplace of love-goddess Aphrodite, has had anything but amity since it became independent in 1960. But Greek and Turkish Cypriots are holding talks for the first time in five years, and in recent weeks they have shown signs of healing the island’s political-religious wounds.

The main problem is the desire of the Greek Cypriots, 78 per cent of the population, to unite with Greece (“enosis”), and opposition to this from the 18 per cent Turkish population. But enosis may be more a Greek idea than a Greek Cypriot idea.

Fighting broke out in 1963 when Cypriot Greeks led by Orthodox Archbishop Makarios III, president of Cyprus, sought constitutional changes. A U. N. peace-keeping force has been there ever since, though 2,500 troops have been withdrawn in recent months. Turkish leaders have now accepted “the principle of a unitary state” and removed a defensive blockade on a major highway. Greeks are letting Turks enter and leave their sectors more freely, though Greeks are not yet permitted in most Turkish sectors.

Conflicts have been deepened by religious connotations. Cyprus was a battleground between the Christian Cross and the Muslim Crescent from 648 to 967. Today, St. Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia’s Turkish sector, once a lovely fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral, is a semiruined mosque adorned with two added minarets and the Turkish flag.

“There is no government here,” said a Turk preparing to wash himself ritually in the mosque courtyard. “All the Greeks can do is plunder what belongs to us.”

Outspoken Archbishop Makarios, an “enosis” leader since the end of World War II, symbolizes the union of religious and political issues. The British regime deported him in 1956 for political activities.

The country’s divisions are very evident in Nicosia, with its two sectors divided by a Greek Line, with sandbagged Pink Lines on either side. United Nations troops patrol the lines, and weapon-carrying Greeks and Turks can’t cross them.

The lines, rather arbitrarily drawn in 1963, cut the old walled Venetian sector in half. Armenians, one of the major minority groups on the island, have suffered. Armenians were classified as Greeks by the constitution because they are Christians, and had to leave the Turkish sector. Thus they lost the 800-year-old Armenian quarter, with its Orthodox and evangelical churches and a school.

LILLIAN HARRIS DEAN

‘Christ At The Center’

“Conservative evangelicals must be made to understand that their Jesus Christ is the center of the ecumenical movement and without them his ecumenical arm is shortened,” World Council of Churches President Eugene Carson Blake told students at the American University in Beirut. During his twelve-day junket through the Mideast—his first since 1952, when he investigated the Palestine refugee situation for the United Presbyterian Church—Blake courted leaders of other religions and sought to step up ecumenical feelings among WCC-member groups from Lebanon to Egypt.

Chiding some large ecumenically shy bodies in the United States, Blake commented: “We are wondering how long we should sit waiting for the Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans. We wonder if we should do something.”

LILLIAN HARRIS DEAN

A Time Of Sifting

The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–45, by J. S. Conway (Basic Books, 1968, 474 pp., $10), is reviewed by C. George Fry, assistant professor of history, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio.

“Verily a time of sifting has come upon us,” stated Pastor Martin Niemöller in 1934, for “God is giving Satan a free hand, so that he may shake us up and so that it may be seen what matter of men we are!” That testing of the German churches under Nazi tyranny is described in this well-researched book by Professor John S. Conway of the University of British Columbia. He shows that “the true story of the Church in Germany is not an unrelieved epic of faith and courage; it is to a large extent a sad tale of betrayal, timidity and unbelief. Even amongst those most faithful to the gospel, there were ‘none righteous, no, not one.’ ”

Although some 6,000 items about the church struggle had been written in German by 1958, relatively little has appeared in English. William Shirer, for example, gave only seven pages to the topic in his massive history of the Third Reich. Dr. Conway has met the need for a fair and balanced English-language study of the German church-state conflict. He has scrutinized the major sources, including the “archives of Hitler’s Reich Chancellery, the various German government records, the Nazi Party archives, the papers of individual Nazi leaders and the files of documents produced during the Nuremberg trials.” Viewing church-state relations from “the other side of the hill,” Conway analyzes “the various factions within the Nazi Party, the considerations they adopted, and policies they advocated toward the churches” because “the initiative lay with the Nazis” while the churches assumed a “passive position.”

What was the Nazi attitude toward the churches? There was no consistent program. The party wavered between subordination and suppression of the churches, while Hitler himself was “activated solely by motives of political opportunism.” The sub-ordinationists, largely “German Christians,” wanted “to make the church a part of the State’s machinery, to be dedicated to National Socialism and to be directed by Nazi leaders.” With the slogan, “The Swastika on our breasts, and the Cross in our hearts,” they confessed, in the words of one Protestant pastor, that “Christ has come to us through Adolf Hitler.” Other Nazis condemned this approach because they were convinced that Nazism and Christianity were competitors. Loyalty could not be shared between party and church, they said:

We want all.

Your hearts are our goal,

It is your souls we want.

They worked, therefore, to eliminate Christianity through intimidation and persecution and replace it with Nordic neo-paganism. Nazi liturgies of praise and prayer, like the following table grace, rose to the new savior-god, Hitler:

My Fuehrer, my Fuehrer, sent to me by God,

Protect and maintain my life;

Thou who has served Germany in its hour of need

I thank thee now for my daily bread.

Oh! Stay with me, Oh! Never leave me,

Fuehrer, my Fuehrer, my faith and my light.

Hitler alternated between these tactics as political necessities dictated, though his “final solution” for the Christians would probably have been extermination.

What was the churches’ attitude toward the Nazis? A minority of “German Christians” were total collaborationists. A remnant in the Catholic and Confessing churches resisted and “produced men whose readiness to suffer for their faith saved the Church from total apostasy.…” Most Christians were confused—torn between love for Christ and love for country. Too late they confessed, “We accuse ourselves for not witnessing more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently.”

Why did it happen? Could it happen here? Conway offers some challenging conclusions. The Nazi terror is “a horrifying warning to mankind as a whole that it is possible for men to create non-pagan idolatries out of secular ideologies,” even in a predominantly Christian country.

The Jerome Biblical Commentary

The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Volumes I and II (bound together) edited by Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, and Ronald O. Murphy (Prentice-Hall, 1968, 1,526 pp., $25), is reviewed by Daniel P. Fuller, dean, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

The publication of Pius XII’s encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, in 1943 has led to significant changes in Roman Catholic biblical scholarship. There is now explicit encouragement to go behind the Latin Vulgate to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The emphasis is upon finding a biblical author’s intended meaning by recourse to the commonly accepted methods of literary and historical criticism. Roman Catholic scholars today are very open to the results of non-Catholic exegesis.

Many articles and books have described these changes with reference to some aspect of the Bible, but The Jerome Biblical Commentary is the first work to which the student can turn to see how these changes affect the study of the whole Bible. The commentary is appropriately named after Jerome, “the foremost Scripture scholar among the Church Fathers, a pioneer in biblical criticism.” A highly commendatory foreword is by Cardinal Bea, one of the leading “progressives” in Rome, who fought to make the mood of Divino Afflante Spiritu regnant at Vatican II.

Fifty Roman Catholic scholars from the United States and Canada have joined to produce the eighty articles included in the work. Sixty of these articles comment on each of the books of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. Unlike previous Catholic commentaries, the words selected for study are not lifted from an English translation of the Latin Vulgate but are those that represent the original language well and are generally in line with the primary modern translations, both Protestant and Catholic. The other twenty articles cover such topical subjects as “Introduction to the Pentateuch,” “The Synoptic Problem,” “Inspiration and Inerrancy,” “Canonicity,” “Aspects of New Testament Thought,” and “Pauline Theology.”

These concisely written articles provide an excellent introduction for a study of the biblical books and of almost every major biblical theme. Bibliographical material on recent works in the major scholarly languages is found at the beginning of and throughout each article.

One slight obstacle to the use of this commentary is the rearrangement of the biblical books from the usual canonical sequence to a purportedly historical one. For example, the reader will have to consult the table of contents to find Jonah (at the end of the first volume, covering the Old Testament and the Apocrypha) and Second Peter (at the end of the New Testament volume).

The article on “Hermeneutics” by the chief editor, Raymond S. Brown, is of unusual interest. Brown suggests that the “new hermeneutic” helps Roman Catholics safeguard the teaching of the Roman church while they apply the literary-historical method to the study of Scripture. The “new hermeneutic” (among Protestant proponents of it in the United States are James Robinson and Robert Funk) stresses that a writer’s original, intended meaning will always be modified by the historical context of the present-day reader and that this contemporary meaning is gained only by that reader who occupies the correct “hermeneutical place.” Brown suggests that the Roman church is the “hermeneutical place” where the contemporary meaning of the biblical books is most clearly heard. For the Catholic, this contemporary message is very close to the teaching of the church; but since the contemporary meaning differs from the orginal meaning, it follows that the Roman Catholic biblical scholar cannot jeopardize the contemporary meaning by applying literary-historical criticism to determine the original meaning.

Protestants who seriously adhere to the Reformation principle of sola scriptura will reject the “new hermeneutic” and will equate God’s Word with the intended meaning of the biblical writer. But since this work was written to set forth that intended meaning, the Protestant will find this a very valuable critical commentary.

A Solid Foundation

A Place to Stand, by Elton Trueblood (Harper & Row, 1969, 128 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Wick Broomall, pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia.

This slender but significant volume is the product of more than forty years of search for “a concrete faith which, for lack of a better term, may be called Basic Christianity.” Trueblood hopes his summation of a viable faith will help readers—and particularly young people—find “something solid” in the midst of a perplexing world. He believes that a “new day is dawning for Christian intellectuals who will prepare themselves for the arduous and much-needed task of helping their fellows to cut through the fog and confusion that mark the climate of current opinion.”

Five chapters reflect “the order of thought” in the author’s spiritual pilgrimage from hesitant doubt to A Place to Stand. Excerpts from the first, entitled “Rational Christianity,” were published in the February 14 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. This chapter sets the pace for the book and really ought to be published separately as a tract for the times. Trueblood decries the modern tendency among popular preachers to “stay very close to social problems and avoid involvement in the problems of ultimate faith.” The mantle of J. Gresham Machen, a former disciple of what Trueblood describes as “tough-mindedness in matters of belief,” must have fallen upon the author as he wrote this first chapter. Subsequent chapters on “A Center of Certitude,” “The Living God,” “The Reality of Prayer,” and “And the Life Everlasting” demonstrate that the basic truths of Christianity have a reasonable foundation.

Although this book may not be as strong at some points as conservatives would like it to be, it is undoubtedly one that may lead some unbelievers from the swamps of doubt to the mountaintop of new life in Christ. And who could be a better guide on such a pilgrimage than Elton Trueblood, who combines a philosopher’s love of certainty with the believer’s love for Christ and the Bible?

Adventist View Of Vatican Ii

Vatican II: Bridging the Abyss, by Bert Beverly Beach (Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1968, 352 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Robert G. Clouse, associate professor of history, Indiana State University, Terre Haute.

The purpose of this book is “to paint with Adventist brushes, against a background of Bible prophecy and within the framework of scriptural doctrine and teaching,” a picture of Vatican II. It accomplishes that goal. But for the many of us who do not look at religious developments through the narrow, literalistic, apocalyptic, Ellen G. Whitetinted glasses of the Seventh-day Adventists, the book is rather difficult to appreciate.

Bert Beverly Beach, the author, was a reporter for the Review and Herald at the Vatican Council. He seems to be a capable man who knows the European languages. In fact, he was raised in Europe, where his father was a missionary, and he earned a doctorate from the Sorbonne. During Vatican II he was the Adventists’ educational secretary for Northern Europe, a post he still holds.

His book opens with a historical summary of church councils within the Roman Catholic tradition. After providing us with an eyewitness account of the opening of Vatican II, he moves to an analysis of the council decisions. Among those he discusses are the statements on the Scriptures, the Church, collegiality, the role of bishops and laity, the church’s relation to the world, religious liberty, the Jews, and ecumenism. Also included are appendices on the council’s membership, its observers and guests, and the treatment given to the press. There is a very helpful glossary of terms for non-Catholic readers.

It is a pity that Beach could not have approached his subject with a more loving spirit. To him, the ecumenical changes that Pope John XXIII and Vatican II have brought to Catholicism are only an indication that the Catholics feel the ecumenical movement “offers Rome new and unexpected opportunities for reaching those who are not ‘yet’ members of the Roman Catholic Church.” For, as Ellen G. White has taught, the evil nature of Rome never changes. “ ‘Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today.’ The formula may change, expressions may vary, but ‘the doctrines devised in the darkest ages are still held.’ ” Despite temporary kind actions, the role of Rome as Apocalyptic Babylon continues. This old-time Protestant historicist interpretation of the Revelation of St. John constantly warps the analysis.

If one wishes to learn about Vatican II, he would do better to consult The Documents of Vatican II (with notes and comments by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox authorities), edited by Walter M. Abbot.

Last Of A Trilogy

Contend with Horses, by Grace Irwin (Eerdmans, 1968, 283 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Nancy M. Tischler, associate professor of English and humanities, Pennsylvania State University, Middle-town.

“If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses?” These words of Jeremiah 12:5 form the theme of Grace Irwin’s latest novel, which is—theologically, at least—a delight for the conservative Christian reader. The problems faced by the hero, Andrew Connington, are the problems of the wayfaring Christian. His trials, in his later years, are not the vividly outlined and dramatically fought battles between good and evil but rather struggles to “run with the footmen.”

Miss Irwin’s delight in Scripture, in the great Christian writers, and in the lives of the saints makes the book a feast for the modern reader weary of fictional anti-heroes in a barren world of diminished faith. Miss Irwin’s God is one who concerns himself with individuals, who answers prayers, who renews men’s hearts, who chides his wayward children, and who performs miracles. Her faith is one that involves learning and humor and reality. Unfortunately, though, the book is not likely to be widely read or appreciated—partly because of its clearly doctrinal appeal, partly because Miss Irwin’s bias against liberalism is so explicit, partly because she dares—in our world of ecumenical fuzziness—to state precisely the perils of interfaith marriages, and partly because the novel suffers from the usual problems of a sequel.

The preacher-hero, who appeared in two earlier books in this trilogy—Least of all Saints and Andrew Connington—is a virile, eloquent, loving man who could easily tempt the indulgent novelist to follow him into his mature years. But he will have little appeal to readers who have not known him in his younger days, when his battles seemed more heroic and his love more robust. The book begins with the death of his wife and ends with an affirmation that his relationship with this woman has been a central blessing in his human existence. But since the unitiated reader knows Cicily only through flashbacks, she is understandably less vital than the attractive widow who tries fruitlessly to win the pastor’s attentions through her good food and good works. The children, interesting largely because they are young and emotional, have not their father’s stature nor his conflicts. Their worries over proper mates and suitable professions seem somehow pale beside their father’s earlier epic struggles. And the most exciting section of the book, a murder mystery of sorts, seems barely organic to the central theme of marriage and the life in Christ.

Still, for those who will not worry about the niceties of organic plotting and who are willing for a love story to climax in a sermon, the book is a pleasure. For those who do not demand violence or sex of their fiction and who are eager to hear a few kind words about premarital chastity and Puritan history, the novel is enormously satisfying. But even they will enjoy Andrew’s old age more if they take time first to acquaint themselves with his youth.

Christian In The Making

A Song of Ascents: A Spiritual Autobiography, by E. Stanley Jones (Abingdon, 1968, 400 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by James D. Robertson, professor of preaching, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

E. Stanley Jones takes his title from Psalms 120–134, which are called “Songs of Ascents” because they were sung by the people as they went up to Jerusalem to worship. At eighty-three, Dr. Jones writes: “I shall sing my song of the pilgrimage I am making from what I was to what God is making of me.… The best I can say about myself is that I’m a Christian-in-the-making.” The note of jubilant song sounds throughout his story of his life—from the time of conversion and calling to service, through the long years of labor in India and America, until now. The theme may be summed up in the phrase, “Jesus is Lord,” and the story is that of one man’s response to the Gospel—a total response. The twenty-five chapter headings point to landmarks in this spiritual pilgrimage. A sampling: “The Aftermath of Conversion,” “Adjustments—How Far?,” “I Sing of Failures,” “What Life Has Taught Me So Far.”

Here is a man whose awareness of Christ is distilled into all he writes. The work is more than a spiritual autobiography. It is also a forceful treatise on how to resolve personal problems and conflicts in matters of faith and conduct. The beleaguered Christian may well sit at the feet of this apologist of the Christian faith. Here is rich spiritual insight and an understanding of contemporary man. The whole is an eminently readable account of the spiritual pilgrimage of a man who, as J. K. Mathews says in a foreword, found the Christian life movement largely among the outcastes and left it at the center of India’s life, who found this movement mostly alien and Western and left it more naturalized through the Ashram movement, and who found evangelism largely personal and left it personal and social—a total way of life.

Book Briefs

Goodbye, Jehovah, by William Robert Miller (Walker, 1969, 206 pp„ $5.95). Surveys the thinking of representatives of the “new theology” (e.g., Cox, Fletcher, Boyd, Altizer) and contends that Christianity in our day must see as its major goal the making of men who are fully human.

No Orthodoxy but the Truth, by Donald G. Dawe (Westminster, 1969, 185 pp„ $5.95). A review and evaluation of the developments within Protestant theology from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century.

Ecumenism … Free Church Dilemma, by Robert G. Torbet (Judson, 1968, 127 pp., $3.95). The dilemma: Free churchmen are reluctant to embrace a superficial union that belies doctrinal differences but do desire genuine Christian unity. Suggests principles for continuing study and dialogue.

Do We Need the Church?, by Richard P. McBrien (Harper & Row), 1969, 248 pp., $6.50). A Roman Catholic theologian sees the meaning and place of the Church to be the most urgent issue facing Christians today. He believes the Church is needed but requires drastic change.

Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia, by George L. Kline (University of Chicago, 1969, 177 pp., $7.50). Surveys the views of ten Russian thinkers who represent various positions in the history of religious and anti-religious thought in Russia.

Environmental Man, by William Kuhns (Harper & Row, 1969, 156 pp., $4.95). An analysis of the interaction between man and his technologically influenced environment.

The Medieval Papacy, by Geoffrey Barraclough (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968, 216 pp., $5.95). Shows how the success of the medieval papacy in building up its authority and its legal and administrative machinery militated against its claim to spiritual leadership.

MBI: The Story of Moody Bible Institute, by Gene A. Getz (Moody, 1969, 393 pp., $5.95). A well researched and thoroughly documented history that not only deals with the institution itself but also covers significant persons connected with Moody and the variety of ministries that have grown out of the school.

We’re Holding Your Son, by Gordon R. McLean (Revell, 1969, 160 pp., $3.95). Graphically described case studies of juvenile lawbreaking in the United States. Offers counsel for those who deal with youthful offenders and sees the ultimate solution to the problem in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Prayers from an Island, by Richard Wong (John Knox, 1968, 79 pp., $3). Brief prayers by a Hawaiian minister that were originally written for broadcast on a popular disc jockey’s radio show.

Protestants, Catholics, and Mary, by Stephen Benko (Judson, 1968, 160 pp., $5.75). A survey and comparison of the Roman Catholic and Protestant views of one of the most difficult issues in the contemporary interfaith dialogue.

Religious Liberty and Conscience, by Milton R. Konvitz (Viking, 1968, 116 pp., $4.50). A legal scholar investigates the many complex questions surrounding church-state separation.

Good Marriages Grow, by Irene Harrell (Word, 1969, 102 pp., $3.95). Warm personal glimpses from the author’s own experience will be helpful to those who seek fulfillment and joy in the home.

Him We Declare, by Cuthbert Bradsley and William Purcell (Word, 1968, 145 pp., $3.95). Directed toward those who have difficulty accepting what the Church has to say to them today, this volume affirms that it is possible to know personally the Christ whom God sent into the world.

The Word Comes Alive, by Wayne E. Ward (Broadman, 1969, 112 pp., $2.95). Contends that the Bible is not a dull, lifeless book, as some think, and suggests methods for making it live in teaching and preaching.

Intrigue in Santo Domingo, by James Hefley (Word, 1968, 184 pp., $3.95). The exciting story of Howard Shoe-make, a U.S. Baptist missionary in the Dominican Republic.

Paperbacks

Run Today’s Race, by Oswald Chambers (Christian Literature Crusade, 1968, 92 pp., $1.25). A collection of quotations from Oswald Chambers arranged for reading each day throughout the year.

The Book of Books: The Growth of the Bible, by Klaus Koch (Westminster, 1969, 192 pp., $2.65). Traces the development of the biblical writings and discusses how the Bible came to be put together in its present form. A quote: “Scholars … have also shown that the doctrine of verbal inspiration by no means represents the biblical writers’ own self-understanding.”

Conquest of Inner Space, by Lambert T. Dolphin, Jr. (Good News, 1969, 64 pp., $.50). A porpourri of articles on science and the Bible originally written for Vision magazine.

The Books of the New Testament, by Herbert T. Mayer (Concordia, 1969, 133 pp., $2). A brief survey of the background and contents of the New Testament books that sees the New Testament as the “story of the creation of the new Israel, the pilgrim people of God.”

The Politics of Religious Conflict, by Richard E. Morgan (Pegasus, 1969, 155 pp., $1.95). An analysis of the source, nature, and consequences of current church-state conflicts in America.

A Conflict of Loyalties, edited by James Finn (Pegasus, 1969, 287 pp., $1.95). Examines the moral, philosophical, political, and legal aspects of selective conscientious objection.

Evolution and the High School Student, by Kenneth N. Taylor (Tyndale. 1969, 56 pp., $1.00). In language and format especially designed for teen-agers, this and a companion volume, Creation and the High School Student, offer a critique of evolution and a defense of creationism.

Preaching from Paul, by R. C. H. Lenski (Baker, 1968, 247 pp., $2.95). Reprint of a 1916 work that includes sermons, sermon outlines, and “homiletic hints” based on texts pertaining to the Apostle Paul.

The Go Gospel, by Manford Gutzke (Regal, 1968, 183 pp., $.95). Studies in the Gospel of Mark emphasizing its application to daily life.

Christian Living from Isaiah, by Fredna W. Bennett (Baker, 1968, 114 pp., $1.50). Applies the truths of Isaiah to the challenges of Christian living.

How We Faced Tragedy, by William J. Krutza (Baker, 1968, 74 pp., $1.50). Stories from the Scripture Press take-home paper, “Power for Living.”

On the Other Side, by the Commission on Evangelism of the Evangelical Alliance (Scripture Union, 1968, 190 pp., 7/6). Report of an Evangelical Alliance commission that was given the task of investigating thoroughly the whole question of evangelism in modern Britain.

Joshua—Victorious by Faith, by Theodore Epp (Back to the Bible, 1968, 259 pp., $1.50). Studies originally given as messages on the “Back to the Bible” radio broadcast.

Islam, by Caesar E. Farah (Barron’s, 1968, 306 pp., $1.95). A distinguished Near Eastern scholar offers a concise, comprehensive analysis of Islam as a religion, not merely a system or ideology.

Isaiah—A Study Guide, by D. David Garland (Zondervan, 1968, 115 pp., $.95). A helpful study guide examines the meaning of Isaiah for Bible students today.

According to John, by Archibald M. Hunter (Westminister, 1969, 128 pp., $1.65). A new look at the Fourth Gospel in the light of modern Johannine scholarship. Concludes by affirming the “authority and abiding relevance” of John’s Gospel.

Worthy of the Calling, by Clifford V. Anderson (Harvest Publications, 1968, 146 pp., $1.50). Emphasizes the vital role of the layman in the work and witness of the Church.

Crime in American Society, by Richard D. Knudten (Concordia, 1969, 125 pp., $1.25). A criminologist explores from a Christian perspective the problems of crime, law enforcement, and rehabilitation of criminals.

For entirely too long church leaders ignored the growing unrest within the churches. Often it seemed they were trying to sweep the fact under the rug of frenetic programs and activity. Usually they blamed the unrest on those who protested its causes.

No longer can this unrest be ignored. There are now too many dedicated Christians raising their voices in protest. They see through the pleas for “relevancy” to a subtle change in basic emphases they cannot accept. They know something of what the Church should stand for and what it should do, and have the courage to stand up and speak against what they honestly feel to be a perversion of the Church, both in message and in activity.

This unrest is now noted by secular publications. The March Ladies Home Journal carries a survey of what 1,000 women had to say about the Church under the startling heading, “You Can’t Find God in the Church Anymore!”

To this, however, I should like to be the first to reply that obviously these women, and several million more unfortunates like them, have been going to the wrong churches. There are tens of thousands of churches where God is to be found, where his Son and his Gospel are believed and preached, and where the Written Word of God is given top priority, in matters of faith and of daily living.

But it is tragically true that most of the major denominations are now dominated by men who have shifted the emphasis of the Church and, in so doing, are neglecting the message of belief in Christ as man’s Saviour from sin—the first step toward a right relationship with God.

The scientific approach to problem-solving is to go back and find the source of the problem and then try to remedy it. What is the source of unrest in the Church? Besides the almost inevitable clashes of personalities, what lies at the root of this problem that is tearing the churches apart?

I write as one layman who has been concerned with this matter for many years, not with the feeling that I know all the answers, but with the assurance that the things I am trying to point out have much to do with the problem.

The mainstream of Protestantism has been polluted by theologians who have willfully rejected faith in the complete integrity and authority of the Word of God. This lies at the source of all that has followed.

Part of the problem is “scholarship”—not genuine scholarship with its reverent search for truth, but an arrogant intellectualism against which the Apostle Paul warned Timothy (“Avoid the godless mixture of contradictory notions which is falsely known as ‘knowledge’—some have followed it and lost their faith,” 1 Tim. 6:20, 21, Phillips). This attitude gives the opinions of men precedence over the divine revelation. It has dominated the majority of the theological seminaries of Europe and America until today a new religion has emerged that is humanism, not Christianity.

The evidences of theological laxity are all about us. Christ is portrayed as a good man who did the work of an idealistic humanitarian. As for the Bible, many of its records are regarded as the accounts of overly enthusiastic followers of our Lord. The Old Testament, together with much of the New, is considered outmoded and no longer relevant for our sophisticated age.

Out of this rejection of the Scriptures have grown some devastating theories. One is that there are no longer absolutes; everything is relative. (This statement is itself expressed as an absolute, of course.) How can the holiness of God be relative? He is pure and good. Can his truth be subordinated to man’s sinful outlook?

This does not deter some modern church leaders from making morality relative, to the point where fornication and adultery are judged, not by God’s holy law, but according to the “love” and immediate circumstances of the two persons involved. I am convinced that the new morality, or situation ethics, fits into Paul’s warning, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared” (1 Tim. 4:1, 2).

The average person attends church to hear messages that speak to his spirit. He may be frustrated and uncertain, longing for spiritual light. Tragically, he may hear no more than a sociological discourse, an appeal to “go out and do something,” with no reference to the One who came and died and rose again so that men might truly live.

There is unrest in the Church, not only because of the changed view of Jesus Christ, but also because of the new approach to the problems of man. The emphasis is not on man’s sin and his need of a Saviour; it is on his physical, political, and economic environment. Thank God many Christians are refusing to take this lying down.

The social implications of Christianity are very real, and the Christian is to be his brother’s keeper. But the Church, as such, is not an organization for social engineering. Its primary concern is not with the social order but with the individual souls that need Christ.

Unrest in the Church? Thank God for it! When a patient is insensitive to pain he is in a critical condition. The healthy human body will usually reject poison; a sick one may permit it to do its deadly work without reacting. The current discontent is a sign that there are thousands of Christians who know the difference between true Christianity and a deadening substitute.

Perhaps it is natural that many who control the machinery of the Church blame “dissidents” for the situation, and that, where they can, they work to silence these dissenting voices. (And we might add that they are sometimes ruthless in their efforts to suppress and punish.)

What is the solution? Perhaps above all else we need a renewed emphasis on the Holy Spirit, a realization that without his presence and power, all work of the Church is futile. Where he is given his rightful place, there is a spiritual awakening and revival, and a new appreciation of the Word of God as the Sword of the Spirit. When it is acknowledged that, far from being obsolete or irrelevant, the Bible is the most relevant book of all, then the Christ portrayed therein and the Gospel concerning him are preached with conviction and power.

Unrest in the Church? Thank God for this evidence of life! Thank God that people are taking heed to the warning: “Hear, O earth; behold I am bringing evil upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not given heed to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it” (Jer. 6:19).

L. NELSON BELL