The year 1968 was an exciting one for Canada—politically, ecclesiastically, and socially. We had a general election that, for the first time in a long period of political malaise, gave us a majority government. With this gift we also received a new Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. He swept to power on a wave of Trudeaumania that for a people so generally phlegmatic as Canadians seemed somewhat frightening.

Peter Newman, political correspondent for the Toronto Star, has an unusual facility in writing “instant history,” and he has done so again in his book The Distemper of Our Times. Here is a chronicle of five years in Canada’s history by a journalist who was close to the political scene all the time. It is an angry journal, a distillation of behind-the-scenes actions in one of the most frantic periods in this nation’s history. Here for the first time we are given the basic material from which to draw accurate judgments and assess the trends, the people, and the events that shaped the nation’s course. There are few heroes here, unfortunately. And worse, there is very little evidence of dependence on God or on the conviction that righteousness exalts a nation.

Newman’s summary may be overly simple, but it is nonetheless disturbing:

The Diefenbaker years resembled nothing so much as the voyage of the Titanic—an inevitable rush to disaster, with the ship of state sinking at the end in a galaxy of fireworks, brass bands playing and the captain shouting hysterical orders to crewmen who had long since jumped overboard. The Pearson period, in contrast, was more like the voyage of some peeling, once proud, now leaky excursion steamer, lurching from port to port, with the captain making up the schedule as he went along, too busy keeping the ship afloat to spend much time on the bridge.

The great question remains. Is the ship of state today in safer and wiser hands? There is great room for doubt. The phenomenon of Trudeaumania is still with us. But there are better ways than popular acclaim to judge this man whose meteoric rise to power has so astonished the chancelleries of the world. It is not without interest that both the Toronto Telegram and Life magazine reported that our Prime Minister, on a recent visit to United Nations Secretary U Thant in New York, found time also to take in the Broadway rock musical Hair and pop artist Andy Warhol’s film Flesh. Without presuming to judge, one can only say that the cause of righteousness may face challenges in Canada that this nation has not yet known. Trudeau’s great presentation is “the just society”—yet when some months ago he was asked what Canada intended to do about the agony of Biafra, he asked: “Where is Biafra?”

In the ecclesiastical realm, one can report a positive and exciting development in 1968. The movement toward integration of evangelicals has gained in cohesion and velocity, and the development of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada in the past twelve months has been quite dramatic. It may yet appear that along with the other events that have shaken Canada in the past year, the rise of the Evangelical Fellowship was of major significance.

Admittedly, it did not seem like this at the convention in Winnipeg. Indeed, some rather unworthy reporting gave the impression that the last convention amounted to little less than a total disaster. But God has planned otherwise. In his sovereignty, the council has been welded together into a striking team of great force, and a new magazine, Thrust, has appeared. For now this is to be a quarterly journal. Several issues have already come from the press, and reviews have been heartening. The magazine is being sent to the study of every evangelical minister in Canada.

In a country as large as Canada, emphasis on news is very desirable, and Thrust is giving considerable space to this. Every effort is being made to provide accurate assessment of ecclesiastical and social movements in all the provinces. With this in view, the lead article in the first issue was on “Poverty and Mr. Trudeau’s Just Society.” The lead article in the second issue tells of a very interesting new development in Christian scholarship, the opening of Regent College in Vancouver in the summer of 1969. These issues are of prime importance to evangelicals in our land, and the leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship intend to provide adequate coverage of such matters. The magazine is of Reader’s Digest size, carries advertising, and sells for twenty-five cents per copy. It has already been called “a magazine worthy of the space age”—the format is quite unusual. Interested readers may obtain copies by writing to Box 878, Terminal A, Toronto 1, Ontario, Canada.

This is only part of the program being developed. The 1969 convention will be held March 5 and 6 in Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto, and will deal with “Reality and Relevancy.” The intention is to have ministers and laymen from all across Canada face the tremendous question of the relevance of the evangelical message to the crises of our times. The social order of our land, the communications media, the role of evangelism and the evangelist in the ongoing work of the Church, the revolt of youth, the social conscience of the Christian—all these will come before major seminars.

One of the questions often asked about the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is: What are its goals? The answer is very simple. The goal is nothing less than the quickening of the people of God to an awareness of their high privileges and responsibilities through God’s grace.

The need for revival is beyond question. We may have the best of programs, but what are they if the breath of the Holy Spirit is not upon them? The plain fact is that we evangelicals of Canada have not loved the Lord with all our heart and mind and strength, and we have certainly not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. We have refused to pray and as a result have fallen into temptation. There is little evidence of an abundant, joyous life in Christ. And joylessness is sin.

Under God the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada can play a great role in recalling the land to God and in reminding its political leaders that only with the help of God can they succeed. There is undoubtedly a special duty for Canadian evangelicals in this critical hour, and we intend to carry it out. We seek only the glory of God and the exaltation of Jesus Christ. We believe that his is a solitary throne and that he is the only answer to the problems of our day. If ever God grants great revival to Canada, its effects will be known in every corner of the globe. We have no lesser aim than this. And we are confident that, as we follow the pattern outlined in the Holy Scriptures, God will indeed break in upon us and allow us to see his power and glory manifested to all flesh.

WILLIAM FITCH

Retrospect is good, but sometimes prospect is even better. It is the lot of an editor to keep looking ahead. He has little time to look backward except as he smarts over his mistakes—things he didn’t do that he should have done and some he did but shouldn’t have. But the future is bright.

Coming up shortly will be two essays, pro and con, on the issue of government aid to parochial schools. We have an excellent essay on academic freedom that will surface shortly. In the works also is a paper on tongues from a Pentecostal perspective. Paul Rees is writing an Easter article that our readers will appreciate. Ascension Day comes along and except for those who watch the church calendar it attracts little attention. We have a solid treatment of that subject ready to go. Readers will be interested also in a forthcoming essay on sexual deviation in relation to the Word of God and the law of the land. For the scientifically minded we have on tap a splendid paper from Australia on biology and faith. So there are good things in store for our subscribers who want to be where the action is and know what God is saying in response to man’s perennial search.

The U. S. Supreme Court January 27 issued the century’s most important ruling on church property. The gist of the decision: the nation’s secular courts must steer clear of any church-property disputes that involve religious judgments.

The court uttered this declaration of independence over the attempt of two Georgia congregations to pull out of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (“Southern”), and keep their local property. The unanimous decision, written by William Brennan, Jr., the court’s only Roman Catholic, is likely to discourage many dissidents from trying similar withdrawals.

The court handed the case back to Georgia courts to settle on grounds of property law alone. It said “there are neutral principles of law, developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied.…” So next time around the case will hinge on whether paragraph 6–3 of the Book of Church Order means property goes to a pull-out congregation or to the denomination.

The previous Georgia rulings were based on the contention that the Southern Presbyterian Church had departed significantly from its original doctrines, thus breaking the “implied trust” of denominational affiliation. At issue were such things as ordination of women, political pronouncements, and liberalizing theology.

(Justice John Harlan added a brief concurring opinion that if someone “expressly” gives money to the church on the condition that it will never ordain women, for instance, then civil courts could hold that he “is entitled to his money back.”)

The main opinion called the denomination “a hierarchical general church organization,” a matter which some may dispute. And it noted that the local churches made no effort to appeal the presbytery ruling against holding property to the Synod of Georgia or to the annual General Assembly, the denomination’s own supreme court.

Under the new ruling, that’s all a local church can do—if some general issue of legal property rights is not involved. The court recognizes a proper state role in resolving property disputes but says “special problems arise … when these disputes implicate controversies over church doctrine and practice.”

In particular, they run against the First Amendment guarantee that government won’t hinder “free exercise” of religion. The logic of an 1871 Supreme Court ruling on a northern Presbyterian church in Louisville, the 1969 document says, “leaves the civil courts no role in determining ecclesiastical questions in the process of resolving property disputes.” But Twentieth-century Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox cases have established “some circumstances in which marginal civil court review of ecclesiastical determinations would be appropriate,” such as fraud or arbitrariness. All church-property suits in civil courts do not necessarily inhibit “free exercise.”

But in cases like Presbyterian Church in the U. S. et al. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church et al.:

“First Amendment values are plainly jeopardized when church property litigation is made to turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious doctrine and practice. If civil courts undertake to resolve such controversies in order to adjudicate the property dispute, the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern.… Hence, States, religious organizations, and individuals must structure relationships involving church property so as not to require the civil courts to resolve ecclesiastical questions.”

The U. S. Supreme Court objected because the Georgia county-court jury and State Supreme Court had had to decide whether the denomination was changing substantially, then whether change was on such an important matter that legal trust was terminated. This “departure-from-doctrine element,” it said, violates the First Amendment and is a legal standard created by the state, not by church law itself.

Both sides claimed victory in first reactions to the ruling. The Savannah Presbytery executive who has been trying to retain the properties for the denomination, J. Lehmon Brantley, was “pleased” and said the argument that ecclesiastical matters should be settled in church courts “is consistent with what our position has been throughout.” Denominational attorney Charles Gowen, who hadn’t yet read the text, said he assumed the local property now must revert to the presbytery.

But the Rev. Todd Allen of Eastern Heights Church, which withdrew with the Blue Hull Church, said, “We still own the property. If the denomination wants the property they will have to enter a [civil] suit. We are back where we started.” He hopes the denomination now “will let us live in peace. I hope they are tired of fighting us in court and are tired of gouging us out of our property.”

Church Panorama

Recent goings-on in church include: A hip eucharist at arty St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, New York City, in which barefoot and blindfolded communicants went into the basement for the general confession, and had sins symbolically flushed away in the bathroom. A reading by poet Leroi Jones at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Cleveland, taken over by black militants who threw out whites in the audience under threat. And a production of “Paradise Now” in a Unitarian church near Madison, Wisconsin—after it was banned at a theater—that featured swearing, spitting, and a “flesh pile” for sexual revolution, and ended with seven members of the audience shedding all their clothes.

The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (“Southern”) appeared headed for approval of merger with the Reformed Church in America January 30. Thirty-four of the needed fifty-eight presbyteries had voted in favor, nine opposed.

The Chicago Conference on Religion and Race’s tri-faith employment project found jobs for more than 20,000 unemployed adults last year.

Faced with discord over a shift to emphasize social involvement and an immediate debt of $6,000, the Louisville Council of Churches issued an emergency fund appeal to keep going.

The Rev. John Coventry Smith, one of the presidents of the World Council of Churches, predicts the Roman Catholic Church will join the WCC within a decade.

Personalia

The Rev. Ray Wolfe, called to a church in Hulbert, Michigan, is believed to be the first Negro pastor of a white congregation in the Southern Baptist Convention. Wolfe served two decades in military service, retired from a Michigan air base, and had been an active church worker.

Newsmen Drew Pearson and Willmar Thorkelson joined speculation that Lyndon Johnson will become a Roman Catholic soon.

New Orleans Baptist Seminary theology teacher Robert Soileau resigned under protest, then complained to the regional and seminary accrediting agencies. He says the school has taken a conservative turn and blames it largely on colleague Clark Pinnock, though his public statement didn’t mention the name.

Dr. John W. Snyder, 44, Lutheran seminary graduate and board president of the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies, was named chancellor of the main Bloomington campus of Indiana University. Snyder, a Presbyterian layman, is a specialist in ancient history, and has been acclaimed one of the Big Ten’s “most exciting teachers” by the Chicago Tribune Magazine. (See his essay, “Presenting Christian Truth at University Level,” February 16, 1968, issue.)

Two years after noted Catholic writer John Cogley left as New York Times religion editor, the Rev. Edward B. Fiske, a religion reporter on the paper for three years, has been given the title. Young Fiske is a Phi Beta Kappa who served as assistant minister of a United Presbyterian church in Harlem. Another Princeton Seminary graduate, the Rev. Russell Chandler, assumed the same post at the Washington Evening Star six months ago.

A Quaker, a Methodist, and a Presbyterian were fired by the University of Kansas Medical Center after they refused to sign a required loyalty oath.

Dr. Joe K. Menn, just 34, was named president of Texas Lutheran College, affiliated with the American Lutheran Church.

Dr. George Bird, former graduate journalism director at Syracuse University and a Christian and Missionary, Alliance layman, is globe-hopping to run journalism workshops for Evangelical Literature Overseas.

A “t” and sympathy to Baptist pastor Ellis Eklof, Jr., whose church ad in the Minneapolis Star listed his sermon topic as: “I Believe in Immorality.”

Jewish law forbids an unmarried girl to be alone with a boy and inaccessible to a third party, so Ruth Friedman jumped twenty-five feet off a ski lift where she was stranded with a date. Now New York State seeks to recover $35,000 awarded for her injuries in a damage suit.

Miscellany

Benjamin Glick was seated on the jury for the Sirhan Sirhan murder trial after denying his “religious background” would prejudice him against the Arab defendant.

B’nai B’rith says “raw, undisguised” anti-Semitism, “unchecked” for two years, has reached a crisis level in New York City public schools, sparked mainly by “black extremists.” And a mayor’s committee concludes that the school decentralization dispute has surfaced “an appalling amount” of racial and religious bias. Meanwhile, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee says Arab propagandists are trying to “penetrate” Christian agencies, including the National and World Councils.

Presbyterian backers upset over use of the interdenominational campus center at San Francisco State College by student strikers forced it to close January 29 pending an objective investigation.

The 3,200 public-school students in Clairton, Pennsylvania, because of public demand, are again beginning the day with prayer and Bible-reading, in apparent defiance of the 1963 Supreme Court ruling.

The Gallagher Report, a newsletter for corporation executives, says former clergymen form a talent pool to offset the expected shortage of executive personnel in the 1970s.

Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau returned from an audience with Pope Paul confirmed in his interest in selling the nation on sending an ambassador to the Vatican. Leaders of the United Church of Canada and other Protestant groups are against the idea.

India’s home minister V. C. Shukla warned that the government wants to replace all foreign missionaries with nationals and is keeping a close watch to expel any missionary engaging in politics. In the next three years, the Roman Catholic Church could have to replace as many as 2,000 foreign clergy and nuns.

Church and state: San Antonio County church colleges must now pay taxes on faculty homes. Florida’s Supreme Court ruled tax-exempt a Baptist church parking lot used commercially during the week. Kentucky’s attorney general ruled legal the Louisville area plan in which public-school teachers instruct Catholic pupils in classrooms the public systems rent from Catholic schools.

The Fort Lauderdale (Florida) city council passed a pornography ordinance so explicit in language that most papers (including this one) won’t quote it.

They Say

“When one wonders what type of man Mr. Nixon is and which direction his political program is going to take, one could well suggest that his choice of religious figures dramatized the coming political years. Since Cox, Moody, Altizer, Bennett, Boyd, Brown, and Father Groppi were absent from the Inauguration doings, we can almost conclude that the next four years will not be ‘swinging years’ politically unless the important events of the day catch up with the Washington processional and force a re-evaluation of priorities and needs.”—The Rev. Frank A. Sharp, director of press relations, American Baptist Convention.

DEATHS

W. Y. CHEN, 70, last living bishop of China’s mainland Methodists, imprisoned 1950–59 and under house arrest since; in Chungking, of cancer and liver failure.

KAROL KOTULA, 84, bishop emeritus of Poland’s Lutherans; in an auto accident.

DAVID C. BROWN, 34, Bible Presbyterian minister and radio preacher; shot in Seattle while meeting in a home with church elders; police charged Rodney Mahaffey, son of a state legislator.

WILLIAM A. LAWRENCE, 79, former Episcopal bishop of western Massachusetts; in Springfield, after a heart attack.

An unseasonably warm sun parted rain clouds over Memphis one day in January as America’s ecumenical elite marched to the Lorraine Motel to pay tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Weathermen had announced a 70 per cent chance of showers, but the rain never came. It was a bit of good fortune in an otherwise melancholy four-day meeting of the National Council of Churches’ General Board.

“The honeymoon is over for the ecumenical movement,” the board was told by a Roman Catholic priest, and most members seemed to feel it. The issues of black power, violence, Biafra, and the Middle East pressed in upon the meeting, but the board had not a prophetic word about any of these. There simply was no consensus.

One resolution adopted by the 250-member board reaffirmed an earlier statement condemning Soviet-led intervention in Czechoslovakia. The reaffirmation was introduced by United Presbyterian Stated Clerk William Thompson after the board’s executive committee sought to derail consideration of the Czech question on grounds that NCC specialists had not given the matter enough study. The new statement tempers the previous one by “acknowledging that our country itself has been guilty of oppression.” A five-man delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow witnessed adoption of the resolution.

Other guests at the meeting included a denim-clad black-militant group known as “The Invaders,” who sought to capitalize upon the opportunity by demanding $51,000 for a program among local poor people. When no immediate promises of the money were made, an Invader leader took the floor to hurl obscene epithets at churches in general and the NCC in particular.

Traditionally the NCC has sought to be in the vanguard of social movements, but direct alignment with separatist black-power causes would mean repudiation of much that the council stood for in the fifties and sixties. A pronouncement adopted by the NCC General Assembly on December 5, 1957, declared that community practices that segregate or discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin “are contrary to the Christian principle that all men are beings of worth in the sight of God.”

The most heated exchange on the floor of the General Board was produced by charges that the NCC had not done enough for oppressed blacks in Memphis and in Wilmington, Delaware. The Rev. Charles S. Spivey, Jr., who heads the council’s racial efforts, denied that the NCC had not participated in confrontations in those cities.

NCC officials also refused to be drawn out on the political and economic issues behind the struggle in Nigeria/ Biafra, though it was announced that more than $3,000,000 had been raised for relief work there. Middle East tensions and growing animosity between Jew and black in the United States were also ignored.

The Rev. Eugene Carson Blake acknowledged the adverse effect of current social problems upon the Church in a conciliatory speech before the board. The general secretary of the World Council of Churches noted “great theological confusion today, and a plethora of second thoughts about ecumenism in many quarters,” but said he saw no reason to expect any “radical change of direction or any great decrease of momentum” in the conciliar-ecumenical movement.

Blake said he had conferred with Pope Paul VI in January only to have the pontiff deliver two “anti-Protestant speeches” in the days immediately following. Blake added in jest that he wondered whether he ought ever to undertake another Vatican visit.

It was disclosed in Memphis that the NCC had dispatched a seven-member team to Paris for four days in January to confer with peace-conference delegates from both North and South Viet Nam. In a report to the board they asserted that nationalism is “the driving spirit” in North and South, that “its dominance over every consideration is consistently present.” They charged that “the present regime in Saigon does not represent many important segments even of that part of South Viet Nam which it controls.” The report contended that the United States should encourage a third political force in South Viet Nam, opposed to both the present Saigon government and the Communist Viet Cong. This group obviously was not in Paris, and how the NCC representatives learned enough of such a phenomenon to promote it was not immediately clear.

The dejected mood of board members was perhaps inadvertently encouraged by the playing of blues records as prelude and postlude to a “service of praise and intercession” at the opening session. The selections were said to have been in recognition of the 150th anniversary in 1969 of the founding of the city of Memphis, where W. C. Handy wrote the famous “Beale Street Blues.”

To make matters worse, the board heard a none too encouraging financial report. President Arthur Flemming chided members for adopting idealistic goals and then failing to get their denominations to fund programs adequately. “I don’t want to be associated with organizations that just pass resolutions,” he said.

The gap was underscored by Mrs. James Dolbey, president of Church Women United, who said that unless denominations are willing to pool their resources for more joint action, “we should call it quits.”

Some orthodox notes managed to surface. An unsigned analysis of missionary work from the NCC’s Division of Overseas Ministries talked of the necessity of “an underlying and intentional spiritual purpose.” This reference to “spiritual” things drew criticism from one woman board member whose concept of religious relevance seemed to be confined to the materialist and activist dimension. Another board member hailed the emphasis, saying the words should be “underlined, italicized, and shouted from the rooftops.”

REMEMBERING DR. KING

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been 40 on January 15, and the day brought announcement of a “Memorial Center” for him in Atlanta. The two center sites—one near his Ebenezer Baptist Church, the second near the Atlanta University Center—will cost up to $40 million, from foundation, corporation, and private gifts. Meanwhile Governor Nelson Rockefeller and New York Mayor John Lindsay joined the campaign to make the fifteenth a national holiday, and Washington Cathedral said it would put a likeness of King next to its statues of Luther and Calvin. Also last month King’s widow was on a world tour. After a Vatican audience with Pope Paul, she praised U. S. Catholic efforts for racial justice, and backed non-violence. Then on to India, land of King’s idol Gandhi, to receive the Nehru Award for International Understanding in her husband’s name. Tears welled in Prime Minister’s Indira Gandhi’s eyes as Mrs. King sang, “We Shall Overcome.”

Memphis Trial Murmurs

The judge in the James Earl Ray murder trial says the Rev. James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference can’t join the defense counsel for Ray, accused of killing SCLC’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bevel, who asserted he knew that Ray didn’t do it, visited the defendant in prison last month as the Memphis trial got under way.

Episcopal Convergence

Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the U. S. Episcopal Church find their interests converging in opposition to church union and, in particular, the Consultation on Church Union. This, plus their adherence to the historic creeds and Episcopal liturgy, formed major themes of last month’s third convention of the Foundation for Christian Theology in New Orleans.

The foundation supports worthy causes within the denomination. Its Christian Challenge magazine, now seeking to upgrade its lackluster format, has grown to 20,000 circulation.

Broadcast Yeas And Nays

“Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay … anything more or less is evil,” admonished Federal Communications Commission Chairman Rosel H. Hyde to the annual National Religious Broadcasters convention in Washington, D. C., last month. Hyde, an FCC member since its inception in 1934, implored the 300 broadcasters from thirty-three states and four continents to sound a call to “reason … idealism, reverence, and moral standards” and noted approvingly President Nixon’s call to “stop shouting at one another.”

Other convention speakers observed that religious and other media are fast proliferating, sometimes duplicating efforts, and—occasionally—shouting at each other.

Mormon Hyde also declared radio and TV stations now carrying antismoking public-service ads would not be required to carry cigarette ads in order to show “fairness.”

Hyde himself has been the subject of fairness attacks. The week before the convention the FCC renewed without a hearing the TV license of Mormon Church-owned KSL in Salt Lake City. The six FCC members split evenly and bitterly on the issue. A cab-driving protester and his wife had charged—and KSL denied—that the station showed “dominant influence by the economic corporations” owned by the church.

“Pirate Bishop” A. W. Goodwin Hudson of London described the government stranglehold on religious broadcasts in Britain, where you can’t even buy air time to advertise sales of the Bible. What’s offered is “tepid religious rice pudding,” said the bishop caustically. The “pirate stations” on radio ships in international waters were squelched, after Hudson had successfully wafted the Gospel to merrie England, often in rock ‘n roll format.

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Vs. Church-State Sloganizing

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose monthly Church and State spends much time attacking alleged abuses of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, met for two days in New York last month. Speakers included separationists of various theological persuasions, from the Unitarian pastor Donald Harrington (who is president of New York’s Liberal party) to the National Association of Evangelicals’ Clyde W. Taylor.

Most speakers strongly condemned “increasing clericalism” and the use of public funds to support religion in any manner. But there was a moderate element represented by William Pinson, Jr., of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield, also a Baptist. Pinson stressed that in taking a stand for separation, Americans United should not forget that the “issues are too complex” for sloganizing. He warned those assembled against assuming an extremist posture that misuses freedom in terms of appeals to anti-Catholic prejudice, personal slander, and slanted reporting of events.

Hatfield’s keynote speech reiterated the need for positive statements by Americans United, to encourage people to practice their faith within the freedoms of the Bill of Rights. He defended the Supreme Court by saying it has allowed for more freedom of religion by its removal of particularized religion from the schools. “We’re not going to solve the secularism of the age with pious amendments to the Constitution,” said Hatfield. He thinks it’s time for those of faith to live by that faith by listening to the disadvantaged and projecting their faith with words and action into the now world.

JOHN EVENSON

Wesley’S Faith Rides Again

Those dissident Evangelical United Brethren who didn’t want to join the Methodists would have felt right at home at the first national evangelism council of the merged denomination last month in Kansas City. The meeting proved a kind of victory for United Methodists who desire an evangelical approach to mission.

Council President Ira Galloway, district superintendent from Fort Worth, said his own “theological stance is in the first decade.… The Gospel is still relevant. It works in our day. There is nothing wrong with the faith—we’ve left the faith as a people. Because of a lack of living faith, thousands of young people are turning from the Church.”

Galloway spoke of his own “coming to faith,” and criticized the secularist movement, which he considers heresy. “The pure secularist wants simply to share the affluence without also sharing the meaning of a personal relationship with God.”

The convention surpassed its registration goal of 400 by half again that many.

The delegates came from 117 of the 150 United Methodist conferences, at their own expense. Most delegates stayed in town over the weekend for a lay-witness mission. The original hope was that at least six laymen could be assigned to each area congregation for follow-up evangelism. As it worked out, some churches had twenty visiting lay witnesses, and one had fifty. Rarely had so many persons been involved in a denominational lay-witness program.

The Rev. George Fallon, a Board of Evangelism executive, contributed to the mood of the meeting by denying that God is dead or the Church obsolete.

“Man is trying to play God, and this contributes to a neurotic society,” added another Methodist evangelical speaker, Billy Graham associate Dr. Akbar Abdul-Haqq. And Alabama layman Charlie Phillips, district manager for an electrical equipment firm, spoke of his past life, “working real hard being a Christian, but without Christ.”

But such evangelistic pronouncements did not go unchallenged. General Secretary Joseph H. Yeakel of the evangelism board, who held the same post in the EUB Church, was more disturbed that men are living without Christ than that they are dying without him. He spoke of the “potential of the ecumenical,” and the Church’s need to listen to the world. “The Gospel is always social,” he concluded.

In other business, a resolution asking ministers to restrict their purchases from the Methodist Publishing House until it joins the fair-employment code of Project Equality failed to pass. And the Rev. Ford Philpot, well-known evangelical from Kentucky, was elected president of the National Association of Conference Evangelists.

JAMES S. TINNEY

Richard Milhous Nixon first saw the light of day fifty-six years ago in a California home in which Quaker parents frowned on anything having the marks of violence. They believed also in the biblical admonition, “Be still and know that I am God.” In his inaugural address as President of the United States, he picked up these two themes.

The speech put priority on “peace.” And it is time, he said, for the nation’s malcontents to lower their voices “until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”

Nixon only alluded to a few tangibles—housing, education, better cities, full employment. The crisis for the nation, he said, does not primarily lie in these. “We have found ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit; reaching with magnificent precision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth.” The challenge is a “crisis of the spirit.” The remedy: “an answer of the spirit … and to find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.”

The inauguration was covered with religious trappings. Quipped Religious News Service’s Elliott Wright: “That was one of the finest church services I ever witnessed. Billy Graham prayed, Terry Cooke pronounced the benediction, and Dick Nixon preached the sermon. Certainly, that message had the preacher’s art to it.”

Nixon “preached” his message before the biggest congregation ever, using as his text: “The times are on the side of peace.”

When his former political foe Chief Justice Earl Warren administered the oath, Nixon placed his hand on two open family Bibles held by the new First Lady. They were opened to Isaiah 2:4, the millennial promise that there will be no more war. Nixon’s swearing-in probably had more of a religious tone than any other since that of Washington, who after taking the thirty-five-word oath, kissed the Bible and said, “So help me God.”

Earlier in the day, the President and First Lady, Vice-President and Mrs. Spiro T. Agnew, and the Agnew daughters joined 800 others at the State Department in what is believed to be the first ecumenical prayer service ever an official part of an inauguration. The religious service that was a part of Washington’s inauguration was highly Anglican, reflecting his religious stance. This time, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews were listed in the program.

New Cabinet members William Rogers, Melvin Laird, David Kennedy, Maurice Stans, and George Romney and their wives were among the worshipers.

At the service, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale of New York’s Marble Collegiate Church called the nation to spiritual renewal. Washington’s Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle intoned a benediction that had been offered by the first U.S. Catholic bishop, John Carroll. Rabbi Jacob Rudin, president of the Synagogue Council of America, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood sounded themes of spiritual renewal.

There have been non-official religious observances surrounding most other inaugurations. In 1965, for instance, Graham preached an inaugural sermon at President Johnson’s request. Although it preceded the inaugural by little more than two hours, it was not part of the official program. This year’s Religious Observance Committee was headed by Judge Boyd Leedom, an evangelical and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. National Association of Evangelicals General Director Clyde W. Taylor also played an important role.

Also an official part of the day was the request for the pealing of church bells across the land for three minutes, and a simultaneous call to prayer.

Five clergymen prayed at the inaugural ceremony. In the invocation Louisville’s AMEZ Bishop C. Ewbank Tucker asked God’s guidance for the new President in his “herculean responsibilities.” Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin, since 1915 the spiritual leader of Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple, traced the American ideal of freedom and liberty from creation. He asked God’s direction in a civilization that is not perfect.

After Agnew—an Episcopalian of Greek extraction—took the vice-presidential oath, Archbishop Iakovos, Eastern Orthodox primate for the western world, prayed that President Nixon would have illumination of mind, “so that through his words and pronouncements and deeds, he may lead us to a new appreciation of all that is true, honest, just, pure and of good intention, both in government and society.”

Graham prayed: “Help us in this day to turn from our sins and to turn by simple faith to the One who said, ‘Ye must be born again.’ So we pray, O God, as we enter a new era, that we as a nation may experience a moral and spiritual restoration” (full text of Tucker and Graham prayers, page 27).

In the benediction, New York’s Catholic Archbishop Terence Cooke asked that a nation aware of its problems might continue under God’s guidance to be “united, a nation indivisible.”

At the Nixon-Agnew family luncheon following the swearing-in, Nixon remarked to congressmen and other invited guests: “The five invocations given today were all prayed to the same God, who is in this room, and each of those invocations will read well in history.” Graham and Iakovos had participated in Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration four years earlier.

Graham’s prayer and Nixon’s message sounded much the same tone, and some Washington newsmen began speculating that the evangelist might have been called in to help draft the speech, as erstwhile Southern Baptist preacher Bill Moyers had done for Johnson.

Pope Paul VI cabled from Rome to Nixon: “As you solemnly undertake the responsibilities of your high office, we ask God to protect and guide you, to grant success to your efforts for unity and peace, and to bestow copious blessings upon you, your family and the beloved people of the United States of America.”

As the accolades and well-wishing got under way, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, made it known that he would be pounding on the White House door. “His message had no sense of urgency and no sensitivity to the basic problems of hunger, poverty and race,” Abernathy said.

A PRESIDENT ‘UPHELD BY PRAYERS’

With nearly 3,000 persons jammed into a Washington, D.C., ballroom for the annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast January 30, President Richard M. Nixon said he carries on his shoulders the hopes of the nation’s religious people, but added, “I am upheld by their prayers.”

The President, in one of his first public appearances since his inauguration, said a random sampling of his mail indicates a strong mood of prayer in the nation. He called this a splendid sign when “religion is not fashionable … and skepticism is on the upturn.”

Flanked by all members of the Cabinet—the first time in the seventeen-year history of the breakfasts—the President said the government is “dedicated” to the prospect of getting at the problems of the nation. He reiterated his inaugural theme that the nation’s ills are primarily spiritual in nature (see story above).

Evangelist Billy Graham, the main speaker, said the nation is guilty of “over-self-criticism—we have too much introspection … This is a great country—this is a great system.…” Graham said the problems of poverty, race, and war are really “problems of the heart, problems of the spirit.… If we can solve this problems we can have peace »»

Graham’s abbreviated five-minute message (things were running a half-hour late) ended on a strong evangelistic note: “You can have this salvation if you’ll get alone with yourself sometime today and confess that you are a sinner.”

Vice President Spiro Agnew described the Episcopal faith of his mother and the Greek Orthodoxy of his father as of less importance than the manner in which they lived. “My father always had an expression for someone he liked—‘he was a good man.’ What he meant was not that he was wealthy, good-looking … but that he lived a good life.”

A Farewell To L.B.J.

On his last full day as President of the United States, honorary deacon Lyndon B. Johnson attended National City Christian Church and heard a 238-word prayer for the nation that he had written.

“Thou hast blessed America greatly; may we, in the conduct of her affairs, be always worthy in Thy sight—and in the sight of our fellow man,” recited the Rev. George Davis. “Lift our visions, Father, renew our faith in Thee, and in ourselves. Stir our spirits and disturb our consciences that we may seek not rest from our labors but right for neighbors.” The President also asked help for the needy, trust in the young, blindness to skin color, and an end of hate and violence.

Though many prominent Disciples took issue with Johnsonian policies, Christian Church President A. Dale Fiers wired the denomination’s most famous member that “we rejoice in the many achievements of your administration.… Your Church … is proud of the leadership and faithful service you have given our country and the world.”

White House Preacher

It was a busy fortnight for Billy Graham. The evangelist delivered the main prayer at President Nixon’s inauguration and later preached at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast (see page 30). In between, he spoke at a private service on President Nixon’s first Sunday in the White House, and at the twenty-fifth anniversary banquet for Youth For Christ, of which Graham was the first full-time evangelist.

Nixon has said the White House service, first of its kind, will be a regular practice on Sundays when he is in Washington. Some 200 guests, including eight Cabinet members and eight White House telephone operators, heard Graham tell how Solomon’s search for pleasure through wealth, sex, and wisdom brought no lasting satisfaction. Graham said man finds fulfillment and satisfaction only in Jesus Christ.

The service was followed by a coffee hour where guests met and talked with President and Mrs. Nixon and Mr. and Mrs. Graham. At future services, speakers from various denominations will preside, including Roman Catholic prelates. However, Mass will not be recited. Attendance will be voluntary.

At the YFC banquet in Chicago, attended by new Illinois Governor Richard Ogilvie and 2,000 others, Graham said that in a world of rapid change, the nature of God, the Word of God, the nature of man, the moral law, and the way of salvation have not changed.

‘Pueblo’ Prayer

Crew members of the U. S. S. Pueblo told of writing out Scripture passages in lieu of Bibles and praying surreptitiously during their eleven months of imprisonment in North Korea.

Details of the secret “services” were disclosed last month by Navy chaplains who talked to the crew after their release on December 23. The Navy Chief of Chaplains, Rear Admiral James W. Kelly, related reports “that almost to the man Protestant and Catholic crew members during their confinement had moved in the direction of a deeper religious commitment, greater faith, and habitual prayer life.”

In the forefront of the effort to minister to the spiritual needs of the captors was Lieutenant Stephen Harris, an official Navy “lay leader.” The 30-year-old Harris has been identified as the research-operations officer aboard the Pueblo, a position for which the command line was somewhat ambiguous. Harris was expected to take the stand in the Navy’s inquiry into the Pueblo seizure. Commander Lloyd Bucher, captain of the ship, testified that he had less than adequate control over the intelligence operation headed by Harris.

Those questions notwithstanding, Harris told the chaplains how he had given up efforts to have worship services aboard the Pueblo before the capture because never more than two men showed up. But things changed during the confinement.

“Some of the men said their memories of Sunday School days were dim,” declared Kelly, “but they worked together to come up with a reasonably accurate list of the books of the Bible. Such familiar Scriptures as the Twenty-third Psalm were written out and shared. One mentioned that he had trouble remembering the Ten Commandments but with help came up with them. It seems everyone prayed openly before one another, although they had to avoid being seen in acts of worship by their captors.

“They had no Bibles or religious materials. No worship services were permitted. They were told, ‘The Russians shot God down with a rocket!’

“They were reprimanded for thanking God for their food (potato soup, rice, and turnips). They were told, ‘These are the gifts of the Korean people.’ ”

Kelly said the chaplains were told that “missionaries and ministers were held up to scorn by the North Koreans. They presented a picture of a priest sicking his dog on a child and another of a missionary branding a small boy in the forehead with the word ‘thief’ for stealing an apple. The Pueblo men were told that every cross in Korea was an antenna for sending espionage messages.”

A petty officer was quoted as saying. “I left religion out of my life when I joined the Navy. I have a Japanese wife, and two lovely children who just love Sunday school, but I haven’t helped my wife to become a Christian or encouraged the children. It is going to be different now.”

Lebanon: Student Power

In the United States, collegians protest against war and the draft; in Lebanon, they have gone on strike to press stronger military defense and a compulsory one-year draft. The reason: Israeli commandos’ raid on the Beirut airport (see January 31 issue, page 36). As one Arabic newspaper put it, “Lebanon has entered the June 5 war.”

The student strike began at Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s University after the airport raid, but had begun to trail off by mid-January. All students are pledged to return to class when the cabinet gives priority to their demands. A group at American University urged immediate military training of college students, and frontier fortification. Violence was kept to a minimum by the strikers, though one U. S. teacher was beaten at American University.

Students at Haigazian College, an Armenian Protestant school, were not generally enthusiastic about the strike but joined it four days late. Armenian reluctance to join an anti-government, anti-Israeli, pro-Arab strike points up another long-standing Mideast problem, the animosity between Muslims and Christians. The tension in Lebanon has been acute at times, as in 1958 when fighting broke out between the two groups and U. S. Marines landed to rescue Americans. Some Lebanese Christians even say that “if the Arab countries didn’t have Israel to fight, they would turn on Lebanon,” whose population is at least half Christian.

Lebanon has been protected by international cooperation and, it believes, left alone because of its small size. The country did not participate actively in the June, 1967, war with Israel. Although there were pro-Arab demonstrations, the country has been much less belligerent than other Arab lands.

Lebanon uses a “confessional representation” system of government—each religious group gets legislative seats on a percentage basis. Some groups, including student organizations, are dissatisfied because there has been no recent census and the Muslim population apparently has increased.

The Lebanese Students’ League also demands that the government legally recognize the Feddayeen (Arab commandos who harass Israel). Many Christians see them as Muslim extremists, and Islam’s holy-war doctrine is not far from the hearts of most Arab refugees. Such thinking is not geared to ingratiate the Christians. Even some Arab Christians see the Jewish return to Palestine as a fulfillment of prophecy. But some evangelicals have been among the student strikers favoring a free hand for the commandos.

Long-range results of the Beirut airport attack may be negative for both Israel and Lebanon. Israel has gained a new fighting front. And Lebanon’s non-neutral but non-warlike policy may have been given a fatal blow; strengthening of the military seems inevitable.

LILLIAN HARRIS DEAN

Bible: The Talk Of Yugoslavia

Communist Yugoslavia now boasts one of the world’s newest and most acclaimed Bible translations. It is the first Serbo-Croatian translation from the original languages, and is primarily the work of Roman Catholics, who drew on their Jerusalem Bible for language and style.

The translation has made such a deep literary impact on the nation that the Yugoslav Izbor (Reader’s Digest) carried a highly laudatory review—and this in a land that adheres to the Marxist interpretation of spiritual matters.

The Serbo-Croatian Bible distributed by the Bible societies for a century was translated from German. On the new text from original languages, Izbor reviewer Davor Shoshic enthusiastically wrote: “Our most outstanding biblicists, writers, translators, and linguists have combined their ingenuity to produce a work in which the dimensions of biblical terminology leave a person moved and amazed. You can read it in childhood, in youth, and in manhood. Every time you read it, it becomes new. This most-read and -translated book will never go begging.…”

Five translators undertook the task three years ago, assisted by twenty-three scholars and four editors. Most of the group, headed by national poet Jure Kastelan, are Catholics, though a few are unaffiliated.

The edition has no footnotes but adds a brief commentary at the end of each book. Controversial passages receive a modified interpretation, in contrast with the old dogmatic Catholic approach.

Unlike the New Testament, published in 1967, the full Bible carries no imprimatur. An evangelical authority believes Catholics deliberately wished to avoid limiting use of the translation to their own people, and this is what has happened. Evangelicals have received the work enthusiastically and hope eventually to get permission to print it in a cheaper form (the lowest-priced edition now costs $12), without the Apocrypha and footnotes. But they are not waiting for that to use the book.

Yugoslavia’s Catholics (concentrated in Croatia and its capital, Zagreb) have a healthy attitude toward evangelicals, and even seek out and use their literature. Elmer Klassen, an evangelical who offers free New Testaments through newspaper ads, is receiving open cooperation from Catholics. Recently, his office was working to fulfill 2,000 orders. Billy Graham’s brief Zagreb visit in 1967 helped break the ice and opened Catholic eyes to the responsibility to spread the Gospel.

Plans are being made for a holiday camp conducted by two well-known evangelicals, and the nation’s ninety-six Baptist congregations next month conclude their first extensive joint evangelistic campaign. THOMAS COSMADES

Watchman Nee, Witness Lee

Carefully castigating all Pentecostal excesses, Witness Lee, scholarly “apostle” of the new in China’s indigenous church, generates a frenzy all his own. He is dividing not only the tranquil waters of the faithful in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, but the hegemony established by imprisoned¹Nee sentenced to fifteen years, finished his term last April but still is allowed home only once or twice a month, and then not to sleep. He returns to his Shanghai incarceration, receiving a small salary for translating technical books into Chinese. Watchman Nee as well.

So avid are Lee’s followers that they cannot wait for their rebaptism, or “reburial.” Hundreds leap into the water, eager to experience what Lee proclaims as the reburial of everything “old,” including the old “self.” Their reward: a “release of the Spirit.”

Even founder Nee will have to follow the teaching of the self-proclaimed apostle or find himself “jobless,” Asia News Report quotes the ambitious Lee as saying in one of his more brazen pontifications.

But not all of the Little Flock Chinese jump when Lee speaks. His insistence that it is no longer necessary to pray in the name of Jesus—and that Christians must seek release from the bondage of the “letter” in Bible doctrines—is causing breakaways. When the Communists do finally release Nee, the Little Flock may have pretty well scattered, or else taken cover under the wing of a devourer.

Black Hatred At St. Paul’S

Amid loud interruptions and ugly scenes, punctuated by the strong-arm tactics of plain-clothes policemen, the ecumenical movement bulldozed its way to another dubious triumph last month when Cardinal Heenan tried to preach in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. The English Roman Catholic leader was frequently shouted down by Protestant demonstrators, and though remaining outwardly calm, was twice betrayed into unguarded remarks added to his script.

One of these, after sundry protesters had been rudely dispatched, was that these scenes showed how much the ecumenical movement was needed. It was the second, however, which was particularly unfortunate. After another spate of interruptions he suggested that Enoch Powell (the British politician regarded as being racist) might have a point after all. Though obscure, the allusion was resented by some.

This first appearance in St. Paul’s by a prince of the Roman church was in return for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s visit to Westminster Cathedral last year. There had been minor protests during the early part of the St. Paul’s service, but when Archbishop Ramsey welcomed the cardinal, pandemonium broke loose. “Your Eminence, dear brother in Christ …” was the signal for wild scenes as extreme Protestants flung unchurchly epithets at the red-garbed figure in the pulpit. For over three minutes the cardinal could not say a word, as a dozen or more Protestants, some with clerical collars (supporters of the Rev. Ian Paisley), were dragged to a side door. At least two of them were literally choked into silence by a squad of what turned out to be policemen and not, as one spectator thought, “bouncers hired from a Soho nightclub of ecumenical tendencies.”

The cardinal tried again and was continually interrupted while dispensing the usual ecumenical treacle. Manfully he kept at it in order to justify the neat, unbroken sentences dutifully reported in Britain’s “quality” press next day.

Meanwhile Paisley was outside, having arrived thirty-five minutes before the service began and settled down to exchanging his normal pleasantries with those who managed to get near him despite the police cordon. He emphasized that he does not hate Catholics, whom later that evening he delicately described as “blaspheming, cursing, spitting Roman scum.” He took no part in the church demonstrations.

“Remember the martyrs that shed their blood!” a lady demonstrator adjured a bowler-hatted city gent. “Which martyrs were these?” he asked politely. She moved to higher ground. “I’m on my way to heaven,” she announced. “Good for you, dear,” he said agreeably.

Interviewed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the general secretary of the National Secular Society said: “I am very saddened by tonight’s happenings.… I have seen … black hatred here tonight.” He had a point there—and he wasn’t just referring to the oranges, eggs, and tomatoes that Paisley was brushing off his bare head.

In his own Northern Ireland last month, Paisley and others were sentenced to three months in jail for an attack on a Catholic civil-rights march. Trying to clamp down on Protestant-Catholic strife, the government there has proposed laws against joining a demonstration banned by the government, or interfering with a government-approved demonstration.

J. D. DOUGLAS

The gospel is one thing and the fruits of the Gospel are something else. They are like the roots of a vine and the grapes that grow on it.

The Gospel, the “Good News,” is a message, the accepting of which produces new men with new ideals and ethics. The ideals and ethics proceeding from the Gospel are as impossible to achieve without it as are grapes without the root and vine.

Yet there is abroad today a feeling that society can be saved without the salvation of the individual. This idea is appealing because it presents man with something he can accomplish for himself and for the social order, without challenge to his personal beliefs or way of life.

The Gospel calls for the humiliation and subordination of self and the magnifying of Christ. It is a supernatural message about a supernatural person that brings about supernatural changes in the lives of those who accept it.

To a patient with diphtheria, the good news is that a cure—antitoxin—is available. When a house bursts into flame, it is good news that a fire brigade is on the way. When a car engine is sputtering, it is good news that a mechanic is available.

The Gospel is the best news of all, for it is the answer to man’s greatest need. It is the offer of clean hands and a pure heart for those who are defiled. It is the offer of the divine heart transplant, a new heart for the old. It promises a renewed mind, one that can grasp the things of the Spirit.

How wise we are if we face up to the depravity of the human heart! The Prophet Jeremiah says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

Our Lord enumerated the wretched fruits of the unregenerate heart: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts [the natural minds of men], murder [hate], adultery [lust], fornication [uncleanness], theft [covetousness], false witness [lying], slander [vindictiveness]. These are what defile a man” (Matt. 15:19, 20a).

The Apostle Paul also describes the miserable state of the unregenerate heart in his letter to the Galatians: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dlssention, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19–21).

Speaking in another letter as though he were talking to America in 1969, he says: “Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9, 10).

Add to this dismal catalogue of the sins of the flesh the equally damning sins of pride, lovelessness, insensibility to the condition and needs of others—sins both of commission and of omission—and we find ourselves convicted in thought, word, and deed.

We all are guilty. Let’s not compound our guilt by ignoring or denying the divine diagnosis. The Bible tells us, “For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22b, 23), and, “Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

This, then, is the miserable state of the natural man. If we are honest with ourselves we must admit it. I know that this was the state of my own heart and life until I accepted in faith the One who changed the entire situation for this life and for eternity. The change came when I believed God’s diagnosis and accepted his cure; and the message that told me what God offered was the Gospel.

I have seen a patient indignantly reject the diagnosis of cancer, only to die miserably a few months later. Similarly, otherwise intelligent people refuse to admit God’s diagnosis of sin in their lives, and through that refusal ultimately reap the certain end.

There is a growing awareness of the increased danger of cancer for cigarette smokers. The Surgeon General’s office has issued a number of warnings, and now on radio and TV we hear that “it’s a case of life, or breath.”

What about another warning: “For the wages of sin is death”? But an alternative is given along with the warning: “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). That is the Gospel!

What miserable substitutes for the Gospel are being offered to hopeless sinners today! They are to be found in the teachings of cults; in vapid ethical homilies; in the words and activities of those who regard social revolution as the Gospel; in the sermons of those who deny the content of the Gospel itself.

The Gospel is God’s Good News that there is an escape from the effects of sin and its certain judgment. It is the message that the miserable wretch on skid row and the sophisticated matron in the social register are alike sinners in God’s sight, with the same disease and needing the same cure. Both are offered. It tells of a restored fellowship that is sweet beyond words.

Little wonder that the Gospel is called the Good News. It is the best news in all the world, and for those who hear and believe, this news lasts for all eternity.

While the sins that plague mankind and are the cause of most newspaper headlines today are the fruit of the wickedness of the human heart, there is another kind of fruit that is found only in the lives of men and women who, by faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, have been changed (converted, born again). This fruit is beautiful to behold and comforting to experience. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:22–24). These things are the fruits of the Gospel!

How tragic to replace this marvelous message of hope with futile exhortations to men to lift themselves and the social order of which they are a part by some form of boot-strap endeavor! To the Church, and to individual Christians, there has been committed the preaching, teaching, and living of the gospel message.

If we give the Gospel top priority, it will change things. There is no other way to bring results that last.

L. NELSON BELL

The Beginnings of Dialectic Theology, edited by James M. Robinson (John Knox, 380 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by David Scaer, assistant professor of systematic theology, Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.

Dialectic theology has been with the theological world long enough to have found the level of its own orthodoxy. It is the task of the third generation to appreciate the contributions of the forefathers, who had to fight for their right to exist. This anthology is an attempt to acquaint the theological world of today with its immediate progenitors, who have helped frame the form and content of contemporary theology. Collected here are essays and portions of books of the early dialecticians from in and around the third decade of this century. Along with the earlier writings of Barth, there are also contributions by Tillich, Gogarten, and Bultmann, among others. The editor, James M. Robinson, as a rule chose writings not previously available in English, and he arranged the material according to time of original publication.

The reader gains the impression that he is looking at a family tree. The trunk is Barth, whose prefaces to three editions of his commentary on Romans started a chain reaction of critique and counter-critique, of attack and defense, between him and the German theologians. In some places the tree was pruned; in others the branches grew to a wider girth than the original trunk. The essays chosen to show the reaction to Barth’s three prefaces are so salty and blunt as to suggest an extremely sticky situation in theology during the twenties.

The several open letters between Barth and the great liberal theologian Adolf von Harnack open a little-known avenue of Christian thought. Von Harnack hit the jugular vein of Barth’s dialectic theology when he saw in it “an invisible point between absolute religious skepticism and naïve biblicism.”

In describing the beginnings of dialectic theology, the editor lets the reader choose for himself who is the fairest dialectic theologian of all. Is it Brunner? Bultmann? Tillich? Or perhaps Gogarten? Barth is not the true Barthian—simply because it is impossible to give an exacting definition of Barthianism. Robinson, who has built his work on earlier work in German by the now famous Jürgen Moltmann, puts the reader on the sidelines of a theological tennis match. Or perhaps the situation is more like a handball game, where if a player is not alert he can get hit in the head.

This anthology helps us to gain historical perspective on a movement that is still pulling much of theology into its grip, and to understand the evolution of today’s theology.

How To Be ‘For Real’

Release from Phoniness, by Arnold Prater (Word, 1968, 123 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Stephen Smallman, pastor, McLean Presbyterian Church, McLean, Virginia.

“God is not a giant IBM card who comes sliding out of some colossal computer when you have pressed all the right buttons. But you can find Him. You can be for real.” This is the beginning of an informal and personal conversation with the author (a district superintendent in the United Methodist Church) about leaving behind the phony life. The book is for desperate people, desperate because behind their mask and “novacaine smiles” they know there is nothing, and they want to find something real. And so, for those who will listen, Prater procedes to show that phoniness is nothing but the besetting sin of all men: self-worship. Actually, however, men worship only their self-image, their mask. If they would ever be honest enough to look behind the mask, they would be appalled. “Release from phoniness” necessitates taking off that mask, confronting one’s self honestly (an agonizing ordeal, the author warns), and then confronting God in Jesus Christ. And like the father of the prodigal son, God will gladly accept those who come to him—without their masks.

In the second half of the book, Prater discusses life without the mask. A new person in Christ no longer needs to be phony, but that is the beginning of the story, not the end; he now “puts on his skin.” This is no easier than “taking off the mask,” but God is now within, providing proper motivation. The real thing begins, as might be expected, with complete honesty and sincere compassion for others. (“Involvement in the despair of others—this is the essence of love.”) The Church, for better or worse, is Christ’s Church, and Christians belong there. (“If there are phonies in the church, then they will need you.”) The “maskless way” is no easy way, but it is the real way, leading to a life of purpose and content.

This very readable book will be a great help to those seeking release. It should be made clear, however, that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, men have no desire to seek. Prater may be implying this by writing only to those who are desperate, but his insistence on true repentance might be strengthened if he were to tell the seeker that it is God who is revealing to him his desperate condition. Jesus is the author as well as the finisher of our faith. (Prater left out “the author” when he quoted this verse.)

The most provocative thought in the book, in my opinion, is the basic thesis that when a man meets Jesus Christ, he is released from phoniness. Surely this provides a strong clue to the cause of phoniness in the Church.

Antidote To Individualism

The Believers’ Church, by Donald F. Durnbaugh (Macmillan, 1968, 315 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Bruce L. Shelley, professor of church history, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.

In June, 1967, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville hosted one hundred and fifty church historians, denominational leaders, and theologians in a Conference on the Concept of the Believers’ Church. During the conference it became apparent that considerable confusion surrounded this concept. Now, thanks to Donald Durnbaugh’s book, misunderstanding need no longer reign.

For about two decades now, a number of scholars interested in Mennonite, Baptist, Quaker, and Brethren beginnings have been chipping away at the past like sculptors, attempting to fashion an image of a rather distinctive type of Christianity. Working from the rough outline left by this host of craftsmen, Durnbaugh traces in detail the shape of the Believers’ Church. It is now clearly distinguishable from the other major Christian bodies: Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed.

The Believers’ Church has often been called the “Free Church.” Given, however, the increasing acceptance of separation of church and state in modern times, “Free Church” is now so inclusive as to be all but useless. Believers’ Church stands for something far more positive than the mere “wall of separation.” As Max Weber originally pointed out, it stands for a “community of personal believers of the reborn, and only these.”

Durnbaugh, who teaches church history at Bethany Theological Seminary, a Church of the Brethren School, lists seven features of the Believers’ Church: voluntary membership, separation from the world, a high level of Christian life, discipline, mutual aid, church forms evolved from the group, and the authority of the Word and Spirit.

From these characteristics it should be apparent that the Believers’ Church is not simply a cluster of denominations. Baptists, for example, who began with Believers’ Church ideals, have compromised them seriously under the heady wine of revivalistic success. Durnbaugh rightly argues that “Believers’ Church” refers to basic theological concepts. He traces these back to the Waldenses and the Unity of the Brethren; from them to the Radical Reformers, Baptists, Quakers, Church of the Brethren, Methodists, Disciples, and Plymouth Brethren; and then to the Confessing Church of Germany, the East Harlem Protestant Parish, and the Church of the Savior in Washington, D. C.

Evangelicals ought to wrestle with the ideas in this book for two supreme reasons. First, the concept of the Believers’ Church is a welcome antidote to an unbiblical individualism that has infected American evangelism. Many evangelists are inclined to think of the Believers’ Church as the Believer’s Church. But the place of the apostrophe is all important. The difference is between an unhealthy individualism and a responsible churchmanship.

Second, the Believers’ Church may provide evangelicals with the best possible adjustment to an increasingly secular age. As the symbols of a “Christian America” fade away or are smashed by militant secularists, evangelical dreams of the Kingdom in America may either turn to nightmares of disillusionment or find fulfillment in a new humanity in Christ. That new humanity, the Believers’ Church reveals, is what the Gospel is all about.

Profile Of Teen-Acers

Christian Youth: An In-Depth Study, by Roy B. Zuck and Gene A. Getz (Moody, 1968, 192 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Charles G. Schauffele, professor of Christian Education, Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts.

Gloomy generalities can now be dispersed with the facts. “A majority of the Christian youths surveyed were satisfied with their home situations.” At the same time they felt a lack of willingness to discuss spiritual matters, and there was too little opportunity at home for relaxing fun.

Educators in nearly 200 evangelical churches asked almost 3,000 teen-agers 336 well-honed questions about school, church, parents, preachers, dating, TV, sex, money, and marriage. Using valid research procedures and statistical correlation, Drs. Zuck and Getz have given a concentrated and compact package of reliable information that will be useful for several years to come. No parent or teacher, no one who works with teen-agers, can afford to pass up this data.

The study shows that teen-agers think their friends influence them more than their parents. So do their parents. More than half of those interviewed watch TV at least two hours a day, and some much more. Most of the churches and parents represented have told them not to attend a movie theater for so much as a Walt Disney film, but have given no guidance or ground rules for the choice of late late TV shows.

Those interviewed came from more than forty evangelical denominations, from every section of the United States, and from the whole spectrum of socio-economic levels. More than 12 per cent of them were interested in church vocations. Two-thirds had no serious doubts about the sixteen doctrines listed in the questionnaire. They were, rather, more concerned over the lost condition of the heathen and the problem of evil in the world. The chapter on ethics and morality ought to give youth leaders strong doubts about present programs and start them on the road to serious revisions.

For those who may be curious about the instruments and procedures, the authors thoroughly describe every step in their survey and show samples of their materials. Their project, which was encouraged and supported by the Research Commission and the Youth Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals, ought to take a lot of guesswork out of evangelical youth work.

Book Briefs

The Gospel in Isaiah, by Gilbert Guffin (Convention Press, 1968, 148 pp., $.95). Prepared as the Bible study guide for the Southern Baptist Convention in 1969, this fresh approach to Isaiah serves as a fitting preparation for the Crusade of the Americas being launched this year by most Baptist conventions in North, Central, and South America.

The Stork Is Dead, by Charlie W. Shedd (Word, 1968, 127 pp., $3.95). The author of Letters to Karen and Letters to Philip comes through again! This volume fills a longstanding need for a forceful, frank treatment of sex directed to teen-agers in language they can understand and believe. The views presented are sound—biblically, ethically, and practically.

Finney’s Lectures on Theology, by Charles Grandison Finney (Bethany, 1968, 248 pp., $3.95). Reprint of a classic first published in 1840.

Virginia Woolf Meets Charlie Brown, by David H. C. Read (Eerdmans, 1968, 225 pp., $4.95). A collection of timely sermons by the popular minister of New York City’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Short Dictionary of Bible Personal Names, by H. H. Rowley (Basic Books, 1968, 168 pp., $4.50). A compact dictionary that includes every person mentioned in the Bible and Apocrypha with a concise summary of the biographical information available. A companion volume, Short Dictionary of BibleThemes (114 pp., $3.95), summarizes, objectively and concisely, biblical teaching on major themes. Each bit of information in both volumes is accompanied by a biblical reference.

All the Holy Days and Holidays, by Herbert Lockyer (Zondervan, 1968, 288 pp., $4.95). A collection of sermonic and source material for use on special days of the church year, national holidays, and a variety of other occasions.

The Douglass Sunday School Lessons, 1969, by Earl L. Douglass (Word, 1968, 391 pp., $3.50). The newest edition of an extensive evangelical commentary on the International Sunday School Lessons.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, by John Mc-Clintock and James Strong (Baker, 1968, 940 pp., $12.95). Reprint of a standard reference work. Writing from an evangelical perspective, the contributors offer a wealth of information on hundreds of important topics in the field of religion. This is the first of a set of twelve volumes scheduled for completion in June, 1971.

Hebrews: The Epistle of Warning, by John Owen (Kregel, 1968, 283 pp., $3.95). Reprint of a seventeenth-century work by the renowned Puritan theologian. A valuable addition to the minister’s library.

Holy Book and Holy Tradition, ed. by F. F. Bruce and E. G. Rupp (Eerdmans, 1968, 244 pp., $5.95). Papers presented at an International Colloquium held in the Faculty of Theology of Manchester University, England. Considers the interplay of sacred writing, oral tradition, and religious art from the earliest of times to our own.

Plain Talk on John, by Manford Gutzke (Zondervan, 1968, 213 pp., $3.95). A welcome addition to the “Plain Talk” books by this gifted Bible expositor.

Demon Possession, by John L. Nevius (Kregel, 1968, 364 pp., $4.95). Reprint of a work first published in 1894. Investigates the whole question of demon possession by examining biblical teaching and by citing numerous case histories. The author was a Presbyterian missionary in China for nearly forty years.

The Bible Digest, by C. W. Slemming (Kregel, 1968, 905 pp., $9.95). An informative and enriching survey of each book of the Bible presented from an evangelical point of view. First American edition of a work published in England in 1960.

Who Told You It Was Round?

“Everyone’s gone to the moon,” lamented a pop song that the radio intruded into my household last week. I showed respectful interest, only to be rebuked for not spotting an oldie resuscitated in deference to the adult world’s current craze. The latter gave Mr. Nixon a few nifty thoughts for his inaugural address, clobbered a certain durable notion about green cheese, provided a new slogan for Protestant extremists anxious to “keep the Pope off the moon” (are they sure that’s what they really want?), and allowed a New Scientist editorial to thunder: “Is it altogether dignified to strut about in a technological Versailles while the vast hordes of the world’s deprived could make such vital use of all these brains and dollars?” Forgetting biblical rejoinders, I was taken in for a moment by that tirade till it struck me (and I owe the thought to Mae West) that dignity has nothing to do with it.

Impervious to such larger lunacies, however, is Samuel Shenton, the rightful recipient of communications addressed “Flat Earth, Dover, England.” According to information received, his reaction to Apollo was markedly chilly. Mr. Shenton, sixty-five and a retired signwriter (something symbolic there?), is secretary of the International Flat Earth Society. With typical English understatement he defines his ministry as “putting up a little squeak” at the way the cosmos has been conned.

You ask how. Mr. Shenton will tell you. The earth is flat like a plate. A compass (ha! thought you had him?) gives only the illusion of a true course—misguided mariners are really following the circumference of the plate. There is no space. Astronautical pictures? Faked or distorted. And let him tell us another thing: The earth is not merely flat, it is stationary. Obscurely Mr. Shenton appears to take comfort in some innocuous words of one W. L. Cook of NASA who is quoted as having opined that the flat-earthers’ views “are in fact quite universally felt, if seldom expressed.” Among Mr. Shenton’s weightier sources are biblical references, notably First Samuel 2:8b: “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.”

Quizzed once by a reporter about his proselytizing record, Mr. Shenton manfully confessed he had never converted anyone. But, he added hopefully, “there’s my wife. She’s coming round.” Bizarre that last word may be, but Brother Shenton exudes that saintly-perseverance which positively thrives on a cause accounted lost by a flatly perverse world.

What The Doctor Ordered

The doctor’s prescription really works! “Physician to Pastor: Golf Isn’t Enough” (Jan. 17) was exactly right according to my experience.

It became a matter of conscience to me that as an overweight minister I was hurting my influence as well as my health.…

A minister has many gastronomical pitfalls. The traditional chicken dinners, over-solicitous cooks, plus all of the sedentary conditions make him a perfect target for obesity. But here is an opportunity for the practice of preaching about temperance. Some of us have been addicted to food in a fashion similar to the hold that drink has upon its victims.

Bethel College

Mishawaka, Ind.

President

Can I believe my eyes? Do I read correctly that Dr. Dennison is suggesting that the “clergy” abstain from smoking and drinking?

I have been in church attendance for thirty years, from the New England states to Florida, and have never once sat under a pastor who had any need for nicotine or alcohol.

Or is it that I have always sought out a “born-again pastor” when looking for a church home and thus have missed the “clergy”-type of person who do have to be warned about such things? These clerics need a good salvation message, not a doctor’s advice.

Broomall, Pa.

No doubt many will call your attention to the omission of “at ease” in the Amos quotation. That phrase was, no doubt, the purpose of the quotation.

Arnold Lutheran Church

Duluth, Minn.

Right Relations

As with many good insights, Leon Morris’s reconciliation article (Jan. 17) tends to be a little lopsided in correcting current impressions of the importance of reconciliation.

True: God’s initiative is most important. True: reconciliation is inherent in salvation.

But many psychologists and psychiatrists would probably say that often man is worried by the fact that he has done wrong.… Often these guilt burdens are heightened by our social or human relationships. Relationships should help us find release from guilt in God’s forgiveness in Christ.

Jesus himself recognizes this human dimension of the problem when he tells his listeners that if on the way to the altar they remember that someone has something against them, they should put down their sacrifice and go to be reconciled to their brother. Then they return to complete their obligation to God. He seems to say that faulty human relationships can in fact close the door to God.

Elkhart, Ind.

Wesley’S Worry

I read with interest your editorial on “The Church’s Mission” (Jan. 17), regarding social activists vs. evangelicals.

Lecky, the historian, is quoted on the Wesleyan revival’s saving England from oblivion. We certainly should not forget Wesley’s Gospel of reconciling man to God. However, let us neither forget his witness of social action. Wesley did not only worry about men’s souls. He instituted clinics and credit unions, worked with Wilberforce to abolish slavery, and so on.

The evangelicals of today can no more place an exclusive claim on Wesley than the social activists, who are so subtly derided in your editorial. If Wesley was anything, he was a “social-evangelical.” And incidentally, that places him between the two polarities that some of us are so insidiously widening—including CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The First Methodist Church

Palmer, Tex.

Love And Foreign Policy

I would like to take issue with your editorial, “A Church in Politics” (Jan. 17).

Whether “influencing foreign policy” is evangelism or not doesn’t seem to be the issue. But influencing foreign policy seems to me to be a quite legitimate realm for the Church to work in; indeed it seems almost an obligation.…

Saint Augustine said that “love calls us to the things of this world.” Does not our love for our fellow men in any part of the world demand that we speak out against our government’s policies if we feel they are morally unjust? If our government is representing us as a nation when it acts, it is also representing the Christian element in society. Don’t we want it then to do the right thing? It is time for Christians to make their voices heard if they truly love their neighbors as themselves.

Madison, Wis.

You criticize the United Methodist Church for “influencing foreign policy” by its position on the Viet Nam war. On page 37 you carry a favorable notice of Billy Graham, whose religious views and pronouncements also “influence foreign policy,” indeed help to implement it.

Apparently opposition to the war by a church is unchristian “meddling in politics.” However, support of the war by a churchman appears to be all right under the aegis of “evangelism.”

Many people, in the church and out, feel that the United Methodist Church is nearer to the mind and spirit of the Prince of Peace in its “evangelism” than is Graham with his “evangelism.”

Harrisonburg, Va.

A Course Finished

Whenever a dear friend dies, we at once write to his family expressing our sympathy. Dr. Kenneth Latourette, a dear friend of mine, has died, and I want to write to his family, but he never had a wife and children. His family was his multitude of friends, many of whom no doubt read CHRISTIANITY TODAY. SO I feel I must write this letter to you.…

I first met Ken Latourette in 1916 when I … visited Denison College in Ohio.… [He] had been a missionary in China and his health had failed, and so he had to return to America and was teaching in Denison, and acting as faculty advisor to the YMCA. His health failed—and in the fifty years that followed he wrote more church history than any other living man!

Once I asked Ken how on earth he was able to do all this difficult and scholarly writing, in addition to teaching and serving on countless boards and committees and delivering numerous addresses. He replied that since he had no family he had devoted to his writing the time that most men gave to their families. I am sure this was not the full explanation of his amazing literary productivity.…

Dr. Latourette kept to the end of his life the enthusiasm of the early leaders of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, of which he had once been a secretary. He rejoiced in the growth of the missionary conventions of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.…

Kenneth Latourette has finished his course. Now let us press on with the Evangelization of the World in This Generation!

Philadelphia, Pa.

The Depressing Truth

Thank you very much for the article “Missouri Compromise” (Current Religious Thought, Jan. 17). [It] is depressing yet true.…

There will be those who will be unhappy because of his article. They might suggest that he should not make public a family affair. They might even suggest that he has too recently become a part of that family to truly understand and know it. Far worse than making public this family affair are those within the family who are destroying it with their neo-orthodoxy and lack of discipline. Far from being an unwelcome novice in the Missouri Synod, Dr. Montgomery is looked upon by many as God’s answer to their fervent prayers for the restoration of a pure Lutheran confession. We gladly call him brother and teacher.

St. Paul’s Ev. Lutheran Church

Brookfield, Ill.

John Warwick Montgomery has declared that I, among others, have written in such a way as to contribute to the “downgrading of the Bible.” He accuses a number of people, including myself, of undermining the principle that “God’s Word is and should remain the only standard and rule.…” As evidence he quotes a single line. Here are a few other lines from the same essay to which he refers (Lutheran Forum, October 1968):

All the great Lutheran bodies confess—and not one denies—the authority of Sacred Scripture. In all the discussions among Lutheran bodies in our day we should be very clear about this: LC-MS, ALC and LCA according to their constitutions and official statements all believe, teach and confess “Scripture Alone” as norm and authority for the teaching and proclamation of the Church.… And more—there is not one shred of evidence that any one of these church bodies tolerates individual teachers who deny the principle of “Scripture Alone”.…

Indeed, Montgomery’s “expose is so prejudiced and warped that this reader was left wondering:

1. Is Montgomery merely a bad reporter?

2. Or is he simply not interested in speaking words which correspond to fact?

3. Or does he want to polarize and divide rather than edify the Body of Christ?

… I seriously doubt whether historical truth or the Lord of the Church is being served by the series so far.… Concordia Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.

Review Reviewed

I appreciate your selecting my book, Guaranteed Annual Income: The Moral Issues, for review (Dec. 20), and I take no offense from your reviewer’s apparent disagreement with the book’s perspective. Given his more extremely conservative orientation on economic questions, such disagreement is inevitable and ought to be expressed.

At two points, however, the review may have misled your readers. In the first place, Mr. Opitz suggests that I do not believe in work “as a virtue as well as a necessity.” But the book emphatically states my belief that work is of the very essence of man’s nature as God has created him. Work is man’s fitting, proper, and active response to God’s prior gifts of creation and grace. I did make a point of distinguishing between this broader perspective on work and a narrower view which quite unbiblically limits work to what we get paid for doing. Possibly the reviewer understands work only in this more limited perspective.

The other point has to do with the basic theological standpoint. One could read Mr. Opitz’s review without any inkling of the basic theological arguments which form the heart of my perspective, particularly the discussions of grace and creation. My discussion makes no claim of infallibility. But surely every evangelical Christian needs to ponder the relationship between the central doctrines of Christian faith and the economic issues of the day. Otherwise we run the risk of selling out our faith by deciding questions only on the basis of secular economic ideologies.

Wesley Theological Seminary

Washington, D. C.