The Christian, the Church, and Contemporary Problems, by T. B. Maston (Word, 1968, 248 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Charles E. Hummel, president, Barrington College, Barrington, Rhode Island.

Evangelicals have often been accused of having the right answers to the wrong questions. Our doctrine may be correct, but we have failed to relate it to current social problems in a way that meets people at their point of need and questions. Although this charge often overlooks significant evangelical social concern shown both in writing and in action, there is enough truth in it to make this book a welcome arrival.

T. B. Maston is professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. In his forty years of teaching he showed concern that in the ethical arena our preaching is better than our practice. For this book he has drawn upon his wealth of experience in relating the Christian and the Church to the social structures and problems of the day. The book is significant in three major respects: its biblical grounding and perspective, its wide range of concern, and its breadth of scholarship in relation to both past and present writers.

The opening chapters establish a biblical basis for social concern and the relation of theology to ethics. Here Dr. Maston makes a strong case for the Christian as a citizen of the world as well as of the Kingdom of God, and for the responsibility of the Church to grapple with world problems. He bases his argument on Scripture and develops it in the context of church history. Readers anxious to wrestle with issues immediately may be impatient with what seems like a slow start. But as they progress to the treatment of the problems of our society, they will appreciate the solid biblical foundation laid for the discussion.

The remaining three sections—twelve chapters—deal with family, social, and political problems. Each section begins with a chapter on biblical teachings to set the stage for treatment of specific topics. In the area of the family, Maston writes with unusual perception about the problems of aging members and of divorce. He lays bare complex issues as he gives practical advice without pat answers.

The section on social problems has a valuable chapter on “Law, Order, and Morality” that is of special interest in view of the recent political campaign. Here we see the inter-relatedness of law, morality, order, justice, and love. The racial situation is presented as a threat to religious liberty, and the underlying revolution of our civilization, which motivates many kinds of revolutions. The book ends with the panorama of unrest and rapid change swirling around us, yet with the conviction of God’s overriding sovereignty in world events.

Broad scholarship is evident in Maston’s appropriate quotations from leading theologians and other contemporary scholars. Both his notes and his index are unsually comprehensive. He communicates clearly and avoids the common scholarly failing of seeming profound by being obscure. All in all, his book is an excellent introduction to a vital area of Christian concern.

Against Meaningless Structures

Spirit Versus Structure, by Jaroslav Pelikan (Harper & Row, 1968, 149 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by John H. Gerstner, professor of church history, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This volume, though its title might serve in this post-election year as a reminder of the inevitable gap between campaign promises and administrative fulfillments, finds its real part of relevance in the contemporary Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue. Although Luther originally opposed the Roman Catholic Church as Spirit Versus Structure, he later found himself obliged to reproduce structures of his own more or less like those he had opposed.

Dr. Pelikan takes The Babylonian Captivity of 1520 as the Reformation platform. Ecclesiasticism, Luther said in that work, had replaced the Bible and driven out the Holy Spirit. The priesthood had become a higher order on whom the laity depended, while really baptism makes all men priests and for practical reasons these true priests appoint some of their number to perform the functions. Monastic vows were presumptuous without the Holy Spirit and unnecessary with him. Faith is not produced by baptism, but faith, wrought by the Spirit, justifies that sacrament even in the case of infants. Canon law is the structural antithesis of the freedom of the Christian man. And indeed the whole sacramental system, as a sign, is a travesty, the only true sacrament being the Word itself, which may be expressed by the three traditional sacramental forms.

The vicissitudes of this Lutheran program of spirit vs. structure are traced in various monographs of the following decade. While Luther would rather see a church without ministry and sacrament than with the wrong kind, he finds himself drawn into organization, ultimately justifying, for example, infant baptism without faith. Monasteries he could bring down, but their welfare, mission, and educational work he could not reproduce by Protestant spirituality, only by the secular state.

This book, an interesting and valuable testing of the Reformation in the promise and fulfillment of its central hero, is perhaps a little too neat. While its thesis is deftly and even brilliantly advanced, there are also the facts that Luther was given to hyperbole, on the one hand, and was never utterly opposed to form, structure, and institution, on the other. Incidentally, Luther was not so much concerned with Spirit vs. structure as he was with the Spirit’s truth versus the structure’s errors. It was not by its institutions that the Roman church fell but, according to Luther, by its repudiation of justification by faith alone. From the beginning the German reformer was willing to keep even the pope if with him he could have the Gospel.

This little work should be compared with the nineteenth-century study, The Conservative Reformation, in which the Lutheran C. P. Krauth attempted to show the essentially conservative character of Luther and Lutheranism in doctrine and worship, in spirit and structure. Pelikan is suggesting that this conservatism came gradually and the hard way.

Basic Question Overlooked

Marburger Hermeneutik, by Ernst Fuchs (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1968, 277 pp., DM 28), is reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown, theological secretary, The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Ernst Fuchs, the Marburg New Testament scholar, here attempts a contribution to the interpretation of the New Testament, i.e., to New Testament hermeneutics. It is thanks to his own labors, as well as to those of his Marburg mentor Bultmann, and some of Bultmann’s other disciples, that the so-called hermeneutical problem has become the focal point of much if not all theological discussion, especially in Germany.

Professor Fuchs begins by stating that existential honesty, not merely intellectual honesty, is his goal. He exhibits a certain directness, freshness, and trenchancy in some of his comments, particularly when he deals with the situation in theology and the churches today. He calls talk of the death of God “monkey-shines” and laments the theologians’ failure to live with the Bible and the widespread loss of a regular quiet time. The book is dominated by his feeling that the Church and the theologian aren’t getting through and that the reason is that the Bible is not getting through to us. The task of his “Marburg hermeneutics” is to solve this problem.

For him, hermeneutics before Bultmann was concerned chiefly with justifying its own methods, with what the exegete brought to bear on the text; after Bultmann, exegetes like Fuchs himself want to see what the text brings to the exegete, the changes it causes in him.

Herr Fuchs is at his most convincing when he wrestles with the problems of ambiguity and inauthenticity in modern life and in the Church, and in his appendix on love. However, if his intention is to lend clarity to the task of interpreting the Bible, he certainly fails. The book is organized into numbered parts, paragraphs, and sections, but seems to consist chiefly of random, cryptic comments on other theologians, the Bible, philosophy, and other subjects, many of them made an oracular tone. The late Professor J. T. Muller of Concordia, commenting on the words “Try the spirits” (1 John 4:1), gave as one of the tests of a theologian’s fidelity to the Spirit of God his ability—or willingness—to express himself with clarity. By this standard, Marburger Hermeneutik falls far short.

This fashion of speaking as though he were a divine oracle (not peculiar to Fuchs—many of his colleagues in Germany, America, and elsewhere do the same thing) makes it hard for the reader to question or verify what he writes. He gives few footnotes and displays a remarkably Germano-centric provincialism. He devotes much space to a little-known Tubingen theologian, Traub, as well as to the standard luminaries; but C. H. Dodd, the only British scholar mentioned, appears only in a parenthesis, while the work of Paul Ricoeur is completely ignored, even though this French Protestant is perhaps the outstanding thinker in existentialist hermeneutics today.

Partly because of his interest in Heidegger’s philosophy and in German Romanticism, Fuchs is preoccupied with the question of time. For him, physical sciences are concerned with space, the humanities and theology with time, which man “uses up in living.” Unfortunately, any insights he may offer are so obscured by his bewildering and arbitrary terminology and by his practice of hopping from one oracular dictum to another that even an interested reader has difficulty fishing them out. If there were no hermeneutical problem, Fuchs would certainly create one.

A chief defect is that Fuchs, like many of his colleagues, applies his existential honesty only to the interpreter as a cerebral, reflective, hyperverbal scholar, and not to the text or to the realities of living in the world. He acknowledges that the “obscure” Bible began to speak to men with renewed clarity when they were pushed to the limit by twentieth-century persecutions, but he does not consider why this was possible. What authority does the Bible have to change me, the exegete? Fuchs’s failure to answer the basic question is all the more tragic since he obviously has felt and feels the power emanating from the sacred texts.

Is this not characteristic of almost all contemporary theology? Radically critical in its approach to traditional sources of authority and to the central teachings of historic Christianity, claiming an openness to all knowledge from whatever quarter, it ends by building a theological edifice with only the building blocks contributed by a limited, close circle of “scientific” theologians, which it accepts uncritically, seldom asking even whether they are formally meaningful, much less whether they are true to the biblical message or to life as we experience it.

Ultimately, then, the structural looseness, the literal incoherence, of Fuchs’s Marburger Hermeneutik is a reflection not merely of the ferret-like vivacity of his own turn of mind but also of the fundamental sterility of his theological method, which cannot communicate life but can only observe it, and may destroy it. His attempts to supersede the vitality of the biblical message (the source of which he fails to see clearly) with the frenzied vivacity of his burrowings in his own and others’ theological methods must remain, for all its fascinating virtuosity, a pathetic and mechancholy one.

A Converted Gangleader

Run Baby Run, by Nicky Cruz, with Jamie Buckingham (Logos, 1968, 240 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Russell Spangler, instructor in speech, Alma College, Alma, Michigan.

Nicky Cruz was once the feared and ferocious leader of the renowned Mau Maus of New York City. Ten years ago, when the city was plagued by two or three hundred of these “bopping clubs” (street-fighting gangs), the Mau Maus had the reputation of being one of the most vicious and blood-thirsty of all gangs.

Here is the intriguing story, in Nicky’s own words, of how a rebellious fifteen-year-old Puerto Rican kid was sent to the big city to make it on his own. He made it all right. He joined the Mau Maus, and six months after going through the barbaric initiation ritual he became their leader, by being meaner, more courageous, and more blood-thirsty than anyone else. This meant he had two hundred boys (and seventy-five girls) who would do whatever he told them.

Understandably, the first half of this biography has (potentially, at least) the gory elements that characterize so many cheap autobiographies of slum characters who have risen to the point at which they feel they can make money from their sordid past. What makes this book different is the account of the marvelous transformation of this rebellious, sadistic teen-ager into a consecrated preacher filled with an overwhelming desire to go out and reach other “hopeless” young people. This is a thrilling story of what must be one of the most dramatic conversions of this generation.

The story will be inspiring to readers of all ages. Ministers will be particularly challenged by the example of the Reverend David Wilkerson, who played an important role in Nicky’s conversion. (Wilkerson has already told a portion of Nicky’s story in his best-seller, The Cross and the Switchblade.)

Run Baby Run is not a complete biography, for Nicky Cruz has not stopped running. He now travels the country presenting his testimony to young people. His program, for juveniles is called “Outreach for Youth” and is located in Fresno, California. One hopes this book will be another outreach for youth.

A Ray Of Hope?

Religion in America, edited by William G. McLoughlin and Robert N. Bellah (Houghton Mifflin, 1968, 433 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Frank L. Hieronymus, acting president and dean of the faculty, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

Religion in America explores the nation’s religious landscape through essays originally presented at a conference of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The editors and contributors are optimistic about the American religious scene, whether they view it as broadly inclusive or as confined to Christianity. America, say the editors, is in the fourth great awakening, in which, unlike the first three, Roman Catholics and Jews share equally with Protestants. And Michael Novak, in a chapter entitled “Christianity: Renewed or Slowly Abandoned?,” states his “quiet conviction that Christianity is now entering upon one of the most creative periods of its history.”

Among facts cited to support this optimism are the membership growth in religious organizations to 125 million; the identity with some form of faith of about 96 per cent of Americans; the increase in religious contributions to some four billion dollars a year; and, of course, the quickening of interest among religious leaders and organizations in the social and economic issues of the era.

A point stressed throughout the volume is the pluralism of American religion—“an attitude towards differences that reinforces and contributes to social cohesiveness.” Recent Supreme Court decisions are interpreted as expanding religious freedom as well as helping to mature this kind of pluralism.

The omissions are noteworthy. The editors say that their efforts to obtain an article on Negro religion failed; this is surprising, in view of the spate of work being done in Negro history and culture. They concede that conservatives or new evangelicals are underrepresented. There is no chapter on revivalism, though Billy Graham is frequently mentioned; no study of the impact on society of mass-media efforts by evangelicals; no analysis of the healing meetings, the tongues movement, or the missionary programs sponsored by these bodies. Because of these omissions, the evangelical is likely to underrate or ignore the volume, and the non-evangelical will read it without coming to a better understanding of the evangelical position. Thus each will continue to broadcast on his own wave length, without reading the other’s signals.

Each of the essays in the book distills the ideas its contributor has published in larger works. And each has a helpful bibliography and supporting footnotes. The volume suffers from considerable repetition and overlapping, not unexpected in this type of work.

Religion in America is recommended for ministers and laymen who take their religion seriously and for the student of the contemporary scene. It will not be very valuable for the scholar in religious history.

Kierkegaard’S Train Of Thought

Kierkegaard’s Authorship, by George E. and George B. Arbaugh (Augustana, 1967, 431 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Lloyd F. Dean, associate professor of philosophy, Rhode Island Junior College, Providence.

This study has many virtues. It is chronologically systematic, comprehensive, and lucid. Indeed, it seems to stand at the opposite pole to existentialists in general and Soren Kierkegaard in particular. It convinces this reviewer, at least, that the Arbaughs (father and son) have accurately understood and honestly presented the genius of the much discussed Dane.

The authors modestly suggest that what they have produced is only a guide to the approximately seventy published and unpublished books by Kierkegaard himself. But they have given us a great deal more: an exposition of his thought in context throughout his life, with lucid introductions to all his works, telling the circumstances of their composition and the author’s motivation for writing.

After an introductory chapter on the significance of Kierkegaard’s life and labors, the Arbaughs move into the first division of his writing, “The Aesthetic Literature”—philosophical, religious, and ethical works intended to attract aesthetically. Kierkegaard’s ultimate goal was to prod the reader “to consider the Christian answer to his problems.”

Irony abounds in this period. “In one instance, S.K. deliberately misleads his readers through an entire book (Repetition) to see if the reader will have sufficient integrity of character to follow through to the grave issues at its end.” This was not strange to the literary custom of his age. Thus one must always ask if he is reading the real Kierkegaard. (Note the relation of this approach to the subject of his M. A. dissertation, The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates.) It will be most helpful for the new reader to understand that Either/Or (of this period) is a love letter that also purposes to help the reader face his spiritual existence.

The Arbaughs date the second period, “Christian Writings,” from Kierkegaard’s conversion or attainment of assurance of forgiveness. In this period he feels he can speak openly on behalf of true Christianity, and the philosophical elements decrease. His purpose is to define Christianity in such a way as to make a confrontation with it unavoidable. Later the subject of suffering becomes more prominent. “Christianity makes man supremely significant and therefore makes his existence ‘as difficult and painful as possible.’ ” The key concept in his ethics, say the Arbaughs, is neighbor-love as an act of essential freedom. Thus Kierkegaard turns more and more to the common man, rather than to the intellectual and the sophisticate. Unlike Sartre, he sees man placed in a responsible situation by creation and, though fallen, able to accept a restoration to his spiritual home by the grace of God.

Kierkegaard viewed his writing as a process of educational growth toward clarity and commitment. He came to oppose such social gospels as those of Marx or Mill, because he found the solution to man’s problems in the inward transformation of individuals. Organized Christianity, he felt, instead of taking its proper part in this transformation, was actually contributing to its own destruction. In the heat of his radical attack on the problem, the Arbaughs see Kierkegaard un-properly describing Christianity as “absurd.” They point out, however, that he ultimately made it clear that by absurd he meant that Christianity is “a matter of faith rather than demonstrative probability.”

In the short section on “Miscellaneous Writings,” Kierkegaard’s journals, newspaper articles, meditations, and prayers are treated with special note of their autobiographical significance. The final chapter, “Kierkegaard and Existentialism,” shows his influence on Ibsen, Hoffding, Unamuno, Jaspers, and Heidegger, as well as the contrast with Sartre and other naturalistic existentialists. There are brief but excellent discussions of existence, essence, paradox, and other important concepts. The Arbaughs conclude that Kierkegaard must not be identified with secular existentialists, for he always roots love and duty in a concern for one’s neighbor before God. Thus they find that “the fundamental purposes and concepts of Kierkegaard are antithetical to a great deal of more recent existentialism.”

No Easy Solutions

The Nine Lives of Alphonse, by James L. Johnson (Lippincott, 1968, 256 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by James W. Sire, editor, Inter-Varsity Press, Chicago, Illinois.

It is easy to find fault with James L. Johnson’s second Code Name Sebastian adventure. The Nine Lives of Alphonse has most of the weaknesses of the earlier novel: poor characterization, over-explicit moralizing, strained figures of speech, and a general lack of subtlety.

Sebastian, an ex-minister, has been summoned to Florida by a former female convert in “soul trouble.” When he arrives, he is immediately thrust into the middle of a chaos of opposing factions: the woman, her atheist husband, a jolly but soured Cuban Catholic, an ex-Communist femme fatale, a criminal, the exiled Cuban leader of Miami Free Cubans who wants to get the rest of his family out of Castro’s Cuba, the U. S. Navy, the National Intelligence Agency, and Cubans loyal to Castro. Still, the plot, with the peaks of excitement and relief found in most adventure stories, is straightforward.

But Johnson tries to make The Nine Lives of Alphonse more than a diversion. Referring to Sebastian’s earlier experience in Code Name Sebastian, he writes, “It was that same old grinding of the gears again, violence vs. spirituality, the disheveled, wrinkled, chaotic world vs. the prim, starchy, well-pressed theology of love.” And much to Johnson’s credit, Sebastian finds no easy solutions. He works out his salvation in sweat and blood, constantly troubled by whether God could lead a Christian (especially one ordained) to cavort with criminals, spies, prostitutes, and soldiers of fortune. It is also to Johnson’s credit that at times the narrative becomes intense and dramatic—even absorbing.

But there are still all those telling weaknesses. The language, especially the dialogue, is often unrealistic, just short of a line I recall from a Late Movie on TV: “A man doesn’t lie with stark horror on his face and cold terror in his eye.” Clichés abound. And when Johnson does try a fresh approach, it often obtrudes: “Sebastian detected the Spanish accent that rode some of Bingo’s words like unwanted passengers demanding more room on the train.” Yet he strives for realism. One character blurts out in anger, “When my preacher friend here pops his colon down there at fifteen fathoms or so, I want to scoop up a specimen and hang it up in my wife’s bedroom so she can see what kind of man she’s got for a hero. Right preacher?”

Sebastian himself is unbelievable. He’s a wiser, surer man than in the previous novel, and he faces more complex issues. He knows God is on his side this time; after all, he is out of the spiritual desert of the Negev and in the waters off Florida. But his goody-goody nature often becomes unbearable. He drinks coffee, the others run; he thinks of his true love while being enticed by a beautiful Cuban prostitute; he goes to church almost every Sunday despite incredible obstacles. In fact, in a novel that takes many pokes at nominal Roman Catholicism, Sebastian is still a priestly Protestant minister: “It was that peculiar gulf that makes ministers a breed apart, maybe, and no amount of common sweat or blood or effort could change it.”

The messages the novel bears are sound: a relationship to God in Jesus Christ gives life meaning and vitality, and a person committed to Christ may well find himself caught up in the troubles of his neighbors, Christian and non-Christian. But all in all these points are made in a language too explicitly religious. Too little is left to the reader’s own intelligence and imagination. Keats once wrote that “we hate a poetry that has a palpable design upon us.” His remark holds for novels as well.

Book Briefs

The Biblical Sunday School Commentary, edited by H. C. Brown, Jr. (Word, 1968, 422 pp., $3.95). A new, evangelically oriented commentary on the International Sunday School Lessons offering solid, creative Bible study and an abundant supply of illustrative material.

Religious Trends in English Poetry, Volume VI, by H.M. Fairchild (Cambridge, 1968, 535 pp., $12.50). In this final volume in a series that studies nearly three centuries of English poetry, the author, a Christian, searches the “Valley of Dry Bones” for modern poetry’s definition of deity: God or man. Students of literature will appreciate this distinguished contribution of literary criticism.

God in the White House, by Edmund Fuller and David E. Green (Crown, 1968, 426 pp., $5.95). An investigation of the religious faith of each of the thirty-five presidents of the United States—its development and its effect upon the man and his contemporaries.

A History of Religious Education, by Robert Ulich (New York University, 1968, 302 pp., $8.50). Traces the development of modern religious education through the study of pertinent documents, beginning with the Old Testament.

McLuhan: Pro and Con, edited by Raymond Rosenthal (Funk & Wagnalls, 1968, 308 pp., $5.95). A collection of very lively responses—pro and con—to the thought of Marshall McLuhan.

Jesus of Fact and Faith, by Samuel A. Cartledge (Eerdmans, 1968, 160 pp., $4.50). A survey of the work of recent scholarship on the life of Jesus, with evaluations of the most important current theories.

Communication-Learning for Churchmen, edited by B. F. Jackson, Jr. (Abingdon, 1968, 303 pp., $5.95). First in a series of four volumes designed to give churchmen a better understanding of communication and learning so that these may be used more effectively in the churches.

The Zondervan Expanded Concordance (Zondervan, 1968, 1,848 pp., $14.95). Includes key words from six modern Bible translations (Amplified, Berkley, Phillips, RSV, NEB, ASV) and the King James Version.

Meditations for Communion Services, by William Latane Lumpkin (Abingdon, 1968, 111 pp., $2.95). Twenty-four brief meditations on the Lord’s Supper offer helpful insights into the rich meaning that can be found in the Communion service.

The Couch and the Altar, by David A. Redding (Lippincott, 1968, 125 pp., $3.95). Credits Freud and Jung for their part in helping men identify their problems but emphasizes that wholeness and fulfillment can be experienced only through the forgiveness and restoration offered in Jesus Christ.

The Vatican Empire, by Nino Lo Bello (Trident, 1968, 186 pp., $4.95). The former Rome correspondent for Business Week offers an objective survey of the staggering wealth and awesome fiscal power of the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s Always Too Soon to Quit, by Mel Larson (Zondervan, 1968, 157 pp., $3.95). Story of Steve Spurrier, the 1966 Heisman Trophy winner.

Prayers for Help and Healing, by William Barclay (Harper & Row, 1968, 124 pp., $3.50). A collection of prayers for those who find themselves in a crisis experience. Reflects compassion for those undergoing trial and a conviction that God is able to meet their needs.

The Text of the New Testament, by Bruce Manning Metzger, (Oxford, 1968, 281 pp., $7). New edition of a standard work on the text of the New Testament.

I Saw Gooley Fly, by Joseph Bayly (Revell, 1968, 127 pp., $2.95). A series of entertaining yet penetrating story-parables by the author of The Gospel Blimp.

The Tent of God, by Marianne Radius (Eerdmans, 1968, 368 pp., $5.95). The story of the Old Testament for young readers in their own language—for either personal reading or family devotional use.

Obedience and the Church, by Karl Rahner et al. (Corpus Books, 1968, 250 pp,, $6.95). Fourteen Roman Catholic theologians offer essays on the touchy matter of obedience in the community life of the Church, taking into account both church authority and personal conviction.

Interpreters of Luther, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (Fortress, 1968, 374 pp., $8.25). In this volume honoring Wilhelm Pauck, ten scholars examine the way in which various outstanding Protestant thinkers have understood Martin Luther.

The Other Side, by James A. Pike (Doubleday, 1968, 398 pp., $5.95). Bishop Pike’s account of the events surrounding his son’s tragic death. Tells of the strange happenings that led him to seek to communicate with his dead son and records their alleged conversations.

Words and Meanings, edited by Peter R. Ackroyd and Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge, 1968, 240 pp., $7.50). This series of essays, honoring David Winton Thomas, deals with problems of meaning and interpretation of Old Testament words and ideas.

Imagine yourself in an unlighted house on a dark night. There are other people there, and you hear a crash as someone stumbles into a piece of furniture and a resounding bump as another runs blindly into a wall. Then there is a series of thuds, accompanied by cries of pain, as someone falls down an unseen stairway.

The cause of all the trouble is obvious: people are groping around in darkness. Light is not available—no one has found the switch.

Read this morning’s newspaper, any newspaper, anywhere. You read of confusion, strife, warfare, crime, violence. You read of human misery and degradation. It is a sordid and distressing picture that reflects the world as it is and the people in the world as they are.

But the cause of the world’s sorrows and trouble is not diagnosed by the world’s leaders, nor by the news media. The cause is spiritual darkness, spiritual blindness. Those unable to see are acting as guides. Those in distress see neither the immediate reason for their trouble nor the underlying condition that makes that trouble inevitable.

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). We Christians tend to think we are in a privileged category that carries with it light for today and hope for tomorrow. And we are. We do have light for today and hope for tomorrow. We do see the world in a perspective unknown to those who are not Christians. We can diagnose the cause of world disorder and know the answer to the problem. But ability to diagnose and knowledge of the answer implies that we ourselves must do something about it. And it is precisely at this point that many of us fail.

For Jesus also said, “You [believers] are the light of the world.” He did not say that this is an inherent light; it is a reflected one, the light of Jesus Christ shining in and through the lives of those whom he has gloriously redeemed.

Our Lord compared Christians with “a city set on a hill,” which cannot be hid. Christians are to be in the world not as enclaves of the saved but as witnesses to others. Jesus went on to say, “Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house” (Matt. 5:15).

Perhaps far more than we realize we Christians have been oblivious to our duty to shine as lights in an otherwise dark place. This is not an obscure theological problem but one of intense daily significance. People do not see Jesus in person; they see him reflected in the lives of those who have been redeemed by him. They should see in us love where others hate, a love for the unlovely as well as the lovely. They should see in our lives a joy that has its wellsprings in the living Christ. They should see evidence of a peaceful heart, one in which there dwells the peace of God because there is peace with God.

Those around us should find in us patience under provocation, kindness and compassion for those in need, faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. The light of Christ, which shines through his own, is in sharp contrast to spiritual darkness.

Jesus laid down the rule of life for Christians in the command, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). In the past twenty-four hours, have I shown as a light in a dark place? Have you?

Christianity is an intensely practical matter. Revelation, history, doctrine? Yes, all these. But Christianity is, above all, Jesus Christ, and (because of him) Christian people in whom there exists the life and love of the Saviour, and in whose hearts there is the light of eternity. We who name the name of Christ should validate our faith by showing a quality of life alien to this world, thereby being an effective witness.

The Apostle Paul wrote to a small band of Christians, his first converts in Europe, living in the midst of a growing area of transcontinental commerce and surrounded by pagan beliefs and practices. They had survived as a Christian group despite the pressures of their times, but Paul wanted them to do more. They were to be beacon lights in the midst of the darkness of a culture alienated from God. He wrote, “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Phil. 2:14–16a).

They were not to lead a pietistic life of physical separation from those about them. But they were to be blameless and innocent of worldly contamination, leading pure and good lives that would be a rebuke to the crookedness and perverseness all around them.

We who believe in the saving and keeping power of Jesus Christ must, if we are to let our light shine for his glory, guard our actions, words, and thoughts. How do we act in the face of temptation? When challenged by hard choices, what do we choose? In our contacts with those who do not know Christ, do we love them for his sake?

There is always the temptation to cloister ourselves with those with whom we can enjoy spiritual fellowship. There is the further temptation to draw about us the steely robes of self-righteousness and in so doing create an impenetrable barrier between us and the very ones who most need our message. Men may reject the light of the Gospel—but what a tragedy when Christians give no evidence of its presence in their lives, either by word or by deed!

Perhaps there is no place where we Christians need more to practice self-examination than right here. At the end of the day, ask yourself whether you have let your light shine for the glory of God. Review the day before going to sleep, and let the Holy Spirit convict you of carrying a darkened lantern, if this is what you have done.

And at the start of each day, we should pray for the love and grace we need to give unmistakable evidence that we are Christians and that we want others to find the same joy and hope we have.

Countless eyes watch us. What do they see? The Ephesian Christians lived in a city noted for its wickedness. To them the Apostle Paul wrote, “For though once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it” (Eph. 5:8, Living Letters).

Is your light showing?

L. NELSON BELL

The following is the first of a new series of articles in “The Minister’s Workshop.” This series will cover important trends in local church educational programs.

Among priorities for the local church today, none is more urgent than teaching. A church that fails here is delinquent at the heart of its mission. During his earthly ministry, our Lord was the master teacher; in his post-resurrection appearance on the Emmaus road, he expounded the Scriptures (Luke 24:27); the central emphasis in his Great Commission is upon teaching (Matt. 28:19, 20). And in Paul’s list of the gifts of the Spirit, teaching is indissolubly united with pastoral work—“he gave some … pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11).

The Church, particularly on the local level, needs to look critically at the way it is fulfilling its Lord’s commission to make disciples (learners) and to teach them to observe what he has commanded.

Scripture gives no detailed blueprint for Christian education in the local church. It simply sets before us the supreme model of Christ as teacher and tells us something of how and what the apostles (especially Paul) taught. And then it leaves the door open for the development of the Church’s teaching ministry through the ages.

Today denominational boards, cooperative projects in curriculum development, various publishers, and specialists in Christian education provide an abundance of teaching resources and materials. Yet it is still the local churches under the leadership of their “pastors and teachers” that are responsible for getting Christian education done. If not actually used, even the best curricula and teaching tools are lifeless; and through ill-considered use their effectiveness may be blunted. The local church and its pastor should carefully consider official Sunday-school materials. If they have irreconcilable problems with offerings of their own denomination, materials prepared by independent or even other denominational agencies are available as alternatives.

In this revoluntary age, churches need to try new ways of doing their educational work. The one-lesson-a-week pattern is simply not enough. Weekday-afternoon or Saturday-morning classes in the church using professional teachers who are Christians, shared-time programs, public-school teaching of the Bible as literature, the Christian day school with its total program of Christ-centered teaching, are among avenues to be investigated. Young Life, Boys’ Brigade and Pioneer Girls, Bible clubs, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, camps, and social work offer paths for Christian growth of young people and involvement of adults who want to work with them.

According to the New Testament pattern, the pastor is the chief teacher, as well as the shepherd, of the congregation. Unless the church is large enough to require a director of religious education, the pastor himself must provide initiative and guidance for the work of the Sunday-school superintendent and teachers. And even when there is an education director, the pastor cannot abdicate his ultimate teaching responsibility.

If, as Professor James D. Smart has said, “the typical Christian of our time, however noble his character, is unable to speak one intelligible word on behalf of his faith,” the fault is in part the failure of ministers to teach the Word of God. Effective espository preaching that carries the congregation through major sections of Scripture is in short supply today. In a time when mid-week services, which used to afford an opportunity for pastoral teaching, are generally in the discard, and Sunday-evening services are the exception rather than the rule, a pastor should each year devote a substantial proportion of his pulpit work to exposition of the Scriptures. In larger congregations having a full-time religious-education director, basic doctrinal unity and full agreement on educational aims between pastor and director are essential. What is taught from the pulpit and what is taught in the church school must not be in conflict.

In the all-important matter of getting teachers for the church school three things are paramount: First, all teachers must be committed Christians. Second, teachers should both like and respect children. Third, teachers must have more than an elementary acquaintance with the Scriptures; they should know the essentials of the historic unfolding of biblical revelation, and their knowledge of the Book should be a growing one.

This leads to what may well be the crux of the educational problem of the local church—adult Christian education. One of the primary reasons why, in many churches, children learn so little in Sunday school about the Christian faith and life is that their teachers lack an ordered knowledge of the Bible. And the reason why their teachers lack an ordered knowledge of the Bible is that they were taught by teachers having the same lack. If this ignorance-perpetuating circle is ever to be broken, it will only be by intensification of adult Christian education in the local church. Even in congregations where there is regular and effective expository preaching, there is need for supplemental adult Christian education.

Here there are various options. The obvious one is the adult class that meets at the church-school hour and devotes itself to serious study of the Scriptures and their bearing on life today. Another, and one that can well be the means of outreach to non-Christians, is the home study group. Possibilities are wide and range from groups of women meeting during the day to mixed groups meeting at night, or men gathered for an early study breakfast; such groups, however, require competent oversight.

Aside from regular classes at the Sunday-school hour, the local church has before it the possibilities of youth and young-adult groups meeting at other times on Sunday or during the week. But it is essential to distinguish between social activity, which must never be neglected by any church, and a definite teaching situation, for at times what passes for Christian education may actually be no more than a pleasant social occasion.

This leads to the importance of outcomes. In the Bible, truth relates to action; as John says, truth is to be done. Thus opportunities for expressing what has been learned, not only through verbal witnessing but also through involvement in community needs and in the problems of others, non-Christians as well as Christians, are an essential outcome of the teaching ministry of the local church.

If the constant emphasis in this brief discussion has been upon the Bible, the reason is that this Book is the one indispensable source of knowledge of Christian faith and life. There are indeed other areas of Christian education, and a well-rounded program cannot forget them—missions, social concern, Christianity and culture, church history—but without the Bible there can be no Christian education. And when it is taught, the spiritual potential is greater than we can see or know.—FRANK E. GAEBELEIN, headmaster emeritus, The Stony Brook School; former co-editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

You Gotta Have Humbug

To readers of this estimable journal, my apologies. Belatedly it struck me that I swam into your ken with never a word of hello. Hello now. Your new Eutychus needed all the introduction he could get, but guarded, even vaguely menacing was the editor’s brief allusion. “His identity,” he decreed, “will remain undisclosed until his retirement.” And a good thing too. Perusal of previous correspondence suggests that the wrath of CHRISTIANITY TODAY readers is a terrible thing, not to be lightly incurred by anyone who is the sole support of two grandmothers, one of them very old.

Though shielded by anonymity from brute violence, I am frightened by the metaphorical marksmanship of the evangelical world. “In politics,” remarked Colin Coote, “you have to have some humbug and some anger. You have to pretend that there is no case except your case; you have to believe that your opponents are not only wrong but damned.” Substitute “religious controversy” for “politics” in the above statement and you have the makings of a telling Ph.D. dissertation. Its title would pose no problem. What about “Marks of Sanctification in the Correspondence Columns of Evangelical Periodicals”—or “The Practice and Perpetuation of Righteous Indignation”—or even “The King’s Business Requireth Hate”?

It is undeniable that Samuel Johnson had not always that open mind by which his biblical namesake caught the hymnwriter’s fancy, but he was rightly rooted when once exclaiming, “Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues!” (Those given to laced-waistcoat-ripping will doubtless take notice.) It would be idle for me to pretend I fully understand that utterance, but it has the right ring about it.

The editor of one religious journal claims to have the perfect answer to scurrilously personal epistles. “Thank you for your letter,” he responds agreeably in his own handwriting; “if you knew me as I know myself, you would condemn me much more. Warmest regards.” This formula, while containing all things needful, should be used sparingly. Its creator has acquired a totally undeserved reputation for humility that is very hard to live down.

The Heavens Declare …

May I, as a physicist and minister of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, first say “Well done!” to the three astronauts … and the great country, the United States of America, that produced them; and second, say “Thank you!” for such a splendid surprise Christmas greeting; and third, express my admiration for the cool, detached, scientific attitude and delicate artistic sensibility of the astronauts and the sense of awe that surrounds their venture.…

Now that man has successfully triumphed over outer space and reached the moon, and has given us such fascinating pictures of this small part of the Creator’s magnificent handiwork, can we leave it at that and resolve to devote all our energies to doing his will on earth and preparing for his return?

While we heartily rejoice in such tremendous triumphs we acclaim the men in Apollo 8 as the greatest discoverers of all time, shooting from sunlight to the dark side of the moon.… Unfortunately, our planet has also a dark side, the murky darkness of man’s sin and rebellion against God, to which the Heavenly visitor came to shine in our hearts with the radiance of the Father. Swansea, Wales

May I commend David E. Kucharsky for writing “Open Letter to the Apollo 8 Spacemen” (Dec. 20). Perhaps, and how wonderful to think, God is allowing science to learn more about his universe in order that the world might see what God has done and glorify him. Perhaps this is the last chance man will have to see God’s power, and therefore, be given an opportunity to accept him through Christ before he comes again!

Secondly, may I commend astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders for acknowledging their Creator as they orbited the moon. What better way could they rejoice over victory than to let the world know that God created the heavens and the earth!

Toccoa Falls, Ga. GEORGE C. HILL, JR.

I note that [Mr. Kucharsky writes], “Ultimately, however, space exploration is in their [the hungry millions’] best interests, too.” I would like to have Mr. Kucharsky develop this plain statement and show us doubters just how this is, or will become, true.

Fowler, Ohio

Invitation To Joy

The poem by Henry Hutto (Jan. 3), “One Rare, Unanalytical, and Merry “Day,” is one of the most lovely and most comforting invitations to joy that I have ever read. How utterly modern and yet spiritually vital these few choice words … are. Thanks so much for putting them in bold setting and exciting type.

La Crescent, Dresbach, Dakota

Methodist Churches

La Crescent, Minn.

Problem-Solving

We would appreciate your permission to reproduce the article, “Except We Repent” (Jan. 3).… Mr. Havner portrays faithfully the biblical concept of man’s problem and God’s solution.

North Olmstead, Ohio

Of Money And Justice

Two December 20 editorials concerned me: “Pay day for Managed Money” and “Where Is Justice?” It was surprising that a religious magazine would touch on such important subjects as the international monetary crisis and justice in America without once mentioning God’s, Christ’s, or even the Church’s role in these matters. The individual Christian is left looking at two new authorities on God’s plans for men—Milton Friedman and “a Washington banker.” Perhaps these are two more conservative saints to be enshrined in a pantheon along with Calvin Coolidge and Adam Smith.

But there is more than just a matter of religious competence at question. The editorials could have just as easily appeared in U. S. News & World Report (and, incidentally, have, in dozens of forms, hundreds of times). What relevance does planned versus free currencies have to Christ’s birth, resurrection, and plans for mankind? In CHRISTIANITY TODAY let’s hear a biblical condemnation of planning (if there is one) and not the economic theories of Mr. Friedman or the personal opinions of a man who can’t even be named! Bellevue, Wash.

I would like to protest against the editorial, “Pay Day for Managed Money.” That managed money can be charged with all the ills you mention, culminating in “more controls and finally … economic dictatorship by the few,” is highly debatable.…

Then too, the present managed-money system should be studied in comparison with the alternatives. After all, the gold standard did not prevent the “upset, chaos, and near disaster” of the depression of the 1930s nor provide a built-in corrective to the depression.”

I believe, too, that it can be demonstrated that “a free money market” is a relative term, with no markets being absolutely “free” and few being absolutely rigid in every respect. The attempt of the administrators of our monetary system to maintain a large degree of freedom is very commendable.

This is not to defend irresponsible spending without regard to inflation or the size of the deficit. It is to suggest that perhaps the inflation of the last twenty-two years is no more unjust than the depression of the 1930s.

Hesston College

Hesston, Kan.

Your editorial on the Chicago riot stated that “the Church’s first business is to preach that Gospel in power for peace—not to encourage revolution … and anarchy.…” That is an admirable statement to which all born-again believers would subscribe. However, on the preceding page in “Pay Day for Managed Money,” your editorial takes a clear social-action position for laissez-faire economic policies—which may or may not be a good idea.…

When you promote classical (uncontrolled) laissez-faire economics, you are making a clear social-gospel recommendation in the same vein as the social militants might do in modernistic churches.

Lansing, Mich.

Your editorial on the Chicago riot seemed to do a pretty good job in whitewashing the activities of the Chicago police. It seemed to me to be hypocritical.… The report [suggests that] some of the police were as free as some of the demonstrators in using four-letter words. Do you think it is in the line of duty for policemen to break cameras, to beat demonstrators, reporters, newsmen, cameramen on the head or face with their clubs? Is it in the line of duty for some policemen to hide their badge numbers …?

When we talk about law and order, let’s make it clear that policemen, housing inspectors, school superintendents, sheriffs, etc. should also obey the laws of the land as well as the rules and regulations pertaining to their specific jobs. Getting back to policemen: Instead of cracking heads, would it not be better to arrest demonstrators, newsmen, and photographers if they were disobeying laws?

Beardstown, Ill.

Refugee Aid

Pardon my voicing my appreciation for “Arabs Dread White Christmas” (News, Dec. 20) by offering some plans for action on this critical twenty-year threat to international peace.

The plight of the hard-core European refugees and displaced persons dragged on until some students (I believe it was) proposed the “Year of the Refugees,” which it seems spurred action toward solutions. Let it happen again. While so much of our society seems so deliriously absorbed in space, what could “be a more radiant victory than for conservative Christian thought to declare and carry through “a year for the Palestinian refugees”?…

It seems to me that skills in small-craft products made available to these people will be a long-range investment for their benefit. Small-craft production proved to be the transit medium for Japan from an agricultural economy to an industrial status.…

A concerted effort by the conservative Christian groups to help these refugees where they are may open the way toward solutions which as yet are undiscovered.

Constantine, Mich.

Questions For A ‘Spy’

Re: “Ecclesiastical Espionage” (News, Dec. 20):

1. Is the gentleman from within the Church who is dedicated to its destruction returning the salary checks he receives from the distasteful institution?

2. Would you estimate that the salary he is receiving is above or below the average received by parish ministers of his denomination who see that the “apportionments” which support him are raised?

3. How much experience has this official had as pastor of a parish?

4. What is the something better this person is going to resurrect?

5. As he will not want to resurrect it from the remains of the something old which he detests, from what will he raise the more perfect instrument?

6. Will the new instrument take institutional form?

7. If it does, will it not become as ineffectual as the old form apparently is?

8. If it does not take institutional form, from whence will he draw his livelihood?

9. If preaching is essentially proclamation of Christ, how does one who boasts of no personal relationship to Christ preach?

10. If the Church is the body of Christ, just how do we get on as a Christian Church without Him?

I just had to ask.

Marinette, Wis.

Food On Principles

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been a welcome stimulant ever since its very first issue. Articles like Dr. Addison H. Leitch’s (Dec. 20) contribution, “On Drawing Lines,” fill a near-starvation need to hear more on principles so that we may clearly see the contrast between spiritual counsel of churches and worldly council of churches! Please add another two years to my subscription.

George Air Force Base, Calif. Chaplain

A Genuine Evangelical

I have been somewhat surprised and disappointed at the lack of letters through the years in praise of the outstanding contributions to “Current Religious Thought” by the peerless Dr. G. C. Berkouwer.

In America it seems far too many evangelicals take a kind of sadistic pleasure at tilting at theological windmills (or at least giving vividly grotesque distortions of the “enemy”) and riding so far out in right field that some of us find it very hard to accept their position as in any sense normative for the biblical Church. Dr. Berkouwer, with the refreshing wisdom of a Christian statesman who is able to rise above the heat of battle and the strife of conflicting ideologies, maintains a cool and sensitive objectivity marked by an emulable moderation and a genuinely evangelical orientation.

Assistant Professor of Theology

St. Norbert College

West De Pere, Wis.

Evangelicals are rightly concerned about keeping unsaved and unregenerate worldlings outside the membership of the local church. But ought they not to be equally concerned about the many redeemed who are being kept outside also?

An illustration will focus the problem. A “born-again,” baptized young woman applied for membership in a nationally known metropolitan church to which her husband belonged. She was refused. The grounds? She could not honestly sign the membership oath demanding total abstinence from certain social activities in which she occasionally indulged. (However, she was accepted at a top Bible college where the church’s pastor was a board member and had served as a teacher.) No one questioned her Christianity, sincerity, or desire to serve God. But she was denied entrance into a local church for lack of “social purity.”

As adviser of an Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship chapter at a large state university, I have discovered that this requirement of “social purity” has many facets. Many young people reared with subcultural social attitudes and subsequently broadened by their college experiences find themselves rejected by their home churches. Some suffer direct attack from the pulpit or from belligerent brothers in Christ. Most of them feel adrift, like strangers without a spiritual home. One young man was forced to leave the church of his childhood, in which he had been called to the ministry, and ultimately found himself in a less evangelical church.

Almost a decade in the pastorate gave me further experience with the problem. Often a sincere but overly rigid group of inquisitors (the church membership committee) succeed in eliminating most of the tares and taking only the wheat; but in the process they invariably cast away some of the wheat. Although a local church should desire to have a membership that includes no non-Christians, something is wrong when this desire is carried out at the cost of excluding Christians who sincerely seek membership. Many a Christian “reject” is being escorted, unwittingly of course, by evangelical ushers into the pews of liberal churches. Why? Simply because he does not qualify for a separated society of “sanctified saints.”

Surely some drastic rethinking is in order. Evangelicals need to look again at the true nature and purpose of the local church as set forth in the New Testament. What are the conditions for membership? The biblical answer is clear: belief and baptism (Acts 2:41). To be sure, belief must be more than merely academic; it must involve personal trust in the living Saviour. Likewise baptism ought to be a reality and not just a ritual. But to insist on an extra-biblical kind of cultural and sociological separation as a prerequisite to membership is another matter.

There are surely cases in which entrance should be refused or delayed and others in which excommunication is necessary, such as the case of immorality mentioned in First Corinthians 5. But immorality is not the issue concerning us here; it is sociology. Could it be that some churches have wrongly understood themselves to be institutions of the purified rather than of purification? Are they accepting the hypocritical and rejecting the honest?

The New Testament makes it clear (especially in Acts 10 and in First and Second Corinthians) that the first-century church had in it all kinds of people, including some whose lives were far from exemplary. There seems to be no compelling reason why the twentieth-century church should erect stricter standards. It should not, of course, reduce the standards for Christians to the standards of Christians, which are usually much lower. But setting up secondary standards beyond the basic requirement of regeneration should be considered as undesirable as receiving the “wicked.”

Some will object that, if a church opens its doors to the “weak,” it will dilute the stream of its devotion. Not if it has a devotion worthy of the “weak” brothers’ emulation. Not if it can say humbly with the Apostle, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). What is often forgotten is that Christian morality is an ideal to be attained as the result of the edifying ministry of the church and not a condition to be realized before one enters the church.

The case comes to mind of the dedicated wife of a nationally known evangelist who, out of honesty, did not sign the oath of her local church prohibiting motion picture attendance because the family had attended a professional travelogue! In the same church there were less conscientious members who secretly attended Hollywood movies to say nothing of indulging in such sins as backbiting, pride, false accusation, and a host of other evils, indulged in by many who sign “purity pledges.” Why should honesty be penalized and hypocrisy permitted? Why should the traditions of men about church membership be allowed to set aside the commandment of God?

If the policy that “we don’t accept anyone who will smoke, drink, go to movies, or do other ‘worldly’ things or who will associate with those that do” were rigidly applied, the Apostle Paul and even our Lord himself would be barred from some congregations. For Paul exhorted Timothy to take “a little wine for his stomach’s sake” (1 Tim. 5:23), and Jesus associated with publicans and sinners.

“In those days things were different,” someone will object. “A stronger stand is needed in our corrupt society.” But Roman society of the early centuries was no utopia. History records the gladiatorial games and theatres—hardly wholesome Christian activities. The silence of the New Testament at this point is surprising. Never once does it directly condemn any of these “worldly activities.” Perhaps there was “a more excellent way” of approaching the matter than by demanding that Christians refrain from such things before being allowed to join the church (see Phil. 4:8).

There may be some truth in the saying, “The church popular is the church polluted”; but it is also true that the church “purified” may become the church petrified (cf. 1 Cor. 5:10). The important question is this: Is the local church an institution of the edified or of edification? Is it a group of people who are already perfect or who are being perfected? It is instructive to observe that the Lord’s threat to remove the “candlestick” of ministry was made to a church that had a very scrupulous policy about purity. The church at Ephesus could “not bear them which were evil” but had “tried them” and “found them liars” (Rev. 2:2). Perhaps their extreme precaution about purity overshadowed their passion for the redemption of the less pure. “Thou hast left thy first love,” they were reminded.

One thing is clear. There are a growing number of the redeemed outside many evangelical churches, and a good many of them are outside because of unbiblical pledges about “social purity.” The time has come for us to be disturbed at the attitude and policies of churches that, while rightly fearful of letting in the unsaved, have not been fearful of keeping out the saved.

When a Roman Catholic priest gives the “last rites,” he says, “I absolve you from all censures and sins.… I grant to you plenary indulgence and remission of all sins and I bless you.” Some Protestant ministers also practice giving so-called absolution from sins. My father, a Protestant, once said to me, “When my pastor says to me, ‘I forgive you,’ I have been taught that this also means Christ has forgiven me.” This practice results from a mistranslation of three New Testament passages: Matthew 16:16–19; 18:18; and John 20:23.

Supporters of absolution believe that Christ invested Peter with authority to absolve sins when he said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of John.… You are Peter [a rock], and on this rock I will build my church.…” This was said in response to Simon’s acknowledgment, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

“You are a rock [petros—a stone or small rock], and upon this [type of] rock [petra, a collective noun—a number of rocks, usually a cliff] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not withstand it.” Note the difference between the two Greek words meaning rock. Petros in first-century Greek was a single stone or rock so small that it could be thrown by a man, sometimes in a sling. Zenophon in his Anabasis (IV,7,4 and 12) uses this word: “Upon each advance [of the enemy] more than ten wagon loads of stones [petro̅n] were thrown”; “no stone [petros] was hurled down from above.” It is so translated in Josephus, Wars, III,7,23; Strabo 4,1,7; and Aristides XVII, 3. Jesus’ use of it seems to point to rock-like, durable, dependable character.

Petra, in contrast, connotes a rock larger than a man, a cliff or bedrock. Zenophon used it once to denote a huge rock or boulder: “The barbarians were rolling down huge stones [oloitroxious], the size of a wagon, … which striking against the boulders [petras], broke in all pieces” (Anabasis IV,2). In his three other uses it denotes a large cluster or mass of rocks and is translated cliff: “Whenever anyone attempts to pass over this [road] they will roll down rocks [lithous] over this over-hanging cliff [petra]” (Anabasis IV,7,4; see also IV,7,14 and I,4,4). In the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), petra appears sixty-eight times, always meaning either a boulder (sixteen times) or a cliff (fifty-two times). In the New Testament, petra is used eleven times to denote cliffs, rock substance, “a house built upon bedrock” (petran, Matt. 7:24), and three times to denote huge rocks or boulders. Thus it is evident that petra usually had the force of a collective noun. Petros and petra were never used interchangeably.

Therefore, according to contemporary usage of the two words, Jesus did not mean Simon when he said, “Upon this rock [petra] I will build my church.” Rather, he meant either himself (as St. Augustine and others have said), or the type of faith Simon had, or rock-like believers who considered him the Messiah and their Lord. I favor the last interpretation, because the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:20 depicts the Christians as “built upon the foundation [not upon Peter alone] of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone.” And Peter, perhaps recalling what Jesus had said in Matthew 16:18, wrote: “Like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5). Also in the earliest extant interpretation of Matthew 16:16–19, Origen, who lived about A.D. 185–254, wrote: “For a rock [petros] is every disciple of Christ.… For all bear the surname of rock [petros] who are imitators of Christ.… They are called Christians.” Furthermore, no church writers during the first two centuries, according to the available records, ever claimed that Christ meant Peter when he said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.”

Jesus’ statement in 16:19, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven …,” seems to have meant that Peter, knowing Christ was the Messiah and Saviour, had the experience and knowledge to help lead people through faith in Christ into a saving relationship with him. In Luke 11:52 Christ refers to lawyers who apparently have “the key of knowledge” of the will of God but do not use it rightly. Believers make use of the “keys” whenever they persuade others to become Christians.

The most conspicuous mistranslation of this passage comes in the second part of verse 19. This is often translated as if there were a future passive construction of verbs in the Greek when instead the tense is future perfect passive. Note the tremendous difference in meaning. The future passive reads “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” But the future perfect passive reads “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” The former seems to say that heaven will ratify whatever the disciples agree upon. But the latter states the reverse, that the disciples are to ratify on earth whatever heaven has revealed to them. There is no defensible reason to use the former translation.

A Flight from Reality

It is imperative that all ecumenically-minded Christians engage in a critical appraisal of the current trend towards institutional, structural oneness as the ecumenical ideal.

The illusion is being entertained and propagated that what matters most in fulfilling the ecumenical goal is that denominations and traditions should become institutionally one. Organizational oneness, ecclesiastical togetherness, is given priority over corporate agreement as to what the Churches believe, or should believe. It also takes precedence over a common understanding as to what the Church’s mission in the world is, and what a united Church should do in its environment, local and national. When we are one Church structurally, so the leaders of the American “Consultation on Church-Union” proclaim, we will get down to the establishment of doctrinal foundations, and to determining the nature of our task in the world of today. For anyone to question this procedure and the premise upon which the activity of these distinguished ecumeniacs is based, is to be labeled “un-ecumenical.”

This trend toward the substitution of the institutional for the communal is a flight from reality in a revolutionary and chaotic time. It ignores the serious plight in which Christian theology finds itself in many church circles today, where the reality of God is questioned, or His Presence is limited to the secular order, where the new life in Christ has become largely meaningless and is disdained, where evangelism is identified with, and limited to, the effort to humanize the social environment in which people live, and to create a concern among those who have for those who have not. It forgets the fact that the most unified church structure in Christian history was the Roman Catholic Church in the Hispanic world. But, as is recognized in Roman Catholic circles today, this monolithic institution had the most disastrous record in human annals. It created a Catholic nominalism in Latin America. It made it legitimate to say, “I am an atheist, but I am a Catholic.” It created the most diabolic and futile clericalism in Christian history. It produced a spiritual wilderness. This same flight from reality, and the unwillingness to wrestle with issues relating to the Eternal and the Temporal, is today producing in certain Protestant circles a mood in which institutional unity and hierarchical authority are being hailed as the one solution to all semblance of Christian dividedness.—From “The Ecumenical Movement—Whence? and Whither?,” by John A. Mackay, in the Bulletin of the Department of Theology of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the World Presbyterian Alliance, Summer, 1968.

Greek grammars are unanimous about how to translate the future perfect passive tense. W. D. Chamberlain, author of An Exegetical Grammar of the New Testament, is representative: “Estai dedemenon and estai lelumenon (Matthew 16:19). This is wrongly translated ‘shall be bound’ and ‘shall be loosed,’ seeming to make Jesus teach that the apostles’ acts will determine the policies of Heaven. They should have been translated ‘shall have been bound’ and ‘shall have been loosed.’ ” Many other scholars who have written commentaries on the passage agree. In that earliest extant interpretation, Origen wrote that men remained “bound” by their sins and could not be “loosed” from them until they repented and could say with Peter, “Thou art the Christ.” “But when one judges unrighteously and does not bind upon earth according to the word of God, nor loose upon earth according to his will, the gates of Hades prevail against him.”

Another passage inadequately translated in most English New Testaments is John 20:23. For example, the Revised Standard Version has this: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In Greek the words for “forgiven” and “retained” are not in the present tense but in the perfect. And, according to the unanimous testimony of Greek grammarians, the perfect tense pictures a past action. Wilbur T. Dayton made an original, contextual study of 621 occurrences of the perfect tense in writings from the centuries immediately before, during, and after the first century A.D., when the New Testament was written. His study led him to state: “No conclusive proof has been found of any use of the perfect tense in Greek where due to grammatical considerations the significance of the past tense was lost.”

Thus the passage clearly teaches that church leaders, in persuading people to become believers, are not to consider them as such until they have met the conditions of God’s forgiveness. J. B. Rotherham has indicated this in his accurate translation: “Whosesoever sins ye may remit, they have been remitted to them: whosesoever sins ye may be retaining, they have been retained.”

The first known claim by a minister that he could absolve sins was not made until nearly 200 years after Jesus’ death. Callistus (also known as Calixtus I), who became pastor in Rome over the local church there in about A.D. 220, was the first to say he could forgive people’s sins in behalf of God. This we learn from the writings of Hippolytus, a fellow pastor of Callistus in Italy. Hippolytus was enraged by this innovation and denounced it as a heresy.

If Peter or any other apostle received authority from Christ to absolve sins, there is no evidence in the New Testament that he ever exercised it. Certainly Peter did not when he reprimanded Simon, the Magician (Acts 8:22): “Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.” According to the Apostle Paul, only Christ is authorized to absolve people’s sins: “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5). After Christ appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, Ananias instructed him to confess his sins directly to Christ: “Rise and be baptized, and have your sins washed away by calling on his name” (Acts 22:16).

We see, then, that evidence from Scripture, theology, history, and grammar combine to pronounce absolution an indefensible doctrine.

PREREQUISITES FOR PREACHING

The picturesque village of Olney in Buckinghamshire, England, is still much as it was when the Reverend John Newton served the parishioners as their curate (1764–79). In the fine old church there is a new and handsome pulpit, but the pulpit used by Newton is on view at the back of the church. Although Olney is now better known for its annual transatlantic Pancake Race, there is still a quiet charm and peace about the old village, and the spirit of the great pastor is unmistakably present.

John Newton is known for his evangelical preaching and his hymns, still sung in churches of many denominations. His conversion from a brutal slave-trader to a convinced Christian is often cited to demonstrate the power of the Gospel. But his letters, written under the pseudonym “Omicron,” are not as well known as they should be. His “Letter to a Young Minister” written in 1750 still deserves to be read by every young minister.

I wish you, upon your entrance into the Ministry, to have a formed and determinate idea, what the phrase “Preaching the Gospel” properly signifies. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation; and this Gospel is preached when it is accompanied with some due degree of that demonstration and power from on high, which is necessary to bring it home to the hearts and consciences of the hearers.… To declare the truths of the Gospel, is not to preach it.… Many of the great truths of the Scriptures may be represented by a man of a warm and lively imagination, in such a manner as considerably to affect the imaginations and passions of an audience, even though he should not himself believe a word of the subject. This would be an effect of no higher kind than is produced upon the stage.… It is a poor affair to be a stage-player in divinity, to be able to hold a congregation by the ears, by furnishing them with an hour’s amusement, if this be all. But the man who is what he professes to be, who knows what he speaks of, in whom the truth dwells and lives, who has not received the Gospel from books, or by hearers only, but in the school of the great Teacher, acquires a discernment, a taste, a tenderness, and a humility which alone qualify him. Thus shall you come forth as a scribe, well instructed in the mysteries of the Kingdom, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, approved of God, acceptable to men, rightly dividing the word of truth. Thus your trumpet shall not give an uncertain sound to raise and disappoint the expectations of your hearers.

Newton advises against what he calls “the recital of a school declamation,” by which he means a mimicry of theatrical action, affectations, and pomposity. He speaks against those who consider vociferation a mark of powerful preaching, and commends simplicity and the art of being natural. Very loud preaching, he says, is a bad habit; “people are seldom, if ever, stunned into the love of the truth.” Warning against angry and scolding preaching, he writes, “The Gospel is a benevolent scheme, and whoever speaks in the power of it, will assuredly speak in love. In the most faithful rebukes of sin, in the most solemn declaration of God’s displeasure against it, a preacher may give evidence of a disposition of good-will and compassion to sinners.”

Newton concludes his “Letter to a Young Minister” by saying:

If we indulge invective and bitterness in the pulpit, we know not what spirit we are of; we are but gratifying our own evil tempers, under the pretence of a concern for the cause of God and truth. A preacher of this character, instead of resembling a priest bearing in his censer hallowed fire taken from God’s altar, may be compared to the madman described in the Proverbs, who scattereth at random fire-brands and arrows and death, and saith, “Am not I in sport?” Such persons may applaud their own courage and think it a great attainment that they can set their congregation at defiance; but they must not expect to be useful, so long as it remains a truth, that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Whether in his remote church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Olney, or in the London church of St. Mary Woolnoth, where the Lord Mayor would have been among his parishioners, Newton lived by a simple creed: “I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.”—J. D. R. FRANKLIN, rector, St. Peter’s Church, Sherbrooke, Quebec, and canon of Quebec Cathedral.

CBS commentator Eric Sevareid has said that general boredom may be as good an explanation for World War I as anything else. Ours has been dubbed the atomic age; but one might also call it the age of ennui. And perhaps people in rich, powerful America are more bored than people elsewhere. Youth appears especially bored. One report has it that the kids are even “fed up” with sex.

For a man to experience some boredom is natural, perhaps. But an overabundance of it is symptomatic of a serious human deficiency.

Possibility for boredom is vast. Consider, for instance, eating three times a day; or working, doing approximately the same thing, day after day. Married, you look at the same person every morning, conversing in the same manner each time, using the same gestures. Your clothes differ mostly in colors. You watch the same old tragedies, comedies, and commercials on TV. Sundays you may break the routine a bit; but the fisherman uses the same old tackle, the golfer the same old clubs. Churchgoers sing hymns they have heard a hundred times; the sermon has a familiar sound.

We cannot alter the monotonous routine of human existence. Things may change, but man remains intrinsically the same creature. Despite his cultural experiences, his altering of social structures, he still bleeds when cut, eats when hungry, rests when tired. He inhales and exhales air as did his great-grandfather and father. His nervous system reacts to things as nervous systems have reacted for millennia. To escape the circle of this human situation he would have to get out of life altogether.

Since the routine of life cannot be greatly altered, the only escape from boredom is to discover something exciting in what appears monotonous. The surest antidote to ennui is aliveness. Boredom is a way of dying, not of living. Observe a child. He does not mind doing the same things over and over; rather, he joys in it. He delights in sameness; he finds excitement in routine. He never tires of hearing about the red fox and the black hen, never asks for the fox to be black and the hen red. Try bouncing him—then ask him if he is bored with bouncing! Every bounce is a new adventure to him. Life surging in him makes him responsive to simple things. Could this trait have been in Jesus’ thinking when he said, “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein” (Mark 10:15)?

The same old house is wonderful when your heart lives there. The same woman is lovely when you love her. Does the artist tire of the same old colors, or the poet of words he has used before? Old texts in the old Book are bright to those who live by the Book. Sermons, with content old as the Psalms, delivered in a manner old as Paul’s, still warm hearts alive to the Word of life.

“Religious worship is hard to take,” said a college student. “Is there anything more tedious than following a clergyman through the church ritual—unless it is listening to his sermon? The whole business of religion bores me frightfully!”

Boredom doubtless is born of a spiritual defect in man’s makeup. “There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds,” said James Russell Lowell. The mind must be renewed by grace. The spirit must be charged with the Spirit. Truth, however old, does not bore the truth-lover; to him God’s counsel, like his compassion, is “new every morning” (Lam. 3:23).

Existence is not wearisome to those who love God. Shall we be jaded by the gift of God? Emerson was wrong when he said, “Every hero becomes a bore at last.” There is a Hero who never prompts boredom in those who claim him. He who says, “Behold, I make all things new,” does just that, and keeps them new.

Fire is old; still it charms us. Love is old, yet forever fresh and enchanting. In a believer’s heart Christ is never tedious. Grace is never dull. Surely Christians have far more reason than Nietzsche to cry, “Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

Religious tedium may be for those who face glittering altars listening to unimpassioned discourses by uninspired prophets, while they contemplate how to turn a thousand dollars into ten thousand; but it is not for those whose symbol is a Cross and who wrestle against principalities and powers in the arena of the human world, witnessing to the best hope of earth. Ennui is not for men who “turn the world upside down” through the dynamism of that compassionate and judgmental Spirit who struck fire to the young Church and marched it against unimaginable odds to victory.

Being a genuine Christian in an unchristian world is never a dull business. Boredom is hardly a problem to men who are desperately trying to save a lost world, while waiting for the promised new heaven and new earth. Boredom is the devil’s business, not God’s.—

LON WOODRUM, Hastings, Michigan.

We probably would not have much trouble, if we were to organize a poll, finding people who would agree that we are living on one of those epochal razor’s edges that humanity seems to have to cross from time to time. There are times, apparently, when there is a broad enough base underfoot to allow for a certain amount of pushing and shoving without any major calamity. But the sheer force of things (urbanization, population explosion, cybernation, deep shifts in our ideas about human life) seems, like a geological thrust fault, to have pushed the landscape up into a terrifying ridge where there is little room for missteps. It looks as though havoc and doom lie uncomfortably close on either side of us.

The interesting thing is that if you read the introduction to any history book, no matter what century it treats, you will probably find something to the effect that “the sixteenth (or thirteenth, or ninth, or eighteenth) century was a time of great upheaval. The old order was crumbling; established verities were being called in question; the structures of society were creaking. There was a sense both of anxiety and of exhilaration abroad as the new day dawned.” History seems to move by spasms, and it is a rare, if not non-existent, era that can be pointed to as an example of tranquillity and predictability. Even the pax Romana was a fugitive thing, guaranteed by the widespread deployment of garrisons, and administered by capricious demigods (Herod & Co.) whose notions of justice were peculiar at the very best. We sometimes point to the nineteenth century as the palmy time of stability, with Victoria on the throne, the colonels and bishops back and forth to India and Africa, and the churchbells ringing out over the hedgerows and cottages. But we forget the agony of the nineteenth century—the horrors about the Industrial Revolution, the assault on traditional doctrines by rationalism, the unsettling effect on religious faith of “scientific” discoveries (that, for instance, we must trace our lineage back, not to heaven, but to the bottom of the sea). The century was full of anguished spirits—Carlyle, Mill, Arnold, Newman, Browning, Tennyson—trying either to salvage some order or to discover new bases for order.

So, if we remember our history, we find that we are experiencing what nearly every other century has experienced. This is not to throw any encouraging light on the matter, as though we could say, “Oh, well, things will sort themselves out, and we’ll all look back on this troubled decade and wonder how we lived through it.” The bleak thing is that things don’t sort themselves out, and that one era after another goes down in ruins, with the graveyards full of soldiers and innocent bystanders who, far from living through it, were crushed in the wheels of the time. The Babylonian order crumbled before the Greek, the Greek before the Roman, the Roman before the Gothic; the Saxon order fell before the Norman; the Catholic order fell before the Reformation; the religious order disappeared before the Enlightenment. Things don’t sort themselves out—they are blasted; and it is a taxing question whether the “advance” of civilization has been misnamed.

The Issues Today

It sounds as though I am about to urge a return to some pastoral time when, for a moment, things looked good, and there were no Gothic barbarians or spinning jennies or Rousseaus or Darwins or yippies to threaten the order. But, for a start, there never was such a time (Eden itself had its invader), and, further, we couldn’t get back to it if we tried. Here we are, and like every other generation of humanity we must ask ourselves what is happening and what view to take of things.

We are all impressed, if not alarmed, by the sheer weight of the issues facing us now. What is to be done about the Super Powers with their ratio of overkill? What is to be done about the population explosion—especially in the countries whose birth rate is wildly disproportionate to the food supply and the capacity of the government to educate? What shall we do about megalopolis and multiversity? What about air and water pollution? What about traffic? What about taxes, and the unwieldiness of the welfare state? What about morality? What about student anarchy and racial hatred and demagoguery and crime and cynicism? Hey—what about all that?

I live in a community (New York City) in which all these perplexities are rather highly distilled. That is, within the area of a few square miles, not only does this town have all the ingredients of havoc: it has them in very large, and very strong, doses. But whatever may be epigrammatized in New York’s problems is potentially true of any place where men live together.

Law Had No Effect

When I first moved here three years ago, we began with a transit workers’ strike. For ten days hundreds of thousands of people either did not get to work at all, or walked, or sat in traffic jams. No matter what view one takes of the actual issues involved, one thing was clear: Law was impotent. There was not a single thing all the legal authority of this city could do to help the situation. Law was irrelevant. (One of the disputants announced to the city that the judge could “drop dead in his black robes.”)

A few weeks earlier, as my wife and I sat at tea late one afternoon, we noticed that the Brandenburg Concerto on the phonograph was quavering. Then the lights flickered, and, wondering whether any other building was having trouble with its electric current, I glanced out across the city just in time to see the Empire State Building and the entirety of Manhattan wink into blackness. For twelve hours exactly we all learned what it is like to carry on with life when the plug has been pulled. It threw our priorities into a peculiar light (not to make too painful a pun). It showed us all how precariously placed civilization is. We were hustled instantly back across hundreds of years into the Dark Ages simply by a tiny fault somewhere upstate.

Again, there have been two city-wide teachers’ strikes, keeping a million or so children milling in the streets for weeks on end while the law wrung its impotent hands and begged each side to be reasonable. The real issue is prior to whatever view one took of the immediate situation (for the life of me I cannot decide who was in the right in either dispute): it is the dramatization of the end of law as the ruling authority.

The most vivid situation we have had in New York (and readers in Memphis will sympathize) was the strike of the Uniformed Sanitation Workers. Here it was impossible to ignore the mounting (literally) crisis. Day by day, the sidewalks became more and more like trails cut between huge dunes of rubbish. In the more expensive neighborhoods, the janitors managed to keep the debris in immense cans and burlap sacks. But in neighborhoods where the rent rates did not pay for the services of these men, there were simply swirling drifts of refuse choking sidewalk and street alike. Again, it was not authority that restored order; it was capitulation. And once more, whichever side one took in the dispute (and it was difficult to be neutral here), one would have had to agree that law was irrelevant.

The one situation in which law was finally (and reluctantly) invoked to restore order and the rights of the majority (Columbia University) resulted in an almost universal outcry—not against the assault on law and democratic process, but against that very invocation of law. The guilty party turned out to be the agency by which New York’s ten million people ordinarily enjoy some frail sense of security. It was rather like punching the surgeon for sticking a knife into your abdomen.

But whatever happens, the events of our decade, not just in this large and unwieldy town but over the face of the whole earth, push us toward some radical questions about the nature of human society, and indeed, about that society’s chances for survival. It is over these questions that we find a great watershed of opinion. There is, on the one hand, a great deal of grassroots fear being stirred up. And on the other, there is enormous optimism. It is about this optimism that one might ask a question or two. For it is this that is sovereign in the New Left, is increasingly shared by journalists and thinkers, and seems to lie behind much of the rhetoric we hear, in established political circles and in dissident groups and, interestingly enough, in Protestant churchmanship.

Looking Back

Here again, it is worthwhile noting the historical precedents for situations like this. If one looks back through the poetic and prophetic commentary on society, one cannot escape this: that the voice of the poet and prophet has almost universally been raised against the way things were going. It is extremely difficult to find a poet or prophet who spent his wisdom applauding his own society. Moses and Elijah and Ezekiel and Isaiah and Jeremiah—each thundered against the deterioration of his own epoch. Plato bewailed what looked to him like the license of youth and the rising scorn for law. Dante consigned this person and that to Hell or Purgatory for presiding over the decline of public morality. Chaucer, with vast good humor and urbanity, poked at his own century (the fourteenth) for its cynicism (some of his priests and friars are scurrilous characters), and his contemporary, William Langland, wrote a book-length poem, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, in which he remorselessly assailed the immorality of his day. John Milton, of course, left no doubt as to where he stood on moral issues. The line continues down through Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift to Dr. Johnson, George Eliot, Tolstoy, and T. S. Eliot—the common thing among these vastly different writers being a deep concern for moral issues, and the sense that society as a whole is probably building Vanity Fair or Babylon, but certainly not the City of God.

When we compare this poetic and prophetic point of view toward society with our own day, however, we stumble into an odd business: the commanding voices today, unlike their forebears, are applauding the movement of events, and are urging an ever more rapid push toward the kind of world community they feel is being built. The idea seems to be that, if we can only remove this barrier, and this one, and this one, we will be on the threshold of Paradise. We must pluck down the structures of society; we must sweep away once and for all the repressive strictures of traditional morality; we must liberate men forever from the discouraging notion of some ogre in the sky who is looking angrily over their shoulder at everything they do (especially when they try to have fun); we must obliterate authority in all its grim forms—police, kings, religion, morality, boards of trustees. Then we shall be free to live and love, and neighborliness will prevail and prejudice will have disappeared and no one will trespass on anyone else’s property because we will all enjoy all things in common.

Now this is a very appealing vision. Who could decry such a Happy Valley? Who wants billy-clubs instead of flowers? Not, I, certainly. This vision (it is called by its enthusiasts The Third World) happens to lie very close to what I also see ahead. I, too, see as the climax of history such a realm in which love is the authority and arbiter, and in which hatred, prejudice, fear, cynicism, greed, and haughtiness are unknown.

But, unlike the ruling voices in our day (this would include our novelists, poets, journalists, and most vocal Protestant clergy and theologians), I see such a realm, not just around the corner, but on the far side of apocalypse. That is, the Christian idea (and the prophetic insight) has been that history moves toward the final consummation when, much to man’s dismay and consternation, there will be unveiled the towering authority of Love—that Love which was once upon a time announced to us and enacted for us in the figure of Jesus. That Christ, who was, Christians believe, Love Incarnate.

The prophetic imagery that attends the ultimate consummation is an imagery of glory and terror and joy, of trumpets and armor and wailing and thunder and the shaking of the foundations, and of all things—all botched and maimed and lost things—made new. The prophetic insight has always been that man builds, not the City of God, but Sodom. Not Paradise, but the Cities of the Plain. Not Jerusalem, but Babylon. And that, because of the frailty and evil written deep in this being, man cannot deliver himself from this tediously repeated cycle of vain building. So that it will not be the Enlightenment, nor the Industrial Revolution, nor the Reform Bill, nor the gaining of Independence, nor computers nor vaccine nor birth pills nor new moralities nor participatory democracy that will bring in the City of God—not this, but the deafening, blinding advent of Love Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

For it is only Love that can change our hateful hearts and obliterate the fear and prejudice in them; and it is only the authority of Love that can bring us proud and bitter creatures to our knees in front of the thing we longed for all along without knowing it, and would have been able to get if we had known it.

Satan searches for the Christian’s weakest spot. He does not believe that anyone is such an idealist that he serves God without selfish motives. “Doth Job fear God for nought?” he asked. As long as Job had health, wealth, honor, and family, he could love God. But if everything were taken away, could he love God just for himself? Satan said no. But Job clung to God, insisting, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

Is it possible to think positively while picking the pieces of the roof out of your hair? Is it possible to remain a Christian idealist in a realist’s world, a world gone mad with hate, violence, and fear, a world with the smell of doom in the air? All the artistic media are preoccupied with the presentation of life as ugly, brutal, sensual, and ultimately futile. There seems to be little room in the business world for the sensitive, compassionate person who places human values above financial profit; the honest merchant is not always more successful than the dishonest one. Young people have no heroes; they find it difficult to believe that there are noble, authentically good persons. We all have been Elmer Gantryed and Peyton Placed so often that we begin to doubt that altruism and generosity and sincerity really exist. Whether we like it or not, power is the name of the game; naked power (whether called black, white, or atomic), not moral rightness, usually determines the outcome of events. There is no room for dreamers in an age when man has the capacity—and the desire, it sometimes seems—to destroy himself in one gigantic cosmic blast.

Some will say that this is a picture of the world but not of the Christian community—but have you checked recently to see whether cynicism has replaced your idealism? Perhaps your shining-knight armor begin to corrode a bit when you had to face the truth that you were never going to achieve your youthful ambitions, that life was passing you by. Or the corrosion began when someone you idolized proved to have feet of clay, or when a trusted friend put a knife in your back and slowly turned the handle.

Some have thought that if they could go to the mission field, they’d surely remain on a high level of spiritual experience. But this is unrealistic. Those who go to the field may discover that the people are not there with outstretched arms awaiting them. Their Macedonian call may sound more like, “Yankee, go home, but leave your dollars here.” They will also discover that missionaries are human, and that missionary life, instead of being one Pentecostal experience after another, is still chock-full of mundane problems and temptations. The children still have the sniffles, the wife still burns the biscuits, the husband still refuses to hang up a towel.

A minister who preaches that every vocation is a sacred calling from God may think his congregation must feel his is the most sacred of all, judging by the niggardly salary it pays him. He feels sorry for himself, resentful that he is not being duly rewarded for his faithful service, bitter because no one appreciates the sacrifices he makes.

For the realist, life is a jungle—dirty, brutal, ugly, meaningless. The Christian idealist, by contrast, is not a Pollyanna, oblivious to the world in which he lives. But he does not become cynical or disillusioned, and he does not give up. He continues to proclaim the good news, though few may hear him. He continues to love, though not loved in return. He continues to serve, though few seem to appreciate it. He does not spend his time in self-pity but seeks to minister to those who are caught in that trap. In the spirit of the Prophet Habakkuk he says, “Although I didn’t get a raise, and although I cannot afford a new car and a color TV, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

The realist seems to have won the day. The Christian idealist must seem to him an impractical visionary, a wishful thinker unwilling to face life, when he continues to insist, “Christ is the only hope.” But the truth is that the Christian idealist is the only authentic realist, for he sees life as it really is and sees how it ought to be lived. He knows himself and has no illusions about his weaknesses. He knows that man is a sinner, rebellious against God, and that sin is not merely a psychological aberration of a morbid mind entrapped in its Victorian past. He knows that man was created in the image of God and that commitment to Christ is the only way by which life can be made whole and meaningful. The tragic error of the humanist is his insistence that man is basically good and, given the opportunity, can solve his problems and achieve utopia. The Bible gives a more accurate picture of man as essentially sinful and self-centered, unable to create an ideal society by himself.

The Christian idealist must be true to his convictions, even if in doing so he must stand alone. He refuses to be a chameleon, changing with every passing fad. He sometimes feels like a person who is going the wrong direction on the freeway during the five o’clock rush. Against the tide of times he affirms: “Here I stand, I can do no other; God help me.” The Christian idealist is an authentic nonconformist.

He is not an isolationist, trying to escape life, but is deeply involved in it. However, a distinction between involvement and identification is necessary. Some say the only way to present Christianity is to “identify” with people—do, read, see, and say everything they do. But you save a drowning person, not by identifying with him, but by becoming involved with him. You do not trash around in the water to assure him that you are no better a swimmer than he, and you do not go under several times to convince him that you understand his problem and accept him as he is. You understand the danger, and your only thought is to get him out. Some Christian spokesmen are presenting a confused kind of appeal to young people today. The thrust of it seems to be, “You can be a Christian and not even your best friend will know the difference!” Tension should exist between the Christian and his world, for he is attempting to move it in one direction while it wants to go another.

The example of Jesus can help the one who wants to maintain his Christian idealism. Though life was cruel and brutal to him, he never became cynical or despondent. He was a servant who never tired of serving. The servant figure is a reminder that the wages may not be good, and thanks may seldom be expressed. Jesus called us to be servants, and the servant does not ask, “What’s in it for me?”

Jesus was always himself; he never pretended or wore a mask. Pretense is a deadly foe of idealism. When we try to be something we are not, we cannot maintain our ideals.

Jesus always looked for the potential that lay in others. He did not try to exploit people for his purposes but rather sought to bring them to full self-realization. The Christian idealist considers what a person can become, not how he can be used. When we can see what others may become in Christ, we cease condemning them for what they are. Would we have chosen Jacob, the boy who stayed home with his mother, or would we have chosen the sturdy outdoorsman Esau, to be Israel? Would we have looked at impetuous, vacillating Peter and called him a rock?

Jesus never lost sight of his purpose. He did not allow himself to be sidetracked by the temptation to be king of the Jews. We must not seek such goals for ourselves; when we do, we are in danger of becoming “professional” Christians.

Jesus always remembered that what he did was important. If we are to speak to the modern unbeliever, we must convince him that our message is important. The world largely ignores the Church today because it does not believe that our faith matters much to us. It is more likely to listen to a Communist or a hippie who does give the impression that what he has to say is important.

Jesus let his idealism lead to, its consequences, which for him were the agonies of the Cross. He did not modify his course to protect himself.

The Christian idealist remains true to his commitment to Christ to his last breath, though he may appear to be reaching for the unreachable stars. The world calls him impractical, non-intellectual, unrealistic, anachronistic, but he knows there is no other way because he has been given a glimpse of life through the eyes of Jesus.

What was that question Satan asked concerning Job? “Job is not God-fearing for nothing, is he?” Are you?

The Bible and Scientific Inquiry

One sometimes hears it said that by continuing to maintain the plenary divine inspiration, and hence the entire trustworthiness of the Scriptures, evangelicals are throwing away the gains of a hundred years of scientific inquiry into the Bible. This is not so. The true gains of the “critical” era lie in the field of Near Eastern background studies, through which the understanding of Biblical languages, cultural and literary forms, and religious orientations, has made enormous strides forward. We hold no brief for a docetic approach to Scripture, which bases its hermeneutic, in the manner of ancient allegorism, on an arbitrary disregard of the historical humanity of the texts. Neither can we accept the quasi-Nestorian approach to Scripture which hesitates to affirm direct identity between the instruction in divine things given by the Biblical writers and God’s own instruction given through them. It is this non-identification, which all hypotheses of error in Biblical narrative and teaching presuppose, that evangelical theology is basically concerned to controvert. Evangelical Protestants, in company with both Vatican Councils and Roman Catholic Biblical scholars generally, are concerned to reject this presuppositional disfigurement of the “critical” movement in Biblical study. This rejection we advertise when we call the Bible God’s revealed Word.—JAMES I. PACKER in The Bible—The Living Word of Revelation, ed. Merrill C. Tenney. Copyright 1968 by Zondervan Publishing House. Reprinted by permission.